Art, an Index to (see also Politics): 25 Years of Vera List Center Fellowships is the culminating event in the 25th anniversary celebrations of the Vera List Center. It pays tribute to the work of over thirty Vera List Center Fellows–visual artists, writers, musicians, scholars, historians, and dancers– who have worked to locate spaces and moments where aesthetic practices translate into political realities. As the only institution committed exclusively to operating at the intersection of art and politics, the Vera List Center has nurtured their diverse fellowship projects in the context of the intellectual environment of The New School.
An afternoon of conversations and a lecture, Art, an Index to (see also Politics) evolved from private exchanges between Vera List Center Fellows that happened throughout the spring where they considered how their individual fellowship projects interrelate with their current practice. The conversations on April 21 are complemented by a reader of the same title. Collectively, conversations and book conjure the meaning, importance, and necessity of the interdisciplinary nature of the Vera List Center Fellowships. The publication proposes the fellowship program itself as an index– an initiative activated by the fellows who use local and specific instances of contemporary culture to speak to larger aesthetic, economic, and sociopolitical concerns.

Alexander Provan: Outside the Hit Factory
2:00–2:30pm
A response to the question: why (more) Katy Perry? An illustrated lecture on the use of consumer-behavior data and neurobiology research in the production of pop music, in order to craft songs that are guaranteed to be pleasing to as many listeners as possible– and to avoid confronting listeners with songs that they haven’t been conditioned to like.

Presenter
Alexander Provan: VLC Fellow (2014–2015)

An Index, Conversation I: Archive
3:00–4:00pm

How does the necessarily selective nature of an archive bracket and determine what can and will be remembered of our pasts and how does this shape our futures? Who has the capacity to intervene in such structures and what are some contemporary methodologies for doing so? Vera List Center Fellows Wendy Ewald, Casey Gollan, Victoria Sobel, Jonathan Weinberg join in a conversation moderated by Vera List Center Curator Amanda Parmer to think through these questions and their relationships to agency, conviviality, and desire.

Participants
Wendy Ewald: VLC Fellow (2000)
Casey Gollan: VLC Fellow (2015–2017)
Victoria Sobel: VLC Fellow (2015–2017)
Jonathan Weinberg: VLC Fellow (2002)

Moderator
Amanda Parmer: VLC Curator

An Index, Conversation II: Speech Acts
4:30–5:30pm
What is so potent about speech? As Vera List Center Fellows Sharon Hayes and Bouchra Khalili discuss in Art, an Index to (see also Politics), does speech call a collective into being? In this sense does speech act? This conversation considers the efficacy of speech acts to galvanize continuously new alliances with the potential of political impact.

Participants
Sharon Hayes: VLC Fellow (2006–2007)
Ashley Hunt: VLC Fellow (2006–2007)
Bouchra Khalili: VLC Fellow (2011–2013)
Robert Sember: VLC Fellow (2009–2011)

Moderator
Carin Kuoni: VLC Director and Chief Curator

5:30–7:00pm Closing Reception and playlist by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, VLC Fellow (2015–2017)