Eyegiene: The Backstory (CULTURE INDUSTRY Conference: Cornell University, 1987 | W. Nericcio, A. Hewitt, and D. Potter

In 1987, two blokes, one Chicano, the other decidedly Brit, conspired together to organize the Culture Industry conference at Cornell University--in addition to graduate students from all over the country, it also featured keynote presentations by some folks you may have heard of: Fredric Jameson, Susan Sontag, Ariel Dorfman, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Alexander Cockburn (who made the most of the conference!).  The "two blokes" were me, Bill Nericcio, and my partner in crime, the former Chair of German at UCLA, Andrew Hewitt.  Whilst me and Andrew manned the decks for the conference, I worked simultaneously on curating a small parallel gallery event, "Pop-Art: Images from Popular Culture" at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art"--my partner for this adventure in curatorial discovery was Daniel Potter.  Looking back, I can see that most of the ideas explored in Eyegiene: Permutations of Subjectivity in the Televisual Age of Sex and Race derive from seeds planted that memorable April, twenty-four years ago.

Here are some artifacts from that magic week!

(click them to enlarge):

The conference program:

period press coverage

Art show catalogue

press release