Topology
Tate Modern, London (UK). 05.11.2011 -
Motive Gallery, Amsterdam (Netherlands). 12.03 -
Press release
Mathematicians in the first half of the twentieth century constructed Topology as
a general theory of space. It initially emerged as an understanding of space in terms
of properties of connectedness and invariance under transformation. Within a few
years of its inception, psychologists, psychoanalysts, architects, artists, scientists
and philosophers had started to use the conceptual language of relationships, intensities
and transformations of this new theory outside its original field of mathematics.
Limit, boundary, interior, exterior, neighbourhood, disconnection and cut were central
notions that became ways of describing the fields of forces experienced by individuals.
Static ideas of space as a container were replaced by understandings of movement-
© ArtCatalyse International / Marika Prévosto 2011. All Rights Reserved
Exhibition 5 November 2011 -
International current exhibitions
Eyal Weizman, Intertwined Sovereignty, 2005. © Eyal Weizman
Topological theory has thus come to serve as a link in a network of disciplines: in each case the multiplicity of space and the formal analysis of its relations has proved illuminating. Few commentators have made explicit the nature of this topological grounding however, and in many ways these mathematical realities have been allowed to fade into the background. The Topology series of events renders explicit what has been lost sight of in this process by inviting contemporary intellectuals, artists and writers to discuss how they make use of topology in their thinking, writing and making.
Giorgio Agamben, Eric Alliez, Étienne Balibar, Drucilla Cornell, Olafur Eliasson, Oscar Guardiola Rivera, David Harvey, Bruno Latour, Catherine Malabou, Achille Mbembe, Sandro Mezzadra, Ernesto Neto, Luiz Alberto Oliveira, Suely Rolnik, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Anton Schütz, Peter Sloterdijk, Nigel Thrift, Shiv Visvanathan, Peter Weibel, Margaret Wertheim and Thanos Zartaloudis are among the leading intellectuals, artists and writers who will be coming to Tate Modern as part of the Topology project.