Nanopolitics

Nanopolitics – experiments in radical movement
This applied research project explores the relationships between affect, the lived conditions of postfordist labour, contemporary forms of management and the potential for political action using different relational techniques from the fields of somatics, performance, movement and body therapy.

After ten intensive sessions in 2010, nanopolitics now moves into its second year, held together by a core organizational collective of some ten people.

The nanopolitics experiments set out to explore..
…how we move between spaces of radical experimentation, of intimacy and spaces of alienation and competitiveness.
…the relationships between the experiences and conditions of precarious, post-fordist life and work and the potential for political action that emerges in this nexus.

This year’s series of workshops builds on relational techniques from the fields of performance and body therapy, focussing on thematic conjunctures that we have developed last year: bodies, voices and heteronormativity; group process, sensuality and political practice; fear, violence and illness; love, work and care (order of these is interchangeable). Each taking a different relational technique as point of departure, these sessions are hosted by ourselves as well as international guests and open to all, given a certain level of commitment. We set out to map modes of alienation that concern our work, political practice and everyday life, and to understand how illness and alienation can be taken as starting points from which to re-investigate social movements.

The aim of these encounters is to establish a collective space of exchange and reflection from which to invent new ways of relating and acting. Any body is welcome – the group is quite diverse and we are open to become more transversal as we move along – our workshops are free and accessible to people with pains or disabilities. We are constructing an intimate and sustained collective process, and thus require people who want to join us to register in advance and committ to attending.

Sessions are held on a monthly basis in east London at Queen Mary, University of London. To know more and get our sessions timetable, email us at nanopolitics@aktivix.org

Convened by Ms Manuela Zechner and Dr Emma Dowling