Resistant Aesthetics
Thursday, 22 October 2026, 16:00-18:00
Senate House, Room 243
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This lecture explores aesthetics, politics, and resistance through Walter Benjamin and Peter Weiss, asking how art might teach us to see differently in conditions of catastrophe, mediation and historical defeat. Moving from the ruins of war and the Pergamon frieze to Brechtian gesture, theatrical rehearsal or ‘Probe’ and the gestures demanded by digital devices, it considers art not as a finished statement but as a testing ground for collective thought. How might aesthetic forms interrupt habitual ways of seeing and knowing, and generate forms of attention, learning and resistance?
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Following NHS guidance, all attendees are strongly encouraged to be vaccinated (including boosters) against Covid-19, unless medically exempt. Our group is diverse; please continue to be considerate of those who wear face coverings and those who don’t. Thank you.