Copy & Paste Panel Discussion & Wine Tasting | SF

Submitted by the Event Organizer

The term “copy and paste” often has a negative connotation, because the praxis of copying is considered plagiarizing. In this panel discussion experts and artists will explore whether the process of “copy and paste” can be seen as an essential new – or not so new – factor of creation.

In the first talk “Grafting as a Model for Copy and Culture”, Uwe Wirth will focus on the agricultural roots of the concept of grafting, and its career as a metaphor of intercultural dependencies on the one hand and of intertextual dependencies on the other. Grafting is a technique of transplanting a scion onto a rootstock, and thus it becomes a technique of performing an act of displacing and re-connecting different heterogeneous parts, in order to build a new unit. As an intercultural metaphor grafting refers to situations where languages and lifestyle become ‘transplanted’ from one cultural context to another. Yet there is another type of grafting, which is familiar to most of us: as soon as we use the ‘cut and paste’ or the ‘copy and paste’ function of our word processing programs we become an intertextual grafter.

Bastian Heinsohn will present his short talk “Copy & Paste: The Meaning of Graffiti and Street Art in Berlin Today”, which explores the connection between the widespread phenomenon of graffiti in Berlin, as well as trends in urban planning, and discusses examples of cut & paste graffiti pieces. It will illuminate how a close reading of graffiti in the streets of Berlin allows a decoding and an understanding of the inner workings of contemporary Germany.

Karen Seneferu created a new art form called Technokisi. Technokisi attempts to alter and speak to the ancient form of the Nkisi through a new and innovative work of art. The Nkisi, out of the Kongo Basin, dated as early as the 16th century, was designed as a container covered by a mirror in the stomach, the head, the back, or the sex of the sculpture, which activated the power for daily life. Placing technology at the center of Technokisi becomes the mirror reflected back on those who view the video, placing the charge within the viewer as well as the containment that is viewed. These two opposing forms – the ancient and technological – merge to create both a futuristic energy, grounded in a historical vehicle that navigates multiple discourses and geo-political landscapes for the purpose of healing and empowerment.

Uwe Wirth is a professor for contemporary German literature and cultural studies at the Julius-Liebig-University Giessen and was the scientific coordinator at the Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL) in Berlin from 2005-2007. His current research interest is the model of grafting as a metaphor of intercultural relationships as well as a metaphor of inscription and quotation.

Bastian Heinsohn is an Assistant Professor of German at Bucknell University. He is currently working on a book manuscript, tentatively entitled Street Life: The Representation of Berlin’s Urban Space in German Cinema. His research on urban art and graffiti is an extension of his research on how to read urban streets as a reflection of socio-political and aesthetic trajectories in Germany.

Karen Seneferu is a self-taught artist and educator from Oakland, California. Seneferu’s artwork is a cross section of her teaching, where every space has the potential for creative output, education, and healing. Thus, every space has hidden meaning; what enters into that space can be dictated by that meaning, or can transform the meaning of that space.

Panel discussion with Uwe Wirth, Bastian Heinsohn & Karen Seneferu, followed by a wine tasting with Dee Vine Wines – Fine German Wines.

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