The death, last year, of legal and media scholar Cornelia Vismann is grieved by the two departments in which she spent time. She was a Leverhulme Research Professor in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths and the Birkbeck School of Law in 2006 as well as co-organiser of ‘Eyewitness - The Documentary Turn in Legal and Visual Cultures’ in 2008. Cornelia left friends and scholars with a unique intellectual legacy that spanned the disciplinary divides between art, literature, media, philosophy, architecture, and law.

Rather than an interrogation of her work, this colloquium celebrates the intellectual life of Cornelia Vismann by bringing together legal scholars, contemporary artists and media theorists to build upon and extend the ground breaking ideas and provocative discussions that her work has generated. Together, we will try to evolve Vismann’s project and interrogate issues of law, philosophy, and media as they continue to ‘write’ and ‘rewrite’ each other juridically and culturally. The event is structured around three areas of investigation captured by three of her texts: ‘Files on the obscure power of the legal files’, ‘Tele-Tribunals on the mediatization of legal hearings’ and ‘The Love of Ruins, on the discursive function of the fragment in writing and matter’.

Programme Schedule

Friday 10 June 2011 at Goldsmiths College (LG02, New Academic Building)

10am: Arrival and coffee
10.15am: Introduction by Piyel Haldar and Eyal Weizman
10.30am: Irit Rogoff
11.00am: Files, with Piyel Haldar (moderator) Maria Aristodemou, Kobe Matthys AGENCE and Anton Schutz
1.30pm: Lunch
2.30pm: The Love of Ruins with Eyal Weizman (moderator), Thomas Keenan, Fareed Armaly and Lior Barshack

Saturday June 11th at the Showroom

11.00am: Arrival and coffee
Introduction by Lawrence Abu Hamdan and Susan Schuppli
11.30am: Tele-Tribunals with Kodwo Eshun (moderator), Lynn Turner, Lawrence Abu Hamdan and Janna Graham
1.30pm: Presentation of Resource Space (Model Court) with coffee and light refreshments
2.30pm: Tele-Tribunals / session two with Susan Schuppli (moderator) Judy Radul and Costas Douzinas

Reading and Resource Space: 7 – 11 June 2011, The Showroom.

The Showroom is hosting a resource space curated by the Model-Court Group with a selection of texts by Cornelia Vismann, films she refers to and a extended related material including video, audio, art works, and texts pertinent to the event. The resource room includes an article by Cornelia Vismann translated into English for the occasion.

For more information contact [email protected]