Most rights support active participation in society, but the right of refusal makes a case for non-participation.
This event begins with an interactive video game installation, inviting attendees to resist the centripetal pull of the fast-paced city. The implications of video games and other forms of withdrawal and resistance will be discussed by a panel of artists, academics, and curators. By framing resistance as a human right, the right of refusal invokes coordinated action, solidarity, and the law to magnify the political implications of individual decisions. These discussions are particularly relevant as voters in the United States consider their options in the forthcoming presidential elections.
More on the Mobility and Post Democracy series:
Post Democracy has recently arisen as a complex and contradictory term: for some it promises a new participatory platform for the mobilizing forces of social media, while others lament democracy’s demise as the result of international intervention in domestic politics. Decried as “democratic melancholy,” such skepticism is considered ill placed by yet others for whom “democracy” was never a political system to aspire to.
Under the heading Mobility in Post Democracy, the Vera List Center presents a series of interdisciplinary panels, seminars, and lectures that examine Post Democracy as a condition informed by mobility—across institutions, states, and ideologies. The series brings together an international group of scholars, activists, students, and artists to probe the concept of Democracy.
This event sponsored by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics.
Cost:
Free; No tickets or reservations required.