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    • Performance in the context of a.pass’ public meeting The Artist Commoner. (Self) Education of New Subjectivities

      Dominguez wants to suspend events and create an interval of time in which he can try to integrate his past into his future. He will translate his visions and his desire to encounter the unknown through language. Dominguez is working alone for the first time in 14 years. Back then, he choreographed his work with labeled cards. Now, he’ll speak himself and give rise to a self-portrait that cites himself and some of his friends.

       

      Limited capacity! 8/10/12€.

      Tickets via Kaaitheater:

       

    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • block 2016/III
    • Commons
    • Ten New Practices of the Great Transition 18 September 2016
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • Michael Bauwens / KaaiTheater
    • a.pass / KaaiTheater
    • 14 November 2016
    • 14 November 2016
    • Ten New Practices of the Great Transition

      Kaaitheater kindly invites us to participate in a one day Workshop with of the most experienced activist, philosopher and commons advisor in Belgium. Michale Bauwens is working on many levels for practicable solutions for structuring societies as commons. He is working as much with gras root  movements as he advises e.g. Ecuador in reorganizing parts of their state structure as a commons. 

      Which new social structure are we evolving towards? Michel Bauwens tries to work this out by looking at contemporary practices that address the challenges of the future in the most direct way. He identifies an exponential growth of civil initiatives that experiment both locally and globally with new models and solutions. Behind the scenes, an entirely new set of values is being built up, with discoveries such as new types of contributory accounting to manage common property, open logistics systems for the circular economy, and so on. Michel Bauwens and the network of researchers into the emerging commons-based economy  present a summary of 10 years of research.

      For more information see KaaiTheater.


       

      Biography

      • Michel Bauwens is a Belgian cyber philosopher and founder of the P2P Foundation, which carries out research into peer-to-peer-networks and practices. In 2013, together with Jean Lievens, he published the book De Wereld Redden, met peer-to-peer naar een post-kapitalistische samenleving (‘Saving the World: towards a post-capitalist society with peer to peer’).

    • performative publishing
    • project
    • block 2016/III
    • Commons
    • Change Log of Common Things 14 September 2016
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • 14 September 2016
    • 04 December 2016
    • case of: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • Change Log of Common Things

      Our individual researches are the basic material for the work in a block.

      This page is a log board for tracing the canges and alternations of every item* that has be brought in to the common space as a common research good.

      Every research is present in form of a careful selection of three items that han be declared as common good for the duration of this block.

      • One item from your research that you can define as a resource for yourself and others. Resource are things that transform when we use them!
      • One tiem that you declare as a tool. Tools are things that we use in order to transform other things.
      • One item the describes a ‚gap’ in your research. Gaps than, are not-things: Gaps are consciously or unconsciously ignored or desired elements in the field of our researches.

      Everyone engaging in this block - participants, mentors, but also people from beyond a.pass and public - will treat, change and transform this material. The collection of these items is the base of our commons and is further developed and investigated in the Fridays Open Session. The gathering of items in that space is be under constant transformation. This transformation shall be documented on this page.

       

      * the term 'item' is already an alternation form 'element', an the things were named before. It is likely, that we will change this terminology throughot the course of the block.

    • postgraduate program
    • block 2016/III
    • Commons
    • BLOCK 2016/III: COMMONS 12 September 2016
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • Nicolas Galeazzi
    • 05 September 2016
    • 04 December 2016
    • case of: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • BLOCK 2016/III: COMMONS

      This block investigates commons economies in the context of the arts.

      We work together, every now and then, some more than others.  Even if the neoliberal ideology continues to run political and economic structures according to the principle of competition and privatization, there exists a wider acknowledgement that cooperation promises more success than competition. But what surplus - other than the sum of the parts - is created while working together? What is the promise of cooperation actually about? What is the philosophy and politics behind it? How does it position the individual towards the social, and what is the concept of ‘success’ that we would cooperate for? Finally, how does radical cooperation affect the idea of ourselves and of the social bodies we are part of?

      The structure of the commons gives a perfect framework to experiment and reflect upon the basic notions of individuality, sustainability and forms of social organization.

      Commons are cultural or natural resources, that are held in common responsibility, not in privatized  ownership. The commons stays in contrast to the market economy.  The market distributes and privatizes goods onto different stakeholders who then come into trade with each other. The commons understands goods not as owned by someone but cares for them in shared responsibility. Commons structures can be found in all societies and are applied in many debates over forests and waters, knowledge, or outer space. In the wake of the 2008 economic crisis(es) the commons is widely discussed again as a possible economic and political alternative to the capitalist system.

      But interpretations of the commons are many, and bellow the surface of the debate, we discover the diverging ideas of what Marx described as the ‚social animal’.

      The block is an experimental setup to expand the notion of economy in general and the commons in specific, and appropriate it as an artistic practice. We will model our own specific commons economy based on a shared responsibility for our individual researches.

      Declaring artistic practices as common goods and searching for a form of organizing artistic processes, is questioning the position of the individual, of resources and of the social. We will investigate the common pool of our researches and see how this reflects back on our individual trajectories.

       
    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • block 2016/III
    • Commons
    • "WITH I/II": Communal Dreaming 07 September 2016
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • Mala Kline
    • a.pass
    • 19 September 2016
    • 17 November 2016
    • In these two complementary workshops we explore the practical and theoretical implications of working with the concept of the “With” (Nancy) with-in the affective relational space between singularities. In the process of co-articulation of singularities to be “with” is to be exposed, at the limit of oneself, entangled with another singularity and distinguished from it. We examine this concept as a tool in relation to related concepts like “singular plural” (Nancy), “exteriority of singularities” (Agamben) and “composing common world(s)” (Latour). Taking the “with” as a pivotal notion of “community to come”, we play with “relation” as a common, through which the potential "(in-)operative communities" may take place (Nancy).

       

       “WITH I”: 

      19 - 22 September 2016

      These relational concepts are explored through practical use and application of tools for communal dreaming. Improvisation and real-time composition procedures that engage body and imagination in the practice of dreaming serve as tools for “temporalizing of affective and relational singularities” (Manning). The aim is to provide the participants with a common toolbox for improvisation and composition, which they can apply within the “common pool” in the process of composing “common world(s)”, as singular events that occur in the passing between fields of immanence and actualization.

       

      “WITH II”:

      15-17 November 2016

      Reading excerpts from theoretical texts that give insight into these concepts enable us to look back at the used tools for “being together”. The aim is to look back and reflect upon these relational commons and the common tools used in a “common pool” over the months, to rethink and further articulate the common strategy with which this temporary collective can contribute to the conference on the Commons.

       


       

      Biography

      Mala Kline is a performer, choreographer and writer. She holds MA in theater (DasArts, Amsterdam) and PhD in philosophy (UL, Ljubljana). Her PhD on the problem of ethics in contemporary performing arts was written in affiliation with a.pass research centre. Currently she is a post-doctoral researcher at Faculty of Arts and Philosophy (UG) and member of S:PAM research center in Ghent. She is a certified practitioner and teacher of Saphire™ practice (SOI, NYC). All her artistic and theoretical work is embedded in the practice of dreaming. In her author-based choreographic works she uses Saphire™ to facilitate individual and communal dreaming in order to create unique singular worlds weaved from and generated through the language of our dreaming. She has a private practice in Brussels and teaches Saphire™ internationally, in diverse educational, research and production contexts and settings.

      www.malakline.com

       

       

    • postgraduate program
    • research center
    • block 2016/III
    • Commons
    • 2016 BLOCK III 01 September 2016
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • 01 September 2016
    • 30 November 2016
    • 2016 BLOCK III

       

       

       

      Researchers Participants in the Postgraduate Program

      Aela Royer
      Agnes Schneidewind
      Anouk Llaurens
      Arianna Marcolini
      Brendan Heshka
      Christian Hansen
      Eunkyung Jeong
      Lili Mihajlovic Rampre
      Maarten Van den Bussche
      Sofia Caesar
      Varinia Canto Vila
      Xiri Noir
      Zoumana Meïté

       

      Research End Presentations

      Esteban Donoso
      Isabel Burr Raty
      Thiago Antunes

       

      Research Centre Researchers

      Adriana La Selva
      Adva Zakai
      Mala Kline
      Ricardo Santana

       

      Partners

      Kaaitheater
      Zsenne ArtLab
      Vaarkapoen
      PAF Performance Arts Forum


      Contributors for workshops

      Nicolas Galeazzi
      Kate Rich
      Michael Bouwens
      Einat Tuchman
      Kobe Matthys
      Mala Kline
      Vladimir Miller


      Contributors for the conference

      Aela Royer
      Agnes Schneidewind
      Anouk Llaurens
      Arianna Marcolini
      Bojana Cvejić
      Cecilia Molano
      Christian Hansen
      Daniel Blanga-Gubbay
      Einat Tuchman
      Eunkyung Jeong
      Femke Snelting
      Guy Gypens
      Ingrid Vranken / SPIN
      Juan Dominguez
      Kate Rich
      Kristien Van den Brande
      Lili Mihajlovic Rampre
      Lilia Mestre
      Maarten Van den Bussche
      Magda Tyzlik-Carver
      Miriam Hempel
      Nicolas Galeazzi
      Philippine Hoegen
      Pierre Rubio
      Rudi Laermans
      Steven Jouwersma
      Varinia Canto Vila
      Vladimir Miller
      Xiri Noir
      Zoumana Meïté


      Coordinators a.pass

      Kristien Van den Brande
      Nicolas Galeazzi


      Mentors

      Femke Snelting
      Geert Opsomer
      Kate Rich
      Philippine Hoegen

    • conference
    • postgraduate program
    • research center
    • block 2016/III
    • Commons
    • The Artist Commoner : Public Meeting (self) Education of new subjectivities
      30 August 2016
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • a.pass, KaaiTheater
    • KaaiStudios - Onze-Lieve-Vrouw van Vaakstraat 81 // 1000 Brussel.
    • 25 November 2016
    • 26 November 2016
    • case of: Nicolas Galeazzi
      case of: Vladimir Miller
      case of: Lilia Mestre
    • The Artist Commoner : Public Meeting

      When we talk about commoning in the arts, or of artistic production as a site of commoning, or the arts as a common good, we evoke economies of material and immaterial labour within the field of art. But we seldom consider the changing understanding of what an artist is, and how this historic subjectivity possibly undergoes a dramatic shift in response to the resurgence of the commons debate in the last few years. Not only do we need to ask ourselves how to be an artist and a commoner today, and how to produce art within commoning processes, but also what kind of a new artist subjectivity is summoned by the commons. Long gone is the conception of the artist as a craftswoman, long gone the conception of a solitary genius, yet the market still welcomes the individualistic producer, enamoured with the beautified reflection the neo-liberal consumer finds in the persona of the free-to-do-anything, singular novum-art-maker. At the same time the contemporary art market (at least its attention, if not its monetary economy) has embraced commoning as a method for artistic production and encourages the artist to engage with the surrounding world. But is it really the same type of artist that emerges in the (economic) contexts traversed by the artist commoner? She travels from commoning to capitalism, to gift economy, and back. How are those subjectivities negotiated with the citizen of capitalism who she inadvertently also is?

      Does commoning, as a means of artistic practice, require a radically different self-conception of the artist? And if we see the emergence of a different artist subjectivity, what role does (self-)education in the arts play in fostering and welcoming this subjectivity? What kind of (educational) institutions can the artist-commoner take root in? How can these institutions engage not only in educating the artist about the commons but in developing radical methodologies of commoning education?

      During a two day event, a.pass welcomes a gathering of researchers, artists, a.pass program participants and public to engage with the struggle of being an artist commoner today, and the role of (educational) institutions in bringing this subject about.

      Two days of presentations, exchanges and commoning practices. Two days of ateliers, books launches, performances, workshops and discussions.

      free admission -  except the performance of Juan Dominguez - tickets

       


       

       

      PROGRAM

       

      Friday November 25

      10:00-16:00: Open space / habitat, with: a.pass participants. (@dance studio)

      11:00-15:30: office-work,
      with Femke Snelting, Kate Rich, Magda Tyzlik-Carver.(@concert studio)

      15:30-17.30: Regime Change, presentation after office-work,
      with: Femke Snelting, Kate Rich, Magda Tyzlik-Carver. (@concert studio)

      18:00-23:00: Common Sweat sauna,
      with Steven Jouwersma.

      18:00-19.30: Turn, Turtle! panel,
      with: Vladimir Miller, Nicolas Galeazzi, Daniel Blanga-Gubbay. Followed by The Missing Chapter, by Guy Gypens & SPIN.

      Food: catering at Kaaistudio-bar

      20:30-21:30: SITUATMENTS,
      with: Vladimir Miller, Lilia Mestre, Pierre Rubio, Kristien Van den Brande & Cecilia Molano, Steven Jouwersma, Nicolas Galeazzi, Philippine Hoegen & Einat Tuchman (@concert studio).

      21.30-02:00: PRACTICES. Mobile Interviews + City of Commons + Reading out loud & von unten + Common Sweat Sauna + ArtsCommons rehashed

       

       

      Saturday November 26

      12:00-15:00: Open space / habitat, with: a.pass participants. (@dance studio)

      15:30-16:30: Figures of commoning,
      introduction by Rudi Laermans

      16:30-18:00: Launch Bubble Score publication,
      with: Lilia Mestre, Philippine Hoegen, Miriam Hempel 

      17:00-21:00: Common Sweat sauna,
      with Steven Jouwersma.

      18:00-19:30 : Presentation of the ThK Journal #23, Commons / Undercommons in art, education, work…’,
      with: Bojana Cvejić interviewed by Pierre Rubio.

      Food : catering by Kaaistudio-bar

      20:30-22:30: Between what is no longer and what is not yet,
      performance by Juan Dominguez - ticket requiered

      22:30-02:00: introduction Dino Sound System + DJs: party!

       



      OPEN SPACE / A COMMON HABITAT FOR ARTISTIC RESEARCH
      with Nicolas Galeazzi and a.pass-participants

      Friday 25 November: 10:00-16:00

      Saturday 26th November: 12:00 - 15:00

      Every Friday of the last three month a.pass participants met for a concentrated commoning experiment.

      With this practical inquiry into artistic research as a commons we try to establish an Open Space practice, that allows pursuing the individual researches while observing at the same time the general picture that these activities generate together. Every artistic element within that space is considered as a common good. Training the simultaneity and interdependence of individual and common interests not only puts our commons economy at work, but also lets us investigate the personal and collective effects of this structural shift.

      For the ‘The Artist Commoner‘ meeting we move the Open Space Practice to the KaaiStudios and continue our work under the new spatial conditions, inviting you as a potential Open Space commoner into these investigations. You are welcome to explore, expand, dismantle and recharge this space with whatever you consider as your current work. Please bring at least a vegetable for the common cooking.

      10:00 to 11:00 warm up; 11:00 to 13:00 practice; 13:00 common soup and discussion; 14:30 to 15:30 logging.

       

       

      REGIME CHANGE
      with Kate Rich, Femke Snelting and Magdalena Tyzlik-Carver

      Friday 25 November, office hours: 11:00-15:30

      Presentation: 15:30-17:30

      A day long session, aimed at aligning the a.pass computing infrastructure with the ambitions and aspirations summoned by the commons. Tech giants currently dominate all forms of digital communication, from cloud-storage to production tools and archiving systems. For cultural institutions like a.pass and many kindred spirit organisations, there is potential for resistance. Kate, Magda and Femke will use the common power of their intersecting practices in art, technology and theory, to break the spell of this paralysing digital regime. With the aid of Free, Libre and Open Source software, the transposition agents will begin to transform the relation of a.pass to its computing technology. Throughout the day the trio will conduct fieldwork, draw up solemn oaths & commit the institution to a rite of passage: from efficiency to curiosity; from scarcity to multiplicity and from solution to possibility. Champagne served all day.

       

       

      
TURN, TURTLE! PANEL
      with Vladimir Miller, Nicolas Galeazzi, Daniel Blanga-Gubbay, Guy Gypens, SPIN.

      Friday 25 November, 18.00-19.30

      We would like to draw your attention to the publication of the book ‘Turn Turtle, Turn!’, a creative and intellectual analysis of the new turn in the perception and workings of institutes in the performing arts.

      What has become apparent in the last ten years or so is a move towards an engaged re-appropriation of of arts institutions in artistic (performance) practices, and a more in-depth collaboration between institutes and artists in rethinking the functioning, position, and decision-taking structures of these organisations. We asked several artists, programmers and thinkers to contribute to this publication from the viewpoint of their practice and experience within the institutional framework. Turn, Turtle! Re-enacting the Institute is the second part of the publication series Performing Urgency, commissioned by European theatre network House on Fire which will continue half-yearly.

      For this edition launch in Brussels, the artists Vladimir Miller, Nicolas Galleazzi and Daniel Blanga-Gubbay will debate on these questions. The panel is followed by The Missing Chapter, a discussion between SPIN and Guy Gypens.

       

       

      
SITUATMENTS
      with Vladimir Miller, Lilia Mestre, Pierre Rubio, Nicolas Galeazzi, Kristien Van den Brande, Steven Jouwersma, Philippine Hoegen & Einat Tuchman.

      Friday 25 November, 20:30-21:30

      Collective scheduling and set-up. The first evening of The Artist-Commoner meeting is structured as an overlap of practices, talks and mini-workshops. We would like to provide a space and time for the audience to engage in the politics, pragmatics and poetics of collective scheduling and setting up, believing that commoning begins where stakes and engagement are developed within a framework that is open to change by its outsiders. On Friday evening we come together to introduce and situate our main concerns and give space to a self-organization of the evening. Guided by open space principles, the audience is invited to take active part in existing proposals and schedule other circles and meetings around possible emergent topics. All proposals will be organized and communicated on a central wall paper. This sprawling exploration of the conference themes will be injected into the discussions and presentation of the second day.

       

       

      PRACTICES
      with Vladimir Miller, Kristien Van den Brande & Cecilia Molano, Steven Jouwersma, Pierre Rubio, Nicolas Galeazzi, Philippine Hoegen & Einat Tuchman.

      Friday 25 November, at 21.30pm-02:00

      Mobile interviews - Pierre Rubio

      Pierre Rubio will conduct several nomadic interviews with the participants and with the audience throughout the two-day event. They will revolve around preconceptions about and definitions of the very terms of the a.pass event. What does ‘commoning’ mean? Who is the ‘subject’ producing and operating the commons? What is a ‘commoning practice’? What can ‘commoning’ do? What is the relation between the production of subjectivity and the production of a commoning theatre of operations?

      City of Commons - Vladimir Miller

      In 2015 Stefan Gruber and Vladimir Miller began working on a series of speculative vignettes imagining and discussing a city (or rather a multitude of cities) where certain key institutions are based on practices of commoning. These fragmented utopian visions do not necessarily function or come together as one proposal, but are tools to explore critical positions towards the commons. The texts approach commoning not from the present state of things but speculate from within an imaginary state of commoning as a status quo, thus shifting critique towards a position of inner logics. Rather than discussing commoning practices by comparing or contrasting them with present day structures we jump to a discussion of commoning from within its own possibilities and contradictions, on its own terms. Vladimir Miller will facilitate a work session where together we will develop and discuss visions of institutions as radical spaces of commoning.

      Reading out loud & von unten - Cecilia Molano & Kristien Van den Brande

      Out of the clear, critical light of day, where black night is falling, let's do something as simple as reading a novel to each other. From beginning to end, von unten and out loud, with no particular perspective in mind. Vocalizing writing in order to actualize it, like visualizing it, is not without danger, says Lyotard. Let’s see. If on your bookshelf you have a copy of anti-bildungsroman Jakob Von Gunten by Robert Walser please bring it. Books-with-scribbles-in very much appreciated. Starting at 9.30 pm, until the last page is turned.

      Common sweat sauna - Steven Jouwersma
      extra session on saturday 17:00-21:00

      The Common Sweat Sauna is a real working sauna made only from recuperated materials. It was built in the public space of Brussels and immediately opened up to the public. The project intends to create a free nomadic urban sauna space that diverts from the logic of commercial and individualized wellness and that de-colonizes the public space. The sauna moves from place to place in Brussels and gathers a growing crowd that takes care of the sauna.

      please bring your sauna gear.

      ArtsCommons - rehashed & common zapping (Philippine Hoegen & Einat Tuchman & Nicolas Galeazzi)

      Based on their experience with an attempt to create a commons for the arts, Einat Tuchman, Philippine Hoegen, Nicolas Galeazzi will discuss the difficulties in practicing the commons as an artistic form. Their discussion is ongoing, temporarily settled at a table next to the bar, open for everyone and will be supported by a common zapping through YouTube clips.

       

       

      Figures of Commoning 

      with Rudi Laermans

      Saturday 26 November, 15:30-16:30

      Commoning, or the collective production of a common (a commonality, a common good), is the essential practice through which the social instantiates the political, be it on the macro or the micro level. Evidently, there exist various modes of commoning - of being with and for, social giving and taking, sharing and co-creating. The presentation focusses on some of these practices, ranging from discussing to complicit action to doing nothing.

       


      LAUNCH: BUBBLE SCORE 

      with Lilia Mestre, Philippine Hoegen, Miriam Hempel, and a.pass-participants

      Saturday 26 November, 16:30-18:00

      As a program curator of a.pass (advanced performance and scenography studies), Lilia Mestre has since 2014 developed ScoreScapes, a research on scores as pedagogical tools. Her theoretical interest focuses on performativity as a discursive practice leading to a method based on dialogical and intersubjective formats that function as enablers of exchange within artistic research. Working with this method led to various ways of reflecting on the participants’ work, such as the question of authorship within a scored situation and the bearing of individual creativity within a collective. Bubble Score is the third score created for this context; on the occasion of ‘The Artist Commoner’ a publication will be launched to share and open up the discussion ‘of’ methodologies of commoning education.

       

       

      ‘COMMONS / UNDERCOMMONS IN ART, EDUCATION, WORK...’

      with Bojana Cvejić (ThK - Walking Theory), Pierre Rubio (a.pass)

      Saturday 26th , 18.00-19.30

      a.pass welcomes Bojana Cvejić to discuss the last issue of the journal TkH/Walking Theory : ‘Commons / Undercommons in art, education, work…’ (2016).

      In an interview by Pierre Rubio, co-curator of the apass program, Bojana Cvejić, co-editor of the journal, will address a few problems and questions following from 'The Public Commons and the Undercommons of Art, Education, and Labour’ conference (Frankfurtlab 2014).

      Taking a cue from Jason Read’s contribution to the conference and journal: ‘Individuating the Commons’, Cvejić will account for the approaches and arguments around the Common, its practices and plea for new subjectivation. Her own stance recasts collectivity through the questions of the preindividual and transindividual (in Gilbert Simondon, Paolo Virno, and Jason Read). Cvejić recently gave a lecture using these very concepts ( ‘Radicalising a condition into a practice : Transindividuality’ London, Sept. 2016) to critically problematise art as “a site of intensive expression of individualism”.

      Why do concepts like ‘individuation’ or ‘transindividuality’ seem operative today for Bojana Cvejić to expand the narrow individual interest to a broader horizon of collective transindividual solidarity?

       

      BETWEEN WHAT IS NO LONGER AND WHAT IS NOT YET
      
with Juan Dominguez

      Saturday 26 November; 20:30-22:30

      Juan Dominguez suspends events and creates an interval of time in which he tries to integrate his past into his future. He translates his visions and his desire to encounter the unknown through language. For the first time in 14 years Dominguez is working alone, giving rise to a self-portrait that cites himself and some of his friends.

      tickets on Kaaitheatre website

       

       

      Dance with the DINO SOUND SYSTEM
      
with Christophe Meierhans and Ant Hampton

      Saturday 26 November, 22:30-02:00

      To round up this public meeting, we will party. The sound will be produced by a sound system that is considered a common good – the ominously famous "Dino Sound System". Driven by the need to dance - a group of artists, djs and friends around Christophe Meierhans and Ant Hampton joined forces to construct an extraordinary loudspeaker system that can be used by any of the contributing ‘Dinos' for whatever event they’re planning. For our party, the system will experience its second test phase and official inauguration, with music played by a many-armed, collective DJ. Bring your ears for a listening event at 22.30 and you’ll not be able to hold your legs back!

       

       

      ONGOING

      A.pass books on display / for sale

      The stock of books, artist-publications, posters, leaflets produced by a.pass-curators, researchers and participants will be on display and for sale during the Artist Commoner public meeting.

      publications of a.pass

       

       

       

    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • a.pass Basics workshops
    • block 2016/III
    • Commons
    • THEORIES UNDER THE COMMONS 24 August 2016
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • Vladimir Miller
    • 26 September 2016
    • 30 September 2016
    • THEORIES UNDER THE COMMONS

      In the past several years, we have witnessed are resurgence  of artistic and academic discourse around the notions and practices of commoning. The commons is the central theme of the current apass block, and, over the years, it has arguably been one of the central models for many forms of collectivity practiced at apass. This workshop will be an attempt to „come to terms“, to create shared reference points within the commons discourse among the workshop participants. We will read discuss and map a selection of texts which lay the groundwork for understanding the commons debate today and we will make ourselves familiar with a reader, which can be a further reference for discussions and in depth reading throughout the block.

      To ground our discussions we will look at apass itself as a space of commoning with the help an a project Annette Krauss During the last two years she has worked with CASCO on processes of commoning within the institution. The results of their collective discussions and work take the form of posters, each proposing an exercise in unlearning. Annette Krauss proposes to use the posters as tools for unlearning the practices that uncommon us. 

    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • block 2016/III
    • Commons
    • ECONOMY, AN INTRODUCTION 23 August 2016
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • Kate Rich
    • 13 September 2016
    • 13 September 2016
    • ECONOMY, AN INTRODUCTION

      A one-day sortie into the darker macro arts of Economics, a field in which artists are regularly and perhaps wilfully unschooled. This session will draw on a wild expanse of economic theory, from mainstream to outlier, to sketch out the some of the larger context of the contemporary Economy, against which the resistent coordinates of the Commons (as collective endeavour) and the Artist (as either conscript or deserter) might be revealed. This exploration makes no pretense of discovering reality, but instead to draw out some of the fundamental truths which economists hold to be self evident.


       

       

      Biography:

      Kate Rich is a trade artist and feral economist, born in Australia and living in Bristol UK. She is co-founder of the Bureau of Inverse Technology (BIT), an international agency producing an array of critical information products. Since 2003 she has run Feral Trade, a long-range economic experiment and underground freight network, utilising the spare carrying capacity of the art world for the transportation of other goods, specifically groceries. Her work has been represented in the Whitney Biennial, Tate Modern, New York MoMA, Whitechapel Gallery and Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. Kate is senior lecturer in DIY and activist media at the University of Western England, volunteer finance manager at Bristol's artist-run Cube Microplex, system administrator for the Irational.org art-server collective, and a founding member of the European Sail Cargo Alliance. Her ongoing preoccupation is to move deeper into the infrastructure of trade, administration, organisation and economy in the cultural realm.

    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • block 2016/III
    • Commons
    • Friday Open Space 23 August 2016
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • Nicolas Galeazzi
    • a.pass
    • 16 September 2016
    • 25 November 2016
    • case of: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • Friday Open Space

      Every Friday of this block – from 16th September till the Common Conference – we will come together for a concentrated commoning session. In order to concretely practice and practically inquire the general question of the block – what is created in common? – we try to establish an open space practice that allows pursuing the individual research interests while focussing at the same time on interrelations amongst these researches and the common interests. Training the simultaneity and interdependency of individual and common interests not only puts our commons economy at work but also let’s us investigate the personal and collective effects of structural shifts.

      We will work with the elements provided and commonized during the opening week workshop.

      What is created while working together? With this basic question in mind, we will establish our own specific common working economy. The critical practice of this economy will be our contribution to the Common Conference at the end of the block.

       
      The Fridays Open Space follow a strict protocol: preparing, diving, reflecting, adjusting.

      At 10am we gather for a preparatory hour including a body warm-up, check up of the material and the situation, and a short recap of the previous Friday’s session. Contributions for this preparation can be proposed by everyone taking part.

      At 11am we dive into the open. Everything is in common responsibility and has to be taken care of to be activated, nourished, cultivated, played with, questioned, put in context, etc.

      Throughout these sessions, the attention lies – similar to improvisation – on the contextual relationality of the individual trajectories towards the commons.

      At 1pm we eat soup and reflect upon our experience in the open session. Based on this reflection we commonly decide on adjustments as a starting point for the next Friday Open Space.

      The sessions will end around 3pm.

    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • block 2016/III
    • Commons
    • ASSEMBLY WITH THINGS Thing 001390, and Thing 001652
      23 August 2016
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • Agency
    • a.pass
    • 10 October 2016
    • 13 October 2016
    • ASSEMBLY WITH THINGS

      Agency constitutes a growing “list of things” that resist the radical split between the classifications of nature and culture. This list of things is mostly derived from juridical cases and controversies involving intellectual property (copyrights, patents, trade marks, etc.) in various territories around the world. The concept of intellectual property relies upon the fundamental assumption of the split between culture and nature and consequently between expressions and ideas, creations and facts, subjects and objects, humans and non-humans, originality and tradition, individuals and collectives, mind and body, etc.. Each “thing” or controversy, included on the list, witnesses a hesitation in terms of these divisions. Agency calls these “things” forth from its list via varying “assemblies” inside exhibitions, performances, publications, and other forms. Each assembly speculates around possible inclusions of excluded agencies. These fabulations explore in a topological way the operative consequences of the apparatus of intellectual property for an ecology of art practices and their modes of existence.

      In terms of intellectual property law the commons are often determined by the vague demarcation like between what is "common" and what is "original". The controversies that Kobe Matthys of Agency will invoke during the workshop bring about the absurdities of this division in artistic, philosophical and other terms. In this workshop we will also put some existing legal precedents in relation to our own practices and speculate around other potential scenarios, other lines of thoughts than the juridical argumentation of copyright law, possible diverging situations and beyond.

      For this workshop Agency proposes an work amongst others with two Things that are directly connocted to questions of the commons Commons. Discussing and unfolding the problematics of these cases we try to localize the gray zones in our own researches, our relationship to objects and the reality that create ‚us and them’.

      Thing 001390 (Ten dollar bank note)

      According to Aboriginal tradition the Morning Star Pole is imbued with the power to take the spirits of the dead to the Morning Star, which will return them to their ancestral home. While a pole is part of the communal ceremony, it is made in secret in accordance with (common) religious rules.

      In 1985, the artist Terry Yumbulul, himself member of the Galpu people, made morning star poles and sold one of them to the Australian Museum in Sidney.

      In 1988, the Reserve Bank of Australia released a special $10 bank note to commemorate the first

      European settlement in Australia incorporating elements of a reproduction of that specific Morning Star Pole. After Yumbulul was criticized by his community for permitting the reproduction of the pole on the banknote, he initiated an action against the Bank for infringement of his copyright.The court defended the copyright of the Bank.

      Thing 001652 (Monkey’s Selfies)

      In 2011 an individual of the so called crested macaques ape manipulated the camera of the wild life photographer David Slater and shot coincidentally an image of itself. The image became famous as the Monkey’s Selfie. It was published in an online version of Daily Mail and on Wikipedia - in Daily Mail the copyright notice read: „Copyright Casters News Service“; Wikipedia considered the picture as public domain. In consequence Mr. Slater himself, Copyright Offices and animal right groups started to fight with different arguments for and against a possible copyright of this picture.


       

       

      Biography

      "Agency" is an international initiative that was founded in 1992 by Kobe Matthys and has office in Brussels. Agency constitutes a growing “list of things” that resist the radical split between the classifications of nature and culture. This list of things is mostly derived from juridical cases and controversies involving intellectual property (copyrights, patents, trade marks, etc...) in various territories around the world. The concept of intellectual property relies upon the fundamental assumption of the split between culture and nature and consequently between expressions and ideas, creations and facts, subjects and objects, humans and non-humans, originality and tradition, individuals and collectives, mind and body, etc.... Each “thing” or controversy, included on the list, witnesses a hesitation in terms of these divisions. Agency calls these “things” forth from its list via varying “assemblies” inside exhibitions, performances, publications, etc... Each assembly speculates around possible inclusions. As a whole the assemblies explore in a topological way the operative consequences of the apparatus of intellectual property for an ecology of diverse art practices and their modes of existence.

      On Days Like These We Must Surf from Jake Kovnat on Vimeo.

    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • block 2016/III
    • Commons
    • Opening week 2016/III workshop: Gathering things 23 August 2016
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • Nicolas Galeazzi
    • a.pass
    • 05 September 2016
    • 14 September 2016
    • case of: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • Opening week 2016/III workshop: Gathering things

      This commoning workshop radicalizes the usual focus of the opening week: we share our researches! Sharing this time, is not only a means to update each other about the actual state of our projects, but literally aims to make them a common issue.

      Our individual researches are the basic material to set to work during a block. 'Working’ is a specific economy of related energies, knowledge, motivation, intend, emotions, of objects and humans, documents and processes.

      The opening workshop forms the basis of a block-specific economy that will be developed further in the Fridays Open Session.

      You are invited to carefully select parts of your individual research that will then be declared as common good for the duration of the block. The collection of these parts is the base of our commons. The collection will be under constant transformation and observation, and shall be our indicator of how our researches develop under the influence of the care by ‘everyone‘.

      We will present our individual researches synthesized through three specific filters :

      •     One element from your research that you define as a resource for yourself and others.
            Resources are things that transform when we use them!
      •     One element that you declare as a tool.
            Tools are things that we use in order to transform other things.
      •     One element that describes a ‘gap’ in your research.
            Gaps are not-things: Gaps are consciously or unconsciously ignored or desired elements within our researches.


      Beside the opening week workshop, we will take time to discuss the concept and the practicalities of a.pass in general.

    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • block 2016/III
    • Commons
    • COMMUNAL GARDENS 18 August 2016
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • Einat Tuchman & VK
    • VK (Vaarkapoen, Molenbeek)
    • 31 October 2016
    • 03 November 2016
    • COMMUNAL GARDENS

      Vaarkapoen is a community center in the heart of Molenbeek, quite near a.pass. It’s an institution engaged in the community and community building of this problematic commune. Since November 2015 Molenbeek is recurrently in the world news as a nest for ’islamic’ terrorists. The commune has been blamed for neglecting integration policy and for not taking serious the existing social and economic problems. The political community as well as the population are therefore alert and know they – we – have to do something. In this situation, many claims are coming towards the arts, towards education and social work. The team of VK is one of those actors who are assigned to address this social situation in the commune and to bring artists in relation to the community.

      One of their projects is to develop a communal garden as open space for a general public to use. Connected to it they want to build an artistic residency place for projects that deal with the community.  The situation is structurally complex. To create this garden a currently squatted building has to be destroyed. For the rather poor population the renovation cost are fairly high. The questions of who will decide about the dedication of the garden, about activities and use, is still open.

      During the workshop we will examine the existing garden and the future one, departing from our personal artistic researches. How can we as artists with our researches take position in, or towards this project? What would we do with this space, in this situation, at this location? How would our research react to, or in it? In what kind of garden would you place your project? What would you need in this garden to be able to realize your ideas and how could your research reach others through this garden?

      These are questions addressed together with Einat Tuchman. Through her artistic practice Tuchman addresses since several years the question how art can engage in community building without compromising itself. Together with Tuchman we will relate our researches to this garden/residency project and will develop positions and actions towards it.

    • Collective moments (opening week, half-way-days, and end week) are compulsory for everybody

      Beside the collective moments you should engage in alt least 2 workshops proposed in thes block, of which one should be  b-workshop. B-workshops are this block Vladimir's 'Theory Under The Commons' workshop and Mala's 'With I+II' workshop.

      In order to participate in the Common Conference at the end of the block, you should at least take part in half of the Friday open space sessions.

      In order to keep the a.pass archive alive, we have to feed it! Therefore, we would like to introduce the concept of the Caretaker: all a.pass event - workshops and common moments - should be hosted and documented by participants.

      You will have one coordinator's mentoring with Kristien to orientate yourself within a.pass and your own research.

      During the block you normally have two meetings with either 2 or 3 mentors of your choice. Please read the specific mentoring strategies for this block. 

    • project
    • Commons
    • NOT_index
    • KunstAllmend Art as commons
      18 December 2013
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • 18 December 2013
    • 21 September 2014
    • case of: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • KunstAllmend

      Berich von der Allmend_web-Seite002The KunstAllmend / ArtsCommons is a collective project experimenting with alternative artistic economies to redefine conditions for artistic production. Reflective of the commons active in the Swiss Alps for centuries, the KunstAllmend transposes this traditional model upon contemporary discussions concerning the management of common resources, authorship and copyright – strategies of ‘sharing’ in opposite to market ‘exchange’. The KA is a proposing an scenographic infrastructure for art production under the conditions of a radical commons economies. These conditions provide a context to discuss the commons rather as a promising problematic than a solution. 

      The first experiments with this economy took place 2014 at the Dampfzentrale in Bern/Switzerland in relation with the BernBiennale. 

      To know more abou this project, please download the pdf in the link bellow:

      PDF: Berich von der Allmend





APPLY TO THE A.PASS PROGRAMMES

Unfortunately we no longer have applications. Both programs: the Postgraduate as well as Research Center have come to an end due to the decision of the ministry of education to stop financing a.pass. At the moment we look into new plans for the future. More news soon on our website.

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