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.
SPECULATIVE WORKSHOP - Nicolas Y Galeazzi
09 – 13/05 - different locations
Research always is performative; not many
performances, though, are researchive. More so, seeing performance as means of
research is inverting the common notion of a performance: as a tool for
research it is not interested in sending, but in receiving and processing
information. The Speculative Workshop is aiming to develop concrete tools
and practices based on the above thought. We will look critically at the
current debate about artistic research and try to develop personalised theories
and practices around the performative aspect of research. The workshop provides
the possibility to elaborate your performative research-attitude based on your
own research practice. By that we will try to understand what kind of politics
of knowledge production these attitudes stand for. The double bind between the
affirmed openness of research and the underlying 'politics' of its approach is
the most important twist to be taken in an artistic research project. Therefore
I tend to see this workshop as an experiment in knowledge production. Its
structure will have to emerge through the practices you are bringing in. But I
will provide (and experiment myself with) some frameworks of reading,
discussing and practicing as well as some expeditions in the 'field'. To
start with I would like to experiment on two general approaches, which deal
with the constant unknown territory our researches are stumbling into:
Speculation as the risky investment into the unknown, and Serendipity as the
finding of the un-searched. By copying and abusing scientific research
methodologies and confronting them with performative and artistic means, it is
my aim to throw another light on the spectrum of what happens if research and
performance are thought the same. This workshop is a preparation for the a.pass
research conference in September.
DUNKELKAMMER –
Dries Verhoeven & Koen Tachelet
16-20/05 – deSingel (Antwerp) (!dates to be
confirmed!)
We live in a visual consumption society where our eyes are brutally
manipulated. Producers of images force us to attach a economic value to
everything visible. They want us to classify the images that haunt us according
to that economic parameters. Our self-image is assigned a place in this economy
of visual valuation. As we look into the mirror of the other, we judge and
adjust ourselves to the image of ourselves produced by the other. The more we
make ourselves dependent upon this visual-economic labeling, the more our
desires and needs are subjected to the logic of marketing and pornography: both
try to penetrate as deep as possible our self-image, in order to order and
re-order it, along the mechanism of ‘narcissistic differentiation’: the necessity to differentiate oneself
from the others, to be more, better and more competitive. And here is a paradox. People have a
deep-rooted need of intimacy, which can only be realised within a non-judging
mutual space. A situation of intimacy implies that my gaze is directed towards
the other, that the other is not seen as the mirror of myself, as an
opportunity to market myself. From the moment that being desirable becomes a
goal in itself, intimacy is impossible. Dries Verhoeven & Koen tachelet are
preparing the installation Dunkelkammer for the Münchner Kammerspiele.
Dunkelkammer questions the world of seeing. What does it mean to see? How does
seeing and being seen influence our self-observation and our connection to the
other? What happens when this sense is turned off? Those questions will be
dealt with in a two-month rehearsal process with 7 blind performers.
Dunkelkammer is meant to be an experience for the spectators; the thoughts, feelings,
questions and (bodily) sensations of the spectator will be activated and
steered by the performers’ actions and words. Crucial element is the space, the
varying parameters of distance and intimacy, presence and absence. In the workshop texts by Susan Sontag,
Jean Baudrillard, Houellebecq, Beckett, Oliver Sacks and others will be read
and discussed. A more practical part of the workshop will deal with exploration
of the corporeality of vision and blindness.
ARTIFICIAL REALITIES - Pierre Rubio
30/05-03/06
– deSingel (Antwerp)
Often artists and researchers still hold on to the
illusory idea of their material having a ‘natural’ ‘essence’. Let us for a
moment take some distance from this essentialist and naturalistic approach, let
us consider our research projects as artificial constructions, which thus can
be problematized and turned into stimulating and productive networks. Artificial
Realities aims at a rediscovery of our projects by an (momentary)
over-artificialization: first by
re-mapping our projects and by doing so understand/capture the strategies of
‘assemblage’ and thus the theories of knowledge which they formulate; and
secondly by opening up horizons of possibilities for further developments and
speculations. The basic idea is that if one takes distance from one’s own
project by ‘moving’ it in unexpected contexts or by ‘translating’ it in non
familiar languages, this allows the discovery of new components and new
‘attachments’ that will enrich and stimulate the ‘original’ project. Or in
other words: developing an otherness by experiencing and exploring “as if's” to
get out of the over-territorial and locked perception of “our” projects. Let's re-construct, re-imagine,
re-invent “our” substrata. Let's science-fictionalize “our” “problems” and
speculate ... cartoons... models for societies... newspapers... fictions...
messages for eventual extraterrestrial forms of life... social practices... TV
programs... religions... and more. Artificial Realities will
develop through different steps: from identification of central issues in the
practice, problematization, to several experiences of transfers, translations,
displacements, parallax shifts, etc. The workshop includes reading sessions
(Bruno Latour's On the modern cult of the factish gods and Factures/Fractures),
individual work and group presentations and discussion moments.
SOUND AS SPACE – Lilia
Mestre & Els Viaene
06-17/06 –
Nadine (Brussels) in
collaboration with Nadine
Sound as Space proposes to investigate sound as a
vehicle to create spaces in spaces. Sound depending on the way it is recorded
and diffused, can enable the auditor to immerse in parallel realities. Audio
pieces can invite the listeners to combine the view (of the physical space they
find themselves in) and sound (constructed audio space) to re-create -
depending on their own personal history - a new place or a series of places.
Brian Massumi calls the constant becoming or transformation of space by the
projections of its users the ‘virtual space’, a place of endless potential. Performing artist Lilia Mestre sound
artist Els Viaene propose to think and create alternative spaces by the use of
sound compositions. In this workshop we will practice recording, editing and
diffusion of audio pieces produced by the participants in collaboration with
us. For Mestre and Viaene this workshop is part of their ongoing research on
audio spaces that create direct relations between their different users and
between these users and the environment they find themselves in.
SETTLEMENT – Vladimir Miller
01-23/07 –
Bottelarij (Brussels) in collaboration with RITS
The
settlement as a proposal is asking its participants to come and practice their
work in a shared environment. The method is to build everything from scratch on
location that is required to work and communicate a practice to other
participants. This can be anything from an improvised table to hold a laptop to
an elaborate, secluded structure; from temporal impromptu arrangements to
specific spaces that last for the whole work period. Settlement allows for a
re-negotiation of the specific conditions of each practice. As it manifests
itself in the workspace, a loop of condition and production is created in that
shared space: in the course of the two weeks the settlement lets a particular
method of production and sharing find its own intrinsic spatial conditions,
free from the sets of rules and behaviours usually provided by ready-made
spaces such as ‘table’, ‘studio’, ‘meeting’, ‘gallery’, ‘venue’, ‘library’,
etc. By finding a spatial manifestation and localization for their work
the settlers enter a growing and evolving network of objects, spaces, ideas,
events and encounters in the shared space. As the emphasis of the work-process
and the activity of the individual and of the group change from day to day, the
settlement stays a dynamic structure, ready to be reformed according to the
present requirements for production and presentation. The political
questions inherent in claiming one's own space, inviting or excluding the
outside, the formation of groups and production of locality and culture,
constantly question the structures inherent in the concept of settlement
itself. Between anarchy and the rule of majority the settlement practice actively
searches for a spatialized production of a contributive dis-agreement and gives
space to a literal heterotopia of work processes.
23-30/11- PAF (France) 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.
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.
info a apass.be
http://www.apass.be
+32 (0) 476 59 58 66
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