Joey Skaggs: Pataphysics: The Science of Imaginary Solutions

What was Old is New Again. A Meeting of Art and Scholarship |
Conference


Fri, 21.11.2008 – Sun, 23.11.2008


What lies beyond metaphysics? A great deal for Alfred Jarry
(1873-1909), a playwright and culture jammer who coined the term
Pataphysics. It is a philosophy that takes in everything written
and everything sung and everything done, and like metaphysics has
the virtue of meaning whatever you want it to mean.
Pataphysics offers a voyage of discovery and adventure into
realms where philosophers seldom venture, including art,
activism, and onto the street. Dada, Futurism, Surrealism
acknowledged the influence of Pataphysics, and nowadays the
tradition is carried on by US-based ensembles Act-up/New York,
Billboard Liberation Front, Yes Men, Cacophony Society,
Negativeland, Improv Everywhere, Reverend Billy and the Church of
Stop Shopping. The biting satire of their parodies and absurd
theater make effective social commentary.


Every religion, political ideology, philosophy, and scientific
theory embodies a set of structured beliefs. These belief systems
maintain a symbiotic liaison with the arts. Throughout history,
communal beliefs have relied on music, theater, painting, and
dance in order to propagate accepted doctrines, and the arts in
turn have shaped the articles of faith.
The conference brings together artists and scholars in an unusual
forum. The arts addressed deal primarily with media, the major
art form that has only come to the fore in recent decades. The
scholarship concerns antique matters, such as Sumerian music,
early Egyptian medicine, and the omens, codes of law, and
creation myths of Mesopotamia. The divergent perspectives of the
participants augur well for innovative ideas emerging from this
close encounter between scholarship, the arts, and the belief
systems of early and modern times.