The School of Making Thinking’s “Words & [ ] — a Durational Conference of Art & Thought” a 56-hour (French/English bilingual) took place at The Darling Foundry May 6 - 8 2016, and featured round-the-clock live programming of 100 interdisciplinary performative presentations.  We encouraged both presenters and audience to play with their durational limits of thinking, making, dreaming, talking, feasting and living as we together built a philosophical community which vibrantly intermingled art and thought, and dissolved the barriers between individuals, disciplines, methods, and cultures.  Our conference asked: What kinds of work might emerge when we enter creative overload together? What new pathways of care might be opened within this methodological breakdown?

Presentations covered a wide range of topics related to how words, not-words and quasi-words rub up with and against the intuitive, the sensuous and the embodied. As this theme cuts across art and thought, so too our conference featured a diverse array of platforms that pushed-up against the word-centric methodologies of traditional conferences. These platforms included: performative lectures, talks, structured conversations, short theater pieces, interactive workshops, installation pieces, durational performance art, guided walks, constructed situations, dreaming workshops, relational art, dance, and musical performances. ​ The Darling Foundry’s two exhibition spaces, featuring the work of Marie-Michelle Duchampes and Lorna Bauer, fluidly moved in and out of the conference depending on the time of day.  During exhibition hours the spaces were separated from our conference programming; however after 7pm the exhibition spaces opened to feature presentations which are in-line with the themes and motifs of the given artists.

ABOUT OUR CONFERENCE TEAM
Aaron Finbloom  — SMT Executive Director, Co-Producer, Co-Curator
Anique Vered — Co-Producer, Co-Curator
Adriana Disman — Co-Curator
Peter Horowitz — Production Manager
Aimé Méthé — Associate Producer, Art Director
Roxane Halary — Production Assistant Intern
Isabella Donati-Simmons — Production Assistant Intern
Ted Strauss — Food Coordinator
Brian McCorkle — Pirate Radio Associate Producer