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    • Commons
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    • 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

    • Embracing the fact that artistic research is an emerging category of production in the cultural field, a.pass does not claim it as it’s goal or premise to be able delineate the borders of this particular methodology. a.pass affirms this apparent lack of definition as a chance. Operating without a predefined notion of what „artistic research“ is, it creates and brings together a pluralistic overview of the existing notions of this practice.

      An affirmative survey towards the question „what is artist research?“ has therefore become one of a.pass' defining methodologies: a.pass strives to host a multitude of practices in the arts which self-define themselves as research. Their definitions of what a research praxis in the arts is are at times complementing and at times contradicting each other. This dis/agreement creates a polivocal platform of definitions and is a statement towards a different conception of institutions: away from essentialist claims and towards a more politicised platform of engagement with a certain discipline.

      Some of the methods of this survey methodology are:
      -a.pass frequently invites research practitioners in the arts to work with the participants of the institute.
      -a.pass invests in creating occasions for public discussions of what artistic research is and in presenting the researches work to the general public.
      -a.pass is producing a library of research methodologies by publishing the individual research cases.
      -a.pass is presenting itself as a platform for the exchange, implementations and experimentation of research methodologies.


      Beyond its defined curriculum and methods a.pass has in general become an informal meeting point of professionals in the arts on many levels of professionalization Many contacts and collaborations that have been initiated at a.pass continue well beyond the one-year timeframe. It is a productive hub for the Brussels art scene.


      a.pass is a platform which educates and sets an agenda of learning for its participants. It is building its curriculum by inviting advanced practitioners in the arts to actively engage the participants into their research within a framework of a workshop. This work is not framed as a teaching as such, but as a process of collective
      exploration. Experimental formats of collective and collaborative research are frequently proposed and developed in such a framework. The traditional professor- student relationship is put into question here and has to be re-negotiated as a dialogue while a diverse group of practices is admitted as „teaching“.
      a.pass develops teaching practices which engage with the question of how the process of knowledge production and transfer can be framed outside the persistent hierarchies within the processes of learning and education.

       

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    • TRT Caterina Mora
      06 September 2019
      posted by: Caterina Mora
    • case of: Caterina Mora
    •  

       

       

      When something emerged it feels like power. 

      What it is?

      Ortgasmic research (seductive)

      TRT is a handle training focus on paradoxes or contradictions between my productive forces and the relations of production (the shift north-south, the flip entertainment-AFFIRMATIVE CRITIC and the bibliographic-biographic activism).

       

       

       

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    • circular time I think  (personal context)  Caterina Mora
      06 September 2019
      posted by: Caterina Mora
    • case of: Caterina Mora
    •  

      When does a.pass start? When does a.pass end?                    "el futuro es atrás" "the future is back" (Silvia Rivera Cusicanki) 

       

       

      23  de octubre de 2017 

      Tomando mate en casa con un amigo. Recibí el mail de Lilia. Y lloré con mi amigo de alegría. (I was drinking "mate" with a friend. I received Lilia´s mail). 

      In fact, yo ya sabía que venía también por amor (at that moment I was planning to live in Brussels).

      The 30th October 2017 I took my flight from Buenos Aires to Brussels.

      [gallery columns="1" size="medium" link="none" ids="9201,9202"]

       

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    • rest Caterina Mora
      06 September 2019
      posted by: Caterina Mora
    • case of: Caterina Mora
    •  

       

      In ORDER TO rest --> What do you need to do?

      How?

      If you can, if you feel like, if you need

      I invite you, to rest

       

       

      (in order to resist, I rest)

      (Descansar para desacatar)

       

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    • but it was fantastic to do it Caterina Mora
      06 September 2019
      posted by: Caterina Mora
    • case of: Caterina Mora
    •  

      How many times have you applied to things? How many times have we not been accepted?
      What does the training  of "making applications" do?

      And what does the training of receive "no" as response do?

      I was invited to do the interview in front of a jury. It was a great exercise of confrontation.

      And finally I didn´t get in. 

      Again, for me is important to thanks the people who were involved in that process.

      Especially because I fell into an institution that I didn´t know.

      I was glad to apply and prefer to keep the joy of the exercise. 
      Thanks to my tutors Timmy and Esther and especially to my translator/proof reading from Argentina, Mariana. 

      Thanks to the person from the University who translated a from English to Flemish. 

      Here you can find the resume of my application

       

      The tittle is missing yes I know

      This project proposes to create intercultural bridges between high and low culture by examining internalization of normative constructions in the field of dance.

      Firstly, it focuses on reggaeton, a popular genre originated in the Caribbean in the 1990s, characterized by the perreo movement (doggy dancing) inherited from the Afro-descendant slave population. Secondly, it takes the art form ballet emerged in the French Royalty in the 15th century as the first scholar dance program with a codified technique to control and normalize the body.

      Considering translation as the rendering/transposing from one language to another, this work engages with its historical perception as a product of degraded task of authorship and non-original result that has allowed women to access Literature.

      The question arises: How can the uncontrollable shaking of reggaeton be a device for highlighting normative constructions in Western dance? Can such movement be an empowerment practice?

      This project aims to develop a training based on shaking and to perform and register translation from ballet to reggaeton. To reveal the internalization of normative structures in the discipline of dance, it problematizes the notion of translatability and the ideal of perfection. Through the figure of “translatress” and decolonial approach, the methodology deals with the failure to get perfect translations and the emergence of the marginal or bastard issue as destabilizing devices of normative and hegemonic constructions.

       

       

      The most important thing of this application was that it forced me to create a device of sharing my practise. 

      The sharing device?

      What can I offer? 

      Inspired from a meeting with Timmy, it emerged "Transversal Training"

      “Transversal training” as strategies to claim joy

      At this moment, I defined as a body practise. In my application I defined like this:

      Transversal training” (...) invites to experience group training emphasizing uncontrollable movements. Figuring out multiple ways to keep the shaking and putting special attention to transverse abdominals, the physical work seeks the origin of the movement in the force of the push against contact surface. Then, it develops a fast and prolonged dynamics of tensioning and relaxing that pushing action, paying special attention, above all, to the rest of the body structure. The training is shaped by transference of different levels of tension, relationships between sensorial and physical transformations and transit in collective experience. Aiming micro-politics and temporary emancipations, the courses are the results of encounters where transverse abdominals are protagonists.

       

      - At this moment, I didn´´t know how important/valuable was this exercise 

      of imagine

      how to share the research-

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    • 18 minutes of a... Caterina Mora
      05 September 2019
      posted by: Caterina Mora
    • case of: Caterina Mora
    •  

      In the frame of Performatik19, a.pass presented Unsettled Study 

      I presented

       

      18 minutes of a Poor Cheap Bastard Lecture Performance

      For this project a.pass provides bright paper, a platform, a microphone like Madonna, cables, speaker, lights and they/we transport the handmade ballet barre. I provide 18 minutes of my embodied research, a plastic crown of 10 cents of euros and music from my cellphone that I bought for 67 euros. This is an attempt to bring high and low culture closer but maybe is too pretentious. I am trying to dance critically: from l'exagération de a sociological situation to the pleasure of mostrar los dientes. All of you are welcome.

      [gallery columns="1" size="full" ids="9180"]

       

      Photos: Alexandre Ismail

       

      This is the Facebook that I created (the last one that I want to do in my life)

       

      [embed]https://www.facebook.com/296089647751324/photos/a.307069626653326/307069719986650/?type=3&theater[/embed]

       

        estoy haciendo "que"

    •  

       

      For my End presentation at PAF I was busy with: 

      - how to present/show/explain the translation --> WHAT is that doing?

      - how to agradecer / dire "merci" and explicit my feeling of RIQUEZA (wealth, riches, richness) at apass

      - how to empower all my grammar mistake in English

      - how to "critic" the device of Artistic Research

      - how to deal with a lot of techniques and popular dance

      - how to empower the bastard, the cheap, the non-complet, the non-perfect.

      Here some pictures of my presentation

      Maybe if you feel like, you can identify which kind of dances are here. 

      [gallery columns="2" size="medium" ids="9162,9163,9164,9165,9166,9167,9168,9169,9170"]

       

       

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    • filter --> body practise Caterina Mora
      04 September 2019
      posted by: Caterina Mora
    • case of: Caterina Mora
    •  

      Filtration is the process of separating, grouping, identifying things from things

      The filter "body practise" is a fake filter. 

      It´s fake because it does not intend to regroup or separate anything.
      This is the statement:

      The only way to think about this research is

      by the body,

      is through the body, 

      and going towards the body.

       

      ------------------------------------------------------------

       

       

       

      A body that drew specific gesture vocabulary

       

       

      A body in front of the camera

       

      A body behind or below the camera

       

       

      A body busy with techniques of breathing, talking and dancing (a body trying )

       

       

      Some bodies resting

       

       

      A body questioning what is doing and tryng to not give responses

       

       

      A body repeating and repeating (ENSAYOS)

       

       

       

      A body starting and smiling

       

       

      A body in a important museum being photographed

       

       

      A body doing wrokshops  (Phillipe G.)

       

       

      A body giving things for adoption  (capitalism, inflation, verticality, elitism and "missing")

       

       

      A body lending its body for other research (yes, that's me) - (Geert´s project)

       

       

      More than one body trying to make sense

       

       

      Some bodies travelling with others bodies

      [gallery columns="4" ids="9265,9266,9267,9264"]

       

      Some bodies sharing a.pass space 

       

      Some bodies living in a.pass and using scenography as coat rack

       

      A body reclaiming silence

       

       

      A body quoting other body

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    • filter --> TRT (Transversal Research Training) Caterina Mora
      03 September 2019
      posted by: Caterina Mora
    • case of: Caterina Mora
    • The 13th May 2019 emerged TRT --> how did I arrive to it?

                                             (in the dynamics of going through)

      props: mate / madera / creepy virgen / brillante paper

                                   This text can be a part of the script for my End-Presentation in PAF

                                                                                                                TRT or Trans-Re-Training 

      It is a political device for the my, our, yours, their  artistic practise     

      Instead to control, it engages with planning of time-work and keep time for contingence events.    Projection: photo of my planning

      It is not something new: it doesn't reclaim uniqueness or originality. It recognizes thousands of referents. Projection:  It defends shareability

      It tries to refuse FC, Instagram, Google, Snapchat.   Projection: it is looking for an open source web page (still in process)

      It conceives documentation as way to look backwards: what is it that transforms/modify/change you?

      It address explicitly to sexuality, sensuality, erotism and to the pleasure of communication, without take care too much of grammar. Désolé but I AM NOT SORRY. It is also adressing explicity.           Projection: pleasure   

      It is looking for transpirar la gota gorda transpiration. It encourages transunderstanding of transrelationships                                      

      It electrifies transience (transitoriedad) and transgress

      It develops transferable skill between readingwritingmoving

      It is aware about non-transparent power structures

      It exercises the magnetization of transimagination

      It takes care of context    (It question how much context the practise needs) IT IS SITUATED

      Descansa para desacatar                                                  IT IS TRANSDUCCIÓN

      The translation is feminist because is looking at gendered dances --> "The text that you translate determines which translation theory you need to use" (Mariana Pessino) 

      It encourages evident things (it uses what it has) --> please LISTEN it

      TRT is feminism busy with create vocabulary (Projection: thanks Butler), power structures (thanks Femke, she helped me finding something persistent as a problem in my daily life connected also with practice. And this that we find changed both: my daily life and my practice). TRT is feminism busy with  conditions of production (thanks Le Roy), contradictions (thanks Petra van Bravandt), abortion law (thanks la marea / the wage) argentina feminista, entertainment (thanks Lilia), promiscuity (thanks Juan), decolonial approach (thanks Lucas),  marxism and aesthetic experience (thanks Horacio Banega), Bologna process (thanks Susana and María Martha), BDSM (thank you), Aphra Behn (photo), Elvira Lopez (photo tesis), ways of sharing (thanks Segunda Cuadernos de danza), technical support (thanks Steven) limits and borders (thanks Marie).

                                                                                                 

                                                     

      This is its desing: 

                              TRT

                                    t t t ttttttttttttttttttt

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    • the oficial 3rd block "les belles infidèles"
      03 September 2019
      posted by: Caterina Mora
    • case of: Caterina Mora
    • Block curated by Nicolas Galleazzi called   here the link 

       

      Openning week

      I didn´t prepare this presentation, I was exhauted. The day of my presentation I did the interview for the Pdh. The jury made me a very good question: "which Translation theory are you busy with?" 

      I started to look into that.

      In parallel, I was convinced about continue working on transtalion, but I asked myself: what I am producing with translation? Another "system"? What is doing the repetition of ballet history telling? And the genealogy of reggaeton? 

       

      [gallery columns="1" size="medium" link="none" ids="9215,9216,9217"]

       

       

      The 13th I had a  mentoring session with one of the person who changed my life/practise. The same person which whom I realised that translation were more important for me than just something temporary. She transforms me. 

      The 13 th May 2019 emerged TRT                                Transversal Research Training 

       

       

      Half Way Days

      A first essay focus on methodology.

      Transoceanic reading --> the aim of this practise question how do we access to reality, how do we inform each other.

                                              Is looking for transunderstanding of transrelationships.

      The exercise --> (by two) : read at news from your context // share it // try to find relationship (or imagine it)

       

       

      Another residence

      Unlearning Center // Friburg

      Three experiences:     

      -1-  Practising change of roles (I use to be a "follower") and here I am guiding Nicolas.

       

      -2- Training TRT

      Two dance courses focus on these pairs: touch and be touched // look at and being looked // resist and rest

      -3- The adoptee --> How can the one being seen influence how to be seen?

       

      -----------------

      In parallel, I was living in a.pass, practising, repeating, enjoying apass time, 

       

       

      End presentation - PAF (in the church)

      Sharing/exposing/defending/confronting TRT       

      [gallery columns="1" size="medium" ids="9240,9241,9242,9243,9244,9245"]

       

      Here you can find excerpt of the script

      For the newcommers. We can´t find PAF in Wikipedia.               (Diego, querés cebar mate?)

      This presentation is my End presentation in PAF. It symbolizes many finals. Because study in apass was a dream. It was a dream change completely of context. It was a dream built discourse and practice in relation to another context and again comeback to my home context. So this final of the APass times is for me also the final as student in Europ, the final of use Apass technology,  apass spaces, apass budget, apass mentors, apass travels, apass cooking together, apass talking together, apass openning half and end week, apass cleaning together. And I was very anguished or sad because this end. And then Nicolas told me that maybe I could see that as a start. Immediately I could remember my psychoanalyst saying me the same thing when I was preparing my travel to come here. He used to tell me: 
      • Acabar para empezar.    // Projection: if I cry please cry with me or just wait. I will stop-    Comme dans toute relation sexuelle
      • End. Final. Finish to start. Para empezar, commencer.
      • apass changed me. apass modifies me, apass transform me (I am reapiting this from my second block).            Grand écart 
      • TRANSVERSAL RESEARCH TRAINING is a device that serves to conceive my artistic practice. It is an umbrella with transversal tools.
      • Transversal à  is busy with issues that go through or cross different practices.
      • The transversal things are linked to problematize power structures, conditions of production (entertainment, shift north-south),                     questioning authorship, problematizing the way of relate to reality. Those concepts intersect in the training.
      • Training à is looking at endurance process engaging art/life. As any training, is linked to a way of face knowledge in process education. As any training, is looking for preparing and contextualizing practice focus on elasticity, concentration, balance and  coordination of different task.
      • Research à this word is so full of meaning. It seems like the word “research” gives to the frame of “Artistic Research” another status. More powerful, more legitimated, as the word “art” wasn´t enough or wasn’t already legitimated. So, that´s why TRT is also busy with the critic of the device called Artistic Research. I am here in front of a paradox: I am engaging with TRT as a device to do Artistic Research that is also criticizing the device of Artistic Research. Esto acarrea un gran peligro, this brings me to another problem, that I will address later.
      • Inspired by migration for privileges, TRT is a fiction in which I believe. And that is why we are in a church, because religions are fictions in which we believe. Somehow, TRT is my religion and it preaches confrontation between high and low culture thought translation. 
      • TRT has an Ecosystem of methodologies à  "more diversity more stable", interdependence, respect symbiosis practise (or plant) -territory, non-hierarchy, is bringing the ghost, or at least, it is inviting others. This methodology is based on transactivity practise: transoceanic reading  / Training transession / Trust in nothing (rest) / Translation addressing gender (exchange of role) in dance / Transdocument
      • Let´s say that TRT is looking at the FUTURE, is looking for the future, is looking through the future. It is trying to prepare better conditions for my work. What are the RESEARCH needs?
      • It offers services in the “transtructure". Services as the thinks that provides utility (satisfaction) to the consumer. In the literal understanding of intangible services offered by people. TRT offers the following services: method / piece / body practise/ a way of engage information.                                   And transtructure in Marxist terms. All of us are aware of difference between superstructure and infrastructure? Ok sorry Marx I don´t want to simplify you. Superstructure and infrastructure  - Just in order to simplify this, let´s imagine that infrastructure is the base of a house and superstructure is the roof. I am using now the same schema that we use to study Marxism.                Projection: the marxism house for explanaition (..........................)   infrastructure and structure (...)
      • But how did I arrive to this? So for the ones who don´t know too much what I did, I prepare this resume that summarizes all the key words or the important things and concept which I was busy with. - La gran pregunta es: qué persiste?   Trough those key words we can see some persistence --> Presentation of THE Artistic Research by Google Translator VOICE please listen HERE
      • Artistic research -->   You (-.............................) white and pretentious, wealthy middle class, coffee adict, MAC consumer, residences dependient, travelling all the time in the same little continent. This is for you, even tough is incomplete, bastard, super cheap. Because I think you need perreo: enterteiment mamita. Si necesitas reggaeton dale, sigue bailando mami no pares, acercate a mi pantalón dale, vamos a pegarnos como animales. Muevete a mi ritmo siente el magnetism. Feel the magnetism. You, symptom of artist going to legitimation in academia. I am so busy with you. I am so in love with you. I love you x4. Why? Because you gives us power. And power is so fantastic. Power makes thinks beauty. And beauty leads violence. And all of you, artistic research, you are so incredible amazing.   
      • I am so stuck in this obsession  / Everything is dark now - Everything is dark now - its blank its blank -You can comment This is the think - Responder sexy body Sexy body RESPONDER x 2  - This is from another old good song. YOU. Slippery, elitist, contradictory, indefinable. Why I am so addict to you? / You are afraid to travel because it contaminates. You are creating phd and a lot of position for what? You have the challenge of modify academia and what are you doing for that? Nothing, you are doing nothing. You are reproducing the same patriarchal standard of virility. Orden y progreso. Order insubordination submission.   subject object subject object  subject object subject object
      • I want to catch you, I want to get you, I want to be as you. I bless you here with a new name --> I will call you: ortgasmic research
      • Seductive, I must admit that I am so scared. Scared of not being heard by you, of not enter your circuit. Ortgasmic research: what happens if you don´t love me? 
      • And why this is so untranslable?                                Projection: the untranslable are motors, not obstacles     Temps de flèche
      • Affects of TRT --> (..............................................) Feed back is coming / Gracias

      ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

      A  FEED-BACK "emu", conmovido, casi sin palabras.

      -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

       

       

      End communication note:

      I choose to re-used the performance that I did at Kanal. That ´s why the presentation is called:

      "Pa-küru: 47 minutes of a bastard cheap lecture performance". 

       

      -----------------------------

      Interesting references: Donna Haraway last book / Marie Bardet about translation / Katie Briggs: This little art / The new code of conduct by Feminist Movement of Tango in Argentina / Sarah Amed (video) On complaint / Karen Barad: Transmaterialities / Sherry Simon again. 

    • NOT_index
    • Skip block aprovechando que no DEBO ir
      03 September 2019
      posted by: Caterina Mora
    • case of: Caterina Mora
    •  Block curated by Vladimir Miller. Settlement 14

      In apass we can "skyp a block". That´s mean that we can dispose more time for our research. I choose that. 

      In this block I will not talk about my presentations, because in fact I only made the first one. The second and third I did not present, because I was a skipping person. 

      However, three important things happened in this block: 

                                      -------> presentation at Kanal (click HERE) Centre Pompidou in the frame of Performatik 2019

                                        --------> a submission for a Phd that I didn´t get in. But it was fantastic to do it  (CLICK here)

                                            -------------> resting FROM a.pass (here CHICK please)

                                                    -----------> resting/training/enjoying IN a.pass, as you can in the video

       

       

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    • 2nd block ... emboding translation
      03 September 2019
      posted by: Caterina Mora
    • case of: Caterina Mora
    •  

      HWD presentation - Photo from the "heaven"

       

      2nd Block, curated by Adva Zakai called MILIEUS, A.PASS MEETS SOL / SCHOOL OF LOVE     here the link

       

      Openning week

      The presentation focused on what I did in the 1st Block, my problems and how to open up the discussion around stereotype.

      I asked myself:  who I am and what is my position in this research? What is the relation between researcher and research? (because Yaguareté didn´t convinced me).

                       Methodological traps: am I becoming the thing that I am criticizing? // how to resist? // How to deal with the distance of context?

      Where I want to go?

      What can I add to the critical discussion?
      And how to bring Latin-american authors?  

      Is this Artistic Research? // Do I have a (THE) question of my research?

       

      ------------

      Travel to Venice and what I want to remember from the Swamp School: I always expect to much of neoliberal events. The “gondoleros” have been using the same t-shirt (striped, a rayas, style "breton" T-shirt) since when? There are Madonnas everywhere in Italy.  I saw a italian misa. 

      I visited for first time the Biennal of Architecture. It was horrible. I saw in the Biennal an event about students in the Turkish Pavillion. I saw the presentation of a girl. She was the only women with velo talking between men. Her presentation it was about a refugee campus. She presented how refugees people build their houses in this campus: in vertical sense. Because there is no space to the side, there is a delimited territory. That´s why they built to up in generations.

      Also I saw belgium humour in it pavillion. It was important. 

      And "the common"? This travel was about that. I didn´t see too much "the common". Who relates to apass? Why are we here? What is doing "School of love" here? 

      I had a great time, I went to the beach and drank several aperol spritz.

      If the common is the one of Swamp School, I don´t want to be part of it. 

       

       

       

       

      Half way days

       

      The first time that I presented my obsession with translation HERE

       

      Why?

      How did I arrive to do translation?

      Because in my daily life I needed all the time Google Translator

      In order to bring this need for communication, I started to translate.

      Since then I have tried several forms of translation.
      - I became obsessed - 

      La necesidad y dependencia de usar un interlocutor para mi comunicación determinó mi práctica artística. 

      I started to trying it from BALLET to REGGAETON 

      How? 
      The firt thing that I did it was I look at ballet vocabulary, and how one WORD has a meanniing IN - FOR a gesture or movement.

       

      End presentation - PAF

      I tried the same structure of HWD. Here are excert of the script:

       

      Zero moment - Soft hanging out → ejercicio del eje/ warming up. 15 min

      Voice recorded with Google Translator: Hello everybody. hello, this is a Zero moment - Soft hanging out x 3 -          Please rest. lie down. Use the blankets in space. Could you like to warming up with me? Please inhale and exhale let the blood fall. You can follow me. Rebounds a bit, jump, move a bit the space. Shake out the wrists, each leg. Flexion in your knees and please not change of position. changing fingers. Give a punch with weight change and translate in the space. you can exhale and release your voice with a sound. You can be violent.

       

      Un première momento de explanation/transmission of what I am doing

      This is a translation of what I am doing at apass in this moment. And what is apass for me.

      First. When I got to apass I got excited because I saw in the university with two Macs. There are microphones that work, projectors, cameras. There is one person who helps us with the technique, another with residence papers, another who explains many times about the reimbursements. There is, above all, a general coordinator that contains the situation and who checks the ball. There is also a person who, through his artistic practice, heals the block, and this person will be criticized.

      Instead, I come from a university where projectors do not run, that does not consider cables, that does not provide space for rehearsal, that does not provide printers with endless paper.

      I feel rich in this context. I realized that it's a choice to work with concepts like trash bastards, simultaneity residue.

      Here we spend a lot of paper, it is printed in simple, a lot. We have an open library.

      Apass, is for me, even with ugly smell and smell of rat, a paradise that support our work.

      We even have a key and alarm to enter when we want,

      We have Mohamed who is the celebrant and sings when he cleans. With Mohamed I practice my French. We can buy books, we can pay mentors, we can travel with money from the university for what our project needs. People in apass, rotten food left in the refrigerator or in the closet.

      All this for what? To criticize you, me. BUT: what is critically? And who am I to criticize?  

      So that we focus on Artistic Research, which is a kind of legitimizing process that we are running after. These are our beautiful production conditions. Fuck Artistic Research. YOU. European, white and pretentious. Synthon of artist going to legitimation in academia. YOU. Slippery, elitist, contradictory, indefinable. We love you. Why? Because it gives us power. Why I came here to legitimate my practise? 

      Sometimes, really, I don’t know and I am thinking in become electrician.

      This place, Performing Arts Forum es muy emocionante. Xavier Le Roy went through here and it makes me very nervous to know that I am writing a thesis around the author's figure and that here he created part of the Product of Other Circumstances, nine years ago.

      About this work. This about translations. In effect, this text originally written in Spanish and translated by Google translator into English.

      I've become better using the translator, because you have to be specific and most of the time google is not that smart. Above all, you have to write short sentences.

      This deuxième moment of exposition / transpose of what I am doing tries to explain that I arrived to translation because it became a necessity of my daily life and artistic production. I must admit it was a little difficult to be engage with the translations. I feel scared for sharing this material with you, because are not complete, not virtuous, and quite arbitrary. As I already said, this translations are defined as cheap, bastard, slut or trash translations.

      And this way of production is recurrent in all my work. And when you realise your logic production, what is supporting your practise, why are you taking your aesthetic, ethic and political decision, your influences, your history, your interest, you become powerful.

      And now I understand why I'm here and I want that legitimation.

      Lilia told me at our first coordination session that people leave fortalecida. strengthened

      With the help of my mentors, I develop this format that above all, brings me closer to my background. In fact, the study of dance techniques, the reflection on performativity, the considerations around the relation movement and word and the pedagogical questioning about what the experience of a work of art implies, constitute a fundamental part of me. work before apass.

      I'm trying to not have the performance pressure, as Vladimir recommended, and to work with the fact that translations are not perfect, in Femke's words. With their help, and also Adva, Lilia and Kristien from he first block.

      Thanks all this people and of course you that are supporting my practise. And supporting me, you are changing me.

      Finally and as you already know, derniene moment, or troisieme partie, of mediation, transformation that is feed-back integrated into practice. I'll introduce it better later.

       

      At this moment I did the translations

      From Reggaeton to Cunningham Technique.

      From Graham Technique to Reaggaeton.

      And from Contemporary dance (Arenal) to Argentine folklore (Escondido and gato).

      3 - Este es el troisième momento experiencing/mediation/transformation of what I am doing.

       I invite you to take the same position of support, do 1 or to rotations and then change of partner. For HWD we did this but related to the untranslatable. For this occasion, I invite you to talk about what are the conditions of production that you can recognize are supporting you, that affects your work. in order to produce motivation or limitations or more. Or even, if you can recognize how and why are you busy with the things you're busy with.

      Please take the position. DO IT.

      Before to talk [ALWAYS] change of role. Last thing, also you can change of partner, of way of support each other, or even change of level, but not go to the floor.  Yes?

      Again if you need paper or write, there is here.

      I start but then I will try to keep silence. I am busy with privileges, pleasure and violence. So, as you see, privileges related to conditions of production, interiorization of violence through the techniques of dance. and pleasure as a source or force with potential disruptive.

       

      Here you can see some photos 

       

      In December 2018 I visited Argentina . I went to Buenos Aires, Fiske Menuco, Villarrica, and Santiago de Chile. 

       

      -------------------

      Important reading: Shery Simon (Gender in translation) / the matherials writen by me in Spanish about dance and text / phD Tesis by Eugenia Cadus about Dance History in Argentina / Bleshi Lleri / Poliamory / Decolonial approach (Mignolo).

    • block 2018/II
    • NOT_index
    • 1st block - ... starting to speak in English
      10 August 2019
      posted by: Caterina Mora
    • case of: Caterina Mora
    •  

      [embed]https://gph.is/2y38zRI[/embed]

      (this gift is made with images of the block)

      Before to start: Excerpts from my application     // Investigation purpose (2017)

      Title: Derivatives around the construction of “the Latin imaginary” in Brussels context

      Abstract

      This work takes the reflection as a topic concerning “the Latin imaginary”[1] in Brussels context. As a starting point, it considers “the Latin imaginary” as a construction which is imagined by people who perceive themselves like “Latin people”, in terms of Imagined Communities. The aim is to study how this imaginary is composed of images, desires and motivations depositories that move around in the plot of signs in semio-capitalism.

      The questions that give rise to this project are: how is “the Latin imaginary” constructed? Which signs are reproduced by this construction? How are Latin bodies perceived in Brussels context? And how is it possible to make artistic operation on this imaginary?

      Description 

      (...) First block: field work and theoretical tools

      Regarding theoretical tools, it is worth mentioning that “the Latin issue” is analysed taking into account the concept of Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson. As a matter of fact, his work pays attention to the concept of nation, his definition is used here to talk about the “Latin Imaginary Community”. In relation to that, Anderson propounds that “it is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship” (1983: 7). This description is useful to think about the imaginary shared with others in terms of community.

      Considering this, the field work relative to “the Latin imaginary” is focused on sign production in the current context of semio-capitalism. In this way, a study of the concept by Franco Berardi (known as Bifo) is carried out; he defined semio-capitalism “when informational technologies make possible a full integration of linguistic labour with capital valorisation” (2009: 149). In other words, when all acts of transformation could be substituted by information and the work process is based on signs combination. Bifo says that economy incorporates factors like instability and indefiniteness when valorisation depended on language, and “in turn language incorporates economic rules of competition, shortage, and overproduction” (2009: 149). Therefore, semiotic overproduction has consequences in the economy and in the psycho-sphere, due to acceleration of perception, which generates a dis-sensitization in bodies, and becomes pathologies and psychotropic drugs dependence. One of the possible ways for facing these symptoms is to go back to the question about body perception on others. In relation to this, the author proposes that “in order to experience the other as a sensorial body, you need time, time to caress and smell. The time for empathy is lacking, because stimulation has become too intense” (2009: 85).

      Finally, as a theoretical mention, contributions that promote and accompany these questions are taken into account transversely in relation to "the Latin imaginary”. On the one hand, the perspective of "internal colonialism", which refers to the reproduction of the colonialism towards the interior of the ex-colonies and which takes as a reference the centres of power in the North-Hemisphere (Gonzalez Casanova: 2015). On the other hand, the heteronormativity existing in the perception of the sexed bodies and the stability of the gender, which depends on the alignment among sex and gender (Butler: 1990).

      [1] Due to the absence of a more appropriate terminology to translate “lo latino”, it was chosen the phrase “the Latin imaginary” owing to its relevance in relation to the imaginaries.

      ----------------------------------------

      1st Block, curated by Pierre Rubio called MILIEUS, ASSOCIATIONS, SIEVES AND OTHER MATTERS…, here the link 

       

      Openning week

      It was the first time I explained this project in English, I learned by heart most of my presentation. As you can see in my application, I started looking at the stereotype construction of Latin-imaginary through two concepts: semio-capitalism and imaginary communities. I was busy with how reggaeton videos and specially Despacito framed a stereotyped way of look at "latiness". 

       

      Half way days  --> LONGER CRI and POCKET CRI

      -- Half an hour of latiness, or... or...

       

      Pocket CRI - Zsenne GALLERY
      1 min to arrive at the location (Place Jardin des fleurs near to Szenne Gallery)

      4 min to propose / choose / set up               

      Invitation 2 people to reproduce as much as possible one of the screenshot of Despacito. They chose between 4 options.

      If people don't want to appear, there were many options to be far away of the camera. It will not be public.

      Caterina bring some stuff in order to help in the reproduction and makes them indicate consent to publish photos of the participants .

      THOSE PHOTOS are only public for documentation. 

      [gallery size="medium" columns="2" link="none" ids="9025,9026,9028,9029,9030,9032,9034,9036,9038,9040,9041,9042,9043,9044" orderby="rand"]

       

       

      Longer CRI
      Session II

      Invitation à The only proposition was bring Latin clothes.

      Morning brunch at my home in Ixelles. Invitation to do this parallel activities --> 

       

      People were at the garden of where I live.

      It was a sunny day. 

      They marked in maps different places related to latin culture. 

      Here some pics

      [gallery columns="2" size="medium" ids="9052,9055,9057"]

      In my room: 

      - I showed the song that I did and the lyrics. Here you can listen here [audio mp3="https:///www.apass.be/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Reggaeton-I.mp3"][/audio]

      Here you can follow the lyrics

      Reggaeton 1 - My EDITION 
      Hello
      ton ton ton reggae ton ton ton This is a monologue, Mono mono monolo
      Gasoline Gasoline    We like don't like gasolineeeee

      I see dark hair   I see gold jewelry I see sun olive oil I see shiny skin   I see barbecue
      I see god

      And so far from god x3                  I am so stuck in this Latin body My hips

      Everything is dark now x2 its blank its blank You can comment
      This is the video Responder sexy body Sexy body RESPONDER

      short skirts skin shorts short skirts skin shorts large breasts shake shake

      short skirts skin shortsshort skirts skin shorts flat belly the motorcycle

      subjects objects x5

      or you just don't care

      Maradonna was fantastic but I love Messi love Messi Messi"Arriba arriba andele andele"

      Sexy ultimate sexy sexy ultimatelatino/latina
      gasoline spreads

      i find your spanish difficult to understand x2

      I like being latina I enjoy the fantasy of it.Is coolIs not coolIs Colonialists...ooooh

      Give me more gas x2
      This doesn't work, to be or to be, no sound, confused by the media acteur!Yes yes yes yeaaaaah
      I don't know about reggaeton
      I don't know about lyrics

      order insubordination submission
      I think the second video has some problemsnow I understand sorry KI can see it only in white without any images,is it the same for the others? x3

       

      - After, I asked apass people to choose a part of the lyrics and make a short video with that. They could recognize the lyrics that they wrote, or to choose one prhase. They had to create a movement for that. They shotted each other with the explanation and they could include the clothes. They gave me permission for internal use.

      From those videos I did another song. People were strefull because of the task of the camera. They name an anxious problem in my research and in the way that I was producing.

       

      --

      End presentation - PAF

      I explained the CRI. I sang both songs and exposed my problems. I said that I was doing a circular mouvement, because I was stereotyping all my view. At that moment, I was trying to understand who I am in the research. That´s why I presented the animal "Yaguateré". I presented the Reggaeton 2 with a an edited a video which has images of apass participants. I prefer to not pubic this video and the lyrics of the Reggaeton 2.

      Lyrics of Reggaeton 2 

      The body is a problem. We are busy with its problems // make sure that we have all the details // she flies // magical realism of South-America

      Fly movement

      Through imitating movement that I think they are latin but I can not really continue doing like this // I have a serious lack of knowledge of latin culture // I don't know anything that is latin-american 

      I guess.  Start // she give me this hat // C´est ca? C´est ca?

      You are completely disarm, freedom, you don't need to protect your body. // You feel good in it, you feel bbq. Leisure time. // body is so a costume, is difficult to get rid of. //  to lie down I chose and try to move without moving. 

      Latino stereotype,I think is not. // Not only because of the latino people // 

      “The hand of God” is Maradona scored against England. // I bought in Mexico, it has Jesus on it. // 

      catholicism and the imagery // To me is super latin // Shiny and synthetic. 

      Over commodify presentation of latino culture. // I am not sure.

      Gaze is on the back, someone enjoying it.  // knees are flexed, the pelvis is moving back and forward quite fast, // Breast, shoulders, from the left to right, fors coming movements. // Looking in the eyes // is active, seduces. // excites // excites // sexual desire

       

      I could recognize this big problem in my first Block. In Adva´s words: ‘ you stereotype me by asking me to stereotype you’. That´s mean that I was stereotying others.

      Somehow, I fell into my own trap.

      [gallery columns="2" size="medium" ids="9065,9066,9067,9068,9069"]


      I recognize this potentialities of this block, that are potentialities as inputs for transformation:

                                             The "trauma" → caused by necessity to answer, give, produce → the "conditions" of the experiments

                                             Obscenity: how to show the body (connected to media)

                                             In which sense do I want to talk? → stereotype way or not?

                                             Problems of images: how can I expand more, open, and not restrict them?

                                               What is Latin for me, NOW? → SUPER excellent question to continue

                                            What is doing the "the art of super identification"?

                                            The power role of being able to see and be seen --> what is producing the objectification?

                                           Reggaeton genealogy: resistance rythm from Puerto Rico. "Reggae in SPANISH" (important) / perreo is coming from                                                  Afro-descendient dispora (persecuted, silencED, acallada). --> how this can appear in the research?

        

      ----------------------

      Important readings: the book about Reggaeton (Rivera and others, Duke Press University); BDSM approach (Freud; Barthes; Pat Califia; Foucault), decolonial theory (Silvia River Cusicanki). 

       

    • On Friday 1 and Saturday 2 February 2019, from 18:00 to 22:00 Adrijana Gvozdenović, Pia Louwerens and Eleanor Ivory Weber present their artistic researches at the former swingers club, La Porte des Senses, today an art space called Hectolitre, to mark the end of their participation in the a.pass program.

      With Subtracted Seduction, their individual researches are framed through shared concepts such as anxiety, non-consensual collaboration, authorship and institutional critique. In each of the three approaches, narratives created through these symptoms of the contemporary artist are investigated. The romantic artist is negated and the multi-faceted artist materialises as both instigator and instigated, made up of multiple voices. The three researchers engage with the complexity of being both unnameable and contained in the knowledge-network immanent to the institution. There appears Subtracted Seduction.

      Gvozdenović, Louwerens and Weber all work with writing and performance. They use notions of script and publication as tools to reveal contexts as partners to the doing and thinking of artistic practice. The institutional is key to their approaches, both as a way to understand what predetermines the performativity of the artwork and in how it relates to issues of authorship. The question is often, "who is voicing?"

      Pia Louwerens works with spoken-word performances in which she performs an unreliable subject intra-acting with its institutional framework.
      Eleanor Ivory Weber uses conceptual writing techniques to arrive at multi-vocal recompositions of existing text-sources, combining formal structures with the spontaneity of the body.
      Adrijana Gvozdenović collects and annotates symptomatic artistic practices that recognise their anxiety as a prerequisite state for criticality. This results in publications of sorts or “exhibiting otherwise”.

      The concept of the anarchive as a way to reactivate meaning through revisiting traces is a common process to the three researches. Through either activating authored texts, institutional conditions and/or artistic practice paraphernalia, new iterations appear that re-actualise and re-situate the event. Each variation is always already allied with new subjectivities.

    •  

       

      1 research platform
       
      In its core a.pass is a platform for professionals in the fields of arts and theory who wish to engage in a self assigned research topic. It provides a place and infrastructure to meet other researchers, collaborate on some aspects of the work, get feedback on the project, develop one’s methodology and to widen one’s theoretical and practical scope through critique, mentoring and feedback. 
       
       
      2 educational platform questioning artistic research
       
      A.pass institute defines and activates artistic research by accumulative process and critique.
      Embracing the fact that artistic research is becoming a category of production in the cultural field, a.pass does not claim it as it’s goal or premise to be able delineate the borders of this particular methodology. A.pass affirms this apparent lack of definition as a chance. Operating without a predefined notion of what „artistic research“ is, it creates and brings together a pluralistic overview of the existing notions of this practice.
      An affirmative survey towards the question „what is an artistic research?“ has therefore become one of apass' defining methodologies: apass strives to host a multitude of practices in the arts which self-define themselves as research. Their definitions of what a research praxis in the arts is are at times complementing and at times contradicting each other. This dis/agreement creates a polivocal platform of definitions and is a statement towards a different conception of institutions: away from essentialist claims and towards a more politicised platform of engagement with a certain discipline.
      Some of the methods of this study methodology are:
      -a.pass frequently invites research practitioners in the arts to work with the researchers of the institute.
      -a.pass invests in creating occasions for public discussions of what artistic research is and in presenting the researches work to the general public.
      -a.pass is producing a library of research methodologies by publishing individual and collective research cases.
      -a.pass is presenting itself as a platform for the exchange, implementations and experimentation of research methodologies. 
       
       
      3. questioning teaching
       
      a.pass is a platform which educates and sets an agenda of learning for its participants. It is building its curriculum by inviting advanced practitioners in the arts to actively engage the participants into and around their research within a framework of workshops, ateliers, collective practices or scores. This work is not framed as a teaching as such, but as a process of collective exploration. Experimental formats of collective and collaborative research are frequently proposed and developed in such a framework. The traditional professor-student relationship is put into question here and has to be re-negotiated as a dialogue while a diverse group of practices is admitted as „teaching“.
      a.pass develops teaching practices which engage with the question of how the process of knowledge production and transfer can be framed otherwise outside the persistent hierarchies within the processes of learning and education. 
       
       
      4. meeting point
       
      Beyond its defined curriculum and methods a.pass has in general become an informal meeting point of professionals in the arts on many levels of professionalization. Many contacts and collaborations that have been initiated at a.pass continue well beyond the one-year time-frame of the post-master program. It is a productive hub for the Brussels art scene. 
       
       
      5. experimental institute
       
      A.pass’ work includes research into the formation and politics of educational institutions. By collecting innovative methodologies of research, facilitating educational experimentation and by maintaining an institutional openness, a.pass affirms and continues to be an experimental institute/institution, a place of engaged research of what education in the arts is today. 
    • information
    • NOT_index
    • newsletter2 september 2017 12 January 2017
      posted by: Steven Jouwersma
    • 21 September 2017
    • 23 September 2017



    • a.pass newsletter september

      *Block III 2017 introduction
      *Five a.pass researches 21-22-23 september
      * Call for application 06/10/2017



      BLOCK III 2017
      4 SEPTEMBER TILL 2 DECEMBER
      CURATED BY VLADIMIR MILLER,

      This block is concerned with the processes and questions of a mobile,
      displaced, untethered research practice. We will use the methodologies
      of moving out, taking a trip, going for a walk  to reconsider the
      building blocks of our research and discover new ones.

      MORE information

       


       

      No Communication without noise
      five a.pass researches
      curated by Laura Herman 

      “Mistakes, wavy lines, confusion, obscurity are part of knowledge;
      noise is part of communication, part of the house.” 

      (Michel Serres)

      No Communication Without Noise is a three-day insight in five ongoing a.pass researches
      that share an affinity with the ambivalences of writing and reading.
      Interested in communication, or the lack thereof,

      Esta Matkovic, Lili M. Rampre, Sina Seifee, Xiri Tara Noir and Maarten Van den Bussche
      address the limitations and untapped potentials of text in proposing new modes of attention.

      MORE information

       
      Save the Date:
      21-22-23 September
      17:00 to 22:00 

      a.pass 
      Bottelarij 
      Rue Delaunoye 58 - 60 
      1080 Molenbeek-Saint-Jean 


       ***More information on the full programme soon.***


       

       call

      FOR ARTISTIC RESEARCH PROJECTS
      POST-MASTER AND PHD LEVEL


      DEADLINE: 06/10/2017
      TO START IN MAY 2018

      SELECTION TALKS : 19&20/10/2017
      (PLEASE KEEP THESE DAYS FREE!)


      MORE information

       


       

       

       

    • information
    • NOT_index
    • newsletter1 12 January 2017
      posted by: Steven Jouwersma
    • 21 September 2017
    • 23 September 2017



    • a.pass newsletter september
      *Five a.pass researches 21-22-23 september
      *Block III 2017 introduction
      * Call for application 06/10/2017


       

      No Communication without noise
      five a.pass researches
      curated by Laura Herman 

      “Mistakes, wavy lines, confusion, obscurity are part of knowledge; noise is part of communication, part of the house.” 
      (Michel Serres)

      No Communication Without Noise is a three-day insight in five ongoing a.pass researches that share an affinity with the ambivalences of writing and reading. Interested in communication, or the lack thereof, Esta Matkovic, Lili M. Rampre, Sina Seifee, Xiri Tara Noir and Maarten Van den Bussche address the limitations and untapped potentials of text in proposing new modes of attention.

      MORE information

       
      Save the Date:
      21-22-23 September
      17:00 to 22:00 

      a.pass 
      Bottelarij 
      Rue Delaunoye 58 - 60 
      1080 Molenbeek-Saint-Jean 


       ***More information on the full programme soon.***



      BLOCK III 2017
      4 SEPTEMBER TILL 2 DECEMBER
      CURATED BY VLADIMIR MILLER,

      This block is concerned with the processes and questions of a mobile,
      displaced, untethered research practice. We will use the methodologies
      of moving out, taking a trip, going for a walk  to reconsider the
      building blocks of our research and discover new ones.

      MORE information

       


       

       call

      FOR ARTISTIC RESEARCH PROJECTS
      POST-MASTER AND PHD LEVEL


      DEADLINE: 06/10/2017
      TO START IN MAY 2018

      SELECTION TALKS : 19&20/10/2017
      (PLEASE KEEP THESE DAYS FREE!)


      MORE information

       


       

       

       

    • information
    • NOT_index
    • Opening Days 03 January 2017
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • a.pass
    • 09 January 2017
    • 20 January 2017
    •  

       

      everyone will introduce the state of her research,

      a.pass will introduce her new team and organisation,

      the curatorial proposal of the current block will be presented and appropriated,

      the four dedicated mentors will introduce themselves and present their practice,

      we will establish a ‘block research plan’ to decide what to discriminate between all the possible options in a dialogue with us and the group.

       
       

       

      Prepare for the 9th of January a written text about you and the current state of your research.

      A written synthesis of your research, and of you as a researcher, ‘at time t’.

      This text -one to two pages long- will be very useful during the opening days as part of your individual presentation but as well as a communication device to introduce your work to your mentors.

       

       

      Score:

      Imagine yourself in a desirable future some 20 years ahead and imagine the present from there:

      who were you?

      where did you come from?  

      what was your research about?

      what was the problem/question you wanted to pose with this research?

      what was the current state of your research?

      what did you want to achieve during that block in a.pass?

      what were you speculating for within this period of time?

      what were you angry about the world and or your environment?

      what did give you hope?

      …?

       

       

    • information
    • NOT_index
    • End Week Days 03 January 2017
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • a.pass
    • 01 April 2017
    • 06 April 2017
    •  

      The End Week Days are the last dedicated moments in the block for presenting our researches and for constructing a vision for the rest of our research trajectory. These days are the times for analysing the current block and come up with plans for the future. Beyond individual presentations and feedback sessions everyone is invited to propose other activities in relation to her/his/your/our research(es).

    • information
    • NOT_index
    • Assemblies, Mentoring, Workshops, Ateliers 03 January 2017
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • a.pass
    • 09 January 2017
    • 30 April 2017
    •  

       

      This four months block gives you the opportunity to develop your research individually and collectively.

      We organise a very diverse series of activities and possible involvements into a large range of practices for you to deepen your research.

      The schedule is divided between mandatory days (30% of the time) as well as optional dispositives for you to compose as you wish what seems right for you and your research.

      What is mandatory?

      Assemblies (opening week, half-way-days, and end week)

      Mentorings (4 dedicated mentors practice days, 2 dedicated mentors individual sessions, 1 a.pass art coordinator individual session)

      Workshops (1 workshop on the three which are proposed for this block)

      Curated Ateliers (4 days participation in the Trouble on Radio Triton dispositive)

       

       

       

    • information
    • NOT_index
    • half-way days 03 January 2017
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • a.pass
    • 20 February 2017
    • 24 February 2017
    • The half-way-days are the second assembly gathering in each block. It is the moment where the exchange of practices include the direct involvement of the others into our own practices. This intense week of exchanges is a practical research moment and a chance to test and develop our methodologies.

       

    • 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.

    • information
    • postgraduate program
    • block 2016/II
    • NOT_index
    • Opening week Block II/2016 04 December 2015
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • a.pass
    • 02 May 2016
    • 11 May 2016
    • The basic idea of this week is to share and ‘update’ each other about our researches in order to allow the collaborations in the block. This means that you will be asked to share the concept, some material and thoughts of your personal research with all of us. We will send you a more detailed plan about this very soon.
      This is it for now, if you have more specific questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

      Looking forward to seeing you all!

    • The dedicated mentors for this block are Femke Snelting, Kate Rich, Geert Opsomer and Philippine Hoegen.

      According to your needs, you can choose for either 2 or 3 mentors.

      In order to challenge you with a specific context and language of mentoring we would like to suggest for this block, that the team of mentors proposes one of those 2 or 3 mentors to you. We would like to experiment with this possibly confronting, contrasting, or specific support to your research.  With each of the 2 or 3 mentors you will have 4 hours of mentoring throughout the block.

      Since the dedicated mentors will present themselves in the opening week and will attend all your presentations you will be able to decide on your mentors at the end of the first week.

      To subscribe read more:

      Please check the time availabilities of the mentors below and subscribe to your mentors here.

       

      Timing of possible mentoring:

       Schedule will follow soon.
       
      Femke Snelting:
      Best days for the 1st mentoring are: 22, 23, 26, 29, 30 September;
      Best days for the 2nd mentoring are:  14, 24, 28 November.
      Otherwise there's always space around things so we'll make individual appointments and find slots.
       
      Kate Rich:
      Available in Brussels for the 1st mentoring are: 14 - 17 September
      Available in Brussels for the 1st mentoring are:  26 - 29 October
       
      Philippine Hoegen:
      on individual appointment
       
      Geert Opsomer:
      from 15th September on individual appointment.
       
       
    • conference
    • end presentation
    • performative publishing
    • postgraduate program
    • NOT_index
    • Volver
    • Back to the order 29 March 2015
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • Samah Hijawi, Philippine Hoegen, Gosie Vervloessem, Sarah Santos, Silvia Pereira, and Cecilia Molano
    • Aleppo
    • 29 May 2015
    • 30 May 2015
    • Samah Hijawi, Philippine Hoegen, Gosie Vervloessem, Sarah Santos, Silvia Pereira, and Cecilia Molano will share their practices and perspectives of their research in form or a symposium and bring them in relation to those of guests and collaborators. A symposium that consists of performances, lectures, film screenings and workshops.

      This event is a collaboration with, and will take place at Aleppo.

      Relating to Aleppos current thematic program which is termed ‘Back to the Order’, we understand order and revolution as integral parts of each other, the interdependent counterweights of the device that drives, and is driven by, contemporary society.

      Departing from the different preoccupations of our separate researches we will make inroads towards shared perceptions. We will approach concepts such as the domestic, identity, display and artistic production as complex territories through which the nature of order and its potential counterparts can be analysed and activated.

       

    • old information
    • NOT_index
    • old info
    • End week 23 March 2015
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • a.pass
    • in PAF near Reims
    • 28 November 2016
    • 04 December 2016
    • Like every block we also end this one in the former convent PAF (Performing Arts Forum)

      This is the ultimate moment for sharing and presenting your researches, inviting other participants into your practice, organized group and individual mentorings, and construct a vision for the rest of your research period. PAF is the moment we close down and analyze a block and come up with plans for the future. Everyone is invited to participate in proposing body practices, films, discussions and other activities in relation to your researches.

      The end-week is always differently organised, but the purpose of individual case presentations remain mostly the same: it is about taking and communicating a close look of where we are with our researches at the moment, and where we go to throughout the block.

    • Also on this level, we assume the same kinds of qualifications and competences in the PhD researchers as in the post-master researchers, but with some added qualities.

      The PhD program aims to support researchers to become emancipated independent researchers in the fields of performance and scenography, or beyond. We support our researchers to think and work ‘out of the box’, or forget about the box altogether, and to become innovative practitioners and thinkers, that develop their work out of a (self-)critical ability to assess and relate their urgencies to a wider environment (the artistic and educational sector, society, the world). We encourage our researchers to think beyond the current value definitions of knowledge and to reappraise their own practices as precious contributions to society. We help our researchers to connect to the world, by supporting them to network, collaborate with external partners, and communicate their work to an outside audience of artists, public and professionals.

      We expect our PhD researchers to have developed a thorough knowledge of the theoretical as well as artistic practice fields they address in their research, and to be capable of sharing the knowledge that has been developed throughout the research within the public realm throughout lectures, conferences, publications, performances or other experimental set-ups.

      a.pass also expects its PhD researchers to have developed the social skills, broad societal interests, and pedagogical capacities to pass on the experimental spirit of research to upcoming researchers and interested groups, and to offer the research a public context in which to nourish itself and the world around it. As such, we count it among the end qualifications of the PhD students, that they will be capable to use their research competences later on in their professional life as a lever for change and reappraisal of the status quo of shared knowledge in any given circumstances.

      • a.pass wants to offer a critical and collective practice-based environment for the development of the understanding of the Phd in the Arts.
      • a.pass wants to develop tools for the evaluation and assessment of the knowledge that is not developed on the basis of academic or scientific criteria, but that takes seriously the qualities and values of knowledge as developed throughout artistic methodologies, attitudes and frameworks of research.
      • Since often the end result in this case is not necessarily the most eloquent part of the research, a.pass wants to stimulate the exchange of methodologies, practices and work sessions in-between researchers and with a larger group of interested ‘outsiders’ as a fundamental part of the PhD communication and assessment process.
      • a.pass wants to support radical and experimental PhD-trajectories that critically challenge the status quo of the knowledge production within other environments, and value the transindividual richness of a shared knowledge processing environment.
      • a.pass wants to develop PhD trajectories that are self-critical and relating the research to larger economic, political, academic, social, or other realities. a.pass wants to stimulate researchers to step out of their self-referential framework of discourse, professional ambitions and specialization and take on a more challenging position towards the construction of the PhD as a tool in a greater societal reality.
      • a.pass wants to support researchers in their ambition to become engaged mentors in the development of tools for sharing of knowledge, and the facilitation of critical research for others, out of a spirit of generosity, interest, experimentality, criticality and artistic sensitivity.
    •  
      a.pass offers a collaborative environment for the development of artistic research. Five to six researchers join the Research Center for a one year cycle. They are accompanied by three Research Curators that consecutively take care of the center. The activities of the research center are organised around performative publishing, engagement with external research situations and peer reviewing/collective mentoring. Research is developed, shared and performed in public lectures, workshops, conferences, publications, performances and other experimental set-ups. The Research Center meets on a bi-weekly basis to self-organise and share processes. In addition, research curators are available for individual meetings.
       
      Associated researchers are seen as partners of a.pass. They have access to the collective activities of the post-master program. a.pass provides technical support, workspace and supports performative publishing. Associated researchers do not pay a fee. a.pass can act as an institutional partner in applications for funding or academic research. The specific terms of the association will be formulated in an individual contract between the researcher and a.pass, delineating the research steps that will be developed within the a.pass environment and their possible public outcomes.
    •  
      Associated researchers can apply three times per year for the upcoming cycle, ideally after an initial conversation with one of the a.pass curators. The next cycle begins in May 2021.
       
      The research center invites associated researchers who:
      - are involved in ongoing advanced artistic research
      - have a practice-based understanding of artistic research
      - are associated to multiple platforms of support
      - have the ability to formulate and follow their own study trajectory
      - are able to self-organise and contribute to collective processes
      - have experience with making their research public, and are interested in contributing it to the public program of a.pass
       
      An associated researcher involved in a PhD program can propose to develop their PhD research as a part of their trajectory within the a.pass environment. This can happen at any time during the PhD trajectory. Since a.pass can not formally grant or evaluate PhD certificates, the researcher has to be already associated with a university and a university supervisor.
       
      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.
       
       
       
    • information
    • NOT_index
    • a.pass programs 18 December 2014
      posted by: Elke van Campenhout
    • test
    • a.pass organizes two programs (the post-master and PhD program) with slightly different goals and end qualifications, which are both sustained, fed and communicated through the efforts of the a.pass research center. In this point we will clarify the organization of the different cells and their aims, and define their specific research goals that are addressed on all these levels.

    • old information
    • NOT_index
    • old info
    • a.pass in context Position of a.pass in the educational and artistic field
      10 December 2014
      posted by: Elke van Campenhout
      a.pass in context

       

      The a.pass program and research centre are positioned within a larger context of the arts and education, and develops its working out of a questioning of the current organization of artistic and educational (institutional) practices. In its trajectory, a.pass has on all levels of its organization critically reflected upon the economy of knowledge as it is being employed today in higher education and the media, the logics of the arts market, the recuperation of institutional critique by the institutions themselves, the capitalist drive for the new, the seductive and the quickly consumable, and the role and responsibility of the artist researcher in all of this.

      In a.pass the relevance of the research is measured by the degree in which researchers, out of their different backgrounds and knowledge horizons, manage to formulate innovative perspectives on potential knowledge production, as well as on the development of tools to share and experiment this knowledge on the public scene. It is clear that this kind of research environment also resonates with other institutions for art education on an (inter)national scale. Artistic research in a.pass can be seen as a third way, wedged in between the artistic practice as such and the more academic understanding of knowledge production. Different from the artistic practice the research is not limited to the individual trajectory, the personal questioning and aesthetics of the artist. But at the same time the artistic practice does take on a central role in the development of new perspectives and methodologies, a way of working that relates to, but doesn’t coincide with, and even explicitly questions an academic AND an artistic framework. Artistic research in a.pass is not limited to the development of arts-practice-related knowledge, but also involves the creation and testing of formats, methodologies, communication strategies and shared practices, ‘tools for collaboration and communication’, that broaden up the understanding of artistic research from an art work with paper validation form to a more critical investigation into the statute, the circulation and the valuation of divergent forms of knowledge.

      This means that a.pass is an environment that reflects and practices knowledge and artistic strategies with the windows open to an outside reality. In that sense a.pass is not so much a preparation for the ‘professional life’, as it is a putting-into-question of what these professional sectors (both the artistic and educational organizations of institutes, values and work) are symptoms of. Throughout the years, a.pass has used its own institutional status - and the opportunities offered by being an artistic educational program embedded in a larger network of schools, art centres, research places, workspaces, etc… - to seriously reconsider its role, and the role of the artist researchers within the current ethical, political, economic and social context of knowledge production and sharing.

      On the level of ethics this means that we consider both the institute as the institute’s participants to be part of a larger network of relations, that give them their value and meaning. In a.pass the relation between the ‘I’ of the researcher and the provisional construction of the ‘We’ of the research practice within the institute, is a recurring, and politically charged, topic. The institute here is considered as an experimental playground to try out strategies for the now and the future within a larger society. a.pass gives a lot of attention to the transindividual character of practice and knowledge, and how the collective environment can be both a source of frustration and feedback, as of nourishment and challenge to the individual researcher’s trajectory. Also, a.pass in that sense always takes the ‘ethical’ concreteness, the situational reality of research seriously: artistic research is always already embedded in the relations that produce it, and these relations encompass elements of discourse, social and economic factors and spatial settings, as well as institutional givens, societal demands and resources at hand. Therefore an artistic research strategy or outcome is not transparently reproducible without changing in the process. The ethical (here understood as relational and situational) character of the research, makes it resistant to commodification on a larger scale. But this doesn’t mean that the research can not be communicated or shared, using strategies that differ from the promise of serial reproduction.

      This interest in the transindividual character of learning and research, however, does not exclude a strong focus and interest in the development of the individual’s trajectories. Since the institute can not function without the invested interest and contributions to the common environment of the researchers, a.pass strives towards creating an environment in which the aesthetic and artistic idiosyncratic qualities of each practice can be challenged into being. a.pass considers the artist researcher in the year of participation not so much as an artist-producer of work, but as an artist-researcher, reflecting self-critically on the trajectory already accomplished, and reconsidering the notions of work, value, the market, responsiveness and responsibility through the practicing of the research. a.pass encourages the exploration of ‘risky’ practices that do not directly correspond to the current demands of the arts market or academic understandings of research, in order to create an experimental environment in which certainties can be subverted, undermined, or simply reappraised from another point of view.

    • old information
    • NOT_index
    • old info
    • researchers 10 December 2014
      posted by: Elke van Campenhout
    • 01 January 2015
    • The associate researcher joins a.pass for one year, and in that time develops and ‘exemplary artistic research’: a research that challenges the notions of practice-based methodologies and knowledge to its limits, and questions the values of knowledge developed in artistic research contexts. The associate researcher is financially part-time supported for one year, and gets production  support for the development of the public phases of the research, as well as mentoring support.
      Between 2014 and 2015 Veridiana Zurita initiated three ongoing artistic research projects; ‘Don’t Eat the Microphone’: a weekly session developed together with the residents of the psychiatric hospital Dr. Guislain in Ghent, ‘Televizinho’: a series of re-enactments of Brazilian soap-operas with no-actors of the river side community Santa Isabel in the Amazon (BR) and ‘Mommy, Daddy, Me’: a letter trialogue about love relationships between herself and her parents. www.veridianazurita.com

      The independent researchers are only loosely connected to the research center, and are selected on the level of the interest of their already existing research trajectory. Current independent researchers are for example visual artist Alexis Destoop and his research into ‘landscape scenographies’ in the framework of the Anthropocene, and musician Eric Thielemans and his research on the ‘ensemble’ as instrument for the development of shared cosmologies and artistic instrumentarium. These researchers are only minimally and punctually supported at the moment of the publication (live or in writing) of their research results.

      The research coordinator (Elke Van Campenhout) also develops her research within the research centre, which partly consists in analyzing, publishing, and making accessible a.pass research results and methodologies (through publications, outside workshops and lectures, conferences, etc…) and partly also consists of her own collaborative research trajectory Bureau d’Espoir, that looks into a contemporary and performative redefinition of ‘hope’ through the lenses of political philosophy, choreography and spiritual body practices.

       

      webpics_apass16

    • The a.pass research centre works on different levels. On a first level the centre brings together long-time researchers in a context of collaboration and sharing. On this level currently we have in the research center three kinds of workers: the PhD researchers, the associate researcher, the research coordinator and the independent researchers.

       

      On a second level, the research centre also documents, archives and opens up research results and methodologies on a larger scale. Through the creation of a larger context for the end communications of the participants, through the publications, conferences, workshops and lectures, experimental collaborations etcetera. A lot of these activities will be mentioned again throughout the development of this report, but a full list of activities of the research centre, and its collaborations can also be consulted in the overview pages in the Appendix.

    • The Research Centre aims to support researchers  on a pre(PhD) level to become emancipated independent researchers in the fields of performance and scenography, or beyond.

      We support our researchers to think and work ‘out of the box’, or forget about the box altogether, and to become innovative practitioners and thinkers, that develop their work out of a (self-)critical ability to assess and relate their urgencies to a wider environment (the artistic and educational sector, society, the world). We encourage our researchers to think beyond the current value definitions of knowledge and to reappraise their own practices as precious contributions to society. We help our researchers to connect to the world, by supporting them to network, collaborate with external partners, and communicate their work to an outside audience of artists, public and professionals.

      We expect our PhD researchers to have developed a thorough knowledge of the theoretical as well as artistic practice fields they address in their research, and to be capable of sharing the knowledge that has been developed throughout the research within the public realm throughout lectures, conferences, publications, performances or other experimental set-ups.

      a.pass also expects its PhD researchers to have developed the social skills, broad societal interests, and pedagogical capacities to pass on the experimental spirit of research to upcoming researchers and interested groups, and to offer the research a public context in which to nourish itself and the world around it.  As such, we count it among the end qualifications of the PhD students, that they will be capable to use their research competences later on in their professional life as a lever for change and reappraisal of the status quo of shared knowledge in any given circumstances.

      • a.pass wants to offer a critical and collective practice-based environment for the development of the understanding of the Phd in the Arts.
      • a.pass wants to develop tools for the evaluation and assessment of the knowledge that is not developed on the basis of academic or scientific criteria, but that takes seriously the qualities and values of knowledge as developed throughout artistic methodologies, attitudes and frameworks of research.
      • since often the end result in this case is not necessarily the most eloquent part of the research, a.pass wants to stimulate the exchange of methodologies, practices and work sessions in-between researchers and with a larger group of interested ‘outsiders’ as a fundamental part of the PhD communication and assessment process.
      • a.pass wants to support radical and experimental PhD-trajectories that critically challenge the status quo of the knowledge production within other environments, and value the transindividual richness of a shared knowledge processing environment.
      • a.pass wants to develop PhD trajectories that are self-critical and relating the research to larger economic, political, academic, social, or other realities. a.pass wants to stimulate researchers to step out of their self-referential framework of discourse, professional ambitions and specialization and take on a more challenging position towards the construction of the PhD as a tool in a greater societal reality.
      • a.pass wants to support researchers in their ambition to become engaged mentors in the development of tools for sharing of knowledge, and the facilitation of critical research for others, out of a spirit of generosity, interest, experimentality, criticality and artistic sensitivity.
    • In the selection of PhD candidates a.pass uses largely the same criteria as for the post-master researchers. In the PhD environment however more emphasis is put on the willingness to open up the research, both to fellow researchers and to a wider audience outside of the limits of the a.pass environment. If we deal with researchers with an academic background we strongly encourage them to develop a practice-based artistic research during their participation in a.pass and to profit as much as possible from the opportunities to commonly share and exchange knowledge practices.

      We also expect from the PhD researchers a solid grip on both the theoretical and artistic frameworks and discourses they relate to, and a thorough self-critical and sector-critical attitude in developing their research boldly and radically within the framework of their university setting, and in relation to a larger societal reality.

    • The Research Centre which is hosting (pre)PhD level researchers is organized on a tailor-made basis with each individual researcher. The program is organized within the a.pass research center, that facilitates the research of the research curator, the associate researchers, and the independent researchers (see below), but also communicates closely with the post-master program. Concretely this means that a PhD researcher applies to develop (part of) her trajectory within the a.pass environment. This can happen in the pre-PhD phase, or at any time during the PhD trajectory. Since a.pass can only support PhD trajectories, but not grant or evaluate the PhD certificate, the researcher has to find, or be already associated with a university and a university supervisor. When starting a PhD project in a.pass, the researcher and the research curator together make up a work contract that stipulates the temporal structure (how long will the researcher be working in a.pass? how many times does she plan to come back?), the foreseen research steps that will be developed within the a.pass environment and the public outcome of the research within that period of time.

      This contract then will be signed by the researcher, the a.pass research coordinator, the supervisor at the university, and the head of the department of the university.

       

      Researchers can join a.pass in the preparation phase of the research, to strengthen, precise, delineate and develop the research proposal for being admitted into a PhD program at a university. In this phase a.pass offers mainly feedback in the process of the dossier making, and if possible also assists in networking, contacting possible supervisors, and organizing meetings. When the PhD has already started, a.pass offers a collaborative environment for the development of the research, leaving the researcher the option to participate in the workshops of the post-master program, organize workshops or work groups themselves, choosing mentors etc… PhD researchers are strongly encouraged to open up their research trajectory to a larger audience in any form they find useful. Next to the program, a.pass also offers feedback through the meetings of the research center group activities.

       

      In that sense every PhD-trajectory is quite different, but what is appreciated the most in the feedback from the Phd participants is the opportunity to work in a collective environment, test out their research hypotheses with a larger group of participants, get real-time feedback on their work, and be part of a critical and supportive team of researchers that freely exchange, critique and acknowledge each other’s work.

    • 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. 

    • The associate researcher joins a.pass for one year, and in that time develops and ‘exemplary artistic research’: a research that challenges the notions of practice-based methodologies and knowledge to its limits, and questions the values of knowledge developed in artistic research contexts. Since this function has only recently been developed we are still in the middle of the first year, working with ex-apass participant Veridiana Zurita, who develops her research project TVTV, in the context of the Guislain psychiatric institute, as well as in collaboration with an Amazon river tribe in Brazil (full project description in Annexe). The associate researcher is financially supported by a 0,4 FTE employment for one year, and the production support for the development of the public phases of the research, as well as through mentoring support.

      The independent researchers are only loosely connected to the research center, and are selected on the level of the interest of their already existing research trajectory. Current independent researchers are for example visual artist Alexis Destoop and his research into ‘landscape scenographies’ in the framework of the Anthropocene, and musician Eric Thielemans and his research on the ‘ensemble’ as instrument for the development of shared cosmologies and artistic instrumentarium. These researchers are only minimally and punctually supported at the moment of the publication (live or in writing) of their research results.

      The research coordinator (0,7 FTE) also develops her research within the research centre, which partly consists in analyzing, publishing, and making accessible a.pass research results and methodologies (through publications, outside workshops and lectures, conferences, etc…) and partly also consists of her own collaborative research trajectory Bureau d’Espoir, that looks into a contemporary and performative redefinition of ‘hope’ through the lenses of political philosophy, choreography and spiritual body practices. (see full overview of Bureau d’Espoir in Appendix).

    • information
    • NOT_index
    • Hand in 05 November 2014
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi

      Your application has to be handed it by midnight of the deadline date! Please use the application form on this page (green 'apply' button) or  a large file delivery can be sent by post to:

      a.pass - applications
      Delaunoystraat 58-64, B17
      1080 Brussels (Molenbeek) / Belgium
       

      Applicants will receive confirmation of their application upon receipt of their proposals.

      Candidates may be asked to give more information or to specify certain elements of their research proposals. To this purpose they may be invited for an interview.

    •  
      To apply for the position of a researcher at the post-graduate program you are asked to submit an artistic research proposal. Your application should provide a clear insight in what you aim to achieve in the one-year working period at a.pass and the relevance of your proposal in a collective research environment.
       
      The application dossier should include:
       
      -your research proposal, including your larger research trajectory, the specific project or part of it you would like to engage in at a.pass, possible public formats of presentation, possible interactions with the a.pass the post-graduate and the kind of support that these proposals would need at a.pass.
      -Portfolio (relevant works in relation to the research proposal)
      -CV
      -Diploma or equivalent proof of a master-level qualification.
       
      Candidates should be holders of a master’s diploma (artistic or theoretical) and deliver a copy of it upon registration.  In certain cases application without a master's diploma can be considered, if the practice-based experience of the applicant is equivalent to the masters level. 
       
      Please upload your dossier as a PDF file via the online form.
       
    •  
      Every block (in January, May and September) new researchers  join the program.  This system allows the researchers to exchange experience during the different phases of their research processes and  brings about a constant flow of new perspectives and ideas.
       
      The a.pass program is a one-year program consisting of three blocks of four months. The first three months of each block take place within the organized collective research environment.  The fourth month of each block is open for the individual development of the research project.
       
      A.pass is an intensive program relying on the researchers presence and contributions, nevertheless it is possible to combine the program with some external projects. The participation of the researcher in the block is planned in dialogue with the coordinator and the program curator.
       
      Artistic creation ourside of  a.pass research can be integrated into the individual research trajectory: participants can work on their own creations during their studies at a.pass, insofar as these creations are part of the participant’s research project.
       
      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.

       

    • A.pass is a self-organised full time programme and takes up 13 months in total, which means participants follow three blocks of 4 month consecutively.

      12 month in the study program and a 13th month for the final presentation of your research case.

      Exceptionally - when participants want to interrupt their studies for professional activities, or to intensifie their personal studies beyond the collaborative framework - we allow for an extension of the working period to a maximum duration of 17 months. Such a decision can only be made by the a.pass staff on explicit request beforehand and needs official approval. A 4-month block can never be attended partially.

    •  

      The selection of research proposals will be made based on the following criteria:
      1. value of the proposal for the researcher’s trajectory
      2. problematisation of content and methodologies that underline the practice
      3. development of experimental and critical forms of performance and spatial practice
      4. contribution to the a.pass collective research environment
      5. relation to the current international development of artistic research
       
       
    • A workshop took time and place 24/7 as a singular occupation of a public space with hourly rotations. A group was working in parallel daily 10am - 1pm.

      This workshop was designed and organized by Luigi Coppola and Christophe Meierhans

      Luigi Coppola and Christophe Meierhans are working in different contexts and with different means about common decision taking procedures - or let’s say, alternative democracies.

      While Christophe proposes in a lecture performance series a new democratic system based on disqualifying people in charge, rather than electing them, Luigi is developing social choreographies as democratic models and is currently involved in a communal project of reorganizing the political, agricultural and economic system of a whole village in south Italy.

      Together they propose a research workshop where most components of its activities will have to be decided commonly with the workshop participants. Just the very basic conditions are determined: The workshop occupies a public space with only one person at the time - 24h a day.  The rest of the group develops, discusses and observes the occupation from a distance and takes the relevant decisions.

      The discussions and decision taking procedures already started last block and created some new questions and tendencies. But an entrance into the process is possible at anytime.

    • As a consequence of the the act to translate 650€ at the National Bank in to 1€-Cent pieces by one participant of the Occupy Democracy workshop, a financial justification of a receipt had to be handed out to the revisor of the a.pass accounting and finally to the ministry of education of the Flaamse Gemeenschapt Commissie:

      nationale bank exchange-receipt

      This is a receipt that doesn't document the purchase of a commodity or a service, but the transformation of one form of money, in to an other - one form of money, which generally enables purchase into an other form, where exactly this basic function of money is impeded.

      This receipt deserves a special explanation.

      In the course of a workshop called Occupying Democracy / Occupation Précaire one participant translated 650€ reserved for material expenses of the Workshop into 1 €Cent coins - an amount of copper which weights about 350kg. The monetary value is kept - just its applicable value is abrogated!

      While this act points to the overarching problematic in the relation between the performance of art and the performance of money, it was of high educational and research value in the course this workshop, and in consequence it caused a social intervention in public sphere. The combination of this clearly lifts this act into the state of an a

      rt work in itself with conceptual and genuine artistic value.

      Through the simple act of translating the materiality of money in to an other consistency without chaining its monetary value but to discard with this it’s functional usability, the sum of 650€ becomes an artifact - a sculpture in it self. The provided receipt is in so far the proof not only of an act of ‘buying’ the essential artifact of this act, but is part of it’s social plastic. Money is used here to create art in the most possible direct way.

      History

      In the frame of the a.pass trimestrial Block 2014/III reflecting on the relation between ‘Space and Contract’ Co-curated by the Associate Program Curator Vladimir Miller and the Program Coordinator Nicolas Galeazzi, we asked Christoph Meierhans and Luigi Coppola to come up with a workshop proposal based on their individual artistic practice on democratic forms.

      This is what they proposed:

      Original Workshop proposal

      OCCUPYING DEMOCRACY / Occupation Precaire
      WORKSHOP; 29th September - 3rd October
      (10am - 5pm group work; 24/7 singular occupation of the space with hourly rotations)
      Luigi Coppola and Christophe Meierhans

      Luigi Coppola and Christophe Meierhans are working in different contexts and with different means about common decision taking procedures - or let’s say, alternative democracies.

      While Christophe proposes in a lecture performance series a new democratic system based on disqualifying people in charge, rather than electing them, Luigi is developing social choreographies as democratic models and is currently involved in a communal project of reorganizing the political, agricultural and economic system of a whole village in south Italy.

      Together they propose a research workshop where most components of its activities will have to be decided commonly with the workshop participants. Just the very basic conditions are determined: The workshop occupies a public space with only one person at the time - 24h a day. Starting with one square meter of occupation, the territory of artistic occupations should be expanded for minimum one square meter with every occupant. The rest of the group develops, discusses and observes the occupation from a distance and takes the relevant decisions.
      The discussions and decision taking procedures already started last block and created some new questions and tendencies. But an entrance into the process is possible at anytime.

       

      Process of the Workshop

      Eight a.pass participants engaged in the workshop and managed the

      1m2-24h/7-occupation-1-at-the-time

      concept together in shifts of 2h per person. The occupation was held on Place Saint-Jeans in Brussels.

      A Budget of 800€ was on spot and available to the current occupant in order to increase the tension between the decisions of the individual towards the decisions of the Workshop collective.

      Beside the occupation, the group held daily plenum gatherings at an other place in town, discussing the development of the occupation and its ethical, artistic and political implications.

      The fact that one person is in charge for the budget of a group for only 2h at the time reviles obvious conflicts of interests between the ‘society’ of this workshop and the individual occupant and was therefore the most concrete challenge of the idea of rethinking democratic systems through this workshop.

      At the beginning this challenge wasn’t faced much. The occupants only moderately bought things for their own use and bigger sums were only spent on objects that had a value for the whole group.

      The group fully accepted, that someone buys a beer for his midnight shift, or a morning juice, some chips, or batteries for his/her camera etc. Someone bought a Kalimba as the lullaby music instrument of the whole group. Someone else Gloomy Sticks - a scenographic element, which structured the space the whole week after.
      Occupants contributed even more private material and made this way the available money partially obsolete. This surely very interesting attitude suspended therefore, we might say paradoxically, the challenging discourse of the workshop. The tension embedded in the experimental concept of the workshop wasn’t fully embraced and experienced.

      The sum of those small expenses didn’t exceed 125€ and didn’t contribute much to the curtail discussions. The receipts for this sum are available and can be justified.

       

      Turning the coin

      One occupant interpreted the responsibility of the budget available in the explained transformative way. He went with the at the point remaining 650€ to the National Bank and was allowed to translate the bills into coins without any concern. The restriction related to these cases is, that one can change an infinite sum into smaller coins, but one is only allowed to bring 1€-cent coins back to the bank in portions of 5kg a week! In our case, this would take us almost one and a have year of weekly engagement to walk coins back to the bank.

      This conceptual act changed the situation in the workshop drastically. The collective was confronted with a radical individual move, which challenged everyones responsibility.

      The unpracticality of the available money in this form occurred when other occupants wanted to buy just a little chewing gum at a night shop in their shift - none was willing to take these coins. No night shop, no café, even giving them away for free was impossible.

      The only ones who saw the value of this conns being transferred in something real, practical and useful were a bunch of homeless people. Their time and economy allows to spend hours for picking up the coins, carrying them to around, negotiating with potential takers only to get the sum for example of a weekend ticket to the Ardennes together. A holiday dream some of them were waiting for since ages!

      With this aspect, the precariousness of this occupation entered other dimensions.
      It sets our abstract discussion on a slippery yet concrete and practical experience.
      The Workshop givers and the program coordinator who are finally responsible the workshop were suddenly under totally different the pressure of justification.
      The reviled presence and unavoidable openness of the money - we hardly could hide the 350kg coins in the public space - was constantly under thread of being stolen.
      It opened a communication to the most precarious living participants of this society.

      The group had to find new and concrete solutions for the technical and ethnical handling of the money and was confronted with an urgent decision finding process and it’s mechanisms.

       

      Continuation

      At the end of the week long occupation we left the space with about the half of the transferred 1 €-cent coins - ca. 170kg - in a suitcase together with a protocol for further operations.

      An Open Call shall be launched for competitive proposals to perform the coins.

      The selection procedure will follow principles that were discussed and tested in the workshop.

      The proposals will all be read on one evening to the public. 

      Only after the reading one member of the audience will randomly be chosen to act as a one-man-jury select a winning proposal.

      Another person has to be chosen randomly for as a performer of the proposal.

      The social plastic has to go on!

      Responsible for this report:

       

      Nicolas Galeazzi
      a.pass Program Coordinator

      Brussels 10/02/2015

    • COLLABORATION

      Participants develop the project they submitted, not only by working on their own projects but also by actively investing in the group, in the sharing of research results with other participants and at times with a broader audience. Another part of the research culture that a.pass wants to bring about, is the sharing of 'tools' in the artistic practice - in all possible forms, including  ...read more

    • The PhD program is organized on a tailor-made basis with each individual researcher. The program is organized within the a.pass research center, that facilitates the research of the research coordinator, the associate researchers, and the independent researchers (see below), but also communicates closely with the post-master program. Concretely this means that a PhD researcher applies to develop (part of) her trajectory within the a.pass environment. This can happen in the pre-PhD phase, or at any time during the PhD trajectory. Since a.pass can only support PhD trajectories, but not grant or evaluate the PhD certificate, the researcher has to find, or be already associated with a university and a university supervisor. When starting a PhD project in a.pass, the researcher and the research coordinator together make up a work contract that stipulates the temporal structure (how long will the researcher be working in a.pass? how many times does she plan to come back?), the foreseen research steps that will be developed within the a.pass environment and the public outcome of the research within that period of time.

      This contract then will be signed by the researcher, the a.pass research coordinator, the supervisor at the university, and the head of the department of the university.

      Researchers can join a.pass in the preparation phase of the research, to strengthen, precise, delineate and develop the research proposal for being admitted into a PhD program at a university. In this phase a.pass offers mainly feedback in the process of the dossier making, and if possible also assists in networking, contacting possible supervisors, and organizing meetings. When the PhD has already started, a.pass offers a collaborative environment for the development of the research, leaving the researcher the option to participate in the workshops of the post-master program, organize workshops or work groups themselves, choosing mentors etc… PhD researchers are strongly encouraged to open up their research trajectory to a larger audience in any form they find useful. Next to the program, a.pass also offers feedback through the meetings of the research center group activities.

      In that sense every PhD-trajectory is quite different, but what is appreciated the most in the feedback from the Phd participants is the opportunity to work in a collective environment, test out their research hypotheses with a larger group of participants, get real-time feedback on their work, and be part of a critical and supportive team of researchers that freely exchange, critique and acknowledge each other’s work.

    • information
    • NOT_index
    • Content of the Research Proposal 03 July 2014
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • Your proposal should consist of:
      • A description of your project, including a research plan addressing the central question and a proposed research trajectory and methodology. Please address the potential of your research to contribute to experimental performative or spatial modes of knowledge production.
      • Proposal(s) on the modes of communication and sharing  of your research within the a.pass environment and to a wider public (which formats would you like to explore to communicate, document and archive your research?)
      • A portfolio of your past projects : excerpts from videos, films, photos, texts, reviews, drawings, paintings, etc.
      • A curriculum vitae including information on your master's diploma (or the highest diploma you obtained) and your professional experience.
       
       
    • postgraduate program
    • block 2014/II
    • Milieus
    • NOT_index
    • MILIEUS 01 May 2014
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • BLOCK 14/II
    • 01 May 2014
    • 31 July 2014
    • CURATED BY PIERRE RUBIO
    • case of: Pierre Rubio
    • MILIEUS

       

       

      Milieus is a collective artistic research environment for the participants, mentors and other workers of the a.pass program. In a shared workspace we develop our practices in a collaborative context, on the basis of self-organisation and self-rule. Through individual actions Milieus generates a dynamic territory for exchange, cooperation and (tacit) negotiation. A mutual creation of the individual and the common.

      We invite different guests to enter into this environment with us, to participate, open up the proposals and issues addressed in the collective work and/or to problematize the situation, fueling the ecology of ideas and practices in Milieus.

       

    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • a.pass Basics workshops
    • NOT_index
    • Scores
    • "general intellect ? - it's not about you, stupid !" 03 March 2014
      posted by: Guido Lucassen
    • Pierre Rubio / Elke van campenhout
    • 03 March 2014
    • 07 March 2014
    • case of: Pierre Rubio
    • ‘General Intellect? - it's not about you, stupid !’ will explore and question a basic parameter of the apass environment : the relation between the individual and the collective. What is this relation, how does it function? Is it the individual that creates the collective? Or is the collective the base structure on which individuals can work and organize themselves? Specifically within an artistic research environment where the institution is constantly reformulating itself out of a multitude of individual inputs and where the individuals, in a state of crisis, are constantly self-constructing, confronted and challenged by a collective project.

      Can there be a mutual constitutive relation? A relational machine we can call ‘General Intellect’ or ‘Transindividual Space’ operating between and through the individuals, creating an 'ensemble' through their practice?

      From reading sessions to diverse practice formats, we will come up possibly with refreshed perspectives on what collective working and thinking can do.

    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • a.pass Basics workshops
    • block 2013/II
    • NOT_index
    • HOW ABOUT CRITIQUE, CRITICALITY, CRISIS? 24 June 2013
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • PIERRE RUBIO / PETER STAMER
    • 24 June 2013
    • 28 June 2013
    • case of: Pierre Rubio
    • HOW ABOUT CRITIQUE, CRITICALITY, CRISIS?

       

      Every block, a.pass organizes ‘b-workshops’ that focus on the basic principles of a.pass as a working environment. ‘How about Critique, Criticality, Crisis?’ ties in on a field already explored by ‘Feedback and Critique’ in July 2012. Whereas the previous workshop focused on several feedback techniques to clarify the nature(s) and function(s) of feedback within a collaborative and self-organized artistic research environment, this one will focus on the challenging issue of ‘critique’.

      What does critique aim at, and how does it epistemologically operate? How can we deal with its problematic relation to judgment and truth? What’s the relevance of critique within a system of criticality to overcome the vicious circle of belief and denunciation? What’s the role of discourse and theory in one’s research and practice in order to go beyond backing up one’s work but rather challenging it, eroding it, posing problems to it? Is discourse solving the crisis of practice or should it rather impose a crisis on practice?

      From critical readings of several texts on critique and criticality to film and performance analysis, from case studies to role-playing, we will come up with refreshed definitions of critique and renewed objectives of uncompromising aesthetic.

       

       

    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • block 2013/I
    • NOT_index
    • The Adoption Project
    • The Adoption Project 16 March 2013
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • Peter Stamer / Nicolas Galeazzi
    • 16 March 2013
    • 20 March 2013
    • How do you position yourself to your art?

      
How tight is the bond between you and the issues or ideas you are working with?

      
What if you would release this bond and adopt out parts of your research temporally to someone else?

       

      The Adoption Project takes on the bonds and habits between you and your artistic practice. It challenges the perspectives and positions you engage with in your artistic process and takes them away from your personal involvement by handing them over to a different look, practice, or routine for a certain period of time. A clear defined section of  your project shall be packed in a 'box' and given up for adoption, while you will take a section of someone else's research temporally under your 'protection'.


      In this sense the Adoption Project aims to facilitate you with tools to put your proper work in a public sphere long before it is 'completed'. We understand this process as an effective instrument of research.



       

      How does it work?


      1. 'give it away' First, you are going to enclose and extract a section from the complex of your research case. This may be a part you don't know how to deal with, a part you would like to be infected by with foreign qualities, or a section you already gave up. 
Then you condense this section to a 'package' - readable for an 'anybody' - and release it from your personal care. You put it on disposal to be adopted by someone else – maybe by means of a lottery. Everyone who is involved will give away part of his research and receive parts of others – adoption is based on mutuality.
      2. 

'care about' In the following adoption phase you will hence be in charge for a package yourself. You will feel responsible for the assignment delivered to your hands. You will have to take up a stance for it,  to care for it and to charge it with the best of your intentions and qualities. You will approach it through your own eyes and tools and, as you adopt it, you will treat it as if it would be yours and use if it was for your own purposes.


      3. 'give it back' Changed, charged and re-bundled you will give the adopted package back from the foster-artist to the mother-artist. The third phase will happen in PA-F, where you will hand it over to the mother-artist in the context of his/her research presentation.




       

      Timeframes:

      Introduction to the project during the opening week in January. First working phase during the Half-way-days, February 18th and 19th. Second phase Workshop, March 18th to 22nd. Third phase in Pa-f, March 30th to April 5th.


    • The current economic crisis is not only a result of some major failures in speculating practices, but the outbreak of a constant crisis inherent to the system. Exploitation of the society and the environment through a reliance on constant growth, the possibility of infinite creation of money for some through the creation of debt for the majority, and the binding of most life-procedures to procedures of money are creating a precarious and dangerous economic climate.

      Starting a glossary on Economics

      Working on THE SQUARE : a delimited area in the workshop space, where we can experiment and model thoughts around interactions related with art and economy.
      It is supervised by a camera which films the situation from above. It looks like a surveillance system ;) but it is not only that.

      Jorgos Papadopoulos, Greek Economist, is intervening to clarify notions and concepts.
      We spent time defining what means UTILITY and the notion of enjoyment linked to it.
      The notion of Apparatus was introduced through a text by Lepecki.

      We also mentioned different existing types of economies :
      general economy
      gift economy
      economy of the body
      blood economy
      etc.
      and how they work respectively.

      In the arts field, can we talk about a gift economy?

    • Some workshopping in economics for artists is due!
      At latest since 2008 it became clear, that the economic system we are living in and with is wacky, unjust and not sustainable. Many of its instruments are either exaggerated or exhausted. The bubbles it produces in different markets are getting out of control and deregulated fiscal constructions are dramatically failing.

      Yet, business is going as usual - but besides that many crucial social pillars are being washed away. The current economic crisis is not only a result of some major failures in speculating practices, but it is also the outbreak of the constant crisis inherent to the system. Since many years a precarious and dangerous economic climate has been created through the exploitation of the society and the environment in the belief in constant growth and a policy relying on the infinite creation of money for some through the creation of infinite debt for the majority.

      The current cuts of public funding and the absence of interesting jobs are just some visible signs of the consequences of governmental reaction towards the 2008 crisis. Arts all over Europe are now more concretely targeted for cuts than ever in the last 40 years.

      In this climate artist are forced to rethink our relationship to the economics - a situation to be cached!
      We have to leave our triple position as critiques, prototypes and profiteers of the system, and rethink our relation to the protection through governmental funding. This can not be done by making art in a more 'economic' way.

      This workshop rather launches a discussion about the repositioning of the economic field towards the arts.
      We have to occupy and appropriate the "economics" and its terminology and fill it with new practices and new meaning. We have to occupy the vocabularies, the practices and the appearance of the economy and to open it to a wider spectrum of life than just financial success.  

      For that we have to ask, what do we expect from future live? What is it what we really are 'dealing', 'trading' with? What is our currency? What is/was our real contribution to the crisis and how do we fictionalise the changes to come? What kind of traps are we constantly taping as artists? What kind of an economy could we establish out of an artistic (researching) practice which will make a real difference?

      Thinking over economy! Rethinking economy, or thinking economy is over!

      These questions can be attacked by analysing the different notions of 'performance' in the economy and in the arts. 
      The understanding of "performance" differs in general in their aims, aesthetics and actions in both fields. Performance on stage has to do with appearance, or transformation, performance on 'stock' with accomplishment, growth and power (thrust).  
      A mixup of this different understandings happens in a very complex way when it comes to the commodification and dissemination of knowledge - and even more when this happens through artistic practices. 

      We would like to propose a two-week workshop in two parts. The first week should concentrate on performing the reality of the economic crisis and the crisis of art-making in relation to financial policies. By inviting theorist and artist Georgios Papadopoulos, ("Notes towards a Critique of Money") we would undertake an extended analyse of the relation between art and currency. What is our currency? What is the premise behind this currency? But also what are we actually dealing with by dealing with currencies? 

      While in the second week we would like to go more into alternative economic systems. For that, we will collaborate with the behavioural economist Marieke Huysentruyt and will appropriate and translate economic ideas such as the 'Gemeinwohlökonomie' and Parecon. How are alternatives possible? How can art-making develop economic alternatives? How can the economy of art-making be reclaimed and recoined with other meanings and values?

      The workshops are based on a similar lab structure. In order to compare and relate the differing understandings of 'performance' in a practical a discursive way, we will set up a lab where artistic performances and economic performances should coexist, contradict and corrupt each other.

      The lab is a simple square furnished with some material and positions for artistic and economic activities. It will be constantly filmed form the sealing above. This should allow to understand the procedures on the square as scores or choreographies - the choreographies of relinking and rethinking art and economy. In other words - the workshop is a lab for the performance of the reality of art-making. 

       
    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • a.p.t.-a.s.-a.r.c.
    • NOT_index
    • ARTIFICIAL REALITIES #2 Magical Materialism
      10 October 2011
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • Pierre Rubio
    • 10 October 2011
    • 23 October 2011
    • case of: Pierre Rubio
    • ARTIFICIAL REALITIES #2

       

       

      Let’s sit in a circle to talk about magic.

      And then, let’s practice alchemy…

      This workshop is the continuation of a series. A “first episode” happened during last spring, a new one happens this fall. They both seek to detach our research projects from an essentialist and naturalistic approach. Their common aim is at (re)problematising for (re)capturing the strategies of construction and thus the theories of knowledge which our singular researches investigate and produce. If the Spring workshop’s keyword was ‘attachments’, the second step will be entirely contaminated by the notion of ‘magic’. We will take a trip into the wonderland of in-differentiation between cultural and natural, object and subject, figure and background, and more important, theory and practice.

      At first, during three days, we will re-consider our research projects under the influence of two singular analysis of magic : respectively Gilbert Simondon’s and Isabelle Stengers’.

      Far from considering magic as an obsolete historical object, Simondon’s notion of the magical is that of a world structured by a network of privileged places and privileged moments. Let’s compare this magical structure of the world to our projects, as if they were worlds in themselves.

      With the help of Stengers, our ‘favourite witch’, we will track the evil spells of capitalism as well as “the thoughtlessness encouraged by the theme of progress” and any kind of prescriptive power discourses. Logically we will then question the potential of politics’ re-invention through our artistic researches, the level of “empowerment” they produce and the possibility of “reclaim” they generate.

      During a second period of an entire week, we will turn a former shop (turned recently into an art gallery) into an alchemy laboratory to transmute our projects into something other. The basic idea is that if one takes distance from one’s own project by moving it into unexpected contexts, this allows the discovery of ‘attachments’ and “othernesses” to enrich the ‘original’ project. Taking seriously what practice means and is capable of, let’s engage in a risky path from familiar individuals to unfamiliar singularities, from experiments to experiences, from “matter of facts to matter of concerns”.

      The magical world is not a fascinating ethnographic object but “a mode of existence” to which individuals, as well as collectives, (and also artistic research projects...) can come back, if they endure the ordeal of disindividuation. “Disindividuation is a lack in structure” that happens when organisations that make us see, think and act break up, making us paradoxically available to invent other ways of seeing, thinking and acting. Welcome to the post-rational shamanistic academia!

       

    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • a.p.t.-a.s.-a.r.c.
    • NOT_index
    • ARTIFICIAL REALITIES #1 Displacements and Attachments
      30 May 2011
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • Pierre Rubio
    • 30 May 2011
    • 03 June 2011
    • case of: Pierre Rubio
    • ARTIFICIAL REALITIES #1

       

      Often artists and researchers still hold on to the illusory idea of their material having a ‘natural’ ‘essence’. Let us for a moment take some distance from this essentialist and naturalistic approach, let us consider our research projects as artificial constructions, which thus can be problematized and turned into stimulating and productive networks. Artificial Realities aims at a rediscovery of our projects by a momentary over-artificialization: first by re-mapping our projects and by doing so understand/capture the strategies of ‘assemblage’ and thus the theories of knowledge which they formulate; and secondly by opening up horizons of possibilities for further developments and speculations. The basic idea is that if one takes distance from one’s own project by ‘moving’ it in unexpected contexts or by ‘translating’ it in non familiar languages, this will allow the discovery of new components and new ‘attachments’ that will enrich and stimulate the ‘original’ project. Or in other words: developing an otherness by experiencing and exploring “as if's” to get out of the over-territorial and locked perception of “our” projects. Let's re-construct, re-imagine, re-invent “our” substrata. Let's science-fictionalize “our” “problems” and speculate ... cartoons... models for societies... newspapers... fictions... messages for eventual extraterrestrial forms of life... social practices... TV programs... religions... and more. Artificial Realities will develop through different steps: from identification of central issues in the practice, problematization, to several experiences of transfers, translations, displacements, parallax shifts, etc. The workshop includes reading sessions (Bruno Latour's On the modern cult of the factish gods and Factures/Fractures), individual work, group presentations and discussions.

    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • a.p.t.-a.s.-a.r.c.
    • a.pass Basics workshops
    • block 2010/I
    • NOT_index
    • CONSEQUENCES II 01 March 2010
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • Tom Plischke & Kattrin Deufert
    • 01 March 2010
    • 06 March 2010
    • CONSEQUENCES II

       

       

      The most important element of our working process is writing and transference. It allows all participants to work in silence and not to be bothered by producibility. The constant passing on of written material and the permanent reformulating, contextualizing, expanding, and reflecting of the written material serve as a basis for the creation and composition of movements, texts, sounds, or images. But within this procedure all realizations are based on  temporary decisions depending from the material that is handed over from the other and not because the medium of realization is chosen beforehand. Our working procedure could best fit into the motto: ‘Give me your material and I show you what you're not doing with it’.

      Sourcing the creation-act out and rendering oneself into the pendency of writing instead permits a disciplined work in silence, in which each participant and partner can raise her/his voice on the paper independently from its volume or the amount and position of knowledge. Participation starts with a conspiracy of partaking, and not by the self-positioning of the speaker. With (Re)formulating we describe a process that can enable a discourse in silence, in the writing with each other. The place of the individual argument, the singular voice is taken by an instance of polyphony, similar to the Cadavre Exquis, which is a game that was invented by Surrealists in 1925. It is quite similar to an old english parlor game called Consequences in which players write in turn on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal part of the writing, and then pass it to the next player for a further contribution. Unlike the surrealists, we don't hide what has been written previously. For us it is a downright challenge to deal with the input of the others and to come into thinking with it, to expand ideas and suggestions, to combine sketches, to suggest a possible proceeding. It is only very late in the working procedure that we ask about the medium in which this material is to be realized. In this sense, the medium becomes a part in the decision-making, in the claim of form (or format). It is not set a priori and thus has to be in reference, translation, transference to the material: it has to be a decision and not a choice.
 Because of this it is fundamental in this principle of formal strictness to take the responsibility of one's decisions and to constantly confront the other with claims in order to develop a communication, a circulation and production in the community of strangers. (Re)formulating should enable everybody to partake in the process. Just as in knitting from a single thread (the shared theme) and a knitting pattern (the permanent passing on), a complex texture evolves that formulates a possible work.

       

       

       





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