Nick Lally and Kyle McKinley, DANM MFA alums, are doing an iteration of their mfa installation/art collective, building, for this conference. 

Future Tense: Alternative Arts and Economies in the University

On November 19th, 20th and 21st, the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts and the University of California, San Diego will be hosting the 4th annual State of the Arts conference. The theme of the conference, Future Tense: Alternative Arts and Economies in the University, provides a broad umbrella under which to consider the encroaching privatization of public education and the complex mix of economic, cultural and social forces currently placing pressure on the status of the arts within the research university, as well as the notion of the university itself as haven for liberal arts education.

The State of the Arts conference brings together an interdisciplinary group of practitioners and scholars with expertise in alternative pedagogies, visual, performing and media arts, curatorial practice, publishing, and the non-profit arts. The 40-plus participants will engage the conference theme through performances, panels and PechaKucha-style presentations over a three-day period.

In addition to the conference, we will have a number of special events, including keynote addresses by Grant Kester (Conversation Pieces; Art, Activism and Oppositionality), and Steven Schick (The Percussionist's Art; The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies), performances by Larry Bogad and Aaron Gach; Rickerby Hinds; Kaiborg, and Shahrokh Yadegari; and a film screening of Cauleen's Smith's recent work. Workshops and panels will be offered on Alternative Pedagogies (with organizers of The Public School and others); the California Cultural Data Project, and Hybrid Careers for Artists in the 21st Century. The conference has been scheduled to coincide with numerous UC San Diego campus arts events including the opening night of Joe Turner's Come and Gone, and onSIGHT, six site-specific dance pieces, choreographed by Allyson Greene. Over the course of the three days, performance spaces, galleries and studios will be open for feature events. The schedule will culminate on Sunday the 21st with a special limited Safari Tour of the Stuart Collection of contemporary art lead by Director Mary Beebe.