[New York]

Avital Ronell, Vanessa Place, Kyoo Lee: Last—Words?
June 6, 2015, 6:30 pm
at Whitney Museum of American Art

What does it mean to speak one’s own death? And how does one hear what is spoken? After an opening reflection with Avital Ronell, University Professor of the Humanities at NYU and Jacques Derrida Professor of Philosophy and Media at EGS in Switzerland, the author of the ground-breaking text, The Telephone Book: Technology, Schizophrenia, Electric Speech (1991), artist and criminal defense attorney Vanessa Place will perform Botched Execution (2015), an extension of her Last Words (2014–ongoing). Included in the exhibition, Last Words is a recording of the artist’s voice reading the last statements of inmates executed in Texas since 1982. Kyoo Lee, philosopher, theorist, and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, will respond and moderate the conversation. *Admission is free for this event The event takes place in conjunction with S/N, curated by Alex Fleming, Anya Komar, and Blair Murphy, the 2014–15 Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellows of the Independent Study Program. Included in the exhibition, Place's "Last Words" is a recording of the artist’s voice reading the last statements of inmates executed in Texas since 1982. S/N is on view at The Kitchen from May 22 through June 13, 2015.http://thekitchen.org/event/s-n