Home of the Brave – Archaeology of the Moving Image

“The function of the image, as Gogol said, is to express life itself, not ideas or arguments about life. It does not signify life or symbolize it, but embodies it, expressing its uniqueness.”
Andrey Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time

Under the roof of the title Home of the Brave, Corner College evolves a series of rather heterogeneous events with lectures, talks, screenings, workshops, performative relations and experiments that de-automate our “experiences of vision” (Vertov), in a multivalent engagement with the aesthetics and politics of the moving image and its creative, analytical, critical and feminist power, rather than to represent certain concepts of trends or schools.

We, borrowing this “WE” from “WE: Variant of a Manifesto’’ by Dziga Vertov, which is actually a collective persona of three: a director, a camera operator, and an editor, we, “a collectivity” of themes, problems and questions, we, with the magnitude and collectivity of the event, “on the wing of hypothesis” and analysis, we contemplate the moving image as a collection and composition of relations of movement and rest, we go with the rhythm of its movements to experience the moment of the direct image and concrete time: “Drawings in motion; Blueprints in motion; Plans for the future;” and beyond.

The main title of this series is appropriated from Laurie Anderson’s 1986 concert film or multimedia ‘talking opera,’ in which one can encounter a hallucinatory world of bizarre magnitudes of composed sequences or lengths, mobilizing all quantity and intensities of disconnected virtual raining drops that come down and go underground and then come back, as they are composing quantities. These dots of ungrounded or groundless smaller and larger pieces are the virtual impregnation of the real with thousands of specters.

See the complete text by Dimitrina Sevova announcing the series: PDF (145 KB).

Deutsch (English below):

Das Medium Video (und Audio) war das ideale Medium für die feministische Künstlerin der 80iger Jahre. Video war damals wie heute künstlerisch nicht festgeschrieben. Das schafft Raum. Es gab schon damals, als wir anfingen, tolle Vorreiterinnen wie Ulrike Rosenbach, Joan Jonas, Valie Export u.a. auf die wir uns beziehen konnten. Video ist ein „praktisches“ Ding, es ist kompakt, leuchtend und klein und schliesst soviel ein: Bild, Bewegung, Zeitlichkeit, Rhythmus, Abstraktion, Figur, Erzählung, Farbe, Sprache, Musik, Dokument und Fiktion. Video wie Musik impliziert Teamarbeit, das hilft gegen künstlerische Einsamkeit. Das ist schön.

English (Deutsch siehe oben):

The medium of video (and audio) was the ideal medium for the feminist artists of the 1980s. Video was then not artistically determined, and still isn’t. This makes space. Even then, as we started, there were amazing pioneers like Ulrike Rosenbach, Joan Jonas, Valie Export and others, to which we could refer. Video is a “practical” thing; it is compact, bright and small and includes so much: image, movement, temporality, rhythm, abstraction, figure, narration, color, language, music, document and fiction. Video, like music, implies teamwork; this helps against artistic loneliness. This is beautiful.

Corner College in collaboration with Sonnenstube present:

Alberto Boccardi’s minimalist orchestral piece, Fingers, is an electro-acoustic journey that has been innerved by the contribution of multiple instrumentalists. The result is a contrast between repetitive elements and hypnotic loops with electronic and acoustic layers surfacing before disappearing into the variable and floating element known as time.

The material has been recorded between Kazakhstan, Italy and Iceland, over a period of 8 months: from the field recording materials of the Kazakh winter to the feeble piano notes of the Greenhouse studio in Reykjavik.

Fingers is released via Important Records’ Cassauna series (tape) and Monotype/Catsun (CD).

vimeo.com/100997863 || vimeo.com/100997864

The event is curated by Sébastien Peter of Sonnenstube.

The art of reading fiction is probably one of the most understated intellectual practices of our time – a practice that requires creative artistic passion and invention to re-activate and re-animate the written text through reading. Fiction, it seems, is the secret undercurrent of our desire for other moods and encounters with characters, for a peculiar garden of many times to blossom for a prolonged moment of timelessness in the midst of our everyday. We enter fiction on the train, in the transitions between spaces, when the kids are in bed. We live its intensities, cry with its protagonists, anticipate futures through its signs, and become someone else through fiction.

Writing has always been a collective process, while reading is often a lonely endeavor. For Reading Fiction and Its Theoretical Monster Prodigies we want to begin reading fiction together, discussing it and working with it, a process that occurs in the circulation between the two poles of writing and reading, with its infinity of loops and ripples and leaps in which writing becomes reading, and reading becomes writing. Fiction, we suggest, plunges us into the virtual that constitutes a vital part of our reality. We want to explore fiction’s multiple temporalities while reading, thinking, talking and writing collectively, drawing lines from the power of fiction to our own creative practices. From reading, we might start drawing, scribbling, doodling, writing, typing, reading aloud to one another, co-writing, or (why not?) singing each other’s re-collection of words and their lines and figures. The possibilities are plentiful.

Reading Fiction and Its Theoretical Monster Prodigies arises from an urgency to activate forms of écriture collective, of a new wave of creative encounters with language that becomes the other of itself, a stranger to itself, capable of re-animating the power of fiction to shape the real.

The format is open to your active involvement, aiming at collaborations in and through fiction. Everyone is welcome to add new material and suggest practical experiments. Periodically, we will look back and think of ways to share our investigations with a public.

For the first session of Écriture Collective – Fabulous Fiction we propose to read excerpts of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, pp. 5-23.

Deutsch (English below):

Die wiederkehrende Koexistenz von Videoinstallation, Skulptur und Zeichnung in Zilla Leuteneggers Arbeiten steht auch in der Performance mit dem Titel „Uncanny Likeness“ im Fokus. Es werden zwei essentielle Themen in Zilla Leuteneggers Arbeiten auftauchen: Einerseits die Kombination von Farben und Formen und andererseits der “bewegte Strich im Raum”.

Anders als in den räumlichen Installationen wird hier eine Momentaufnahme stattfinden, die nach der Performance wieder verschwindet. Mit „Uncanny Likeness“, also mit einer frappierenden Ähnlichkeit, soll dieser Versuch, eine Ballerina zu imitieren, ein Rennrad zu fahren oder Gewicht zu stemmen, von ihr mit einer gefühlten Leichtigkeit in bewegte Bildinstallationen in Einklang gebracht werden. Es sind Momentaufnahmen unaufgeregter Alltagssituationen.



English (Deutsch siehe oben):

The recurring coexistence of video installation, sculpture and drawing in Zilla Leutenegger’s works is once again the focus of her performance under the title “Uncanny Likeness”. Two of the essential themes of her work will make their appearance: On the one hand, the combination of colors and forms, and on the other the “moving line in the space”.

Unlike in spatial installations there will now be a snapshot that disappears after the performance. With “Uncanny Likeness” she shall try to reconcile her attempt to imitate a ballerina, to ride a race bicycle or to lift weights, with perceived ease, into moving image installations. These are snapshots of unexciting everyday situations.

Deutsch (English below):

Die chilenisch-schweizerische Künstlerin Ingrid Wildi Merino wurde 1963 in Santiago de Chile geboren und musste wegen der Diktatur mit ihrer Familie 1981 ins politische Exil in die Schweiz emigrieren. Sie verwendet Interviews und Installationen, um einen Bereich der Reflektion herzustellen im Hinblick auf Migration, Deterritorialisierung und den daraus resultierenden Status des Deplaziert-Seins. Ihre Arbeit hinterfragt die Globalisierung, was sie dazu führt, sich mit Migration zu beschäftigen sowie mit anderen Fragestellungen wie soziale, kulturelle und politische Differenzen in Bezug auf die Ökonomie und die globale Entwicklungspolitik, die der Migration entspringen.

Die europäischen Gesellschaften durchlaufen derzeit einen komplexen Prozess der Wiederanpassung der Strukturen und Mechanismen, die seit dem 18. Jahrhundert die Diskurse der Moderne gestützt haben (Kant, Rousseau, Hegel). Dieser Prozess beruht teils auf dem Zusammenbruch der modernen Meta-Geschichten, unter ihnen das sogenannte Ende der Utopien und das Ende der Geschichte. Gleichzeitig haben Mikronarrative zu Migration neue Möglichkeiten aufgezeigt, das Zusammentreffen von kulturellen Räumen, von Menschen und Politiken zu verstehen. Seit den 1960er Jahre gab es eine Massenmigration von Lateinamerikaner_innen, um der komplexen politischen Situation zu entrinnen und bessere wirtschaftliche Bedingungen zu suchen – Beweggründe, die nicht gänzlich voneinander zu trennen sind. Insbesondere in Europa hat dieses Phänomen die Landkarten der Identität in Aufnahmeländern verändert, auch wenn diese Landkarten oft als eine Art Negativität im kollektiven Unterbewussten versteckt bleiben. Desgleichen sind die Gemeinschaft, die sozialen Bindungen und die nationale Identität der Migrant_innen in den neuen veränderten Räumen in stetem Wandel begriffen, verklingen und werden neu strukturiert.

In Ingrid Wildi Merinos Arbeiten geht es um vertriebene Menschen, deren Reisen und Dislozierung in bestimmten europäischen Gesellschaften. Sie produziert Landkarten von Outsidern, die sich nicht integrieren, sondern vielmehr ihrer Distanz und der Schichten, die in einem bestimmten Gesellschaftsgefüge bestehen, gewahr werden. Ihre Arbeit ist besonders relevant in einem europäischen Kontext, da sie über eine Figur nachdenkt, die unsichtbar gemacht oder in subjektive Wahrnehmungen gehüllt wurde. Sie zeigt Geschichten und Erfahrungen von Migrant_innen, die Bedeutung, die sie ihrer Vertreibung, ihren Gegenständen, ihrer Poesie und ihrer mündlichen Überlieferung beimessen.

Die Künstlerin beschreibt ihre Arbeit als Video-Essays, die eine Landkarte und einen kritischen Raum für Reflektion herstellen, in ausreichender Abgrenzung zum Dokumentarischen. Indem sie Interviews in nicht-journalistischer Weise verwendet, als künstlerische Praxis, die Fragmente kombiniert und anordnet, um eine neue Form der Narration zu produzieren, versucht sie, eine andere Lesart und eine unterschiedliche analytische Sichtweise auf die Auflösung sozialer und kultureller Bindungen aufzuzeigen. Ihr künstlerischer Diskurs situiert sich daher inmitten vermischter, migrantischer Identitäten im steten Wandel. Die Künstlerin produziert Installationen mittels unterschiedlicher Medien, Texten, Video-Essays und Photographie.

English (Deutsch siehe oben):

Chilean-Swiss artist Ingrid Wildi Merino was born in Santiago de Chile in 1963 and had to emigrate to Switzerland with her family in 1981 into political exile from the dictatorship. She uses interviews and installations to create an area of reflection, focusing on migration, deterritorialisation and the resulting out-of-place status. Her work questions globalisation, leading her to look at migration and other issues including social, cultural and political differences related to the economy and global development policy resulting from migration.

European societies are currently going through a complex process of re-adapting the structures and mechanisms that have supported discourses on modernity dating from the 18th century (Kant, Rousseau, Hegel). This process is partly due to the collapse of modern meta-stories, including the so-called end of utopias and the end of history. At the same time, migration micro-narratives have established new ways of understanding the meeting of cultural spaces, people and policies. There has been mass migration of Latin Americans since the 1960s, to escape complex political situations and to search for better economic conditions – reasons that are not entirely separate. In Europe in particular, this phenomenon has changed identity maps in host countries, however these maps often remain hidden in the collective subconscious as a form of negativity. Likewise the community, social bonds and national identity of the migrant become diluted and restructured in a fluid way in the new altered spaces.

Ingrid Wildi Merino’s work deals with displaced people, their journeys and their dislocated condition in certain European societies. She creates maps of outsiders who do not integrate, but rather realise their distance and the layers that exist in the fabric of a particular society. This work is particularly relevant in a European context, as it reflects on a figure that has been made invisible or covered in subjective perceptions. It shows migrants’ stories and experiences, the significance that they themselves attach to their displacement, their objects, their poetry and their oral history (Francisco Godoy).

The artist describes her work as video essays, which create a map and a critical space for reflection, sufficiently removed from documentaries. She attempts to establish a different way of reading and a different analytical view of the dissolution of social and cultural bonds by using interviews in a non-journalistic way, as an artistic practice, combining and arranging fragments to create a new form of narration. Her artistic discourse, therefore, situates itself among mixed, migrant and fluid identities. The artist produces installations using various media, texts, video essays and photographs.

Screening of Los Invisibles by Ingrid Wildi Merino



Five Colombian immigrants living clandestinely in Switzerland for many years evoke their situation, their suffering, their fears and the reasons that led them to leave their country. By discontinuous montage and the fragmentation of her interlocutors’ accounts, artist Ingrid Wildi builds up an arborescent address about the inherent problems around the status of clandestinity – identity conflict, issues of cultural and linguistic bond, difficulties with social integration.
In order to preserve their anonymity, only body fragments – torso and arms – of the interviewed persons are shown on screen, a device calling to mind simultaneously the missing part of the filmed subjects and their situation of “invisibility”.

Ingrid Wildi’s video essay paradoxically shows us the unseen, by putting into the spotlight a few of the many “invisible” co-citizens who surround us. Through her interviews, we are not only given the opportunity to see them, but also, and especially, to listen to them. While the facelessness of these clandestine witnesses underscores the difficulty of granting them a social identity, this same facelessness gives their migrant bodies a voice they are usually deprived of.
These voices refer to the very specific and current context of illegal Colombian workers in Switzerland. But this example is emblematic of a situation shared today by many other displaced persons, since, in our globalized world, the invisibility, intrinsic to the ineffable status of illegal workers, has become one of the most widespread side effects of economic growth.

Beyond the social distress they evoke, these testimonies weave also a polyphonic tale of the painful memory of exile. These invisible people, both actors and victims of the economic flows supposed to guarantee a common welfare, tell us here a story about the pursuit of happiness quite different from the one we tend to fantasize about, or the one we are told by those governing us.

Pedro Jiménez Morrás
September 2007

English (Deutsch siehe unten):

Workshop at 17:00h, ending with an apéro and soup at 20:00h

Let’s start with a critical statement : The act of filming induces a power relationship. Some of post ’68 french moviemakers, as Jean-Louis Comolli, see the moving image production as «pensées en acte» (thoughts as act). They question the distinction of fiction and documentary as well as the place of the spectator.

During this workshop, we will produce a diagram based on a selection of my videos and films. My proposal is to start out with the notions social realities, narrative operations and the place of the spectator, and to discuss some new approaches.

Cicero Egli, December 2014

Deutsch (English above):

Workshop um 17:00h, mit anschliessendem Apéro und Suppe um 20:00h

Lasst mich mit einer kritischen Aussage beginnen: Der Akt des Filmens bewirkt eine Machtbeziehung. Einige der französischen Post-1968-Filmer, wie Jean-Louis Comolli, betrachten die Produktion von bewegten Bildern als «pensées en acte» (Gedanken als Akt). Sie hinterfragen die Unterscheidung zwischen Fiktion und Dokumentarischem sowie die Stellung der Zuschauer_in.

Im Verlauf des Workshops werden wir aufgrund einer Auswahl meiner Videos und Filmen ein Diagramm produzieren. Mein Vorschlag ist es, von den Konzepten der sozialen Wirklichkeiten, erzählerischen Operationen und der Stellung der Zuschauer_in zu auszugehen und einige neue Vorgehensweisen anzudenken.

Cicero Egli, Dezember 2014

Fight-Specific Isola traces the long history of the Isola area of Milan and the organic, spontaneous progress of the Isola Art Center over the past 12 years. Featuring texts and many images, the book tells the story of an artistic and urban transformation, led by artists, who often had to invent tools and concepts along the way. This publication serves as an example of how to act on the ground in today’s urban condition. Different narratives of history, artistic intervention and action allow the reader to trace the complex idea of collectivity, solidarity and fight-specificity. Testing new terms such as dirty cube and dispersed centre this book shows a possible way to respond to the constant pressure of neoliberal development and gentrification.

Isola Art Center is an open, experimental platform for contemporary art based in Milan’s Isola neighborhood. It is powered by energy, enthusiasm and solidarity. Over the last decade Isola Art Center has confronted an urban situation marked by conflict and extensive transformations. Its projects continue to be ‘no-budget’, precarious, hyperlocal. Doing away with conventional hierarchical structures, Isola Art Center rhizomatically brings together Italian and international artists, critics and curators, artists’ collectives, activists, architects, researchers, students and neighborhood groups.

Archive Books
144 pages
21.5 × 28 cm
Format: Paperback
Pages: 432
ISBN: 9783943620016

This series of workshops with guest artists invites everyone who is interested in questions of materiality. We will open up a spontaneous material experimentation lab at Corner College dedicated to what things can do. The idea of the lab is a communal sharing of techniques, of experimenting and tinkering together. So, bring your stuff!

Dealing with materials affords not only a specific knowledge of properties but also concerns the process of thought. Instead of presuming that artists form docile matter, one might assume that the material’s active role in the process of formation. From here, we might also consider the process of formation as being shaped by its very situated emergence. The lab aims at constituting concrete situations of artistic experimentation following the materiality of materials seeking out their aesthetic qualities rather than their scientific properties. How can we engage in a process of “material thought” and how do such thinking activities impinge on artistic practice? Further we wonder, how we can extend our sense of collaboration and of collectivity towards the more-than-human dimensions of existence? What would be the political consequences of such an approach?

This format derives from the field of artistic research but refuses to speak of “new forms of knowledge” and instead amplifies any form of experimental practice as situated, fragmented, and materially active. Initiators of the Lab are Amélie Brisson-Darveau and Christoph Brunner of the Corner College Collective, artist Nicole De Brabandere, and designer and architect Verena Ziegler. The lab invites artists, designers, architects, philosophiers and activists experimenting with materials and material thought in their practice. We will engage in “hands on” material experimentations, seeking out their potential, their capacity to evoke surprising and unforeseen constellations and experiences. Form here the process might take us into the development of a lecture performance, an installation or exhibition, but also text production or a publication.

16:00-19:00h

For the first session the Corner College Collective and Nicole De Brabandere propose explorations of the Corner College’s material and spatio-temporal textures.

“We invite participants to activate the space of Corner College with us as an emergent technical and material ecology. We propose an engagement with the space that explores the multiple potential for qualities of relation and for relation of qualities. This will involve developing a sensitivity with the qualities of the space, which could include the hard concreteness of the floor or the large window vitrine that covers the entire length of one side. To treat the space simultaneously as a material and a relational practice, we propose the exploration of material qualities and textures in terms of how they afford and invite movements in the space. The available materials will include non-woven fabrics (including felt, Tyvek and paper); spreadable materials (such as graphite, charcoal, ink and chalk), liquids (water and ink) and movable projections of photographic footage from previous relational/material explorations. For example, the powdery qualities of charcoal invite different ways of spreading or fixing it with paper. The loose patterning of fibers that compose non-woven textiles invite different ways of opening up its' layers in new relational dynamics. The movable projections will activate the mediated qualities of archival footage as an immediate materiality of light, image and scale. Other processes could include spreading, covering, flowing, binding, blending and layering, among others, that explore both material, movement and spatial thresholds. The space will not be mute. Throughout the process of exploration we will both write and verbalize emergent thresholds as they are felt. This process of articulating while doing will help drive the continual evaluation of processes so that they can be individually or collectively reentered in a dynamic of mediated and immediated movements of thought and feeling. Put otherwise, by integrating conversation into the collective orientation of this phase, we aim to develop thought-traces, memory-artefacts, and lures for feeling.”
(Amélie Brisson-Darveau, Nicole De Brabandere and Christoph Brunner)

The Zurich Art Space Guide is a free of charge A4 color brochure offering an up to date listing of 39 independent art spaces and artist run-spaces in Zürich.

Available in art and culture related places all around Zürich, this free guide has been produced as much for local Zürich art lovers than for visitors to the city. It aims to make more visible and accessible the vibrant independent Zürich based art scene.

It features a map of Zürich on which are indicated the locations of the different art spaces, as well as a listing which provides the names, adresses, websites, public transport connections and contact details of all listed projects.

http://www.artspaceguide.com/



Edition 02 - January 2015

Contact / New Projects / Updates:
artspaceguide@gmx.ch

Published by:
Anne-Laure Franchette, Andreas Marti, Fabio Kunz (Design)

This event on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1668927363334485/

English (Deutsch siehe unten):

Making Space is a practice not only of hospitality, but also of communality and living together with care. A Sunday brunch for kids and animals together with their parents and caregivers, as well as artists without kids or pets who are interested in the approach or work with children, and all who happen to be hanging out in Zurich on a Sunday morning and would like to brunch with colleagues and are unafraid of the noisy ambience.

The idea is as simple as that: Artists with kids are a generally precarious group in the art scene both as participants in ongoing discourses and due to a lack of time dedicated to their own production. Most of us living with kids feel that there is little opportunity for casual gathering, making space for all kids, animals and their grown-up friends on equal terms.

Corner College invites all of you who will feel comfortable and are interested in taking part in a mixed group in which special attention will be paid to the needs and demands of kids, their self-expression through play or other inspirations to their creativity, to come and gather around a cup of coffee or hot chocolate, some fruit and croissants. We will offer small activities like play that can turn to bookmaking, screenings, crafting with or just touching and tasting materials (sometimes with guests), or performances. We hope that you may contribute to a self-organized making of this space by your presence, your ideas and your involvement.

We are in the process of building a small library that will be available in the space, along with our art journal and editions stand with delicacies from around the globe.

Come and play with us!

Deutsch (English above):

Making Space (Raum schaffen) ist eine Praxis nicht nur der Gastfreundschaft, sondern auch der Gemeinschaftlichkeit und des sorgsamen Zusammenlebens. Ein Sonntagsbrunch für Kinder und Tiere zusammen mit ihren Eltern und Betreuer_innen, sowie Künstler_innen ohne Kinder und Tiere, denen die Vorgehensweise oder die Arbeit mit Kindern interessant scheint. Alle jene, die an einem Sonntagmorgen in Zürich rumhängen und gern mit Kolleg_innen brunchen und das laute Ambiente zu schätzen wissen.

Der Gedanke ist sehr einfach: Künstler_innen mit Kindern sind in der Kunstszene, sowohl als Teilnehmer_innen in zeitgenössischen Diskursen als auch in ihrer Produktion, da sie kaum Zeit finden, allgemein eine prekäre Gruppe. Die meisten von uns, die wir mit Kindern zusammen leben, spüren, dass es kaum Gelegenheiten gibt, sich zwangslos zu treffen, Raum für die Kinder, Tiere und ihre erwachsenen Freund_innen zu beanspruchen.

Corner College lädt alle ein, die sich dabei wohlfühlen und interessiert sind daran, an einer gemischten Gruppe teilzunehmen, in der besonders auf die Bedürfnisse und Wünsche der Kinder, ihren Selbstausdruck im Spiel oder andere Inspirationen ihrer Kreativität geachtet wird, zu kommen und sich um eine Tasse Kaffee oder heisse Schokolade, Früchte und Gipfeli zu versammeln. Wir bieten kleine Beschäftigungen an wie Spiele, die zum Buchmachen, zu Filmvorführungen, Basteln oder auch nur Berühren oder Schmecken von Materialien werden können (manchmal mit Gästen), oder auch zu Performances. Wir hoffen, dass Ihr mit Eurer Anwesenheit, Eure Ideen und Euren Einsatz zum selbstorganisierten Schaffen dieses Raums beitragen mögt.

Wir sind daran, eine kleine Bibliothek aufzubauen, die im Raum verfügbar sein wird, zusammen mit unserem Stand mit Kunstzeitschriften und Editionen mit Delikatessen aus der ganzen Welt.

Kommt und spielt mit uns!

English (Deutsch siehe unten):

As a first event of the series Sunday Brunch – Making Space for Kids and Animals we will start from the idea that the word text and textile are sharing the same origin.

Kids, parents, animals are invited to experiment with various low technological ways of weaving (with a hula hoop or straws or the Corner College space for example) including different materials. The event will be in collaboration with Maria Prieto, trained in biodynamic agriculture, and initiator of an interdisciplinary artistic community project in Chile.

Deutsch (English above):

Für die erste Veranstaltung der Serie Sunday Brunch – Making Space for Kids and Animals gehen wir aus vom Gedanken, dass die Wörter Text und Textil eine gemeinsame Herkunft haben.

Kinder, Eltern, Tiere sind eingeladen, mit unterschiedlichen low-tech Arten des Webens (mit einem Hula-Hoop-Reifen oder Trinkröhrchen oder dem Raum des Corner College zum Beispiel) mit unterschiedlichen Materialien zu experimentieren. Die Veranstaltung findet in Zusammenarbeit mit Maria Prieto statt, die in biodynamischer Landwirtschaft ausgebildet ist und ein interdisziplinäres künstlerisches Gemeinschaftsprojekt in Chile initiiert hat.

Junk Jet is an independent magazine founded in 2007 as a collaborative format, to discuss speculative works in art, architecture, and media. The presentation will be a trip through the world of Junk Jet, consisting of 6 issues, 222 contributors, 666 pages and 5 kilos. In this world (JUNK), the magazine becomes not only a container and archive, but at the same time a transporter (JET)*, a manifesto, architectural structure, performance, and even scientific research. Mona Mahall and Asli Serbest, the editors of Junk Jet, will talk about the history, development and future of Junk Jet.

http://junkjet.net

* Junk Jet has been at “Millennium Magazines”, MOMA: Museum of Modern Art, New York; Perloff Gallery, UCLA Architecture and Urban Design Los Angeles; “A Few Zines” Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design Gallery; “Libros Mutantes”, Contemporary Art Center La Casa Encendida, Madrid; “Archizines”, Australian Centre for Design, Sydney; “Zine”, Kunsthalle Wien, Museumsquartier, Wien; Tokyo Art Book Fair; Osaka Art Book Fair; Shibaura House, Tokyo; Vancouver Art Gallery; HKW, Transmediale, Berlin; AA Architectural Association, London; New York Art Book Fair, etc.

Sinopale, International Sinop Biennial for Contemporary Art, Turkey
in collaboration with Corner College, Zürich
present:

COLLECTING THE FUTURE

2014–2006–2016

A SINOPALE EXHIBITION

13 February to 14 March 2015

With Amélie Brisson-Darveau, Quynh Dong, Benjamin Egger, Esther Kempf, Franziska Koch, Petra Koehle & Nicolas Vermot Petit-Outhenin, Daniel Marti, Garrett Nelson, Cat Tuong Nguyen, RELAX (chiarenza & hauser & co), Romy Rüegger, Riikka Tauriainen, and works from the collection of Sinopale by Alpaslan Baloğlu, Nezaket Ekici, Shilpa Gupta, Ashley Hunt, Emre Koyuncuoğlu, Monali Meher, Lerzan Ozer, Adrien Tirtiaux, XsentrikArts (Bahanur Nasya & Yılmaz Vurucu), Eşref Yıldırım.

Curated by T. Melih Görgün, founder and artistic director of Sinopale, and co-curated by Dimitrina Sevova

Sinopale Newspaper (printable as PDF 3.35MB).


Opening Hours during the exhibition / Öffnungszeiten während der Dauer der Ausstellung:

Monday closed. Montag geschlossen.
Tuesday closed. Dienstag geschlossen.
Wednesday: 3 pm - 7 pm. Mittwoch: 15 - 19 Uhr.
Thursday: 3 pm - 9 pm. Donnerstag: 15 - 21 Uhr
Friday: 3 pm - 7 pm. Freitag: 15 - 19 Uhr.
Saturday 2 pm - 6 pm. Samstag 14 - 18 Uhr.
Sunday 2 pm - 6 pm. Sonntag 14 - 18 Uhr.


The exhibition collects in a non-linearly organized display at Corner College reflections, documentation, archive and research materials as well as some art works from the five editions of Sinopale – International Sinop Biennial, in-between its past, present and future. Especially for this exhibition, the Swiss participants in the past two editions reflect on their work at Sinopale in contributions between archive, research and art work.

Friday, 13 February, 19:00h Opening with the performance Exercice d’Isolation (Tagblatt) by Petra Elena Köhle and Nicolas Vermot Petit-Outhenin, continuing into the next day’s activities

Saturday, 14 February, 16:00h Talk, screening and performances

16:00h Presentation of Sinopale by T. Melih Görgün, founder and artistic director of Sinopale

18:00h Screening of The Sea in Me by XsentrikArts (Bahanur Nasya & Yılmaz Vurucu), 2012, Sinopale 4, documentary, 60ʹ

20:00h Performance My Mondays roll into my Tuesdays, and my Tuesdays roll into my Wednesdays by Riikka Tauriainen

Throughout the afternoon and evening, the performance Exercice d’Isolation (Tagblatt) by Petra Elena Köhle and Nicolas Vermot Petit-Outhenin, continuing from the opening night



One can say that Sinopale is a peripheric and young biennial of contemporary art on the map of the International Biennials of the art world system, and rather alternative to the so-called “biennial phenomena” and their genre. If it has been in a position of weakness with respect to the center and its political, economic and aesthetic dominance, indeed it mobilizes personal and collective collaborative efforts on the creative edge, where crossing over local and global perspectives, south and north and east and west, it analyzes and re-signifies the biennial discourses dominated by a logic of globalization, traveling art lovers and the shipping of expensive art works.

With its less spectacular exhibition and more humble project, it embraces a rather pragmatic approach to its structures, which in its generosity functions in the mode of new institutionalism rather than institutional critique, and even generates a rupture with the representational models of the big-scale art world projects from the center. It has the advantage to re-invent the relevance of the relation between contemporary art practices and daily life, and re-define the paradoxes of the creation of the value and status of art on the limit. It re-situates and re-articulates the notion of art and its institutionally driven formats and betrays the established network of distribution of art, such as the art markets or the circuit of commercial galleries. Where art, in a real situation, can be seen as an object that acts as ambiguous support or medium or catalyst of existential change and new ways of transference of relations, i.e., art practices can be seen as transversal tools for social change that can dissolve in the existing context as they externalize and modulate it and can productively cast new bridges to reconnect the land-space-town, with responsibility towards relational and new ecologies and their potentialities that engender the conditions for creation.

This transversality is not given, but a matter of a pragmatics of existence, a kind of openness and progressive deterritorialization from existing modelization. “Transversality still signifies militant, social, undisciplined creativity” (Félix Guattari), where art practices work as urban guerilla. [1]

Sinopale puts a finger on the painful points and dynamics in the post-industrial and neoliberal conditions of living in-between urbanized and rural environments in which the commercialization and permanence of the economic crises threaten the communities and challenge daily-life existence. Sinopale is a Biennial for all, with its broad and open stage for an aesthetics and politics of art that can empower the quality and quantity of life and bring new experiences in which the present memory and historical past interweave towards the future, with the social and cultural commitment and self-valorization.


[1] Hou Hanru emphasized at the beginning of the 10th International İstanbul Biennial manifesto that “We are living in a time of global wars,” and stated that “In such a debate, artistic actions, including the Biennial itself, can certainly find their roles in prompting cultural and social changes through innovative forces of intervention – a form of urban guerrilla.” 10th International İstanbul Biennial, Hou Hanru, “Not Only Possible, But Also Necessary: Optimism in the Age of Global War” (Istanbul: İstanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, 2007).





Organized by



Special thanks to




for their support!

Ab 22:00h

DJs
Margit de Sade
Fred Hystère
Nicki Manij

Provitreff, Sihlquai 240, 8005 Zürich

Eintritt: 5.-- Fr.

Corner College - Les Complices* - Dienstgebäude - Le Foyer - OOR - Station 21 - Chamber of Fine Arts - K3 Project Space - Menuedata

Finissage of the exhibition:

COLLECTING THE FUTURE
2014–2006–2016
A SINOPALE EXHIBITION

13 February to 14 March 2015

With Amélie Brisson-Darveau, Quynh Dong, Benjamin Egger, Esther Kempf, Franziska Koch, Petra Koehle & Nicolas Vermot Petit-Outhenin, Daniel Marti, Garrett Nelson, Cat Tuong Nguyen, RELAX (chiarenza & hauser & co), Romy Rüegger, Riikka Tauriainen, and works from the collection of Sinopale by Alpaslan Baloğlu, Nezaket Ekici, Shilpa Gupta, Ashley Hunt, Emre Koyuncuoğlu, Monali Meher, Lerzan Ozer, Adrien Tirtiaux, XsentrikArts (Bahanur Nasya & Yılmaz Vurucu), Eşref Yıldırım.

Curated by T. Melih Görgün, founder and artistic director of Sinopale, and co-curated by Dimitrina Sevova


The exhibition collects in a non-linearly organized display at Corner College reflections, documentation, archive and research materials as well as some art works from the five editions of Sinopale – International Sinop Biennial, in-between its past, present and future. Especially for this exhibition, the Swiss participants in the past two editions reflect on their work at Sinopale in contributions between archive, research and art work.


Finissage with a DJ set by Nicki Manij, hot vegetarian soup and bar.

Quynh Dong takes us on a journey into her studies of movement, of what has to be done from the vanishing point. The artist maps or sketches the affectual orientation and disposition of her practices, concerned with the politics of movement and its formal aesthetics. They confront her immediately with the affect and its practical and theoretical implications, as the affect always brings something unstable in the encounter between forces and mutable matter, through performative inversions of a choreographic web, like a dance of space/time whose distortions affect, able to induce the migration of the image or to decolonize bodies, as affect is resistance, too.

The artist’s interest in the affect lies in its potentiality of opening her practices towards an ethico-aesthetic paradigm in which race, class and sex become affective forms that are not directly inscribed in the bodies and the subjects, but are political spaces. This moves the bodies and subjects away from identitarian constructions and their cultural limitations. Identities, understood as projections of the signifier, are dispersed in the field of the affect with is forces liberating them, which become able to create themselves as a process of self-organizing and self-inventing subjectivities.

The artist deliberately exaggerates the femininity of her female characters, such as to affirm the ongoing feminization of affective labor inherent in the post-colonial landscape of late global capitalism. This embodied femininity, with its fragility and weakness, has the power to induce a creative melancholic opening that intensifies the flowing ephemera, re-appropriating them and the affect from the post-Fordist economic relations and recent rapid technological developments. She sets out, by means of art, to fill the atmosphere with fleeting implications of e-motions and sentiments that make the spectator feel how their perceptions depend on the conditions and the angle of their position in the space. The affect is for real, which means that its arrival serves as a force on her work that sometimes is rather non-work, which in the range of the affect lose their opposite values as the artistic practices are extended to the aesthetics of existence, i.e., “how to affect and how to be affected.”

Despite the apparent solidity of Quynh Dong’s sculptural installations, where she abandons the human subject in the fever of disjointed pieces of glossy ceramic leaves from the chalices of moribund flowers running away from each other. They are sculptural assemblages of oversize copies of pieces of dying matter, which emphasize their partial relations in the generating structures. In close-up, their surface becomes quantized, which leads to the idea that the world has a resolution. Their assembled ontology is a convoluted space oriented towards the virtual, trapping the perception into an installation process embodying optimistic cruelty that performs with striking effects to model the space in patterns patterning the plane. It brings the spectator directly to the heart of phantasm. The phantasm and the apparent solidity of the object are both flux and concrete, one turning into the other depending on the spectator’s distance to the object, which changes their picture of the world.

“Art is an object of Beauty!” states Quynh Dong about her work. She sees the position of the artist in old fashion as the copyist of nature who questions reality, reaching a romantic overmodel of it and even kitsch. The copyist’s gesture evokes the law of the copy and the matrix in a biopolitical sense. The copyist-artist can be seen as embodying the dark side of grace, as the artist gets access to the weak forces of a second nature of something artificial and plastic, which breaks the symmetry of the laws of physics and can capture and sustain the natural glamour and attraction of the dying flower like the frozen ripples of space/time, modeling the reality of decay and the noise of the entropic process. Could this be the noise coming from the degrees of microscopic freedom of the entropic process? Indeed, there is hidden information in the solid objects, which can be understood as the intervals between “the infinity of little affective events,” induced by the relation of rest and accelerated movement of the virtual images blocked between the particles of solid matter. These oscillations are the creative resistance of the material. The waving reality of the hysteresis of the forces within the clay and their virtual potentialities meet the hesitating line the artist traces into it. In this sculptography, the network of objects becomes a system that claims that “the social is always more than human,” as assemblages are always social, and the social lies in the principle of connectivity. The links between them have to be composed by the audience walking among them. One can never be sure where these delusive statements are the noise of the ripples of laughter, or the artist’s own laughter, and where it has to be taken very seriously.

Text: Dimitrina Sevova

Der Chor als Klangkörper, der durch die Summe der einzelnen, klingenden Menschenkörper entsteht, ist eine der ältesten gemeinschaftsbildenden Tätigkeiten. Wir verstehen den CC Choir als Experiment auf diese ursprüngliche, prä-humane Tradition zurück zu blicken und in der Freude seinen eigenen Körper als Klangproduzent zu benutzen, neben dem gemeinsamen Singen von bekannten Liedern, rituelle und animalische Gesangstechniken zu erproben.

Der Chor ist offen für alle und das Repertoire wird gemeinsam ausgesucht und erprobt.

Die Chorleitung übernimmt Oscar Mario Echeverry.

Nach einer Einleitung durch die Herausgeber lesen Rosa Isela Lopez Gotoo und Tim Czerwonatis einige der abgedruckten Gedichte im argentinischen Original und in der deutschen Übersetzung.

«Un verano antes del verano» («Ein Sommer vor dem Sommer») inszeniert typografisch und fotografisch 16 Gedichte zeitgenössischer argentinischer LyrikerInnen*, mit Übersetzungen ins Deutsche**. Die Gedichte werden umrahmt von einer persönlichen Annäherung an die Stadt Buenos Aires, in Form einer chronologischen Collage aus Texten und Notizen, und von 51 Fotografien zur Stadt in s/w und Farbe.

Von November 2012 bis Januar 2013 sprachen Florian Bachmann und Helen Ebert in der argentinischen Hauptstadt spanisch, assen Fleisch, warteten auf den Bus und lasen zeitgenössische argentinische Gedichte. Herausgekommen ist eine persönliche Sicht auf die Stadt, ihren Alltag und ihre Lyrik, im Jahr 2015 verlegt von der Bieler «edition clandestin».

*Gedichte: Fabián Casas, Soledad Castresana, Macky Corbalán, Washington Cucurto, Martín Gambarotta, Fernanda Laguna, María Medrano, Marta Miranda, Cecilia Pavón, Sergio Raimondi, Noelia Rivero, Alejandro Rubio

**Übersetzungen: Juana und Tobias Burghardt, Timo Berger, Odile Kennel, Léonce Lupette, Valentin Schönherr

Dieses Buch erscheint auch in einer signierten Vorzugsausgabe von 30 Exemplaren mit risographiertem Umschlag, nummeriert und signiert 1/30 – 30/30

Helen Ebert + Florian Bachmann: Un verano antes del verano. Poesie, Fotografie und Notizen aus Buenos Aires. Freirückenbroschur, 28.2 × 25.8 cm. 144 Seiten, 4-farbig. Deutsch / spanisch. edition clandestin, Biel 2015.

ISBN 978-3-905297-61-4. CHF 38.– / € 32.–

English (Deutsch siehe unten):

This is the second event of the series Sunday Brunch – Making Space for Kids and Animals.

Details to be announced.

Deutsch (English above):

Dies ist die zweite Veranstaltung der Serie Sunday Brunch – Making Space for Kids and Animals.

Einzelheiten folgen.

The artist Teresa Chen (www.teresachen.ch) began a dissertation as a way to extend her own artistic practice by exploring how contemporary visual artists – especially women with (East) Asian diasporic backgrounds – express ideas or meanings about Otherness and issues of belonging in their art. Using proposed set of categories, her methodology was a comparative analysis of selected pairs of artists – where at least one was a woman artist of (East) Asian diasporic background. The results of her research confirmed the significance of cultural, historical, and geographic experiences on both the conception and reception of visual art and indicated that various artistic strategies have the potential to expose and undermine culturally constructed meanings of difference. In this lecture, she outlines some of the main arguments and themes from her research.

Dr. Teresa Chen

Please note the change in the time: 20:00h, to accommodate those of you who would like to attend Étienne Balibar's lecture at ZHdK before that.

In this third session we will read Edgar Allan Poe's The Man of the Crowd. In the following sessions we will return to it from different angles, exploring its rhizome of interaction with theory and fiction alike, in the genealogy from Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, Gabriel Tarde and Walter Benjamin to Elias Canetti and Bruno Latour, or Gilbert Simondon, Donna Haraway or Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt. Other texts are welcome that can contribute to the diagram, from Science Fiction to microbiological and cosmological scientific texts, philosophy, and contemporary theoretical and fictional writing with new perspectives on the social, which connect the subjects of crowds, swarms, packs, colonies of bacteria, and celestial clusters!

Deutsch (English below)

Gerald Raunig, DIVIDUUM

Buchvernissage mit Gerald Raunig, mit performativen Lesungen und Interventionen von Niki Kubaczek, Isabell Lorey und Alexander Tuchaček.

Die Buchvernissage ist Teil des Programms der 11. kritnet Tagung mit dem Schwerpunktthema «Ökonomie und Rassismus im europäischen Migrations- und Grenzregime», die vom 26. bis 29. März 2015 in der Shedhalle und in anderen Räumen in Zürich stattfindet.

Erst die Erschaffung einer Mitte, in der die vielen Komponenten der Maschine auseinander- und zusammenstimmen, lässt das Gras von der Mitte des Stengels her wachsen. Eine dividuelle Maschine also, teilbar und teilend. Dort, in der reissenden Mitte des Dividuellen, braucht es keinen Grund, keine Wurzel, keinen Boden, keine Wände, die Leitern halten, keine weissen Wände, die Gesichter zeigen. Dort verketten sich die Körpermaschinen, die sozialen Maschinen, die molekular-revolutionären Maschinen, mit den Textmaschinen, dort entsteht aus mannigfaltiger Geisterhand die dividuell-abstrakte Linie.

Dividuum entwickelte sich als Begriff zusammen mit seinem Negativ, dem Individuum. In frühen römischen Komödien erscheint es als Marker für Sklaverei und gegenderte Herrschaft, und zugleich für Weisen des Wegstehlens und Fliehens aus diesem extrem herrschaftlichen Konnex. In der lateinischen Philosophie dient es zur Übersetzung des Teilbaren (im Gegensatz zum Atom), und dann in der Spätantike und Scholastik als Teil der theologischen Diskussion über Mannigfaltigkeit und Singularität der Dreifaltigkeit. Hier, in den hochmittelalterlichen Texten des Bischofs Gilbert de Poitiers, findet sich der Ausgangspunkt des Narrativs der Dividualität als zeitgenössische Produktionsform und Lebensweise. Zeitgenössischer dividuell-maschinischer Kapitalismus basiert nicht nur auf der Unterordnung des Menschen unter Maschinen, die in menschliche Körper und Geister eindringen, sondern auf maschinischer Dienstbarkeit und Selbst-Teilung durch soziale Medien, Quantifizierung des Selbst und vielfältige Formen des Anhängens an die Maschinen. Und auch auf den abstrakt-dividuellen Linien von Big Data, algorithmischer Logistik und Derivaten, die die individuellen Körper von Personen und Dingen wie auch ihre Wünsche und Sozialitäten durchqueren. Wenn wir vor diesem Hintergrund adäquate Formen des Widerstands in Betracht ziehen wollen, müssen wir sie auch auf der Ebene von Division, Dividualität, Condividualität denken.

Das Tier der moekularen Revolution wird kein Maulwurf sein und keine Schlange, sondern ein Drohnen-Tier, fest, flüssig und gasförmig. Un/Gefüge.

English (Deutsch siehe oben)

Gerald Raunig, DIVIDUUM

A book launch with Gerald Raunig, with performative readings and interventions by Niki Kubaczek, Isabell Lorey and Alexander Tuchaček.

The book launch is part of the program of the 11th kritnet Convention on the theme of «Economy and Racism in the European Migration and Border Regime», which takes place at Shedhalle and in other spaces in Zurich from 26 to 29 March 2015.

Zweites Treffen des CC Choir.

Der Chor ist offen für alle und das Repertoire wird gemeinsam ausgesucht und erprobt.

Die Chorleitung hat Oscar Mario Echeverry inne.

Second meeting of the CC Choir.

The choir is open to all, and the repertoire will be elaborated and practiced together.

The choir is under the direction of Oscar Mario Echeverry.

Drittes Treffen des CC Choir.

Der Chor ist offen für alle und das Repertoire wird gemeinsam ausgesucht und erprobt.

Die Chorleitung hat Oscar Mario Echeverry inne.

Third meeting of the CC Choir.

The choir is open to all, and the repertoire will be elaborated and practiced together.

The choir is under the direction of Oscar Mario Echeverry.

A listening session in 2 chapters.

As artificial sounds and voices are an intrinsic part of our daily lives, there is still no reproduction of the voice that doesn’t have an outlandish or uncanny feel to it. It’s a pleasure augmented by horror, an old dream accomplished. It’s like being somewhere without really being there, a person without a person, alarm and rapture that is engendered by this miracle.

Chapter 1: Disembodied Voices (45 mins)
A curious selection of disembodied voices; EVP recordings, a talking budgie, automatic telephone answers, speech synthesis and public space announcements. Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) recordings are sound fragments that come from ghost hunters scouring audio tracks for background voices. This chapter encourages us to become attuned to the voices that surround us, both literal and paranormal.

Chapter 2: Imaginary Friends (45 mins)
Most of us have experienced interactions and conversations with imaginary friends in early childhood. They are powerful signs of an imaginative mind and a way of learning to understand the world and coping with new or difficult experiences. This chapter departs form the idea of imaginary companions taking a more ambiguous approach on how recorded voice, speech and tone is used by ventriloquists, sound poets and artists.

With recordings by Alfred Wolfsohn, Emma Clarke, Disinformation, Laurie Anderson, Gregory Whitehead, Sarah Angliss, Robert Ashley, Sparkie Williams, Konstantin Raudive, Diana Deutsch, Ernst Jandl, Antye Greie, Erik Bünger, Malcolm Clarke (BBC Radiophonic Workshop) and others.

Zine & Collage Workshop: an afternoon of zine making through collage.
Join us to look at the practices of collage within different artistic movements, browse through a variety of international zines, and create your first collage zine.

A Zine is a small circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images.
Frequently reproduced via a photocopier and bound with staples, zines are very individualised and are informed by the punk and DIY (Do It Yourself) ethos.
The topics covered by zines are broad. They can be dedicated to art, design, poetry, politics, subcultures, fanfiction, short stories etc.
The majority of zines are produced in editions of fewer than 100, and profit is not the primary intent of publication.


Collage (from the french coller = to glue) consists in the creation of an ensemble by pasting cuttings of already existing pictures, illustrations or photos.
The origins of collage can be traced back hundreds of years, but the technique made a dramatic reappearance in the early part of 20th century as an art form of novelty.
A collage may include fragments of newspaper or magazine, portions of texts, photographs or other found objects, glued to a piece of paper or a canvas.
By fragmenting and recombining existing text and images, new content and meaning can be created in a playful way. The reconstruction can be done arbitrarily or intentionally.

All zines produced within the workshops will be exhibited at VOLUMES, Independent Publishing Fair in November 2015 in Zürich.

Workshop run by Anne-Laure Franchette and Patrizia Mazzei.

Participation is free. Small donations accepted to cover the cost for materials.

To register please email: volumes.zurich@gmail.com

English (Deutsch siehe unten):

This is the third event of the series Sunday Brunch – Making Space for Kids and Animals.

For this Sunday 19.04, Sunday Brunch – Making Space for Kids and Animals, we will experiment with folding using paper and other materials. We will bake giant Zopfs and apple pancakes. You are welcome to contribute by bringing something for the brunch or by giving around 10 franks.

Deutsch (English above):

Dies ist die dritte Veranstaltung der Serie Sunday Brunch – Making Space for Kids and Animals.

An diesem Sonntag, dem 19. April werden wir im Sunday Brunch – Making Space for Kids and Animals mit dem Falten von Papier und anderen Materialien experimentieren. Wir werden Riesenzöpfe und Apfelpfannkuchen backen. Ihr könnt gern beitragen und etwas für den Brunch bringen, oder mit einer Spende von etwa 10 Franken.

Kunstkontexte sind vermehrt Räume zur Verhandlung von Fragestellungen und Debatten, die sich etwa mit Blick auf aktuelle politische Verhältnisse und Entwicklungen stellen oder unter dem Label Forschung geführt werden – um nur zwei Beispiele zu nennen. Im Rahmen der Panel-Diskussion soll diskutiert werden, welche sich verändernden Kunst– und künstlerischen Selbstverständnisse hinter diesen Entwicklungen stehen, wodurch Kunstkontexte heute eine spezifische Weise der Verhandlung ermöglichen, wie durchlässig die Grenze zwischen Diskursen innerhalb und ausserhalb von Kunstkontexten ist und was dies für das Verhältnis von Kunst und Nicht-Kunst bedeutet.

Die Podiumsdiskussion wird mit drei Themen dreifach geteilt:
1. Politics of Legitimation: Regimes of Truth and Art Today
2. The Decision Makers
3. Do You Love Me Regardless of My Flaws? (The attitudes, techniques and attributions of the artist.)

Auf dem Panel:
Dimitrina Sevova (Independent Curator, Corner College)
Stefan Wagner (Independent Curator)
Nicola Ruffo (Independent Curator)
Florence Jung (Artist)

Datum & Uhrzeit: 21. April 2015, 14:00-18:00 Uhr
Ort: Corner College, Kochstrasse 1, 8004 Zürich
Konzept and organisation: Master Fine Arts, Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK)
Sprache: Deutsch & English
Eintritt frei

With Amélie Brisson-Darveau, Andreas Marti, Conor McFeely, Mareike Spalteholz.

Opening on 23 April, finissage on 22 May 2015.

Both at the opening and at the finissage, there will be a sound intervention, Lointain (2015) by Brandon Farnsworth, Benjamin Ryser and HannaH Walter.

Curated by Gabriel Gee (TETI) and Dimitrina Sevova (Corner College).

An accompanying program of talks and screenings will be announced shortly on this website.





This exhibition brings together works by Zurich-based artists Amélie Brisson-Darveau, Andreas Marti, Mareike Spalteholz, and the Northern Irish artist Conor McFeely that explore and question the technological premises on which our human societies are built.

The exhibition is organized by Corner College in collaboration with the TETI group (Textures and Experience of Transindustriality).
http://www.tetigroup.org/


Curatorial text by Gabriel Gee
Darkroom notes underneath the artes mechanicae

The codification of the artes mechanicae at the turn of the 12th century served as a starting point to consider the binary between material and virtual realities in the beginning of the 21st century. The medieval invention of the artes mechanicae underlined the contributions of practical arts such as agriculture, metallurgy, but also medicine and architecture to the shaping of the world. They provided categories to complement those of the liberal arts, noble practices such as arithmetic, logic and rhetoric. This historical process could be used as a guiding thought when transposed into the present world, where the multiplication of images, virtual fluxes and platforms increasingly dislocate the embodied experience of the world. Social-robots and post-human hybrids are certainly fascinating creatures and futures. Yet an attention to the actors who command our 21st century nascent imaginaries appears appropriate, and given the remoteness of the design agencies fuelling our screens and mind, a practical exploration of the mechanics of creation offers a possible pathway to bring some light into often inscrutable processes. It is in other words the recognition of embodied practices as valuable and definable, that can analogically be used to unravel the nature of our digital present.

In the present exhibition, a common thread explored by all four artists revolves around a mise-en-abîme of creative conduits, a mode of framing artistic invention and underlining its components for the benefit of the visitor. One particular mode of appreciating this focal attention onto the mechanics of creation is channeled both in a concrete and metaphorical sense by the Camera Obscura. The camera obscura, or darkened room, is a phenomenon and device known since Antiquity: in a dark room, through a small aperture, a reversed image of the outside world can be projected. Subsequently, in the late 16th century, the principle was adapted to a pinhole box equipped with lenses and mirrors, enabling the projection to become mobile. From there on, the optical camera was developed, used in mapping as well as an aid to painting, it became a model for the understanding of the eye, culminating in the 19th century seminal discovery of how to stabilize the imprint of the reversed image on silver iodide coated paper.
The camera obscura functional concentration of matters pertaining to optics, coupled with its long and uncertain journey to provide material visual evidence, are echoed in the works presented hereby; furthermore, the pieces presented also explore through their anatomy the two terms themselves and for themselves: the room, and obscurity.

See the full curatorial text by Gabriel Gee as a PDF file here


Curatorial text by Dimitrina Sevova

Magic is an art of radical immanence, but immanence is precisely what has to be artfully created, the usual regime of thinking being that of transcendence that authorizes a standpoint and a judgment, the art of magic has been disqualified, prosecuted.
(Isabelle Stengers, The Cosmopolitical Proposal)

Magical criticism as a manifestation of the highest stage of criticism.
From Walter Benjamin’s note “Criticism as the Fundamental Discipline of Literary History,” in his diary The Destructive Character (1931)

Intro-action!

With this exhibition we are trying to perform and materialize a new agency or to re-work the agential conditions of possibilities, as they bring creativity, criticism and resistance both to the practices of art and to daily life. Through these agential conditions, magical criticism is a practice of diffraction and agential separability, to be understood not as separation but as deviation, as making new connections and new commitments. My curatorial proposal is to follow here Karen Barad’s concept of quantum mechanical entanglement, where “diffraction can be a metaphor for another kind of critical thought,” which can be employed in the practices of Arts as well, to provide new insight into the notion of performativity, and how it matters.

In the collaboration on this exhibition with co-curator Gabriel Gee, who gave the initial drive with his idea of Artes Mechanicae, as a result of which we bring on display the works of Amélie Brisson-Darveau, Andreas Marti, Conor McFeely and Mareike Spalteholz, my curatorial effort is to engage the context of the project with feminist thought and practices through which we can activate the aesthetic perception and polemic discussion between the spectators and the art objects, and the space created through their relational structures. Another idea that troubles me is how an exhibition and art practices can be infused with magical criticism (Walter Benjamin), and how they can be a way to approach agency, e.g. the agency of unknown witch actants (Isabelle Stengers) or agential realism (Karen Barad). In the chemistry of magical criticism, the agents or catalysts are the critical mass that link the artistic practices to realism and materiality without being directly part of the art objects. They embody and embed their ability to manipulate objects in the performative aspects of traveling fluxes of matter and culture. Through artist practices and their art objects, the Arts’ actants can empower the spectators to feel and sense what it means to stay with the trouble. (Donna Haraway)

Talking about the materiality of art practices and the actants of magical criticism brings us to the idea that discourse did not start with language, but with material forms, as in Foucault’s prison-form. In this fashion, the artists critically incorporate in their installations in the exhibition industrial forms like moving images, elements of interfaces and of their ideological superstructures as well as historical materials from technological apparatuses and scientific and cultural dispositives, re-enacting collected parts in a new network of relations, where the material production and the performative stream of non-semiotic signs and characters trigger new agency. This is thus an expression of radical empiricism that can engage the spectator with phenomena and their material performativity, as in what Rosi Braidotti calls double vision. Which means that an exhibition produces both aesthetic relations and alternative forms of knowing, and opens towards perceptions of the oppositional consciousness or counter rationality and its micrologics, where one can abandon and reject the dualistic tradition and its practices of making such oppositions, between critique and creativity, or analytics and aesthetics.

In times of the Anthropocene and Capitalocene, their dispositives and synthesis of power-knowledge, science-technology, labor-capital have reached their limit, and their crisis cannot be overcome by just re-thinking them. New relations may arise by casting the spell of magical criticism and activating the new agency of witch actants in the ecological, social, and cultural environment. Let’s call our exhibition proposal a visionary alternative constructed by situated objects, knowledge and concepts in-between art, aesthetics, politics, and science. In this proposal, magical criticism and agential realism are practices of combination driven by subjectivity, creating self-organized patterns of cultivating differences. My wish is that the context may embrace Stengers’ cosmopolitical proposal, where one can take a feminist perspective seriously, as a feminist engagement with the subject matter, with the curatorial, with art practices and the space of the exhibition, inspired by a speculative feminism that provides the ground for a new materialism – i.e., a radical materialist metaphysics within material thought and the materiality of the art practices, that makes critical thought perform and take shape in its practical expressions in the entanglements of the materialized objects. In our dystopian non-localization we must create a situation in which one can grasp the fatal hinge between science and capitalism, which produces the techno-scientific knowledge economy and increased militarization. Some hope may come from an ethos of care, which is a matter of care, created with care.

This exhibition as a hexagram

This exhibition is a knot or an entanglement of six positions and their intra-acting agencies of phenomena of ontological disjunctions and speculative commitment to neglected things. These performative temporalizations draw invisible lines in the form of a hexagram of extra relations in the fourth dimension between the traced objects, ideas and their modulations, as the present birth of affective facts. As all assemblages, the collective artistic and curatorial endeavors in this exhibition are a product of transversal relations and forced movement. It is the affirmation of the movement or the second movement in itself, and correspondingly a matter of care, as Stengers might say – something artfully created to disturb, trouble or confuse “the usual regime of thinking.” It is an affectual and sensual vortex, a web of little events that is able to de-familiarize how one looks at something else, which is a sobering process in which what was understood as normal, as good behavior that serves as a protection layer against empathic reactions, is dispersed. Here, with Donna Haraway, it is time to prolong the process of de-familiarization with a series of de-normalization, in order to destabilize the world of thinking with other thoughts, or the world of images with other images, or the world of art and the finesse of the liberal arts with the return of the notion of Artes Mechanicae, as an act of resistance. As Deleuze said, speaking of Bach’s speech act: “his music is an act of resistance, an active struggle against the separation of the profane and the sacred. This act of resistance in the music ends with a cry.” Magic is an art of radical immanence, is la vida loca, the carnivalesque that comes from a critical mass or multitude, where the agency of witch actants generates the miracle of slowing down, without which there can be no creation, no generative radiation of resistance. “A return of the Arts reveals much in the way of study and praxis, as we soon become aware of the manifold arts that cease to inform (or perhaps marginally) the revolutionary practice of living la vida loca.” (Raiders of the Lost Arts, Tactical Magic Manifesto)

The techniques of slowing down, which also bring the idea of coming back, are a call for action that embraces “the crisis as a new form of discourse” to abandon the premises of material progress of a society based on techno-scientific information. It “demands immediate convolution of all discourses and disciplines,” to turn away one’s dazzled eyes from the blind spot left by looking into the sun in our melancholy and loneliness and try to undertake the journey back, to return home – to the Earth, i.e., to the body, to the mundane and small sins, to the plane of truth outside the norms. To slow down is to express a disappointment and disillusionment with the medium of traveling at great speed in the sky of heaven – which in any event makes no sense, since there is neither outside nor inside.

Coming back home, which means returning on the ground with its formless and muddy functions, is Donna Haraway’s proposal. It can be taken seriously as an alternative concept to those of rationality, which is the basis of the rationalization of all aspects of life that leads to cognitive commercial operations in the knowledge economy. Along this line, we urgently have to re-read “pre-scientific” and non-rational knowledge and practices that can be the beginning of a counter-movement to the Copernican revolution, making space for prayer, contemplation and knowledge to take place. The legending of the fabulations of science fiction and scientific fact this time does without the heroic stories of the walking signifier. If one comes back home, is rather a reverse engineering, a releasing of stigmatized thought, a mind journey back from the universe or universalism to the kakosmos (Bruno Latour) and then to the immanence of the radical plane of consistency of the cosmopolitical proposal, where the political affirms the cosmic, which is not equivalent to any particular cosmos. Stengers’ cosmos, like Nietzsche’s, is an event (a cosmic event or becoming). In the cosmos and cosmopolitics there are no representatives. They can protect us from an entrepreneurial version of politics, not limiting pragmatic thought or emotional, intellectual and material skills to the logic of the scientific organization of the labor, accumulation, extraction, producing technology for profit. According to Donna Haraway we have to go back to the Middle Ages to investigate the formation of the market and the accumulation of wealth.

Often, the revolutionary aspect lay not in the act of invention itself, but in its technological refinement and application to political and economic power.
(Wikipedia, entry on Medieval technology)

See the full curatorial text by Dimitrina Sevova as a PDF file here



Amélie Brisson-Darveau
http://www.ameliebd.com/



Amélie Brisson-Darveau's initial interest focused on shadows in relation to literature. More specifically on the loss of the shadow as a means of disturbing (multiplying) the subjectivity of its owner and to interrogate its materiality.

In the current project, she turns her attention towards film noir. These movies, coming from an economic and politically “dark” period (Great Depression and WW II), are particularity appealing because of their visual qualities of shadow play and explicit contrasts of lights. Dark, they are influenced by German expressionist movies (and concrete aesthetics by extension), and the neorealist Italian movies foregrounding the use of shadows to demonstrate monstrosity (a clear reference to WW II).

Film noir, like the literature regarding persons who lost their shadow (by E.T.A. Hoffmann, De Chamisso, Anderson, and Hofmannsthal) which was the basis of my recent works, have one point in common: the character is depersonalized by the deformation and multiplication/disappearance of his/her shadow. Both features, a perishing shadow or one that is projected in an elongated series, activate a “matrix” of fear or threat. The person who lost his/her shadow is excluded, while the one whose shadow is deformed becomes threatening, sometimes monstrous.

This project consist in three small essays on the depersonalization of the shadow. The essays take the form of theatres investigating ways of distortion, transformation and depersonalization of the figure through textures of light and shadow on different stenographical structures. Three theatre boxes generate resonances between different areas of my researches on shadow theatre and marionettes (from Sophie Taeuber Arp), dream, scenography (costume and architecture), studies on movement and film noir.

Mareike Spalteholz
http://www.mareikespalteholz.com/

Simultan

The urban living space is a complex construction. By intersecting/overlapping rooms/areas and topics there seem to be infinite (im-)possibilities. Everything is connected and nearly impossible to divide again.
A cubus-like object showing different photographs of different areas. By moving the single pieces of the object, the images will «melt» into each other and become hard to separate.
A qr-code leads you to a website explaining the various options.

Im Getriebe/ Inside the machine

Something that grows out of sight. A secret world of its own. A cosmos somewhere growing inside. Rotten, disturbing and somehow fascinating at the same time. The beauty of ugly(ness). Structures, landscapes and living things overlap and connect each other.
Macro-photography of self-created coffee-mould/fungus-landscapes.

75%



As the title says: the imperfect of perfection. The work focuses on the simulated, never really coinciding and represented semblance of reality with the help of technical instruments that promise the human being to be able to get closer to things: see more, feel more, be more connected. But the complete opposite is the case.
You always see something that isn’t what you think you see. It can only get you close to an idea of a situation or action. Immediate experiences gets covered by a technical layers (by the reproduction of the reproduction, etc.) that promises closeness and intimacy. Instead, the layers make the immediateness disappear more and more completely. The human being is always connected but never living the moment anymore.
Photography of an iPhone showing a livestream of the partial solar eclipse of 20 March 2015 in Zürich.

Andreas Marti
http://www.andreasmarti.ch/



Andreas Marti's practice incorporates a range of mediums, including paper, paint, photography and chemical substances, with a predilection for sculptural and installation forms of displays. Recent pieces have explored the mechanics of creation through kinetic structures, as well as performances investigating the thin line between matter’s permanence and change.

Conor McFeely
http://www.mentalimage.org.uk/mentalimage.html

Prisoner's Cinema



Conor McFeely has been developing work based on an ongoing interest in the phenomenon of The Prisoners Cinema and the Ganzfeld effect which refers to a condition (an optical illusion) created by perceptual deprivation in the eye and brain experienced by people kept in long term darkness or confined to cells for lengthy periods of time. He has been playing with this notion on various levels. Firstly in relation to the idea of the Prisoner’s Cinema/ Ganzfeld effect as thought of in terms of the biological /neural condition, through audio and video and sculpture, and secondly that of an actual, if somewhat collapsed cinema for one person. The is structure is modeled on a specific and partly collapsed site I have been documenting on and off over a number of years in North West Donegal. This was a former colonial naval fort fallen into disuse after Independence. The extracts included in “Spooky Actions” are indicative of the notion of cinema as a place where contemporary myths and illusions are constructed and shaped. One purpose of the project is to take viewers on a perceptual journey to probe the senses and the intellect. It is known that hallucinations caused by sensory deprivation can, like ganzfeld-induced hallucinations, turn into complex scenes. Conor McFeely has been working with short video montages, “vignettes” using sampled footage from early cinema which combined with my own footage and audio represent the core of the project. The video sequence for this project is one of these and contains sampled footage and outakes from Metroplois. The photographs have a similarly faux Gothic appearance. This is a play on the nature of objective and subjective experience and the imagery used points to possible narratives with socio-political and biological undertones.


Brandon Farnsworth, Benjamin Ryser and HannaH Walter

Sound intervention at the opening and at the finissage, Lointain (2015).

Lointain (2015) is a performance installation developed by Benjamin Ryser and Brandon Farnsworth, performed and interpreted by HannaH Walter. The work explores the production and regulation of an intimate virtual space, as well as its relationship to the outside.

The title of the piece, Lointain, is the French term to describe something distanced from the observer in space and time. It is also a musical term used by composers to describe a certain sound quality (timbre) that evokes this feeling of distance. A body delineating and creating its position on the inside of a space by simulating one on the outside.

In this fourth session we will start investigating lines that can take us from Edgar Allan Poe's The Man of the Crowd to other texts, and back. We will return to it from different angles, exploring its rhizome of interaction with theory and fiction alike, in the genealogy from Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, Gabriel Tarde and Walter Benjamin to Elias Canetti and Bruno Latour, or Gilbert Simondon, Donna Haraway or Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt. Other texts are welcome that can contribute to the diagram, from Science Fiction to microbiological and cosmological scientific texts, philosophy, and contemporary theoretical and fictional writing with new perspectives on the social, which connect the subjects of crowds, swarms, packs, colonies of bacteria, and celestial clusters!

We will start on this endeavor by reading Jorge Luis Borges' A New Refutation of Time, which is a text that in this context can be seen as a bridge between Poe's piece and Benjamin's Flâneur, about strolling the urban space in the middle of the night, in search of lost or wasted time.

We expect not only to read, but also to write, draw, intervene, or display.

English (French see below):

Performative Lecture and Workshop by Raphaële Bidault-Waddington
In complicity with Caroline Palla

Paris-based artist Raphaële Bidault-Waddington returns to Corner College on 9 May for one of her performative lectures (cf. Semiospace), where she proposes a new digression, theoretical and poetic around her three laboratories for artistic research.
Raffinerie Poétique (Poetic Refinery), PIIMS/Petite Industrie de l'Image Sensorielle (Little Industry of the Sensorial Image) and LIID/Laboratoire d'Ingénierie (Idea Engineering Lab) all three feed on a “machinic imaginary”, playing on the illusion of a performing organization and a mastered creation process that can elicit a sense of rationality, clarity and understanding. The LIID in particular has the ambition of affirming the power of “aesthetic intelligence” as a mode of addressing the world and an efficacious form of knowledge production, giving rise to numerous collaborations with universities, urban projects and companies around the world.
Nonetheless the labs overflow, drift, without one being able to grasp where the border lies between the fictitious and the speculative, to such an extent that the story will at times seem incredible, as if all this was not possible. The machinic arrangement of RBW is on the verge of machination, as if behind this so well-articulated ecosystem that is here stripped bare, there was something else, an intrigue, or even a conspiracy.

Behind the appearance of the story of operational transparency, the shadow of doubt lurks, evoking the ghosts that haunt the contemporary era in which the “data-deluge” breaks the benchmarks of truth and in which a new technological empire spoils discernment as the screens suck its lifeblood.

The contact with the economic world elicits different forms of fear that echo the concerns borne by late capitalism, the famous spectre of the invisible hand, or yet Big Data, the new monster generated by the cloud and whose psycho-climatic intoxication PIIMS replays, having become an autonomous world-image ….

All this shall serve as a basis to an exploratory and exhilarating research session around the engineering of these both artistic and cognitive dramatic elements, in complicity with Caroline Palla, a Zurich-based artist and moviemaker, and the public of Corner College.

For further information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapha%C3%ABle_Bidault-Waddington
Websites: http://www.liid.fr, http://goodwill.is.not.free.fr

This performative lecture and workshop is part of the additional program contextualizing and expanding the discourse of the exhibition Spooky Action at a Distance. Artes Mechanicae & Witch's Cradle, which opens on 23 April and closes on 22 May 2015.

This event is kindly supported by the French Embassy in Switzerland.


Français (texte en anglais ci-dessus):

Machination, ou le spectre de la Main Invisible
Conférence performative et atelier de Raphaële Bidault-Waddington
En complicité avec Caroline Palla

L'artiste parisienne Raphaële Bidault-Waddington revient au Corner College pour l'une de ses conférences performative le samedi 9 Mai (voir Semiospace) où elle nous proposera une nouvelle digression théorique et poétique autour de ses trois laboratoires de recherche artistique.

La Raffinerie Poétique, PIIMS/Petite Industrie de l'Image Sensorielle et LIID/Laboratoire d'Ingénierie sont tous trois nourris d'un "imaginaire machinique", se jouant de l'illusion d'une organisation performante et d'un processus de création maîtrisé, propre à susciter un sentiment de rationalité, de clarté et d'entendement. Le LIID se donne tout particulièrement pour ambition d'affirmer la puissance de l'"intelligence esthétique" comme mode d'adresse du monde et forme de production efficace de connaissance, donnant lieu à de nombreuses collaborations avec des universités, des projets urbains et des entreprises de part le monde.

Néanmoins les laboratoires débordent, dérivent, sans que l'on puisse saisir où se situe la frontière du fictif et du spéculatif, et au point que l'histoire semble parfois incroyable, comme si tout ceci n'était pas possible. L'agencement machinique de RBW, frôle la machination comme si, derrière cet écosystème pourtant si bien articulé et ici mis à nu, il y avait encore autre chose, une intrigue voire un complot.

Derrière l'apparence d’un récit de transparence opératoire, l'ombre du doute plane, non sans évoquer les fantômes qui hantent l'ère contemporaine où le "data-déluge" brise les repères de la vérité, et où un nouvel empire technologique abîme le discernement, vampirisé par les écrans.
L'accointance avec le monde économique suscite différentes formes de peur faisant écho aux inquiétudes véhiculées par le capitalisme tardif, le spectre de la fameuse main invisible, ou encore le Big Data, nouveau monstre généré par le cloud, et dont PIIMS, devenu monde-image autonome, rejoue l'ivresse psycho-climatique…

Tout ceci servira de base à une séance de recherche exploratoire et jubilatoire autour de l'ingénierie de ces ressorts dramaturgiques, autant artistiques que cognitifs, en complicité avec Caroline Palla, artiste et cinéaste zurichoise, et le public du Corner College.

Plus d’informations : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapha%C3%ABle_Bidault-Waddington
Sites: http://www.liid.fr, http://goodwill.is.not.free.fr

Cette conférence performative et atelier font partie du programme supplémentaire contextualisant et étendant le discours de l'exposition Spooky Action at a Distance. Artes Mechanicae & Witch's Cradle, qui aura lieu du 23 avril au 22 mai 2015.


Nous tenons à remercier l'Ambassade de France en Suisse de son soutien.

Die Übertragung von menschlichen Handlungen und Denkvorgängen auf Maschinen funktioniert immer dann, wenn sich Handlung und Denken mittels Abstraktion in eine Folge von elementaren und rekombinierbaren Teilaktivitäten zerlegen lassen, also wenn menschliche Handlungen und Denkprozesse als Algorithmen entkörperlicht und dekontextualisert werden können. In welcher Weise diese elementaren und rekombinierbaren Teilaktivitäten zu beschreiben sind, ist jedoch keinesfalls eindeutig zu fassen. So spricht etwa der Kybernetiker Gotthard Günther im Kontext der Maschine von Serien mit unterschiedlichen Freiheitsgraden, wobei er den Konzepten der "Kausalität" und der "Magie" in diesem Zusammenhang die extremen Pole zuweist. Für Günther sind also durchaus "Maschinen" denkbar, die sich allein in magischen Bezugssystemen konstituieren und damit selbst den basalsten Grundlagen der klassischen Kybernetik widersprechen würden. In meinem Vortrag werde ich, ausgehend von Günthers Einordnung, einen Maschinenbegriff skizzieren, in dessen Zusammenhang statische Serialisierungen von Handlungs- und Denkvorgängen in Frage gestellt sowie Spielräume für alternative Verkettungen und somit "Funktionsstrukturen" eröffnet werden. Ziel wird es hierbei sein den Maschinenbegriff in einer Weise scharf zu stellen, dass mittels diesem selbst aktuell relevante künstlerische Phänomene interpretiert werden können.

This lecture is part of the additional program contextualizing and expanding the discourse of the exhibition Spooky Action at a Distance. Artes Mechanicae & Witch's Cradle, which opens on 23 April and closes on 22 May 2015.

18:30h Boris Magrini
Being immortal, again

Recent developments in artificial intelligence, biotechnologies and robotics have produced a body of speculative journalism depicting visions of our future society that are deeply embedded in transhuman (or even posthuman) ideologies. The implementation of global connectivity, social networks and multiplayer online games offered new tools for artists to create works mimicking similar narratives while contributing to a critical discussion of these visionary prophecies. Between fictions and predictions, how are artists helping to shape and imagine our future immortality?



19:30h Rayelle Niemann
Syria's uprising on-line
perspectives on the massive quantity of imagery, on ethics, icons, and narrations, methodology of archiving and memorising






Followed by a discussion with Boris Magrini, Rayelle Niemann and the audience.

Finissage of the exhibition Spooky Action at a Distance. Artes Mechanicae & Witch's Cradle, which opens on 23 April and closes today on 22 May 2015.

18h00: Discussion between the artists and the curators, with Amélie Brisson-Darveau, Andreas Marti, Conor McFeely, Mareike Spalteholz, Gabriel Gee and Dimitrina Sevova.



19h00: Discussion with Cathérine Hug on "The" Black Square.





With a sound intervention, Lointain (2015) by Brandon Farnsworth, Benjamin Ryser and HannaH Walter.

From 19:00h till the end.

In her lecture-performance, Delphine Chapuis Schmitz will activate a text written by Kenneth Goldsmith* by literally rewriting it and having it projected “live” for the audience.

* and published in 2013 as the first movement of “Suite for Exhibition(s) and Publication(s)”, a proposal by Mathieu Copeland for the Jeu de Paume in Paris.

The lecture-performance will be held in English.

Deutsch (English see below):

Die berüchtigte Nachteule, auch bekannt unter dem Namen Lorde's Hole, zeitenweise auch Café Luxemburg, dann wieder Virginia's Notfallstation, oder Wittig's genannt, empfing während Jahrzehnten unzählige berühmte, aber auch lichtscheue Gäst_innen aus dem Quartier und aus aller Welt. Diese verqualmte, tiefgründige Lesbenbar, war bekannt für kunstvolle Darbietungen der queer_feministischen Art und raffiniert vorbereitete Spirituosen. Im Hinterzimmer der Bar war das Redaktionsbüro der Streitschrift Das Korsett untergebracht. Nächtelange Pokerrunden, Sitzungen, Diskussionen und queerleske Stripshows, Performances, legendäre Konzerte, Filmscreenings, nicht zu vergessen Lesungen von Poesie, Prosa,Theorie, polemischen, politischen, persönlichen Texten, Notizen und Randnotizen, fanden allesamt im gemütlichen verruchten Ambiente dieser Bar statt.

Am Freitag 29. Mai 2015 werden die Erinnerungen an die Nachteule wieder ins Leben gerufen:

Nachteule reloaded! Kommt alle und seid dort und lasst euch überraschen von der unwiderstehlichen Magie dieser geschichtsträchtigen Lokalität.

Ab 19h Barbetrieb und Intermezzi

Solianlass für fraum* - Frauen*Zentrum Zürich - http://www.fraum.ch

open for all genders


English (Deutsch siehe oben):


The infamous Nightowl, also know as Lorde's Hole, some of the time also as Café Luxemburg, and then also as Virginia's Emergencyroom or the Wittig's, received during decades uncountable famous, but also shade-loving guests from the neighborhood, and the whole world. This smoky, profound lesbian bar, was known for fancy presentations of the queer_feminist kind and refinedly prepared spirits. The back-room of the bar accommodated the editorial office of the polemic paper Das Korsett. Pokerrounds, meetings, discussions and queerlesque stripshows, performances, legendary concerts, film screenings, not to forget readings of poetry, prose, theory, polemic, political, personal texts, notes and side notes all night long, took all together place in the cozy wicked ambience of this bar.

Friday May 29th 2015 the memories of the Nightowl will be revived:

Nightowl reloaded! Welcome everybody and be there and let the irresistible magic of this locality steeped in her_story surprise you.

From 7pm on: Bar and intermezzi

Soli for fraum* - Wom*en's Center Zurich - http://www.fraum.ch

open for all genders

6. BIS 26. JUNI 2015
Eröffnung am 5. Juni um 19:00 Uhr

Mit: Elisa Foster, Janette Barber, Mariana Matveichuk/Larissa Venediktova, Mike The Intern, Maccadole, Rachel Mayeri, LadyLila12, Séverine Urwyler und Trevor Yeung

Kuratiert von Benjamin Egger

Öffnungszeiten:
Mittwoch: 16:00 bis 18:00 Uhr
Donnerstag: 18:00 bis 20:00 Uhr
Freitag: 16:00 bis 18:00 Uhr
Samstag: 14:00 bis 18:00 uhr

Die Ausstellung DISPLAYING HUMANS befragt das Körperverständnis des Menschen in Bezug zur kulturellen Konstruktion des Tieres. Die Fähigkeit des Tieres, den eigenen Körper im Affekt zu benutzen, wird mit der menschlichen Vorstellung von authentischem Körperausdruck gedacht. Es gibt kein zurück zum Tier - nur ein nie hier gewesen sein.

The exhibition DISPLAYING HUMANS emerges questions about the human body awareness in relation to the cultural construction of the animal. The capability of the animal to use its body in the heat of the moment is thought through the human concept of authenticity. There is no return to the animal – just a never-have-been-here.


PROGRAMM:


Screening: The Human Animal part 1 to 3
(in Englisch)

Part 1: Language In The Body
Part 2: The Hunting Ape
Part 3: The Human Zoo

The Human Animal ist eine BBC Dokumentarfilmserie von und mit Desmond Morris. Die Erstausstrahlung war am 27. Juli 1994 in England. Morris beschreibt die Serie als eine Studie des menschlichen Verhaltens aus einer zoologischen Perspektive. In der Serie bereist er filmend die Welt – auf der Suche nach Bräuchen und Gewohnheiten in verschiedenen Regionen und ihrem gemeinsamen Ursprung.

The Human Animal is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by Desmond Morris, first transmitted in the United Kingdom from 27 July 1994.
Morris describes it as "A study of human behavior from a zoological perspective." He travels the world, filming the diverse customs and habits of various regions while suggesting common roots.

---

Screening: The Human Animal part 3 to 6
(in Englisch)

Part 4: The Biology of Love
Part 5: The Immortal Genes
Part 6: Beyond Survival

The Human Animal ist eine BBC Dokumentarfilmserie von und mit Desmond Morris. Die Erstausstrahlung war am 27. Juli 1994 in England. Morris beschreibt die Serie als eine Studie des menschlichen Verhaltens aus einer zoologischen Perspektive. In der Serie bereist er filmend die Welt – auf der Suche nach Bräuchen und Gewohnheiten in verschiedenen Regionen und ihrem gemeinsamen Ursprung.

The Human Animal is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by Desmond Morris, first transmitted in the United Kingdom from 27 July 1994.
Morris describes it as "A study of human behavior from a zoological perspective." He travels the world, filming the diverse customs and habits of various regions while suggesting common roots.

---

Workshop: How to Act Like an Animal
Mit Rachel Mayeri (L.A.)
(in Englisch)

Auf Anmeldung (nur 10 Teilnehmerinnen): cornercollege@gmail.com

Der Workshop erkundet die Kommunikationsformen und die soziale Struktur von Primaten. Die Teilnehmerinnen werden Videos von Verhaltensformen bei Wildtieren beobachten und lernen wie sich ein Affe gebärdet, bewegt und ausdrückt. Es werden Techniken aus dem Theater angewendet und wir werden uns im Verhalten von Schimpansen und Bonobos üben.

This performative workshop explores primate communication and social organization and leads to a videotaped wildlife film, part of the Primate Cinema series. Participants will watch videos of animal behavior in the wild, learning how apes act, move, vocalize, and express their feelings. We'll try physical theatre techniques and improvise in chimpanzee and bonobo acting exercises.

---

Werkpräsentation von Rachel Mayeri
(in Englisch)

Rachel Mayeri ist eine in Los Angeles lebende Medienkünstlerin. Sie arbeitet an der Schnittstelle zwischen Kunst und Wissenschaft. Ihre Projekte erkunden die Geschichte von Special Effects bis hin zum menschlichen Tier. Die Videos und Installationen waren u.a. am Sundance Festival, der Berlinale, der Documenta 13, an der Ars Electronica, im Getty Museum oder im MoMA PS1 zu sehen.

Rachel Mayeri is a Los Angeles-based media artist working at the intersection of science and art. Her projects explore topics ranging from the history of special effects to the human animal. Her videos and installations have shown at Sundance, Berlinale, Documenta 13, Ars Electronica, The Getty Museum, and MoMA PS1.

---

Workshop und Videodreh: How to Act Like an Animal
Mit Rachel Mayeri (L.A.)
(in Englisch)

Auf Anmeldung (nur 10 Teilnehmerinnen): cornercollege@gmail.com

Der Workshop erkundet die Kommunikationsformen und die soziale Struktur von Primaten. Die Teilnehmerinnen werden Videos von Verhaltensformen bei Wildtieren beobachten und lernen wie sich ein Affe gebärdet, bewegt und ausdrückt. Es werden Techniken aus dem Theater angewendet und wir werden uns im Verhalten von Schimpansen und Bonobos üben. Die Ergebnisse des Workshops werden am Schluss auf Video aufgezeichnet.

This performative workshop explores primate communication and social organization and leads to a videotaped wildlife film, part of the Primate Cinema series. Participants will watch videos of animal behavior in the wild, learning how apes act, move, vocalize, and express their feelings. We'll try physical theatre techniques and improvise in chimpanzee and bonobo acting exercises. The outcome of this workshop will in the end be captured on video.

---

Werkpräsentation von Trevor Yeung (Hong Kong)
(in Englisch)

Trevor Yeung ist ein in Hong Kong lebender und arbeitender Künstler. Er schloss 2010 an der Academy of Visual Arts, HKBU in Hong Kong ab und ist zurzeit an einer Arbeit über Haustiere und der Rechtssituation von Tieren als Ausstellungselementen. Seine Arbeiten waren u.a. an der Art Basel Hong Kong, im Para Site in Hong Kong ode rim CAFA Art Museum Beijing zu sehen.

Trevor Yeung is a Hong Kong based artist born in Guangdong. He graduated 2010 from the Academy of Visual Arts, HKBU in Hong Kong and currently lives and works in Hong Kong. At present he’s researching on pet animal and the legal situation of animals in art spaces. His works were shown among other places at the Art Basel Hong Kong, Para Site in Hong Kong or at the CAFA Art Museum in Beijing.

Part 1: Language In The Body
Part 2: The Hunting Ape
Part 3: The Human Zoo

The Human Animal ist eine BBC Dokumentarfilmserie von und mit Desmond Morris. Die Erstausstrahlung war am 27. Juli 1994 in England. Morris beschreibt die Serie als eine Studie des menschlichen Verhaltens aus einer zoologischen Perspektive. In der Serie bereist er filmend die Welt – auf der Suche nach Bräuchen und Gewohnheiten in verschiedenen Regionen und ihrem gemeinsamen Ursprung.

The Human Animal is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by Desmond Morris, first transmitted in the United Kingdom from 27 July 1994.
Morris describes it as "A study of human behavior from a zoological perspective." He travels the world, filming the diverse customs and habits of various regions while suggesting common roots.

Part 4: The Biology of Love
Part 5: The Immortal Genes
Part 6: Beyond Survival

The Human Animal ist eine BBC Dokumentarfilmserie von und mit Desmond Morris. Die Erstausstrahlung war am 27. Juli 1994 in England. Morris beschreibt die Serie als eine Studie des menschlichen Verhaltens aus einer zoologischen Perspektive. In der Serie bereist er filmend die Welt – auf der Suche nach Bräuchen und Gewohnheiten in verschiedenen Regionen und ihrem gemeinsamen Ursprung.

The Human Animal is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by Desmond Morris, first transmitted in the United Kingdom from 27 July 1994.
Morris describes it as "A study of human behavior from a zoological perspective." He travels the world, filming the diverse customs and habits of various regions while suggesting common roots.

Mit Rachel Mayeri (L.A.)
(in Englisch)

Auf Anmeldung (nur 10 Teilnehmerinnen): cornercollege@gmail.com

Der Workshop erkundet die Kommunikationsformen und die soziale Struktur von Primaten. Die Teilnehmerinnen werden Videos von Verhaltensformen bei Wildtieren beobachten und lernen wie sich ein Affe gebärdet, bewegt und ausdrückt. Es werden Techniken aus dem Theater angewendet und wir werden uns im Verhalten von Schimpansen und Bonobos üben.

This performative workshop explores primate communication and social organization and leads to a videotaped wildlife film, part of the Primate Cinema series. Participants will watch videos of animal behavior in the wild, learning how apes act, move, vocalize, and express their feelings. We'll try physical theatre techniques and improvise in chimpanzee and bonobo acting exercises.

Rachel Mayeri ist eine in Los Angeles lebende Medienkünstlerin. Sie arbeitet an der Schnittstelle zwischen Kunst und Wissenschaft. Ihre Projekte erkunden die Geschichte von Special Effects bis hin zum menschlichen Tier. Die Videos und Installationen waren u.a. am Sundance Festival, der Berlinale, der Documenta 13, an der Ars Electronica, im Getty Museum oder im MoMA PS1 zu sehen.

Rachel Mayeri is a Los Angeles-based media artist working at the intersection of science and art. Her projects explore topics ranging from the history of special effects to the human animal. Her videos and installations have shown at Sundance, Berlinale, Documenta 13, Ars Electronica, The Getty Museum, and MoMA PS1.

Mit Rachel Mayeri (L.A.)
(in Englisch)

Auf Anmeldung (nur 10 Teilnehmerinnen): cornercollege@gmail.com

Der Workshop erkundet die Kommunikationsformen und die soziale Struktur von Primaten. Die Teilnehmerinnen werden Videos von Verhaltensformen bei Wildtieren beobachten und lernen wie sich ein Affe gebärdet, bewegt und ausdrückt. Es werden Techniken aus dem Theater angewendet und wir werden uns im Verhalten von Schimpansen und Bonobos üben. Die Ergebnisse des Workshops werden am Schluss auf Video aufgezeichnet.

This performative workshop explores primate communication and social organization and leads to a videotaped wildlife film, part of the Primate Cinema series. Participants will watch videos of animal behavior in the wild, learning how apes act, move, vocalize, and express their feelings. We'll try physical theatre techniques and improvise in chimpanzee and bonobo acting exercises. The outcome of this workshop will in the end be captured on video.

(in Englisch)

Trevor Yeung ist ein in Hong Kong lebender und arbeitender Künstler. Er schloss 2010 an der Academy of Visual Arts, HKBU in Hong Kong ab und ist zurzeit an einer Arbeit über Haustiere und der Rechtssituation von Tieren als Ausstellungselementen. Seine Arbeiten waren u.a. an der Art Basel Hong Kong, im Para Site in Hong Kong ode rim CAFA Art Museum Beijing zu sehen.

Trevor Yeung is a Hong Kong based artist born in Guangdong. He graduated 2010 from the Academy of Visual Arts, HKBU in Hong Kong and currently lives and works in Hong Kong. At present he’s researching on pet animal and the legal situation of animals in art spaces. His works were shown among other places at the Art Basel Hong Kong, Para Site in Hong Kong or at the CAFA Art Museum in Beijing.

English (Deutsch siehe unten):

This is the fourth event of the series Sunday Brunch – Making Space for Kids and Animals.

For this Sunday 28.06 as a surprise there all be still the setup installed from the exhibition Displaying Humans​ including an indoor playground​. Kids, parents, animals are invited to make animal masks. We will bake giant Zopfs and muffins. You are welcome to contribute either by bringing something for the brunch or by giving around 10 fran​c​s.

Deutsch (English above):

Dies ist die vierte Veranstaltung der Serie Sunday Brunch – Making Space for Kids and Animals.

An diesem Sonntag, dem 19. April wird als Überraschung der Aufbau der Ausstellung Displaying Humans noch bestehen. Wir werden Riesenzöpfe und Muffins backen. Ihr könnt gern beitragen, indem Ihr etwas für den Brunch mitbringt, oder mit einer Spende von etwa 10 Franken.

(English below)

Achte Probe des CC Choir.

Der Chor als Klangkörper, der durch die Summe der einzelnen, klingenden Menschenkörper entsteht, ist eine der ältesten gemeinschaftsbildenden Tätigkeiten. Wir verstehen den CC Choir als Experiment auf diese ursprüngliche, prä-humane Tradition zurück zu blicken und in der Freude seinen eigenen Körper als Klangproduzent zu benutzen, neben dem gemeinsamen Singen von bekannten Liedern, rituelle und animalische Gesangstechniken zu erproben.

Der Chor ist offen für alle und das Repertoire wird gemeinsam ausgesucht und erprobt.

Die Chorleitung hat Oscar Mario Echeverry inne.

(Deutsch siehe oben)

8th CC Choir rehearsal.

The choir as an ensemble given by the sum of the singular, resonating human bodies, is one of the oldest community-building activities. We understand the CC Choir as an experiment harking back to this original, pre-human tradition to use one-s own body with pleasure as a sound producer, and besides singing known songs together, to experiment in ritual and animalistic singing techniques.

The choir is open to all, and the repertoire will be elaborated and practiced together.

The choir is under the direction of Oscar Mario Echeverry.

Ab 21:00h

Concert:
BATMAN

Sound:
flexin & fly robin
Frau Hermann
Nicki Manij

Special Appearance:
Milenko Lazic

Crêpes by Dienstgebäude
Nipomo Burrito by Brigham Baker
Schnaps by Michél Kiwic

By: Corner College, Chamber of Fine Arts, SALON contemporary projects, Dienstgebäude, Le Foyer, Les Complices*, Counter Space, menuedata_GAST, Kunsthaus Aussersihl, eggn'spoon

Provitreff, Sihlquai 240, 8005 Zürich

Eintritt: 5.-- Fr.

Hannah Gieseler & Esther Kempf
Ausstellung im Corner College, 17. Juli – 8. August 2015
Eröffnung: 16. Juli um 19.00 Uhr


Wir neigen und dehnen uns beim Kleiderwaschen, wir recken und strecken den Körper zum Fensterputzen, wir trainieren beim Treppensteigen, wir vollziehen Kniebeugen beim Ausräumen der Abwaschmaschine oder beim Schuhe binden. Die Ausstellung Zwei Sätze à zwölf Wiederholungen zeigt Resultate von Experimenten, die Bezüge zwischen Bewegungen aus zwei unterschiedlichen Kontexten untersuchen: Bewegungen, die im Fitnessstudio ausgeführt werden und Bewegungen, die wir beim Erledigen des Haushalts und im alltäglichen Leben vollbringen.

Hannah Gieseler und Esther Kempf haben beide an der Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, NL studiert. Beide beschäftigen sich in ihren Arbeiten mit der Wahrnehmung und den Möglichkeiten, diese zu täuschen oder von ihr getäuscht zu werden. Zudem haben sie eine Vorliebe für ausgeklügelte und eigentümliche bis zwecklose Gerätschaften. 2006 hatten sie eine Duo-Ausstellung im Projektraum 1646 in Den Haag, NL. Zu dieser Zeit teilten sie sich eine Wohnung, die sie mit hyper-praktischen Vorrichtungen ausstatteten – wie zum Beispiel einem Bett, das zu einer Bühne umgebaut werden konnte, ein Ventilator, der als Schneemaschine für ein improvisiertes Krippenspiel fungierte, oder einen überdimensionierten Haken, mit dem man vom Balkon aus im Garten das Inventar der Vormieter angeln konnte, einen Backofen der nur über eine Leiter zu erreichen war und ein Küchenradio, das durch einen Flaschenzug mit dem Gewürzregal verbunden war.

Hier knüpfen Gieseler und Kempf an und führen ihre Recherchen weiter; sie analysieren und interpretieren alltägliche Aktionen, ihre Bedeutungen und Nebenbedeutungen sowie die Verbindung zwischen Körper und Gegenständen im Haus und im Fitnesscenter – zwischen Klischee und Realität.

Nach dem Studium ist Gieseler nach Berlin und Kempf nach Zürich gegangen. Über die Distanz führen Sie nun ihre Recherche und Beobachtungen der alltäglichen Aktionen weiter. Die Ausstellungsvorbereitungen passieren somit an drei Orten: in Berlin, in Zürich und online. Auf dem Blog housekeepingandbodybuilding sammeln die Künstlerinnen Ideen, Referenzen und erste Ansätze. So haben sich bereits Kategorien wie „Schwierige Übungen“, „Gerätschaften“, „Schuhe binden“, „Formen“ und “Archiv“ gebildet in denen die Recherche und Ideen gesammelt, kommentiert, weiterentwickelt und erste Experimente vorgestellt werden.

Gieseler & Kempf gehen humorvoll mit den gegenwärtigen Klischees des Fitnesswahns und der häuslichen Arbeit um und provozieren den Betrachter mit ihrer scherzhaften Ernsthaftigkeit.­








Blog: https://housekeepingandbodybuilding.wordpress.com

This summer Erica van Loon lives and works in Wald ZH (CH) at Artist on a Hill, a residency organized by Arts Atrium. Here she researches for new works, gathering input from her new surroundings and through visits to, i.a., the department of earth sciences at ETH University in Zürich and the Jung Institute in Küsnacht.

Through an extensive range of media she studies possible relations to our natural environment, often taking the human body as a starting point. During her work presentation at Corner College she will show a special compilation, consisting of existing works and new thoughts and sketches of what she explored during her residency in the nearby hills.

Buchvernissage und Ausstellungseröffnung
von Julia Kälin und Silvan Kälin (Editora Aplicação)
mit einer Sound Performance von Andrea Brunner & Andreas Glauser.

Wenn das Wetter mitspielt, gibt es auf dem Vorplatz des Corner College ein barbecue. Bringt eure Lieblings-Grilldelikatessen mit. If the weather works out, there will be a barbecue in front of Corner College. Please bring your favorite grillables.


Eröffnung und Buchvernissage: 20.00 Uhr
Soundperformance: 21.30 Uhr

Ausstellung: 15.8. bis 21.8.2015
Öffnungszeiten Ausstellung
Sa, So, Di, Mi, Fr: 15 - 18 Uhr
Do: 15 - 20 Uhr

Anlass für die Ausstellung und die Buchvernissage im Corner College ist die Publikation 1/10 of accumulation no. 6, welche während Julia Kälins Aufenthalt in Recife (Brasilien) in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Verlag Editora Aplicação entstanden ist.

Silvan Kälin von Editora Aplicação wird während des Abends weitere Publikationsprojekte vorstellen, die er zusammen mit Priscila Gonzaga in Brasilien herausgegeben und produziert hat.

Anschliessend lassen Andrea Brunner und Andreas Glauser in ihrer experimentellen Soundperformance Frequenzen schwingen, Lärmpartikel kollidieren und Tieftöner brummen.

Mehr Informationen: Andrea Brunner / Andreas Glauser, Silvan Kälin, Julia Kälin

Andreas Glauser: http://www.brainhall.net/artproduction_perf.htm
Andrea Brunner: http://www.andreabrunner.com/
Julia Kälin: http://www.brainhall.net/juliakaelin/choice.htm
Editora Aplicação: http://editoraaplicacao.com.br
Silvan Kälin: http://amarelo.ch

artellewa is an art space, founded and managed by visual artist Hamdy Reda since 2007. The space is located in Ard El Lewa, a densely populated informal area located between two of Cairo’s informal areas, Imbiba and Boulak El Dakrour. artellewa creates a space for the formation and activation of dialogue between artists and society; facilitates artists projects, offers workshops for community members and emerging artists, exhibits art and hosts artists-in-residence in addition to providing special projects to enrich the civic and cultural life in Ard El Lewa, and use art to improve the urban environment.

artellewa aims to create a space for reflection during this time of transition; a space for rejuvenation of ideas and progressive thought and connect Ard El Lewa and its inhabitants with the broader culture of the city and the world through art, and creates a unique opportunity for Egyptian and foreign artists to interact and experiment with the local community and environment.

artellewa creates a space for the formation and activation of dialogue between artists and society.

The Hydra Project

Maja Smrekar < Hu.M.C.C. >
at Corner College, Zurich (CH), an installation and work in progress curated by Boris Magrini as part of Hackteria's The Hydra Project.

August 25-30, 2015

Opening hours:
Tue / Wed / Fri / Sat / Sun: 14:00h - 18:00h
Thu: 15:00h - 19:00h

The Hydra Project is an initiative of Hackteria, which aims to foster artistic and literary ventures in addition to the association’s main mission of promoting knowledge sharing and citizen’s science. The hydra is a mythological creature, a hybrid, a polychephalous monster and antagonist to fictional heroes seeking glory and fortune. It is also the name of a small organism, a water animal with the ability to indefinitely regenerate its cells and tissues, hence being virtually immortal and therefore a fascinating subject for biologists and researchers. The crossbreed form of the hydra is a metaphor for the merging of art and science that characterizes the activities of the Hackteria platform while signifying a multiplicity of interventions across a variety of disciplines. The project aims to support and present artists working with biotechnologies in collaboration with cultural institutions in Switzerland and worldwide, presenting their work to a wider public. Furthermore, it seeks to foster exchanges and encounters between artists, curators, critics and researchers of trans-disciplinary fields and with a larger public.

During a Hydra Project, one or more artists are invited to stage an intervention within the space of the partner institution or at an alternative location in the city. The artists are selected on the basis of their personal and creative use of biotechnologies, DIY/DIWO tools and hacking strategies and they are encouraged to develop new projects and partnerships. At Corner College in Zurich, Slovenian artist Maja Smrekar will present her work Hu.M.C.C. (Human Molecular Colonization Capacity) from August 25 to 30. The work consists of the presentation of a nutriment, the Maya YogHurt, which was produced in a laboratory by creating a new genetically modified microorganism containing the artist’s enzyme. It is a very provocative work, questioning the industrial food chain and its sustainability while also raising ethical questions about the future possibilities for nutrition offered by biotechnologies.




On Thursday August 27 at 7pm, Corner College will host a public talk with the participation of Maja Smrekar (SI), Jens Hauser (curator, art and media studies scholar, DE/DK/FR) and Sven Panke (Professor at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETHZ, DE). On Saturday August 29, the artist will offer a workshop, presenting and sharing her artistic research and allowing the public to experiment with the Maya YogHurt. In addition, Maja Smrekar has been invited to share her artistic research and findings with the public through the Hydra Reader, a small publication printed as a compendium to the project.

 
Events
- August 25-30: Work in progress installation of Maja Smrekar’s .
- Thursday, August 27, 6 pm: official opening of the exhibition followed by a public talk.
- Thursday, August 27, 7 pm: public talk with the participation of Maja Smrekar, Jens Hauser and Sven Panke.
- Saturday, August 29, 4 pm: open Workshop with Maja Smrekar.


Hackteria is an international network active since 2009 in the field of Open Source Biological Art.


Thanks to
Biofaction KG, Migros-Kulturprozent

Public talk with the participation of Maja Smrekar (SI), Jens Hauser (curator, art and media studies scholar, DE/DK/FR) and Sven Panke (Professor at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETHZ, DE).

This public talk is part of the installation by Maja Smrekar, < Hu.M.C.C. > at Corner College, Zurich (CH), August 25-30, 2015.


The Hydra Project is an initiative by Hackteria, an international network active since 2009 in the field of Open Source Biological Art.


Thanks to
Biofaction KG, Migros-Kulturprozent

Open workshop in which Maja Smrekar will present and share her artistic research and allow the public to experiment with the Maya YogHurt.

The workshop is part of the installation by Maja Smrekar, < Hu.M.C.C. > at Corner College, Zurich (CH), August 25-30, 2015.

The Hydra Project is an initiative by Hackteria, an international network active since 2009 in the field of Open Source Biological Art.


Thanks to
Biofaction KG, Migros-Kulturprozent

eine Ausstellung von Sarah Burger
Eröffnung: Freitag, 4. September 2015, 19 Uhr
Ausstellung bis 25. September

Öffnungszeiten:
Mi/Fr/Sa: 14:00h - 18:00h
Do: 15:00h - 19:00h

Kollaborationen mit Erde, Stoff und Polyester.
Umgekehrte Archäologie.
9 Objekte vergraben an 8 Orten.
Ein Projekt über das Verschwinden und darüber, was dabei zu Tage tritt.

Sarah Burgers Projekt (un)earthed besteht aus 9 Skulpturen/ Objekten aus kompostierbarem Stoff und Polyesterfaden, die sie an 8 unterschiedlichen Orten vergraben hat und im Abstand von etwa 3 Wochen immer wieder aufsucht, der Erde entnimmt, beobachtet, dokumentiert und wieder vergräbt.

Die Ausstellung im Corner College gibt einen Einblick in den Prozess, nimmt seine Strukturen auf und erweitert ihn räumlich um Bilder, Videos, Installationen und Gespräche.

Gespräche in der Ausstellung:

Donnerstag, 10. September, 19 Uhr
Michael Wagner (Architekt), Romy Rüegger (Künstlerin), Gioia Dal Molin (Kunstwissenschaftlerin) und Sarah Burger

Donnerstag, 24. September, 19 Uhr
Michael Günzburger (Künstler), Gioia Dal Molin und Sarah Burger


Das Projekt (un)earthed wird unterstützt von der Ernst und Olga Gubler-Hablützel Stiftung.
Danke auch der Firma Freitag für F-ABRIC©.

Viktor Misiano is invited to Corner College in the context of his curatorial visit to Zurich for the upcoming project at the National Center for Contemporary Arts in Moscow about The Human Condition. As we have the opportunity to have Viktor Misiano with us, we would like to open a discussion on independent curatorial work, philosophical-social-political thoughts on independent practices of curating and writing, what it means to work independently, what role independent intellectuals could play in Russia and globally in relation to the concept of democracy.

Viktor Misiano is an independent curator, publisher, art theoretician and critic, living in Moscow.

From 1980 to 1990 he was a curator of contemporary art at the Pushkin National Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. From 1992 to 1997 he was the director of the Center for Contemporary Art (CAC) in Moscow. He curated the Russian participation in the Istanbul Biennale (1992), the Venice Biennale (1995, 2003, and 2005), the São Paulo Biennale (2002, 2004), and the Valencia Biennale (2001). He was on the curatorial team for the Manifesta I in Rotterdam in 1996. In 1993 he was a founder of the Moscow Art Magazine (Moscow) and has been its editor-in-chief ever since; in 2003 he was a founder of the «Manifesta Journal: Journal of Contemporary Curatorship» (Amsterdam) and has been an editor there since 2011. In 2005 he curated the first Central Asian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. In 2007 he realized the large scale exhibition project «Progressive Nostalgia: Art from the Former USSR» in the Centro per l’arte contemporanea, Prato (Italy); the Benaki Museum, Athens; KUMU, Tallinn and KIASMA, Helsinki.

He is a lecturer at the Nuova Academia Belle Arti (NABA), Milano and holds an honorary doctorate from the Helsinki University for Art and Design. In 2014 he published the book «Five Lectures of Curatorship» by AdMarginem Publishing, Moscow.

Misiano has collaborated with numerous art magazines, given lectures at The Royal College of Art (London, UK) and School of Visual Arts (New York City, USA) and numerous other universities and art schools, and curated a variety of art projects, internationally and in Moscow.

b_books ist ein kollektiv organisierter Buchladen, Verlag und Veranstaltungsort in Berlin. Das Programm umfasst Filmvorführungen, Lesungen sowie Diskussionen und hat meist einen improvisierten Charakter. Alle Arbeitsfelder sind inhaltlich und ökonomisch eng miteinander verknüpft und bilden einen sozialen Raum, der sich temporär und in verschiedenen Konstellationen mit dem Kunstbereich, politischen Projekten und weiteren Orten in Berlin und anderswo kurzschließt.



Bei Corner College wird Karolin Meunier die Arbeit von b_books vorstellen und das zuletzt von ihr betreute Verlagsprojekt, die deutsche Übersetzung des Romans Torpor von Chris Kraus. Die US-amerikanische Autorin und Künstlerin schreibt Romane und Kunstkritiken und lebt in Los Angeles. Ihr dritter Roman (engl. Org. 2006) ist eine Erzählung über die frühen 1990er, über die Zeit von Amerikas erstem Golfkrieg, den Fall der Berliner Mauer und die Medienrevolution in Rumänien.

Gespräch mit Michael Wagner (Architekt), Romy Rüegger (Künstlerin), Gioia Dal Molin (Kunstwissenschaftlerin) und Sarah Burger

Dieses Gespräch ist Teil der Ausstellung (un)earthed von Sarah Burger
04.-26.09.2015

Gespräch mit Michael Günzburger (Künstler), Gioia Dal Molin (Kunstwissenschaftlerin) und Sarah Burger

Dieses Gespräch ist Teil der Ausstellung (un)earthed von Sarah Burger
04.-26.09.2015

[English text below]

«Film in Bewegung» und Home of the Brave / Corner College präsentieren:

Im Oral History Projekt «Video Stories» kommen Videoschaffende zu Wort. Sie haben in der Schweiz während den 80er-Jahren die Erforschung des damals noch neuen Mediums Video massgeblich geprägt: in der 80er Jugendbewegung, in Do-it-yourself Projekten, in der ethnografischen Forschung, im Dokumentar- und Spielfilm sowie in der bildenden Kunst. Die Videoschaffenden erzählen von ihrem persönlichen Werdegang und wie sie mit dem Medium Video in Berührung kamen: Welche Erfahrungen machten sie mit Video? Wie prägte der Umgang mit Video ihr Leben und ihre weitere berufliche Entwicklung? Welche Auswirkung hat ihr Schaffen auf Kultur und die neuen Medien bis heute?

Heinz Nigg zeigt Ausschnitte aus seinen Videogesprächen mit Samir (Iraqi Odyssee), Christian Schmid (Video in der Stadtforschung), Thomas Krempke (Züri brännt) und Margrit Bürer (Community Video). Mit einer Diskussion über Oral History als transdisziplinäre Methode. Welche Bedeutung hat Oral History für Kunst, Forschung und Archive von urbanen Bewegungen?

Über die Veranstaltungsreihe «Film in Bewegung»
Durch das Internet wird heute das Arbeiten mit Filmkameras in sozialen Bewegungen und in der Alternativkultur vielfältiger und professioneller. Videos können ohne grossen Aufwand in verschiedenste Bewegungszusammenhänge eingebaut werden. Doch werden dadurch die Filme besser? Und erreichen sie auch ein Live-Publikum und nicht nur die online-community? In «Film in Bewegung» kommen Filmschaffende zu Wort, die Einblicke in ihre Arbeit geben und im Gespräch mit dem Publikum der Frage nachgehen, ob sich Anspruch und Wirklichkeit von Gegenöffentlichkeit decken - damals und heute.

Veranstalter
Konzeptbüro Rote Fabrik und AV-Productions NIGG in Zusammenarbeit mit Corner College (in der Reihe Home of the Brave) und dem Schweizerischen Sozialarchiv.


[Deutscher Text oben]

«Film in Motion» and Corner College present:

Video Stories: An Oral History by Heinz Nigg
about independent video in the Eighties

Heinz Nigg is a visual anthropologist and community artist in Zurich, Switzerland. He did social anthropology, history and political science at the University of Zurich, and finished his studies with an ethnographic documentation of alternative video and community media practise in the UK 1976-1980. Since then he has been working as an independent researcher and community artist. His fields of interest are social movements, alternative culture, youth protest, migration, urban development, media art and visual anthropology.

In the oral history project «Video Stories» the voices of video makers find expression. During the 80s they explored the then new medium video: in urban movements, in DIY-projects, in ethnographic field research, in filmmaking as well as in the visual arts. The video workers - as some called themselves - talk about their background and how they got in touch with video. How did they experience the new medium? How did video influence their lives and careers? What impact did the period of independent video have on their present understanding of media, art and politics?

Heinz Nigg shows excerpts of video interviews with Samir (Iraqi Odyssee), Christian Schmid (video in urban research), Thomas Krempke (Züri brännt) and Margrit Bürer (Community Video). The discussion also will focus on Oral History as a transdisciplinary method. How can Oral History contribute to understand processes of paradigm change in the visual arts, in cultural studies and urban movements?

About the series of events «Film in Motion»
Working with film in urban movements has become more varied and gained new channels of distribution through the use of the Internet. Without great efforts videos can be built into most different movement contexts. But has filmic representation of movement activities improved? And do movement films also reach out to a live audience and not only to an informed online-community of insiders? In «Film in Motion» filmmakers, artists, researchers and activists give valuable insights into their practise as film producers. How do claims of nurturing counter-public discourses match with reality - then and now?

Organised by Konzeptbüro Rote Fabrik and AV-Productions NIGG in cooperation with Corner College (in the series Home of the Brave) and Schweizerisches Sozialarchiv.

Join us for an evening of drinks and the presentation of four new books by Jenny Rova, Ester Vonplon, Will Stacey and Roger Eberhard. Jenny and Ester will be present to sign and talk about their publications. We look forward to welcoming you.

Will Stacey - Deadline

Jenny Rova - I would also like to be

Ester Vonplon und Stephan Eicher - Gletscherfahrt

Roger Eberhart - Martin Parr looking at books


b.frank books was founded by Zurich born photographer Roger Eberhard in 2011. The Swiss publishing house is run by Eberhard and Ester Vonplon and currently publishes four to six books a year. b.frank books’ main focus is the photographic artist’s book, presenting the work of young artists from all over the world.

b.frank books online: bfrankbooks.com

A screening and podium discussion at Kino Xenix organized and curated by Corner College.

With Silvia Maglioni & Graeme Thomson, Christoph Brunner, Dimitrina Sevova, HOSPIZ DER FAULHEIT.

The film is in French with English titles. The main language of the podium discussion will be English.

Ticket for the screening: 12 Fr. Podium discussion: admission free.

Composed of eight interlinked plateaus and occupying a liminal space between documentary, fiction and essay, Facs of Life attempts to map a number of molecular trajectories of life and thought beginning from a series of encounters: with video footage of Gilles Deleuze’s courses at Vincennes (1975-76), with the woods where the university buildings once stood, with students who attended the seminar, and of the new university at St Denis, and inevitably with the phantoms of revolution, both cinematic and political, that continue to haunt collective desire.

Facs of Life has been screened at numerous film festivals, museums and art spaces worldwide.

Towards a Pedagogy of the Virtual

The virtual is not opposed to the real, Gilles Deleuze writes, but to the actual. And he further concludes with his life-time companion Félix Guattari that ‘events are the reality of the virtual.’ Thinking through the event of philosophy as a pedagogy of the virtual, a pedagogy of potentiality, guides Maglioni’s and Thomson’s detailed and poetic film.

The Swiss premiere screening will be followed by an open conversation with the artists and invited guests presented by Christoph Brunner.


Opening of the exhibition Shipwreck Study Notes (What Rises From the Depths Cannot Help But Break the Surface) by Silvia Maglioni and Graeme Thomson at Corner College, on Wednesday, 7 October, 20:00h.

Both this screening and the exhibition are kindly supported by the French Embassy in Switzerland.

An exhibition by Silvia Maglioni & Graeme Thomson

Opening hours:
Wed/Fri: 16:00h - 18:30h
Thu: 16:00h - 20:00h
Sat: 15:00h - 17:00h

(See English text below.)

L’exposition se constitue à partir d’un assemblage de fragments dispersés d’un film « naufragé » (épreuves de tournage, images, sons, textes, éléments du décor et de la recherche) installés dans l’espace de Corner College. Tourné pendant une traversée de l’Atlantique sur un paquebot de Lisbonne à Sao Paolo sur des variations du roman L’Amérique de Franz Kafka, le film explore des états d’épuisement et d’effondrement sur le fond de la crise financière, dont les effets sont cachés et différés par un régime de divertissement et de consommation forcés. Pour l’exposition Shipwreck Study Notes, l’ambiance sonore dans l’espace et l’installation de certains éléments seront activées et modifiées par des micro-interventions orchestrées par les artistes pendant leur séjour à Zurich. Ces micro-interventions seront improvisées, avec la complicité du public, selon une série de suggestions mi-aléatoires (Study Notes), une performance et une action collective musicale (musicking). L’objectif est de transformer l’espace en un lieu de vie, de réflexion, de soin et de mise en accord de longueurs d’ondes fluctuantes et imprévisibles.

Commissariat: Dimitrina Sevova

Nous tenons à remercier l'Ambassade de France en Suisse de son soutien.

(Texte en français ci-dessus.)

What Rises From the Depths Cannot Help But Break the Surface is a modular installation of variable dimensions that reconfigures material related to the film Disappear One (2015) in an open, experimental environment.

The exhibition constitutes itself on the basis of an assemblage of dispersed fragments of a "shipwrecked" film (rushes, images, sounds, texts, elements of the props and research) installed in the space of Corner College. Shot during a transatlantic cruise from Lisbon to Sao Paolo on an ocean liner over variations of Franz Kafka's novel America, the film explores states of exhaustion and collapse on the backdrop of the financial crisis, whose effects are hidden lag in time due to a regime of compulsory entertainment and consumption. For the exhibition Shipwreck Study Notes, the sound environment and the installation of certain elements will be activated and modified by micro-interventions orchestrated by the artists during their stay in Zurich. These micro-interventions will be improvised, with the complicity of the audience, following a series of semi-random suggestions (Study Notes), a performance and a collective musical action (musicking). The aim is to transform the space into a place of life, reflection, care and tuning of fluctuating and unpredictable wave lengths.

The conception of different installation modules of Disappear One marks the continuation of Silvia Maglioni and Graeme Thomson’s research into the possibilities of ‘exploded’ or dispersed forms of cinema, moving on from the various exhibitions and installations they have created with and around several films: Wolkengestalt (2007-2015), Facs of Life (2009-2015) and In Search of UIQ (2011-2015).

For the artists, the installation of a film necessary involves a formal and material mutation, a process of virtualization that reverses the actualized film into the problematic field of its making, and, one could also say, of its unmaking or undoing. This also implies a redistribution of time. Spatial montage allows this transformation of the interstitial spaces between elements into cracks in time, letting in a draught of ‘elsewhere wind’ that may loosen the viewer’s hold on their own time.

The topos of the shipwreck is a condition which envelops and permeates the filmic material, the Atlantic crossing the artists made with the UEINZZ Theatre Company and other fellow travellers, Kafka’s novel (already an abandoned fragment of a dispersed oeuvre) and the exhibition form itself - which at the formal level consists of redistributed visual, aural and textual flotsam that breaks the surface in a different configuration of elements each time the work is displayed.

Curated by Dimitrina Sevova



This exhibition is kindly supported by the French Embassy in Switzerland.


This dual film/installation project was selected and supported by the patronage committee of FNAGP (Fondation Nationale des Arts Graphiques et Plastiques). The film Disappear One was co-produced by Spectre, Le Fresnoy Studio National d'Arts Contemporains and Terminal Beach.

Artist talk by Silvia Maglioni & Graeme Thomson

The artist talk will gradually merge into the Shipwreck Study Notes sessions (Wreckship & Musicking), and be followed by a dinner.

Shipwreck Study Notes #1 (Wreckship):
Making a life raft (‘weg von hier’)

The workshop/wreckship takes up dispersed textual fragments as materials for constructing an assemblage that may function as materials for a life raft, one whose logs do not close ranks but are loosely fastened to allow the passage of water between them, yet at the same time their ties permit the raft to ‘hold fast’. One of the aims will be to think this notion of the raft in the shadow of past, recent and ongoing catastrophes of displacement. Through the score provided by the Study Notes, the functioning of the reading group will be steered towards a more floating, poetic dynamic (including texts by Kafka, Woolf, Pessoa, Gombrowicz, Lispector, Deligny, Deleuze, Guattari, Agamben).

Shipwreck Study Notes #2 (Musicking):
Aquaosmosis

Elements of the aquatic sound environment in the exhibition space become the basis for a group improvisation using existing/invented instruments or sound-making devices provided by the participants and by Corner College. The group’s deployment of these will be guided by a number of rites chosen from the Shipwreck Study Notes. The improvisation will focus on music making as a collective, participative act or activity involving heterogeneous and not-always strictly musical means of expression, rather than as the interpretation or constitution of a musical work or object.

Dinner

This event is part of the exhibition Shipwreck Study Notes (What Rises From the Depths Cannot Help But Break the Surface) by Silvia Maglioni and Graeme Thomson.

The event and the exhibition are kindly supported by the French Embassy in Switzerland.

Ist «Krritiker!» – wie in Samuel Becketts «Warten auf Godot» – heute in der bildenden Kunst ein Schimpfwort? Was wollen wir tun, damit es keines mehr ist? Was sagen wir überhaupt damit, wenn wir uns KritikerInnen nennen? Oder wollen wir am Ende sogar, dass «Crritic!» erst zum Schimpfwort wird?

«Crritic!» ist eine sechsteilige Veranstaltungsreihe zur Kunstkritik in der Schweiz, deren erste Ausgabe im Corner College stattfindet und die dann nomadisch weiterziehen wird. Sie will KritikerInnen und LeserInnen in verschiedenen Regionen zusammenbringen und zum Austausch anregen über den Stand der Dinge im Kontext des Schreibens über Kunst. Und sie will die Bildung einer diskussionsfreudigen und tatkräftigen Gemeinschaft von in diesem Bereich Tätigen fördern.

«Crritic!» wird von Aoife Rosenmeyer und Daniel Morgenthaler – beide Schreibende (unter Anderem) – aufgegleist und betreut. Nach einem ersten Workshop mit eingeladenen Kritikerinnen und Kritikern aus verschiedenen Teilen der Schweiz im Oktober 2014 soll diese öffentliche Veranstaltungsreihe es ermöglichen, die initiierten Diskussionen aufzunehmen und daran in grösseren Gruppen weiterzudenken.

Am ersten «Crritic!»-Abend in Zürich stossen KrritikerInnen mit ganz unterschiedlichem Hintergrund die Diskussion an: Barbara Preisig und Judith Welter stellen ihr mit Pablo Müller und Lucie Kolb neu gegründetes Magazin – «Brand-New-Life Magazin für Kunstkritik» – vor, Marco De Mutiis spricht über seine Erfahrungen mit «Still Searching», dem Blog des Fotomuseums Winterthur, während Sophie Yerly über ihre Arbeit als unabhängige Bloggerin («We Find Wildness») berichtet.

«Crritic!» wurde in Zusammenarbeit mit Pro Helvetia – Schweizer Kulturstiftung entwickelt und wird unterstützt von der AICA – Association internationale des critiques d’art: Section suisse.

Christian Saehrendt liest aus seinem neuesten Buch, Gefühlige Zeiten. Die Zwanghafte Sehnsucht nach dem Echten.

Anschliessend Diskussion mit Stefan Wagner und mit dem Publikum.

Neo-Romantik im virtuellen Zeitalter

Wenn die Band ›Unheilig‹ singt: »Kein Augenblick ist je verloren, wenn er im Herzen weiterlebt« oder Mark Foster zu Geigenklängen intoniert »Ich geh auf Reisen. Ich mach alles das, was ich verpasst hab. Ich lass alles hinter mir. Hab was Großes im Visier«, dann sind wir am Puls unserer Zeit. Die Utopie von einem echten, wahren Leben treibt uns um – manchmal in erschreckend abgedroschenen Phrasen.

Von Shabby-Chic über Extremsport bis Rückzug – wir sind auf der Jagd nach dem echten Gefühl. Die einen ziehen sich in ihre Eigenheim-Idyllen zurück, heiraten in einem Traum von Weiß und pflegen ihren Dialekt. Die anderen suchen ruhelos das Glück in der Ferne – mithilfe von Eventtourismus oder gar im militärischen Kampf für das vermeintlich Gute.

Christian Saehrendt sucht nach der Kraft hinter all diesen paradoxen Fluchtbewegungen – und stellt fest: Wir leben in einer Epoche der Neo-Romantik, die wie vor gut 200 Jahren als Folge einer tiefgreifenden Entfremdung zu verstehen ist.


Christian Saehrendt, Gefühlige Zeiten. Die Zwanghafte Sehnsucht nach dem Echten (Köln: DuMont, 2015).

Öffentliches Showing mit Angela Stöcklin, Arlette Dellers, Katrin Kolo und Susanna Benenati.

OPEN STAGE ist eine von der TanzLOBBY IG Tanz Zürich initiierte Plattform, die keine Grenzen kennt. Ob Work in Progress, Research Arbeiten, Adhoc Performances oder Experimente, alles ist möglich.

Diese Plattform ist in erster Linie für Tanzschaffende und Performance Künstler gedacht, die in der Schweiz wohnhaft sind. Während rund 90 Minuten zeigen die angemeldeten Gruppen und Künstler ihre aktuelle Arbeit. Dabei werden, kleine und oder grosse Ideen ausprobiert, neue Konzepte erprobt oder ungewohnte Kollaborationen gewagt, die im Anschluss in einem moderierten, interaktiven Publikumsgespräch reflektiert werden. Die Open Stage wandert von Bühne zu Performance Space zu Atelier Raum zu Bühne etc. und findet 4-5 Mal im Jahr statt.

Im Corner College wird die Open Stage dieses Jahr während einer ganzen Woche zu Gast sein (vom 8.-15.11.). Dabei wird es zwei öffentliche Showings geben; ein erstes am Anfang des Prozesses, am 8.11. 17.00Uhr, und ein zweites mit den selben Gruppen nach einer Woche der intensiven Austausch- und Weiterentwicklungsphase, am 15.11. 17.00Uhr. Wir sind gespannt, bei dieser Variation des Formates etwas näher an der Entwicklung der einzelnen Stücke dran sein zu können.

http://tanzlobby.ch/

MultiMadeira is an unfunded artist residency taking place on Portuguese island Madeira. The 2015 edition will take place from end of November 2015 until end of February 2016. The residency is self-organized and open to artists working in all disciplines. Participants are asked to propose a project they will be working on during their stay.

The first edition was realized during the last two months of 2013. MultiMadeira has hosted a total of 38 artists working in various fields and with different geographical and cultural backgrounds. During the first edition, over 30 various public events including concerts, exhibitions, performances and workshops were held.

On Friday, 13 November Lukatoyboy (alias Luka Ivanović) - one of the co-founders of MultiMadeira - will present the residency at Corner College. He will be accompanied by Klara Ravat, MultiMadeira artist 2015, and Gretchen Blegen, MultiMadeira artist 2013. They will talk about the reasons, methods and achieved goals, focusing on realized works.

At 21:00h performances:


Gretchen Blegen & Vreni Spieser - Conversation Take.

A text-performance on conversation, cross-overs of narratives and language as a means of communication.


Lukatoyboy - The Final Instruction, Prologue

The Final Instruction aims to present the history of objectified personal how-to knowledge, its passages from Chevrolet Caprice, disadvantaged children and juice machines.


http://multimadeira.com

OPEN STAGE ist eine von der TanzLOBBY IG Tanz Zürich initiierte Plattform, die keine Grenzen kennt. Ob Work in Progress, Research Arbeiten, Adhoc Performances oder Experimente, alles ist möglich.

Diese Plattform ist in erster Linie für Tanzschaffende und Performance Künstler gedacht, die in der Schweiz wohnhaft sind. Während rund 90 Minuten zeigen die angemeldeten Gruppen und Künstler ihre aktuelle Arbeit. Dabei werden, kleine und oder grosse Ideen ausprobiert, neue Konzepte erprobt oder ungewohnte Kollaborationen gewagt, die im Anschluss in einem moderierten, interaktiven Publikumsgespräch reflektiert werden. Die Open Stage wandert von Bühne zu Performance Space zu Atelier Raum zu Bühne etc. und findet 4-5 Mal im Jahr statt.

Im Corner College wird die Open Stage dieses Jahr während einer ganzen Woche zu Gast sein (vom 8.-15.11.). Dabei wird es zwei öffentliche Showings geben; ein erstes am Anfang des Prozesses, am 8.11. 17.00Uhr, und ein zweites mit den selben Gruppen nach einer Woche der intensiven Austausch- und Weiterentwicklungsphase, am 15.11. 17.00Uhr. Wir sind gespannt, bei dieser Variation des Formates etwas näher an der Entwicklung der einzelnen Stücke dran sein zu können.

http://tanzlobby.ch/


Programm


Susanna Benenati & Urban Hersche
Rollende Hindernisse
Eine Auseinandersetzung mit gefährlichen Rädern eigenen Rollen und der Sehnsucht

Das ausgelassene Spiel mit der Geschwindigkeit im Rollstuhl, zu Beginn der Performance, ist gleichzeitig die autobiographische Grundlage in diesem Kurzstück. Ein Auto, das bremst, wird zu einem rollenden Hindernis. Die Behinderung nimmt sich Raum, gewinnt an Macht, Widerstand bäumt sich auf und zieht den Blick auf die gesunde Seite. Die eigene Persönlichkeit gerät ins Rollen…
Eine Tanzperformance, in der die Auseinandersetzung der körperlichen Dimension mit der seelischen erlebbar wird.

Text: Urban Hersche Regina Bremi
Tanz: Susanna Benenati Urban Hersche
Musik: Roland Christien


Katrin Kolo
The many we are

Performerin, Unternehmerin, Ehefrau, Choreographin, Frau, Forscherin, Freundin, Beraterin, Mutter, Geliebte, Tochter, Managerin, Gastgeberin… eine Selbst- und Fremddarstellung

Performance: Katrin Kolo
Texte: Katrin Kolo und Originalzitate aus Gesprächen


Angela Stöcklin
Try-out

Roundabout, windows of opportunity wird Ende Februar im Kochareal Zürich Premiere haben. Was spielerisch als Suche nach Blickkontakt beginnt spitzt sich zu einer wirren Verfolgungsjagd zwischen Licht, Sound und Performerin zu. Dies ist ein erster try-out worin der Spiegel als Mittler für Kommunikation mit dem Publikum ausgelotet wird.


Arlette Dellers
Grundemotionen

Eine Essenz aus der aktuellen Performance Grundemotionen der Gruppe Tip-Tap-Toe. Die Show wurde unter dem Leitgedanken Gefühle herunterzubrechen und auf ihre Grundbausteine zu reduzieren gebildet. Sie beinhaltet verschiedene kleinere Stücke, die jeweils eine Grundemotion repräsentieren und diese mit all ihren Facetten und Intensitäten, ihren verschiedenen Erscheinungsbildern darstellt. Sowohl Tanz als auch Musik wurden eigens für diese Performance kreiert.

Leitung, Komposition, Choreografie & Harfe: Arlette Dellers
Choreografie & Tanz: Dodo Dürrenberger, Pia Ringel

Opening hours:
Wed/Thu/Fri: 15:00h - 18:30h
Sat/Sun: 15:00h - 17:30h


[auf Deutsch siehe unten]

barbara caveng and Dachil Sado provide an overview over nine months of KUNSTASYL , a participatory model project of the artist living in Berlin, the team KUNSTASYL and the inhabitants of the home for those fled and for asylum seekers in Berlin-Spandau.

19-29 November, KUNSTASYL hats, Balkan pin curlers, sweatshirts and other objects on display for sale in support of and in solidarity with the project, as well as documentation.

Between Home and atHOME

The project investigates forms and possibilities of living together between locals and people who had to flee:

“It is not easy to speak of KUNSTASYL and its effects – it is a window between inhabitants and neighbors outside the home, and it changes the culture, the situation, and communication within society. It simply means civilization.”
dachil sado



Who is KUNSTASYL

KUNSTASYL is a participatory model project of the Swiss artist barbara caveng who lives in Berlin, together with the team KUNSTASYL and the inhabitants of the home for those who fled and for asylum seekers at Staakener Straße in Spandau.
KUNSTASYL is an initiative of creative workers and asylum seekers.

What is KUNSTASYL

Since February 2015 we, TEAM KUNSTASYL and the inhabitants of the home, together investigate and develop possibilities for those who fled / asylum seekers to shape their own LIVING – as opposed to ACCOMMODATION – and how the infrastructure at hand can be modified, complemented and extended in the spirit of self-responsible action.

In the focus is the question how it is possible for people who had to flee, to take part in the shaping of a space. The concept of SPACE is to be understood in a dual sense: Physical space is always also social space. The one who acts, takes part.

Over the past months, through the catalyzer of artistic work various courses of action were developed and tried out for turning the “fleeting” situation of those involved, characterized by isolation and incapacitation, into an “optional” situation. “Optional” means that the people become visible through their self-chosen doing, autonomous action and self-articulation.

After half a year of common work KUNSTASYL and the administration of the home have decided to found a project of their own, in which people who fled, and locals, live together from the beginning.

http://kunstasyl.net

[English see above]

KUNSTASYL
Seh ich aus wie ein Flüchtling?

barbara caveng und Dachil Sado geben einen Überblick über neun Monate KUNSTASYL , ein partizipatorisches Modellprojekt der in Berlin lebenden Schweizer Künstlerin, dem Team KUNSTASYL und den BewohnerInnen des Wohnheimes für Geflüchtete und Asylsuchende in Berlin-Spandau.

19.-29. November, Ausstellung mit KUNSTASYL Mützen, Balkan-Lockenwicklern, Sweatshirts und anderen Objekten, die zur Unterstützung und in Solidarität mit dem Projekt zum Verkauf angeboten werden, sowie Dokumentation des Projekts.

Zwischen Heim und daHEIM

Das Projekt untersucht Formen und Möglichkeiten eines gemeinsamen Lebens von Ortsansässigen und Menschen, die fliehen mussten:

„Es ist nicht einfach über das KUNSTASYL und seine Auswirkungen zu sprechen - es ist ein Fenster zwischen Bewohnern und Anwohner außerhalb des Heimes, und es verändert die Kultur, Situation, und die Kommunikation der Gemeinschaft. Es bedeute einfach Zivilisation.“
dachil sado


Wer ist KUNSTASYL

KUNSTASYL ist ein partizipatorisches Modellprojekt der in Berlin lebenden Schweizer Künstlerin barbara caveng zusammen mit dem Team KUNSTASYL und den BewohnerInnen des Wohnheimes für Geflüchtete und Asylsuchende Staakener Straße in Spandau.
KUNSTASYL ist ein Initiative von Kreativen und Asylsuchenden.

Was ist KUNSTASYL

Seit Februar 2015 erforschen und entwickeln das TEAM KUNSTASYL und die BewohnerInnen des Heimes gemeinsam Möglichkeiten, wie WOHNEN - im Gegensatz zur UNTERBRINGUNG - von Geflüchteten/ Asylsuchenden selbst mitgestaltet werden kann und wie die vorhandenen Strukturen im Sinne eigenverantwortlichen Handelns verändert, ergänzt und erweitert werden können.

Im Zentrum steht die Frage, wie es gelingen kann, Menschen, die fliehen mussten, an der Gestaltung von Raum zu beteiligen. Hierbei ist der Begriff RAUM in zweierlei Bedeutungen zu verstehen: Physischer Raum bedeutet immer auch sozialer Raum: Wer handelt, nimmt teil.

In den vergangenen Monaten wurden über den Katalysator der künstlerischen Arbeit unterschiedliche Handlungsstrategien entwickelt und ausprobiert, um die “flüchtige” Situation der Betroffenen, gekennzeichnet durch Isolation und Handlungsunfähigkeit, in eine “optionale” zu verwandeln. “Optional” bedeutet, dass der Mensch sichtbar wird durch selbstgewähltes Tun, autonome Handlung und die Artikulation seiner selbst.

Nach einem halben Jahr gemeinsamen Arbeitens haben sich KUNSTASYL und die Heimleitung dafür entschieden, ein eigenes Wohnprojekt zu gründen, in welchem Menschen, die geflohen sind und Ortsansässige von Anbeginn gemeinsam leben.

http://kunstasyl.net

von und mit Anina Schenker. Ihre Gäste sind Hili Leimgruber & Jens Woernle, mit ihrem Dokumentarfilm "Casa das Minas – Das Heiligtum verstaubt" (80', 2012).

Türöffnung: 19:00h
Beginn: 19:30h

Anina Schenker ist Gast bei Home of the Brave: Archeology of the Moving Image. Eine Veranstaltungsreihe des Corner College.

[English text see below]

Eine Performance von Alexander Tuchaček unter Mitwirkung von Daniel Marti.

In dem Stück geht es um das Verhältnis von Körper und Schrift. Ein Verhältnis, das im Zeitalter digitaler Medien ein strittiger Raum ist. Digitale Medien greifen immer stärker und unsichtbar in unser Leben ein – und das mit dem Versprechen auf Freiheit und Selbstbestimmung und der impliziten Hoffnung auf das Delegieren von Mitbestimmung in den entkörperten Cyberspace. Die Arbeit geht von einer Textstelle von Jean-Luc Nancys Buch «Corpus» aus. Dieser Text wurde als Soundfile eingesprochen und kommt in dem Stück «unfolding agency: stategies of exscription #1» zur Neuaufführung. Ein Performer, Daniel Marti, wird über einen Bewegungsmelder ‚ein-ge-lesen‘ und steuert durch minimale körperliche Bewegungen eine maschinische Wiederaufführung der Audioaufnahme des Nancy-Textes. Ein maschinischer Textschreiber versucht, Laut für Laut dem körperlichen Sprechen zu folgen. Die geschriebenen Textzeichen überschreiben den Raum und den Performer. Im Stück geht es um diesen unsichtbaren, nichtsprachlichen Zwischenraum zwischen Schreiben und Geschrieben werden. Das Stück wird in 5 Szenen aufgeführt:

exscription vocabulary #1
1. scene: hold-interrupt / de-authenticate yourself / repeated deauthentication packet bursts to jam WiFi access points
2. scene: circle-invert / fly onionized / anonymize traffic with onion routing
3. scene: endure / thermal persistence / infrared cameras tracking living bodies
4. scene: stand-idle / uncloud the desire / ownCloud localizes data
5. scene: coincidentally-synchronous / infinitely foamy / tanzende Sterne gebären


[auf Deutsch siehe oben]

A performance by Alexander Tuchaček, performed by Daniel Marti.

The piece is about the relation between body and writing. A relation which, in the era of digital media, is a contested space. Digital media intervene more and more and invisibly into our life – with the promise of freedom and self-determination and the implicit hope of delegating participation into the disembodied cyberspace. The work builds on a passage from Jean-Luc Nancy’s book “Corpus.” This text was spoken and recorded to a sound file and reenacted in the piece “unfolding agency: stategies of exscription #1.” A performer, Daniel Marti, is ‘scanned’ via a motion detector and through minimal body movements directs a machinic restaging of the audio recording of Nancy’s text. A machinic text writer attempts to follow the bodily speaking sound by sound. The written text characters overwrite the space and the performer. The piece is about this invisible, non-language interstice between writing and being written. The piece is enacted in 5 scenes:


exscription vocabulary #1
1. scene: hold-interrupt / de-authenticate yourself / repeated deauthentication packet bursts to jam WiFi access points
2. scene: circle-invert / fly onionized / anonymize traffic with onion routing
3. scene: endure / thermal persistence / infrared cameras tracking living bodies
4. scene: stand-idle / uncloud the desire / ownCloud localizes data
5. scene: coincidentally-synchronous / infinitely foamy / tanzende Sterne gebären

4/5 December 2015

The second day of the symposium, on Saturday, 5 December, is taking place at Corner College.

On the occasion of Monica Ursina Jaeger’s solo show Future Archaeologies – Your Assumptions are my Memories at Christinger De Mayo, Zurich, we organise a guerrilla symposium to discuss the possibilities and problems of the “fiction as method – complex”.

Of course, writing novels about the future doesn’t give me any special ability to foretell the future. But it does encourage me to use our past and present behaviors as guides to the kind of world we seem to be creating. The past, for example, is filled with repeating cycles of strength and weakness, wisdom and stupidity, empire and ashes. To study history is to study humanity. And to try to foretell the future without studying history is like trying to learn to read without bothering to learn the alphabet.
From: Octavia E Butler: „A Few Rules for Predicting the Future“

When the Venice Biennale claims to discuss “All the Worlds Futures”, it becomes clear that the methodologies of fiction are no longer just part of the artistic practice, but also of curating, social science and global media.


http://www.muj.ch/Symposium


When the Venice Biennale claims to discuss “All the Worlds Futures”, it becomes clear that the methodologies of fiction are no longer just part of the artistic practice, but also of curating, social science and global media.

With accelerated globalization, the concomitant influence of digital culture and its accessible worlds of knowledge, within the last 25 years, disparate cultures, knowledge and art worlds have become interconnected and contemporaneous with each other. There are many co-existing ways of being in time and belonging to it. Thus, while being increasingly aware of being in the present, we are becoming attentive to other kinds of time. As a consequence, we seem to be living in an expanded present. But how far back – and forth – in time does the durational extension of our present reach?

The symposium brings together artists, curators, writers, critics and other voices to explore how fiction could be defined in regard to their practices, whether through the creation of fictional narratives, concepts fabricated around temporalities or the actual challenging of space-time relations.

Organized by artist Monica Ursina Jäger and curator/writer Damian Christinger.

Free entry, no booking required



Programme:

Friday 4 December

Venue: Christinger De Mayo, Ankerstrasse 24, 8004 Zurich

11.00-12.00 Session 1 Artist Talk and discussion: Monica Ursina Jäger in conversation with Kathleen Bühler (curator Kunstmuseum Bern)


Individual lunch



Venue: FRICTION, Nordflügel Gessnerallee, Gessnerallee 8, 8001 Zürich

13.00-13.30 Session 2 and discussion: Heiko Schmid, art historian / curator
13.45-14.15 Session 3 and discussion: Alexandra Navratil, artist
14.30-15.00 Session 4 and discussion: Sarah Zürcher, art historian/curator/critic
15.15-15.45 Session 5 and discussion: Emily Rosamond, artist

Break and informal discussion

19.45-20.45 Session 6 Art and Argument organised / chaired by Aoife Rosenmeyer
with: Daniel Blochwitz, Damian Christinger, Emily Rosamond, Eduardo Simantob


Break and informal discussion



Saturday 5 December

Venue: Corner College, Kochstrasse 1, 8004 Zurich

14.00-14.30 Session 7 and discussion: Eduardo Simantob, author and scenario writer
14.45-15.15 Session 8 and discussion: Stefan Zweifel, critic and curator
15.30-16.00 Session 9 and discussion: Dimitrina Sevova, curator / writer
16.15-16.45 Session 10 and discussion: Roger Buergel, Johann Jacobs Museum and Damian Christinger, curator/writer
17.00-17.30 Roundtable and Conclusions

Locations
Galerie Christinger De Mayo, Ankerstrasse 24, 8004 Zurich
FRICTION, Nordflügel, Gessnerallee 8, 8001 Zürich
Corner College, Kochstrasse 1, 8004 Zurich

Information and Contact
Fiction As Method Symposium Website
Damian Christinger, damian@christingerdemayo.com 079 253 45 28
Monica Ursina Jäger, monica@muj.ch 078 723 83 32

A group exhibition with

Denise Bertschi, Jackie Brutsche, Thomas Galler, Andreas Glauser, Andreas Marti, Nicolasa Navarrete, Sandra Sterle

From 09.12.2015 to 29.01.2016.
Opening on 9 December 2015, 19:00h.

At the opening
reading performance peace pills by Jackie Brutsche
and sound performance signal by BUG (Andreas Glauser and Christian Bucher).

With artist talks and parallel events (to be announced).

Curated by Dimitrina Sevova
Organized by Corner College

Opening hours:
Thu: 15:00h - 19:00h
Fri: 15:00h - 18:30h
Sat: 14:00h - 17:00h


[Deutscher Text unten]

The exhibition Cold. War. Hot. Stars. The Iron(y) Helmet of the Intellect displays a dystopian landscape produced by asymmetric relation of delirious realism and rigorous fiction in the time of global capital, with a certain sense of alienation, coldness and distance. It intensifies these affects and creates a space of reflection and a heterogeneous perceptual field that is simultaneously a close-range haptic space of proximity, on the backdrop of the recent mass media rhetoric announcing a new global crisis in which the world has never been closer to a New Cold War, a security crisis that escalates the fears of a future nuclear “option.” The exhibition inquires into some of these scenarios for the future from the past, and traces various historiographic lines or directions through the artistic practices and art works as seismographs of global social change. They sense the current symptoms “where everything is played in uncertain games, ‘front to front, back to back, front to back …,’ ”  as consequences of the politico-social and economic developments after WW II, and the so-called Cold War, a period of propaganda, technologization and militarization of civil life in the competition between Western and Eastern blocs. The segmentary forms of the fight for control and domination altered the North and South lines of longitude and deepened the gap between the so-called Third World and the Western or advanced technological-industrial societies with their current development of a knowledge and service based economy. The exhibition undermines the stereotypes produced by binary abstract machines that overcode the divisions into a homogeneous West and a homogeneous East, into the “rich” North and the “poor” South. It proposes rather other focal points as thresholds to the outside, through which the South can be thought as a new trajectory of knowledge, aesthetics and practices of critique of cultural, ideological and technological hegemony, from which can emerge new lines of resistance and the potentiality of new cooperations, as everybody has their own South with electric palm trees, not only geographic and economic but personal and political, too.

The participating artists, through their practices based on research, appropriation, poetic displacements and personal aesthetic reflections on memory, cognition, attention, mass media, territory and technologies critically interrogate the past/future tensions and give a passage to the present impossibility of isolation through securitization, militarization and ideological separations in order to increase the modes of connection. With the irony of the intellect, which is a qualitative duration of consciousness, the exhibition aims to intensify and empower movements of deterritorialization that fabulate and produce desires to repeat over and over again the melody of The Plastic Ono Band’s Give Peace a Chance, grasped as a cosmopolitical proposal for the upcoming winter – not a military machine, but a mutating living machine on which one can take a flight or just stay in bed.

Text: Dimitrina Sevova

You can find a longer curatorial text in full length as a PDF on our materials website.


[Englisch text above]

Die Ausstellung Cold. War. Hot. Stars. The Iron(y) Helmet of the Intellect (deutsch etwa: Kalter. Krieg. Heisse. Sterne/Stars. Der eherne/ironische Helm des Intellekts) zeigt eine dystopische Landschaft, produziert aus der asymmetrischen Beziehung eines berauschten Realismus mit einer rigorosen Fiktion in Zeiten des globalen Kapitals, mit einem gewissen Gefühl der Entfremdung, der Kälte und der Distanz. Sie intensiviert diese Affekte und begründet einen Reflektionsraum und ein heterogenes Wahrnehmungsfeld, das gleichzeitig auch ein haptischer Raum im Nahfeld ist, vor dem Hintergrund neuerer Medienrhetorik, die eine neue globale Krise ankündigt, in der die Welt noch nie so nah an einem Neuen Kalten Krieg sein soll, eine Sicherheitskrise, die die Ängste vor einer zukünftigen nuklearen “Option” anheizt. Die Ausstellung erkundet einige dieser Szenarien für die Zukunft aus der Vergangenheit und zeichnet durch die künstlerischen Praktiken und Kunstwerke als Seismographen globaler sozialer Veränderungen unterschiedliche historiographische Linien nach. Sie spüren die aktuellen Symptome, “wo sich alles in ungewissen Spielen abspielt, ‘von vorn nach vorn, von hinten nach hinten, von vorn nach hinten …,’ ”  aufgrund der politisch-sozialen und ökonomischen Entwicklung nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg und des so genannten Kalten Krieges, einer Periode der Propaganda, der Technologisierung und Militarisierung des zivilen Lebens im Wettlauf zwischen dem West- und dem Ostblock. Die segmentären Formen des Kampfes um Kontrolle und Vorherrschaft veränderten die nördliche und südliche Line der Längengrade und vertiefte den Graben zwischen der so genannten Dritten Welt und dem Westen bzw. den fortgeschrittenen technologisch-industriellen Gesellschaften mit ihrer derzeitigen Entwicklung einer wissens- und dienstleistungsbasierten Wirtschaftsform. Die Ausstellung untegräbt die Stereotypen, die von binären abstrakten Maschinen herrühren, die die Einteilung in einen homogenen Westen und einen ebenso homogenen Osten, in einen “reichen” Norden und einen “armen” Süden übercodieren. Sie schlägt vielmehr, als Schwelle zum Aussen, andere Schwerpunkte vor, durch die der Süden als neue Trajektorie des Wissens, der Ästhetik sowie der Praktiken der Kritik kultureller, ideologischer und technologischer Hegemonie, aus der neue Linien, aus welchen heraus neue Widerstandslinien und das Potential neuer Kooperationen auftauchen können, da jede_r ihren eigenen Süden hat mit elektrischen Palmen, nicht nur geographisch und wirtschaftlich sondern auch persönlich und politisch.

Durch ihre auf Forschung, Aneignung, poetischer Verschiebung und persönlicher ästhetischer Reflektionen über Erinnerung, Erkenntnis, Aufmerksamkeit, Massenmedien, Territorium und Technologien basierten Kunstpraktiken hinterfragen die teilnehmenden Künstler_innen kritisch die vergangenen/zukünftigen Spannungen und machen den Weg frei auf die gegenwärtige Unmöglichkeit der Isolation durch Sicherheitsmassnahmen, Militarisierung und ideologischer Auftrennung, um die Verbindungsmodi zu vermehren. Mit der Ironie des Intellekts, die einer qualitativen Dauer des Bewusstseins entspricht, macht sich die Ausstellung daran, Deterritorialisierungsbewegungen zu intensivieren und ermächtigen, die fabulieren und Begehren herstellen, immer von Neuem die Melodie von Give Peace a Chance von The Plastic Ono Band zu wiederholen, verstanden als kosmopolitischen Vorschlag für den kommenden Winter – nicht eine Militärmaschine, sondern eine mutierende lebendige Maschine, auf der man fliegen kann oder auch einfach im Bett bleiben.



Denise Bertschi

State Fiction



The project State Fiction is an exploration of the notion of Swiss neutrality, which utilizes the example of the Swiss ‹neutral› command in the Korean DMZ, which has been in operation since 1954 until the present. Bertschi has worked with material which has emerged from an investigation into a Swiss military archive of mostly self-representing documents about the life of Swiss soldiers during their mission in the DMZ. Her work interweaves found images and text-slogans into objects, which behold a sense of contradiction: they present both the feeling of the domestic and at the same time grotesque violence regarding the very geopolitical situation that these materials stem from.

Within the visual language used by the armed forces, Bertschi found a striking number of flower photographs, shot in a meticulously precise manner. Mobilizing a quiet and subtle tone, she questions the status of these images and what they tell us about the people who originally produced them.
The artist book STATE FICTION focuses on self-represented leisure activities of the DMZ command, photographed by Swiss personnel in the military camp located in the DMZ. The artist’s collection of these images questions the bizarre construction of ‹Little Switzerland› set within the militarized frontiers between North and South Korea.

Bertschi interprets neutrality as a sort of fiction, which forms the very identity of Swiss nationality and nationalism; meanwhile, being neutral is an extremely fragile state of being. ‹Helvetia Mediatrix› can be understood as a cover under which it leaves an open space for realities both unseen and unknown.

This project by Denise Bertschi is discussed by Nico Ruffo in the following article: http://www.srf.ch/kultur/kunst/schnappschuesse-aus-dem-koreanischen-sperrgebiet



Jackie Brutsche

UTOPEACE



In her latest work, UTOPEACE, developed in 2015 during a 3-week residency in Amsterdam, among other things the peace symbol of the "white dove" is staged variously as a heroin and as a quasi tragic figure.



Thomas Galler

American Soldiers



2012
Single channel video, color, stereo sound, 5:22

American Soldiers features a collection of cover versions of Toby Keith's American Soldier (USA/2003) based on appropriated footage, originally published on YouTube by Jeffery, Joe, Zack, Debbie, The Scillan Family, Colin, Patrizio, Tasia, Shanda, Stephany, Kathy and some unknown.



Andreas Glauser

Mladost 2



Audio / video installation, 2000.

« Das Wohngebiet Mladost 2 befindet sich ausserhalb des Stadtzentrums von Sofia und wird von Plattenbauten aus dem Sozialismus dominiert. « Mladost 2 » heisst übersetzt « Jugend 2 » . Dieses Wohngebiet, in welchem ich wohnte, inspirierte mich sehr. Eindrücke wie Stagnation, Verwilderung, Zerfall und Langeweile brachten mich dazu, die Fotografien als verschwommene, schwarz-weisse Videobilder nochmals in Erinnerung zu rufen. Die Videobilder werden von einer Audiospur, welche Rauschen und undefinierbare Geräusche zu einem dichten Netz verwebt, begleitet. Die Kombination von Bild und Ton spielt eine zentrale Rolle. »

« The neighborhood Mladost 2 lies outside the city center of Sofia and is dominated by prefabricated buildings from Socialist times. In translation, « Mladost 2 » means « Youth 2 » . This residential district, in which I lived, inspires me deeply. Impressions of stagnation, wilderness, decay and boredom brought me to recall the memory of the photographs as blurred, black-and-white video images. The video images are accompanied by a sound track that weaves noise and undefined sounds to a dense web. The combination of image and sound is key. »

Text: Andreas Glauser



Andreas Marti

Default Error




Changed Condition





Nicolasa Navarrete

Drawings



Thinking about the Cold War I started to (re)consider all the myths that were built about this conflict in our societies, a large part of which are still functional remnants of the subsequent historical defeat. Take for instance its own name: Cold War. Is it not an oxymoron? Can a war be cold? It was rather a hot war and I needed to go search for the myth that perfectly embodied this historic conflict. In a somehow Benjaminian endeavor, trying to unravel the threads on which these myths were constructed and that bind us to this imaginary past could be helpful to start rethinking about our past (building an alternative theory of the history that Benjamin call Historical materialism) and consequently about our future.

But again the impossibility to do it, only a text that refers to the text itself, as the story inside the story or the myth that appears in the myth. How I could grasp this historical past? The history is not a text, is fundamentally non-narrative and non-representational[...]However, the history is inaccessible to us except in textual form, the reality is; there is nothing but a text (1). And maybe there is not outside-text.

So then, how to be a genuine philosopher of the history?

How to be capable of respecting the specificity and radical difference of the social and cultural past, its forms, structures, experiences, and struggles,[...] with those of the present day? (bis) Maybe the only way to do so is through the history of the oppressor and oppressed, because the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles (bis). And finally, the text contain the key for understand “the text”. Inside-text.

(1) Fredric Jameson. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (NY: Cornell UP, 1981)

Text: Nicolasa Navarrete



Sandra Sterle

The Fortress of Utopia



2015, color, stereo, PAL, 28 min. Production Kazimir, HAVC Croatian Audio Visual Fund.

The Fortress of Utopia is an experimental short
 film set in the former military bases of the Island of Vis in Croatia. The remains of its impressive military architecture serve as a stage for performances through which the author explores the nostalgia of the socialist past and its future perspectives. Not approaching the history of Yugoslavia directly, but merging facts and fiction in a peculiar way, the author introduces personages of contemporary tourists and stylized figures from the past in the same time and space, emphasizing the nature of memory (both personal and collective) and decay.



BUG (Andreas Glauser & Christian Bucher)



Sound performance signal at the opening.

Andreas Glauser: Synthesizer and modulated mixing desk
Christian Bucher: Drums and percussion



Jackie Brutsche



Reading performance peace pills at the opening.

Presentation by the curators Bénédicte le Pimpec and Isaline Vuille, together with the artists Uriel Orlow and Riikka Tauriainen, of the exhibition project darker and darker grows the landscape (la possibilité d'une île), as guests at the Corner College exhibition Cold. War. Hot. Stars. The Iron(y) Helmet of the Intellect.


The three islands of the north are blocked with ice;
The finest theories refuse to make sense;
It is said somewhere a lake has collapsed
And dead continents rise back to the surface
-- Michel Houellebecq, The possibility of an island, 2005





The exhibition darker and darker grows the landscape (la possibilité d’une île) was organized last July by Bénédicte le Pimpec and Isaline Vuille at BAC – Bâtiment d’art contemporain in Geneva.

Most of the artists presented in the exhibition proceed by long-time investigation, whether in archives or on site, use anecdotes and details in order to set up new narratives. By focusing on human’s relations to nature and science, through the prism of botany, entomology, zoology and, more broadly, the natural sciences, they operate a change of focus and doing so they reveal wider contexts, they describe specific socio-political or historical situations.

After a short presentation of the exhibition project by the curators, Uriel Orlow will elaborate in a performance-lecture on his installation Grey, Green, Gold that enlightens a correlation between the history of a native South African plant and Nelson Mandela’s struggle against Apartheid. On her side, Riikka Tauriainen will do a performance-lecture updating on her research for her piece Contact zone that links together an Arctic expedition to the history of a major company and a science-fiction short story, and develops towards feminotopias and women travel writing.