PPV #12: Drilly4Mayor

28.1.2020, 6:30pm, UCL, Archaeology G6 Lecture Theatre, London WC1H 0PY

***

LONDON MAYOR CANDIDACY ANNOUNCEMENT

AND INVITATION TO PRESS CONFERENCE

#DRILLY4MAYOR

‘I won’t knife you in the back, I’ll knife you in the front’

Jess Phillips to Jeremy Corbyn

‘I will not rest until she is chopped up in bags in my freezer’

George Osborne on Theresa May

‘Get on your knees bitch’

Clive Lewis to Sam Swann

‘flag-waving piccaninnies [with] watermelon smiles’

Boris Johnson

DRILL MUSICIAN DRILLMINISTER ANNOUNCES HIS CANDIDACY FOR LONDON MAYOR 2020

Born and raised in south-east London, Drillminister is ‘The Streets Elected Voice’, representing the youth of Britain that politicians have previously ignored. His campaign for London Mayor will launch with a press conference at 6.30pm on Tuesday 28th January.

‘I see the residents of this great city not as statistics and numbers but as FAMdem. My main goal is to fight for a better future regardless of our differences.’

Drillminister

Drillminister is an internationally recognised musician who uses Drill as a tool to engage with a new generation of voters on political issues, such as the struggles of working people, austerity and rising levels of air pollution in the city.

Drill has garnered widespread media attention, having been cited by the UK Government as glamourising weapons and gang life. Against the persistent suppression of the genre, Drillminister has tirelessly worked to eradicate the stereotype of London UK Drill musicians as violent criminals. In 2018 he publicly turned the tables on the politicians that have targeted the scene by releasing his track Political Drillin’, quoting extreme, racist and violent language used by MPs.

Outside of his music career, Drillminister has championed black excellence, initiating and supporting the development of Pan-African zebra crossings in the Greenwich Borough.

As a candidate for London Mayor, Drillminister is the alternative to the long-standing elite. He is the clear choice for a radical new era of politics. Raised on a council estate and educated on the streets he lives and breathes the issues that will affect hardworking, vulnerable Londoners in the coming decade.

#Drilly4Mayor

Organised by a/political, Hosted by PPV: Perverting the Power Vertical

PPV ON STRIKE: Socialism and Ecology Teach-Out

From 25 November-4 December, PPV is supporting and participating in UCU-led industrial action on pay, pensions, casualisation and workloads.

PPV members are taking part in teach-outs throughout UCL. On Thursday 28 November, a teach-out on "The Street" took place outside UCL Art History. On 10am at Friday 29 November, just before the climate march, a teach-out will take place on the picket line outside SSEES, focusing on Socialism, Capitalism, Ecology and The City.

All are welcome. For peace, plenty and planet!

[CANCELLED] PPV#12: Beastly Pyramids

28.11.2019, The Grant Museum of Zoology, UCL, 6-9pm.

✊✊✊

We would like to announce that the Beastly Pyramids event on 28 November has been cancelled due to the UCU - University and College Union strike being held at UCL at this time (25 November-4 December). As UCU members we will be taking part in the strike. We hope to pick up on many of the themes raised in this event later in the academic year - more details TBA.

✊✊✊

Bruce Nauman, Animal Pyramids, 1989.

Beastly Pyramids

Reflections on hierarchy, power and animality in the Museum.

Confirmed participants: Agnieszka Kurant, Bryony May Dunne, Alena Ledeneva

How is hierarchy (political, economic, racial, sexual, inter-species) represented (and denied): in the city, in art, in architecture and in the Museum?

For human beings, pyramids are blatant representations of hierarchy (and of death, inheritance, violence, money as well as the cosmos).

Pyramids reproduce and consolidate inequality and oppression; but they also provoke reflection, resistance and rebellion. For termites, on the other hand, pyramids are emblems of collaborative endeavour (although for moles, they are the debris of a much more individualistic act of burrowing).

How do Museums represent, resist (and deny) these hierarchies and pyramids? By "decolonising" a natural history Museum at an elite educational institution in the middle of London - without repatriating its collection, much of it stolen or acquired through looting and other acts of violence - are we actually perverting the Power Vertical? Or are we, in fact, acting like the purveyors of a Ponzi scheme, pretending that the Pyramid does not exist, and thereby making it grow even higher, more violent, and more destructive? Is there a way to “blow up” verticality of the pyramid from the bottom? Or does critique always the solidify the inescapability of its form by cementing the cracks?

The good news is that Pyramid schemes always collapse; the bad news, is that it's always the beasts at the bottom who bear the biggest burden.

🥒🥒🥒

Beastly Pyramids will take the form of a heterodox symposium divided into several (condensed and intense) "stor(e)ys".

Each storey will leave time for contributions from the audience, but it will be organised around a lecture/performance by an invited artist; and a corresponding thinkpiece delivered by a scholar or writer.

Beastly Pyramids will reflect on themes of hierarchy, power, politics, economy and sexuality in the interaction between humans, animals and nature; and within the animal world itself. This vortex of interactions has one common central core: the issue of power, control and domination.

This theme relates to both the core themes of Perverting the Power Vertical, our conceptual platform; but also to our theme for 2019-2010, PiraMMMida, which is inspired by the East European pyramid schemes of the 1990s.

Stor(e)ys:

1. Architecture: Building Babels and Gizas 🥒

Agnieszka Kurant: 10 mins

Respondent: TBC

2. Mythology: Hunting the Unicorn 🥒

Bryony May Dunne: 10 mins

Respondent: TBC

3. Power: Informality and Animality 🥒

Alena Ledeneva: 10 mins

Respondent: TBC