Irit Rogoff, “Education Actualized” – Editorial

7/28/2019 Irit Rogoff, “Education Actualized” – Editorial

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Irit Rogoff

ÒEducation

ActualizedÓ Ð

Editorial

This month, we are very glad to have our first guest-edited issue of e-flux journal care of IritRogoff, whose activities we have followed with

great interest over the years, drawn to her insights into the potentialities of educationunbounded. Already a number of contributions tothe journal in its first year (those of Tom Holert,Luis Camnitzer, and Dieter Lesage, in addition toRogoffÕs own immensely influential text,

ÒTurningÓ) have surveyed current conditions and possible reformulations of educationalstructures. But at a time when even the statusquo of many educational institutions isthreatened by budget cuts, tuition hikes, andmeasures taken to standardize and regimentlearning (see for instance the recent proteststhroughout the University of California system or the Bologna Process in general), and the art worldincreasingly seems to absorb an ÒeducationalturnÓ as a mannerist curiosity, it becomes all themore important to consider how forms of learning

and exchange, of thinking and making, can take place within flexible, temporary, unstableconfigurations Ð which may or may not beeducational or instructive Ð unrestricted by measurable outcomes or predeterminedexpectations.

Ð Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, AntonVidokle

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAll around us we see a search for otherlanguages and other modalities of knowledgeproduction, a pursuit of other modes of enteringthe problematics of ÒeducationÓ that defy, invoice and in practice, the limitations being set upby the forces of bureaucratic pragmatism: adecade of increasing control and regulation, ofmarket values imposed on an essential publicright, and of middle-brow positivism privilegedover any form of criticality Ð matched by adecade of unprecedented self-organization, ofexceptionally creative modes of dissent, ofcriticality, and of individual ambitions that arechallenging people to experiment with how theyinhabit the field, how they inhabit knowledge.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊOur notion of ÒEducation ActualizedÓ lies in

the tension between these antagonistic spheres.If we think of actualization as the incarnation ofan idea of Òan educationÓ within one particulareducational system, we arrive at the duality weinhabit and work with. This issue is teeming withvoices Ð angry and bewildered, critical andspeculative, voices of ideas put to the test,producing fictions of impossible encounters Ð allefforts to grasp and locate, to actualize andinhabit this ongoing process in which we are allimmersed.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊYou will see that almost every one of the

contributions here reflects an unease and arecognition of the dangers and limitations

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wrought by attempts to regulate and homogenizea vast range of education cultures. Themarketing of education, which began in the U.S.and followed in Britain, has now taken hold onthe European continent. The dangers inherent ineducation becoming a market economy gearedtowards profit and revenue, privileging areductive notion of Òoutcomes,Ó Òtransferableknowledges,Ó and ÒentrepreneurshipÓ are clear to

all. But the emerging dominance of cognitivecapitalism over European education systems andtheir inscription into capital economies of debtand credit, of self-support, of precarities forboth students and professionals, is only one sideof these developments. The other is thepoliticization of ÒeducationÓ to an extent we havenot seen since the late 1960s.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊNot only are students Ð whose access andconditions have worsened considerably Ð beingtreated as paying clients with no say or part indetermining their own education, they are also

increasingly organized in effective and insistentways.1 But many other spheres and strata ofeducation have also been galvanized and linkedup with the proliferation of self-organizedstructures that have emerged in the past decadeof waning public-sphere culture and increasingprivatization.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThis issue of e-flux journal aims to bringtogether and extend a series of projects andinteractions taking place between 2006 and thepresent that involved extensive investigationsinto ÒeducationÓ as a site of knowledgeproduction, alternative modes of questioning,new vocabularies, analyses of the conditions ofcontemporary education, and negotiationsbetween institutional and self-organizedcultures. The voices that make up this issue haveall been involved with related projects:A.C.A.D.E.M.Y was a series of exhibitions andpublications (Hamburg, Antwerp, Eindhoven)that saw life over the course of 2006Ð2007;ÒSummit Ð Non Aligned Initiatives in EducationCultureÓ was a large-scale meeting held at theHAU theatres in Berlin in 2007; in otherformations and in other conjunctions we met and

collaborated through the ÒDictionary of WarÓproject, the ÒEdu-factory,Ó border academies,nomadic universities, committee meetings,conferences, discussions, and dinners. But,rather than document or build directly uponthese activities, we wanted to bring about anÒactualizationÓ of these originary events Ð aconstant process by which concepts acquireextensions and qualities.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThis does not purport to be a representationof this vast field of thought, action, and agitationÐ the work collected here is in dialogue with

many other exponents of this field, part of anetwork of shared concerns and open

collaborations. This might help to explain whatcould appear to be a fairly arbitrary conjunctionof people who do not belong to any particularorganization, institution, or profession. Some ofus are academics, some activists, and others areartists, curators, or publishers; everyone seemsto be turning their hand to forms of activity andarticulation outside their typical sphere ofoperations. Our contact with ÒeducationÓ as a

political platform, a polemic, and the site ofmuch of our work seems to have stretched us inunexpected directions, as can be seen throughthe actual writing that has been produced forthis issue.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe focal point of the issue is the specterthat haunts European higher education Ð theBologna Accord on education, the so-calledreforms of the system across the continent ofEurope that aim to standardize it withcomparable entry points, degrees, outcomes,credits, funding structures, criteria of

excellence, and so forth. This has undoubtedlyproduced a very ÒEurocentricÓ view of the map ofeducation, but so great is the potential upheavalof ÒBolognaÓ that we decided to focus on thispart of the world, but also to place it in dialoguewith colleagues and collaborators in the U.S.There is equally a decisive ÒgeopoliticalÓ drive toEuropeÕs education policy that fuses the formerEast and the former West into one knowledgetradition, thereby erasing decades of othermodels of knowledge in the East and producingan illusion of cohesion through knowledgeeconomies and bureaucracies.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊOur thanks to e-flux journal for giving us thespace to elaborate the ideas included in thisissue and for founding a platform hospitable toexpanded discussions around creative practices.Our thanks to the Siemens Art Fund that initiatedthe A.C.A.D.E.M.Y project and to theKulturstiftung des Bundes, Germany, that fundedthe ÒSummitÓ project, to Van Abbemuseum andMuHKA, which took part in extensive discussionsand collaborated on these projects, and to themany other institutions, forums, and funderswho have supported this work as it has

progressed.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊMy thanks to Susanne Lang who took on co-editing this issue, to Ashley Whitfield who tookon its production, and to the authors who rose tothe challenge and explored the numerous facetsof ÒeducationÓ as a vital, critical, and communalspace.

Ð Irit RogoffÊ

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ÊÊÊÊÊÊ1See the Web site ofEmancipating Education for Allfor an overview of studentactivities,http://www.emancipating-education-for-all.org/.

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Irit Rogoff, “Education Actualized” – Editorial