the form of the seminar

In 2002, during a purple patch in my teaching experiments, and working with a body of students who seemed particlarly inspired and courageous -perhaps due to the Acephale-like atmosphere pervading the college in the wake of 9/11- I successfully conducted a 'Silent Seminar'.

It seems hard to believe now, and I tried it once more a year or two later but then it didn't have the same degree of conviction and belief on everyone's part to keep it aloft.

Nevertheless, it leaves me with a sweet memory of just how far we might be able to go in raising the question of the forms of teaching to a critical and speculative level, at which, they become works in themselves and where the entire presumption of 'teaching', and of Knoweldge is surrendered to a wholy speculative risk, necessarily dependent upon shared belief in that very speculation.

So, my seminar for Summit will debate forms that a seminar or lecture may take which totally refute and replace the traditional hierarchy of teacher/ student, informer/informed etc. and, by questioning the forms and habitual procedures by which we teach and learn thus open up unexpected experiences from which we may learn equally unexpected things, questioning everything, including the expectation 'to learn'.

My presentation will give a brief History of my many experiments of this kind, plus some other precednets like the self-reflexive 'lectures' of Dan Graham's early career, and then, give over to the group to debate, suggest, evolve, and eventually carry out, as an experiment, a radical de-formation or re-formation of a given pedagogical procedure.

The Equipment needed cannot be predicted as it will arise from the live discussion.