The Role Of A Lifetime
Charles Esche, Deimantas Narkevičius

2:00–2:10 PM
INTRODUCTION

2:10–3:10 PM
KEYNOTE CONVERSATION
between Deimantas Narkevičius and Charles Esche

On Wednesday November 16, now 14 weeks ago, Studium Generale Rietveld Academie opened the first episode of We Are The Time with the screening of Deimantas Narkevičius’ film The Role of a Lifetime’.

The protagonist of this film is Peter Watkins, a radical pioneer of docudrama, who elaborates on the problems of creating reality in film. He tells us that he has always tried „to interrogate the form that we call reality, showing that in fact it is highly individual and subjective.” At the same time the camera travels slowly over drawings of snow-covered Lithuanian landscapes and socialist sculptures.

Deimantas Narkevičius’ (1964) is a Lithuanian artist and film director, who uses his films and his photographic work to reflect developments in a society of transition. In 2008 he was considered to be “one of the most leading figures in today’s art world and intellectual debate ”, by the jury of the Dutch Vincent Award when he was awarded this prestigious prize. This afternoon he will be present at the Rietveld Academie to engage in a lively discussion with Charles Esche (1962). Curator and writer Charles Esche, in the Netherlands most notably known as the impassioned director of the VanAbbemuseum in Eindhoven, has, according to the jury of the ECF Princess Margriet Award 2012, “developed a conversation between art and society, a conversation which imagines how individual citizens can live and enact a future society together” (Esche will receive the award upcoming March 19).

Departing from their analysis of The Role of a Lifetime Charles and Deimantas will take on board some of the questions put forward by We Are The Time,extended by a few of their own .
How do we position ourselves in time? What is our relation to the historical moment or context? What are the decisive moments in our personal lives? How do we weave them into our life-narratives? During the launch a broad overview of the week will be presented.

3:10–3. 30 PM
Q & A WITH THE AUDIENCE

3:30–4:00 PM
LAUNCH OF THE WEBSITE WWW.WEARETHETIME.INFO
AND INTRODUCTION TO THE CONFERENCE-FESTIVAL WE ARE THE TIME/ MARCH 12-16

This is the last We Are The Time lecture on a mid-week afternoon. The next episode of the project will manifest itself as “conference- festival”.
Reminiscent of James Lee Byars, World Question Center a performative and interactive event on Monday March 12 , entirely dedicated to the phenomenon of the Question, will constitute the beginning of a week long line up of lectures, readings, conversations, gatherings, workshops. From Monday onward invited international guest curators will take care of discursive day-programmes in the Rietveld’s GYM, whereas a range of self-curated activities by student workgroups and some guests will take place in so-called Shadow Cabinets. During this afternoon’s launch a broad overview of the week, including practicalities, will be presented.