Baudrillard defined the 'obscene' as 'loss of scene'. Scene, another example of Baudrillardesque idiomatics, is 'the very possibilityof creating a space where things transform themselves, to play in another way, and not at all in their objective determination'. The scene, one is invited to conclude, is a space of freedom from convention and a space one can take a distance from in order to put oneself outside the realm of rules and determinations rather than be overwhelmed, swept over, incapacitated, or drowned. With the eruption of obscenity, 'the possibility of inventing an enchanted space ... and the possibility of playing on that distance are lost'. Obscenity means 'total promiscuity of things', a dense crowd inside which nothing can be seen at a distance, examined and contemplated: no space to breathe freely and take a longer breath, pause and ponder, see what is what and what one could do to make it into something else (Zygmunt Baumann, 2000)

Thursday   7 March	Reframing Fantasy:  September 11 and the Global Audience  The (Ob)Scene Spaces/Pleasures of Early Cinema: The   Asta Neilsen Performance in The Abyss	Dr Kathy Smith   University of    North London  DrJanet McCabe    University of   North London
Thursday   18 April	Wholly Communion: Peter Whitehead and the Metafictional  Worlds of 60s  Counterculture	Dr Catrina Hey  University of  Sussex
Thursday  2 May	Insolent Obscenity: The Outsider's Obscene Vision. 'Trampdom gives your audience a   status...the artist's overview. We tramps, we watch you all - and listen too. Rude perhaps but we've got bugger all else to do'. (Ripley Bogle, Robert McLiam Wilson, 1998)	DrJames Peries    Theatre Royal,   Stratford East
Thursday  6 June	No Space? The Mystery Cycles in C21st	Clare Hodgson   University of   North London