FINAL RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS
27-28-29/09 - deSingel
a.passIn the context of the Theaterfestival 2010 in deSingel seven participants of a.pass, Charlotte Bouckaert, Ana Casimiro, Agnese Cornelio, Maria Lúcia Correia, Heike Langsdorf, Marcelo Mardones, Alejandro Petrasso and Iuliana Varodi present the research project they’ve developed during one year in the a.pass research environment.
OPENING WEEK
30/08 - 03/09 - de Singel
a.pass
Meet & greet with the new & old participants of a.pass, introduction to the principles of the program, tools (calender, library, budget, website...) and presentation of the research proposals.
DISCUSSION & REFLECTION
30/08 - 03/09 - de Singel
a.pass in collaboration with Theaterfestival 2010
During the Theaterfestival tha a.pass-participants work together with a group of outsiders on a workshop of shared critique: we go and see a series of performances at the Theaterfestival (a yearly festival that selects performances that have been of particular importance to the development of the performance arts in Flandres/Belgium in the past year).
Next to this we selected some texts to feed the discussion, that work out some of the themes/esthetic principles/dramaturgical choices made in these specific performances to feed the discussion. The conversational language for this workshop will be English.
The workshop coincides with the beginning week of the block, which means that before and after the workshop hours there will also be exclusive a.pass meeting moments planned, to get to know the new participants and to exercise our hospitality skills.
LaZone BRUSSELS
04-09/09 - CC Ten Weyngaert, Brussels
(a.rc in collaboration with workspace Bains Connective, Master of Choreography Amsterdam)
LaZone is both the second stage in the Critical Hope-research (Elke) within a.rc (a.pass research centre) and the topic for the 2 month residency Thematics at workspace Bains Connective in Brussels. For the opening week of the projects we share our space with the students of the Master of Choreography in Amsterdam to work on defining the boundaries of LaZone: this in-between place that falls out of our understanding of the different ‘regimes of the sensible/experientiable’ (Jacques Rancière) that define our daily life. In other words: we lead our lives within different zones of understanding, speaking and behaving. What I can see and experience, what I can say and express, is dependent on the particular zone I am moving in at that particular moment (the political zone, the personal, the juridical, the virtual etc...).
LaZone is trying to construct a space-in-between these zones: the place where behavior, speech and movement have not been negotiated yet, the place where misunderstanding is the leading principle of communication, the environment that drives our hospitality principles to their breaking point, showing us simultaneously the impotence and the potential of our cosmopolitan/transcultural hopes and desires.
LaZone is a workshop in which three groups (Thematics artists, a.pass participants, MA Choreography) share the same space for one week. During that week LaZone will be created on different levels: the interpersonal level of hospitality and the sharing of theory and practice, and the larger level of the society at large, critically examining the boundaries of our democratic pretentions and preconceptions. Everyone can bring a ‘gift’ to LaZone: a practice, a piece of knowledge, an insight or an invitation you want to extend to the rest of the group. The workshop will create itself out of the proposals of everyone, on the basis of equality and interest, with three or four activities running at the same time, allowing every participant to develop a personal trajectory throughout the week.
GUILLERMO GOMEZ-PENA & JANESZ JANSA
13-18/9 (Saturday included!) - Theater Campo, Ghent
a.pt in collaboration with Campo and RITS
Guillermo Gómez-Peña
Gómez-Peña was born in Mexico City and moved to the United States in 1978, where he works as a performance artist, writer, activist and educator. Together with his troupe 'La Pocha Nostra' he focuses on border issues, cross-cultural identity and intercultural relations. In his search for new alternatives, Gómez-Peña makes extensive use of multiple media, such as journalism, performance, radio art, video and installation art.
In this specific physical workshop, he will attempt to create a temporary community of rebel artists, aiming to find new modes of being and discover other ways of relating to their own body. During the workshop the following questions will prove to be crucial: which borders do we wish to cross? Why? Which borders are harder to cross, both in the workshop and in our personal lives?
Janez Janša
Janez Janša is an author, director and performer. He was born in Slovenia as Emil Hrvatin. In 2007, he and two other well-known Slovenian artists had their names officially changed to Janez Janša, which happens to be the name of Slovenia's economic-liberal, conservative president. Ever since, Janša, Janša and Janša have been using their new name consistently throughout their work as well as their private life. The three Janša's turn the relationship of art and life upside down by means of transformation, translation, representation and mimesis. As such, they invert the classical relation between art and life as it was developed in the 20th century.
In this workshop, intellectual challenge and debate will be actively encouraged, triggering an entire series of questions: what is real? What is mediated? How do identity and politics relate to the status of an object of art?
Each day of the Summer School will be concluded by an evening programme consisting of meetings, lectures, screenings, debates and artistic interventions. The evening guest artists have all collaborated on the research topic 'the performance as document - the document as performance' and include, among others, Hans-Werner Kroesinger, Sarah Vanagt and Carina Molier.
LaZone BERLIN
19-26/9 - Berlin
a.rc in collaboration with Thematics (Bains Connective)
A group of artistic field researchers find themselves on unknown territory: LaZone is a place where the spatial rules of behavior have stopped to make sense. It is an environment that has no function, no meaning, no recognizable orientation points. It is a transit area, a stretch of land that falls out of our rule-giving grid of common sense, of law-giving, of understanding and of commonly accepted behavior. LaZone is the space of immigrants, of avatars and aliens, of dislocated complex identities, of lost cases and derailed causes. It is a place that has to define itself through the practice, through the use, through the re-negotation of the rules of encounter and hospitality.
During one week a group of immigrants from a.pt (advanced performance training) and Thematics (research project of the workspace Bains Connective in Brussels) will settle down at Fabrikationen, and try to make sense of their role and interaction with the locals. The results of their work will be presented on the 24th. Their Political Party might also infiltrate at the 25th's end party.
STORY BOARDING - Jeremy Wade
20-24/09 - Novylon, Antwerp
a.s
In many ways performance is one big performed story board, an invisible text set of directions and nothing more. At the other hand story boarding it self is an art form. So how to use a story board to construct a performance and how to make a story board performative, how to blur the boundaries between story board and piece. Starting from a a written proposal minimum of three pages of each of the participants, story boards will be made, including an application for a grant with a budget of the project.
During the course of this exploration/composition workshop we will strive to facilitate the great blur through the investigation of numerous storyboarding techniques. We will also research a wide array of taboos, techniques and theories that help us get closer to an essential concern of composition and aesthetics which is the age-old question of… “What is a thing”? We look at a vast index of queer scores that shed some light on the circularity of aesthetics. We can make monsters out of these stagnant aesthetics and gain perspective on how to compose, obliterate, blur and layer our lovely things for an audience. We will find modes to clarify our concepts for the pre production and production phases of creation. We will work towards structuring and deconstructing our ideas, both material and ethereal.
Jeremy Wade is an American choreographer living and working in Berlin. Besides the creation of performances Wade has always been drawn to the curation, production and subsequent hosting of ecstatic events. Since the theoretical context of his art and reflexion on art is very much rooted in queer and post colonial theory, he theoretical workshop of Annette Baldouf can be a nice theoretical introduction to the Story Boarding workshop.
PERFORMATIVE SPACE - Laurent Liefooghe
11-15/10 - Novylon, Antwerp
a.s
Being interested in the negative & constrictive aspects of architecture (obstruction, represantation, order) and the idea of ‘active’ architecture (defined by what it does instead of what it shows), Laurent Liefooghe takes an analogy between architecture and contemporary art performance as a departure to try to liberate architecture from its obsession with emblematic objects. For this workshop he wants to investigate the idea of the ‘performative space’. Departing from case studies, he wants to develop possible concepts of a ‘performative space’.
Laurent Liefooghe has been active as an architect since 1998. He first worked at the architecture firm ‘BDP’ and later at ‘Xavier De Geyter architects’ (XDGA) while in parallel developing an idiosyncratic and exploratory practice investigating the boundaries between architecture, art and performance. Between 2004 and 2005 he was a theoretical researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht and since 2008 he has been a lecturer in the department of Architecture and urban planning at the University of Ghent. In 2009 he founded 'LLA' — a firm that aims to translate his professional knowledge and experience with other disciplines into an architectural practice.
Liefooghe’s work has been presented in a variety of contexts. The performance/installation ViewMaster (2007) has been shown in theatres such as Vooruit (Ghent), deSingel (Antwerp) and Theatre Nowy (Warshaw). His short story Bordersquarewas published in the guide of the Romanian pavilion during the 2004 Venice Biennale and Multiplications 2 was exhibited at the Netwerk Gallery, Aalst in 2007. His latest work, the installationWoonMachine (2010), was commissioned by Z33 as part of the exhibition “Design by Performance”. In 2010 he will develop a performance within the WoonMachine in collaboration with Sanja Mitrovic. This performance will premiere in May 2011 at the Festival aan de Werf (Utrecht).
BROODTHAERS & KAUFMAN – Sara Manente
18-22/10 - deSingel, Antwerp
a.pt
Starting point of this workshop by Sara Manente, former a.pass participant, are the is the investigation of the possible relation between Marcel Broodthaers and Andy Kaufman, two artists that broke rules in their fields, both provocative because acting on the limits of their roles and their positions in society, playing with meaning and expectations. A speculative game to see if a hint is to be found, as if by putting two things close to each other we can find similarities, intriguing associations that we couldn't see before. The overall question is one of sameness and otherness. The research on "similarity" from the two points of view of perception (outside) and interpretation (inside).
Sara Manente graduated in Communication Science (Bologna) and completed the post-master a.p.t/A.pass in Performing Arts in Antwerp. She’s one of the founding members of the association EVE vzw facilitating the work of seven artists: Marcos Simoes, Norberto Llopis, Jaime Llopis, Santiago Ribelles Zorita, Kyung Ae Ro, Varinia Canto Vila and her. Currently she’s working on different projects starting form choreography but touching the field of visual arts: democratic forest, a practical and theoretical research in collaboration with Alessandra Bergamaschi (www.democraticforest.com), the video Some performances in collaboration with Ondine Cloez and Michiel Reynaert (presented in Germany, Brazil, Belgium and soon Italy) and the dance performance Lawaai means hawaai.
INTERFACE FICTIONS - Lilia Mestre & Elke Van Campenhout
ZSenne, Brussels
a.pt in collaboration with ArtLab ZSenne
In this workshop we occupy for one week the gallery/shopping window of a new alternative performance gallery in Brussels. Working together within this space we try to develop working practices that project the gallery space on the outside world: gestures that communicate with the commuters, the neighbours, the occasional passers-by. By blurring the boundaries between living and working in the space, and by not retreating to recognizable artistic strategies, we try to break the rules of expectation, of recuperation and of communication of the arts. Every participants will try, in constant negotiation with the others, to develop practices that open up the activities from within to the viewer/participant outside. This can happen imagining the space to be what it is not: a shop, a restaurant, a library, a TV studio, a social centre, an immigrant office, etc...
As important as the inside/outside dialogue, will be the negotiation inside of the space: the overlayering of practices and imaginations of the space, the monsterly spaces that grow out of inbreeding, etc... Not only negotiating space, but also behavior, time, attitude, convictions and necessities.
There is the possibility to take your practice to a next level by prolonging your working situation for another week in the same space. Please let us know if you want to do so.
Lilia Mestre is a Portuguese performing artist creating her own pieces and working in collaboration with other artists. She created the company Random Scream with Davis Freeman in 1999 to expose the eclectic elements of everyday culture with proposed lines of flight for dance, theatre, and visual arts. The projects aim to draw attention to what is already there by focusing on our personal interactions and how our choices directly affect each other and the community we live in. Currently she’s also developing the dramaturgy for Bains::Connective Art Laboratory. Lilia Mestre - Random Scream Productions / Installations*: (g)hosts (2007); Slow down the passions (2006); Jack in a box*, Rendering 1.2, and Clownation 1* (2005); Beyond Mary and Joseph (2003); Fading Fast (2002); Unnoticed (2002); Too shy to stare (2001); Untitle me (1999). She has worked since 1992 as a performer and/or collaborator with Vera Mantero, Hans Van den Broeck, Christine de Smedt , Lynda Gaudreau, Mette Edvardsen, Carlos Pez, Martin Nachbar, Paul Hendrikse, Kate McIntosh and Pierre Rubio.
THE 5 SENSES - Bart, Elke & guests
1-12/11 - Novylon, Antwerp
a.pass
In this workshop we develop on the basis of texts and specialist talks a mapping of the 5 senses as a starting point for artistic thinking and practices. We include artistic practices like the ones of Lygia Clarke, Enrique Vargas, Peter Verhelst, Dries Verhoeven, f0am, Charo Calvo, etcetera... Each of the senses is the topic of 2 days.
SPATIAL LITERACY - Anette Baldauf & Epifania Amoo-Adare
15-19/11- deSingel, Antwerp
a.s
What is space, what is the relationship between spatial conditions and power? How can we envision the transformation of space and the making of different spaces? The premise of this workshop is that a critical pedagogy on space, on the forces involved in the production and reproduction of space, is a necessary condition for any intervention in space. We propose to challenge widespread understandings of space as a structure that is given and fixed, in other words: a structure that is developed for and not a context that is developed by society. We contrast this convention with an understanding of space as both, a manifestation as well as a vehicle of the productive relations of power. Following the equation “space = (social) product” we investigate spatial relations, the making of inclusion and exclusion, centrality versus marginality, legibility, difference and conflict. Framed as an exercise in “spatial literacy”, we discuss techniques of making sense of spatial relations, of making use and appropriating them.
Epifania Akosua Amoo-Adare is a research specialist with Reach Out to Asia (ROTA), where she conducts academic and policy-based research in support of the organization’s mission and strategic objectives, pertaining to education in crisis in 11 Asian countries, and youth development in Qatar. She has conducted interdisclipinary research to understand how Asante women’s household configurations, social practices, and sense of place have been transformed as a consequence of migrating to Ghana’s rapidly urbanizing capital, Accra. Before ROTA, Amoo-Adare completed research for UNIFEM Afghanistan on gender quotas and the 2009 presidential and provincial council elections in Afghanistan. Prior to this, she was a gender researcher with the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, managing a policy-based research study on how Afghan women’s participation in local governance and microfinance impacts gender relations in their families and communities. She has also worked with Catholic Relief Services, managing five multiyear education projects implemented in several provinces of Afghanistan, which built on previous management experience of a multicountry project in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the Republic of Georgia. Amoo-Adare earned a PhD in education from the University of California at Los Angeles and is a Part 2–qualified architect with the Royal Institute of British Architects.
Anette Baldauf, cultural critic and urbanist. Her work investigates economic transformations, postindustrial city formations, consumer culture and critical artistic practices. Her most recent book publication is Entertainment Cities. Unterhaltungskultur und Stadtentwicklung (Springer Verlag: Vienna 2009), her most recent documentary project is “The Gruen Effect. Victor Gruen and the Shopping Mall” (Vienna/New York: ORF/Pooldoks 2010). She is teaching at various universities in Europe and the States.
CHRISTIAN RIZZO
22/11 - deSingel Antwerp
a.pass
Choreographer Christian Rizzo will be working for a year with and in the buildings of deSingel. In the next block he will also create a workshop for a.pass. This is a first meeting with the artist where he reads texts with us that have been essential in his development as an artist. This lecture is a starting point to speak about different influences and important meetings in their carrier, and to show fragments of their work.
Christian Rizzo has been fashion designer, rock musician, then dancer and choreographer. In 1996 he created his own company L'Association Fragile. From 2003 he became artist in residence of the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts of Toulouse. Also in 2003 he received Le Grand Prix de la Critique.
a.s you like it
a.pass
Moments throughout the whole 3 month period where participants, mentors and collaborators can organize instant lectures, short workshop moments, etc... connected to their research. You can fill in your proposals in the google calendar.
END WEEK
23-30/11- on location
a.pass
The end week of the block is a very important week for all participants: not only because ii is one of the rare moments during the year where we can meet all together and get informed about the progress and the questions of the different researches, but also because it is an opportunity to share work, try out practices and hypotheses, and work out how social the apass body actually is.
BLOCK 2: may - july 2010
Anette Baldauf & Nicolas Y Galeazzi are dedicated mentors. At set times during this block they discuss the evolution of the individual research proposals with the paricipants.
OPENING WEEK
3-7 may in Antwerp
a.pass
Meet & greet with the new & old participants of a.pass, introduction to the principles of the program, tools (calender, library, budget, website...) and presentation of the research proposals.
HP OFFICEJET 9130 ± ERRORS - Nicolas Y Galeazzi & Joël Verwimp
10-14 may in Brussels (MicroMarché)
a.pt
Developments in technology and changes in society regularly render things obsolete; think of professions like blacksmithing, technology like oil lamps, and rules about handling horses. Copyright law might well become such an obsolete instrument. In fact, it never really worked outside the US/European borders and open source software already moves beyond copyright restrictions worldwide. This shows that making and meaning in the current cultural environment requires a response to existing institutional and organization structures, identifying differences and engaging art as an open ongoing process. With COYOTL, We produce or try to produce a vivid impression of knowledge products: of these, software is unique, as it is said to have behaviour. More specifically, it instills behavior in computers when it is executed by them, causing tangible effects in the real world. Just like software, we believe that performative publishing is such a situation allowing a reflexive way of working by engaging with relationships.
In the framework of the Bains Connective DIY residency lab at MicroMarché, we edited previous COYOTL material into the printed workbook The leakers which will build the basic discourse for the workshop. Together with your project material (on paper, in form of quotations, or as live or memorised events) we will create a pool of content, which will be copied, scratched, hacked, nod rearranged as a resource for each other’s project. Departing from these thoughts and the mutating discussion around copyright/copyleft/open source COYOTL will play as usual, with the copy-machine (HP Officejet 9130 is currently our main tool) in order to
- develop models of cooperation for any kind of art and knowledge production
- facilitate an environment for independent and NOT-NEGOTIATED exchange and development of other artist's practice
- perform on paper, nurtured by and leading to performance in OTHER spaces/logic
- question not only new work models, but also what kind of space and organisational structure art production needs today
REVOLUTION / noworkshop - initiated by participants Katrin Lohmann & Manne Granqvist, with guests: Nicolas Y Galeazzi, Bavo, Dieter Lesage
17-21 may in Antwerp (LOPITÂL)
a.pt
The noworkshop organizers believe that the concept of revolution is a relevant and urgent one for our times. What does a revolution imply for society, and for the individual? Is the total collapse near, is it necessary, is it desirable? What are the possible positions in relation to revolution for the artist and for the activist?
The organizers of the REVOLUTION noworkshop do not pretend to be experts on the subject. Rather they regard the workshop as an opportunity to research a cluster of topics that they regard alarmingly pertinent, for themselves and for the present times, with others who share the same sentiment. It is the experience of the noworknoshop organizers that the matters at hand are of a kind that strike a natural chord with not so few people in the present times.
DOCUMENTARY WORKSHOP - Laurent van Lancker
19-21 may
a.pt in collaboration with SIC
SoundImageCulture is a group of artist-anthropologists committed to artful storytelling through real human encounters that challenge documentary conventions, and opens up to sound and image installations. Informed by developments in cultural theory, social sciences, and the visual arts SIC questions the relation between artist, subject and viewer. How can you represent somebody in sound and image when you don’t know his or her background? The answer is not to eschew representation; rather, SIC proposes an ethical reflection on how ‘the other’ is presented in contemporary media, believing this to be an urgency of the multicultural society we live in.
ANETTE BALDAUF
24-28 may
a.pt
I am not a Queer Studies expert, but I have worked, and taught, on questions of gender, sexuality and the city.I would love to connect that knowledge with theories on performativity, maybe starting off from Judith Butler and Jack Halberstam, both of which we addressed during the city of illusion workshop. I have been teaching a lot on the so-called Girl Movement - Riot Girls, Dyke Bands... - which tried to challenge concepts of femininity through pop music and performance in the mid 90s, and the following back lash of Britney Spearse etc.- which was a performance of femininity as special effect. We could e.g. read, and then analyze artistic as well as popular culture strategies of the gender confusion.
Anette Baldauf, cultural critic and urbanist. Her work investigates economic transformations, postindustrial city formations, consumer culture and critical artistic practices. Her most recent book publication is Entertainment Cities. Unterhaltungskultur und Stadtentwicklung (Springer Verlag: Vienna 2009), her most recent documentary project is “The Gruen Effect. Victor Gruen and the Shopping Mall” (Vienna/New York: ORF/Pooldoks 2010). She is teaching at various universities in Europe and the States.
STORY BOARDING - Jeremy Wade
31 may - 11 juin in Antwerp
a.s
In many ways performance is one big performed story board, an invisible text set of directions and nothing more. At the other hand story boarding it self is an art form. So how to use a story board to construct a performance and how to make a story board performative, how to blur the boundaries between story board and piece. Starting from a a written proposal minimum of three pages of each of the participants, story boards will be made, including an application for a grant with a budget of the project.
As Contemporary Performers, Choreographers, Directors, and Scenographers we work toward events that have the potential to rewrite and dislocate an audience from stratified senses of meaning. During the course of this exploration/composition workshop we will strive to facilitate the great blur through the investigation of numerous storyboarding techniques. We will also research a wide array of taboos, techniques and theories that help us get closer to an essential concern of composition and aesthetics which is the age-old question of… “What is a thing”? We look at a vast index of queer scores that shed some light on the circularity of aesthetics. We can make monsters out of these stagnant aesthetics and gain perspective on how to compose, obliterate, blur and layer our lovely things for an audience. We will find modes to clarify our concepts for the pre production and production phases of creation. We will work towards structuring and deconstructing our ideas, both material and ethereal.
Jeremy Wade is an American choreographer living and working in Berlin. Besides the creation of performances Wade has always been drawn to the curation, production and subsequent hosting of ecstatic events. Since the theoretical context of his art and reflexion on art is very much rooted in queer and post colonial theory, he theoretical workshop of Annette Baldouf can be a nice theoretical introduction to the Story Boarding workshop.
EXHAUSTING DANCE
07-11 june - deSingel
a.pt
After having wrestled ourselves through the introduction of this book on contemporary dance (edited by André Lepecki), we decided to take a second look at the book in a full reading-session week.
book description: The only scholarly book in English dedicated to recent European contemporary dance, Exhausting Dance: Performance and the Politics of Movement examines the work of key contemporary choreographers who have transformed the dance scene since the early 1990s in Europe and the US.
Through their vivid and explicit dialogue with performance art, visual arts and critical theory from the past thirty years, this new generation of choreographers challenge our understanding of dance by exhausting the concept of movement. Their work demands to be read as performed extensions of the radical politics implied in performance art, in post-structuralist and critical theory, in post-colonial theory, and in critical race studies.
This book offers a significant and radical revision of the way we think about dance, arguing for the necessity of a renewed engagement between dance studies and experimental artistic and philosophical practices.
we will combine the reading sessions with fragments out of the work of contemporary choreographers and bring the practice to the theory.
PERSPECTIVES ON SPACE
14-18 juin, deSingel
a.s
In this reading session we invite several scenographers and artists in whose work the use & organization of space is essential, to read with us texts that have been essential in their development as an artist. this lecture is a starting point to speak about other influences and important meetings in their carrier, and to show fragments of their work. Erki Devries, Luk Lambrecht, Dries Verhoeven & Laurent Liefooghe are our guests.
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS FOR BEGINNERS
21 - 24 juin, deSingel
a.pt
The workshop on psycho-analysis will open up the field of thinking of Lacan and related thinkers to a group of beginners in the theory. In the arts psycho-analysis has taken up a central position in the interpretation and thinking about the arts. Although a lot of the time implicit, the frame of thinking about the Real, petit objet a, etc... is part of our cultural and esthetic heritage. In this workshop we look the first two days at Slavoj Zizeks film 'The Pervert's Guide to Cinema' in which he explores the psycho-analytical subconscious of Hollywood film-making. Afterwards we read Zizek's book 'Welcome to the desert of the Real' for a contemporary and highly political performativization of what the psycho-analytical framework can still teach us today.
SOCIAL MEDIA & THE AVATAR - initiated by Sven Goyvaerts + guest speaker
25 june, Ghent
1 day around the basics of the social media and the role of the avatar in our thinking about (alternative or virtual) identities.
THE GAZE - initiated by participants Agnese Cornelio, Marcelo Mardones, Charlotte Brouckaert & Sven Goyvaerts
28 june - 2 july, deSingel
a.pass
In the research projects of these four participants 'the gaze' has an important place. How do we construct our identity through the look of others? How do we look at others an read them? How are we judged by others or do we feel judged by them? And how does the gaze function in the social media, how do we control the gaze of the others and how do we read others by their virtual presentation?
Partly reading session, partly practical research using social media and the camera as a tool to catch the gaze.
FIND YOUR INNER IDIOT
5-11 july, camping on the grounds of deSingel
a.pt
Loosely based on the Dogma movie 'The Idiots' by Lars Von Trier, we work for one week on the principles of idiocy as a potential artistic, political or actionist strategy. During the workshop we try to define different methodologies to discover our 'inner idiots', both on a physical practice level as on a theoretical level. We combine reading and viewing sessions of material relating to 'idiocy' (out of philosophy and art history) with physical sessions, aiming at the development of a personal and a communcal idiot body. Each of the participants can devise his/her own perspective on the mindset and context out of which to work, trying to discover within a small group of dedicated participants their personal 'inner idiots', and constructing a group practice out of this confrontation. We might bring the practice to public space when we feel ready for that. Only for true idiots!
The workshop has a 24 hours schedule, with the participants camping on the grounds of de Singel. The workshop ends on Sunday morning with a chill-out breakfast.
FILM ANALYSIS : TERROR
12 - 16 july. deSingel
a.pass
An exercise in concrete and detailed analysis, argumentative construction and critical discussion. In this workshop we analyze horror movies. How does the mechanism of terror functions in these movies and which are its disguises? How do we deal with our instant emotional (moral) reaction in our discussion? Where does art starts and exploitation ends? What is the place of horror in our lives? One of the distinguishing features of modern life is that it supplies countless opportunities for regarding (at a distance, through the medium of film, photography, the net) horrors taking place in the real or in fantasized worlds. Images of atrocities have become, via the screens of the television and the computer, a commonplace. What is this fascination with the depiction of cruelty? Is ours perception of reality eroded by the barrage of such images or do they just make us happy that we are alive?
This workshop is in the first place aimed at analyzing the formal principles of movie making: the creation of 'horror' through camera perspectives, montage, use of (off-)voice, etcetera. But next to that we also try to come to a deeper understanding of the parameters of horror, by reading texts (Sontag, Zizek, Cronenberg,...) to feed the discussion.
HARD WORKING IDLES - Joao Fiadeiro and others…, initiated by Adva Zakai
17 - 23 july, Nadine (Brussels)
a.pt
Each day will be divided into two sessions: Mornings to the practice of Real Time Composition*, a
method developed by Joao Fiadeiro, and afternoons to a talk with an invited guest (details soon).
Why ‘hard working idlers’?
Because I find myself confronted by this contradiction: On the one hand, being critical towards the
ethics of artistic practice that are increasingly product-oriented - generating practices which are
exclusive rather than inclusive, imposing a position on the artist’s plan rather than enabling an
‘emergence’ of a situation. On the other hand, appreciating a personal examination of ideas or
forms, and intrigued by a detailed, skillful and directed proposition from the artist to the public.
Can these two approaches compliment rather than oppose each other: Where does the artist’s
control over a performance stop and the event generate itself through the contributions of all its
participants? How much (or rather what kind of) ‘work’ is needed in order to trigger a situation?
The same inquiries are perhaps relevant with regards to the way one relates to one’s surroundings.
Can changes in society emerge through individual or self-organized mechanisms rather than be
dictated by overarching norms, ideologies and preconceptions? If we consider an experience as
complete even though its in a constant state of becoming itself – would it allow more dynamic and
liberation from dogmas in our day, work, life, art?
THE REALITY, THE GIANT SCENARIO III - initiated by Maria Lucia Correia
19 - 23 july, deSingela.s
The City appears as a breathing entity that contains the concept of future reflections and artistic interventions. The reality, the Giant Scenario is a workshop that approaches the city space as a living body that seeks for our attention. As working methodology we will address the city space, with a critical vision on sensorial and visual awareness. In order to map our environment we will draw and recompose the elements of the urban space, collecting lost details and objects on our city walks (derives). Moments where we will get lost into a world of colors, shapes, ornaments, sounds, rhythms… and relate to places that are damaged, abandoned, dead or ill... The workshop will then resource the urbanist and emotional mapping of the space and its graphical potentialities within a new scenario, a new life, a new narrative of forgotten details. The city will not be the set of public interventions but a living body that incorporates us, an extended form of connections, reconstructions, treatment, placement and intersections.
a.s you like it
a.pass
Moments throughout the whole 3 month period where participants, mentors and collaborators can organize instant lectures, short workshop moments, etc... connected to their research. You can fill in your proposals in the google calendar.
END WEEK
The end week of the block is a very important week for all participants: not only because ii is one of the rare moments during the year where we can meet all together and get informed about the progress and the questions of the different researches, but also because it is an opportunity to share work, try out practices and hypotheses, and work out how social the apass body actually is.
BLOCK 1: january- march 2010
Vladimir Miller & Nicolas Y Galezzi are dedicated mentors. At set times during this block they discuss the evolution of the individual research proposals with the paricipants.
INTRODUCTION WEEK
4-8 january, Antwerp
a.pass
meet & greet with the new & old participants of a.pass, introduction to the principles of the program, tools (calenderar, library, budget, website...) and presentation of the research proposals.
REENACTMENT/RECONSTRUCTION
18-24 january, Antwerp - Brussels - Plymouth
a.pt
reading and viewing sessions on re-enactment/reconstruction with Timmy Delaet, PhD student at the University of Antwerp, viewing sessions of performance art work at Argos (centre for video preservation in Brussels). From 21 to 24 we join the conference on re-enactment / reconstruction organised by the Marina Abramovic Research Centre in Plymouth (England), combined with a series of performances.
SPHERES AND ECONOMIES OF COLLABORATION / NON-PRODUCTIVE SPHERES
25-29 january, Antwerp
a.pt
Nicolas Y Galeazzi organizes a practical workshop on artistic collaboration discussing different models, methods and the effects and side effects of collaborative interaction. The workshop puts forward different metaphors on collaboration (economy, utopia, non-production, laziness, etc...) and works through their consequences.
RADICAL VOICE FOR PERFORMERS AND MAKERS - David Moss
1-5 february, Antwerp
a.pt
Performer, theater maker and singer David Moss, artistic director of the institute for the Living Voice, organizes a workshop on the use of radical voice for performers and makers. Both positions are possible in this workshop, as long as you have an interest in a different use of the voice in performance (both language and non-language based).
How do you make a voice performance? How do time, timing, intensity, attack, intimacy, eccentricity, personal history, ego, musical history, rhythm, physicality, gestures, sounds, memory, songs and senses connect you to the moment of making a voice improvisation?
PAUL TISSIER: ARCHITECT OF ILLUSIONS
7 february
a.s
A lecture by Stéphane Boudin-Lestienne, art historian. The french architect Paul Tissier realises in 1924 the main hall of the Hôtel Ruhl in Paris now destroyed, the « fêtes d’art », a concept that mixes the originality of an artist’s party with the luxury of a society ball. Tissier creates all by himself a complete artwork. Covering the original architecture with his setting, he imagines different types of creative scenographies. From the extraordinary legacy of his fund – including more than 400 elements of decor– the workshop proposes to discover the architect’s system and problems facing that type of event. The many different aspects of the scenography (general choices for the transformation of the place, iconography and technique of the setting, lighting, costumes, show, etc…) will be discussed.
CITY OF ILLUSIONS
8-19 february
a.s
Vladimir Miller conceives the city of illusions as a space of research and knowledge built around the concept of illusion. in the course of two weeks a city is being built in the Zwarte Zaal of DeSingel. each participant is invited to build his own research site (houses and/or public spaces like speakers corners, gardens, etc...) within the city and assume the performative agency of their settlement with the other participants.
light designer jan maertens, sound designer charo calvo are guests and create their special illusion for the city. urbanist annette baldauf and choreographer meg stuart will visit the city. (visitors to be confirmed.)
AFFECT AND EMOTION
1-5 february, Antwerp
a.pt/a.rc
In the past year Elke Van Campenhout worked on the research project Sense Radio, initiated by choreographer and artist Lilia Mestre. A very important part of this research was concerned with the understanding of the emotional body as a social body, as a body in constant negotiation with other bodies and objects. In this week of Reading Sessions, we go through some of the ideas of Spinoza, Brian Massumi, Nigel Thrift, Sara Ahmed, Gilles Deleuze and others on affect/emotion as a mode of social circulation en exchange. At the same time watching performance material (Meg Stuart, Lilia Mestre, ...) that corresponds to this kind of conception of the performance and the body of the performer.
HOPE 2
22-26 february, Antwerp
a.pt
Participant heike langsdorf and elke van campenhout organize a second working week on (radical) hope, the subject of their research project.this time set in an urban context, we work on the spreading of the rumour of hope.
THE CITY : THE GIANT SCENARIO - initiated by Maria Lucia Correia
22-26 february
a.s
The City appears as a breathing engine that shells the concept of future reflections and artistic interventions.
“The reality, the Giant Scenario” is a workshop that will suspend a conceptual approach of the city space as a body who sicks for attention.Gradually we will propose a metaphorical diagnosis, a scan of the functionality of its organs.
It will suspend an aesthetic, emotional, sociological and physical approach of the cityspace as a human body.
As working methodology we will address the city space, with a critical vision on sensorial and visual awareness.
In order to fulfill the resistance of our environment we will draw and recompose the elements of the urban space,
with a collecting of lost details and objects, on city walks. (derives) Moments where we will get lost into a world of colors, shapes, ornaments, sounds, rhythms… and as well an engagement of places that are damaged, abandoned, dead and ill... The workshop is a resource of urbanist and emotional mapping of the space and its graphical potentialities within a reborn of a new scenario, a new life, a new narrative of details that are forgotten in the labyrinth space.The city will not be the setting of public interventions but a living body. An extended form of connections, reconstructions, treatment, placement and intersections.
CONSEQUENCES II - Tom Plischke and Kattrin Deufert
1 -10 march
a.pt in collaboration with deSingel
A workshop by tom plischke and kattrin deufert on collaborative artistic creation.
participation starts with a conspiracy of partaking, and not by the self-positioning of the speaker. with (re)formulating we describe a process that can enable a discourse in silence, in the writing with each other. of formal strictness to take the responsibility of one‘s decisions and to constantly confront the other with claims in order to develop a communication, a circulation and production in the community of strangers. (re)formulating should enable everybody to partake in the process. just as in knitting from a single thread (the shared theme) and a knitting pattern (the permanent passing on), a complex texture evolves that formulates a possible work.
ECOLOGY & ARTISTIC PRACTICE
15-21 march
a.s
Introduced by the participants as an urgent research topic, the relation between ecological disaster and artistic practice is the theme of these reading sessions. the week will end with a artistic conference on ecology open to the public.
DANCE THEORY
22-26 march
a.s
In this reading session we invite several choreographers to read with us texts that have been essential in their development as an artist. this lecture is a starting point to speak about other influences and important meetings in their carrier, and to show fragments of their work.
Lynda Gaudreau, Marc Vanrunxt, Vincent Dunoyer & Alexander Baervoets are our guests.
a.s you like it
a.pass
Moments throughout the whole 3 month period where participants, mentors and collaborators can organize instant lectures, short workshop moments, etc... connected to their research. You can fill in your proposals in the google calendar.
END WEEK
26-31 march
a.pass
The end week of the block is a very important week for all participants: not only because ii is one of the rare moments during the year where we can meet all together and get informed about the progress and the questions of the different researches, but also because it is an opportunity to share work, try out practices and hypotheses, and work out how social the apass body actually is.
info a apass.be
http://www.apass.be
+32 (0) 476 59 58 66
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