What Now 2016: On Future Identities will examine notions of ‘future identities’, through discussions around the construction of the self, queer theory, self-determination, mutability, the body, technology and social media, and the ever-evolving relationship between the digital and the material. The symposium will bring together contributions from artists, curators, educators, cultural theorists, and psychologists, alongside artists’ interventions.

The symposium will consider how this contemporary political moment is different from the kinds of activism that arose around identity politics during the 1960s-1990s, and how new thinking might shape ideas around ‘performing citizenship’ or creating a new sense of commons in the future. Reflecting on the Vera List Center for Art and Politics’ focus theme of ‘Post-Democracy’, the final panel will also address what this could mean in relation to the formation of identity in relation to the nation state, multi-faceted citizenship, or conversely, the increasing condition of ‘statelessness’.

What Now? 2016: On Future Identities continues and advances the long-term lines of inquiry and research that began with the previous 2014 and 2015 symposia. Just as the importance of ‘listening’ came out of the discussions on What Now? 2014: Collaboration & Collectivity, ‘self-determination’ emerged from What Now? 2015: The Politics of Listening as a lens through which to explore the symposium topic for 2016.

Presenters and panelists include Beatriz Balanta, Assistant Professor of Art History, SMU | Meadows School of the Arts, Texas; Anne Barlow, Director, Art in General, New York; Morgan Bassichis, writer and performer, New York;Daniel Bejar, artist, New York; micha cárdenas, artist/theorist and Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences and Interactive Media Design at the University of Washington, Bothell; Paula Chakravartty, Associate Professor, New York University; Stamatina Gregory, Associate Dean, School of Art, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art; Carin Kuoni, Director and Curator, Vera List Center for Art and Politics, The New School, New York; Cliff Leek, Managing Editor, Men and Masculinities; Evan Malater, writer and psychoanalyst, New York; Carlos Motta, artist, New York; Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei, philologist, and director of the Department of Eagles foundation, Tirana, Albania; Sondra Perry, artist, Houston, Texas; Jackson Polys, artist, Alaska and New York; Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz, Assistant Professor and Head of Reference at the Graduate Center Library, CUNY, New York; Jeannine Tang, Senior Academic Advisor, LUMA Foundation Fellow, Graduate Committee, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York; Alise Tifentale, art & photography historian and curator, New York; Wu Tsang, artist, Los Angeles; and Soyoung Yoon, Program Director and Assistant Professor of Art History & Visual Studies, The New School, New York.

What Now? 2016 program advisers are Claire Barliant Managing Editor of Publications at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge; Carin Kuoni, Director and Curator, Vera List Center for Art and Politics, The New School, New York; Thomas Lax, Associate Curator, Department of Media and Performance Art, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

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