MIUC 210818 x Eavesdropping: Justice as Improvisation

“Law and jazz thus coa­lesce in the irres­o­lu­tion of the impro­vised act…” – Sara Ramshaw

https://eavesdropping.exposed/events/make-it-up-club-justice-as-improvisation

What has law got to do with impro­vi­sa­tion? What would it mean to impro­vise with or in law? What if impro­vi­sa­tion was essen­tial to law’s very oper­a­tion? What are the laws of improv?

As part of Eavesdropping, Liquid Architecture and Melbourne Law School are taking over Make it Up Club for a night of impro­vi­sa­tions in the key of justice.

Legal scholar Sara Ramshaw will recount the famous 1997 encounter between musician Ornette Cole­man and philoso­pher Jacques Der­rida and what this meeting might have to say about ideas of law and jus­tice.

Following this, Ramshaw will lead per­for­mances of Hydra, an exper­i­men­t in legal advo­cacy adap­ted from John Zorn’s clas­sic 1984 impro­vised musi­cal game piece Cobra. Hydra is at once about oral agility and deep lis­ten­ing. It is con­cerned with rules more than rhythms and prin­ci­ples more than pitches, but always the neces­sity of judg­ment to per­for­mance, no matter the con­text.

This event will also feature short performances by members of the ALL EARS Eavesdropping read­ing group includ­ing Bruce Mowson, Ceri Hann, Debris Facil­ity, Bryan Phillips, Klare Lanson, Thomas Keys, Georgina Crid­dle and Norie Neu­mark.

SARA RAMSHAW is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­sity of Vic­to­ria Fac­ulty of Law with a spe­cial inter­est in impro­vi­sa­tion. Her mono­graph, Jus­tice as Impro­vi­sa­tion: The Law of the Extem­pore (Rout­ledge 2013) exam­ined the legal reg­u­la­tion of jazz musi­cians in New York City (1940−1967) through the lens of post­struc­tural theory informed by feminism, critical race theory and crit­i­cal impro­vi­sa­tion stud­ies.
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Liquid Archi­tec­ture is an Aus­tralian organ­i­sa­tion for artists work­ing with sound. LA inves­ti­gates the sounds them­selves, but also the ideas com­mu­ni­cated about, and the mean­ing of, sound and lis­ten­ing.

Eaves­drop­ping is a unique col­lab­o­ra­tion between Liquid Archi­tec­ture, Mel­bourne Law School and the Ian Potter Museum of Art, com­pris­ing an exhi­bi­tion, a public pro­gram, series of work­ing groups and tour­ing event which explores the pol­i­tics of lis­ten­ing through work by lead­ing artists, researchers, writ­ers and activists from Aus­tralia and around the world.
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The Make It Up Club
Avant-Garde Improvised Music and Sound Performance
Every Tuesday night at Bar Open, 317 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
Doors at 7:30 pm for an 8:00 pm start $5/$10

Next week: Masami Kawaguchi (JP)/Cat Alexander/Evelyn Morris; CDR (JP); Diploid

The Make It Up Club is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.
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We acknowledge the Wurundjeri as the first owners of the country in which this event takes place, and we recognise that sovereignty was never ceded. We pay our respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging.