28 May

Publication launch of Trophy Logic | Critical Studies

The Critical Studies students are pleased to invite you to the launch of Trophy Logic, their latest publication, on Thursday, 28 May. 

Trophy Logic is the culmination of our writing seminar with Mia You, which engaged with the body as "contact zone" — a term from Mary Louise Pratt's MLA lecture in 1991, which she describes as “social spaces where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymetrical relations of power such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today.”

We stand at the edge of the world’s mercy, as subjects destined to fall. Instead, we posit: what might unfurl when we discard the uniform of the individual, and instead orient towards tinkering with the fluctuating dynamics of desire, value, infrastructure, touch, and language. Don’t be fooled, for the dynamics are brittle. Unrestricted interplay has a limit, and method is to be found at its rim. That a tangible or decorative item may serve as recognition or evidence of merit might somehow become a logic of itself. This publication presents a collection of explorations of excess, limitation, dehydrated thought, proclivity, sublimation, debauchery, and the narrowly-defined. Indeed, the subject is destined to fall, but ultimately does not! As we reckon with the illegibility of merit, we are beckoned to reconsider our relationship to one another, the unseen settings of nostalgia, the monolithic, and the stifling hold that comes not from the absence of violence, but the sheer overabundance of it. The winner just might take it all, but we’re all destined to some sort of trophy.

To celebrate the launch of this publication, we have planned an evening of readings by Brandon Chow, Jody Aikman, Kessy Paller-Bain, Maximilian Pellizzari, Milda Valiulytė, António Manso Preto, Macarena Magaña Villar, Sara Vallis, Cecilie Jensen, Iris Verge Ferrer. To close out the evening, we have invited our special guest, artist, writer and musician Rouzbeh Shadpey, to read selected poems from his manuscript, Musique Chronique.

The event will take place at San Serriffe (Sint Annenstraat 30, 1012 HE Amsterdam) on Thursday, 28 May at 6:30PM. Doors open at 6:00PM.