A weeklong masterclass with an absent master.

Designed to engage emerging artists from diverse fields, The Copycat Academy takes the work and biography of an artist as the model for its curriculum. Over a one-week intensive learning experience, an artist’s method of production – that of the master – will be hijacked and subjected to a temporary parasitic inhabitation. The Copycat Academy participants will “ape” the master: gutting, consuming and incorporating the master. It is a critical test of thought and practice, a laboratory where 20 participants can observe the emergence of meaning while they occupy and replicate themselves in the host. It’s a masterclass with an absent master. The 2015 Academy will focus on filmmaker David Cronenberg.

COPYCAT TALKS

Members of the public are invited to join The Copycat Academy participants for Copycat Talks, as the faculty delivers a series of lectures that expand the scope of their teaching.

Explore philosophical investigations on cannibalism and ritual anthropophagy with Dr. Pedro de Niemeyer Cesarino, hear film theorist Jonathan Beller suggest that Cronenberg’s Videodrome, despite its apparently fantasmatic dimensions, is an early form of Contemporary Realism, and visit The Copycat Academy Open House to see Dr. Bojana Cvejić’s Running Commentary on Cronenberg.

About Luminato Festival
Luminato Festival is Toronto’s international multi-arts festival for people open to having art change their outlook on the world. For 10 days each June, Luminato Festival transforms Toronto’s theatres, parks and public spaces with hundreds of events celebrating theatre, dance, music, literature, food, visual arts, magic, film, and more.

Luminato Festival is a charitable, not-for-profit, cultural organization whose vision is to commission and present significant local, national, and international programming that reflects Toronto as a crossroads of ideas, cultures and traditions. Now in its 9th year, Luminato Festival has become one of North America’s leading arts festivals. Luminato Festival runs June 19 to 28, 2015. luminatofestival.com