Keynote: The Center for Political Beauty

FraudWe are pleased to announce a public keynote

Philipp Ruch

presents

The Center for Political Beauty

Thursday 1st December, 6 pm

Renate-von-Metzler-Saal (Casino, Raum CAS 1.801)

Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt / Main

In 2014, the website of the previously unknown German Federal Emergency Programme offered to bring 55,000 Syrian children to Germany for the duration of the conflict. Seemingly backed by the Ministry of Family Affairs, the Programme looked for foster families in Germany. More than 800 families immediately agreed to take care of a child. However, the website was a hoax by the Center for Political Beauty (ZPS), showing that these families were more generous than the German government and suggesting political potentialities in the face of the Syrian civil-war. The Center for Political Beauty engages in innovative forms of political performance art. They understand themselves as an assault team that establishes moral political poetry and call for an ‘aggressive humanism’.

The keynote is part of the workshop “Fraud, fake and make-believe: Transregional and transdisciplinary perspectives” (December 1-3, 2016, Goethe University Frankfurt).  The workshop will discuss how frauds and fakes seem to reveal hidden truths about the global economy, politics and academia. The introduction is given in English, the keynote will be held in German.