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    • end presentation
    • postgraduate program
    • End Communications 07 September 2023
      posted by: Kristien Van den Brande
    • Marian Rosa van Bodegraven, Andrea Brandão, Alyssa Gersony, and Marko Gutić Mižimakov
    • a.pass
    • 15 September 2023
    • 16 September 2023
    • End Communications

      In-between researcher and research, one finds:

       

      overlap, interests, themes, fiction, text, reading, body, duet, partner, “doctoring”, object, performance, bodies, relationship, questions, researchers, looking, things, going, us, traces, deposits, authors, architectures, dealing, bed, laying, bleeding, seeping, noticing, noting, narrating, unveiling, something, happening, discovery, methodologies, conditions, agent, asking, producing, responses, lethargy, collapse, training, experience, moment, future, here, now, concept, life, rhythm, goals, worth, cheese, workshop, ancestry, trajectories, senses, intimacy, strength, power, assertion, insistence, compassion, idea, artistic practice, descaling, focus, layers, dislocating, destabilizing, conditions, conditioning, negotiating, ways, humanization, humans, violent category, systems, disability, concrete, reference, ableism, contemporary, dance, thinking, practices, phenomena, embodiment, dancer, vessel, object, bodies, Marley, memory, erasure, obliteration, intangible, incomprehensible, determined, social, aesthetic, queer, sexualized, opening, gendered, human body, crossing, cultures, genders, generations, narrative, storytelling, voice, transmission, conditions, vs, context, decontextualizing, evaluation, affects, pieces, autofiction, mundane, erotically, charged, space, trip, supermarket, cup, coffee, Monday, morning, laying, down, convergence, blind/low vision, rehabilitation, ‘co-habilitation’, patient-therapist, flooring, prosthetic, patient, therapist, audiences, invitations, systems, dance, disability, together, final, transmission, trespassing, somatic, work, curation, drifting, vicinity, quantum physics, OOO, socio-ecological, hopelessness, seemingly, desperate, galactic points, gayness, history, AIDS, transgenerational, speculative fiction,  spoken word, theoretical, dramaturgical,  methodological, suggestions, Black Holes, celestial, entities, writer, producer, sexuality, vehicle, political ideology, drafts, prosaic, nature, political, administration, structure, Brazil, urban planning, Netherlands, 2019, masters, Moving Images, Belgium, 2022, interdisciplinary, Brussels, Rīga, New York City, orientation, mobility specialist, ‘the clinic’, ‘the studio’, western, lineages, contact improvisation, medical, models, disability, therapeutics, interabled, collaborations, experimental prosthetics, development, form, theatrical performances, electronic, sound, composition, 1:1, instruction, multimedia, installation, MFA, choreography, intermedia, 2021, 2022, adjunct, faculty, department, blindness, visual impairment, living, working, Zagreb, shaping, sensory materials, intimate, social processes, digital, palpable objects, animated, choreographed, sung, non-orientable, forms, different media, processes, translation, queer science fiction, speculative technology, mutual transformation, MA, animated, film, new media, rest, caves, shape, language, performativity, self, scores, ...

       

      If one makes a list of things, a list of all the things, if one were to try an embracive list of things that arise between being and doing, let’s say a dog and barking, and if one were to apply this question to artistic research, and aim at listing all the things that emerge between researcher and research, if one were to aim for the bottom of this list, what would emerge would be immeasurable distance, a very long line of things. At the end of the exercise, the question of what it intended, if not length, if not depth, if not stretch, perhaps could be: what is at stake between researcher and research?

       

      For the four artist-researchers Marian Rosa van Bodegraven, Andrea Brandão, Alyssa Gersony, and Marko Gutić Mižimakov, it is the conflation of research and researcher via the subject. Letting go of notions of distance in relation to their research subject, they opt for a generative entanglement between the subject of research, researching and the researcher.

       

      Understood as a sharing practice, artistic research involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able to care about other people and to suspend oneself, over and over, every day, and at times in unflattering ways. For about a year this day-in-day-out practice positioned Marian, Andrea, Alyssa, Marko, as well as their other peers, towards each other as collaborators, witnesses, peers, co-conspirators, role-players, workshop facilitators and guinea pigs. Now, at the end of a joint trajectory, it involves making public, i.e. curating an event together, setting overlaps into printed matter, and extending their research intentions and questions to others.

       

      End Communications, invites the audience to attune to the specific intensities produced by these research entanglements as they are shared and made public.

       


       

       

      Marian Rosa van Bodegraven

      The Final Exam: this research considers how an artistic practice affects and is affected by the body of the researcher through pieces of autofiction that contemplate the mundane as an erotically charged space: a trip to the supermarket, a cup of coffee, a Monday morning spent laying down. The research will be presented through a reading of three texts: Clementine, Monday Blues (written by H.de S. and researched in the context of the Am I Evil? Workshop, by Alice Ciresola and Simone Basani), and the eponymous The Final Exam.

       

      Alyssa Gersony

      co-habilitation: at the convergence of choreography and blind/low vision rehabilitation, this research proposes ‘co-habilitation’ as a way to reconfigure the patient-therapist relationship. Dance flooring (Marley) is taken as a duet partner, as a prosthetic, as a patient and a therapist, while audiences are invited into a deconstructed studio-clinic where bodies directly implicated in the systems of dance and disability perform together.

       

      Marko Gutić Mižimakov

      Less Than the Sum of Its Parts — Final Transmission is drifting in the vicinity of quantum physics, OOO, socio-ecological hopelessness and the seemingly desperate galactic points of gayness, the history of AIDS and its transgenerational affects. Trespassing performance, somatic work and curation, comes a spoken word duet speculating on the theoretical, dramaturgical, and methodological suggestions emerging from the idea of Black Holes as celestial bodies in proximity to touch and memory.

       

      Andrea Brandão

      first continue, then start (primeiro continuar, depois começar): Andrea’s research* lies within spaces of drifting, where rest, sleep, and the in-between start to carve out an embodied language that shapes the score of a performativity of the self. Through dislocating these transitory spaces into active, participatory experiences, Andrea aims to bring about the seemingly still nature of a state of consciousness that is informed by a rhythm that productively moves us through dark and liquid subterranean strata.

      ** At this moment, Andrea’s research will only be presented at a private scale, with a public moment at a later stage.

       

      End Communications is co-curated by Marian Rosa van Bodegraven, Andrea Brandão, Alyssa Gersony, and Marko Gutić Mižimakov, together with artist-researcher Vijai Maia Patchineelam. 

       


       

      Programme

       

      7pm, 3rd Floor The Final Exam, a reading by Marian Rosa van Bodegraven

       

      -break- food & drinks available*, 4th Floor

       

      8:15pm, 4th Floor co-habilitation, a performance by Alyssa Gersony

       

      -break- drinks available, 4th Floor

       

      9:15pm, 4th Floor Less Than the Sum Of Its Parts — Final Transmission
      a performance by Marko Gutić Mižimakov in collaboration with Petar Sarjanović 

       

      Friday till 11:00 pm post-performance mingle, food & drinks available* 

      Saturday till 1:00 am post-performance party, drinks available 

       

      *On both days, a.pass alumni and culinary artist Aslı Hatipoğlu will prepare vegetarian bibimbap and sweet bites for sale over the course of the evening (gluten free, vegan option available).

       


       

       

      Marian Rosa van Bodegraven is a Brazilian-Dutch researcher, writer and producer. Marian’s body of research moves around sexuality as a vehicle for political ideology. Through writing and readings, she drafts on the prosaic nature of sexuality, and the seemingly en passant layers of a political administration of desire that structure it. Born and raised in Brazil, where she studied Architecture and Urban Planning at Escola da Cidade, she moved to the Netherlands in 2019, where she did her MA in Moving Images at the Sandberg Institute. 

       

      Alyssa Gersony is a Jewish-American interdisciplinary artist currently working in Brussels, Rīga and New York City. Trained as a contemporary dancer and orientation and mobility specialist, Alyssa regularly traverses ‘the clinic’ and ‘the studio.’ Across these spaces, Alyssa practices within western lineages of contact improvisation, medical models of disability therapeutics, interabled performance collaborations, and experimental prosthetics development. Her work takes the form of theatrical performances, electronic sound composition, artistic development workshops, 1:1 individual instruction, and multimedia installation. Alyssa holds an MFA in choreography and intermedia performance, is a 2021-2022 Fulbright awardee in dance research, and is currently an adjunct faculty in the City University of New York, Hunter College department of blindness and visual impairment. 

       

      Marko Gutić Mižimakov is a visual, performance and text based artist and researcher living/working between Brussels and Zagreb. He is interested in shaping sensory materials through intimate, collaborative and social processes. In his work bodies as well as digital and palpable objects, are animated, choreographed and sung into non-orientable forms via different media and processes of translation. Often borrowing from queer science fiction he sees his work as a speculative technology of mutual transformation. He has an MA in Animated Film and New Media from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb and is currently an adjunct faculty member at Paris College of Art in the department of Transdisciplinary New Media.

       

      Andrea Brandão is a visual and undisciplinary artist living and working between Brussels and Lisbon. Working in the expanded fields of visual arts, performance, cinema, and more, Andrea’s research explores notions of sleep, rest, and drifting in relation to participatory experiences facilitated by scores and assisted at times by audio-visual elements. She is interested in interweaving writing, camera-ing, meditating, and dreaming. She was born in Portugal and started traveling at a very young age. She holds a B.A. in Industrial Design from University of Lisbon’s Faculty of Architecture (2000) and has completed the Advanced Course in Visual Arts of Ar.Co - Centro de Arte e Comunicaçāo Visual and attended Studies of body and movement at c.e.m. - Centro em movimento, in Lisbon.

       

      Collaborators:

       

      Gabi Vanek (co-habilitation, lighting design and audio engineer) is a musician and lighting technician based in Iowa City, USA. As a technician she has worked on projects ranging from HBO to Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, to touring artists including Arooj Aftab, Son Lux, and Jenny Lewis.

       

      Petar Sarjanović (Final Transmission, performer collaborator) is a dramaturg from Zagreb, now living in Brussels, also active as writer, performer and theater maker. In 2020 Petar premiered ‘Everything I don’t know, I’ve stolen’, a solo work that deals with the processes of mis- and dis-identification and the folklorization of western canon. 

       

      Co-curator:

       

      Vijai Maia Patchineelam’s artistic practice focuses on the dialogue between the artist and the art institution. Placing the role of the artist as a worker in the foreground, Vijai’s research-driven artistic practice experiments with and argues for a more permanent role for artists — one in which artists become a constitutive part of the inner workings of art institutions. Vijai is a former associate researcher at the Research Center, and has since come back on different occasions as a mentor for the Post-Graduate Program at a.pass.

       

    • performative publishing
    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • Printer's Devils
    • MAGAZINES 13 June 2023
      posted by: Kristien Van den Brande
    • Sara Manente and Jaime Llopis
    • a.pass
    • 26 June 2023
    • 27 June 2023
    • MAGAZINES

      The 2 days workshop starts from looking into the possibilities given by the magazine as a format for artistic publications. 

      If any publication implies a multiplicity of relations and functions, depending on different expertise in the editing and printing process, a magazine entails as well a variety of authors and sources, a diversity of literary genres, and a large spectrum of relationships between the writer/performer and the reader/spectator. A magazine can also alter and play with the tensions and the hierarchies between the serious and the banal. All these features would overflow the centralized and isolated role of the editor.

      How can the format of the magazine be a template or a tool to rethink and project new distributions in the architecture of our artistic research? How would this editing speculation affect the internal distribution of our work? How would the performative specificities of this format trigger the publication of one's artistic processes? How would it map an ecosystem of accomplice practices as well as trace genealogies?

      We will take as example the magazine ROT Issue Zero/SKIN (2020) and ROT #1/IMMUNITY (still in the making). 

      Working times: 10:30am- 1pm & 2-4pm

      Reach out if you want to participate in the workshop! Send an email to Hans @ apass.be, before June 23. 

      a.pass is located on the 4th floor inside the Brussels Event Brewery building. The studio is wheelchair accessible via elevator.

       


       

      Sara Manente studied dance and semiotics before moving to Brussels, where she works as artist, mentor and researcher. In 2008, she graduated from a.pass postmaster program and later participated in the Research Center Cycle 1. More recently, her work reflects on the possibility of contamination between pedagogy, research, performance and publication resulting in a variety of formats: from the choreographic and sculptural work of MOLD, to the editorial and curatorial practice of ROT magazine and Gardens. The situations she promotes are highly collaborative.

      Jaime Llopis graduated in Drama at ESAD (Valencia) and studied dance and Choreography in EDDC (Arnhem). He has lived in Brussels since 2003, where he graduated in a.pass postmaster program. He is currently studying philosophy at UNED. His artistic research focuses on the body as a hinge between praxis (ways of doing) and perceptive patterns. 

    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • Dreaming Reality 09 June 2023
      posted by: Kristien Van den Brande
    • Anna Nowicka
    • a.pass
    • 24 June 2023
    • 25 June 2023
    • Dreaming Reality

      In the workshop we will explore our unique languages of imagination. We will notice how images move us, and how our actions transform inner landscapes. We will shift perspectives, switch between giving and receiving, doing and observing, dancing and being still. With the help of shifting the eye within and without the body, we will build realities and let go of them, draw inner landscapes and quest into their mysteries. We will speak worlds into being and listen to how they resonate in the body. From this receptive place, we will form our unique dances.

       

       

      → DATES&TIMES

      Saturday 24th 16h-21h
      Sunday 25th 10.00-15h*

      *Please mind that the workshop has different planned time on both days. A brake for lunchtime is considered.

      →HOW TO JOIN

      The number of participants that can join the workshop is small, non a.pass participants are welcome but registration is required. Do you want to participate in this workshop? Send an email to mizimakov@gmail.com with [DREAMING] as subject before Tuesday, JUNE 22, 2023.

       

      ANNA NOWICKA ABOUT THE WORKSHOP

      "The practice I propose is rooted in the work with dreams I studied at The School of Images and with dr. Bonnie Buckner. We will apply this particular method to choreographic work, plunging into “opening” any image, situation, and form, responding to it from a place of rested, attentive awareness. We will explore night dreams, and dreams that arise in waking reality. We will embody singular images, develop their specific qualities, states they induce and dances they jolt. We will follow the way in which they expand into narratives, using storylines as prompts to flow between qualities and shape shift with ease. We will go deeper into working with patterns, acknowledging the role of time and space in bringing materials to forms. Questions will prompt poetic ways of composing, weaving movements in an associative manner, fostering connections between seemingly unfamiliar materials. Questions will take us beyond the surface level understanding of a dream to reveal its deeper meaning.

      The aim of this work is to become present, dancing with reality with curiosity and ease. With this experiential, deeply embodied perspective one becomes a response-able agent of creation, dreaming the world into being."

       

       

      ABOUT ANNA NOWICKA

      Anna Nowicka (Berlin) is choreographer and performer, plunging into the lush reality of dreaming. She researches the potential of images to expand the body into a state of a continuous becoming. Graduate of the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD), MA Choreography at the HfS Ernst-Busch / HZT in Berlin and MA Psychology at the Warsaw University, she wrote her practice based PhD on embodied awareness as the foundation for being present. She has completed a basic training in Systemic Therapy. Anna is a certified Saphire® teacher of dr. Catherine Shainberg’s “The School of Images”. She is unfolding dreamwork through an intensive exchange with dr. Bonnie Buckner.

      more: https://annanowicka.com/


      ABOUT THE CONTEXT/INVITATION 

      Dreaming Reality with Anna Nowicka is part of the Participant Assembly Curatorial by invitation of Andrea Brandao and Marko Gutić Mižimakov. 

       

      ACESSIBILITY

      {a.pass is located on the 4th floor inside the Brussels Event Brewery building. The studio is wheelchair accessible via elevator.

       

    • lecture
    • workshop
    • Participants Assembly
    • Mystical Languages and Affective Literacies 03 May 2023
      posted by: Kristien Van den Brande
    • Áron Birtalan
    • a.pass 4th floor
    • 15 May 2023
    • 16 May 2023
    • Mystical Languages and Affective Literacies
      Inspired by devotional practices from the Late Middle Ages, this workshop explores mystical languages as somatic and performative technologies. Focusing on spoken language and tactile ways of engaging with text and images, we will create affective relationships between bodies and matter. Contaminating the lines between a within and a without, mystical languages become an interface for intimate bonds with the unknowable and unreliable. Topics include: image as induction, reading as annihilation, text as embodiment and touch as giving birth. We will familiarize ourselves with the historical contexts and theologies of the body in Christian mysticism of the Late Middle Ages, using it a lens through which we can re-encounter the now. 
       

       
      Our activities include reading, writing, discussing, engaging in simple exercises that challenge perception and sensation. At large, the workshop invites us to be with language and touch as a place of possibility for encounters, relationships and becomings between active-passive and living-dead bodies. We will draw attention to how these possibilities can influence our own practices, showings, publications - and their embodied afterlife as a post-mortem artwork.
       

      Prep for participants

      • Please bring 2-3 pieces of printed texts or images you can imagine playing with in the workshop based on what you read in the description. This can be something you yourself made, but also from someone or somewhere else. As formats, you can choose to bring a printed publication (book, zine, brochure, sign, etc) or loose pieces of paper. We will use these as playful starting points, so don't think too much about what you bring!
      • For the first day, please bring a modern computing device that connects to the internet: smartphone, tablet or laptop. Please contact me with any questions about this.
      • Clothes you feel nice and comfortable in.

       

      Content and accessibility

      Activities are made to accomodate for different kinds of bodies and needs. Every activity will be introduced in advance and you are encouraged to take a step back if something is not working for you. In its themes, the workshop touches upon religion, mysticism, sex, ideas about the afterlife, grief, death and wounds.

       

      Timetable

      workshop sessions: 15 & 16.05, 10-16.00 each day including a break for lunch

      public talk 15.05, 18.00

       

      Participants 

      max ~16 participants for workshop. Please contact Hans if you're interested to participate in the workshop.

       

      Bio

      Áron Birtalan is an artist, musician and a student of theology, whose work explores languages of pleasure and anguish between angel, creature and computer. Working together with participants and their imagination as an artistic medium, Áron creates guided games, mystical practices, musical releases, unruly thoughts and publications. They are interested in a practice that acts as an interface through which intimate relationships with the unknowable may unfold. They received their education at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, the DAS Graduate School in Amsterdam and are currently a PhD candidate in Choreography at Stockholm University of the Arts with their research project 'Your Bones Hold the Shape of What’s to Come'.

       

      Invited by

      Áron Birtalan and 'Mystical Languages and Affective Literacies' are invited by Carina Erdmann (Participant Assembly curation).

    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • Participants Assembly
    • Non-conventional Lighting Laboratory PA-curation proposed by Asli Hatipoglu
      01 February 2023
      posted by: Kristien Van den Brande
    • Martin Flugelman
    • a.pass
    • 09 February 2023
    • 10 February 2023
    • Non-conventional Lighting Laboratory

      Martin Flugelman, from FLUXLIAN - a collaborative platform focused on light applied in arts, design, performance, and activism - introduces a two-day laboratory. The workshop consists of experiences and activities using the phenomena of light. We will collectively appropriate lighting technologies, hack and improvise devices to shift the appearance of bodies and space. How to integrate lighting to the artistic practice, staging, cyborging, and researching on light as a narrative element. This is a place to drift into alternative lighting aesthetics by using what is around us. How can we translate ideas in lighting terms? How can a light choreography produce an image-experience? What can we illuminate collectively?

      The laboratory is oriented to all kinds of people willing to explore, play and intervene with light: photographers, filmmakers, architects, designers, technicians, educators, researchers, musicians, dancers, artists, performers, and light enthusiasts.
       
      Thursday 9 February - 12:30 - 16:30
      Friday 10 February - 15:00 - 19:00 + possible bonus track
       
      The workshop is open to participants not enrolled in the a.pass program. Please send an email if you are interested. Contribution: 30€
       
    • performative publishing
    • To discover a fossil on your tibia 01 February 2023
      posted by: Sina Seifee
    • Magdalena Ptasznik
    • book
    • Magdalena Ptasznik is a choreographer. In herartistic practice, she works with both human and other-than-human entities. Magdalena uses choreography to refresh our perception of environments. 

       

      [caption id="attachment_13117" align="alignnone" width="780"] Magdalena Ptasznik[/caption]
    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • block 2023/I
    • Fantasmical Anatomy lesson Workshop
      11 January 2023
      posted by: Kristien Van den Brande
    • Anne Juren
    • 06 March 2023
    • 10 March 2023
    • With Anne Juren and her lessons on fantasmical anatomy (March 6-10), we turn to the body as a familiar and unfamiliar site of experience, epistemology and eventually altered potentiality. If the body is a biological product, conditioned by medico-social practices and generational transmissions that precede our experience, how can we simultaneously approach our closest friend and/or foe as ‘a body project’, i.e. as a poetic, fantastical, speculative, imaginative and even monstrous site of investigation that settles and unsettles the conceptions we might have of ourselves, the world and the relations between us? In which way are metaphors influencing the imagination of the body? How is the speculative addressing of somatic practice disfiguring concepts of anatomy? Can horror imaginaries offer a mood to investigate and release our corporeal disorder and vulnerability?

      Morning class 11am-1pm. + individual sessions in the afternoon.

      Bring warm clothes, yogamat and blanket, some pencils, as well as something (a concept, an object) related to your research work. The class might include non-intrusive touch.

      The morning class has some spots open to non-apass people. Please email if interested to participate. 75€/5 days.

       


       

      BOOK LAUNCH, 9th of March @ rile*

      Rile* and Varamo Press invite us for the book launch 'Lesson on gravity', with a performance. 

      More about the performance.

      More about the book

       

       


       

      Anne Juren is a choreographer, dancer, and Feldenkrais practitioner.  She lives and works in Vienna. In 2003, she co-founded the Wiener Tanz- und Kunstbewegung association. Juren’s choreographic pieces and artistic works are shown worldwide in theatres, festivals, museums, and art venues. Since 2013, Juren has been a Feldenkrais® practitioner. Between 2014 and 2018, she was a member of the Artistic Committee of the Master Programme in Choreography at DOCH in Stockholm. Recently, she finished her PhD at the Stockholm University of the Arts under the supervision of André Lepecki and Sandra Noeth.

      More about Studies on Fantasmical Anatomy

    •  

      UNPRODUCTIVE WILL a choreographic practice installation 

      a.pass postgraduate program 2021-2022

       

      SEPTEMBER 2022

      research portfolios 

      PORTFOLIO block I Unproductive will click me!

      PORTFOLIO block II Unproductive will click me!

      PORTFOLIO block III Unproductive will click me!

       

      project's abstract

      How can we create a different relation to time than the one the western worldview imposes on us? How can we produce market-wise non-productive things? 

      Unproductive will is a choreographic practice installation that is part of a larger research. It suggests revisiting our relationship with the hegemonic notion of linear time and productive behavior. It proposes thinking of them as collective colonial wounds and impositions that run through our practices, affective bonds, and lives wherever we are. 

      I am developing exploratory collective practices such as Kung Fu tuning (a counter-normative body practice using simple martial arts warm-up), Collective readings (Payada: a popular folk music genre involving poetic recitations), and Technologies of attention (peeling vegetables following a choreographic score) to name some of them. I work with the idea of a never-ending warm-up to re-think the idea of practice and to engage with everyone who participates as a collaborator. This process does not seek an end but wants to remain in the continuity of the search. 

      I started my trajectory in a.pass exploring the normative notion of linear-productive time and how it is embodied in our behavior because I am interested in its political dimension. I observed how much thinking in a forward direction brings associations that build a certain life perspective. For example, forward-better-future-progress or backward-worst-past-degrowth. This reinforces a system of values creating a sense supported by binary thoughts. 

      In an attempt against this logic, I followed a contradictory path. I stepped forward to my past. During the presentation, in a playful way, I will share practices and connections to my sentimental and cultural education, aiming to create an experience of political awareness. 

      I am interested in observing the transformations the project traverses in each place it is presented. To change its language and perspective, that is to say, the thickness that its affective, geographical, and political implications take both for me and those who participate in the experience. This research challenges the definitions of audience-participant, performance-practice, and encounter-training affecting the presentation dynamic that sets all of them in motion.

      This research takes the notion of Dispersion* as a method and the use of strategies such as inversion, interruption, bifurcation, turning back, or non-direct associations as its main tools. These words-actions served as an entry point to explore time logic as well. To work with the idea of Dispersion requires postponing the need to define a use for the research materials. It implies waiting until a dialogue emerges from the situation of being with the materials that are, in part, intuitively arranged. That enables a reciprocal path to relate the experiences and elements that set up the research. 

      With the desire to articulate strategies that go in another direction than the notions of accumulation, linear time, and progression, I propose to look into the vibration between dispersion and attention strategies, enabling a mode of relation that seeks other possible ways of organization.

       

      *Note: For an accurate translation we should have used the English word Scatter. The decision to use the word, Dispersion, follows the Spanish meaning and its resonances. Dispersion must be understood both on the level of the spatial distribution of things and on how the focus fluctuates.

       

      Bio 

      Jimena Pérez Salerno is an Argentinian artist, based in Brussels (BE). She works and researches between Brussels and Buenos Aires. She experiments in the performing arts, artistic research, and teaching fields. As a dancer and choreographer, she collaborates and engages continuously with other artists as a fundamental part of her exploration of collective work. She considers choreographic practice like an expanded relations system that enables modes of imagination, attention, and coexistence. It leans towards performative practices that contemplate the activation of an unexpected context to think together through the experience of an implicated body. In her last project, she has been researching on the concept of expanded choreography as a critical modality for political awareness, reflecting on linear time and productive behavior.

      + info: https://cargocollective.com/jimenaps IG: @sashimishimi

       

       

      Special thanks 

      a.pass team: Lilia Mestre, Kristof Van Hoorde, Joke Liberge, Kristien Van den Brande, Steven Jouwersma, Sina Seifee, Hans. 

      End communication researchers: Gary Farrelly, Amy Pickles, Inga Gerner Nielsen.

      a.pass researchers during my trajectory: Carolina Mendoça, Chloe Janssens, Vera Sofía Mota, Ana Paula Camargo, Federico Protto, Nathaniel Moore, Tulio Rosa, Marko Gutić Mižimakov, Aleksandra Borys, Alyssa Gersony, Andrea Brandão, Anna Lugmeier, Asli Hatipoglu, Lore, Martin Sieweke, Martina Petrovic, Nada Gambier, Sarah Pletcher.

      Collaborator in residency at a.pass and in Buenos Aires (skipping block): María Sábato
       
      Persons who were with me during this process: María Sábato, Diego Echegoyen, Amparo González Solá.
       
      Dedicated a.pass mentors: Sara Manente, Adriana Gvozdenovic, Isabel Burr Raty, Kobe Matthys, Gosie Vervloessem, Simon Asencio, Vijai Maia Patchineelam, Goda Palekaité, Kristien van den Brande.
       
      External mentors: Sofía Caesar, Caterina Mora, Gustavo Ciriaco, Eleonora Fabião.
       
       

       

       

       

    • end presentation
    • performative publishing
    • postgraduate program
    • Demolition, Damage, Deviation, Desire a.pass End Presentations of Gary Farrelly, Inga Gerner Nielsen, amy pickles and Jimena Pérez Salerno
      11 September 2022
      posted by: Lilia Mestre
    • MEYBOOM artists-run spaces
    • 29 September 2022
    • 30 September 2022
    • Demolition, Damage, Deviation, Desire

      The a.pass End Presentations of Gary Farrelly, Inga Gerner Nielsen, amy pickles and Jimena Pérez Salerno will take place on the 29 and 30 September 2022 at artist run space Meyboom, Boulevard Pacheco 34, downtown Brussels, from 18:00 to 22:30.


      This public presentation marks the end of their trajectory at a.pass and invites the researchers to share their modes of doing, seeing and making artist research public after following the year-long postgraduate program. amy pickles (UK) is an artist and educator working on colonial infrastructures embedded within everyday technologies. She curated and organised, with Chloë Janssens and Túlio Rosa, a gathering titled On Coloniality [https://apass.be/on-coloniality/]. Gary Farrelly (IE) is a visual artist researching on infrastructure, bureaucracy and the architectures of power. A big part of his work is in collaboration with German artist Chris Dreier with the ongoing project Office for Joint Administrative Intelligence. Jimena Pérez Salerno (AR) is a choreographer and dancer researching on the concept of expanded choreography as a critical modality for political awareness reflecting on linear time and productive behavior. Inga Gerner Nielsen (DK) is a performing artist with a background in sociology, researching immersive performance as an interstice of poetry and institutional critique.


      With singular questions, processes and approaches, the four researches intersect and expand concerns in Demolition, Damage, Deviation, Desire by bridging intimacy and politics in very different ways. Their practices extend from the lecture performance to performative installation, drawing, crossing ritual making and never ending warmups, to research, share and exchange - together with the audience - questions that are embedded in our everyday lives.


      The research of these four artists addresse architecture and administration with their conditionings and protocols; the perpetuation of colonial governance through digital infrastructures and our dependency on them; immersive institutional rational authority and the amazing potential of time to inherit, transform, conduct change and resilience.


      The End-Presentations at a.pass are on themselves a study on curatorial practice, performativity and making public. By being together, these performative situations will shine attention to the context and environment they are in, their relationship with audiences, the materialities that are involved being them visible or invisible and what matters in these circumstances.


      For this occasion they worked with Frédéric Van De Velde on a collective sound publication with vinyls that will be performed and spinned by Frédéric during the event. 


      *


      Gary Farrelly / It is official policy to appear unmoved

      Gary Farrelly's research at a.pass departs from the work of deceased conservative conspiracy theorist William Milton Cooper. Coopers work, through his polemical Hour Of The Time radio show synthesised economic and political ‘research’, occult knowledge, personal grievance, and manic episodes into a paranoid tsunami deployed to undermine confidence in public institutions.


      Cooper's transmissions were characterised by a highly affective voice, at once disdainful, concealed, intimate, furious and hyperbolic, inducing a hypnotic state of susceptibility and acquiescence to the content. A precursor to the corrosive ‘post truth’ ideation that contaminates our current public discourse, Farrelly takes Coopers work as a departing point towards a generative reimagining of the paranoid researcher/ coercive performer.


      His trajectory at a.pass has explored various performative versions of himself, including: the bureaucrat, the crossdresser, the charlatan, the guide, the joker, the devils advocate, the instructor and the Cassandra. The core mission of Farrelly’s research is the affective deployment of body and voice as transmitters of anxiety, desire, disinformation and critical questioning in relation to invasive infrastructure and monumental architecture. Much of the content and material he has brought into play at a.pass was gathered in collaboration with Chris Dreier in the context of Office for Joint Administrative Intelligence. O.J.A.I.'s ongoing mission proposes a reading of the built environment through lenses of coercive power, mind control, transcendence and magic.


      Bio

      Gary is an Irish artist and educator based in Brussels. His work encompasses drawing, performance, publishing, installation and experimental radio. Exhibitions and performances have been presented by Goldsmiths Center for Contemporary Art (London), Marres Centre for Contemporary culture (Maastricht), Contemporary Art Center (Cincinnati), Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles (Paris) and Salzburger Kunstverein. He is a lecturer at La Cambre ENSAV in Brussels and his work is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland. A significant part of the work takes place in collaboration with Chris Dreier, through their shared practice the Office for Joint Administrative Intelligence.


      *


      Inga Gerner Nielsen / THiS INSTiTUTE

      At a.pass Inga’s artistic research came to be conjured through THiS INSTiTUTE; a structure by which to constitute the sensual mode of her thinking. The past year she has been looking intensely into ահąէ it is a spacious feeling – where an imaginary world of analysis starts appearing through the objects and textures at hand, հօա it opens as a kind of summoning and closes when she is called into presence by matters of everyday life  and  ահվ it feels so urgent for her to institutionalize her artistic research as affect, as symptom, as dream.

      Moving to Brussels from Denmark Inga lost the sociological overview of her environment. Normally, her artistic work unfolds as sitespecifc intervention in a concrete place, in the academic field or in an institutional setting, which she has carefully sensed in order to know how to highlight its features and make the invisible visible, often through an aesthetic and ideological juxtaposition. Her performance series My Protestant Origins and Catholic Fantasies combines her background in Sociology with her artistic work by making performance installations which open up a maximalist, celestial relation to space and objects in the otherwise secular rule of minimalist Danish design. Now, in the myriad of styles and institutions that make up Brussels, she didn't know what to juxtapose and how to intervene. And after quite some confusion, this lack of clarity started to feel good. It granted her permission to just gaze at her own gaze. In many of her previous works she had been exploring with performers how the gaze affects or choreographs the body, and now, with half-closed eyes she started to practice an intense mode of subjectivation. 


      Inside THiS INSTiTUTE she researches how to fall into a medieval perception of space/time; a mode of being in and knowing the world, she fantasizes to be a remaining counterweight to the renaissance's linear perspective once invented by the architect. She practices a bodily felt sense of her close surroundings as an emotional imaginary landscape, where the distinction between the inner and outer world falls away. At the End Presentation Inga will try to open up THiS INSTiTUTE to her community of artistic researchers and people interested in the question of how to build portals for other modes of thinking? And why might we need the institution to uphold and preserve them? 

       


      Bio

      Inga comes from a group of performers in Scandinavia, who work with immersive performance installations. Since 2007 she co-founded collectives and focused on developing their work as an activist strategy to give structure to sensuous modes of social interaction in different spheres of society. Today she collaborates with a nursing school in Denmark to introduce performance installations as a way to look into the mise-en-scène of care work. A relation, which the project mirrors with the interaction between performer and audience in one-to-one performance art installations. Inga's art explores how new modes of subjectivity or imaginaries come into existence or are transformed through interactions and refigured institutional settings.


      *


      amy pickles / Chantal and Timothy 

      These two works take their name from human inscription on other than human entities.


      Timothy

      made with George Chinnery and many others

      Timothy is a multi-authored scene comprised of assembled debris from amy's experiments in a.pass. These experiments reconsidered formats for collective learning. The topic in question, colonial infrastructures and how they perpetuate modes of extraction and exploitation in a progressive western narrative, inherent within our communication technologies. Phew. Timothy is carrying a lot. Serendipitously, Timothy's name is taken from a tortoise, so it can accommodate a lot within its shell. Timothy the tortoise was taken by the british navy from a portuguese merchant in 1854, who in turn took her from the shores of turkey. She was kept in different colonising ships till she was moved to an aristocratic home in england, where they etched the family motto into her belly; "Where have I fallen? What have I done"?[1] If you're wondering, a tortoises underside is very sensitive. Timothy, as scene, resonates with the scar tissue of Timothy the tortoise. The scene is a prompt for us to think about ourselves as an accumulation of colonial narratives - these processes involve us all in some way - and to reconsider the "uncontested notion of information technology as freedom"[2].


      Chantal

      made with Max Franklin, Chloë Janssens, Anna Lugmeier & Marko Gutić Mižimakov

      Chantal is a digitized Super8 film, that documents 'relational hood group call', a collective exercise made for a presentation in a.pass. The participants are bound together through a group video call on Signal - an internet based communication app - that is connected to their bodies through headphones, screens, and selfie sticks. They collaborate to form an experience for a primary vessel. This primary vessel is the participant whose head is engulfed inside a hood. 'relational hood group call' was a re-imagining and re-assembling of brazilian artist Lygia Clark’s relational objects, objetos relacionais[3]. The name of the film is from the tree in which the participants move around, Chantal being inscribed upon its trunk.


      References

      1. "Timothy (tortoise)" Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_(tortoise). Accessed 7 September 2022.
      2. Aouragh, Miriyam & Chakravartty, Paula. Infrastructures of empire: towards a critical geopolitics of media and information studies. Media, Culture & Society. 2016;38(4):559–575.
      3. Butler, Cornelia H. & Pérez-Oramas, Luis. Lygia Clark, The Abandonment of Art, 1948 - 1988. The Museum of Modern Art. 2014. p281


      Bio

      amy pickles is an artist, organiser and loosely institutionalised educator. In her work, she experiments with ways to hold onto, and consider, pervasive colonial infrastructures we are a part of. In our work, redistribution – of knowledge, tools, finances – and collaboration are ways to refuse individual ownership. She is a member of Varia, Rotterdam NL, an organisation working on everyday technology.


      *


      Jimena Pérez Salerno / Unproductive will

      How can we create a different relation to time than the one the western worldview imposes on us? How can we produce market-wise non-productive things? 


      Unproductive will is a choreographic practice installation that is part of a larger research. It suggests revisiting our relationship with the hegemonic notion of linear time and productive behavior. It proposes thinking of them as collective colonial wounds and impositions that run through our practices, affective bonds, and lives, wherever we are. I am developing exploratory collective practices such as Kung Fu tuning (a counter-normative body practice using simple martial arts warm-up), Collective readings (Payada: a popular folk music genre involving poetic recitations), and Technologies of attention (peeling vegetables following a choreographic score) to name some of them. I work with the idea of a never-ending warm-up to re- think the idea of practice and to engage with everyone who participates as a collaborator. This process does not seek an end but wants to remain in the continuity of the search. 


      I started my trajectory in a.pass exploring the normative notion of linear-productive time and how it is embodied in our behavior because I am interested in its political dimension. I observed how much thinking in a forward direction brings associations that build a certain life perspective. For example, forward-better-future-progress or backward-worst-past-degrowth. This reinforces a system of values creating a sense supported by binary thoughts. In an attempt against this logic, I followed a contradictory path. I will step forward to the past, I said, and I started to investigate, trying to detect how bringing practices from my sentimental and cultural education in Argentina to my current research, could speak of my relationship with a twisted time. I am interested in observing the transformations the project traverses in each place it is presented. To change its language and perspective, that is to say, the thickness that its affective, geographical, and political implications take both for me and those who participate in the experience. This research challenges the definitions of audience-participant, performance-practice, and encounter-training affecting the presentation dynamic that sets all of them in motion.


      Bio

      Jimena Pérez Salerno is an Argentinian artist, based in Brussels (BE). She works and researches between Brussels and Buenos Aires. She experiments in the performing arts, artistic research, and teaching fields. As a dancer and choreographer, she collaborates and engages continuously with other artists as a fundamental part of her exploration of collective work. She considers choreographic practice like an expanded relations system that enables modes of imagination, attention, and coexistence. It leans towards performative practices that contemplate the activation of an unexpected context to think together through the experience of an implicated body. + info: https://cargocollective.com/jimenaps IG: @sashimishimi


      *


      Frédéric Van de Velde

      Bio

      Frédéric Van de Velde's artistic practice oscillates between publishing, producing and organising exhibitions and concerts. He worked for WORM and DE PLAYER in Rotterdam and used to run a bedroom-sized music venue called Antenne. In 2019 he founded the record label Futura Resistenza, which operates somewhere on the edges of performance, music and the visual arts.

       

    • postgraduate program
    • Our Practices / Our Extensions - Mentoring practice - Block 2022 III a proposal by Simone Basani and Heike Langsdorf / radical_house
      30 July 2022
      posted by: Kristien Van den Brande
    • Radical_House
    • 05 September 2022
    • 30 November 2022
    •  

      With Our Practices / Our Extensions we propose a self-observative and self-critical system for mentoring that acknowledges explicitly the socio-political meaning of such an activity of mentoring and being mentored – a practice in itself: attending to processes not being our own, and vice versa, being attended by eyes and minds outside ourselves.

      Inspired by several conversations with current coordinators, alumni, and participants of a.pass, the mentoring system of places at its core the following questions: What do we talk/work about when we touch upon ecological/social/urban issues? How did those issues touch us/our bodies/our hi-her-stories? From which physical/emotional/philosophical site does our research start from?

      We want to welcome a.pass participants by acknowledging that we all have different experiences and therefore some undeniable hunches, ideas, inheritances we are provided with by the way/s we live our life/ves and relate to others and other matter/s. Here we share a quote relating to this:

      “… inheritance doesn't come from the past. Inheritance is the place we are given in the present in a world structured to care for the existence of some and not of others.” ― Elizabeth A. Povinelli, The Inheritance

      Concretely speaking, we consider our practices being extensions from ‘where we come from’ – how we relate to the journey of our lives through what we do/propose ‘in practice’. For working collectively with our inheritances (and detect if/how/where they found their place within our practices), we propose to work – practice, discuss and exchange – at radical_house: a typical but recently modernized Brussels family house, being developed into a project with the same name during the last few years by radical_hope: Heike, Simone and many other practitioners. This place will be an anchor point, an object for thinking, a site of exploration for us and the participants, to unfold questions connected to their interests and practices.

      radical_house, Luikenaarsstraat 2, 1050 Brussels (bus 95, tram 81: get off Germoir), will have a physical and receptive presence during this block, and be accessible for the participants to meet, be mentored (one-on-one or in constellation), research, rest, cook, present / share their practices etc.

      By reacting, reading, accepting or rejecting this place, we will try to understand it as a dynamic constellation of traces, artifacts, spaces and relationships that might trigger further reflection about the artistic/social/political practices we are currently maintaining.

       

      Practically speaking, we invite the participants of a.pass at given moments of the week (we will choose them together during the intro-week based on everybody’s availability) into radical_house and share a set of protocols/scores for using a certain space as a site of practice-exploration. Those scores we’ll script or re-script together with the participants themselves on the basis of their interests/needs/desires (heard during the introduction week) and the geography-functioning of the sites we chose.

      radical_house’ proposition resonating with the Streets and the Earth: In the context of a.pass’ block 2022 / 3, while Streets and Earth raise a series of research questions connected to ecology, sustainability of art practices and, more widely, working life in the artistic field, Our Practices / Our Extensions is proposed by Simone and Heike as: 1. a methodology for mentoring & individual + collective reflection/exploration and 2. an explorative usage of a physical place where to stay, think, shelter, rest, continue... This place, radical_house, will be a place to ‘breathe with’ (or digest) the questions coming from Streets and Earth and from the physical-relational spaces of radical_house itself.

       

       

      BIOs of Simone, Heike and radical_house

      Simone Basani

      I spent a large part of my life in Milano and its outskirts, where my biological family still is. The last five years of my stay in Italy have been in Venice though, before migrating abroad as many members of my non-biological family have done too. In Milano, I have been trained in community drama, dramaturgy work, performance making in a theatre that was in the last phase of its dying process. In Venice I have studied the lexicon of visual arts, semiotics, curating, and finally started to apply this knowledge to my own public art projects. Once I arrived in Belgium, eight years ago, I started to apply that knowledge to projects of other practitioners as well – out of necessity and out of curiosity. Now I mostly conceive curatorial and performative formats where I invite artists to react on a specific proposition of mine. This is also a way to get to know their work better. Very often, Alice Ciresola (a member of my non-biological family) helps me to produce and communicate these formats. Some of them are: NittyGritty, Galeria Gdansk itd., What Remains of a Rembrandt.. and the most recent ones: Jeanne. Or the Western Touch that she co-curates, and Unrequested Services). I like these formats to have their own life quite soon after their conception, to get out of my control. Besides this, I have been collaborating for almost four years on a stable basis as dramaturg and creative producer with Heike Langsdorf/radical_hope, and David Weber-Krebs. Heike has invited me to edit one book of the series she created with Alex Arteaga `Choreography as Conditioning`. Currently I am working on the dramaturgy of a Post Pandemics version of her performance Mount Tackle. With Heike and other artists I take care of the life in and around radical_house. Hans Bryssinck, Heike, Miriam Rohde and I have initiated a `house of practices` inside radical_house.

      Heike Langsdorf

      I grew up on the German/Austrian border in the very South-East of Bavaria, and after some years in Arnhem/Amsterdam, I ended up in Brussels as my home base. With a background in dance and performance making, I am exploring the performative qualities of choreographing and conditioning within and beyond the art-institutional field. I connect to artistic making, thinking and researching through a continuous exploration of movement and choreographic principles. Since 2010 I developed (starting at a:pass) radical_hope as a working attitude supporting (my) various distinct practices. Today radical_hope identifies as framework/s for artistic research/es and co-creation/s under un/ideal circumstances. Next to realizing various and numerous projects, performances, interventions and programmes throughout the years, I have always been and remain very invested in understanding what gives rise and makes develop practices: how do practices mature, shift, transform, change direction and so on? This made that what I choreographed and co-curated became rather ‘spaces for gathering through practices’ than ‘pieces for stage’. I mention here some: Changing Tents (2011), Sitting With The Body 24/7 (2014/15), Mount Tackle (2017/2019), Un/Settled Residency (2018), …Through Practices (2019). Since 2018, informally, and since 2020 in a more formulated way, with the curatorial and productional support of Simone Basani and Alice Ciresola and in dialogue with other practitioners, I develop the long term project radical_house. Together with Alex Arteaga I co-edited the book series Choreography as Conditioning which was launched end of 2021, together with a long-term project stemming now from the written texts (find here more info and all credits >>>) . The writings of this series are rooted in a cycle of work sessions entitled CASC at KASK, in which students worked together with invited guests and myself. They explore notions of choreography, understood as ways of organising subjects in their surroundings, and conditioning in both art-making and society-making.

      radical_house

      radical_house is a long term project that stems from radical_hope's practices: it presents a physical place, a framework and a reasoning. It is also a possibility for Heike Langsdorf to connect, together with others, her pedagogical experience (which she could gain during the last ten years) back to the artistic field: - How can 'just another' house become a relational tool? What if one frees 'the house' of its usual connotations presenting "neither a property nor territory to be separated and defended against who does not belong there"? (*) It then could be considered "a void, a debt, a gift to the other that also reminds us of our constitutive alterity with respect to ourselves". (**) (*/**) Roberto Esposito, Communitas - the origin and destiny of community, 1998

      The renovation (2016-19) of a Brussels family house, together with architect Tania Gijsenberg, into a place for 'more than family' is a relatively new reality, with three work paths that are temporally and spatially entangeled. Here just a short overview: Luikenaarsstraat 2 is the address of the house -- its physical appearance -- where people can live, work and present together. 'Just another house' (in 'just another neigborhood'). After its renovations this house now has the possibility to host more than their two permanent inhabitants: by opening and reducing the staircase to half its former width, a dark cellar (previously packed with unused stuff) became an atelier and the groundfloor became a studio with guestroom. A big window gives view to the streets, vice versa big parts of the working spaces can be seen from outside. The second floor is now an open co-working space with kitchen. Dismantling some little unused inbetween chambers on the same floor made two outside spaces possible: a little courtyard and a terrasse. Under the roof are two rooms for the permanent inhabitants to withdraw into.

      Some impressions

      Bridging from School: In 2021/22 radical_house develops the framework Bridging from School: first and foremost a way of working with young people, who are still studying or have just graduated, to make their practices not yet introduced to the field: this is done not only by following their work, mentoring or coaching them, giving them feedback but very concretely by setting up projects which need the presence and knowledge acquired in their practices. Like this they are actually introducing themselves while practicing, not by presenting their ideas and philosophies via dossiers and portfolios. Currently, as part of a recently started collaboration with Demos (Arts In Society Award), Simone Basani and Heike Langsdorf are mentoring their candidates.

      House of Practices is exploring permeability: how to make space in existing places? In dialogue, through their practices and those of guests, initially, Simone Basani, Hans Bryssinck, Heike Langsdorf and Miriam Rohde aimed to come closer to what the transformative power of a physical place could be: What does a place with its specific history, former and current inhabitants/users allow for? What makes it relational and permeable and for whom? How do our practices create closeness and distance to one another? What of it contributes to the making of community, and what to avoiding or even destroying it? In 2020/21 House of Practices received a research grant by the Flemish Authorities. In 2022 Simone Basani, Heike Langsdorf and Miriam Rohde continue the quest.

       

    • performative publishing
    • postgraduate program
    • reading session
    • seminar
    • workshop
    • Autotheory Gathering at ZSenne ArtLab: Public Program In the context of Block II 2022: Scoring Intimacy of Discursive Others
      30 May 2022
      posted by: Lilia Mestre
    • ZSenne ArtLab
    • 27 June 2022
    • 09 July 2022
    • gathering, seminar, performance
    • case of: Lilia Mestre
    • Autotheory Gathering at ZSenne ArtLab: Public Program

      For two summer weeks (June 27 – July 10) a.pass is moving to ZSenne ArtLab in downtown Brussels, where it organizes a gathering around autotheory that brings together several approaches to the term and its relation to artistic research practices. The program includes several working sessions, a reading group, a programme of performances, and is curated by Lilia Mestre and Goda Palekaitė. To set a theoretical framework, a two-day workshop will be offered by Maria Gil Ulldemolins who will facilitate a selected library and methodological tools to be further explored during the two weeks. Associated researchers of a.pass Research Center – Gosie Vervloessem, Simon Asencio, Rareş Crăiuţ and Vijai Maia Patchineelam – will present their current processes. Finally, a.pass alumni who engage with autotheory in their practice will present their recent work in a series of performances and conversations open to the public: Chloe Chignell, Aubrey Birch, Eleanor Ivory Weber, Pia Louwerens, Marialena Marouda with Charlie Usher, Flávio Rodrigo and Philippine Hoegen, Vladimir Miller, Gary Farelly and Adrijana Gvozdenović. 

      SCHEDULE

      28 and 29 June: Workshop Maria Gil Ulldemolins [10:00-17:00]

      30 June: and 1 July: How to say my name Rareş Crăiuţ [June 30 at 11:00 & July 1 at 19:00 - duration 1h]

      2 July: Performance Flávio Rodrigo and Philippine Hoegen [17:00-19:00]

      6 July:  Online talk Alex Arteaga and Emma Cocker [cancelled]

      6 July: Working session  Gosie Vervloessem and Simon Asencio [14:00-18:00]

      7 July: Working session Kin(s)Score a.pass program https://apass.be/kinship-score/ [14:00-19:00]

      8 July: Performances and book presentation Pia Louwerens, Marialena Marouda, Charlie Usher and  Vijai Maia Pachineelam [19:00-21:30]

      9 July: Performances Chloe Chignell, Aubrey Birch, Eleanor Ivory Weber [18:00-21:00]

       

      DETAILED PROGRAM

      28 and 29 June [10:00-17:00]

      Maria Gil Ulldemolins: The Autotheory Library

      For this two day workshop, MariaI puts together a library of samples of autotheoretical (or autotheory-adjacent) texts. The group will read them and discuss them collectively, without rush, meandering wherever it is of interest for the participants’ and their practices. The aim is triple: to understand the very basics of what autotheory is understood to be up to now; to tentatively look at other hybrid works that might compliment it; and, last but not least, to make time for each participant to reflect on if and how autotheory might inform or challenge their own work. Participants will be able to permanently “borrow” from the library excerpts of the works, so they can take home a collected reader for their reference. The whole experience intends to highlight how autotheoretical narrators weave an intellectual and intimate network of relations; and consequently make time to read, think, and share as a collective, too.

      *

      30 June and 1 July [June 30 at 11:00 & July 1 at 19:00 - duration 1h]

      Rareș Crăiuț and others: How to say my name?

      For this gathering, Rareș will talk about the combination of art, research, narrative and food. First through his artistic research practice but also through 'CofetARia', a  project hosted at a.pass, where he is also Associate Researcher. In his practice, Rareș works with cakes, and pastries as non-human collaborators in artistic contexts. He will address the topics of science and narrative, as well as the accessibility to research.

      Cakes are generally more performative than other types of food and make it easier for humans to understand and feel the agency of food. Working with alimentary matter and live performance, CofetARia is an eating performance, at the confluence of durational practices like performance and baking.  

      2 July [17:00-19:00]

      Flávio Rodrigo and Philippine Hoegen: On Versions/ NÓS 

      Flávio and Philippine will present a performance and conversation created collaboratively for this occasion. They take this encounter as an opportunity to relate their practices to each other('s body) in the importance they give to recognising that they exist as different selves. This performance takes the shape of a working session in which the performers and researchers borrow and lend each other’s dispositives of autotheory, putting them at each other’s disposal in a negotiated time and space.

      David is a person(a) and practice of versioning, who first came into being as a version of Philippine, an exploration of who Philippine could be as a man with a beard, how they could move and be in the world and how the world would respond. David consists of different aspects and objects, one of them being a voice. In this working session David's voice seeks residence in a new body, an experience that confuses and excites him, and that recreates him in an uncertain game of determining and being determined.

      Flavio, by incorporating this other voice, finds himself inhabiting his own body from a new perspective. The cohabitation leads to a different understanding and positioning of his body, with new layers of perception and performative gestures. David becomes a zone in between, where their bodies and practices cross and inhabit the same territory for a while, leading and being led, proposing and being proposed to, acting and reacting to David's mediation. 

      The organic devices that our bodies are, and the sound and motion they create, as well as the synthetic devices such as speakers, sound processors and projectors, and the ephemeral devices such as concepts and protocols - will enable this exchange. They will allow mirroring, resonance, vibrations and echoes that constitute the necessary elements for the research process to begin. This performance proposes to see mirrors, recordings and reproductions as ideas and gestures that function in both practices as forms of interlocution with oneself, in order to actualise or confirm the perception of the self as a multitude of selves. Such interlocution produces autotheoretical reflection and becomes a methodology for artistic research.

      *

      6  July [cancelled]

      Alex Arteaga and Emma Cocker: Online talk about language practices in artistic research

      Both Emma and Alex are part of Research Groups concerned with language practices in Artistic Research.  They will speak from their perspectives and practices within several academic contexts. How do language-based artistic research practices relate to other research practices? What are the motivations, needs, desires, and aims that lead to establish these correspondences? How are the practices in mutual touch affected, modified, influenced, transformed? How do these connections, entanglements and intertwinements contribute to achieve the research goals? How do they affect the unfolding of research processes?

      *

      6th July [14:00-18:00]

      Gosie Vervlossem and Simon Asencio: Autheority

      The notion of textual agency refers to the capacity displayed by texts to do things in various circumstances. In other words, text might be doing something else then simply conveying meaning. Text is equally reading you. Text performs you. Ultimately text might suggest methodologies for its own study: a study from which you might not be able to return without losing a feather.
       
      As part of the Research Center Cycle 3, Gosie Vervloessem and Simon Asencio, have been looking into methodologies for studying the agents of text through collective reading practice, role play and infused hallucination to examine the performances they enable. They have based their research on the Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandemeer, a sci-fi, eco-horror and eerie fiction and engaged in a process of reading the book by the means it proposes. Southern Reach Trilogy plots the story of a research unit studying a mysterious substance/agent/force/landscape that takes over and re-writes whatever and whoever engages with it: the researchers of Area X end up becoming the subject of their research. There is no objectivity whatsoever left.
       
      Authority is the title of the second book in the Area X trilogy. The book takes place in the research unit Southern Reach, exploring aspects of institutional paranoia, infrastructural and architectural labyrinths, secrecy and bureaucratic anxiety. Authority follows the main protagonist Control, the new director of Southern Reach while he leads interrogations of staff and former expeditions researchers. Conspiracy and paranoia are rampant. To access Authority they will use the method of lecture par arpentage* and the format of the interrogatory. Chapters will interrogate each other on the plots and holes of the book. The interrogatories will take place during four hours on June 6 during a public event situation. The interrogatories will be transcribed live by a transcriber.
       
      The interrogatories:
      Vijai Maia Patchineelam and Adrijana Gvozdenović as Incantations (Chapter 1)
      Simon Asencio, Gosie Vervloessem and Gary Farrelly as Rites (Chapter 2) 
      Pia Louwerens as Hauntings (Chapter 3)
      Vladimir Miller as Afterlife (Chapter 4)
       
      * Lecture par arpentage is a method in which participants read one part of a book each and gather to report and reconstruct the book together.
       

      *

      8 July [19:00-21:30]

      Pia Louwerens, Marialena Marouda, Charlie Usher and Vijai Maia Patchineelam: On Artist as Institution  

      This evening brings together artists working with the practices of instituting and within institutions. It will comprise Pia’s work as ‘embedded researcher’ in institutional frameworks; Vijai’s Ph.D. research regarding the employment of the artist, as an artist, inside the art institution; and Marialena’s and Charlie’s practice of summoning, hosting and appropriating utterances with the Ocean through establishing The Oceanographies Institute.

      The Oceanographies Institute (TOI) studies human-ocean kinships. It gives particular attention to affectual and sensual encounters between those two bodies of water. The Institute therefore explores the relations of hands to mud, ears to the breaking waves, feet to the feeling of sinking, rather than the ocean 'in itself', as if devoid of human presence. It collects, analyzes and reenacts people's personal stories about their encounters with the ocean. TOI is interested in the relations to the ocean of the institutions that it is invited into -and of the people that are part of those institutions. In the case of a.pass and the people that make it up, they have been formative in TOI's coming to be. In their presentation, Marialena and Charlie will revisit some of those early Ocean Conversations and through them trace the parcours of the institute so far. TOI presentations often function as rituals of summoning: the ocean and fellow a.pass researchers and mentors will become characters coming to life in TOI's stories and songs.

      For this gathering, Pia will tell a story about a piece that she wrote to be published in a journal on autotheory, but never survived the editing process. She will alternate this with readings from her self-published book I'm Not Sad, The World Is Sad: an autotheoretical, semi-fictional account of a performance artist who lands a part-time job as an Embedded Artistic Researcher in an art institution. The blurb reads: "Invested in queer theory and institutional critique, she sets out to perform the artist 'differently' through a process of negation and passivity, inadvertently causing her relationship with the insitution's curator to grow increasingly speculative and paranoid. Pia dresses her protagonist in the different professional guises of artistic labour. Her experiences as tour guide, security guard, artist, hostess and researcher at different institutions begin to overlap and blend under the name of 'performance'.  The result is a fragmented story of paranoid and reparative reading, script and utterance, exposure and vulnerability."

      For his presentation, Vijai will present the book, The Artist Job Description, for the Employment of the Artist, as an Artist, Inside the Art Institutiopublished recently by Track Report, Antwerp, in collaboration with OAZA, Zagreb, and a.pass, Brussels. During the presentation, Vijai will read passages from the book in which artist colleagues are referenced as key influences that have helped shape and direct the practice-led research, The Artist Job Description: A Practice Led Artistic Research for the Employment of the Artist, as an Artist, Inside the Art Institution. 

      *

      9 July [18:00-21:00]

      Aubrey Birch, Chloe Chignell and Eleanor Ivory Weber: On Writing Practices 

      The Autotheory Gathering will close with performative presentations of three writers and artists working with and on language. Reflecting upon the conventions of Western news media and the practice of reporting, Eleanor will perform a new piece of writing. Choreographically engaging with the space of ZSenne ArtLab, Chloe will present an extract of her Poems and Other Emergencies. Thinking through mineral erotics and linking our bodies with the bodies of more-than-human, Aubrey will propose a cocktail of spiritual calories.

      9 July 2022
      Eleanor will draw our attention towards reportage, which, in the same movement, bears witness to the world and consumes it. It is also a technique for making equivalences out of what is irreconcilable. In her practice, Eleanor keeps track of the dates when important things happen as a way to remember how the past shows up today. All the while she is trying to understand how repetitions, forgetting and suspended apprehension are equally part of personal and public events, places and products.
       
      Poems and Other Emergencies*

      Poems and Other Emergencies by Chloe sits at the intersection of poetry and choreography. Centered on a fictional character The Girl-with-her-tongue-out, the performance questions if it is through language that we find ourselves a body, or through the body that we find language? Embodied voices and voiced bodies weave and echo throughout the space. Where does the word end and her body begin?

      Aubrey's Material & Spiritual Calories is a practice that bridges the art of gathering around the table with the geological origins of what we consume. The body’s chemistry is altered both by the material calories of what we eat and the spiritual calories of how we eat, where pleasure and sociality nourish us as much as the proteins, sugars, and amino acids that we need to survive - that we need in order to wake up in the morning, to act, to hope, to protect. Between the immediacy of the meal and the endurance of our mineral origins, the body becomes a site where the ephemeral and the primordial meet in sensory experience.

      * performance credits:

      Performance and Choreography: Chloe Chignell
      Conversation partner: Adriano Wilfert Jensen
      Technical Support: Sven Dehens
      Thanks: Sven Dehens, Bojana Cvejic, Stefa Goovart, Sabine Cmelinski and a.pass. 

      Supported By: BUDA Kortrijk, Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie, Workspacebrussels, La Balsamine Theatre, GC kriekelaar, Lucy Guerin Inc, Dancehouse Melbourne, Batard Festival Brussels, QL2 dance ACT, Kanuti Gildi Saal, Tallinn, RIMI IMIR (NO), Littérature Etc. and Rencontres Chorégraphique.

      *

       

      BIOS

      Aubrey Birch is a transdisciplinary artist and academic living between Australia & Europe. Working in various mediums, shecreates immersive states that link our bodies in the here-and-now to the deep time of those bodies. Thinking through a mineral erotics and social sensuality, she brings the politics of immersion into contact with the more-than-human. She lives part-time in remote Australia, where she cultivates native and medicinal plants. In Europe, she is a member of a collective taking care of Performing Arts Forum (FR), where she also co-organises the queer feminist event Elsewhere & Otherwise. Her works and collaborations have been presented by institutions like KANAL–Centre Pompidou (BE), MaerzMusik (DE), Shedhalle (CH), rotor Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst (AT), Kunsthal Ghent (BE), Theater Neumarkt (CH).

      Chloe Chignell is an artist based in Brussels working across text, choreography and publishing. Her work focuses on language within a choreographic and performative frame; she invests in writing as a body building practice, examining the ways in which language makes us up. Chloe graduated from a.pass (BE, 2020) and from the research cycle at P.A.R.T.S (BE, 2018). Since 2019 Chloe co-runs rile* a bookshop and project space for publication and performance with Sven Dehens. Her work has been presented by: Batard Festival (BE, 2019) Saal Biennale (ES 2021), Moving Words Festival (NO 2021), QL2 (AU 2022), KAAP (BE 2022), Littérature etc. (FR 2022), Dancehouse (AU 2016-8), The Kier Choreographic Award (AU 2018) Kottinspektionen (SE 2019) and Venice Biennale of Dance (IT 2017). She currently teaches at ISAC and P.A.R.T.S. 

      Eleanor Ivory Weber is a writer and artist based in Brussels. Her works expropriate the conventions and styles of Western news media to register and materialise a subjectivity that appears latent in the source. Recently her work has been shown at Kunstverein München (Munich), Maison Pelgrims (Brussels) and Kunsthal Gent (Ghent). In 2021 her essay ‘Australian Others: Penal Logic and the Pandemic’ was published in the literary journal Meanjin (Melbourne). Eleanor holds a Masters in Political Philosophy and Theory from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and graduated from the Post-Master program at a.pass (advanced performance and scenography studies). She teaches art theory and critical practice at Erg since 2018 and is co-director of Divided Publishing.

      Flavio Rodrigo Orzari Ferreira, 39, gay, brazilian, artist, lives in Brussels. He is a performer and psychopedagogue. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Scenic Arts from State University of Campinas – UNICAMP (2004), a Master Specialization Degree in Psychopedagogy from FHO – UNIARARAS (2012), a Master Specialization Degree from UCB (2013) and a post-master degree in Performing Arts in A.PASS (Advenced Performing and Scenography Studies – 2020). Master's degree in speculative narration and videography at the École de Recherche Graphique (ERG) - Instituts Saint Luc in Brussels. His latest works as a performer and dramaturg are the solo The Ghost Scar (2019-2022), and the short film Fantasma Pédé (2022). He has worked for over 15 years as an art educator at both public and private Elementary and Secondary Schools. He currently works as a psychopedagogue coordinating a program to help students improve their learning processes at the ERG École de Recherche Graphique in Brussels.

      Goda Palekaitė is an artist working in the intersection of contemporary art, performance, artistic research, literature, and anthropology. Her practice evolves around long-term projects exploring the politics of historical narratives, agency of dreams and imagination, social conditions of creativity, and intimacy with historical characters. Some of Goda’s recent projects were titled Anthropomorphic Trouble (in collaboration with Adrijana Gvozdenović), The Strongest Muscle in the Human Body is the Tongue, Architecture of Heaven, Liminal Minds, and Legal Implications of a Dream. They were presented, respectively, at Whitechapel Gallery in London, Kunsthal Gent in Ghent, Centre Tour à Plomb in Brussels, Konstepidemin in Gothenburg and RawArt Gallery in Tel Aviv. In 2020 she published her first book of fictional biographies Schismatics. Goda participated in a.pass’ postgraduate program in 2018-19 and currently is a Ph.D. candidate at Hasselt University and PXL-MAD School of Arts.

      Gosie Vervloessems artistic research focuses on the position of the researcher in times of multiple crises. Her work faces the challenges that arise within this role, and looks for new ways of producing knowledge. Her practice is an ongoing quest on finding  tools to relate to a world that is messy and chaotic. Therefore she juggles with and re-interprets the practices of cooking, digesting, co-digesting, immersion or osmosis, as tools to literally embody that relation. In scrutinizing this relationship she focuses mainly on the concept of nature and tries to unravel the ideas that underpin this concept. In doing that, she identifies herself as a Sick Detective, a character that involves the vegetal kingdom as a possible ally in her research. Her work is highly inspired by plant biology, comic books, horror movies. It is mainly presented as lecture-performance, in the form of workshops or publications.

      Lilia Mestre is a performing artist, dramaturge and researcher working mainly in collaborative formats. She has been involved in a.pass since 2008 as Associate Program Curator and Core member (2014-17) and since 2017 as artistic coordinator. Mestre works with scores: inter-subjective set-ups and other chance-induced processes as emancipatory artistic and pedagogical tools, which have been documented in various publications. She is interested in forms of organisation created by and for artistic practice as alternative study processes for social political reflection. She was co-founder and latest coordinator of Art Laboratory Bains Connective in Brussels (1997-2017). Mestre lives and works in Brussels.

      Maria Gil Ulldemolins is a postdoc artistic researcher at Hasselt University working on personal and artistic heritage, and interiority and interior architecture. Her doctoral work was a multidisciplinary autotheory on collapsing figures, sparked by the trope of the swooning Virgin in crucifixion imagery; and constructed as a writerly Warburgian atlas. Her practice is mostly hybrid writing that combines scholarly essays with more experimental approaches. She is one of the co-founders of Project Passage, a research line and academic journal that seeks to learn more and promote precisely these autotheoretical and performative writerly practices.

      Marialena Marouda works in the intersections between performance, sound art and oral poetry. She studied philosophy and visual arts at Columbia University in New York, USA and continued her studies at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies at the University of Giessen, Germany. In May 2018 she initiated The Oceanographies Institute (TOI), as part of her research at the Advanced Performance and Scenography Studies Program (a.pass) in Brussels. TOI focuses essentially on the relation between two bodies of water: the human body and the world ocean(s). It gives particular attention to affectual and sensual encounters between the two bodies. The Institute therefore explores the relations of hands to mud, ears to the breaking waves, feet to the feeling of sinking, rather than the ocean “in itself”, as if devoid of human presence. It collects, analyzes and reenacts people's personal stories about their encounters with the ocean. In 2019, composer Charlie Usher  joined TOI, letting his practice of song-making flow into the institute‘s work.

      Philippine Hoegen is a visual artist living in Brussels. In her multi-stranded, predominantly performative practice, she explores the ways in which we continuously create versions of ourselves, the apparatuses and processes we use for this and what their existence means for our understanding of 'self'. In the past 2 years she has focussed specifically on how this functions in contexts of work. Hoegen approaches performance explicitly as a research strategy: a way of thinking in which the physical is involved. Currently she is a researcher at the HKU Professorship Performative Creative Processes, and CARADT (Centre of Applied Research for Art, Design and Technology) Avans University, with a research project titled Performing Working.

      Pia Louwerens is an artistic researcher, artist and writer exploring the performance of artistic production. Through  performances and performative texts Louwerens researches how art institutions and the artistic subject — the I who writes, speaks and makes — co-constitute each other. The speculation on what an institutional script would look like, and who are co-authoring, serves as a tool to materialize the mutual reading and writing that occurs. For her performances, Louwerens appropriates performative (para-)artistic frames such as the guided tour, the artist talk, the novel and the workshop. Her practice constitutes a rich intertextual netwerk of anecdotes, events, jokes, theories and citations, which summon and frame each other. Pia has completed a post-master and fellowship programme at a.pass. Next to her artistic practice Louwerens has written texts for De Witte Raaf, Metropolis M, Tubelight and Het Parool. Pia Louwerens lives and works in Brussels.

      Since 2012 Rareş Augustin Craiut has been caring out « practice a as research » project (Performing food). The main themes of his artistic research practice are centred around the agency of food and eating and creating conditions to collaborate with Food. He is particularly interested in devices of meaning and affect (Bain-Marie Brunch food performance re-enactment cycle, various locations, ongoing; or Anximentara, Ecole de Rechrche Graphique, Brussels, 2018), and food in artistic and convivial collaborations (Comfort food continuum 2016, Baia-Mare, Romania; or The Terni – Paradisi-Neighborhood- Cookbook, Centro per le Arti Opificio Siri, Terni, 2017). Bread or baked goods are of particular interest with several performance art pieces dedicated to bread (The Transitions, Banis Connective, Brussels, 2017, or Anatomic bread bodies Matera European Capital of culture, Italy, 2019). 

      Vijai Maia Patchineelam’s artistic practice focuses on the dialogue between the artist and the art institutions. Placing the role of the artist as a worker in the foreground, Vijai’s research-driven artistic practice experiments with and argues for a more permanent role for artists—one in which artists become a constitutive part of the inner workings of art institutions. This displacement of roles is part of a larger trajectory that he has followed in his Ph.D. research at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp and the University of Antwerp, “The Artist Job Description: A Practice Led Artistic Research for the Employment of the Artist, as an Artist, Inside the Art Institution.” Vijai is currently an associate researcher in a.pass’ Research Center.

       

       

       

       

       

       

    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • CARE at a.pass A proposition of the Participants Assembly
      04 March 2022
      posted by: Lilia Mestre
    • 07 March 2022
    • 11 March 2022
    • CARE at a.pass

      CARE at a.pass

      A longing for togetherness is inherent to the a.pass community. To ensure this togetherness it is necessary to have different strenghtening intra-structures within the larger institutional structure. Especially in disruptive times as we are living in right now - on a micro and a macro scale - the participants of a.pass asked themselves how also they can contribute one of those intra-structures in which we can provide and reflect on care.

      CARE is an invitation to five days of five brunches and five talks. Together we want to find out what does care mean under the scope of a.pass as an institution focusing on artistic research. Where or what is care within and around artistic research? How is the act of caring resonating within participants' practices? What and who needs (more) care? Is care (somewhere) missing?

      Every day the table serves brunch, and different exchanges and aspects of care. We will collect and exchange individual, collective and institutional voices and expertise.

      Initiated by Márcio Kerber Canabarro in 2019, CARE took place twice in physical gatherings in Budapest, Hungary, and in Almada, Portugal. After the Pandemic started CARE transformed into an online gathering of contributions in form of a digital Zine with approximately 8 editions and contributions reflecting on the notion of care from all over the world. 

      As the Participant Assembly’s curatorial contribution to the 2022 I. block, CARE at a.pass experiments with another alternative format of organised gathering and provides a set of methods that form a lush base to research in togetherness. These operating methods mainly touch upon basic needs of time structure, food, space, and participation. Thus CARE shapes a space to digest and process the generated knowledge and the experience, a space to breath and rest, a space to hold together. 

      Schedule:

      March, 7th-11th 2022

      5 days/ 5 brunches/ 5 aspects of care/ 5 discussions/ 5 gatherings

       

      Day 1 - 11am-3pm - opening to CARE + invitation

      Day 2 - 11am-3pm - individual care 

      • fixing things with Martin

      • fashion hypnosis with Federico

      Day 3 - 11am-3pm - collective care 

      • weaving storytelling by Sarah         

      Day 4 - 11am-3pm - the caring relationship between individual and institution 

      • day lead by Inga

      Day 5 - 5pm- 9pm - closing to CARE + soft party

      • choreography of imagining the future by Aleks

      • Open Salon hosted by Nathaniel

       

      Extra program: 

      • Every day at 7pm, - online audio reading of “Oneness vs.the 1%” by Vandana Shiva” ( link send on Monday)

      • Screening of Myriam Van Imschoot's & The Youyou Group's film 'Le Cadeau'

      •  

      CARE at a.pass holds contributions amongst others by Sarah Pletcher, Martin Sieweke, Inga Gerner Nielsens, Nathaniel Moore, Aleksandra Borys, Federico Protto.

      Sarah Pletcher is a performance-based artist that works with ceramics and fibres. She has a background in traditional and alternative weaving practices. For CARE Sarah will be preparing a loom and weaving in the space to open a conversation about care for skills of making, the people who taught us our craft, and the stories embedded and woven into the history of our and others' ways of making.

      Martin Sieweke works as a material researcher in Brussels.  

      Deconstructing and collaging given shapes and researching on the overall ambiguity of materials contexts and use relations has been a main focus ever since.

      The material’s basic features such as texture, weight or colour have a strong impact on his practice.

      He is working collectively on set and costume projects in the field of performance and dance.

      Inga Gerner Nielsens makes performance installations which often includes one-to-one interactions and speculative interviews as immersive dramaturgy. With her current project, The Mise-en-Scène of Care Work, she is researching the social skills required for these interactions by mirroring them with the work performed by nurses. 

      Her dialogues with performers and nurses had led her to recognise a need to care for the caregiver. How can we as an artistic community help care workers? How can we support each other in the kind of care we perform in our artistic work?

      In the post performance care circles artists, curators, and people working within the institution of a.pass will each be viewed as a caretaker (of objects, processes, collaborators, participants, space). The starting point for a circle will be an interview about how the period right after a production manifests in your life. Inspired by the Poliset we will then build a scenography around you  and offer a mode of interaction which might potentially accommodate, reduce or perhaps alter the intensity of your fall into the post-performance void.

      Aleksandra Borys

      Choreography for Dreaming the Future is an experimental series of audio recordings which invite the listener to dream and fantasies of the desired future. They offer guidance for imagination and for body activity. My dream was to imagine how a dance gathering can happen beyond shared space and time, connected by the intention.

      Federico Protto’s artistic practice unfolds along performance, music, costume and fashion, and artistic research. Spanning a hybrid network of collaborators and materialities, his projects question conventions in order to configure new forms of shared knowledge production and decolonized kinship.

      Fashion Hypnosis is a guided somatic and collective moment in which we expand but also intensify our bodies and our imagination around them to sharpen or smoothen our understanding of the world surrounding us. 

      Nathaniel Moore: 

       

      Open Salon is a performance format with the theme of uninhibited spectatorship. 3 performances are presented as pillars supporting the evening, around which happenings, expressions, and queer modes of connecting might occur. 

      In this salon I hope to trouble the ways in which we practise listening and attending performance. Consider it a gentle nudge out of one's comfortably distanced seat, and a raucous invitation to make a response in real time. A permission granted to open up the floodgates of an uninhibited spectatorship which reacts to what's happening in the space immediately, even, conversationally formulating additions, disruptions, contextualization, harmonies, utterances, angers, praises, perversities, angels, etc etc.

      You are invited to witness, be touched, and return the favour. 

      A mantra might be, “we do not yet know what this performance(moment) needs to be,” or is, and, we will find out together. This is desired as a brave space; a space where there are no mistakes. Where the information which emerges is valued regardless of the message it carries; valued simply because it offers the possibility to learn.

      Informing this evening is thought around care and provocation, listening and critique, love and healing.

      More information on CARE and the 2020 online zines can be found here:

      https://www.carewherezine.com

       

    • end presentation
    • re:source End Presentations January 27,28 and 29, 2022
      15 January 2022
      posted by: Lilia Mestre
    • Gemeenschapscentrum De Kriekelaar
    • 27 January 2022
    • 29 January 2022
    • re:source
       
      The a.pass End Presentations of Ana Paula Camargo, Nathaniel Moore, Federico Protto and Túlio Rosa will take place the 27, 28 and 29 January 2022 at Gemeenschapscentrum De Kriekelaar in Schaarbeek from 18:00 to 22:30. This public presentation marks the end of their trajectory at a.pass and invites the researchers to share their modes of doing, seeing and making artist research public after following the year-long program.
       
      Having singular questions, processes and approaches, the four researches cross concerns in addressing critically the available sources and resources of colonial histories and ghostly societal matters and how they form our relation to the present.

       
      All of them study in specific performative ways how to translate and weave different dimensions of reality. In their practices, they intertwine several materialities such as colonial archival materials, earth materials, death rituals, diaries, interviews, sonic memories, other people writings and thoughts, human and more than human knowledges and all present in the room.
       
      The presentations will bridge these dimensions in multiple ways, each of them calling for the gathered sources and resources intra-action in the moment of the public presentations with the intention to repair what has been forgotten, dismissed or remains unseen. 
       
      Ana Paula Camargo comes from Mexico and is enrolled in a PhD in Madrid. Her research has ground on new materialism and it engages with bridging choreography with climate crisis and indigenous cultures through creating performative contexts where they inform each other. Nathanial Moore is a choreographer and dancer coming from the US, his research is on cultural ghosts, how they are embodied and the way they produce current subjectivities with specific focus on mass shooters. Federico Protto (Uruguay/ Germany) is working with expanded fashion. His background is fashion design and he engages in sonic performative situations to challenge and enlarge the implications of fashion as a discipline and as a product. As much as its potential to bring world resources and cultural heritage to the fore. Túlio Rosa’s research is centred on making perceptible colonial infrastructures through interviews, film editing and analyses of data that produces the colonised subject. Coming from Brazil his focus in on what he calls the Atlantic Archive.
       
      This event will be on itself a study on performativity and its agency. By being together, these performative situations will shine attention to ways of creating relation with the audience, the materialities at stake and what matters in very particular ways. They extend from the lecture performance into installation work or ritual practice to potentialize the possibility of change towards an equitable way to relate with each other and the world. 
       
       
      RESEARCH TEXTS AND BIOS 
       
      Ana Paula Camargo | 0.3 lecture performances series
       
      This research is about the digestion of the world—and the worlds inside the world—, and also the acknowledgement of our earthliness and our humble position within the cosmic scale.It goes around a personal process and the unexpected intimacy that arises in our relationships with both known and unknown beings, things and natural forces.
      I started this project from a hunch, a starting point that I could barely understand, half intuition, half a blind spot. The hunch was a feeling of alienation in the relationship between humans-things-environment, which led me to wonder if these entanglements could be otherwise. I could feel this as a lack of desire, Eros, deep connection, lack of mattering, lack of ‘fleshness’; a ubiquitous feeling of nonsense. All this awakened in me a deep anxiety of devouring the world, colliding with it, setting off everything, burning down and dismantling structures as a way to resist this zombie mode. 
      At those times I was being very affected by the increasing dematerialization of many relations in the world. I was sure that the alienation in our relationships was the product of this. It is indeed part of the problem, but now it is clear the root of the question started much earlier with Modernity and the big shift in the mindset that came with it, since the transition from the Middle Ages to Capitalism, and the world spread of Capitalism since the conquest and colonization of the Americas.
      With the wish of building reshaped relationships with things and beings that surrounded me, I approach the 'thing' as an ecology to comprehend. Instead of focusing on one specific phenomenon, I opted to work in a wide spectrum: not to focus on the seed but covering the whole field. As in permaculture—or earlier—as in ancient milpas[1] in Mesoamerica. I am searching in two fields mainly: both sociological and personal. What I realized is the complexity of the question: I am facing a dense weave of interrelations that could not allow me to know one thing without knowing all the cluster in which that one is involved. That’s how the sociological calls for the historical, and the historical to the political, and so on. Or the personal calls for the biological and the biological for the cultural, and the cultural to the sociological and so on. And at the end everything is interrelated again.
      I arrived at the lecture performance as I would arrive at a milpa, a place to grow things in, all together. This is a space-time where every little part is bleeding over into the other, no matter how similar or different they are. A space to make kin, to make entanglements explicit, to mattering, to be a failure, to mess up, to discern, to remember what is forgotten, to rest, and hopefully to finally find your way.
      Welcome.
       
      [1] Agricultural system from Mesoamerica, focused on the coexistence of diverse seeds and on the caring of the soil. This approach is completely opposite to Monoculture.
       
      Ana Paula Camargo (Mexico) is a performing artist, choreographer and researcher.
      Throughout the past years she has expanded her practice towards a transdisciplinary field of research. Focusing on the process and the (re)search and not on producing a predetermined outcome, she likes to navigate across the boundaries of disciplines. She is engaged in the relationship between life and art, and how art can change the way we experience the world and hopefully transform it. She usually works within contexts where care, collaboration, self-organization and communal work matter. She has shared her work in Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Portugal, Germany, Spain, U.S.A, France, Belgium and México. http://cargocollective.com/anapaulacamargonateras
       
      *
       
      Nathaniel Moore | Death Zine
      Nathaniel Moore, in collaboration with Julia Rubies and Stijn Smeets
       
       “The problem is that the repressed and the disavowed never go away; it is precisely the fact that they always come back that lies at the heart of haunting,” Stephen Frosh.
       
      Death Zine, is a performance ritual, death practice, created to meet that which is socially repressed; in this case, incel and white nationalist mass shooters. The desire to meet comes as a proposal to disrupt the shooter’s expressed isolation and pain, a fundamental condition which leads them to violence.
       
      Death Zine is a research practice of being with the wounds which make connection impossible.
       
      With this performance we evoke these shooters to join us, back from the dead or from their prison cells, to spend time together and learn from each other. We want to see them. We want to give them value. We believe we must in order to find balance. 
       
      And in the process of meeting them we are faced with ourselves. Through this search for connection with the shooter we attempt to come into contact with our own personal wounds, judgements, and patterns disrupting our own possibilities to connect with the world. 
       
      We attempt to move through these identifications that isolate us.
       
      Identities which fix us into positions from which we are played against each other.
       
      Meet the other, trouble isolation, conditions can shift.
       
      Nathaniel Moore is a choreographer/dancer based in Brussels.
      He enjoys dancing naked, eye contact, and telling tall tales (aka storytellin').
      Nat’s artistic practice uses movement and the symbolic to address systemic erasure and generations of alienation operating inside and through bodies. They explore relationships with ghosts to construct infrastructures of queer imaginaries inside of the fragmented, existential emptiness of post-modern consumerist identity. Through their research, Nat’s makes their body the material for a dance with ghosts in order to understand and unearth the crypts of a particular US-american 21st century ontology.
       
      Nat’s work has been presented in the US, Belgium, and Germany. He has worked as a dancer and collaborator with Keith Hennessy, Sara Shelton Mann, Hope Mohr, Dance Theater of San Francisco, Alex Ketley, Alexander Ekman, Kinetech Arts, Ainsley Tharp, Jonah Kagan, and Menlowe Ballet among many others. He’s originally from Athens, Georgia, and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas.
       
       
      *
       
      Frederico Protto | Dress-Rehearsals
       
      Inter-Materiality Mode is an artistic research trajectory moving through the interstices of fashion and sound. Crafting methods to address these spaces, the work considers the phenomenon of fashion and the world of sounds in their broader contexts. 
      Fabrics, clothing, sounds, texts, voices, and the body become tools for somatic and performative practices to diffuse, and recollect knowledge. In constellation of a South American background, sonic and textile artefacts (CD’s, tapes cassettes, garments, instruments, etc.) and multiple research materials are activated in a presentation format titled Dress-Rehearsal. This proto-esoteric format evokes the researches inherent questions: What are other forms of translation and how do they relate to the world and our (re)sources within it? Collectively the notions of authorship are reimagined, and forms of relationality and knowledge common to the global-north are challenged. 
       
      Inter-Materiality Mode is a radiating broadcast from and for the senses.
       
      Federico Prottos’s artistic practice unfolds along and between performance, music, costume and fashion, and artistic research. Spanning a hybrid network of collaborators, disciplines, and materialities, his projects question conventions in order to configure new forms of shared knowledge production and kinship. After having worked as fashion and costume designer showing his collections at several international fashion weeks and festivals, Federico Protto turned toward performative practices, sonic experiments, textile investigations, publication formats, and public workshops.
      He holds degrees in fashion design from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria, and is currently part of the postgraduate programme in artistic research at a.pass in Brussels, Belgium.
      He was born 1991 in Montevideo, Uruguay, and is presently based in Brussels, Belgium.
       
      *
       
      Túlio Rosa | Arquivo Atlântico
       
      Túlio Rosa | Arquivo Atlântico
       
      For many years now, my work has been focused on the relationship between images, especially images of violence, and the body. My practice has been carried out in the intersection between performing arts, film and visual practices, borrowing ideas, techniques and forms that are linked to different disciplines while maintaining a strong connection with the field of choreography. I have been exploring how different practices of engagement (physical, visual and discursive) might be able to operate meaningful articulations between archive materials and their legacies in order to produce speculative narratives, counter hegemonic practices and critical discourse.
       
      For the end presentation, I’ll be sharing some materials developed within the frame of Arquivo Atlântico [Atlantic Archive], a multi-chapter research project that I’ve been developing in collaboration Beatriz Cantinho since 2020. The presentation will be composed by an small sound installation, acompanied by a publication, and a performative experiment that combines imagemaking, writing and sound exploration.
       
      Arquivo Atlântico emerged from the desire to look back at the history of the various territories bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in order to understand the forms of occupation, extraction, hierarchization, exclusion and extermination that mark, still today, the relationship between the ‘North’ and the ‘South’. For us, the archive is not only evidence of a past, but a generative matter. Working with a wide range of sources – films, official documents, literature, sonic registers, oral narratives – we have been exploring how creative and compositional practices can rescue the affective capacity of these materials and allow us to deconstruct narratives and visualities that characterize a political imaginary of colonial matrix. 
      More than about history, Arquivo Atlântico is an investigation on the notion of memory, on the possibility of re-membering differently places, peoples and knowledges. It is an attempt to weave personal stories with official history; to understand how, by positioning ourselves within larger narratives, we can draw connections, inaugurate dialogues, foster imaginaries and open space for other readings of the present.
       
       
    • end presentation
    • postgraduate program
    • Dragon Love (?) a.pass End Presentations
      19 May 2021
      posted by: Lilia Mestre
    • De Markten
    • 11 June 2021
    • 12 June 2021
    • yes
    • Dragon Love (?)


      June 11th 16-18h and June 12th 19-22h at De Markten

       

      Dragon Love (?) gathers the research outcomes of Andrea Zavala Folache, performer, choreographer, visual artist and Federico Vladimir Strate Pezdirc, performer, choreographer and film maker. After attending to the one year postgraduate program at a.pass.

      Both artists address and investigate construction paradigms of the self. Their work studies auto-fiction in different ways, with the desire to develop tools to resist predefined categorisations of identity that bind us to expect certain formats of art production and ways of living.

      They invite the audience, the reader or the performer to welcome the alterity we have in us, in order to revisit the fundamental archetypes of love, games, work models and cultural inheritance. They create interstices that can open up to another view of the self and social configurations.

      In both cases, autobiography is used as a ground from which to start playing. As the material that one has at hand to transform, craft, dissolve, rebuild, paint, glitch, narrate personal histories and identity building.

      What happens if the line between the self and other dissolves? Or between art and love?

      Federico Vladimir Strate Pezdirc created Draconis Lacrimae, an instruction handbook that invites the reader to play a Role Playing Game that is set in the guts of The Dragon where the adventurers meet after being swallowed/eaten/devoured/tele-transported/etc. by their own dragons. The players find themselves in a world they want to escape from, whatever escape might mean. This game is an invitation for the readers to play themselves otherwise and encounter otherness as an accomplice without a game master.

      Lilith, Losing, Lavender: A love letter to love is a collection of texts written throughout the research trajectory of Andrea Zavala Folache. With different narrative styles as diary, love letters, score instructions, this collection imbricates ideas of love, art and life as an essay about conditions of attachment.
      In the interstice of several practices as dance, writing and drawing and different spaces as the dance studio, the atelier, the classroom, the theatre and the white cube, Andrea’s research focuses on non chronological dramaturgies for the emergence of surprise or unexpectedness.

      Both publications encompass the research trajectory of the artists. Due to Covid 19, writing become a research tool for sharing and engaging from isolated environments with the collective. They are accompanied by research portfolios that inform about their methodologies, work companions and ways of thinking art production and research. These portfolios can be consulted at the a.pass website. www.apass.com from the 2nd of June.

      For the End Presentations, a.pass invites two Visitors for a feedback conversation with the participants. The visitors of *Dragon Love* are writer, editor, and dramaturge Caroline Godart, performance curator Agnes Quackles.

      This public event is co-curated by the participants with the support of a.pass.


      *


      
Andrea Zavala Folache

      Andrea entered the program researching on choreographic methodologies, symptoms and resources emerging at the interstice between performance and personal relationships; with an urge to merge alternative modes of producing work with healing techniques.Taking a series of one-to-one appointments about love with different local communities as a starting point, Andrea explores the format of the performance portrait in which the role of performer/lover and audience/lover are ambiguous. For the a.pass End Presentation Andrea is presenting Lilith, Losing, Lavender: A love letter to love, a book publication based on stretching the subjectivities in love from the formulation I love You, as a way of seeing what is under the gaze of western romantic ideas and heteropatriarchal structures that may reveal problems in language about love.

      BIO

      Given birth in Madrid, Spain. Gave away my adult life studying bachelors. Fine Arts in Complutense University of Madrid, Film and Digital Production in AI Miami University of Art and Design, Mixed Media department at AKI School of Art and Design Enschede, Cultural Anthropology at UNED Madrid, School for New Dance Development Amsterdam, Ma Multimedia Xiamen Art School China and now a.pass (advanced performance and scenography research) in Brussels. Recently, sharpening the artistic focus in a research about Love, from the image of I Love You, in order to place community and collaboration as the practice of studying together. From the formulation of love I am looking for tools to un-pack the transferring of experiences and expressions that have to do with modes of seeing, exchanging energy and resources in the production of cultural objects. The work space of live arts, visual arts and teaching has been a great place to test this and wonder, are there tools that love and work can learn from each other and, can we listen to the process of making relationships from those tools?. Since 2016 giving workshops on Concept development, Choreography, Improvisation and Experiments with SNDO, SIS (Sandberg Institute), ISAC Brussels, MovLab Madrid students; recently working in the medium of choreography solo and in collaborations with Adriano Wilfert Jensen, Simon Asencio, Paula Almirón, Jija Sohn, Laura Ramírez, Lucy Wilke, Oneka Von Schrader, Sabine Cmelniski and Julia Reist, with the support of Dansbrabant, BUDA, Vooruit, :ARP, La Casa Encendida, Ca2m, Projection Room, Blue Project Foundation, Brakke Grond, Jacuzzi Amsterdam and a.pass.


      Thanks to: Adriano Wilfert Jensen, Kristien Van den Brande, Lilia Mestre, Julia Reist, Andrea Rodrigo, Sabine Cmelniski, Laura Ramírez, a.pass.

      Mentors: Persis Bekkering, Stefan Govaart, Kristien Van den Brande, Vladimir Miller, Sara Manente, Myriam Van Imschoot, Julien Bruneau, Mijke van den Drift, Maciej Sado, Tom Engels and Krõõt Juurak.

       

      Federico Vladimir Strate Pezdirc

      Federico entered the program researching on fantasy tabletop role-playing games as tools for creating collective stories and figures. Taking the detailed rules systems from these games as a starting point, he has been exploring how to saturate identity with categories and speculation. Tabletop role-playing games function as textual and pre-digital tools of identity exploration and world-building, as they invite participants to occupy a liminal role located at the boundaries of player, character and performer. For the a.pass End Presentation Federico is presenting Draconis Lacrimae: The Player's Handbook, a publication that contains the rules and instructions of a fantasy role-playing game that he developed alongside Pablo.

       

      BIO
Federico Vladimir Strate Pezdirc is an Argentinian/Spanish filmmaker and performance artist. He holds a degree in Audiovisual Communication from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and an MA in Visual Communication from the Royal College of Arts in London. Since 2014 he works with his partner, musician and choreographer Pablo Esbert Lilienfeld. Their work uses speculative fiction within dance, performance, film and installation to interrupt normative narratives that have been naturalized by historical discourses. Federico and Pablo are currently working on the Dragon Pieces, a series of works that fluctuate between monstrosity and transindividual fantasy. Through practices as diverse as artistic swimming or role-playing games the Dragon Pieces aim to find playful representations of collectivity that question hegemonic ways of belonging and narrating ourselves. Federico has received the Gas Natural Fenosa Art Grant, the first prize at Auditorio de Galicia Young Artists Award and Creación INJUVE. His work has been shown in museums and festivals such as Cinéma du Réel (France); Santarcangelo Festival (Italy); Festival Salmon (Spain); Kasseler Dokfest (Germany); Queer Lisboa (Portugal); NAVE (Chile); MARCO Vigo (Spain), Kunstraum (London), La Casa Encendida; CA2M (Spain) or Zeimiai Manor House (Lithuania). 

      Thanks to: Pablo Esbert Lilienfeld; Camilo Mejía; Joshua Serafin; Anaël Snoek; Julia Rubies; Nathaniel Moore.

      Mentors: Vladimir Miller; Kristien Van den Brande; Krõõt Juurak; Elke Van Campenhout; Myriam Van Imschoot; Tom Engels; Sara Manente; Sabina Urraca; Olivier Stein; Pedro Pina.

       

       
    • a.pass post-graduate program portfolio in the form of a self-interview

      +

      appendix: polish website/archive of the research project (the website is in Polish, but references and content materials are in English)

       

       

      ---

      Self-interview

       

      What brought you to the research that you have been engaged with at a.pass?

       

      First, I want to talk about movement practice; it is my base and the operational system. The movement practice has always been experiential and collaborative. It has grown through learning from and with others, listening to words, moving, formulating instructions, exploring their potentials, or teaching. It has always been working with the space in which it was happening and the materiality of the body and those beyond it. I have been exploring this practice as a practitioner– a mover. As such, a performer is always an agent and an observer of the performative. To perform one needs to be aware of the performativity that is already happening both within and beyond them. I’m interested in making the experience of the ‘performer’ available, for the audience; that is, to become an agent on the inside. Through the audience/performer’s relation to the textual material they are invited to activate the words through their participation. 

       

      Second, I will tell you a story:

      We sit together on a blanket. We are seven, but I say we are five. We are on the lawn in front of a 19th century gallery building that hosts the performance that you imagine you are taking part in. I say all five characters' names and indicate, with each, to a specific person sitting on the blanket (I don't know your real names). I say: we are at the beach, we are wearing bathing suits, one of us is topless. I say: there is a birthday cake in the middle of the blanket.  I describe how it looks with appetite: it has three layers, covered with whipped cream, and decorated with a few strawberries. I say: suddenly, we hear the noise. I say: we turn towards it. I say: we see a dog, a big one, hairy. I say: it is running towards us, fast. I say: it is very close. I say: it is hitting the cake, eating it, destroying it, and making a mess. I say: pieces of cake and drops of whipped cream are landing on our bodies. I say: we are looking at each other, we see our bathing suits and skin are filthy. I say: we are leaving to take a bath in the sea, to rinse the remains of the cake. I get up and leave the place. You follow. (A performative walk in summer 2018)

       

      What were the questions you entered a.pass with, and what was their trajectory? 

       

      My a.pass research proposal had three questions[*] which I was busy with throughout. But, from the very beginning, there was also an underlying inquiry that I’ve only recently named 'the undercover project’. I find it more important than the questions posed in the application. 'The undercover project’, though not proposed directly in my application, was the real motive to enter the a.pass research environment. I unfolded the project in the following questions: How can I engage in research questions not by building a construction (a product) based on elements that are accessible to me in the moment of posing the question, but by continually digging into the problems they evoke? Can I, through practice, dig into implicit relations and assumptions within my research? Can I at least for a while, or sometimes, suspend the connection of my practice to the product it might bring? Can I, instead, turn around to the field I want to explore and experiment within it? Not to repeat the representations but go into interactions with them? Exploring these possibilities is important for me for further functioning within the arts, for refreshing the sense of it, for negotiating with its demands. It was necessary to ask how I want to cultivate my base of the practice beyond, or better to say, under different the manifestations that it may take. 

      Through the research process, I realized that my initial questions were attached to a particular imagination of a product and the context in which it could circulate. I wanted to reformulate my approach to working, to look for other possible openings of my practice. At the very end of a.pass, I realized I was unconsciously repeating the logic of production; using research as a means to produce something. Whilst, I don't see it as necessarily wrong to use research outcomes for further production, in my case, the logic of production was keeping my research in a very narrow frame, thinking towards the future in terms of production was haunting me. Therefore, through a.pass I was able to build skills of resistance. The skills to make a space in which I could engage with research questions and share them in new ways. The booklet I am sharing through the end-presentations is the unperfect footprint of risking entering a different mode of questioning. It is the beginning.

       

      What is your current research? 

       

      The research materializes as written texts, which experiment with the form of the score—a choreographic tool. These scores are to be read by a reader on their own. They are written as scores (in its broadest sense), as tools that produce a specific situation, but rather than thinking of them as instructions, I propose to think of them as a literary form. A score as an instruction assumes a particular mode of attending and a set of abilities to enact it; to focus, to imagine, to act. As an instruction a score attributes value to doing. Here, I counter that attribution of value by opening possibilities of various ways of attending and propose to look at the performativity taking place in an intimate sphere activated through reading. I understand it as an interobjective[†] space created by a reader, a score, and an environment. The participant is invited to explore different ways of engaging with and interpreting the score. The reading of a text is a way of following this proposition and observing one's attendance.  I called this kind of attendance 'speculative doing'—observing, sensing, perceiving, and maybe imagining a further action, physical doing. 

       

      A score is a structure for participation. What do you propose to participate in through these scores? 

       

      The score directs its readers’ attention towards the relations within an environment of which they are part. In particular, I explore how we take part in the materiality of the environment as well as the relations we are already engaged in and have potential to engage with. Building upon observation and somatic experience, I explore environmental relations through navigating attention and developing fictions. This begins with observing our own perceptual and imaginative patterns  by turning our attention towards our embodiment and our surroundings. Exploring the relationality through one's sensual nature puts subjectivity in the network of dynamic relations where human and non-human materiality cannot be sharply separated. It engages the images, beliefs, and scores of 'being a person' and asks how, as such, do we understand our participation in the environment[MOU1]. Fiction is implemented here as a speculative tool for practicing relationality, a tool to create affects—fictional spaces can, and often do, influence patterns of perception.

       

      How do you use text to explore these modes of participation? 

       

      The way of attending I am exploring and proposing demands effort. As William James said: 'Only those items which I notice shape my mind—without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos.'[‡] To open up towards an experience of the material environment, I am looking for ways of giving attention to the possible mergers or dependencies between the bodies of participants and different materialities. An observation is an entry point, a practice to create attention. The research plays out in the area where we observe the grounds that we stand on; to give attention, 'to excavate' relations, processes, and influences we take part in, cause, or are submitted to.

       

      If observation is a tool, what does it serve? Is observation a mindfulness meditation or an awareness exercise? Is your practice a form of human meditation within the earthy matter?

       

      Observation is a tool for exploring the fantasmic minds—real or, at times, fictional sets of relationships that we are part of. It is a method to get acquainted with the unstable nature of fantasmic relations; their changeability, or even the transformation of the worlds known to us. To live with this transformation is to enter into collaboration with a process of decay, overcoming and transforming our own perceptual and existential limits or habits. The observation here (as opposed to how it functions in mindfulness) is not to experience 'myself in the present' but to direct the attention beyond the borders of my body, towards the other, our relation, dynamic of it, and the self, understood as being part of a bigger mind. Observation assumes the unknown (what is yet to come, what is excluded from perception) as potential and invites it to influence the known. 

       

      As a presentation, you propose a booklet, an object to keep in hand, to read in your own space and timing. What kind of encounder do you propose?

       

      Bridging the idea of reading with the participation implied in a score, entangles the readers body with the text in an intimate way. Attending to a conscious observation is a very personal and intimate engagement. I propose the exploration at this level to let this 'close to yourself' experience—the intimate—be influenced. To engage with observation is to explore how you, on this intimate level, are in, and develop, relations with others (human and non-human). How do you perceive and perform your participation within structures? What do you attend to? and what do you exclude yourself from? I was interested and inspired by the precarity of the proposed format and situation. Will the reader try to engage with the imagination within the text? or read across it briefly? Will they engage with the choreographic aspect and relate the text to the body?

      On the other hand, I thought of it as the choreography of precarious times—'poor choreography' or 'poor people choreography'[§]. To create or participate in it, one doesn't need any production machine, theater, scenography, or performers. One doesn't need to buy tickets or even to go out. You can participate in it while being in lockdown, it is accessible wherever you need to be. These ‘poor’ conditions are interesting exactly because they activate a private space and a sense of public-ness within.

      Observation and further speculation are ways to explore our position in the world's material organization; in its systems and structures of power and control. A poet, Forrest Gander, talks about the 'anti-spectacular' potential of poetry which, using just words can focus attention for long hours and cause profound influence even in the context of the “resplendent visual world which often cannot focus attention on anything at all”[**]. I am looking for this kind of anti-spectacular potential of 'written choreography' operating on perceptions, senses, and imagination.

       

      Attention and observation happen in time. Is time a theme in the research?

       

      With this research, I reconsider what it means for a work to be time-based. The environment and the processes happening within it confront us with the passing of time. Different matters have different temporalities, temporal scales, and different dynamic registers of action. The ultimate reference and a tool to think with is, for me, geology, which brings us to the earth as the basic structure of our material being. Geological time teaches us about the constant movement of any and all matter, and it gives us a more-than-human perspective to time. 

       

      I become troubled by thinking of the ‘nowness’ seemingly implicit in performance. 'Being here and now' is often the main category of performative practices. This ‘nowness’ is central to the somatic and improvisation practices that were formative for me and my work. Whilst I appreciate their methodologies—the ways in which they teach us how to give attention and how to be affected—they tend to give attention to an individual experience and place importance on what a subjective 'I' goes through. I have the impression that this approach to practices builds a community whose members develop a  sensibility for their own experience isolated in time and space. It creates a bubble of nowness that celebrates itself, that is, celebrates the individual, and does not create an idea of community with what is not immediately accessible, here and now. I try to work with elements of the somatic within an open-ended environment, in order to revisit individual or collective memories, create and share fiction, and re-observe the environment close to the body. Can we, with somatics, think of a body as something which is not determined by an 'I' and not limited to our materiality, but as an expanding entity in time and space? Can the performative act activate an embodied experience to explore an entity’s sensorial community of different matter and temporalities?

       

      What would be the next step for this research?

       

      I will keep on exploring writing. I want to work on a performative space where the intimacy of silent reading can perform in a public, social and collective space. I am thinking to collaborate with a visual artist to create a performative space where fiction-speculation is co-created by text, matter, words, and participants' bodies.

       

      ---

       

      [*] The central questions of the research proposal "Immersive speculation: choreography activating potentials" are: 

      How can choreography be a form of speculation on environmental transformations?

      How can this speculation address the actual environment in which it is happening?

      How can the viewer with his/her presence be placed inside this speculation?

      [†] Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects; as explained in chapter Interobjectivity; University of Minnesota Press; 2013; s.81-95

      [‡] William James, 'Attention'; in: F.R. David, AUTUMN 2020; uh books with KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin; s.39

      [§] When I talk about precarity I'd like to refer to two artists who help me think about it. First of them is Ligia Clark and her Relational Object, second Lisa Nelson with her precarious composition scores, eg. one named 'Poor people yoga'. 

      [**] Usłyszeć ciszę, interview with Forrest Gander; in Julia Fiedorczuk, Inne Możliwości. O poezji, ekologii i polityce. Rozmowy z amerykańskimi poetami (Other possibilities. On poetry, ecology and politics. Talks with american poets); Katedra Scientific Publisher; Gdańsk 2019; s. 113.

       

      Selected references:

       

      María Puig de la Bellacasa, Matters of Care; University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis; 2017

      Julia Fiedorczuk, Inne Możliwości. O poezji, ekologii i polityce. Rozmowy z amerykańskimi poetami (Other possibilities. On poetry, ecology and politics. Talks with american poets); Katedra Scientific Publisher; Gdańsk 2019

      Forrest Gander BĄDŹ BLLISKO (BE WITH), translation Julia Fiedorczuk; LOKATOR; Kraków 2020.

      Peter Handke, The Jukebox and Other Essays on Storytelling; Picador; USA; 2020

      Philippine Hoegen ANOTHER VERSIONThinking through performance’; Onomantopee; Brussels 20202

      Toine Horvers, moving-writing; Toine Horvers and stichting Suburban; Rotterdam 2020

      William James, 'Attention'; in: F.R. David, AUTUMN 2020; uh books with KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin

      Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects; University of Minnesota Press; 2013

      Georges Perec, PRZESTRZENIE (ESPACE), LOKATOR, Kraków 2019

      Ana Vujanović, Landscape dramaturgy: “Space after perspective”; Ana Vujanović’s website (2018)

      Kathryn Yusoff, "Epochal Aesthetics: Affectual Infrastructures of the Anthropocene, https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/accumulation/121847/epochal-aesthetics-affectual-infrastructures-of-the-anthropocene/

       

      Anne Juren, Fantasmical Anatomy research

      Ligia Clark Relational objects

      Ilana Halperin, Geologic Intimacy

       

      Blocks in which I participated:

       

      2 September-1 December 2019

      BLOCK 2019/III 

      A LOOMING SCORE – WE SHARE YOUR POLITICS OF DAMAGE

      CURATORS LILIA MESTRE AND SINA SEIFEE

       

      16 January-27 March 2020 (block closed)

      BLOCK 20/I ZONE PUBLIC

      CO-CURATED BY FEMKE SNELTING / PEGGY PIERROT / PIERRE RUBIO

       

      4 May-31 July 2020 / home (partial participation)

      IN CONFINEMENT

      THE IN-BETWEEN BLOCK 2020 II

       

      14 September-3 October 2020 

      SETTLEMENT 16/ THE UNCONDITIONAL INSTITUTION

      VLADIMIR MILLER

       

      Thanks for...

      The always generous support: Lilia Mestre
      Mentoring of the end project:  Myriam Van Imschoot
      Mentoring throughout the research process: Kristien Van den Brande, Elke Van Campenhout, Valentina Desideri, Nicolas Galeazzi, Philipine Hoegen, Myriam Van Imschoot, Krõõt Juurak, Anne Juren, Sara Manente, Anna Nowicka, Jeroen Peeters, and Femke Snelting
      Facilitating the a.pass program through curating blocks: Lilia Mestre, Vladimir Miller, Peggy Pierrot, Pierre Rubio, Sina Seifee, and Female Snelting. The companionship, support, and challenges: the a.pass researchers with whom I crossed (Deborah Birch, Rui Calvo, Ana Paula Camargo, Chloe Chignell, Diego Echegoyen, Signe Frederiksen, Quinsy Gario, Stefan Govaart, Adriano Wilfert Jensen, Mathilde Maillard, Muslin Brothers, Nathaniel Moore, Vera Sofia Mota, Flavio Rodrigo Orzari, Ferreira Lucia Palladino, Federico Protto, Piero Ramella,, Túlio Rosa Christina Stadlbauer, Federico Vladimir Strate Pezdirc, Kasia Tórz, Katrine Turner, Amélie van Elmbt, Andrea Zavala Folache)
      English proofreading and editing of my texts: Chloe Chignell
      Making all this possible: the team of a.pass (Lilia Mestre Steven Jouwersma Joke Liberge Michèle Meesen)
      Facilitating shifts of perspectives: Jakub Szymanik



      My participation in a.pass and the realization of this research would not have been possible without the support of Grażyna Kulczyk’s Research Scholarship in the field of choreography granted by Art Stations Foundation.

    • end presentation
    • performative publishing
    • postgraduate program
    • block 2021/I
    • I feel like leaving the room End Presentations 2021 I
      16 January 2021
      posted by: Lilia Mestre
    • online: https://ifeellikeleavingtheroom.online
    • 28 January 2021
    • 29 January 2021
    • I feel like leaving the room

      a.pass welcomes you the:
      29th January 2021 – 19:30 – TV show -Collective presentation – 2h30 hours

      Join Zoom Meeting
      is finished.... 

      Check out :  https://ifeellikeleavingtheroom.online/

      I feel like leaving the room  is the title of the postgraduate End Presentations of researchers Rui Calvo (film maker), Quinsy Gario (poet, visual and performance artist), Adriano Wilfert Jensen (choreographer), Magdalena Ptasznik, (choreographer) and Kasia Tórz (dramaturg and writer).

      After attending to the extended one year program at a.pass, the five researchers finish their trajectory with an online presentation of a collective website. Covid 19 and the restrictions of the confinement have framed the space of these public presentations in an uncanny entanglement between the private and the public. I feel like leaving the room  is more than anything the (liminal) desire to come together. The form of this coming together takes shape around an ad-hoc TV show that will be streamed the 29th of January from the a.pass studio as an attempt to still intertwine thoughts and experiences.

      In the beginning, the space for this public moment was imagined as a living room, as a place where the borders of the informal and the formal are blurred.  Not as a real physical living-room but by using the conditions implied in such well known private (though public) environment, with the aim of engaging the audience in a different way. What happens when research becomes public as a workshop, a power point presentation, a film, a dance or a walk that steers from such a hangout surrounding?

      As a consequence of the pandemic that determines the conditions of coming together – the living room became the desired ‘leaving room’ – a place, as well, between the private and the public but enclosing the publicness in separated private spaces with only one window – a window to the virtual. The artists researchers addressed that liminal space in various ways in accordance with the medium they mainly work with. Inevitably, the translations that will take place, address the current situation of the confinement, while trying to reach out to the world.

      Rui Calvo's research on non-linear narratives in cinema, has worked  with a group of performers in closed environments, claustrophobic settings, directive instructions that constrain the performers, as much as the audience, in a enclosed space of angst. In his films, no-one knows what, where and how these characters got together and which forces bind them to the situation they find themselves in. Like in a ‘chamber piece’ a small number of characters interacting over a short period of time in a limited environment create an awkward intimacy caught by the camera, from which they (maybe) want to leave. There is always the promise of an outside world created by a window, a curtain or the staircase, a promise that is never fulfilled. Cinema (audiovisual setting) is the medium by excellence we can access during the times we live. The medium that allows us to escape from the living room. But to where?

      with Andrea Zavala Folache, Caterina Mora, Diego Echegoyen, Federico Vladimir, Flávio Rodrigo, Lilia Mestre, Lucia Palladino, Nathaniel Moore and Sara Manente.

      Quinsy Gario's research focuses on de-colonial practices by revisiting archival material, institutional protocols and historical facts questioning the politics behind who gets to speak, when and how. By re-using existing materials, his work re-calls systems of oppression and proposes strategies and tactics of epistemic disobedience and fugitivity. For his End Presentation, Quinsy thinks through the Fragile sticker, used in the transport, and the imagery of travel, migration and seeking refuge elsewhere. The proposition gives attention to the precarious status quo of mobility and the destitution of private space of diaspora and fragile groups, specially threatened in time of forced confinement.

      Adriano Wilfert Jensen ’s research followed three interrelated paths:  spectatorship as practice, dance as a labor of depersonalizing the self and politics of collaboration. Through collaborative processes Adriano, developed dances that sought to cultivate response -ability in spectatorial practice. For his End Presentation he will present a letter on practice based spectactorship along with commented dance scores on the webpage of the group.

      Magdalena Ptasznik, worked on several scores to introduce, instigate, and reflect upon the network of relations with other- than- human existences. She approaches choreography as a generative practice to speculate about future fictions for a world in environmental crisis. By using somatic practices, site-specific materials, storytelling in workshop settings, Magda seeks to empower change through activating collective imaginaries with the audience. For her End Presentation, a publication will be launched with a collection of writings that circulate around the idea of the score as a form of activating self-choreographic agencies.

      Kasia Tórz's, research on the notion of dissolving boundaries (smarginatura) engages in the liminal space between the private and the public, the textual and the image, reality and imagination, the conscious and the unconscious. Smarginatura makes reference to the writer Elena Ferrante and the main character of her Neapolitan Novels, Lila Cerullo, who experiences losing her solid outlines and melting into her surroundings. Kasia experimented with expanded forms of storytelling by engaging with image, voice, body practices and performance in her writing, by blurring the lines between reality and fiction in a daily life basis. For her End Presentation she will invite the audience to a nocturnal session.

      This introduction took the flavour of a weather report. As times change in unforeseen ways, as complex forces conduct the environment, as the temperature is warmer than normal, as violence is unrated, as the soul is disoriented, as politics are going ashtray, the weather, here in Brussels, is grey and symptomatic of great confusion.
      Stay home for now, imagine spring is coming soon and we all feel like leaving the room. 

       

      *

       

      BIOS ad extra content

      Rui Calvo is a Brazilian filmmaker who works as screenwriter, director and editor. He graduated from the University of São Paulo with a degree in Audiovisual Arts. Among his short films are “Whole Man” and “Quito”, which were screened at festivals in different countries, as Canada, England, South Africa and Argentina. “The Death of Helena”, his first feature film as a director and screenwriter, was recipient of a grant for film project development in Brazil. Now he is looking for opportunities to produce the movie in a country governed by the far-right and which has been destroying, among other things, the cultural sector.


      In most of Rui's previous short-films, the discomfort regarding one’s own body and the non-belonging feeling (or the lack of identity) are part of the content. Formerly, these concerns were built in the script in a linear narrative way and then translated into images. Coming to a.pass was a way of take a distance from the cinema field and think of audiovisual narrative otherwise. Through out the program, Rui addresses his initial question, on how to film bodies and not imprison them in rational discourse by taking “real life” as much as a product of convention as acting, by giving instructions ( that do not build a character) to the performers to play with in front of the camera and by creating filming settings that don't reassure a fictional background where the performers can situate themselves. In this way, the production of fiction is unstable and influenced by the shooting process itself, in which the performers hover between being characters and themselves, creating subjectivity through filming. The alchemy of these elements produces encounters filled with tension, vulnerability and exposure to the other and also to the camera, which is left with an undergoing process of rupture, misunderstanding and indeterminacy, creating this way conditions for under-narratives to appear.

      *

      Quinsy Gario is a performance poet and artist from Curaçao and St. Maarten, two island that share continued Dutch colonial occupation. His work centers on decolonial remembering and unsettling institutional and interpersonal normalizations of colonial practices. Gario's most well-known work is Zwarte Piet Is Racisme (2011–2012). As a member of the collective Family Connection established in 2005 by Glenda Martinus and Gala Martinus, respectively his mother and aunt, his current research is attempting to institute another way of archiving. He is a Utrecht University media studies, gender studies and postcolonial studies alumnus and a graduate of the Master Artistic Research program of the Royal Academy of Art The Hague. He is a 2017 Humanity in Action Detroit Fellow, 2017/2018 BAK Fellow, 2019/2020 APASS participant and a 2020/2021 Sandberg Institute Critical Studies Fellow. Gario received the Royal Academy Master Thesis Prize 2017, the Black Excellence Award 2016, the Amsterdam Fringe Festival Silver Award 2015, The Kerwin Award 2014 and the Hollandse Nieuwe 12 Theatermakers Prize 2011. His work has been shown in among other places Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), MACBA (Barcelona), Latvian National Museum of Art (Riga), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), MHKA (Antwerp), TENT (Rotterdam) and Göteborgs Konsthall (Gothenburg). Gario is also currently running for Dutch parliament as a candidate for the political party BIJ1.

      Quinsy entered the program studying practices of refusal as found within Caribbean performance practices and his research trajectory brought him to the Baltics thinking through postsocialism and postcolonialism. For the a.pass End Presentation Quinsy is presenting #FragileRoots which is a companion piece to #FragileRoutes, a work presented at the Bâtard Festival 2021 and part of a larger series of work and research. At the center of the proposition is the suitcase bought in Hong Kong by the Estonian artist Kristina Norman and gifted to Quinsy during his research residency at the Estonian Art Academy. The residency was to further research into the depiction and usage of the depictions of St. Maurice in the Baltic region. The Sudanese Catholic saint had been adopted as the patron saint of the Blackheads Brotherhood, a merchant guild of unwed men in at the end of the 14th Century. After the end of the Soviet occupation of the Baltic region the various countries of the Baltic became nations again and started to further develop national narratives which included or excluded the remnants of this guild. Through the series of works Quinsy is reflecting on Blackness, migration, improvisation and practices of refusal. This particular piece consists of the remnants of the aforementioned suitcase, stickers bought at the lowbudget department store Daily Style and slides that were bought at a second hand store in Estonia.The stickers are used for precious cargo and contain the word 'Fragile' and the slides depict images from the Apollo 4 and Apollo 6 missions and a vacation by an unnamed group of white individuals to Cuba in the 1960's. Together with toys depicting underwater sea life, extendable mirrors and coasters with black glitter #FragileRoots pushes for epistemic disobedience and fugitive approaches to our collective presents, pasts and futures.

      *

      Magdalena Ptasznik has been exploring choreography and dance through creating performances, dancing in the work of other makers, creating choreography for drama theater, and teaching. Through the last years, she focused on contexts of practice that turn towards creating shared spaces and experiences – teaching, collaborating, and creating performances for the limited public (Microclimates I and II, Zachęta National Gallery 2018-2019, Cli-Fi at BWA Gallery Wrocław 2019). Magdalena is a member of a collective of choreographers Centrum w Ruchu (Warsaw), graduate of School for New Dance Development (SNDO), and sociology at Warsaw University. Since 2015 together with Maria Stokłosa and Renata Piotrowska she has been developing in Warsaw an educational project Choreography in Motion: Experimental Choreography Course. She lives in Amsterdam and Warsaw.

      “My research materializes as written texts, which experiment with the form of the score—a choreographic tool. I started this journey with the idea of creating scores for collective participatory performances. Throughout the process, and the period of confinement we found ourselves in, the research transformed into an exploration of writing. I’m looking into what kind of performance these texts can produce with a reader. I propose to look at the performativity taking place in an intimate sphere activated through reading. I understand it as an interobjective space created by a reader, a score, and an environment.  Scores direct its readers’ attention towards the relations within an environment of which they are part. In particular, I explore how we take part in the materiality of the environment as well as the relations we are already engaged in and have potential to engage with. Building upon observation and somatic experience, I investigate environmental relations through navigating attention and developing fictions. The ultimate reference and a tool to think with is, for me, geology, which brings us to the earth as the basic structure of our material being. Geological time teaches us about the constant movement of any and all matter, and it gives us a more-than-human perspective to time.”

      *

      Adriano Wilfert Jensen works with dance and choreography to analyse and produce conditions of relations. His practice manifests in making, performing, writing about, curating, representing and dealing choreography, dancing for other artists, as well as other occupations like a series of cocktail hang outs, publications, research projects, teaching etc.

      Together with Simon Asencio he is since 2014 running Galerie – an immaterial gallery for immaterial artworks. And with Emma Daniel he is dancing for the dinosaurs in Spending Time With Dinosaurs. Together with Linda Blomqvist, Anna Gaïotti and Emma Daniel he organized Indigo Dance Festival, Magazine and Tink Thanks at Performing Arts Forum. In 2017 he initiated the research project analysis of which his a.pass research was part. In 2019 he premiered the group piece feelings as part of the research analysis, and in the summer 2021 he will premiere a new group piece informed by his research at a.pass.

      Adriano, has been researching on what he calls practice-based spectatorship and dance as a labour dispositif for depersonalizing the self. He wrote a letter developing the notion of practice-based spectatorship as a tool to study how different dance works, which have shaped his own practice, condition spectatorship conventions. Through this letter, a contextualization of how his practice is situated by and indebted to the work of others, takes place. In addition, Adriano also developed a series of dances by analyzing and intervening in existing historical dance protocols. Working on these dances together with the research of spectatorship he questioned how to re-relate to the self beyond individualism, in dance and its spectatorship.

       

      *

      Kasia Tórz. Writer, dramaturg, researcher, is seeking for other than language-based ways of writing, i.a. working with images or body practices focused on internal movement. In that framework, she is interested in the melting points of the poetic, existential and political. Graduate from Philosophy at the University of Warsaw, participant of doctoral studies at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Science in Warsaw. Between 2007-2011 she collaborated with Twożywo – a no longer existing Polish urban art group – at projects like: Zaciemnienie / Twilight and several wall paintings. Between 2008-2019 she has programmed a thematic section of the Malta Festival Poznań (PL) called ‘Idioms’. Since 2019 she has worked with Needcompany – a Brussels based theatre collective, as artistic & programme developer.

      Smarginatura {this is a demo}
      How are we touched by and through the live act – the act of seeing? What goes through the porous surface of our skin? What kinds of experiences expand our sensitivity? Who sets the scale of the image? The contour of the skyline? When do we break upon the pressure of impulses, when do we freeze, and when do we burn? What are the politics of seeing that we adapt to and how to alter them? Smarginatura {this is a demo} is a radio- broadcast, a live-like transmission of words, images and sounds. It invites the audience to explore the depth of the surface.

       

      *

       

    • end presentation
    • postgraduate program
    • Dismantle Space 30 October 2020
      posted by: Lilia Mestre
    • Chloe Chignell / Muslin Brothers / Flávio Rodrigo / Christina Stadlbauer
    • online: http://dismantle.space
    • 11 November 2020
    • 14 November 2020
    • Dismantle Space

      With Chloe Chignell, Muslin Brothers – Tamar Levit and Yaen Levi , Flávio Rodrigo and Christina Stadlbauer

      NOT at ZSenne ArtLab and NOT at Rosa Library, downtown Brussels


       

      Website: dismantle.space

       


       

      Dismantle Space gathers the research outcomes of Chloe Chignell, choreographer, editor and writer; Muslin Brothers – Tamar Levit and Yaen Levi – fashion practitioners and visual/performing artists; Flávio Rodrigo, theatre maker and teacher; and Christina Stadlbauer, visual artist and scientist.

      A practice of dismantling directs the conceptual and experiential nature of all their works. More than ever it is necessary to disassemble the mechanisms that form our relationships with the worlds around us in order to rebuild perspectives on those same worlds.

      Using very different tools and methods the presented research insists on making visible the cultural constructions that knit our perceptions of history, language, science and fashion to their instituting frameworks. They dismantle the structural attachments we have to those institutional machines and re-tell other possible relations to them by opening up the capacity of bodies to their collective and personal resilience.

       

      The capability of bodies to create spaces to nurture, find out and experience muted or unseen connections, may they be social, personal, economic, environmental, racial... Through performative virtual installations, readings and conversations, these research projects unfold space to engage differently in ecosystems of relations that permit perspectives affirming something other than the status quo.

       

      For Dismantle Space, a website has been created in collaboration between the researchers and web designer and editor Sven Dehens in order to compile the works that have been developed in the frame of the artistic research environment of a.pass. This website hosts the complicities and differences of the four researches and it will address the infrastructural concerns each of them entails.

       

      For the End Presentations, a.pass invites three Visitors for a feedback conversation with the participants. The visitors of *Dismantle Space* are writer, editor, and dramaturge Caroline Godart, performance curator Guy Gypens and artistic research director Hicham Khalidi.

       

      This public event is co-curated by the participants with the support of a.pass. In response to the Covid-19 imperative of not being able to gather and to accommodate the different natures of the works, the presentations will take place online. The construction of the website was a way to keep the works connected and conversing with each other.

       

      Many thanks to ZSenne ArtLab and Rosa Library for their support, Sven Dehens for the website and Deborah Birch for text editing.

       

      *

      Dismantle

      Space


      *

       

      The research and work of Chloe Chignell is situated between choreography and literary practice. Throughout her a.pass trajectory Chloe worked with several performative dispositifs which use scores as mediators between body and language. With much precision her work performs the intra-dependencies between them in ways that facilitate and provoke in the viewer another understanding of how the body writes and reads itself.

      Dismantle
      Her work Poems and Other Emergencies dismantles the preconception that language can decipher and translate the body in an absolute and unidirectional manner. The prevailing cultural supremacy of language holds back other forms of knowledge and understanding of the body as a complex entity.

      Space
      While working at a.pass the processes Chloe created in physical space or on the space of the page triggers in the audience unforeseen attachments to cultural, social paradigms and relations between languages and mediums. For her End Presentation, the book becomes an object that expands the dimensions of the page, with the essays Language as Prosthesis and The Complete Text Would be Insufferable asking questions of the reading body, your body.

       

      *

       

      During their trajectory at a.pass, the research project of fashion practitioners Muslin Brothers - Tamar Levit and Yaen Levi -had focused on the uniform in correctional facilities. Their involvement with prisons and prisoners’ statements opened up a complex questioning of the garment-as-uniform and the process of uniformization. Using installation-performance as a research tool the artist duo created participatory situations that repositioned the role of the garment in its social, political, and economic functions. From staging the tailor’s atelier in several formats, the prayer book as a scored assembly, or audio files for confined self-appraisal they created critical environments that work to de-gender, de-class, and de-colonise clothing in contemporary society.

      Dismantle
      Their research dismantles the production chain and the economy behind the garment. Their work looks at fashion through the economy of belonging, establishing the strong relation between who-wears-what and the creation of harsh social segregation.

      Space
      Their research is manifested in performative installations that delay an easy identification with the garment by softening a space in which the participants can elaborate a collective and participatory questioning about this often ignored terrain.

       

      *

       

      Flávio Rodrigo’s research is a continual overlapping and unfolding of autobiographical writing, storytelling, and ritual. His work continues an oral tradition of recounting and holding to account that can re-tell history from the place of the minority. His research creates intersections between stories of racism and homophobia, auto-fiction, and ritual in order to claim power against normative politics in a non-normative way.

      Dismantle
      Flávio's research investigates the body by shedding light on the scars we all have. Working with scars as relational objects from which narratives unfold, he creates the possibility for an understanding of the self as relation between physiological trace and mythical, political, and personal time.

      Space
      Flávio crafts rituals and participatory performances as a collective investigation into both the trauma and the many forms of healing that scars represent. These storytellings open up a space for the personal to be continuously woven into collective, political history, and affirm that the possibility of transformation is embedded in each of us, and in all of us collectively. For his End Presentation Flávio worked on a performance series The ghost scar solo that will be streamed in three episodes.
      11th - 20:30 - Episode 1 - the ghost and the milk
      12th - 20:30 - Episode 2 - the tent and the mirror
      13th - 20:30 - Episode 3 - the body and the plate

       

      *

       

      The research of Christina Stadlbauer addresses the relationship between humans and other-than-human companions in the environment *we* share with *them*. Her approach tackles the ethical implications of the loss of habitat and the collapse of diversity. Christina engages with multiple actors in the fields of science and art, as well as with inhabitants of urban and non-urban environments, animal, vegetable, and mineral beings. She uses interviews, video footage, and performative installations to shine a light upon muted or undervalued situations of imbalance between human and other-than-human existences.

      Dismantle
      The recent focus of her work has been on the Museum as a public display of knowledge. Christina questions and deconstructs the infrastructure of the museum as a colonial institution which acquires, catalogues, and communicates knowledge in a human-centered manner, neglecting other life forms. Even though at this point in history, with an attempt to reformulate the definition of the Museum, lead by ICOM – the International Council of Museums – she maintains there is a persistent neglect of other species´ knowledge.

      Space
      Christina’s research engages in a re-imagining of the museum. A museum which explores through practice-based experiments and explorations how humans relate to other species, and dedicates itself to different forms of communication in search of a language between all parties.
      For her End Presentation, Christina set a series of conversations with Agata Siniarska, choreographer, dramaturge and author; Lesley Kadish, anthropologist and specialist of disabled people in museums; and Maria Ptqk, curator and director of Museum Cabinet Sycorax. These conversations will be presented as podcasts and transcribed in text.

       

      *


      BIOGRAPHIES

      Chloe Chignell
      Chloe Chignell (Australia) is a dancer and choreographer based in Brussels working across text, choreography and publishing. In 2019 she opened rile* a bookshop and project space for practices moving between publication and performance, with Sven Dehens. Her most recent work Poems and Other Emergencies premiered at Batard Festival Brussels 2020, and was supported by WorkspaceBrussels, BUDA Kortrijk, Lucy Geurin Inc and La Balsamine. She graduated from the research cycle at P.A.R.T.S (Brussels, 2018),  She has a Bachelor in Dance from Victorian College of the Arts, (Melbourne, 2013) and studied a writing and residency program at DOCH (Stockholm, 2017). As a choreographer Chloe has been commissioned by the Keir Choreographic Award for the creation of Deep Shine (Melbourne) touring to Japan for The Awaji Art Festival. She presented a short work forever in both directions for the Venice Biennale’s Biennale of Dance (2017). As a dancer Chloe has worked for Adriano Wilfert Jensen, Ingrid Berger Myhre, Anna Gaiotti, Gry Tingskog, Atlanta Eke, Ellen Söderhult, Phoebe Berglund and James Bachelor performing in Australia and across Europe. Chloe is co-editor of This Container magazine, currently in its 8th edition based between Stockholm, Brussels and Melbourne. Her writing has been published by This Container, Koreografi, Indigo Dance Magazine (PAF) and Realtime (Australia). She has developed choreographic writing and reading formats hosted by Kottinspektionen (Stockholm), PraxisFestivalen (Oslo), PAF (France) Scene:Bluss (Norway). She is co-initiator of PO$$E a dance and reading group .
      www.chloechignell.com / www.rile.space / www.thiscontainer.com

      *

      Muslin Brothers - Tamar Levit and Yaen Levi
      Muslin Brothers (Tamar Levit and Yaen Levi) acts as both a fashion brand and research studio speculating on the way personal, social, and political systems shape and are shaped through clothing. It is named after the muslin fabric widely used to make veils, men shirts, and clothing prototypes prior to production.
      The duo’s work overlaps between wearables, spatial, performance, image-making, and exchange of information, using the technologies of clothes-wearing and clothing production lines for a poetic investigation into the biography of non-designer design.
      They hold a B.A in fashion design, from Shenkar, college of engineering, design and art, Israel.
      Their work has been shown in platforms such as the Kanal centre Pompidou Brussels, Parsons New York, Stockholm Art university, Israeli Museum,  the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Jerusalem design week, and London and Tel Aviv fashion weeks. They were designers in residency at Arad contemporary art center (2020) Artez Academie Arnhem (2018) and London's college CFE (2016). Winners of design award from the Israeli culture ministry (2018), and the pais grant for fashion design (2016).
      www.muslinbrothers.com

      *
      Flávio Rodrigo
      Flávio Rodrigo Orzari Ferreira, 37, gay, brazilian, artist, lives in Brussels. He is a performer. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Scenic Arts from State University of Campinas – UNICAMP (2004), a Specialization Degree in Psychopedagogy from FHO – UNIARARAS (2012), a Specialization Degree from UCB (2013) and a post-master degree in Performing Arts in a.pass (Advanced Performing and Scenography Studies – 2020). He is now undergoing a Master's programme in Speculative Narration and Videography at the ERG (École de Recherche et Graphisme) de l'Université Saint Luc.

      *

      Christina Stadlbauer
      Christina is an artist and researcher. She works at the cracks of arts and sciences, and develops her research around non human agencies - collective intelligence, interspecies communication and the relation between culture and nature. Christina obtained a PhD in Natural Sciences and her practice is informed and influenced by her scientific understanding. She has launched several artistic long term initiatives: like Melliferopolis, an artistic platform to engage with honeybees and their worlds, the Institute for Relocation of Biodiversity – an artistic container to explore the ethical implications of issues related with loss of habitat and the collapse of diversity, and Kin Tsugi Transformations, a work strand with bacteria that reflects on the ethics implied with microbiological lab work and our strive for control and imperfection.

       

    •  

      My initial question for the apass research fellowship departed from the place where humans meet their non-human environment. From there it took a few turns.

      *

      In my artistic research, I explore the relationship humankind has with its other-than human-companions and the environment we are all sharing. The research started from my long term engagement with honeybees MelliferopolisBees in Urban Environments - and the work done by the Institute for Relocation of Biodiversity – an artistic container to explore the ethical implications of issues related with loss of habitat and the collapse of diversity. Lately, I have also started working with bacteria in the frame of my project Kin Tsugi Transformations and reflecting on the ethics implied with microbiological lab work.

      Although the precise expression of a research question, keeps slipping and escaping, I got very interested with a procedure that has been unfolding around the “new” definition of museums, launched by ICOM, the international council of museums. (see more about the MuseumDefinitionProcess.)

      From my perspective, although many aspects and possible roles of museums are considered in the re-definition, a major shortcoming persists. This has to do with a form of denial of other-than-human life forms needing to be acknowledged as also having rights. Taking this serious would give them a place in our re-thinking of the order of the world, and hence their inclusion in the definition and practice of museums.

      To think this further, I propose practice based experiments and explorations of how we humans relate to other species, like plants, animals, bacteria and see what forms of communication can be installed to both create a “language” towards and with them, as well as ways to express the experiences.

      Behind all this, is a wish to create a “museum of the future” that maybe calls for more than a redefinition but rather a deconstruction of the museum as such. It is a container that operates decentralized, ephemeral, at times paradoxical, and it does so by collecting practices, thoughts, interventions and embodied experiences.

      During the almost 2 years of Apass fellowship, some experiments manifested - partly public, partly more intimate. 

      *

      March 2019, Contribution to Festival Performatiek, at Kanal:

      "Diversity is all around"- Installation and video projection. 

      Climate change poses a significant threat to the continuing existence of many species.
      The Institute for Relocation of Biodiveristy identifies fauna and flora in danger, and creates video tutorials to assist the species in relocating to safety in a new natural habitat.

      In the episode Diversity Is All Around, the Institute focuses on abundance of variety created through human intervention and care as well as surrogates to alleviate the losses.

      During the first block of Apass, from January to April 2019, Vladimir Miller was our curator. The settlement practice that he offers led us ultimately, to settle our entire group and work at Centre Pompidou Brussels - Kanal brut, the newly designated Citroen garage building in Brussels. He also introduced the writing practice. Simply writing. No matter what. During this block, we also were offered some workshops, of which 

      First thoughts about "publishing" and to make public (versus intimacy , fragility and vulnerability) were discussed, together with performativity - a term that I had to grow into, but that is today very much part of my thinking. Some of the co-curators gave important input, in these first weeks - for example Peggy Pierot, who launched us into the theme of nomadism and how and where to feel at home - a theme that touched me as it has a lot to do with my research. Also Philippe Gehmacher, Alex Artega. 

      A workshop with Moritz Frischkorn about logistics and the choreography of objects, made me think about my Institute for Relocation of Biodiversity in terms of linearity, flow diagrams and processes. 

      *

      Summer 2019, Troubled Garden:

      For the duration of a few months, apass moved headquarters to the Zenne Garden - a community garden in Anderlecht. Nicolas Galeazzi was our curator. He proposed being outdoors, getting in contact with the soil, the plants, the rain. And he proposed a practice of adopting. Everyone adopted from someone a project. One that was stuck, that I did not want to continue, that I have forgotten, no time or energy for and that I would like to pass on to someone else. 

      I gave "Vegetal Speed-dating" to Laura Pante, and adopted a score from Pierre Rubio myself. A score to make an endless poem, an exercise of being present with what is and naming it. It is called "I am made of" and resulted finally in a Letter to a Wheatgrain - I am made of and became a contribution to Migrant Ecologies at Svalbard Seedvault in June 2019. Amongst other contributions, it was added to the seedvault in Norway, in a ceremonial performative act. 

      Converstaions and mentoring with Pierre Rubio, Kobe Matthijs, Marialena Marouda, Philip van DeDingen, Sally de Kunst - all gave extra input to my research. 

      *

      Later in 2020, this place became an important refuge when the pandemic struck Belgium. Inspired by the exhibition Learning from artemisia by Uriel Orlow, I conducted some resaerch on the plant family Artemisia. They are called wormwood in English, and are used as medicinal herbs. Its antiviral properties can cure Malaria, but are also suggested for the cure of Covid 19.

      I recuperated some plantlets of Artemisia annua from Joelle Corroy, that I had found via the Artemisia house and they grew, made seeds and will be distributed and planted again next year. A distributed plantation is emerging.

      *

      Fribourg, Blue Factory - the unlearning centre - a trip to Switzerland in the heat of the summer 2019. 

      mini conferences (2 participants) on the topic of dispersing, dry toilets and 

      Collective reading moments of Bruno Latour Down to Earth and Donna Haraway Staying with the Trouble. Very helpful!!

      A reflection about Abundance at the Unlearning Centre, Fribourg. 

      *

      The Other Within

      Foundation of a collective called the Other Other, later the Other Within (with Gosie Vervloessem, Kobe Matthijs, Marialena Marouda, Maria Lucia Cruz Correia) in the winter of 2018. with a first collective attempt to encounter the other and the other within during a sweat-lodge with Rik Verschueren in July 2019.
      March 2020 – a hybrid conversation online and IRL, during the first days of the lockdown. In December, the collective is invited to Workspace Brussels for a residency to take the Others' idea further. 

      *

      March 2020 ff, S/Corona

      A part of the apass fellowship happened during the time of pandemic. The in between block was officially not curated, but Lilia Mestre proposed to keep us engaged with a score.  This became an online practice that we could do although we were confined and the school was closed. At times, we met with one or two other fellows, in the park. My brain was over-active, trying to understand what was going on and this practice was very useful to give my thinking shape, but also to stay in contact with others, and their thinking.
      The score was repeated several times. The whole series of my questions and answers (the score) can be found here: S_Corona_March2020.

      A collection of videos is part of it and was publicly screened in May and June 2020, in the shop window of nadine, Brussels: 

      Park or Room Domestication

      Infection is defined as the communication of a disease

      Terrain and Germ

      Biota

       

       

      *

      November 2020
      A series of conversations about  "new museums" is published as podcasts for the end presentation on the website http://dismantle.space

      *

      Absorbing philosophical, biological, physical, institutional texts, talks, performances, exhibitions was part of the research. This was not always supportive in advancing my quest, but at times also very helpful. Some texts I had to repeatedly read, so as to find how it could connect and nourish the questions I hold. Some other texts talked so much to me that I ended up contacting the author inviting him/her to a conversation or a collaboration.

      Quote by Vinciane Despret
      I have sometimes thought to myself - and this is surely already the basis for a science fiction novel - that our imagination is so poor, or so egocentric, that if extraterrestrials were to visit the earth, we think it is us [humans] they would want to contact.

      *

      A selection of references that have helped this trajectory to unfold:

      Agata Siniarska: In the Beginning was a Copy, 2017

      Bruno Latour, Peter Weibel: Critical Zones – exhibition at ZKM, Karlsruhe -23.05.2020 – Sun, 28.02.2021

      Bruno Latour: Down to earth, 2017

      David Abram: The Spell of the sensuous, 1996

      Deborah Bird Rose: Wild Dog Dreaming, 2012

      Descola Philippe: Beyond nature and culture, 2005

      Donna Haraway: Staying with the trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, 2016

      Federico Campagna: Technic and Magic, 2018

      Jonathan Franzen: What if we stopped pretending, 2019

      Karen Barad: Diffractions: Differences, Contingencies, and Entanglements That Matter, 2007

      Karen Barad: On Touching, 2012

      Tim Ingold: What is an animal? 1988

      Ursula Leguin: The carrier bag theory of fiction, 1986

      Vinciane Despret: What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions?, 2016

       

    • postgraduate program
    • block 2020/I
    • Zone Public
    • BLOCK 2020/I 20 December 2019
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • a.pass Brussels
    • 06 January 2020
    • 30 April 2020
    • BLOCK 2020/I

       

       

       

       

      a.pass post-graduate program for winter-spring 2020 follows the habitual form of three collective gatherings: at the beginning: the ‘Opening Week’, in the middle: the ‘Half Way Days’ and at the end: the ‘End Week’. These are collective workdays where, at large, all the artists and researchers both present their work and feedback on everybody’s research. The three distinct gatherings propose different protocols of presentations and modes of feedback. All protocols are discussed during the block. 

      The block includes as well Zone Public, a curated seminar-like series of working sessions dedicated specifically to this block and happening mainly on Thursdays and Fridays. This ensemble of proposals is designed by Femke Snelting, Peggy Pierrot and Pierre Rubio.


      January
      6-14 : Opening Week Days
      16-17 : Zone Public sessions #1
      23-24 : Zone Public sessions #2
      30-31 : Zone Public sessions #3

      February
      6-7 : Zone Public sessions #4
      13-14 : Zone Public sessions #5
      17-21 : Halfway Days
      27-28 :  Zone Public sessions #6

      March
      5-6 Zone Public sessions #7
      12-13 Zone Public sessions #8
      14-15 Zone Public sessions #9
      22-23 Zone Public sessions #10
      30-April 5 End Week at Perfomance Arts Forum (France)

       


      The artists and researchers participating in this block with their projects are:

      Chloe Chignell
      Signe Frederiksen
      Quinsy Gario
      Stefan Govaart
      Adriano Wilfert Jensen
      Mathilde Maillard
      Muslin Brothers
      Flavio Rodrigo Orzari Ferreira
      Magda Ptasznik
      Christina Stadlbauer
      Federico Vladimir Strate Pezdirc
      Kasia Tórz
      Katrine Turner
      Andrea Zavala Folache

       

       

       

       

       


      The dedicated mentors, curators, and artistic coordinator are:

       

                 Dedicated Mentoring

      Kristien Van Den Brande
      Kristien Van den Brande is a Brussels-based writer, editor, dramaturge and researcher. An ongoing interest in the (im)materiality, image and performativity of writing has characterized her work, which engages with a range of disciplines including literature, performance, expanded publishing, urbanism and sexuality. Inspired by ‘minor literatures’, she does ongoing research about 'Support de Fortune’, a notion that refers to forms of writing that take place in the margin of print or on throw-away paper. She is a living book and co-editor in Mette Edvardsen’s project Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine. Together with Myriam Van Imschoot she set up oralsite.be, an online platform for expanded publishing. Lately, she is gaining interest in role-play as dramaturgic, artistic, therapeutic, sexual tool "to undo the creature in us”. That latter was Anne Carson speaking.

       

      Vladimir Miller
      Vladimir Miller works as an artist, researcher, scenographer and dramaturge. His practice aims at re-negotiating habitual modes of spatial production by using fragility as a building principle. He uses collective construction- and building processes to investigate ideologies of labour and territory within ad-hoc groups and institutional environments. In his latest projects he works with the materiality of fluids to challenge ideas of stability embedded within the design of spaces of cultural production. Vladimir Miller has been a frequent collaborator with the choreographers Philipp Gehmacher and Meg Stuart. As scenographer, co-author, dramaturge and performer he took part or co-created a number of performances and video installations with the two artists. In 2018-19 he is dramaturge in residence at Decoratelier/Jozef Wouters. Vladimir Miller is co-curator of the postgraduate artistic research institute a.pass, Brussels and a PhD in Practice candidate at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. In 2013 Miller was Fellow at Institut für Raumexperimente, Berlin and in 2015 Fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart. Vladimir Miller has been guest lecturer at the University of Hamburg and at KASK, Gent.

       

      Femke Snelting
      Femke Snelting works as artist and designer, developing projects at the intersection of design, feminisms and free software. In various constellations she has been exploring how digital tools and practices might co-construct each other. She is member of Constant, a non-profit, artist-run association for art and media based in Brussels. With Jara Rocha she currently activates Possible Bodies, a collective research project that interrogates the concrete and at the same time fictional entities of "bodies" in the context of 3D tracking, modelling and scanning. She co-initiated the design/research team Open Source Publishing (OSP) and formed De Geuzen (a foundation for multi-visual research) with Renée Turner and Riek Sijbring. Apart from mentoring at a.pass, Femke teaches at the Piet Zwart Institute (experimental publishing, Rotterdam).

       


                Zone Public Co-curating

      Peggy Pierrot
      Peggy Pierrot lives and works in Brussels. She works mainly with different associations and educational or research structures. Her most favourite tools are human sciences and free softwares. Since there are "profound links between gesture and speech, between expressible thought and the creative activity of the hand ", she is currently working at the Ecole of Recherche Graphique (ERG) both as a technical and logistical assistant and as a teacher in Media and Communication Theory. She is also involved in the master's program Récits et expérimentation - Narration spéculative. (Storytelling and experimentation - Speculative Fabulation) She gives lectures and workshops on Afro-Atlantic cultures and literatures, science fiction, media and technology and has an active practice in radio.

       

      Pierre Rubio
      Pierre Rubio works as artist, independent researcher and dramaturge. At large and through different forms, his work questions modes of individuation to explore contemporary production of subjectivity in/through the arts. What is real for an artist? is his main research question. Pierre was a dancer and choreographer for a long time, holds a master's degree in the arts combining theatre & communication at the campus of Aix-Marseille University (France) and dance & choreography at the campus of Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers (France). Pierre is currently a core member, co-curator and mentor in a.pass - a platform for artistic research practices.

       

      Femke Snelting
      (see above)

       


                Artistic coordination

      Lilia Mestre
      Lilia Mestre (Lisboa 1968) is a performing artist and researcher based in Brussels. She interested in art practice as a medial tool between several domains of semiotical existence. Mestre works with assemblages, scores and inter-subjective setups as an artist, curator, dramaturge and teacher. She’s currently co-curator and artistic coordinator of a.pass where she develops a research on scores - Scorescapes - as a possible radical pedagogical tool. In 2019 - 2021 she’s collaborating with Prof. Jill Halstead and Prof. Brandon LaBelle in Social Acoustic - a research project supported by the University of Bergen, Norway. And with Nikolaus Gansterer and Alex Arteaga in Contingent Agencies - a research project supported by PEEK -Vienna, AU. 

       

       

      More information about Zone Public here

    • postgraduate program
    • block 2020/I
    • Zone Public 20 December 2019
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • curated by Femke Snelting & Peggy Pierrot & Pierre Rubio
    • a.pass Brussels
    • 16 January 2020
    • 27 March 2020
    • case of: Pierre Rubio
    • Zone Public

       

       

      Zone Public contributes to an ongoing conversation on the dynamics of publishing generated by technologies of artistic research. From January 2020 onwards, within the a.pass platform for artistic research practices -where its agents continuously re-examine and re-imagine this special form of knowledge production, specifying over and over again its generative nature and deploying its potential-  a three month series of readings, mediations and compilations is oriented by the postgraduate program and its participants to (re)consider the forms and conditions for disseminating artistic research.

       

      In the context of a.pass, the field of artistic research is one to be embodied but also to be explored, discussed and ultimately transversally invented. Instead of a discipline, a.pass considers artistic research as an inclusive library of heterogeneous, impermanent, precarious yet rigorous constructions and affirms that only as a non-discipline, un-discipline or de-discipline can artistic research create the conditions for multiple sites of intersection between society, academia and art. Methodological conflicts, critical discursive inventiveness and continuous experimentation with tentative sub-categories, all are generatively interconnected through hybrid artistic and research practices. Thus, Zone Public wants to closely observe and document the sources, contexts, dynamics, compositions and especially the modes of publicness of the multiple and diverse art and research projects conducted in the post graduate program. The different participatory dispositifs initiated by Zone Public are situated in this specific context, where artistic research is modulated as a topological object to articulate the ways in which artistic practice, theory, history and other disciplines intersect and combine in unique ways in each artistic research projects and trajects. 

       

      Nevertheless, to consider these diverse artistic researches as singular assemblages, as effects but also as proposals for new combinations implies navigating a space where the separation between what is discrete and continuous is reduced. Thinking/doing, writing/publishing, researching/performing, speculating/archiving, containing/executing, exploring/presenting, disagreeing/collaborating, emancipating/determining… Zone Public wants to question these polarities and tries to articulate a relational material that supports, binds and maintains both the discrete and the continuous scales of a non-uniform zone of artistic research in tension with its publicness.

       

      Especially, Zone Public invites to (re)consider the conditions for dissemination of the specific forms of knowledge that artistic research does produce/process/practice. It activates the interrelation between research-as-process versus the crystallisation that publishing requires, and wants to open up the exhibitionary regimes which seem to articulate current artistic research practices and the infrastructures of knowledge production that its agents are both using and possibly used by.

       

      What happens to research when it is made public? How to deal with the apparent dichotomy between research and publicness? What are the ways to manage the (im)possible task of (re)presenting something as hybrid and liquid as a research process? How to produce legible forms out of unformed research matters? How to understand publishing beyond legitimisation and validation? What relations emerge from the determining norms of institutional or academic forms of publication? What to expect from the transfer of research to audiences and what would be, for both agents, useful to know? What could be the definitions and practices of spectatorship for artistic research? What could a public for artistic research be?

       

      Tuned through an ensemble of co-curated proposals designed and coordinated by Femke Snelting, Peggy Pierrot and Pierre Rubio in discussion with the a.pass actors, Zone Public is set up as a collective situation to reflect upon the conditions for making research public, as a space, and time, for together reconsidering academic and/or artistic (internalised) standards of communication and to get to terms with their implications. Therefore, Zone Public is also an occasion to share, invent and consider experimental, performative and/or speculative forms of publishing and exhibiting.

       

      Zone Public is co-curated by three cultural workers. Each of them arrive with distinct but related practices and approaches to the problems of publishing and they assume each of the participants will arrive with theirs. Pierre is interested in modes of knowing, forms of culture and processes of collective individuation specific to artistic research; Femke brings tools from new-materialist feminisms to the tensions between publicness and ongoingness; Peggy questions how publishing can be defined in other ways than by utilitarianism or fetishisation of the legitimacy ideology and dominant modes of (re)presentation and recognition.

       

       

      Zone Public is organised around four dispositifs. Each of them allows another entry into 'the problems of publishing' and is proposed as an invitation to be appropriated and developed.

       

      1. Multipolar Book Club (Researching / Reading / Discussing)
      Every Thursday morning, a time to read and discuss together. The texts to work with are reflecting upon questions of concretisation and individuation, around intersectional relations between cybernetic control systems and structures of knowledge oppression, on the problems of the public, on entanglements and how to cut, and on usefulness and anti-utilitarianism. 
      When: Thursdays 10h00-14h00

       

      2. A Becoming Library (Researching / Contributing / Compiling)
      On Friday afternoon, time to work on concrete experiments of research-publishing. On the program: making on-line publications, editing photocopied fanzines, reprinting materials and programing small radio-capsules. What knowledge would be really useful to publish, and for whom? This collection of publishing experiments will form a growing 'library' of content and forms that matter. The group will contextualise and reflect upon this 'becoming library' through the practice of 'compilation'. Compiling is a term borrowed from collective software-development and it is used to describe a practice of iteratively and temporarily bringing together of resources and references to form a running program. Rather than formatting itself according to preformatted templates of art-publishing, artist books, or academic publishing, can one think the infrastructure of referencing and distribution in ways that work performatively with and not against the intricacies of artistic research? 
      When: Fridays 14h00-18h00

       

      3. The Bermuda Radio Show (Researching / Questioning / Positioning)
      The Bermuda Radio Show is a series of triangular audio recorded conversations. They are occasions to reflect on the issues with ‘making-public’ in relation to artistic research projects conducted at the moment in a.pass. Each project producing possibly its specific form of and matter for interviews.
      When: flexible between Thursday afternoons and Friday mornings or at other possible times.

       

      4. Close Encounters (Researching / Curating / Hosting)
      On some Thursday evenings, a series of presentations and public conversations that was proposed in the context of the a.pass research center in 2018. (See: https:///www.apass.be/close-encounters/ ). Close Encounters are light and irregular events to take time to meet, listen and evaluate an idea, a project, a research, or a specific point in a research trajectory. The events are free-formed and singularly appropriated by its protagonists, but the format is always a dialog with one or more guests; all are invited to expand on their research or the problem posed through the lens of their expertise, experience or concern. For Zone Public, the Close Encounters series will invite guests that have relevant practices with regards to (infrastructures of) publishing and/or making-public and/or art and research publicness. 
      When: most of the time on Thursdays 18h00-21h00

       

       

      here more information about the block of which "Zone Public" is a part

       


      Femke Snelting - Zone Public co-curator
      Femke Snelting works as artist and designer, developing projects at the intersection of design, feminisms and free software. In various constellations she has been exploring how digital tools and practices might co-construct each other. She is member of Constant, a non-profit, artist-run association for art and media based in Brussels. With Jara Rocha she currently activates Possible Bodies, a collective research project that interrogates the concrete and at the same time fictional entities of "bodies" in the context of 3D tracking, modelling and scanning. She co-initiated the design/research team Open Source Publishing (OSP) and formed De Geuzen (a foundation for multi-visual research) with Renée Turner and Riek Sijbring. Apart from mentoring at a.pass, Femke teaches at the Piet Zwart Institute (experimental publishing, Rotterdam).

       

       

      Peggy Pierrot - Zone Public co-curator
      Peggy Pierrot lives and works in Brussels. She works mainly with different associations and educational or research structures. Her most favourite tools are human sciences and free softwares. Since there are "profound links between gesture and speech, between expressible thought and the creative activity of the hand ", she is currently working at the Ecole of Recherche Graphique (ERG) both as a technical and logistical assistant and as a teacher in Media and Communication Theory. She is also involved in the master's program Récits et expérimentation - Narration spéculative. (Storytelling and experimentation - Speculative Fabulation) She gives lectures and workshops on Afro-Atlantic cultures and literatures, science fiction, media and technology and has an active practice in radio.

       

       

      Pierre Rubio - Zone Public co-curator
      Pierre Rubio works as artist, independent researcher and dramaturge. At large and through different forms, his work questions modes of individuation to explore contemporary production of subjectivity in/through the arts. What is real for an artist? is his main research question. Pierre was a dancer and choreographer for a long time, holds a master degree in the arts combining theatre & communication at the campus of Aix-Marseille University (France) and dance & choreography at the campus of Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers (France). Pierre is currently a core member, co-curator and mentor in a.pass - a platform for artistic research practices.

    • end presentation
    • performative publishing
    • postgraduate program
    • PEACH BASKETS - THREE ANGLES ON BALANCING 05 September 2019
      posted by: Lilia Mestre
    • Caterina Mora / Laura Pante / Maurice Meewisse
    • a.pass
    • 27 September 2019
    • 28 September 2019
    • PEACH BASKETS - THREE ANGLES ON BALANCING

      a.pass is happy to invite you to the End-Communications of Caterina Mora, Laura Pante and Maurice Meewisse

      18:30 > Door opens

      19:00 - 21:00 > Ongoing Installation / performances
      >Double Spiral with rain makers - Maurice Meewisse
      >After Affect Clinique - Laura Pante

      21:00 > Pa-küru: 47 minutes of a bastard cheap lecture performance

      23:00 > Party with DJ Bicha Boo Collective -> 27th September ONLY!!!!

      *

       

      Peach Baskets - What the hell!

       

      “Maria Spelterini is walking across a tightrope across the Niagara Gorge, from the United States side to Canada, with her feet in peach baskets. In the background is the Niagara Suspension Bridge, which is full of spectators. In the distant background is the Niagara Falls.” (wikipedia)

      Funambulism is a "staying with the trouble" concept (in Donna Haraway´s words), that intertwines the a.pass End-Communications of Caterina Mora, Laura Pante and Maurice Meewisse, the 27 and 28 September at a.pass studio.

      It all started with the idea of balancing oppositions, no matter which: theory and practice, high and low cultures, language and body, feminism and heteronormativity, bad and  good, horizontal and vertical, north and south, truth and fake, here and there, real and virtual, peach baskets and shoes - What the hell?!

      The projects of Cate, Laura and Maurice, embody the crossings between antonymous positionalities and work with strategies that include negotiations, side effects, mistakes, shadows, confusion, plural views and overlapings as co-inhabitors of a research context attempting to think complex phenomena.

      To walk the tightrope one needs to be precisely at the moment. In the Merriam Webster dictionary, the second definition of funambulist says: “a show especially of mental agility”. Stay, stay, progress, walk…It is interesting to assess the complexity of such acts that involve several physical skills to portray exception and risk; that are then associated to freakishness, populism, entertainment, intense experience. Walking on the edge, for the good, the bad, the useless, the expectation, the market, for nothing, for life. Self-induced trouble in order to expose complex phenomena.

      The tightrope delineates the space, creates sides and indicates the demarcation of territories. It is a geometrical form, a fictional separation that enables position, that asks to be crossed as a heroic act. A symbolic gesture linking (or separating) two end points. Reinforcing nature, in this case - the Niagara Falls as like if they would need support. What kind of visibility is at stake? What was that woman doing in 1876? Why did she have peach baskets on her feet? Why did she sometimes tie her ankles? 

      The scenographies of these End-Communications are differentiated by three geometric shapes: the spiral, the triangle and the rectangle. They are reference points that reflect dwellings within real and artificial realities, they deploy perceptions. They are imperatives to read topologies: the arena, the tent and the stage. They all have a centre, they all are crossed by lines, they all follow patterns, they all create spaces, folds. 

      Imagine that all these lines and curves crossing the scenographic spaces are folds proposing potential, temporary and situated forms of critical enquiry between seemingly disconnected or distanced realities.

      At this point, the Deleuzian concept of the fold opens a range of actions, movements and transformations for what seems to be static and impenetrable perceptions of reality.  The fold changes place, re-forms elsewhere, multiplies, turns things inside out and outside in. The fold is extreme and intense and unlimited, it's baroque. It might be a form of connection that facilitates open-ended and inexhaustible unfoldings of  worlds.

      Caterina Mora uses what she named Transversal Research Training as a way to politicise the relations between ones’ own biography, western culture, global economy, institutional demand & heteronormativity. Cate works with show business as a form, to research relationalities in a non binary manner. Laura Pante creates conditions that trouble the relation between the private and the public perception of the body. Provoking awareness of the degree to which language and visual culture shape the body and our relation to it. Laura approaches technology and spirituality as culturally formative constructs that are constitutive parts of the self. Maurice Meewisse crafts situations as mimicries of institutional frameworks. Maurice's research questions the discrepancy between theoretical and ideological standpoints and the conditions that enable artistic work. The idea of the artist researcher as a self - instituted figure brings focus to both the agency of the artist and the dominance of power structures.

      "That is why the unfolded surface is never the opposite of the fold, but rather the movement that goes from some to the others. Unfolding sometimes means that I am developing—that I am undoing—infinite tiny folds that are forever agitating in the background, with the goal of drawing a great fold on the side whence forms appear. . . . At other times, on the contrary, I undo the folds of consciousness that pass through every one of my thresholds . . . in order to unveil in a single movement this unfathomable depth of tiny and moving folds that waft me along at excessive speeds in the operation of vertigo." Gilles Deleuze in 'The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque'

      Maria Spelterini disappeared shortly after the crossing of the Niagara Falls. No one knows why, how or where to. 

       

      *
      Caterina Mora, a patagonian doer (1988) from Fiske Menuco (Río Negro, Argentina) determined by the wind. She has incorrect English and she always asks for help for text revision. She had several titles and roles in Argentinian territory which become innocuous in other countries.

      Although she can give specifications on her traditional artistic roles in the Performing Arts (as a dancer, performer, ballet/contemporary dance/tango professor, director assistant, writer, modèle vivant), she is interested in transcending them. The ‘doer’ participates in academic groups and loves to create pieces with fiction and glitter.

      In a.pass she develops Transversal Research Training, a device for Artistic Research practice which is busy with the creation of political entertainment as affirmative critique. She makes, writes, embodies, questions and even refuses translations. She has become obsessed with Aprha Behn, a female spy for King Charles II in XVII century Belgium. She was a "translatress".

      Her End-Communications is a show called Pa-küru: 47 minutes of a bastard cheap lecture performance.
      It is based on translating ballet to reggaeton. a.pass provides bright paper, a 2x10 metre platform, a microphone like Madonna, cables, speakers, lights and a ballet barre. She provides 47 minutes of her embodied research, a 0,34 euro broken plastic crown that she bought in Buenos Aires (the crown ́s value then was of 1,21 euro) and music from her cell phone that she bought for 67 euros.

      She's trying to dance critically: from l'obsession après une audition to the pleasure of mostrar los dientes.


      *
      Laura Pante is a dancemaker based between Brussels and Venice. She combines the practices of drawing, architecture and graphic design with movement, dance and choreography.

      She crossed a.pass artistic research environment with a focus on body performativity, apparatus of spectatorship and the agency of images questioning in which way there is still a projection of fascist ideologies on the bi-dimensional screens which walk with us and prescribe our movement into the world. In other words how visual propaganda contributes to the production of body’s shapes. In her practice she researches how to create conditions for the possibility of a movement inquiry driven by a loss of corporal references and spatial coordinates challenging the expansion or the disappearance of body as a cultural phenomena.

      For her End-Communication, THE CLINIQUE will welcome you into the green corner, the remains of an ancient and spreading red volcano or the living room of a grandmother’s dream(s), to experience one by one a 360° video and performative installation. Within a precarious co-presence of inside and outside, private and public, personal and collective, we will practice a propaedeutic* research exploring a possible loss of corporal references and a consequential loss of memory - a flickering amnesia of the body’s shape, as if discovering something would mean to forget the dimension you came from, challenging mediated vision and image production. Laura and her assistant will guide you with the help of a dance performed by hands (a touch) informed by osteopathic practices**: the capacity to see into the abyss of flesh.

      * Propaedeutic // from the Ancient Greek προπαιδεύω (propaideúō, “I give preparatory instruction”), from πρό (pró, “before”) + παιδεύω (paideúō, “I teach”) is a historical term for an introductory course into a discipline, that is an art, or science, or movement.
      ** Ostheopatic practices of touch // OMT - osteopathic manipulative therapy // application of manual forces to improve homeostasis which have been altered by somatic dysfunction.

      *
      Maurice Meewise is a visual artist with a curiosity for the politics that construct accepted protocol of action and communication within specific institutionalized contexts. In most situations he finds an inherent conflict that acts as the impulse behind the creation of a new work in which he uses different techniques, from sculpture to performance, to create aesthetic interventions and attempt to provoke the reevaluation of our conditioned patterns of acceptance and behavior.

      The journey he embarked on at a.pass has been primarily focussed on the context provided by the institute, the program as well as the participants, curators, staff and visitors. He explored the limits of the context and the inconsistencies that he sometimes found between theories and the way they were practiced. During his period at a.pass he attempted to challenge the beliefs within the institute by making a series of symbolic interventions that addressed these boundaries and discrepancies.

      But one thing became apparent. Where is he in what he does?
      For the end communication he commissioned himself to look at what context he provides, to look at what he is constituted of, to think about his role as an artist and performer and his relationship with the audience. He uses the same strategy he applied before, but now to explore his own politics. It resulted in Double Spiral with Rainmakers - and he will prepare the dinner.

    • postgraduate program
    • project
    • Looming Score
    • A looming score - we share your politics of damage Block 2019/III curators Lilia Mestre and Sina Seiffee
      27 August 2019
      posted by: Lilia Mestre
    • 02 September 2019
    • 01 December 2019
    • case of: Lilia Mestre
      case of: Sina Seifee
    • A looming score - we share your politics of damage
       
      Why loom? We were thinking about the loom’s invocation of the closeness of the textile sense, fabrics that bind our desires and bodies. The loom means also the threatening feeling of an inevitable terrible thing as it approaches. And the possibility of b-looming, from the rest, waste, residue, remainders of the storm. Furthermore, loom echoes a gendered practice of writing textile; in the making of fabric like Arachné, that talented mortal weaver who challenged the god of wisdom, as well as Penelope, who weaved and weaved (a mournful making and unmaking fabrics) to postpone her arranged marriage. The loom is a metaphor that invites us to think of reality as something deeply embedded within context, like “the weaver's loom that is discerned within the cloth it weaves” (Veena Das). That means, modes of knowing constitute the objects of knowing in a manner that profoundly affects how one comes to inhabit a new reality.
       
      That is just the conceptual backdrop for us. In this block we want to focus on a support structure that will help each other research and continue what has been initiated in the past block, ‘Troubled Gardens.’ We transport what has been found out there and elsewhere into looming (transposed into weaving + feeling the darkness of it). That is to sustain being immersed in the subjects of ecology, feminism and their possible political agency in this unpredictable and precarious world we are living in. In the coming block, we’ll take these lines thought while going back “home” (we will land somewhere in a.pass studios hosting three scenographies from Laura, Maurice and Caterina for their End-Communication). We would take the movement of going inside as the one to prepare for winter: gather, digest, tell stories, imagine futures. As a curatorial approach we are not interested in obsessing on these concepts per se, but working in and through the particular challenges of our researches.

      We are structuring the block around three ‘scores’ (i.e. structures for enabling the plural): “what do you eat? what do you think? what do you do?” The score here is seen like the loom (a trope of text and textile): thinking made in the context of its weaving in the criss-crossing of one another's desires. Like patterns of giving and receiving affect, concepts, panics, worries, concerns, literacies, curiosities, play, know-ofs, as-ifs, why-nots, sometimes obvious sometimes cryptic sites that you and your colleagues are caught in long enough. By ‘playing’ one integrates, takes care of things that one might not be interested in, engages in an ongoing pattern of feeding and being fed. This joins the power of the transformative by paying attention to things that one does not notice alone. ‘One is alone together.’ What kind of monsters are we?!
       

       

       

      The score is structured on a weekly basis. We will gather one morning and one afternoon only once a week, as follows:
       
      Mondays from 10:00 till 15:00
      what do you eat? is about bringing your food--we feast, making lunch, not cooking, eating together, extended breakfast, with reading practices. Bring something you want to share: text, problem, theme, practice, concern, old question, new question, film, … in case you have nothing, Sina and Lilia have a bag of goodies. 
      what do you think? has to do with the harvesting fields of interest, readings, questions you have in your work and what has been provoked in the last block. Asking what was the sort of knowledge about the ecological thought that you inhabited in ‘Trouble Gardens’?

       

      Tuesdays from 14:00 till 18:00
      what do you do? has to do with what are the residues of the kinds of knowledge, imagination, relations that you are bringing into your current work. There is a list of existing scores in the a.pass website, if you want to know more go here. Performing Back Score, Medium Score, Bubble or Writing, Fragile Community Score, each with its own different nuances of attention, writing and composing. We will present them during the opening week and work with one score throughout the block.
       
      Participants
      Muslin Brothers, Amélie van Elmbt, Rui Calvo, Ana Paula Camargo, Chloe Chignell, Diego Echegoyen, Deborah Birch, Lucia Palladino, Piero Ramella, Adriano Wilfert Jensen, Quinsy Gario, Kasia Torz, Magda Ptasznik ,
       
      Dedicated mentors
      Sara Manente, works with digestion and fermentation processes and feminist theory. Choreographer and performance artist working on ethics and aesthetics of fermentation in relation to artistic research.
      Jeroen Peeters, writer, dramaturg and performer, part of the artistic team of Sarma, a laboratory for discursive practices and expanded publication. The topics of his work includes: performing arts as a site for social experiments, embodied knowledge, languages of making, visual regimes, and ecologies of attention.
      Nicolas Galeazzi, in the cross over through media, methodologies, materials and theories, he works as an actor, teacher, theater director, concept artist, and performance artist. Galeazzi works with Mise-en-Discourse - performative research frameworks where public can experiment with political and social conditions.

       

      Guests
      Milena Kipfmüller and Klaus Janek, artist duo resident at Q-O2, working on development of theatrical, radio and soundwork that deals with aspects of staging sound in specific situations, the processing of musical material, field recordings and language based sound. They will give a workshop in a format of a practical research about how sound acts by itself in a context of performative dramaturgies. Their contribution to the block coincides with the a.pass engagement in defining its own notion of making public, performative devices and working with sound.

       

      Curators
      Lilia Mestre, is a performing artist and researcher based in Brussels. She is interested in art practices as a medial tool between several domains of semiotic existences. Coming from a choreography and dance background, Mestre now researches on Scorescapes, a research she started in a.pass questioning support structures and artificial friendships in artistic research environments.
      Sina Seifee, artist-researcher-storyteller works on the poetics of animal description, the ecological cosmologies of nonhumans-with-history. His artworks illustrate research trajectories that traverse the questions of technology, storytelling, globalism and intercultural mythologies, with an eye on the premodern techno-culture in the Middle East.

       

       

       

       

       

    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • Settlements
    • Unsettled Study
    • The Choreography of Objects: Logistics vs. Entanglement 03 January 2019
      posted by: Vladimir Miller
    • Moritz Frischkorn
    • 25 February 2019
    • 28 February 2019
    • The Choreography of Objects: Logistics vs. Entanglement
       
      In recent years, theoreticians both from political sciences and cultural studies have become more and more interested in the business field of logistics. Besides finance (and new logics of extraction, some authors claim), logistics seems to be one of the key notions to understand global capitalism today.
       
      Today logistics considers itself the totalized management and governance of all flows of capital, labour and commodities. And more than ever, logistics is administered and steered by algorithms – auto-managed and automated, implementing a computational governance that subjects labour as much as all material resources of the globe to its regime. Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, in their essay 'Fantasy in the Hold', thus write: 'The rise of logistics is rapid. Indeed, to read today in the field of logistics is to read a booming field, a conquering field. In military science and in engineering of course, but also in business studies, in management research, logistics is everywhere.

      Logistics as choreography describes the faculty of being able to transport 'mountains of goods' (Maersk) just in time. The use of 'choreography' as marketing metaphor is then mirrored also in expert papers speaking about Supply Chain Choreographies as ways to interface diverse informational systems.
       

       

      Reading about the confluence and interrelation of logistics and choreography together, we will try to unfold some of the historic as much as contemporary political problematics related to this totalizing choreography of power operating by extraction, abduction and containerization. At the same time, we can discuss in how far this 'other' choreography of objects, based on efficiency and seamless interfaces, reflects back on recent discourses about an 'expanded choreography' in the field of contemporary performing arts and Performance Studies. How can an understanding of the history and contemporary over-practice of logistics inform our own choices when moving stuff? What are the political dimensions that are at play here – especially if we do not concede to maximizing claims for efficiency, but to an ethics of 'following the materials' or of attending and attuning to manifold entanglements?
       
      In a second step, we will try to play around with logistical concepts in order to re-formulate our own artistic practices. We will draw maps of the diverse material and semiotic resources that go into our work: From where do they enter, and at what point do our practices interface with these resources? Could we imagine ways of working with material or information, where 'value is added at each step'? What would be more efficient ways of thinking about our own 'supply chains', both in terms of research and artistic production? When, on the other hand, are the moments in which we are overwhelmed by materials, where we can only try to follow their itinerant logics of entanglement and proliferation? Presenting these 'total cost analysis' and 'supply chain diagram' to each other, we may find out how our own and others practices rely on a fine balance between logistical efficiency and itinerant, entangled hyper-chaos.
       
      On another, more physical level, we can assess our own work-spaces from a logistical point of view. In Amazon distribution centers, for example, goods are shelved chaotically, according to algorithmic procedures. In the same way, we can think of workspaces as processual logistical choreographies based on the in- and out-flux of materials and information. What if we thought of our workspaces thus as a form of archive of the logistics that made it come to be in its current shape? Does that give us valuable information about our practices? On the horizon, then, we come to articulate an even bigger question: Can we formulate an ethics of how to work with materials, whatever form, coherence, shape or agility they may have?
       
       
      Moritz Frischkorn is a choreographer and researcher working within contemporary performing arts. He is based in Hamburg, where, since 2015, he is part of the artistic-theoretic graduate school 'Performing Citizenship' at HafenCity University. His artistic research deals with ethical and social questions related to choreographies of objects. In his artistic work, he looks for bodily practices of attuning to non-human movement and researches ways of moving beyond self-expression and intentionality. 
       
      In the last years, he is interested, mainly, in the relation of choreography and logistics, a topic that he will deal with in detail within a new performance project entitled 'The Great Report'. His artistic work is regularly presented at Kampnagel, Hamburg. Furthermore, he often collaborates with, among others, Manon Santkin (Brussels, Stockholm), his Hamburg colleagues Heike Bröckerhoff and Jonas Woltemate, and performance collective geheimagentur. Sporadically, he writes for 'Plateau - Performing Arts in Hamburg' and works for Sarma/Oral Site web-journal. 
    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • a.pass Basics workshops
    • a.pass meets School of Love
    • block 2018/III
    • STUDY DAYS A curatorial proposal by Adva ZAkai
      11 September 2018
      posted by: Joke Liberge
    • 10 September 2018
    • 30 November 2018
    • STUDY DAYS

      PROGRAM AND SCHEDULE

      This block is organized around a series of Study Days. Almost every Monday till the end of November, a.pass hosts artists, thinkers and researchers to contribute to the problematization of various issues that bring together love, art, school, improvisation and politics.


      ** The texts bellow are written from the perspective of the notions explored at a.pass, and not by the guests, who are invited to respond to them from within their own practices **


      September 10th
      Maybe one day, love will no longer be considered a private endeavor or a slogan of hippies, but rather a public and a political mode of being...

      Guests: Johan Grimonprez & Bleri Lleshi

      Imagine a society that bases its arrangements, institutions and democracy on love itself. Such a society will probably teach and exercise love as a force that contributes to the constitution of communities. Maybe then it will make less sense to say that love is a social construction than to say that love constructs society... What kind of practices can re-appropriate love by allowing it to shift from individual, consumerist and patriarchal inclinations into the political engagement of play and interaction of differences? How can love be romantic but not only? What if love would expend beyond the limits of the couple and the nuclear family and serve as the basis for our political projects in common?
      10h – 13h A session with Johan Grimonprez
      13h – 14h Lunch
      14h – 15h15 presentation of work by Johan Grimonprez
      15h15 – 15h30 Break
      15h30 – 18h A session with Bleri Leshi

       

      September 17th
      To be included your love tool kit
      Or: Tender technologies: how tools shape practice and practice shapes tools

      Guest: Femke Snelting

      Femke Snelting: Can we transform our relation to everyday communication technologies? Can we take that risk? Currently, tech giants dominate all forms of digital communication, from cloud-storage to production tools and archiving systems. Infused with modernist ideas of progress, these tools are full of capitalist values and dreams of seamless scaleability. They form intricate webs of human and non-human agencies weaving themselves into and around us, intimately linking our personal and professional practices. Also institutional practice has come to rely on the use of commercial platforms, including places that are dedicated to radical transformation, political love and commoning like a.pass. So how are we being with technology when practicing a School of Love? This study-day is dedicated to experiencing technology differently, of developing a convivial relationship that foregrounds vulnerability, mutual dependency and care-taking. With the help of old and new Free, Libre and Open Source Software tools we will practice a transition from anticipating efficiency to allowing curiosity; from expecting scarcity to demanding multiplicity; from solution to possibility.
      10h – 13h A session with Femke Snelting
      13h – 14h Lunch
      14h – 18h A session with Femke Snelting

       

      September 24th – September 29th
      Inspired by the interest in both love and school as charged with potential to generate new politics and relations in the world.

      a.pass meets SOL participates to The Swamp School at the Venice Biennale Architecture 2018

      "In exploring the imaginary of a swamp—a living organism in which borders defined by social, political and cultural factors are porous and permeable— the Swamp School will investigate an open artistic/architectural form, effective workshop and publication methodologies. The Swamp School will act as a pilot for future learning environments, informed by and informing the architecture and installations of its own space. Research questions will focus on creating public interfaces and manuals that support adaptation and learning to meet the demands of a changing environment.” Swamp Pavillion curated by Nomeda and Gedeminas Urbonas.

      Participating institutions: MIT School of Architecture and Planning, Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, University of Antwerp, Università Iuav di Venezia, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti - NABA Milan, The Art Institute at the Academy of Art and Design FHNW Basel, Institute of Aesthetic Practice and Theory IAeP, Academy of Art and Design FHNW Basel, University of Iceland, Vytautas Magnus University Kaunas, a.pass - advanced performance and scenography studies Brussels, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Contour Biennale 9 Mechelen, Design for the Living World Class at HFBK The University of Fine Arts Hamburg, Städelschule Architecture Class – Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste Frankfurt

      http://swamp.lt/#program


      October 8th
      Blame it on monogamy

      Guests: Eva Berghman, CW/the Common Wallet project, Kathrien De Graeve

      Many of us were indoctrinated to believe that they desire only one way of moving through the course of life, where pairing is the ultimate goal and the preferable mode of being. This probably has not much to do with the belief in the mental and spiritual profoundness of the unit of two, but rather being motivated by the fear of being left out by a society that socially and economically prioritises the couple. How to re-appropriate institutions that re-appropriated love itself by bounding it to laws, contracts, economy and morals? What if being polyamorous would not only mean having many lovers, but many kinds of love? We could chose to stop considering Polyamory as merely a sexual and romantic practice, and think of it as an ethic that potentially destabilizes the normative hierarchies between human relationships. Monogamy is not just a way to love romantically, it also influences our relations to money, time, jobs, passports, artistic/scientific/academic researches etc... If Polyamory would be the dominant way of relation in the political and social sphere, how would this effect the notions of owning (property, identity, ideas) and owing, of secrets and privacy? How can love subvert and de-construct power structures that use monogamy to move us away from caring collectively?

      10h – 11h30 A session with Katrien De Graeve
      11h30 – 13h A Session with Eva Berghmans
      13h – 14h Lunch
      14h – 15h30 A session with CW / the Common Wallet project
      15h30 – 16h Break
      16h – 18h A discussion through relating the themes of the day to our own practices

       

      October 22nd
      Love makes schools make love

      Guests: Jan Masschelein, Laurence Rassel, SRG / school research group

      Maybe one day, schools will no longer be considered as merely a protective incubator that prepares one to life outside of it, but rather an engaged environment that influences the world. Think of a society that bases its schools on experiment, reflection and collectivity, independent from the market's need. Schools that produce ideologies and policies, instead of being instrumentalised by them. Schools that gather strangers and differences under the common wish to study public matters in order to challenge and improve them. If ever such a society will exist, it will probably construct its schools as flexible systems that work in acceptance of potential change and disruption, as a way to embody that which is being studied in them. Can schools embrace love as a strategy to create a place of encounter where both the institution and its part takers grow in relation to each other? How can a school base its structure on the same principals it wishes to teach?

      13h – 16h A session with Jan Masschelein
      16h– 18h A session with Laurence Rassel
      18h – 19h Dinner (provided by a.pass)
      19h – 21h Presentation of school models that were developed by a.pass participants


      October 29th
      By putting that which is between us before that which we think belongs to us.

      Guests: Caroline Godart, Elke Van Campenhout

      School is maybe more of a verb than a noun. Its a state of “attentivnes” to the world that one could chose to enter at any time and any place, in the company of others. Within this logic, wouldn't being a student similar to being an artist? Schools and students could be considered as lovers, who commit to each other, but do not wish to control what the other does with the love that they give. To school could mean to study and care for the same thing that you would also be willing to let go of. To - engage with, and - detach from, at the same time. This could be the love that dares to bound spirituality and politics together. If school becomes a verb, teachers would then teach how to school, and maybe love would not be a feeling, but a mode of studying that generates feelings.

      10h – 13h A reading session with Caroline Godart
      13h – 14h Lunch
      14h – 16h A reading session with Caroline Godart
      16h – 16h30 Break
      16h30 – 18h A reading session with Elke Van Campenhout

       

      October 31st – Nov 5th (Nov 3rd – off)
      Instead of needing to know

      A workshop by Joao Fiadeiro.
      Guests: Elke Van Campenhout, Alex Arteaga

      If in both Love and School an openness to change through encounters with others is practiced, we better develop sensitivities to deal with a change into an unknown path. Perhaps we would be better off improvising through, with and within the unknown instead of needing to know. Maybe improvisation today can be approached as a mode of resistance to tendencies for a life dedicated to an anticipated and defined future. It might seem like stating the obvious, proposing to put improvisation back in the agenda. Life itself is an improvisation, of course, we never stopped improvising. But we can dedicate a special attention to it in order to examine its relevance to nowadays realities. Not the improvisation that aims to emancipate repressed self expressions, neither the one that provides skills and masteries to manoeuvre within individual lives and careers , but an improvisation attitude that may create an actualized set of relations between us and other people, us and other things, us and anything that is not us.

      10h – 18h A workshop with Joao Fiadeiro
      19h – 21h (Nov 2nd, 4th, 5th ) Evening interventions by Joao Fiadeiro, Elke Van Campenhout, Alex Arteaga


      November 12th
      The Love workers

      Guests: An Mertens, Daniela Bershan

      Artistic processes often face the contradiction of critiquing the same protocols they have to comply with, such as deadlines, saleable products, authorship, commissions and competition. Many artists experience frustration by the fact that policy makers, programmers and curators determine the visibility of certain artists/art works instead of others. A Love Worker – could this be a synonym for an Artist? Would this emancipate some practices from having to defend their relevance through the procedures imposed by artistic scenes? Or better than that – could this expand the boundaries of what an artistic work can become?

      10h – 13h A session with An Mertens (in the forest)
      13h – 15h Lunch (+ coming back from the forest)
      15h – 18h A session with Daniela Bershan

       

      BIOGRAPHIES

      Bleri Lleshi is philosopher, writer, lecturer, youth worker and DJ. He studied political sciences and philosophy at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. At the moment he is writing a ph.d on the struggle of the excluded. Lleshi is lecturer at UCLL where he teaches various subjects on social sciences. His research focuses on topics such as inequality, neoliberalism, youth, migration, identities, and extremism. Lleshi has participated in conferences, debates and media. In 2014, he was considered as one of the most influential immigrants in Belgium

      Johan Grimonprez’s critically acclaimed work dances on the borders of practice and theory, art and cinema, documentary and fiction, demanding a double take on the part of the viewer. Informed by an archeology of present-day media, his work seeks out the tension between the intimate and the bigger picture of globalization. It questions our contemporary sublime, one framed by a fear industry that has infected political and social dialogue. By suggesting new narratives through which to tell a story, his work emphasizes a multiplicity of realities. Grimonprez's curatorial projects, films and installations have been exhibited at museums worldwide. He published several books and he lectures widely.

      Femke Snelting works as artist and designer, developing projects at the intersection of design, feminism and free software. In various constellations she explores how digital tools and practices might co-construct each other. She is member of Constant, a non-profit, artist-run association for art and media based in Brussels. Since 1997, Constant generates performative publishing, curatorial processes, poetic software, experimental research and educational prototypes in local and international contexts. http://constantvzw.org/

      Eva Berghmans is a journalist working for 'De Standaard'. As a journalist she has an excuse to step up to people and ask them all kind of weird and intimate questions. She never took 'because this is the way we have always done things' for an answer and tries to see through the presumptions in our everyday lives. Currently she is working on a research project on polyamory, published on http://www.standaard.be/tag/.'

      CW/the Common Wallet project is an initiative of 10 people from the art sector in Belgium who share their individual income in one collective bank account. Through this experiment they collectively explore their psychological and cultural dependencies on money and a possible alternative to the monogamous and often lonely relationship one has with the money one earns. CW part takers are : Luigi Coppola, Eliza Demarre, Anna Rispoli, Adva Zakai, Diederik Peeters, Christophe Meierhans, Luca Mattei, Agnes Quackels, Ingrid Vranken, Irena Ramanovic


      Katrien De Graeve is a postdoctoral researcher of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), affiliated to the Department of Languages and Cultures of Ghent University, and member of the Centre for Research on Culture and Gender. In 2012, she completed her PhD at the Department of Comparative Sciences of Culture at Ghent University with a critical analysis of intensive parenting practices in Belgian-Ethiopian adoptive families. In her current research project (2016-2019), she has shifted focus to the study of sexuality/romantic relationships and discourses of exclusivity and plurality in light of the normative two-parent nuclear family.

      Jan Masschelein is head of the Laboratory for Education and Society, and of the research group Education, Culture and Society. He studied educational sciences and philosophy at the K.U.Leuven and at the Johan Wolfgang Goethe Universität in Frankfurt am Main and is as well Fellow of the Alexander Von Humboldt-Stiftung. His research can be situated in the broad domain of the formation of educational theory, critical theory, social philosophy and governmentality studies. More concretely it concerns the public and societal role of education and schooling, the role of the university, the changing experiences of time and space in the age of the network, the educational meaning of cinema and camera, the architecture of schools and architecture of the learning environment, a pedagogy of attention, the notion of 'pedagogy', the pedagogical role of teachers and social workers. A lot of attention is directed towards experimental educational practices and towards new forms of documentary and exploratory research.

      Laurence Rassel is currently the director of art school ERG in Brussels. Educated in visual arts and pedagogy, she pursued an interdisciplinary trajectory from new media to the management of an artistic institution. From 2010 to the end of June 2015, she was director of the Fundacio Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona, a foundation created to promote contemporary art and thought, and the study of Antoni Tàpies' work. Previously, from 1998, she was, among others, responsible for Constant, a non-profit organization based in Brussels. Constant connects theoretical thinking, the critical use of new technologies, artistic behavior and political issues in the network. At the same time, she was project coordinator for the Interface3 women's technology training center in Brussels, as part of the European ADA project from 2001 to 2006. 



      SRG/School Research Group is an open group of art practitioners and pedagogues who meet regularly in order to share their interest and experience within school environments in Belgium and study together. 



      Caroline Godart is a writer, professor and dramaturge based in Brussels. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature with a concentration in Cinema Studies from Rutgers University (USA), where she studied with Elizabeth Grosz. She is now an Assistant Professor of Communication, Germanic Languages and Cultural Studies at IHECS (Institut des Hautes Études des Communications Sociales, Brussels). Her first book, The Dimensions of Difference, was published by Rowman and Littlefield in 2016. It explores the question of difference, and in particular of sexual difference, through three axes (space, time, and embodiment), which are approached both as aesthetic devices and as philosophical concepts in the works of Luce Irigaray, Gilles Deleuze and Henri Bergson.

      Elke Van Campenhout / ELLE is a tantric practioner and artistic researcher. She developed her work partly at the a.pass research institute where she worked for five years under the umbrella of Bureau d’Espoir, a practice on the import, export and redistribution of hope. For this practice she studied political theory, contemporary philosophy and spiritual body practices. Her work is a transdisciplinary practice, linking contemporary philosophy to spiritual body practice, in the development of an ethics of coming together and rethinking our relation to the world we live in. Since 2 years Elke Van Campenhout and Stijn Smeets started up the experimental living community The Monastery, dedicating all their time and resources on the creation of a spiritual life of devotion, alternative economies, and ritual composition.

      João Fiadeiro belongs to a generation of choreographers who emerged in the late 1980’s and led to the emergence of the Nova Dança Portuguesa. In 1990, he founded the workshop RE.AL Company that supported the creation and dissemination of several choreographers and their works, which were regularly performed in Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and South America. Real Time Composition is a project that he has been developing for twenty years. In parallel, he has organized several workshops in various training courses, schools and universities throughout the world. João Fiadeiro is currently completing a PhD in contemporary art at the University of Coimbra in Portugal.

      Alex Arteaga’s research integrates aesthetic and philosophical practices relating to aesthetics, the emergence of sense, meaning and knowledge, and the relationships between aurality, architecture and the environment through phenomenological and enactivist approaches. He studied composition, music theory, piano, electroacoustic music, and architecture in Berlin and Barcelona and received a PhD in philosophy from the Humboldt University for his dissertation Sensuous Framing: Fundamentals of a Strategy to Realize Conditions of Perception. From 2008 to 2012 he was a post-doctoral researcher at the Collegium for the Advanced Study of Picture Act and Embodiment at the Humboldt University and visiting professor at the MA Choreography at the Inter- University Centre for Dance Berlin. In 2012 he led the research team at the Berlin.

      An Mertens is artist, writer, and core-member of Constant, an artist run organisation for experimental art and media in Brussels. Next to a practise of literary creation using algorithms, she is also a nature guide in Forêt de Soignes and writing fiction with a particular interest for the non-human presences in woods.
http://constantvzw.org, http://www.algolit.net, http://www.paramoulipist.be/

      Daniela Bershan aka Baba Electronica is a love worker using visual arts, performance, music making and social organization around topics of collective study, care-making and practices of (non-sexual) intimacy. In her work she conceptualizes not just the characteristics of her materials but with and through them the skills and objects they can be read with: the DJ, the remixer, the researcher, the love-worker are dissecting choreographies and scores in order to make tangible how they operate; and enable to organize relations otherwise. They are committed to experiment and circulate with queering tools. Bershan co-founded and directed FATFORM (NL), and is co-organizing ELSEWHERE & OTHERWISE at Performing Arts Forum (FR). Her works, projects and performances have been presented worldwide.

       

       
    • Trouble seeing this email? Online version here.

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      You are warmly Invited to 

      ____

      The
      Document

      Trans-
      formed

      ____

       Masterclasses and Seminar
      +
      Book launch 'Dirty room' Juan Dominguez
      a.pass research centre publication

      JUNE 22-23-24 @ LA BELLONE
      Rue de Flandre 46
      Brussels

       

       


      Curated by Sofia Caesar and Lilia Mestre, the public program “The Document Transformed” invites four practitioners that offer very distinct questions, methods, and proposals to problems related to documentation. Join Femke Snelting, Olga de Soto, Vincent Meessen, and Agency (Kobe Matthys), and others, for three days of presentations, screenings, performances and conversations. How does the document affect practices, bodies, histories, and experiences? The event brings together practices that not only give sight to the power relations engendered by apparatuses of documentation, but also move towards the transformation of the systems in which we produce history, law, art, and the body. Held in the context of The Problem of the Score, block curated by Lilia Mestre in the a.pass post-master research program and supported by a.pass. 

      In the frame of the seminar the book Dirty Room will be presented. It is the fourth and last phase of Juan Dominguez’s research, developed during 2015-16 as a.pass associate researcher.

       

      This seminar is organized in collaboration with La Bellone

      PROGRAM 

      Thursday 22 June 

      10:00 > 13:00    Masterclass Agency (Kobe Matthys)

      14:00 >17:00     Masterclass Possible Bodies (Femke Snelting and Adva Zakai)

      Friday 23 June

      10:00 >13:00     Exhibition visit ( Bozar ) and discussion with Vincent Meessen

      14:00 >17:00     Masterclass Olga de Soto

      To inscribe to the master-classes please send an email to production@apass.be
      1 Masterclass: 15 Euro, 2 Masterclasses: 20 Euro, 2 days: 30 Euro.
      Free for (ex) participants of a.pass

      Saturday June 24th 12:00 > 18:00 
      FREE, reservation appreciated 

      In this afternoon of presentations, screenings, and performances, the four invited practitioners will take us to dive deeper into different case studies.

      12:30    Sofia Caesar: Introduction talk
      13:00    Femke Snelting
      14:00    Olga de Soto
      PAUSE
      15:30    Vincent Meessen
      16:30    Agency (Kobe Matthys)
      17:30    Book launch with Juan Dominguez and Victoria Perez Rojo


      Don't forget to reserve for your Masterclass by sending an email to : production@apass.be

      DETAILED PROGRAM DOWN BELOW

       

       

      Detailed program:


       

      Thursday June 22nd

      10:00 > 13:00        Masterclass Agency (Kobe Matthys)

      What if ephemeral things become included within art practices? Intellectual property seems to be mostly reserved for “fixated” things. Although the European copyright law doesn’t exclude variability, during jurisprudences judges consider movements that are “recordable” in some way or another. Agency calls forth different controversies from recorded movements in dance and performance and sport. By paying attention to the consequences of the apparatus of intellectual property right for the protocols inherent to practices, the fragility of the mode of existence of singular art practices is made explicit.

       

      14:00 >17:00     Masterclass Possible Bodies (Femke Snelting and Adva Zakai)

      This edition will be dedicated to a collaborative dissection of the BioVision Hierarchy file format. BioVision Hierarchy (.bvh) is an ASCII file format used to import data from various motion capture systems into 3D-animation software. It was developed in the mid-nineties and remains one of the most commonly used file-formats for transposing movement captured in physical space, to a computational environment. Around this relatively legible format, a rich ecology of software tools developed. The file-format functions as a boundary object between practices and bodies, as it is used by animators, game developers, interface researchers, medical professionals, dance-historians, sports-analysts and engineers.

      Together we will analyse the .bvh specifications and samples of the file format in order to understand what imaginaries of the body are encoded into it, what a bipedal skeleton hierarchy consists of, and how rotational data for rigid bodies might constitute a movement in itself.

      The reading of the .bvh file format is developed with Adva Zakai in the context of Possible Bodies, a collaborative research initiated by Jara Rocha and Femke Snelting on the very concrete and at the same time complex and fictional entities that “bodies” are, and the matter-cultural conditions of possibility that render them present.

       

      Friday June 23rd

      10:00 >13:00        Exhibition visit (Bozar) and discussion with Vincent Meessen
                                       
      Starts at Main entrance of Bozar.

      In this afternoon, artist Vincent Meessen will take us through his Bozar show, that comes from his recent practice that involves research, historicization, and speculation about congolese works of art that have been commissioned and (re-)contextualized in the early 30’s. Starting from there, we can raise some issues about what a work of art is expected to be and how it can shift meaning with context and neighbouring artefacts.

      More about the show Patterns for (Re)cognition by Tshela Tendu & Vincent Meessen, Opening 16th June at BOZAR: http://www.bozar.be/nl/activities/124891-tshela-tendu-vincent-meessen

       

      14:00 >17:00       Masterclass Olga de Soto

      Olga de Soto will share her research project that has Kurt Jooss’ The Green Table (1932) as a starting point. She will display the process, methods, research protocols and strategies that she has developed over time, and through which she addresses the question of reconstruction, re-enactment and revival from the perspective of the trace, both material and immaterial, in order to analyse the several charges the work contain (social, political, dramatic, emotional…).

      She will share with us how she approached Jooss’ work through the archive, the trace and the document, proposing to circumvent the traditional modalities of transmission in dance, in order to probe the archive’s “capabilities” to say the work, as well to examine the archive’s “becoming-work”.

      We will observe how the project and its process unfolded simultaneously into two levels: on a documentary research level and on a creation level. With the help of several documents, we will observe how the documentary research was developed, dedicated in part to researching and documenting the perception and transmission of The Green Table, seeking out iconographic material (through the gathering of numerous documents of different kinds), analysing the choreographic characteristics of the work and looking for witnesses – dancers and audience members from different origins and generations, in order to study the perception of the work through the prism of the viewer’s gaze (using the interview as a tool to collect memories, focusing on the importance of the testimony and oral sources).

       

      Saturday June 24th 12:30 > 19:00

      In this afternoon of presentations, screenings, and performances, the four invited practitioners will take us to dive deeper into different case studies.
       
      12:30   Sofia Caesar: Introduction talk

      13:00  Femke Snelting

      Femke Snelting will present a collaborative dissection of the BioVision Hierarchy file format. BioVision Hierarchy (.bvh) is an ASCII file format used to import data from various motion capture systems into 3D-animation software. Together they will analyse the .bvh specifications and samples of the file format in order to understand what imaginaries of the body are encoded into it, what a bipedal skeleton hierarchy consists of, and how rotational data for rigid bodies might constitute a movement in itself.

      14:00 Olga de Soto

      Olga de Soto will share some excerpts of Débords, work presented at Les Halles in 2012, as well as some excerpts of the installation she is currently working on, and that was partially presented this Spring at Museum für Neue Kunst, in Freiburg. The presentation will be punctuated with a discussion on the work.

      PAUSE

      15:30  Vincent Meessen

      Vincent Meessen will screen “One. Two. Three.”, piece presented in Wiels in 2016, followed by a talk about his strategies of re-composition and counter-narratives.

      16:30 Agency (Kobe Matthys)

      What if ephemeral things become included within art practices?” Thing 001678 (Le Jeune Homme et la Mort) concerns a conflict between on the one hand Roger Eudes, Théâtre Champs-Elysées, and on the other hand Jean Guttmann (Babilée) and Jean Cocteau about the performance Le Jeune Homme et la Mort. On June 8, 1960, the court case Eudes c. Gutmann, Cocteau et autres took place at the Cour d’appel de Paris. Judge Rousselet had to decide who owned the rights over the movements of the performance, Eudes who hired Jean Gutmann to “translate” Jean Cocteau his drama into ballet movements or Cocteau who wrote the script of Le Jeune Homme et la Mort.

      17:30 Book launch with Juan Dominguez and Victoria Perez Rojo

      The book Dirty Room is the fourth and last phase of Juan Dominguez’s research, developed during 2015-16 as a.pass associate researcher. Dirty Room is a collection of outlines, notes, ideas, reflections, photographic materials, maps, manifestos, fragments from diaries, transcriptions of conversations, interviews, email exchanges, memoirs, memories and scripts, among other documents from the working and research process that led to Clean RoomClean Room was a project based on the concept of seriality with a pilot and 3 more seasons of 6 episodes each that took place from 2010 to 2016.

      Dirty Room offers the readers an immersion in the process of the project Clean Room. It is a book in which there are no critical essays, or texts speaking only from the external position of the spectator. All of the contributions are part of the ongoing research and working process of Clean Room, either continually accompanying it over long periods or as one-off contributions at a specific moments. This decision highlights the great potential of the process in its fragmentary, undefined and open nature not only for the transmission of knowledge and ideas, but above all for stimulating imaginative processes to connect with the concerns that set the series in motion.

      Dirty Room

      Edited by: Juan Domínguez and Victoria Pérez Royo

      Editorial: Continta me tienes

      Executive Production: manyone

      Madrid, May 2017

      Translations by Ana Buitrago, Simon Malone and Catherine Phelps

      This is a publication by the a.pass research centre.

       


       

      About the participants:

      Vincent Meessen

      Through the use of various media, Meessen aims to ‘experience the document and document the experience’. His investigations lead to associations and appropriative gestures that are rewritten into critical narratives, pointing to the colonial matrix of western modernity. Meessen reactivates hidden traces of the colonial in the present and opens up new speculative scenarios.

      Both in his work as an artist and in his para-curatorial activities, Meessen likes to use procedures of collaboration that undermine the authority of the author and emphasize the intelligence of collectives. With ten guests artists, Meessen represented Belgium at the 56th Venice Biennale. Recent solo exhibitions include: OK/KO in the frame of Dans la pluralité des mondes / Printemps de Septembre, Toulouse (F), 2016; Sire je suis de l’ôtre pays in WIELS, Brussels 2016 and Patterns for (Re)cognition at the Kunsthalle Basel, 2015. Recent group presentations include Gestures and archives of the present, genealogies of the future, Taipei Biennale, Taiwan and The Family of the Invisible at the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA).
       

      Agency

      Agency is a Brussels-based initiative founded in 1992, which constitutes a growing list of ‘things’ that resist the radical split between the classifications of “nature” and “culture” and consequently between expressions and ideas, creations and facts, subjects and objects, humans and non-humans, originality and common, mind and body, etc.

       

      Femke Snelting (Possible Bodies)

      Artist and designer, developing projects at the intersection of design, feminism and free software. She is a core member of Constant, the Brussels-based association for arts and media, and co-initiated the design/research team Open Source Publishing (OSP). With delegates Jara Rocha, Seda Guerses and Miriyam Aouragh she takes part in the Darmstadt Delegation, assigned to explore techno-political and socio-emotional relationships between activist practice and tools. She formed De Geuzen (a foundation for multi-visual research) with Renée Turner and Riek Sijbring and recently co-ordinated the Libre Graphics Research Unit, a European partnership investigating inter-relations between free software tools and artistic practice. Femke teaches at the Piet Zwart Institute (Master Media Design and Communication).

      Possible Bodies is a collaborative research on the very concrete and at the same time complex and fictional entities that “bodies” are, asking what matter-cultural conditions of possibility render them present. This becomes especially urgent in contact with the technologies, infrastructures and techniques of 3D tracking, modelling and scanning. Intersecting issues of race, gender, class, age and ability resurface through these performative as well as representational practices. The research is concerned with genealogies of how bodies and technologies have been mutually constituted. It interrogates corpo-realities and their orientation through parametric interfaces and looks at anatomies that are computationally constrained by the requirements of mesh-modelling. It invites the generation of concepts and experimental renderings, wild combinations and digital and non-digital prototypes for different embodiments. Collectors: Jara Rocha + Femke Snelting.

      Her collaborator Adva Zakai is a choreographer, performer and curator who explores how body and language are perceived through each other.
       

      Olga de Soto

      Olga de Soto Olga de Soto is choreographer and dance researcher, born in Valencia, she lives in Brussels. She graduates from CNDC / Centre National de Danse Contemporaine d’Angers, after having studied classical ballet, contemporary dance and music theory in Valencia and in Madrid. Her creation work begins in 1992, and includes the creation of numerous works of different formats. Since the end of the ’90, her work focuses on the study of memory, and it questions the impact of live art, its usefulness its lasting quality, deploying itself along two axes. The first centres on the study of the body’s memory through the creation of works, aiming at a pluralistic approach to dance and the body, in works creations such as anarborescences (Théâtre de la Cité internationale, Paris, 1999), Éclats mats (Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2001), INCORPORER ce qui reste ici au dans mon cœur (Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2004-2009). The second axis explores works from the history of dance as part of an approach governed by the study of perceptual memory, that of spectators and dancers. The resulting projects emphasize the importance of the processes and pay particular attention to documents, to the process of documentation, to testimony, to archives and oral sources, narrative and storytelling, particularly in works such as histoire(s) (Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels, 2004), An Introduction (Tanz Im August, Berlin, 2010) or Débords (Festival d’Automne, Paris, 2012). These projects are interested in the experience of the viewer and in the anthropology of the spectacle, while developing through an approach that studies the aesthetic experience based on the oral history of works from the past. Her last projects genuinely mix the languages of choreography with those of documentary, performance, visual arts and installation, playing with the porousness of these disciplines. The work of the choreographer also reveals the strong links between art history, social and political history, and personal paths. Olga de Soto’s work has been shown in some twenty countries, an she is regularly invited to teach and to lead workshops and classes in various universities, as well as to collaborate in conferences where she shares her research methodology and her documentation work. She was awarded the SACD Prize 2013 in the category of Performing Arts for both her trajectory and her research work on Dance History, and specially for her research and creation work on The Green Table.

       
       

      THE
      DOCUMENT

      TRANS-
      FORMED


      JUNE 22-23-24
      @ LA BELLONE
      Rue de Flandre 46
      Brussels

       
       


       a.pass

      tel: +32 (0)2 411.49.16
      email: office@apass.be
      web: www.apass.be

       

       


    • Curated by Sofia Caesar and Lilia Mestre, the public program “The Document Transformed” invites four practitioners that offer very distinct questions, methods, and proposals to problems related to documentation. Join Femke Snelting, Olga de Soto, Vincent Meessen, and Agency (Kobe Matthys), and others, for three days of presentations, screenings, performances and conversations. How does the document affect practices, bodies, histories, and experiences? The event brings together practices that not only give sight to the power relations engendered by apparatuses of documentation, but also move towards the transformation of the systems in which we produce history, law, art, and the body. Held in the context of The Problem of the Score, block curated by Lilia Mestre in the a.pass post-master research program and supported by a.pass.

      This seminar is organized in collaboration with La Bellone - Brussels

      To inscribe to the master-classes please send an email to production@apass.be


      JUNE 22-23-24 @ LA BELLONE
      Rue de Flandre 46
      Brussels

      Detailed program:

      Thursday June 22nd

      10:00 > 13:00        Masterclass Agency (Kobe Matthys)

      What if ephemeral things become included within art practices? Intellectual property seems to be mostly reserved for “fixated” things. Although the European copyright law doesn't exclude variability, during jurisprudences judges consider movements that are “recordable” in some way or another. Agency calls forth different controversies from recorded movements in dance and performance and sport. By paying attention to the consequences of the apparatus of intellectual property right for the protocols inherent to practices, the fragility of the mode of existence of singular art practices is made explicit.

       

      14:00 >17:00     Masterclass Possible Bodies (Femke Snelting and Adva Zakai)

      This edition will be dedicated to a collaborative dissection of the BioVision Hierarchy file format. BioVision Hierarchy (.bvh) is an ASCII file format used to import data from various motion capture systems into 3D-animation software. It was developed in the mid-nineties and remains one of the most commonly used file-formats for transposing movement captured in physical space, to a computational environment. Around this relatively legible format, a rich ecology of software tools developed. The file-format functions as a boundary object between practices and bodies, as it is used by animators, game developers, interface researchers, medical professionals, dance-historians, sports-analysts and engineers.

      Together we will analyse the .bvh specifications and samples of the file format in order to understand what imaginaries of the body are encoded into it, what a bipedal skeleton hierarchy consists of, and how rotational data for rigid bodies might constitute a movement in itself.

      The reading of the .bvh file format is developed with Adva Zakai in the context of Possible Bodies, a collaborative research initiated by Jara Rocha and Femke Snelting on the very concrete and at the same time complex and fictional entities that “bodies” are, and the matter-cultural conditions of possibility that render them present.

       

      Friday June 23rd

      10:00 >13:00        Exhibition visit (Bozar) and discussion with Vincent Meessen
      Starts at Bozar Main entrance

      In this afternoon, artist Vincent Meessen will take us through his Bozar show, that comes from his recent practice that involves research, historicization, and speculation about congolese works of art that have been commissioned and (re-)contextualized in the early 30’s. Starting from there, we can raise some issues about what a work of art is expected to be and how it can shift meaning with context and neighbouring artefacts.

      More about the show Patterns for (Re)cognition by Tshela Tendu & Vincent Meessen, Opening 16th June at BOZAR: http://www.bozar.be/nl/activities/124891-tshela-tendu-vincent-meessen

       

      14:00 >17:00       Masterclass Olga de Soto

      Olga de Soto will share her research project that has Kurt Jooss’ The Green Table (1932) as a starting point. She will display the process, methods, research protocols and strategies that she has developed over time, and through which she addresses the question of reconstruction, re-enactment and revival from the perspective of the trace, both material and immaterial, in order to analyse the several charges the work contain (social, political, dramatic, emotional...).

      She will share with us how she approached Jooss' work through the archive, the trace and the document, proposing to circumvent the traditional modalities of transmission in dance, in order to probe the archive’s "capabilities" to say the work, as well to examine the archive's "becoming-work".

      We will observe how the project and its process unfolded simultaneously into two levels: on a documentary research level and on a creation level. With the help of several documents, we will observe how the documentary research was developed, dedicated in part to researching and documenting the perception and transmission of The Green Table, seeking out iconographic material (through the gathering of numerous documents of different kinds), analysing the choreographic characteristics of the work and looking for witnesses – dancers and audience members from different origins and generations, in order to study the perception of the work through the prism of the viewer’s gaze (using the interview as a tool to collect memories, focusing on the importance of the testimony and oral sources).

       

      Saturday June 24th 12:00 > 18:00

      In this afternoon of presentations, screenings, and performances, the four invited practitioners will take us to dive deeper into different case studies.

       

      12:30   Sofia Caesar: Introduction talk

      13:00  Femke Snelting

      Femke Snelting will present a collaborative dissection of the BioVision Hierarchy file format. BioVision Hierarchy (.bvh) is an ASCII file format used to import data from various motion capture systems into 3D-animation software. Together they will analyse the .bvh specifications and samples of the file format in order to understand what imaginaries of the body are encoded into it, what a bipedal skeleton hierarchy consists of, and how rotational data for rigid bodies might constitute a movement in itself.

      14:00 Olga de Soto

      Olga de Soto will share some excerpts of Débords, work presented at Les Halles in 2012, as well as some excerpts of the installation she is currently working on, and that was partially presented this Spring at Museum für Neue Kunst, in Freiburg. The presentation will be punctuated with a discussion on the work.

       

      PAUSE

       

      15:30  Vincent Meessen

      Vincent Meessen will screen “One. Two. Three.”, piece presented in Wiels in 2016, followed by a talk about his strategies of re-composition and counter-narratives.

      16:30 Agency (Kobe Matthys)

      What if ephemeral things become included within art practices?” Thing 001678 (Le Jeune Homme et la Mort) concerns a conflict between on the one hand Roger Eudes, Théâtre Champs-Elysées, and on the other hand Jean Guttmann (Babilée) and Jean Cocteau about the performance Le Jeune Homme et la Mort. On June 8, 1960, the court case Eudes c. Gutmann, Cocteau et autres took place at the Cour d’appel de Paris. Judge Rousselet had to decide who owned the rights over the movements of the performance, Eudes who hired Jean Gutmann to “translate” Jean Cocteau his drama into ballet movements or Cocteau who wrote the script of Le Jeune Homme et la Mort.

      17:30 Book launch with Juan Dominguez and Victoria Perez Rojo

      The book Dirty Room is the fourth and last phase of Juan Dominguez’s research, developed during 2015-16 as a.pass associate researcher. Dirty Room is a collection of outlines, notes, ideas, reflections, photographic materials, maps, manifestos, fragments from diaries, transcriptions of conversations, interviews, email exchanges, memoirs, memories and scripts, among other documents from the working and research process that led to Clean Room. Clean Room was a project based on the concept of seriality with a pilot and 3 more seasons of 6 episodes each that took place from 2010 to 2016.

      Dirty Room offers the readers an immersion in the process of the project Clean Room. It is a book in which there are no critical essays, or texts speaking only from the external position of the spectator. All of the contributions are part of the ongoing research and working process of Clean Room, either continually accompanying it over long periods or as one-off contributions at a specific moments. This decision highlights the great potential of the process in its fragmentary, undefined and open nature not only for the transmission of knowledge and ideas, but above all for stimulating imaginative processes to connect with the concerns that set the series in motion.

      Dirty Room

      Edited by: Juan Domínguez and Victoria Pérez Royo

      Editorial: Continta me tienes

      Executive Production: manyone

      Madrid, May 2017

      Translations by Ana Buitrago, Simon Malone and Catherine Phelps

      This is a publication by the a.pass research centre.

       

      About the participants

      Vincent Meessen

      "Transform documents into experiences and vice versa". This phrase by Aby Warburg could definitely be used to introduce Vincent Meessen's speculative realism, or as he calls it: 'documents d'expérience'. His archival investigations always lead to loose associations and appropriative gestures that are rewritten into critical narratives.

      In his latest modular installations he combines films with printed matter and sculptures. Meessen produces narratives that question our ability to deal with the colonial ghosts of modernity. In his recent Vita Nova, he makes use of the filmic essay to re-read Roland Barthes in various postcolonial African situations, applying Barthes's deconstruction tools to some of his famous texts. Vincent Meessen likes to use procedures of collaboration that undermine the authority of the author and emphasize the intelligence of collectives and of conceptual characters. He is a founding member of the artist collective Potential Estate and of the platform for artistic research and production Jubilee (jubilee-art.org).  

      Recent shows include KIOSK (Ghent), ARS 11, Kiasma Museum (Helsinki), Stedelijk Museum Bureau (Amsterdam) and Contour Biennial for Moving Images (Mechelen). He worked together with the collective Potential Estate for the Brussels Biennial and M HKA (Antwerp). His filmworks were screened at Jeu de Paume, at Cinémathèque française (Paris), at Museo Reina Sofia (Madrid), at the Swiss Institute (NY) and at international festivals such as IDFA (Amsterdam), IFFR (Rotterdam), Cinéma du Réel (Paris) and Transmediale (Berlin). His films are distributed by Argos center for art & media (Brussels) (see also section on Art Organisations). Meessen has curated several film programs and exhibitions for various institutions including Extra City (Antwerp), Argos (Brussels), C.E.A.C (Xiamen, CH), E.R.B.A (Valence, F).

       

      Agency

      Agency is a Brussels-based initiative founded in 1992, which constitutes a growing list of 'things' that resist the radical split between the classifications of "nature" and "culture" and consequently between expressions and ideas, creations and facts, subjects and objects, humans and non-humans, originality and common, mind and body, etc.

       

      Femke Snelting (Possible Bodies)

      Artist and designer, developing projects at the intersection of design, feminism and free software. She is a core member of Constant, the Brussels-based association for arts and media, and co-initiated the design/research team Open Source Publishing (OSP). With delegates Jara Rocha, Seda Guerses and Miriyam Aouragh she takes part in the Darmstadt Delegation, assigned to explore techno-political and socio-emotional relationships between activist practice and tools. She formed De Geuzen (a foundation for multi-visual research) with Renée Turner and Riek Sijbring and recently co-ordinated the Libre Graphics Research Unit, a European partnership investigating inter-relations between free software tools and artistic practice. Femke teaches at the Piet Zwart Institute (Master Media Design and Communication).

      Possible Bodies is a collaborative research on the very concrete and at the same time complex and fictional entities that “bodies” are, asking what matter-cultural conditions of possibility render them present. This becomes especially urgent in contact with the technologies, infrastructures and techniques of 3D tracking, modelling and scanning. Intersecting issues of race, gender, class, age and ability resurface through these performative as well as representational practices. The research is concerned with genealogies of how bodies and technologies have been mutually constituted. It interrogates corpo-realities and their orientation through parametric interfaces and looks at anatomies that are computationally constrained by the requirements of mesh-modelling. It invites the generation of concepts and experimental renderings, wild combinations and digital and non-digital prototypes for different embodiments. Collectors: Jara Rocha + Femke Snelting.

      Her collaborator Adva Zakai is a choreographer, performer and curator who explores how body and language are perceived through each other.

       

      Olga de Soto

      Olga de Soto Olga de Soto is choreographer and dance researcher, born in Valencia, she lives in Brussels. She graduates from CNDC / Centre National de Danse Contemporaine d’Angers, after having studied classical ballet, contemporary dance and music theory in Valencia and in Madrid. Her creation work begins in 1992, and includes the creation of numerous works of different formats. Since the end of the ’90, her work focuses on the study of memory, and it questions the impact of live art, its usefulness its lasting quality, deploying itself along two axes. The first centres on the study of the body's memory through the creation of works, aiming at a pluralistic approach to dance and the body, in works creations such as anarborescences (Théâtre de la Cité internationale, Paris, 1999), Éclats mats (Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2001), INCORPORER ce qui reste ici au dans mon cœur (Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2004-2009). The second axis explores works from the history of dance as part of an approach governed by the study of perceptual memory, that of spectators and dancers. The resulting projects emphasize the importance of the processes and pay particular attention to documents, to the process of documentation, to testimony, to archives and oral sources, narrative and storytelling, particularly in works such as histoire(s) (Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels, 2004), An Introduction (Tanz Im August, Berlin, 2010) or Débords (Festival d’Automne, Paris, 2012). These projects are interested in the experience of the viewer and in the anthropology of the spectacle, while developing through an approach that studies the aesthetic experience based on the oral history of works from the past. Her last projects genuinely mix the languages of choreography with those of documentary, performance, visual arts and installation, playing with the porousness of these disciplines. The work of the choreographer also reveals the strong links between art history, social and political history, and personal paths. Olga de Soto’s work has been shown in some twenty countries, an she is regularly invited to teach and to lead workshops and classes in various universities, as well as to collaborate in conferences where she shares her research methodology and her documentation work. She was awarded the SACD Prize 2013 in the category of Performing Arts for both her trajectory and her research work on Dance History, and specially for her research and creation work on The Green Table.

    • postgraduate program
    • block 2017/II
    • Medium Score
    • The Problem of the Score
    • The problem of the score Block curated by Lilia Mestre / May > July 2017
      21 April 2017
      posted by: Lilia Mestre
    • case of: Lilia Mestre
    • The problem of the score


      From May till July 2017 the a.pass post-master program questions how structures pre-determine singular outcomes, and to what extent they imply relationality. Every system is a network of connections and the way the system is set to operate defines forms of relation which reveal ideological standpoints. In other words modes of interaction are formatting forces that construct worlds. If we think that way, what kind of problems do our research structures entail?  And if we can think a polyphonic world , constituted by multiple models, how do we consider our own structure as a relational one? What kind of technologies are we putting into place? What kind of invitation are we making? And to whom?

      The notions of ‘apparatus’ and ‘tentacular thinking’ will be key to understanding and experiencing the problem of score in contextual ecologies. Apparatuses, as coined by Foucault and Agamben, are systems of governance that enable relationships between beings and structures through which the subject is constructed. During former block Donna Haraway  introduced us to tentacular thinking as a place from which one can build relations to economical, biological, philosophical, productional, institutional, etc orders. Together with the a.pass researchers, workshop givers and guests we reflect on them, challenge our practices and relate to other authors and art makers.

      Every Thursday we meet at a.pass 4th floor for movement practice with Anouk Llaurens, followed by a reading and reflexion group that tackles emergent issues and in the evening we play ‘The medium Score’. Through the score we concentrate on Medium, Method and Model in our researches as points of analysis and tools to craft relations. The MMM attempts to understand the implications of our works in our environmental context. The crazier the better!

      The Medium Score is a next iteration of Block Curator Lilia Mestre’s research on scores as collaborative tools for production, pedagogy and discourse. A variation of Writing Score https:///www.apass.be/writing-scores-the-book/ but this time each score participant will focus on his/her own medium. Scores are seen as dispositives of collaboration, of conversation and practice that tie together a plurality of concerns of a.pass researchers. More information about the previous scores at the ABCDAIRE > entry = Scores

      In what concerns workshops, Vladimir Miller and his project Settlement is in for a 2 week investigation on how spatial setups embody and facilitate certain ideologies of togetherness. Jennifer Lacey gives a week workshop on choreography and dance. Her approach consists in the development of processes specific to each project and its resources of production. Through her methods we produce aesthetic rules, body vocabulary and behaviour related to us as a group in context.

      In collaboration with former a.pass researchers Sofia Caeser we organise a seminar at La Bellone with focus on the status of document and display as structures that reveal power relations and equally structures that can be transformed and modify those same power relations. The full programme is under construction but we can already announce that artists Vincent Meessen, Olga de Soto, Kobe Matthys and Femke Snelting are invited to give public talks and masterclasses. Former a.pass associate researcher Juan Dominguez launches the book that results from his research on conspiracy.

      During The Problem of the Score the concrete models under consideration are the methodologies of researchers, the devices proposed by workshop givers, the structure of a seminar and the score as learning through practice tool.

      More information about the block soon!

    • postgraduate program
    • reading session
    • Book Club
    • Trouble on Radio Triton
    • Book Club #9 Language as Magic and the Language of Things Book Club Series / Caroline Godart & Marialena Marouda
      03 March 2017
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • a.pass
    • 17 March 2017
    • Book Club #9 Language as Magic and the Language of Things

       

       

       

      Bookclub #9

      Close Reading Session with Caroline Godart and Marialena Marouda

      Language as Magic and the Language of Things

      Walter Benjamin’s “On Language as Such and on the Language of Man”

       

       

       

       

      “To whom does the lamp communicate itself? The mountain? The fox?”

       

      In the essay “On Language as Such and on the Language of Man” Benjamin proposes a language metaphysics that extends to every thing. Every thing has a language: objects, animals, human beings but also immaterial things, like the Arts or Technology. For Benjamin language is therefore a medium going very much beyond human language and the communication through words. One could say language is the way in which some thing – indeed every thing – communicates itself to the world.

      During this morning session we will read Benjamin’s text on the metaphysics of language by using the method of the feminist close reading. By encountering the text in such a way we will try to unfold concepts such as the magic in language and the language of things.

       

       

       

      Caroline Godart holds a PhD in Comparative Literature with a concentration in Cinema Studies from Rutgers University (USA), where she studied under the direction of Elizabeth Grosz. She is now an Assistant Professor of Communication, Germanic Languages and Cultural Studies at IHECS (Institut des Hautes Études des Communications Sociales, Brussels) and a Scientific Collaborator at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). Her first book, The Dimensions of Difference, was published by Rowman and Littlefield in 2016. It explores the question of difference, and in particular of sexual difference, through three axes (space, time, and embodiment), which are approached both as aesthetic devices and as philosophical concepts in the works of Luce Irigaray, Gilles Deleuze and Henri Bergson.

      http://www.rowmaninternational.com/books/the-dimensions-of-difference

       

      Marialena Marouda works in the fields of performance art and choreography. She studied philosophy and visual arts at Columbia University in New York, USA (B.A., 2004) and continued her studies at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies at the University of Giessen, Germany (M.A., 2011).  Marialena Marouda’s work is focused primarily on the development of performance exercises, self-invented practices for relating to and for inhabiting spaces. The experimentation with walking, listening and storytelling as relational spatial practices forms the basis of her work.

       

       

      Friday 17th from 10am to 2pm

      @ a.pass 4th floor

      participation to the costs : 5 euros

      Map

    • performative publishing
    • research center
    • DIRTY ROOM 19 January 2017
      posted by: Steven Jouwersma
    • Juan Domínguez
    • 01 January 2017
    • 16 euro
    • case of: Lilia Mestre
    • DIRTY ROOM

      CLEAN ROOM is the name of a performance project created by Juan Domínguez and several collaborators that was developed as a three-season series with six episodes in each season. Its name refers to a spotless space, with low levels of external pollutants and controlled environmental parameters that guarantee minimum interferences in the developments of experiments.

      price: 16 euro

      DIRTY ROOM is CLEAN ROOM against the light, the negative of CLEAN ROOM, a collection of outlines, notes, ideas, reflections, photographic materials, maps, manifestos, fragments from diaries, transcriptions of conversations, interviews, email exchanges, memoirs, memories and scripts, among other documents from the working and research process that led to CLEAN ROOM. Through this book we invite you to enter the labyrinth of this long and multifaceted process, which had followed simultaneously different directions, moved by different concerns. 

      Juan Domínguez, a maker and organizer within the fields of choreography and performing artsand Victoria Pérez-Royo, performing arts researcher.

       

    • end presentation
    • performative publishing
    • postgraduate program
    • LANDINGS 12 January 2017
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • SOFIA CAESAR VARINIA CANTO VILA CHRISTIAN HANSEN BRENDAN MICHAL HESHKA ANOUK LLAURENS ARIANNA MARCOLINI AGNES SCHNEIDEWIND
    • Morpho, Rue Gallaitstraat 80, 1030 Schaarbeek, Brussel
    • 20 January 2017
    • 21 January 2017
    • LANDINGS

       

       

      Landings (definition by the M-Webster dictionary): an act of returning to the ground or another surface after a flight. This is an invitation to us visitors to temporarily observe and intentionally touch that ground we continuously step on. Landings brings together 7 a.pass researchers that started and finished their Post Master program at the same time.

      Their research engaged in varied practices and tackled different concerns that are inherent to the relationship between the rules of a given habitat and the experiencing of being in it. The 7 trajectories were explored individually and collectively within the a.pass environment for the past year and crossed paths on several occasions. They all share the sense of place as a meeting point where their research questions are practiced through singular interactions with the viewers. The affinities that these encounters propose can be seen as points of reflection for this end presentations and can be the guidelines for you, dear visitor, to join in.

       

       
       
      Performances and Installations:
       
      Fri 20/1 - 18:00 to 22.00h
      Sat 21/1 - 13.00 to 17.00h + 18:00 to 22.00h
      + landings party
      door opening one hour before start
       
       
       
      Breathing archive practice with Anouk LLaurens:
       
      Fri 20/1 - 11:00 to 13:00 + 14:30 to 16:30
      Sat 21/1 - 10:30 to 12:30 + 14:30 to 16:30
       
       
       

       

       
       

       

      DSC_0020 (1)_small

      "THE BREATHING ARCHIVE"
      ANOUK LLAURENS

      The breathing archive sends us back to the basic life’s movement that is an oscillation between concentration and expansion, like the movement of cells breathing and heart beating. The practice invites visitors to edit collectively a poetic and ephemeral document.  

       

      A Room from his Conceptual House - The Cabinet of Psychosculpture

      "A ROOM FROM HIS CONCEPTUAL HOUSE: THE CABINET OF PSYCHOSCULPTURE"
      BRENDAN MICHAL HESHKA

      A quick artist-guided tour through a single room from The House of the Wandering Joyce.

       

      newsletter pic

      "CARTOGRAPHERS"
      VARINIA CANTO VILA

      In seeing laws and norms as a matrix that creates divisions and borders –physical and existential – this work attempts to map a territory through choreography. In this legal territory, gesture and movement become the cartographers, making visible how the legal and the normative are preset frames for our paths.

       

      MonkeyMan,take13

      "CORRIDORS"
      CHRISTIAN HANSEN

      Possible Landscapes -
      What happens in them and what happens when they’re not there
      Earthquake glue and tectonic contrasts - Wildlife

       
       

      wring gesture_ari_small

      "REGULAR CLEANING"
      ARIANNA MARCOLINI

      is a performative setting to play with the intersection between care-taking gestures and the outcome of a Radical Cleaning session. Radical Cleaning is a practice that addresses the circulation of affects involved in the relations we establish with spaces, things, and other people. This time the outcome of the session takes the form of texts. They are performed in the Regular Cleaning, triggering the experience of the affective layer of an environment.

       

      web bed A 1_small

       "LONG WE AHEAD & WORLD HAS GONE KOOKOO"
      AGNES SCHNEIDEWIND


      A performative erasing practice investigates the rest: the resting body that lies down horizontally, and also the rest that we leave behind as a trace.
       
       

      Screen Shot 2017-01-02 at 21.42.16 (2)

      "I AM WELTON SANTOS, 2016"
      SOFIA CAESAR

      Visitors enter the backstage of an interview set. In between cameras, sound equipment, and lights, they find books. These contain texts based on transcripts and descriptions of an interview with geo-bio-architect Welton Santos.

      By collectively reading the books, the visitors are invited to a generative reconstruction of the interview, a space for rewriting the operation of documentary and narrativity and its tools, tropes, and methods.

       

       

    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • Trouble on Radio Triton
    • worlding from this world this is not wishful thinking, it is speculating utopia from what is already there
      27 December 2016
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • Alice Chauchat
    • a.pass
    • 27 February 2017
    • 03 March 2017
    • worlding from this world

       

       

      When inviting me to host this workshop, Pierre Rubio spoke about my piece Togethering, a group solo as a case of worlding: building a present-tense, experiential fiction from gathered (past) moments of collaboration, uprooting situated moments to turn them into speculative propositions for a common future.

       

      Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines speculate (transitive verb) as "to take to be true on the basis of insufficient evidence”. But what constitutes (in)sufficient evidence?

      (Social, political or sensational) reality jumbles together structural and punctual catastrophes, studded with gems: local endeavours, micro-events allowing glimpses of "something better”. Rather than lamenting the scarcity of agreeable situations in our present, we will wilfully engage in expanding through the force of our imagination these maybe fragile, uncertain, easily disposable snippets of communal life which are also part of the world as we know it. Taking these as sufficient evidence for the existence of a world we want to inhabit, we will turn the logic of exception into a logic of rule, and run the risk of building monstrous worlds. At least these might be differently interesting monstrosities.

       

      Our work will be one of observation, sifting and narration. Unravelling the consequences of chosen proofs, we will abstract principles from these concrete events in order to build systems; fleshing out structure, structuring affects and learning from each other - riffing off misunderstood proposals in order to speculate alternative worlds. Affirming the circumstantial as a law, generalising circumstances, pushing naivety to a point of boldness, our main responsibility rests in our choice of evidence.

       

      Language is a powerful tool, and your own practices are so many other tools which we will put to use.

       

      To start the days I will introduce some speculative dance practices in which imagination and collectivity reconfigure standard anatomical knowledge, and where paranormal or subterranean relationships between individuals and communal selves are embodied. The rest of the day is ours and we will fabricate worlds from the small stuff we find at the bottom of our pockets.

       

      Dance knowledge is always an advantage (always!) but none of what I will propose here depends on it.

       

       

      Alice Chauchat

      Alice Chauchat lives in Berlin and works as a choreographer, performer, teacher, editor and other activities related to choreography. She created performances in collaboration with a.o. Louise Trueheart, Anne Juren, Frédéric Gies, Alix Eynaudi and performed/collaborated in projects by a.o. Jennifer Lacey, Xavier le Roy, Marten Spangberg and Juan Dominguez. She has been working extensively in collaborative set-ups, developing numerous choreographic projects and platforms for knowledge production and exchange in the performing arts (everybodystoolbox.net, teachback vienna, praticable etc.). In 2010-2012 she was in the artistic direction for Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, a centre for artistic research in the Parisian suburbs. After completing a master degree in choreography in the Amsterdam Theaterschool with a “group solo” and a publication of dance scores and poems, she is currently preparing a PhD on the practice of relational subjectivities in dance.

      http://www.alicechauchat.net

       

      Dates : February Monday 27th , Tuesday 28th and March Wednesday 1st and Friday 3rd

      Schedule : 11am-6pm everyday

      Address : https://www.google.be/maps/place/Rue+Delaunoy+60,+1080+Molenbeek-Saint-Jean/@50.8530792,4.3300367,20z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x47c3c3f46c54e4c7:0x4e61e376c2f6b53a

       

    •  

      Written translations of videos capturing the body movements and gestures of my mum taking care of the domestic environment. 

      These written translations take the form of poems/scores - set of instructions, sequences of movements.

       

      23 September 2016

      I start the translation of the written translation into a dance choreography.

      I invent the movements and I try to remember them during the same session. For that I practice what I invented right afterwards, repeating small bits of movements time after time, while trying to add something each time I repeat the sequence. I test the memory of my body in sparkles of joy. I try to build up fluidity and spontaneity of the body starting from a condition of constraint and given instruction.

      During the act of translation, I notice how high is the normative strength of choreography.

      In the practice both of the care taking gestures that I can reconstruct in my memory through the reading, and in the dance movements I am doing now, the wrists play an important role. I sense how they could be considered the site for tuning (regulating, adjusting) the degree of care one applies through the gesture.

       

      30 September 2016

      This second time I enter the resource, I am transforming my first experience and experiment into a commitment.. into a sustained practice.

      While addressing this resource, I in fact realize I am also working on the gap `practice`. 

      It is very difficult at first to cross the threshold of the space of the body, the space of the practice, trusting the letting go of the thought-processes where I am immersed. 

      After a week passed, I want to test my memory of the choreography by directly diving into it, without reading the written score of instructions.

      As during the first time of this try out, there is a video camera as an external device to record my movements and verify my memory from an outside source of documentation. It is also a tool through which I aim at observing my body position, the orientation of it in the space, and how to work on composition.

       

       

       

       

       

       

    • common thing - 28

      I am a dancer, a performer, a teacher, a researcher and a shiatsu practionner. Since I have encountered the work of Lisa Nelson in 1999, my dance practice shifted from exercising the body to exercising the attention. Now, I see the body as a vehicle for the attention and its dance a reflection of its state of awareness.

      I am currently leading a research on poetic, polyphonic and multi modal dance documentation. I am researching on poetic documentation because “Poetic experience” is my core interest, be it in the form of a dance, a text, a film, an object, a situation or a document. I love the definition that Georges Bataille gives to “the poetic” in ‘The inner experience’: “The poetic is the familiar dissolving into the strange, and ourselves with it. It never dispossesses us entirely, for the words, the images (once dissolved) are charged with emotions already experienced, attached to objects which link them to the known.”

      The poetic is the familiar dissolving into the strange… This kind of shift happens for me in the studio when, for example, I spend some time looking at things and people around me. Suddenly, everything is beauty; the old piece of bread crust that lies under the table becomes the most incredible sculpture and people around me are composing the most exquisite choreography. Nothing has changed but I see it differently. Everything is organized, in order, at the right place. “The poetic” happens when I pay attention to details so for me. Attention is what makes the ordinary extra-ordinary; It is a door to poetic experience.

       

       

      16 September 2016

       

       

      attention in the freezer

       common thing - 61

       

       

      !!!

      note: attention disappeared

      date: unknown

       

       

    • I propose a visit to Grimbergen Thermae, a spa in the village of Grimbergen, next to Brussels. I want to invite the participants to imagine this SPA as an official civic integration machinery. A fictional government would oblige newcomers to undergo a program of integration that consists in sharing saunas, swimming pools, and scrubbing sessions with locals, in a silent and relaxing environment. As to increase a familiar taste for most of the migrants, there are different thematic saunas – such as the “African Lodge”, the “Mediterranean sauna”, and the “Turkish bath” – incorporating visual and sensorial elements of different cultures.

      Departing from this fictional frame, the participants will receive scores to be performed/experimented in this spa. These scores will challenge the ordinary way that we deal with physical proximity, politeness, and nudity.

      What kind of choreography appears from that situation? And how does it interact with our beliefs around private and public?

      Time schedule:

      11:00 am - gathering at Ribaucourt bus stop (direction cathedral) close to metro station Ribauccourt.

      11:25 am - departure by bus DeLijn 231

      12:06 pm - arrival at Grimbergen. Talk with snacks. Walking around the village. Maybe a warm up in the Church.

      13:48 pm - Entry in the spa.

      16: 07 pm - Return to Brussels. (yes, you can leave before if you pay the fine ;-)

       

      Please bring:

      - towel(s) - otherwise you must rent them for 5 euros

      - snacks

      - (fancy) slippers - optional

      - (fancy) swimming suit(s) - optional

    • project
    • Bubble Score
    • BUBBLE SCORE SESSION #3 11 January 2016
      posted by: Luiza Crosman
    • 27 January 2016
    • 27 January 2016
    • BUBBLE SCORE SESSION #3

      PARTICIPANTS:

      Nicolas, Sofia, Brendan, Nicolas, Christian, Sana, Arianna, Esteban, Thiago, Agnes, Juan, Seba, Anouk, Luiza, Pierre, Robin, Yaari, Aela, Lili, Lilia

       

      P > Q > R

      1) Sofia > Nicolas > Christian

      2) Brendan > Aela > Agnes

      3) Nicolas > Luiza > Juan

      4) Christian > Varinia > Sofia

      5) Sana > Lili > Lilia

      6) Arianna > Brendan > Varinia

      7) Esteban > Yaari > Aela

      8) Thiago > Pierre > Arianna

      9) Agnes > Lilia > Luiza

      10) Juan > Arianna > Lili

      11) Seba > Sana > Nicolas

      12) Anouk > Christian > Pierre

      13) Luiza > Juan > Anouk

      14) Pierre > Esteban > Seba

      15) Robin > Anouk > Thiago

      16) Yaari > Thiago > Sana

      17) Aela > Sofia > Yaari

      18) Lili > Agnes > Robin

      19) Lilia > Seba > Esteban

      20) Varinia > Robin > Brendan

       

      QUESTIONS:

      1) Sofia > Nicolas > Christian

      Dear Sofia

      following the advise of Juan, I’ll keep myself short this time.
       
      Your teeth - and what they were reacting on - reminded me of these sentences of a Danish guy: 
       
      ... What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
      how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
      express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
      in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
      world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
      what is this quintessence of dust? ...
       
      best
      Nicolas
       

      2) Brendan > Aela > Agnes

      Those black dots made me think about the blind point of our vision: the point located at the exact center of our iris ! Paradoxically, without this blind point we could not see: it is the void of the wheel's hub that makes it roll !!!

      "At the extremes, there is freedom" sounds like the peaceful promise, the quiet answer to an unresolvable question...what is behind?...what is after ?...nothing...something else ?

      Here is my question: are we breathing ?

       

      3) Nicolas > Luiza > Juan

      Nicolas,
       
      During you performance I kept thinking on mobility. First, because it regulated the order of our presentations, since you could not move. Then, because later you could move, and did so the entire night with that boxed-hand, and, finally, because of the short exchange we had where you said that it was funny because you could actually move your index finger around - even if we could not see, or if you couldn't move any other part of your hand.
       
      And then, this image came to my mind, in a maybe oppose process of thinking...
       
      Captura de Tela 2015-03-26 às 14.17.20
       
      And then I thought on the polyp. growing and taking space and on the confetti spreading and taking space, but both in very different manners, specially in relation to the air around them and, thus, my question is: How do you feel is your way of taking space as you move?
       
      Juan, I really liked you idea of using image, and so feel free to respond directly to it as well :))
       
       
       
      4) Christian > Varinia > Sofia
       

       

      Christian, in your proposition i saw that the silence generated by the impossibility to talk in a fight between 2 people, has a soothing effect on bodies, as if making them somehow docile and devoted to their condition. I was not sure if this condition bind the bodies closer together or just kept them at an unchangeable distance to each other. But i believe to see that this condition doesn't distance the bodies further away from each other. Do you think that this proximity of bodies is created by silence alone or by the impossibility to talk? For instance, how close do you feel to the other bodies while reading a book in a library? 

       

       5) Sana > Lili > Lilia
      *a cut and a stitch* - both operating on a membrane, both using similar instruments, the act is distinguishing them however from each other;
      both small, but insistent
      after a while I lose track of which one is destructive and which one is mending in its intention
      disruption, destruction turns into a call for change, while the caring sewing becomes the imprisonment
      I find it interesting that a stitch can also mean a twinge, a spasm, a sharp pain in the body

      my question:
      How is/can care be an act of violence?

       
      6) Arianna > Brendan > Varinia
       
      Before becoming the careful breathing pile:
      There was a circle drawn on the ground. Where was it that we went when we crossed over the divide from the outside of the circle to the inside. Where did we go ? (And maybe, are there things we could or should do to prepare ourselves for the journey across this divide?)
       
       

      7) Esteban > Yaari > Aela

      ok: the night before the session i was reading Ovid's Metamorphosis (!), in Hebrew, and copied to myself the exact same sentence(!#2) that begins it all:
      “I intend to speak of forms changed into new entities".
      the Hebrew translation though, says something like: "my soul (/psyche) is forcing me to speak of bodies that changed into new forms".
      the differences are a great land of thinking: first in the intention - it shifts the "i" to a place which is a channel, a body or a vessel - a medium which forced by an inner movement to an action, then comes the shift from body->new form, in compere to form->new entity.
      in relates to readiness, or to metamorphosis , which thought these differences enable?

       

       

      8) Thiago > Pierre > Arianna

       

       

      Dear Thiago,

      You introduced in your text a highly interesting matter for me : the octopus intelligence.

      I'll let you know asap the content of my research on the subject but I will focus today on your desire and practice of imitating animals.

      Gabriel Tarde offers two concepts to explain social movements: imitation and invention. Everyone imitates what s-he admires, what s-he sees as good and able to serve as a model, but arranges by mixing, in an original way, the selected imitations to their plural sources. Thus, history is as a succession of different imitative flows, a succession of models able to give rise to imitations by a large number of individuals. Why imitation? Because Tarde conceives individuals as a large ensemble of reflections; that is to say that everyone sees her/his fellows and in them finds her/himself. It is a game of mirrors that stands at the heart of living-in-society. Constantly, we judge and we are judged, ourselves facing the others and the others facing us. Each one of us comes naturally to doing-like-the-other, so that she/he will recognize her/himself in us and vice versa, for that life-in-society, after all, substantialises consistently and possibly becomes shared common points and not opposed dissimilarities – a set of relationships where even the tendency to opposition becomes common: ‘Two opposite, inverse, contrary things, have, as their singular character, to actualise a difference in their similarity which consists in its very difference, or, if one prefers, to present a resemblance which is to differ as much as possible’ (in L'opposition universelle : essai d'une théorie des contraires, 1897). One can understand Bruno Latour when he identifies Tarde as a precursor of actor-network-theory: one link in an unbroken social chain, the individual finds its place in society through the influential relationships she/he weaves with her/his peers. The basis of imitation and invention, which is a series of acts and processes, is identified by Tarde as belief and desire, which are individual psychological characteristics. "Belief and desire: so this is the substance and the strength, these are the two psychological quantities that analysis found underneath all the sensational qualities with which they combine; and when invention and then imitation, seize them to organize and use them, these are the real social quantities "(in Les lois de l'imitation  (1890).

      Thus my question is :  who do you think you will become by regularly imitating animals and which kind of effect this desire can have on society?

      my best,

      Pierre

       


      9) Agnes > Lilia > Luiza

      When I was reading your text I kept thinking about multiplying, adding, subtracting the numbers 1 and 2… So that one could become two or three or zero, or… So that choice is not binary but a multiple or a fraction, a derivate, of the given… I think that was maybe what was happening in the way you performed the text with the lines crossing each other, creating cross road options … maybe this is the desire for freedom, which at the end does not depend on the choice you take but how you deal with the future of those choices. Sometimes I think choice does not exist.

      I was looking for a poem because some poetry is a relief… I wanted to connect to notions of ambiguity and uncertainty and the number three. I found this one by Wislawa Szymborska, which I didn’t know before.

      The Three Oddest Words

      When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.



      When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.



      When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no non-being can hold.

       

      The question is: what happens when I pronounce the word escape?

       

      10) Juan > Arianna > Lili

      It's funny to see the links between all this.

      I'm very much inspired by the text that you proposed right before your action, Juan.

      It talks about a space that it is not accountable through reason.

      This resistance of space to reason (and reasonability) is not an act of antiphaty of the former towards the latter.

      It's just the gentle and wise refusal to hastily follow the seemengly crystalline, transparent, univocal path of logic.

       

      Space: "No, thank you. I need to take my time".

       

      The labyrinth (the Sensory Space, the Hole) is what requires more than one sense to be used when traversing it.

      More than one intention when entered, more than one quality of strength when confronted.

      It is a space of the multiple and ambiguous – a space of the resonance more than one of the echo.

      It needs intuition, generosity, and a bit of blindness when approached.

       

      The word labyrinth itself resonated in me when I read the text again, because of the name I carry.

      Ariadne is the one who knows how to handle the threads, and she knows not by intellect, but by intuition. She doesn't hold on her knowledge, but offers it almost blindly because she fell in love.

      This generous act leads her, varying according to the different accounts, either to a solitary death on an isle or to the marriage with the god of Disorder, Ambiguity, Ecstasy and Madness – Dyonisus. Which I personally find two very similar outcomes of the story.

       

      Coming back to the text.. and connecting it to the action you did.

      I wonder if my name spoke trough me. If the potential that a word can carry expressed itself through the vessel of the body – through the fleshy materiality of it. Like a sound can pass through and resonate differently according to the material that traverses.

       

      So, I am not speaking language. Language speaks me.

      It's not (or not only) an act of the intellect anymore. It is an event of the entire flesh we are made of.

       

      It makes me move, and articulate my full(s) and my void(s).

      The mouth, with its full and empty spaces, is the cavity-cave of language; the Hole, the Sensory Space.

       

      The jaw is its instrument and rudder, which then transmits its inputs to and through the passages of the body.

       

      What if we were beings fully conducted by the mouth and the jaw?

      What if the apparatus mouth/jaw would be our leading organ?

       11) Seba -Sana -Nicolas

      I really enjoyed reading the lines , they were silent lines on the black background like the waving breaths in the darkness( as you described).
      It was joyful to dive into images you created by those pictorial, imaginary and alive fragments.
      I am impressed how you gradually turn detachment to connection, alienation to relation and factuality to fluidity through the rhythm of breaths.  When we try to synchronize our breaths we become more aware of our presence. Thus the breaths speak and the skins understand.
      At the same time the notion of location is inserted. Therefore, we are invited to a traversal spatiality.
      The body could become an in-between space when it’s location is wrapped in it’s imagination. What is the actual location then transformed to?

       

      12) Anouk > Christian > Pierre
       
      Dear Anouk,
      one of the sentences you quoted from your (unnamed) friend was this: "The skin is an extended layer of the brain and the brain is an extended layer of the skin". Do you think that means that discourse and material are inseparable because our bodies contains, and can not exist without, both? If yes it's just yes, but if no; does material without any form of discourse exist?
      You continued to explain, as you moved around to sense the space towards the ceiling and the floor, what it means to your practice to pay attention to your own self and the materials you were touching. It is important for you (and us, I think) to actively seek out physical knowledge and not take materials for granted just because they happen to all around us.
      What are you made of, and where does the energy that makes you move come from?
       
       

      13) Luiza > Juan > Anouk

      Dears 

      So Luiza coincidentally your drawing session with Arianna was base on my poetic text !

      Stroke me a lot how accurate are the dynamics of the drawings related to the word ABYSMAL, they are so near to my images when I wrote the text.

      My question will try to dig in Arianna’s question about ABYSMAL seen through the vector - dot drawings of Luiza.

      My question is a photograph I took couple of years ago at the Museum of anthropology in Mexico City; the image depicts a terracotta Aztec warrior wearing as a mask the face of a defeater warrior at war which is been totally peel off.

      Key words…

      - Personification of the soul of the other

      - Appropriation of the image of the other

      - Cultural anthropophage

      IMG_0221

      14) Pierre > Esteban > Seba

      Dear Pierre
      Thinking about the journey that you proposed to us on Wednesday, I am surrounded by questions about temporality and subjectivity.
      Since we are functioning as mediums, we are called to become a vessel for the presence of the ghost. However, we are not only transmitting the ghost’s ‘message’, but actually, our recollection-impregnation-imagination of its presence.
      Furthermore, we are asked to substantiate its presence in the objects, and to
      create a new collective presence through their relationality. This new life of the ghost will be solidified in a photograph.

      How do you see our function of vessels and at the same time translators of
      a fleeting presence? How do we impregnate and singularize our transmissions with ourselves while maintaining our collective function of opening up the past-future? Do we also become ghosts in the sense of loosing our regular contours?

      15) Robin > Anouk > Thiago

       

      Dear Robin,

      I remember/ imagine, the cracks, the space between the ice blocks, the sharp interruption of the film by some kind of lightning. Is the short-circuit (court-circuit) an important tool in your work and why ?

      16) Yaari > Thiago > Sana 

      Yaari, your language reminds me a lot of Manoel de Barros, one of the greatest Brazilian poets. Not only because of his interest in forests and nature, but because he used to subvert the usual logics of written language, as you do. I see in both of you the interest of finding in nature the metaphors for the exhaustion of language. To write becomes to meet nature.

      The Rock

      Being a rock
      I have the pleasure of lying on the ground.
      I only deprive lizards and butterflies.
      Certain shells take shelter in me.
      Mosses grow from my interstices.
      Birds use me to sharpen their beaks.
      Sometimes a heron occupies me all day.
      I feel praised.
      There are other privileges to being a rock:
      a—I irritate the silence of insects,
      b—I am the beat of moonlight in solitude,
      c—In the mornings I bathe in dew.
      d—And the sun compliments me first.

      my questions:

      how to practice the forest in the city ? would it be possible without writing?

       

      17) Aela > Sofia > Yaari

      Dear Aela,

      Your intergalactic waltz reminded me of this scene:  http://youtu.be/_d5X2t_s9g8 (Bela Tar, Werkmister Harmonies)
       
      In the end of the scene, the main protagonist, who runs the village and in this scene takes up the role of a sort of choreographer/director (who performs a similar role to the one you did) says something like: "but It's not over" as indicating that we are still moving according to that eternal and immortal choreography. To him, that dance is a model that represents the movements of the solar system but it also has a metaphorical function in the film: it's an element of transmutation that allows the character's bodies to connect to immortality and to the universe. In your waltz you made references to what I understand as eroticism when describing the movements between our bodies, our relationship to space and music. The dance was a way for us to connect with the cosmos and the erotic connection between us. You made us to dance alone, holding our arms in mid air as if someone was there, but all at the same time and rhythm. What is the importance of the distance you made us keep between us? 
       

      18) Lili > Agnes > Robin

      When I recall the image of your performance it has a strong physical impact on me. I have to think about poetic sadism or sadistic poetry……and wonder: what is a long-distance touch and what could it stimulate?

      19) Lilia > Sébastien > Esteban

       

      Dear Esteban, 

      I have two questions about love, inspired by Lilia's triple-couple-performance. You can pick the one you like best!

      1. Metaphor, George Lakof and Mark Johnson explain in Metaphors We Live By, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, they are "metaphors we live by"—metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them. Of all the metaphors for love you can find via the following link (or anywhere), very few refer to long term, complex but fruitful relationships. What would be a good metaphor to describe those kinds of relationships, and why? http://grammar.about.com/od/rhetoricstyle/a/lovemetaphors_3.htm

      2. What is the relation between love and mourning? I am not referring to the mourning process following the death of a loved one, but to the role of mourning within a love relationship. 

      Sébastien

       

       

      20) Varinia>Robin>Brendan

      Dear Varinia

      What touched me most in your performance was the way, at the end, you came towards us and made this kind of hesitant ambiguous gesture to the right and left - It felt like a mix between a potential indication of direction or a receiving of something, but it was the vulnerability of the gesture which I found interesting.. (unlike the one below which I include as a visual reference but not a very exact one, sorry)

      varinia

      So the Question is “What’s the importance of vulnerability in your research?

      Definition of vulnerability from the Red Cross:
      Vulnerability can be defined as the diminished capacity of an individual or group to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impact of a natural or man-made hazard. The concept is relative and dynamic. Vulnerability is most often associated with poverty, but it can also arise when people are isolated, insecure and defenceless in the face of risk, shock or stress.
      People differ in their exposure to risk as a result of their social group, gender, ethnic or other identity, age and other factors. Vulnerability may also vary in its forms: poverty, for example, may mean that housing is unable to withstand an earthquake or a hurricane, or lack of preparedness may result in a slower response to a disaster, leading to greater loss of life or prolonged suffering.
      The reverse side of the coin is capacity, which can be described as the resources available to individuals, households and communities to cope with a threat or to resist the impact of a hazard. Such resources can be physical or material, but they can also be found in the way a community is organized or in the skills or attributes of individuals and/or organizations in the community.
      To determine people’s vulnerability, two questions need to be asked:
      • to what threat or hazard are they vulnerable?
      • what makes them vulnerable to that threat or hazard?
      Counteracting vulnerability requires:
      • reducing the impact of the hazard itself where possible (through mitigation, prediction and warning, preparedness);
      • building capacities to withstand and cope with hazards;
      • tackling the root causes of vulnerability, such as poverty, poor governance, discrimination, inequality and inadequate access to resources and livelihoods.

       


       

      REPLIES:

       

      2) Brendan > Aela > Agnes

      revitalise your personal blind spot

      1. find your blind spot
      2. when your blind spot dissappeared give him new life with a color of your choice
      3. whisper something nice to your blind spot
      4. place your blind spot somewhere in the space

      blind spot

      7) esteban > Yaahri > Aela

      I I I I.... inteeeeeeennnnnd to sp...sp...speak of fffff...forms cccchhhhh...changed intoooooo neeeeeew entities” / "myyyyy sooooooul is ffff...ff...forciiiing meeeee to sp...sp...sp...speak offff bo...o..dies that ch...ch...changed intoooo neeeeew ffff...f...fforms”

      8) Thiago > Pierre > Arianna

       

      A & B_FITNESS

       

      Hoarding
      or
      caching
      in animal behavior
      is the storage of food in locations hidden from the sight of both
      conspecifics (animals of the same or closely related species) and
      members of other species.
      Most commonly,
      the function of hoarding or caching is to store food in times of
      surplus for times when food is less plentiful.
      However,
      there is evidence that some amount of caching or hoarding is done
      in order to ripen the food, called
      ripening caching.
      The term hoarding is most typically used for rodents,
      whereas caching is more commonly used in reference to birds,
      but the behaviors in both animal groups are quite similar.
      Hoarding is done either on
      a long-term basis
      or on a short term basis,
      in which case the food will be consumed over a period of one
      or several days.
      There are two types of caching behavior:
      larder-hoarding, where a species creates a few large caches which
      it often defends,
      and scatter-hoarding, where a species will create multiple caches,
      often with
      each individual food item
      stored in a unique place.
      Both types of caching have
      their advantage.
      Most species are particularly wary of onlooking individuals during
      caching and ensure
      that the cache locations
      are secret.
      Not all caches are
      concealed however,
      for example shrikes store
      prey items on thorns on branches in the open.
      Although a small handful of species share food stores,
      food hoarding is a solo
      endeavor for most species, including almost all rodents
      and birds.
      They hoard their food supply selfishly, caching and retrieving the
      supply in secret.

       

      (from the definition of "Hoarding (animal behavior)", Wikipedia)

       

       13) Luiza > Juan > Anouk

       

      IMG_0221

      I am using a score from Anna Halprin, an American dance artist   to describe this image to answer Juan’s question. The score is: I see,I feel, I imagine. I like the use of I, the subjective point of view and that the verbs, to see, to feel and to imagine are touching three layers of awareness: the body layer, the emotional layer and the mental layer that is imagination.

       

      I see a sculpture made of terra cotta. I see a head, a terra cotta head, a bold head. I see the head of a baby. I see only one ear, a broken ear. I imagine that the ear lobe was very long before it broke. I imagine that it can break. I see that it is fragile. I imagine it is fragile. I see some shadows. I see holes. I see that the holes have different shapes. I see a big open hole; two small ones next to each other and two other almonds shape ones that are not placed symmetrically. I see a mouth, two nostrils, two orbits. I see there is no eye in the orbits. I see that the holes are not deep. I see another mouth in the mouse and one other orbit in the right orbit. I see a mask covering a face. I imagine someone else face behind the mask. I feel intrigued. I feel that I want to see that face behind. I feel that I want to uncover that face. I feel that I will find another layer behind this layer and another one and another, an infinity of layers. I imagine layers and layers and layers of faces on top of each other. I imagine myself falling into the hole, falling through the mouth. I imagine myself shouting while I fall. I imagine diving into layers of generation. I see that the mouth of that face that I imagine behind the mask is slightly open. I see the teeth of this person. I imagine it is a man. I imagine he is cruel. I imagine he is older. I imagine he is tense. I imagine that he want to appear younger by wearing this mask. I imagine plastic surgery. I see an expression that has been frozen. I imagine death. I imagine that the mask is shouting. I imagine he is shouting because he is in pain. I imagine it is the moment of his death. I imagine it is the moment of its birth. I imagine a rebirth. I imagine his first shout. I imagine the sound of it. I feel mesmerized and terrified. I feel goose bump on my skin. I feel tension in my guts. I imagine this child is my child. I remember his two eyes looking at me from below in the water.

      I see the irregularity of the terra cotta. I imagine myself making this mask with my hand. I imagine myself touching the surface. I feel touched by this material. I feel inclined to touch it. I imagine myself making this mask. I imagine the sound of the humid clay while I mold it. I imagine the dance of my hand adapting to the material. I imagine that the clay is molding me. I imagine wearing the mask. I imagine I would be someone else then. I imagine the mask as some power. I imagine that if I wear this mask, I will make a trip back in time. I imagine I will revisit ancient memories. I imagine myself diving into the abyss of my memories. I imagine reliving my ancestors, my previous incarnation. I feel scares of becoming the cruel man if I wear it. I feel the sensation of the mask on my face. I feel it is cold. I feel that it does not fit. I imagine myself moving the sculpture to see it from another angle. I see the point of view of the photographer that took the picture. I see blue grey background. I imagine that the camera is Iike a mask. I imagine it is another layer in front of the face of the photographer. I imagine the photography as a mask, as a layer that covers something else. I imagine the photography of the photography of the photography. I imagine a “ mise en abyme”. I feel myself looking for what is behind. I feel myself wandering if there is anything behind. I feel myself wandering if there is anything at all.

       

      20) Varinia>Robin>Brendan

       

      So what I would say is that, in a way, there is nothing to see,

      nothing really, there’s nothing to really see, if you are looking at it, as you do.

       

      L'Origine Du Monde

       

       

      “Look there’s nothing to see. Look what you see is so real.

      Look, if you don’t look you’ll make your own expectations,

      you’ll make your own desire.”

       

      “It is as if I opened my shirt, my shirt at the door of my bedroom, saying leave me alone,”

       

      (silence accompanied by time)

      (taking position in the recline)

       

      “You bastard looking at me crying. I won’t give you a tear.”

      “I won’t give you a single tear.”

       

      “you watch the painting”

      “and I don’t believe you, you mock- this illusion”.

      Illusion.

       

      “There is nothing to see, pass your way,”

       

      “ l’indécence du regard, est de plus en plus morne.

      Tout cela, à beaucoup entre vous donne les cornes”

       

      The indecent look becomes increasingly more and more bleak.

      All this gives you a lot between the horns-

      “and you will never say hi to puberty the same way again.”

       

       

      “L’ indecence a voir avec la mort des larmes”

      Indecency even with the death of tears.

       

      (sounding and speaking more gentle)

      “And I tried, I tried, I tried-

      to say that things can be hidden. Not for the good but for the highest level.

      I know that I didn’t do so many things at the end. But I still think I did too much.

      I have the time to think, I have the time to discover, I have the time to touch, I have the time to untouch, I have the time to detach, I have the time to”-

       

      “where as polite or not-

      and grey in the silk ground

      of flower bond

      b-o-n-d.

       

      for thinkers shouldn’t be so much. (so many)

      they are confusing the whole(hole)-

      structure."

       

       

      18) Lili > Agnes > Robin

       

      what is a long-distance touch and what could it stimulate?

      Light-Touch

      “It is possible that we are rare, fleeting specks of awareness in an unfeeling cosmic desert, the only witnesses to its wonder.

      It is also possible that we are living in a universal sea of sentience, surrounded by ecstasy and strife that is open to our influence.

      Timo Hannay, publisher

      the term light sometimes refers to electromagnetic radiation of any wavelength, whether visible or not.[4][5] In this sense, gamma rays, X-rays, microwaves and radio waves are also light.

      Like all types of light, visible light is emitted and absorbed in tiny "packets" called photons and exhibits properties of both waves and particles. This property is referred to as the wave–particle duality.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light

      We are dead stars looking back up at the sky, the Iron in our blood and all the elements that make up our bodies were created in a Supernova explosion.

      As Humans we tend to think of the stars as eternal, but the stars will all burn out someday, there's only a certain amount of stellar fuel- Hydrogen, and the Stars are burning through it, and the stars, as we know them will all eventually die out, (in some trillions of years), and the universe will be dark for the rest of time.

      We're actually living in a potential Eden right now, in a time when this 10 billion year live thing 'the sun' is pouring down free energy, we are using it , we are evolving, we are becoming sentient beings who are able to look back out at the universe from where they came.

      Starlight will only be there for the shortest span of the universe's history and then everything else will be dark, someday I wonder if people will have myths about the days when stars rained down free energy and sunlight on the planet."

      Nasa Astronomer Dr. Michelle Thaller.

      http://www.boreme.com/posting.php?id=40047#.Vq-PNUtnGDU

      Hang on this connection is breaking up
      You are only coming through in waves
      Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying

      When I was a child
      I caught a fleeting glimpse
      Out of the corner of my eye
      I turned to look, but it was gone
      I cannot put my finger on it now

      David Bowie/comfortably numb

      physicists brought light to a "complete standstill" by passing it through a Bose–Einstein condensate of the element rubidium.

      The popular description of light being "stopped" in experiments refers only to light being stored in the excited states of atoms. During the time it had "stopped" it had ceased to be light.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light

      Touch: embrace, lick, palpation, stroke, feel,

      Touch:pat, fondle, hit, tactility, touching,

      Touch: petting, push, caress, taste, kiss, rub, taction,

      Touch: stroking, scratching, hug, blow, grope, feel , peck

      Touch: to put the hand, finger, etc., on or into contact with (something) to feel it:

      nce.com/browse/touch

      Touch: one of the five senses along with taste, smell, hearing and seeing, is defined as the act you do when you hold, caress, feel or otherwise encounter something with your hand.

      Touch: to lay the hand on (a person with scrofula), as some kings once did, to effect a cure

      Touch: to arouse an emotion in, esp. one of sympathy, gratitude, etc

      http://www.yourdictionary.com/touch#JSV8WyareZKbTFwD.99

      Touch/ Somatosensory System: Pain receptors: nocireceptor. "Noci-" in Latin means "injurious" or "hurt”. these receptors detect pain or stimuli that can or does cause damage to the skin and other tissues of the body, tissues of the body.

      Touch: There are over three million pain receptors throughout the body, found in skin, muscles, bones, blood vessels, and some organs.

      Touch: Pain receptors can detect pain that is caused by mechanical stimuli, like cutting into the surface of the skin with a knife, thermal stimuli, like burning the layers of your body with a blow torch, chemical stimuli - like swallowing a poison and emotional stimuli, like having your heart pierced by another.

      RobinAmanda 

      Touch: When you were born, oxytocin helped expel you from your mother’s womb and made it possible for her to nurse you..As a small child, you enjoyed your mother’s and father’s loving touch because it released oxytocin in your body

      https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-mind-body-connection/201309/why-we-all-need-touch-and-be-touched

      Touch: sensory neurons are triggered by specific stimulus such as pain, for instance. This signal then passes to the part of the brain attributed to that area on the body—this allows the stimulus to be felt at the correct location.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatosensory_system

       

      Sound bed for text: Soy el punto negro que anda.m4a.download


       

       

       

      KEYWORDS: goo, internal communication, sensible mass, timing, two, materiality, skin, Imagination, flux, fusion, bite, 

       

       

      REPORT: It's exiting, we are getting somewhere different from where we had started. Starting next Wednesday we will be cooking for each other. We are asking questions to each other that we would never be asking otherwise, pulling potentialities out of each others proposals. We are stepping out of what we knew, of what we felt was our own interest. Isn't it exiting when suddenly we find ourselves liking things we would never have expected to like before? Isn't it surprising to be all of the sudden disliking things you would've thought you already loved? Yes, I feel it changing, it's coming, we're are stepping into something beautifully complex! Oh, it's exiting, we are stepping into strange fields! Oh, so exiting, these dangerous fields that soon we might call common ground!

       

       

    • project
    • Bubble Score
    • BUBBLE SCORE SESSION #8 11 January 2016
      posted by: Lili Rampre
    • 02 March 2016
    • 02 March 2016
    • BUBBLE SCORE SESSION #8

      PARTICIPANTS:

      Sana, Mala, Sofia, Christian,  Agnes

       

      P > Q > A

      1. Mala > Sana >  Sofia

      2) Chris > Agnes > Sana

      3) Sofia > Mala > Chris

      4) Agnes > Sofia > Agnes

      5) Sana > Chris > Mala

       

      1) Mala > Sana >  Sofia

      We were supposed to create a poem based on the spontaneous feelings we had while reading the text. The text was about a city, which lasts forever. In this city there is no death, no harm, no loss.

      On the contrary, poetry is full of them. Poetry asks for uncertainty. In poetry each word de-creates the word before itself. Poetry is an everlasting change.

      That is one of the reasons I enjoyed doing the score.

      Dear Mala

      I was really fascinated by your score. I found it as surprising as a journey, an exciting unpredictable trip from a city to another.

      The act of choosing words while being affected by the illusionary stability of the city in the first text provided me with some random words. I wrote some lines with those words. To my surprise the new lines make another city, so different from the first one. In this new city nothing lasts forever except hope.

       

      Dear sofia  

      My question is what brings hope to a city and keeps it there.

      Bests Sana




      3) Sofia > Mala > Chris

      Dear Sofia,

      In the group reading this time we created a “sound image” or the image of “sound”.  I your proposal I am interested in the way a collective creates a virtual image of that for which the text provides the base, which is animated or established by the group through the reading, in this case the sound. In the reading the properties of the present are transformed into an image that’s virtual. So we are here in elsewhere at once. I wonder about what repetition and variations of the texts do. We read together but our texts vary. As we read together, usually when an unexpected variation of the text appears, read by another, I experience a rupture that has to do with my expectation of text remaining the “same” and “one for all”. I wonder what the difference at work in the text(s) produces or what do u want it produce in our individual reading(s) and our collective reading? It feels as if potentially more can be done with it, but I wonder what is that “more” and what impact it is to have on our experiencing and imagining. For example, in what way it nor only creates “breaks” and some sort of “rhythm”, actually a choreography of my/our reading, but also what impact it has on the way the “sound image” is produced?

      Thank u! xm



      4) Agnes > Sofia > Agnes

      Agnes! I had mirrors right in front of my eyes! All I saw was mirrored reality! What strange glasses you created! Instead of seeing what was in front of my face, I saw the space behind my neck, plus one single eye. I felt like a freaky Cyclop! As I walked backwards, I saw myself advancing in space. The usual correspondence between stepping backwards and distancing myself from the space in front of me was reversed. As I stepped backwards, I stepped forwards into space. But not into the space in front of me, oh no! I advanced into the space that was behind me. It's strange to realize how so quickly I naturalized that new order. Strange how my body organized itself around its new mirror-eye. Strangest is that I adapted and very quickly it was operable and almost normal. Are you using mirror-glasses and other devices to try to bring to the surface what's strange within us (in this case the strong alien of normalization)?

       

      5)  Sana > Chris > Mala

      Dear Sana,

      Looking out of the window from the big Apass studio I cant find the end of Brussels. The angle of the view is not as steep as the view you showed us in your video, the light is sharp and cold, not dusty, vibrating heat, and the city seems to consist of boxes arranged on squares, no round walls or towers with hats shaped like tear drops.

      I'm wondering if this city scape would generate monologues or dialogues and how we would be able to tell the difference? Who are the characters enjoying this view and how is their language hanging in the air?

      All the best,

      Christian

       

      KEY WORDS: wordsssssound, deformation, c,o,m,m,a, pace, algorithms of imagination

      REPORT:

    • postgraduate program
    • workshop
    • block 2016/I
    • Sub -(e)ject
    • Denuding 02 December 2015
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi
    • Anne Juren
    • 14 March 2016
    • 18 March 2016
    • Denuding

      The workshop will explore different topics present in my research. Dealing with different writings and languages, I developed choreographic sessions to look upon the relation between body function, written words, spoken texts, sexuality and choreography. The workshop is a continuation of the research in engaging the body in different states of physical, sensorial, kinaesthesic and mental experiences. It inspects the thin line between private and public, and attempts to balance inner desires and outer realities by entering the limbic system of the body. It triggers the idea that no one is a coherent, self-sustaining element; we are all internally divided and made up of many dissimilar characteristics.

      Following the notion of the division and the multiplicity of the subject, the workshops will deal with different choreographic strategies and body practices related to text present in the method Feldenkrais and will experiment within the relation between poetry and writing in examining the text of authors from the Ecriture Féminine.
      The workshop is an experimental and process-related event. The participants will be able to bring their own questions and practices and find a way to engage the body in different states of physical, sensorial and written expressions.
       
      Anne Juren born in Grenoble/ France is a choreographer, dancer and performer based in Vienna. In 2003, she co-founded together with the visual artist Roland Rauschmeier the association Wiener Tanz- und Kunstbewegung in Vienna. Her choreographic works and artistic researches have been extensively presented in international theatres, festivals, and different art spaces and venues. In her work, Juren tries to expand  the term choreography in engaging the body in different states of physical, sensorial, kinaesthesic and mental experiences, questioning the boundaries between private and public spheres. Since 2013, Anne Juren is a Feldenkrais® practitioner and aslo graduated of the JFK Approach to child development and Special Needs Children. She is currently part of the artistic committee for the Master in Choreography at DOCH and doing a PhD at UNIARTS Stockholm University of the Arts. www.wtkb.org

    • #1
      16th June 2015

      Hello Esteban
      Hello
      I would like to ask some questions to you, because of the last conversation that we had drinking a beer in… what is this bar called?
      Fontainas
      Yes, after this conversation I have been working on some questions about the subject of your research, and I would like to ask them to you and see what you do with them
      Aha Do you want to say something or do you want me to go straight away with the interview?
      No, Im also interested in what I can be able to say around this questions
      I hope they will not take you by surprise, or that they are not too conflictive, or too new, or anything like this, ok?
      No… don’t worry about it
      If you cannot reply just make a sign and I go to the next ok?
      Ok
      My first question would be: what is the relationship between the authentic movement practice, which is in fact an appropriation that you do of this practice with your research interest
      It is a very good question, the first thing I would say is
      Can you speak a little bit louder?
      Yes…the first thing I would say is, I don't know…yet
      I think it came about because I was interested in researching within a logic that was closer to the body
      Closer to the body…
      A logic coming from the body, because I wanted not to start from a logic that comes from language and since I had in mind the idea of interviewing, I said to myself perhaps I can ask questions to the body. But this implies that the body is beyond language and that i can go like this (does the gesture of peeling off or opening a curtain) and there is the body. So now it is different, I think it is more about the interaction of many layers of bodyliness and many layers of language that I feel interact in this particular practice. So now I might step into a different question….
      Yes, its interesting this idea of layers of body and language, how did it appear or come into your mind?
      The practice of authentic movement came about in a couple of ways, one is: I started with Jennifer Monson when I lived in the U.S. and she is actually connected to Jennifer Lacey and DD Dorvillier, they worked together in New York
      Ah ok
      This is how it started, and then when I went to Impulstanz in 2007, it was a lot of what we were doing in a workshop there. Later on I started experimenting with this tool because I was interested in how much you can gather in terms of information about yourself, about the body and about the world, through this practice.
      With time this became a “safe place” for me, a place where I could go if I needed to be with myself. Now, it might be good to wonder: safe from what? (long pause) I think it made me safe from dance training (?)
      And i think it kept me safe from dance training, because it was a way for me to take a distance from “actual training” and wonder about my own particular way of understanding….
      But is it because you don’t feel authentic movement is a way of dance training?
      Yes, or maybe at the moment it felt like it was not entirely a dance training, perhaps because it comes form a dance-movement therapy context. Although the way I came about it was through dance and choreography practitioners, now I can see that it actually is a way of dance training. I think maybe I did this separation at the moment - a separation between dance training and authentic movement - because it became a way of assimilating technical aspects, morphological qualities about my body, or about how I relate to people….and so it really is a place that I created in order to articulate and ponder about my own dancing body.
      And …..your interest or intuition about developing this practice? or do you have a goal in mind?
      I do… its more like an intuition, really, at this point
      Yes, because you have talked about the origin of it, but do you have a goal?
      Actually I think in order to have a goal I need to go over the questions in this interview first….
      Ok, but then at least can you present this practice to me? are you going to present it? what are you going to do with it?
      I think I actually need to talk about the idea of neutral, because it seems that I some point I came to see it that way. I wonder in which way I came to understand it as ‘neutral’, and whatever I mean by that…
      Because now that we’ve been talking about this many layers of body and language, how would you then define what is neutral? is it possible to find something without layers?
      Exactly, no
      Authentic Movement is an actual technique and it comes from a Jungian school of Movement Therapy and it aims - among other things - to find connections between body and mind.
      I am going to step out of my interviewing role for a moment, since we have been discussing about these topics for several occasions. Don’t you think that the questions that you have about your project have been imposed already? Is the idea of a colonized body that is trying to break free from boundaries not an already colonized idea?
      Maybe I will say it in spanish, que si no consideras que muchas de las preguntas que tienes no son ya una propia herencia, por lo tanto una especie de colonización, una imposición, están impuestas de alguna forma?
      I think I know what you mean… but I would like you to elaborate more
      Ok, we can have a beer later and discuss about this, but i Would like continue with the interview
      Do you think you can apply it to every context?
      No I don't, I think it always depends, but I think Im insisting in this idea of neutral because I would like to trace my train of thought in respect to this. I think I got to understand it as neutral because it gave me a place that was out of the constraints of ‘having to do something’ and started to finally wonder how it is that I was approaching any doing.
      How do you think it was helping you?
      It mostly has to do with creating my own body, when I went back to Ecuador I continued to work on this practice and developed it further. At that moment it was a tool for reconstructing and re-membering things together (as a group of dancers). Also I had the chance to do it as a Movement Therapy, which in conjunction with my own going to psychoanalysis. I think it enabled me to find more freedom in my own representation of my body. I was working in my own layers of bodyliness and the materiality of it, and the possibility to talk about it, this became my own creative project, or my own bricolage. This process was very informative abut my own way of thinking and experiencing.
      What limitations do you see in this practice
      I think my questions about coloniality and geography are very specific, and the tool could turn out to be vague in relation to them. This would be the limitation.
      In the case that this practice was not there, what do you envision could be another practice that addresses what we have been talking about?
      I may need to get closer to language and use a tool like anamnesis, or use a regular interviewing device.
      wow, but you are using language!
      yes, but it is a different kind of language, I think I am talking about a more chronological account of events.
      but what I am interested in is the constitution or configuration of a body, that happens around the trajectory of doings that each body has. So I am more interested in trajectories and perhaps this tool is dealing more specifically with the present moment: in this space, in this environment, with these sensations.
      Ok, we can go on while having a beer later, Thank you
      Thank you

      #2
      15th July 2015

      Can you describe your practices?
      Yes, I have two practices going on at the moment, one I have called dissolving the other. It is a series of relays, a person does something for an amount of time with eyes closed, the next person is going to re-do what the first person did. I suppose there is an idea of continuation, along with the idea of re-doing, that may be involuntary and also an idea of reviewing, which happens at the same time as re-doing.
      For the next time I do it I have a lot of questions, the first one is if there should be a more specific score, because right now what they do is open. Although the open score is also nice because each person can do whatever they need and listen to their own body
      Why do you think it would be good to have a more precise score?
      Because it seems very open and a lot depends on the first person who is doing it. The whole set of re-doings is very connected to what the first person does. This is good because it starts as something very close to the person’s body and experience and listening to that moment, but I am wondering if I set it up as a question (and of course then i have the issue of how to come up with the question, and where the question comes from) So maybe we start with a question (that could be more or less arbitrary for the group) and it is not that they have to think about the question consciously, but we will see if with the many doings something of the question gets answered.
      I also want to do it for an extended period of time, it could be 2 hours a day each day.
      What kind of experience do you want to give to the participants in this current format?
      This is a very good question because it is related to what I want to get from the practice. mentoring with Pierre, at some point he said that I seems what I want is the other people to experience what I have experienced. In relation to many layers of bodyliness and many layers of language, but i think it does have to do with my own experience of reviewing these layers and seeing how they have come about and maybe opening up spaces in them or re- ordering them. I want the participants to have an experience of their “many layers” of their own bodyliness and also of how they give an account of them.
      Where do you envision it happening in the future? What kind of space?
      In the immediate future, I would like to do it outside
      In which kind of space?
      In a garden, there is something ecological about this project - although not in the sense of a search of the ‘natural’-, but about looking at a person’s mental ecology, or bodily ecology, and I think it will be interesting to see how this happens in a more ‘natural setting’, a setting that has a different arrangement than inside a building.
      Otherwise Im thinking it could happen inside a ‘set’ in which there are many types of objects (I still need to work on this). I could have cushions, something that feels comfortable, but I would like a plant to be in there, and a piece of furniture.
      So you are thinking not only about the person’s intention but about the relationship to the environment?
      Yes, something may appear in the relationship to the objects that may be worthwhile to explore, for example, in Half Way Days, in one of the groups, it became very much about the body, but in another group, it became very much about the objects in the room.
      The cushions you had
      Yes
      So it would be interesting to set it up in a way that i can be about the environment, can also become very internal, I like this space for the person to choose.
      The other practice that I would like to describe is Weaving Talking
      The Weaving Talking Singing (laughs)
      Its an ‘invented’ tradition, of course many cultures have weaving as a very important part of their tradition; particularly in the Andes it is an important element for memory, religious practices, agriculture…
      And for identity
      Yes, even the gender is codified in the weaving of the clothing, for example. Also, what they wear has has a practicality for planting and harvesting.
      In Spain they have this practice for weaving with “boleros”, to weave lace.
      So it appears in many contexts, but since I haven’t had a direct relationship with any of these traditions, I am sort of making it up. I am looking at youtube tutorials and doing this teenager bracelet kind of weaving and using a loom that is designed for children.
      Because it is not goal oriented, we are wondering about the act of weaving, more than actually weaving something like a tapestry or a sweater.
      More than the result, the process?
      Yes
      I am also interested in the conversation that happens while weaving, there is kind of concentration that provokes language to appear in a different way. There are a lot of possibilities here also, its could be a conversation, or it could be an interview. It could be a way of talking about things that are hard to talk about.
      But you don’t know if it is?
      If it was therapy I would have to be sustained for a long period of time, They would have to come regularly and weave. I think it would allow for many elaborations with objects and materials.
      Both of the practices are at this initial state.
      Apparently I am interested in language
      Apparently? (laughs)
      Yes, I should look carefully into the ways that I set the scores, the way I give the tasks, etc etc.
      And for the weaving do you think a change in the space could also be interesting?
      Yes! If I do it in the street it could be an interesting social/relational practice, like in the middle of a square and people can come weave and talk. Its a relational object.
      What kind of experience do you want to give to the participants in the Weaving Talking?
      There is a collective doing that i would like them to get engaged in. There is also a transformative element since their words are going into the weaving, and here there are many possibilities. There is instead of a crystallisation of words, a woolization of words.
      Since it doesn’t require too much skills, someone who has more of an expertise can do it as much as someone who has never done it.
      Do you always see it as a collective practice?
      Yes I see around 3 people doing it at the time
      Ok
      Ok

      #3
      21st July 2015

      What place do you give to the idea of race in your own experience?
      This is complicated, because it has been a very important element in my own construction as a person, and there is an element of racism and discrimination that has been ever present in my own history growing up in Ecuador and living there.
      In my family, my grandmother on my father’s side was an indigenous person, she was an worker in a Hacienda and my grandfather was the owner of the hacienda. There is a great deal of this story that I don’t know, even though I have been reconstructing it for a long time; but I do have my grandfather’s last name, my father got it through a legal procedure that used to be done at the time.
      To go back to the idea of race, one of the things that I don’t know about my grandmother is if she spoke quichua (the native language) besides speaking spanish, that would be important for me to know. The way the issue of race has worked is that there is a clear hierarchy between indigenous people and white-looking people in which traditionally the indigenous people are the servants, as in the case of the Hacienda where my grandmother worked.
      My father was moved to a different city when he was a little kid
      WIth his mother?
      No, by himself, to go to school. My grandmother stayed working in the Hacienda, for free, because the new owners sent him to school, although my father would have been the heir of the Hacienda, being the only son of the owner. And of course if that would have been the case, it would have been even more terrible, to be a manager in this unjust system, you know? there would have been too much karma to that
      (laughs)
      Afterwards, when my father married my mother and they had their own house, we also had maids, which were of course indigenous people who came from the countryside to the city and worked in households.
      So your father went away to study and met your mother there?
      No, he studied until high school, went back to the Hacienda and left to the city with my grandmother. He met my mother in the city.
      My mother’s family was from the city, but this was in the 50s - 60s and the city didn't really become modernized until the 70s with the Oil Boom. She said that when she was a kid it was usual for people to have guinea pigs in the kitchen, running around, just like in the countryside, because they kept the kitchen warm. Its crazy to have had this mix of modern city and indigenous tradition at the same time.
      So it was a heating system?
      Yes
      (laughs)
      But its interesting how the ideas of class and of race come together in Ecuador. My great grandfather on my mother’s side was the son of a Minister, and he never had to work, since he had a status, although he kept loosing his fortune and selling estate to maintain his status and still not work, ever. My great grandmother had to work sewing to feed the fifteen children they had. There is a very patriarchal sexist hierarchy in which the hard work goes to the female indigenous person, although also for the indigenous males jobs like construction were left.
      So your father and your mother got married and….
      Yes they got married they lived in the city, they had seven kids, which is quite a lot and this is why they always needed help, and there were a lot of people who came form the countryside and needed a job
      So you always had an indigenous nana
      Yes, and even now she is still around, she works for one of my older brothers, though she is about to retire. Now they have a retirement fund and social security, but it is a rather new thing in the system. Before, the working relationships were ambiguous and there was the idea that hiring them was ‘doing them a favour’.
      When I was growing up, relatives of the house keepers would come to work in the house for periods of time as a way of taking them ‘out’ of the extreme poverty they lived in. One time a young boy (who had exactly my age) came and stayed for a few weeks until something valuable disappeared in the house and they kicked him out. It happened many times that people came and left for some reason.
      So I feel I have been exposed to this racialization of people; although my family has a mixed background there is this very ‘white’ rhetoric of making a difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’.
      Who are the whites in Ecuador?
      Spanish descendants, criollos, they are called
      Same as in Mexico
      Yes, I think Ecuador is very similar to Mexico in that there are still indigenous populations, but what I saw in Mexico is that you have a lot of work about indigenous cultures, like in the Anthropology Museum the work of periodization and historization of indigenous cultures is quite amazing. In Ecuador it seems a bit underdone, this kind of work.
      Do you think Ecuadorian indigenous are racist to themselves?
      I do, many times I have heard indigenous people saying self deprecating things about themselves, and also talking as if race was an essence. There is also a lot of alcoholism, and sadness, it is a diminished culture….
      The reason why I am interested in constructions of otherness has to do with the racial other, I have lived in a context that clearly distinguishes between indians and non-indians - thought they are not so clearly distinguishable in actuality, are they? -
      They are even antagonists, in this system
      Yes, exactly, completely antagonist, and hierarchized through many modes of violence that has been internalized.
      When I was working as a teacher there, I had a student who worked teaching at an intercultural school in which they spoke quichua and spanish, a lot of the kids’ parents had migrated to the city from the country side. She said that a lot of times the parents came to the school and explicitly told her not to talk to their kids in quichua, but in spanish; and a lot of times when they spoke to the kids in quichua the kids responded saying ‘I don’t know this language’. In this case language is a way of marking oppression.
      Interestingly, a lot of our spanish uses structures from quichua, and a lot of words we normally use too, but it seems we don't acknowledge this fact often.
      There is a merging of languages
      Yes but Im really interested in looking at how this merging comes about
      I see that this influences you personally, but why do you think you transpose this into your practices? And what for?
      For me there is something about layering there, and how this many layers coexist within your personal ecology
      What is personal ecology for you?
      I am in the process of defining it and understanding it, looking at The T hree Ecologies, by Guattari. It has to do with how you have built your own terrain, based on your life experiences and the collective memory that inhabits you - and you inhabit-. Somehow this elements in your terrain have become solid and part of it, like the idea that you have of yourself and your identity, but If you can build and create your own terrain you can start to see what elements are good for your soil and how it can be more fertile. It is important also to decide what you want to grow. This is how I am understanding it at the moment.
      Do you think your practices are directed to finding an ecology?
      Yes, they really have to do with working with each person’s own ecology. I am assuming that experiences of ‘othering’ of being under oppressive systems work in different ways in different contexts but they still operate, you know? So a lot of the work for me has to do with looking at this formations, and maybe doing something to the soil.
      In the practice of dissolving the other, when you see the result in the end, What does it give to you?
      I think what it does is that it enables mobility and a certain transformation that i think is quite important. It builds a temporary community and a material that is always changing.

      Yes, but what do YOU get out of this practice?
      For me the observation of how it works with other people really gives me a lot right now. On the other hand, it helps me dissolve my own others; I think I have been constructed with very fixed idea of others, under very tyrannical systems, even Europe is a tyranizing other for me
      Tell me about your residency card (laughs)
      Exactly, this helps to soften this constructions, and that is a precious thing for me. I don't like solid worlds
      Excluding worlds
      Yes
      So who is this other and how would you describe it?
      Well at the moment I am thinking of the other as the cultural other. I don't want to go into the psychoanalytic distinction between the Other and the other…. But the Other in general terms is a place where language and culture come from, and it is different form the other which is a mirrored reflection of the person - we are constructed within this Other. I suppose in the end it is all very related, the cultural other as a mirroring fantasy of difference, and the Other, the system that encompasses and frames that mirror dynamic.
      However, making another person different is a particular way of ‘othering’ and since the construction of the racial other is so violent, I would like to research more into this.
      Perhaps this is why in dissolving the other I have gone away form doing it in couples, and want to introduce many third parties in the mix, to get out of the mirroring thing.
      Franz Fanon says that the concern with self and other constructions is already a colonizer privilege, since if you are in a position of colonized you are in a zone of non-being, you are not human. Entering the self- other dynamic is already a step ahead.
      In Latin America the indians are seen as essentially inferior, and a lesser kind of human, this is what ratializing does, it colours the other as inferior.
      I would like to continue to think about other elements about my own ecology, but this has become a bit intense, and I need a break, could we continue in two weeks?
      Yes, ok
      I will see you then?
      Yes, thank you!
      Thank you!

    • End presentations 2017/I 13 March 2015
      posted by: Nicolas Galeazzi

      newscaption

      Having trouble seeing this email? Please see the online version here

       

      a.pass end presentations with

      line650



      SOFIA CAESAR

      VARINIA CANTO VILA
      CHRISTIAN HANSEN
      BRENDAN MICHAL HESHKA
      ANOUK LLAURENS
      ARIANNA MARCOliNI
      AGNES SCHNEIDEWIND
       
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      Performances and Installations:
       
      Fri 20/1 - 18:00 to 22.00h
      Sat 21/1 - 13.00 to 17.00h + 18:00 to 22.00h
      + landings party
       
      door opening one hour before start
       
       
       
      Breathing archive practice with Anouk LLaurens:
       
      Fri 20/1 - 11:00 to 13:00 + 14:30 to 16:30
      Sat 21/1 - 10:30 to 12:30 + 14:30 to 16:30
       
       
       
       
       line650
       
      at
      MORPHO
      Rue Gallaitstraat 80, 1030 Schaarbeek, Brussel
       

       

      DSC_0020 (1)_small

      "THE BREATHING ARCHIVE"
      ANOUK LLAURENS

      The breathing archive sends us back to the basic life’s movement that is an oscillation between concentration and expansion, like the movement of cells breathing and heart beating. The practice invites visitors to edit collectively a poetic and ephemeral document.  

       

      A Room from his Conceptual House - The Cabinet of Psychosculpture

      "A ROOM FROM HIS CONCEPTUAL HOUSE: THE CABINET OF PSYCHOSCULPTURE"
      BRENDAN MICHAL HESHKA

      A quick artist-guided tour through a single room from The House of the Wandering Joyce.

       

      newsletter pic

      "CARTOGRAPHERS"
      VARINIA CANTO VILA

      In seeing laws and norms as a matrix that creates divisions and borders –physical and existential – this work attempts to map a territory through choreography. In this legal territory, gesture and movement become the cartographers, making visible how the legal and the normative are preset frames for our paths.

       

      MonkeyMan,take13

      "CORRIDORS"
      CHRISTIAN HANSEN


      Possible Landscapes -

      What happens in them and what happens when they’re not there
      Earthquake glue and tectonic contrasts - Wildlife

       
       

      wring gesture_ari_small

      "REGULAR CLEANING"
      ARIANNA MARCOLINI

      is a performative setting to play with the intersection between care-taking gestures and the outcome of a Radical Cleaning session. Radical Cleaning is a practice that addresses the circulation of affects involved in the relations we establish with spaces, things, and other people. This time the outcome of the session takes the form of texts. They are performed in the Regular Cleaning, triggering the experience of the affective layer of an environment.

       

      web bed A 1_small

       "LONG WE AHEAD & WORLD HAS GONE KOOKOO"
      AGNES SCHNEIDEWIND


      A performative erasing practice investigates the rest: the resting body that lies down horizontally, and also the rest that we leave behind as a trace.
       
       

      Screen Shot 2017-01-02 at 21.42.16 (2)

      "I am Welton Santos, 2016"
      SOFIA CAESAR

      Visitors enter the backstage of an interview set. In between cameras, sound equipment, and lights, they find books. These contain texts based on transcripts and descriptions of an interview with geo-bio-architect Welton Santos.

      By collectively reading the books, the visitors are invited to a generative reconstruction of the interview, a space for rewriting the operation of documentary and narrativity and its tools, tropes, and methods.


       

      LAN

      DIN

      GS

       

      Landings (definition by the M-Webster dictionary): an act of returning to the ground or another surface after a flight. This is an invitation to us visitors to temporarily observe and intentionally touch that ground we continuously step on. Landings brings together 7 a.pass researchers that started and finished their Post Master program at the same time.

      Their research engaged in varied practices and tackled different concerns that are inherent to the relationship between the rules of a given habitat and the experiencing of being in it. The 7 trajectories were explored individually and collectively within the a.pass environment for the past year and crossed paths on several occasions. They all share the sense of place as a meeting point where their research questions are practiced through singular interactions with the viewers. The affinities that these encounters propose can be seen as points of reflection for this end presentations, and can be the guidelines for you, dear visitor, to join in.

       


      a.pass

      tel: +32 (0)2 411.49.16
      email: office@apass.be
      web: www.apass.be


       

       

       
       

       

       

       

    • A group of artist becoming organic bakers or bee-keepers, curators turning into urbanist developers, managers following mindfulness courses, right-wing politicians using left-wing argumentations. In a deeply-felt anti-disciplinary movement, ‘workers’ today not only seem to question their ‘spaces of belonging’, but they actively start to reinvent them. For now, we call these acts displacements.

      'Displacement' was the title of the end presentations of Luanda Casella, Raquel de Morais, Helena Dietrich and Nibia Santiago Pastrani. Click 'more' to read the interview with Nibia.

      Nibia Pastrana Santiago

      A critique of not-doing

       

      It seems to me that ‘displacement’ already was an inherent part of your work before you entered a.pass. Can you relate your previous work to your research here?

      I guess in my choreographic work I developed before, displacement played a role as a theme: I was looking how I could speak of the displaced body, mostly the body of the ‘immigrant’ through dance. This work was always closely related to my identity, my history as a Puerto Rican woman, artist, living in the States. I was working a lot in the context of post-colonial concepts. For example in the piece I did with six women tackling their intimate experience of living in Puerto Rico and Panama under US military presence. I was thinking how the female body carries that displacement of land and space within it. How it occupies this in-between zones between militarized and civilian life. Through the choreography it became a labor of intimacy. Or, I tried to exaggerate this displacement to understand it better. Like, I would wear an apron with the American flag, and for seven days I wouldn’t speak English at all, just Spanish. I did this in my daily life: in my contacts with other students, at home, on the streets, ... So it was me pushing myself in an exaggerated position of the immigrant. In a.pass you chose to go for a more conceptual research.

      Could you explain why you took this turn and why you decided to change the focus of your work?

      Yes, displacement was in the beginning not at all a term I wanted to bring into this research. Only in retrospect it slipped back in. When I came to a.pass I wanted to strip away any type of investigation that wasn’t coming out of the work process itself. What I proposed was to limit myself to the role of the performer. And to be a kind of archive from all the people that added to the accumulation process. I made a drastic change not to pursue this series of more politically or ideologically driven work, and to see what were the conventions that drove my work. Because even if I did field-work interviews, I used the dance studio to make sense of them. And so I wanted to pause and see what choreography was doing to my research, who I was in my work. Maybe this now sounds simple, but I really needed to experience the limits of me being a performer, or a choreographer.

      Is there then not a third role entering into the research, the one of the researcher itself?

      The researcher attempts to take a distance, she looks, collects and questions. But the research started with dance making, and what it is to me. The basic structure was to enter to the practice of the performer and ask other people to work with me, to propose material to me in the studio. For the second part I envisioned becoming the choreographer that deals with, or destroys this accumulation of material and its history. But the rich part for me was that every person came with a different agenda. Some people proposed material in the strict sense of the choreographer making me repeat and rehearse material, others proposed more of a dialogue, or feedback session, became facilitators.... And I saw myself activating certain aspects of both roles during the whole process. Even if I tried to keep them separated, they always worked together. For me it was opening up the non-fixed nature of all of any role in the choreographic process. And out of this blurring of roles, the work all of a sudden became seriously displaced. After the accumulation work in the first block, the dance floor already became unhinged. It was displaced from its function or origin, although it was still part of the studio space. So in the second block I had the intention to stick to my research proposal and start a process of destruction. But since this had actually already happened, I wanted to take the research to the city. There was an intimate relationship between the floor and my body, which is not uncommon in dancers. So I cut the floor the size of my body, and took this ‘body’ out in the city.

      I see the use of displacement popping up in artistic discourse a lot, when there is a need to make things relevant again, when you want a question to pop out once more, to be readdressed.

      Yes exactly, and in this case the change of context brought a special attention to this material (of the floor), that it didn’t have before. I used the particular propositions of the people that took part in the accumulation in the first block, and I took these as guidelines to deal with the dance floor in the city. What the dance floor makes clear in these surroundings is how other objects in the city are domesticated or have a particular functionality that the dance floor does not have. And also, if you don’t recognize the material as a dance floor, it could be seen as a kind of trash bag, or a left-over, a residue. I think with this material the displacement is ambiguous unless you know its origin. So it really depends on the effect this displacement has to somebody who does recognize the floor for what it is, and knows its history, or not. But also, the material was no longer just a material, it also became a subject by its placing in the city. It became an anthropomorphic presence somehow. It wasn’t only about the displaced object, but also the surroundings it is in. For example you start looking at the city landscape and textures differently. The spots for blind people, the street grills, the left-over trash, the Oriental carpets... I started to see the surroundings around the displaced object more than the object itself. Also I started getting interested in turning myself into the floor, becoming an abandoned sleeping person in the city, an unemployed dancer, all these images were there.

      How did this displacement change your research?

      Well the studio practice is very intimate, one-on-one, just you and the person that comes. In the city you enter into a certain vulnerability, towards an outside. The material, the body, these artifacts in the city, how do I want them to be seen by an outside world. That was a big change. The city is not the answer to these questions of the art worker, of this arts economy, but it helps to make sense of the value of what you do. Like the horizontality of the body, that in a city is completely unproductive, but still performs in some way a critical position. Towards the economy of mobility in the city, but also toward the arts practice. I think the fact that someone can identify with the material also desacralizes the dance floor. Which you normally never walk on wearing shoes. And now i’m treating it as whatever kind of material. On the one hand it became part of the city. And from the point of view of performance, it produced a critique by not doing, just being there. How do you see the relation between the emancipation that was triggered by the practice in public space, and the vulnerability it produced? I think what I went through in my research in a.pass was a process of emancipation of conventions. The body is institutionalized by your schooling, the conventions of your discipline, and the sector etcetera. And when you take the dance floor out into the city, not to dance on it, something appears. You become hyper-vulnerable, because you no longer know how to relate to your material in the same way. For me the vulnerability comes when I can no longer name what I do: ‘dance’.

       

      interview by Elke Van Campenhout

    • 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 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).

    • postgraduate program
    • Conditions for the Emergence of Poetics
    • BLOCK FOCUS 2015/I CONDITIONS FOR THE EMERGENCE OF POETICS
      16 September 2014
      posted by: Guido Lucassen
    • Lilia Mestre
    • 05 January 2015
    • 30 April 2015
    • case of: Lilia Mestre
    • BLOCK FOCUS 2015/I

      The proposal is to plunge into the conditions for the emergence of poetics. Poetics used here as acts that transform our ways of perceiving, situations that invite another understanding of ‘things’.

      If we think performance as the coming-forth of those acts, as a framed re-actualization of what is there (a part of the world) we can give focus to the relations and tensions between what is offered and what can be received in a reciprocal act of exchange, between performance and audience. Performance becomes then the enhancement zone for shared inquire, an area through which, attention is created, a place of inter-subjective research.

      The performativity or agency of such acts is of course embedded in the invitation they propose through the organization of the elements that take part in the acts themselves (time, space, objects, words,...) and that form an environment that starts to speak.

      I would say that the margins of the ‘event’ (emergence) is then situated in-between that environment, the perceptive bodies and the communal regime of perception proposing a field of action, a re-consideration of forms of living, a political approach.

      Scores are tools to understand and analyze those conditions and to bring to the fore the core of each proposal. This block we’ll investigate some formats coming from different practices (music, choreography, theater, drawing, philosophy) through the workshops and we will process the information through a score called ‘Perform back score’. (see ‘Performing back score in workshops). This score focuses on the performativity of any act of framed communication.

      A study of the conditions for the emergence of poetics in different art practices will enable the possibility to question the methods and strategies they propose and to observe the impact they produce as forms of communication (shared environments). By crossing different practices we get re-informed about our own ways of doing, one’s own methodology, one’s own critical approach, one’s own aesthetics.

      * Wikipedia : Poïesis (Ancient Greek: ποίησις) is etymologically derived from the ancient term ποιέω, which means "to make". This word, the root of our modern "poetry", was first a verb, an action that transforms and continues the world. Neither technical production nor creation in the romantic sense, poïetic work reconciles thought with matter and time, and person with the world.

    • research center 01 July 2014
      posted by: Guido Lucassen

      The a.pass research center 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.   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). 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. Goals of the a.pass research center The main goals of the research center are to develop a ‘sustainable ground’ to analyze, document and share the knowledge that is being developed in the a.pass environment, opening it up to public sharing, discussion and debate. The research centre also aims at feeding the a.pass programs through the development of experimental, challenging, nomadic research set-ups that question, disseminate and test the a.pass principles within a larger context. The research center also tries to relate the individual interests of the researchers to a larger commonal context of knowledge processing and dissemination, and make the movements of knowledge processed in the a.pass research projects visible on a larger, shared and transindividual level. The researches developed at the research center experiment the notions of research and artistic methodologies of research to their limits, so as to come to a clear understanding of the potential subversive qualities for change that are specific to the artistic research field. On the level of documentation and communication the a.pass research centre aims at: -developing tools for the development of artistic research on an advanced level (PhD and others) by -developing methodologies, strategies and critical criteria for knowledge development within artistic research contexts -archiving and making accessible interesting research results and methodologies through publication of these results in a written or live form -developing tools for the international communication of the results of the advanced researches

    • postgraduate program
    • research center
    • Milieus
    • 2014 BLOCK II 01 May 2014
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • 01 May 2014
    • 31 July 2014
    • 2014 BLOCK II

       

       

       

      Researchers Participants in the Postgraduate Program

      Anna Sörenson
      Audrey Cottin
      Camila Aschner Restrepo
      Danny Neyman
      Gosie Vervloessem
      Hans Van Wambeke
      Philippine Hoegen
      Rareş Crăiuţ
      Samah Hijawi
      Sara Santos
      Silvia Ramos Pereira
      Stef Meul
      Vanja Smiljanic
      Verónica Cruz

       


      Research End Presentations

      Carolina Goradesky
      Daniel Kok
      Gabriela Karolczak
      Julia Clever
      Maité Liébana Vena

       


      Research Centre Researchers

      Cecilia Molano
      Lucia Rainer
      Mala Kline
      Veridiana Zurita

       

       

      Partners

      FabLab IMAL
      KU Leuven
      PAF Performance Arts Forum

       


      Contributors for workshops

      Alma Soderberg
      Anna Sörenson
      Camila Restrepo
      Christophe Maierhans
      Damla Ekin Tokel
      Danny Neyman
      Elke van Campenhout
      Femke Snelting
      Gosie Vervloessem
      Hans Van Wambeke
      Hendrik Willekens
      Julien Maire
      Kristien van den Brande
      Luigi Coppola
      Michael Klien
      Nicolas Galeazzi
      Peter Stamer
      Philippine Hoegen
      Pierre Rubio
      Pr Jan Masschelein
      Rares Crauit
      Samah HIjawi
      Sara Santos
      Silvia Pereira / Omniadversus
      Stef Meul
      Vanja Smiljanic
      Veronica Cruz

       


      Coordinators a.pass

      Elke van Campenhout
      Nicolas Galeazzi
      Pierre Rubio

       

      Mentors

      Claudia Bosse
      Femke Snelting
      Kristien Van den Brande
      Peter Stamer

       

       

       

      ‘MILIEUS’
      curated by Pierre Rubio (Associate Program Curator) and Nicolas Galeazzi (Program Coordinator)

      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.
      The whole curriculum content was curated by the researchers-participants themselves through the proposition of their ‘Collective Practices’ and the collective curating of the ‘Guest House series’.

       

       


      27 / 05 / 2014


      ‘A COLLECTIVE PRACTICE OF COLLECTIVE PRACTICE’
      collective practice by Pierre Rubio


      This practice aims at sharing/developing our knowledges and skills in workshop design.
      How is it possible to translate an individual practice into a collective practice?
      How can we support each others’ effort to imagine and invent collective practices out of our individual problematics?
      From identifying central research questions in each one’s researches to transformations of these questions into shareable practices up to appropriating collectively personal singularities and nourishing a possible ‘general intellect’.

       

       

      30 / 05 / 2014


      ‘GETTING A TASTE FOR FOOD’
      collective practice by Rares Crauit


      Food is highly charged with meaning and affect; it is performative and theatrical and, as a live art, it is fleeting and sensorial. Today, in a world where one in eight people are suffering from chronic undernourishment, cooking methods, consumption protocols and gastronomic speeches are lengthily elaborated on. So what is there left for artists? Looking carefully at food particularities we may witness the ordinary and extraordinary about food as an event, catching the interest of chefs as well as artists and social campaigners.

       

       

      02 / 06 / 2014


      ‘love and other matters’
      ritual for charging the space by Elke Van Campenhout / Tara


      Monday at 10am (sharp, since a ritual can not begin twice…) we meet for a social choreography, a scored ritual, a love event, a political redistribution of desire.
We work together to transform the space of Milieus into a tableau vivant of ritual practices, using objects, the body and the voice. The ritual re-charge will go through different stages, but all require your full state of attention, comfortable clothing, and a powerful energetic level. Please don’t eat before coming, and bring:
-one object that will mark your ritual space, and that is connected to the positive energy, the love you want to dedicate to Milieus
-one ritual uniform that marks your role in the ritual

       

       


      04 / 06 / 2014


      ‘THE COOK, THE THIEF, THE WIFE AND THE LOVER’
      collective practice by Philippine Hoegen


      The aim of the workshop is to play a homemade card game and to ameliorate its rules collectively.
      Some cards have 2 images, some 2 words, some an image and a word. Some have an image and a blank space, some a word and a blank space, one card has 2 blank spaces.
      Players are invited to create connections (of similarity, opposition or otherwise) as the cards are laid.
      Each participant at the table has a role: The Cook, The Thief, The Wife or The Lover.

       

       


      11 / 06 / 2014


      ‘NEW CONTINENT OF THOUGHT, DO YOU READ ME?’
      collective practice by Vanja Smiljanic


      Invitation to gather the concepts/fetish objects/questions/ideas/ghosts that obsess and possess the participants. Translation and materialisation of these thoughts to build up a space for their habitat.
      The proposal is to see and experience this space as a momentary virtual temple.
      Discovering the path to ones own virtual temple, building up the temple, guiding a tour through it, then leaving it.
      The journey to/through/out of the temple is conceived as a virtual pilgrimage.
      Following the structure of the pilgrimage, the virtual temple represents a liminal phase of one own’s research, a space of transgression, a threshold between previous way of structuring and understanding everybody own’s identity, time, space or community and the new way of doing so.

       

       


      17 / 06 / 2014


      ‘BAD T.V. SEMINAR’
      collective practice by Anna Sörenson and Stef Meul


      'Head of Bad TV Department' Anna Sörenson and 'Bureau of Censorship President of Operation' Stef Meul invite participants in a Bad TV classification evening. They step by step take the participants through the ground pillars of Bad TV, and invite them to a public voting to help the Bad TV Department classify the very core of Bad TV. The Bad TV Department uses a system of indexing, classification and creation of categories. To inform and improve the system it is needed to gather the public opinion annually. The public voting is an important input to understand what Bad TV is in 2014 and to keep the research team informed in the many genres of Bad TV, the research in depth and the categories. The public voting is giving the statistic input the Department needs to continue the work and prepare for the coming year.
      The feeling of watching something you like, but voting for it’s “bad-ness” is a conflicting feeling and a confusing thought. The nature of the Bad TV-video clips is quite entertaining but the group can feel confused by the voting system.

       

       

       

      26 / 06 / 2014


      ‘SENSORY / SENSORIAL TRANSLATION’
      collective practice by Veronica Cruz


      A collective practice working with the sensorial way with which we engage with the world and create our understanding of it. Subjectively translating stimulus from sensation to information and vice-versa.
      The body is always the receptacle of the interrelationships’ alchemy from which we build the capacity for understanding and apprehending individuals, as well as emotions and sensations. The body’s ability to invoke the past to produce new actions and behaviours most often improvised (without previewed plans) comes from a ‘practical intelligence’.
      How to propose a different sensorial approach to performative experiences? Which mediums of transmission are favoured in your research project? Which sensations are the triggers of your research? What feeling/perception would provoke your research in its receptors/audience/spectators? How could you translate the emotions of cognitive statements of your research core into a physical stimulus?

       

       


      27 / 06 / 2014


      ‘TAKE A GOOD LOOK BACK’
      collective practice by Peter Stamer


      Visualize the past as present. Close your eyes, take a good look at what happened during the Milieus program so far. Re-imagine the events that left a mark in you, that were decisive for you, major ones, minor ones. Reveal your observations by revisiting the spots that appear in front of your inner eye. You do what you say. You tell what you see.

       

       

      27 / 06 / 2014


      ‘GUEST HOUSE SERIES : JAN MASSCHELEIN’

      one day seminar around the work of Pr. Jan Masschelein curated by Philippine Hoegen and Gosie Vervloessem


      We propose an experimental seminar on horizontal learning environments/structures.
      Can one create a school for oneself? What is the role of the school as an institute?
      What does self-education mean? How can we think of different ways of creating school?
      How to counter the production oriented machine (knowledge production, instrumentalisation of terms like research in education, in art? What could be a de-capitalised labour? How could this affect knowledge production in an artistic research environment? How to keep the ‘school’ as a place of ‘free time’.

      In relation to current education and knowledge production, Jan Masschelein talks about consumerism (students as consumers of education, the entrepreneurial student), he is critical of the demand for everything to be made productive (productive time, time as a commodity, and also knowledge production) making the ‘school’ a place of formation, he calls this the taming of the school. He describes different learning environments such as the seminar, the workshop and the lecture hall: “In this sense, the lecture hall can be described as a heterotopia; a ‘place without place’ or ‘location’ with its own order, its own technologies, rituals, ways of speaking and discipline. According to Michel Foucault, it is a space where we are exposed, that is to say ‘drawn out of ourselves, in which the erosion of our lives, our time and our history occurs’. It is a place where we are exposed to a thing-in-common and are engaged in public thinking.”

       

       


      30 / 06 / 2014


      ‘ARCHIVE FEVER’
      reading session by Camila Restrepo


      Camila Restrepo will guide the participant into an exhaustive reading of an iconic essay by Jacques Derrida: “Archive Fever”. Some key points and notions will be discussed in order to embrace the (complex) sense of the text.

       

       

      02 / 07 / 2014


      ‘GUEST HOUSE SERIES : FEMKE SNELTING’

      one day seminar by Femke Snelting around the project ‘Fathers of the Internet’ curated by Pierre Rubio


      Throughout World War I and II, Belgium internationalist, universalist and documentalist Paul Otlet imagined The Mundaneum: a city that would bring together all knowledge of the world in one flexible relational classification system. His work was largely forgotten until recently, when Otlet resurfaced as ’a founding father of the Internet’. Simultaneously, corporate titan Google adopted the remains of his archive preserved at The Mundaneum in Mons. The museum is not only located in the home town of Belgium current prime minister Elio Di Rupo, but also conveniently close to Google’s largest European datacenter in St. Ghislain. Since then, The Mundaneum proudly advertises itself as ‘Google on paper’ and ‘The great ancestor of Google’.
      ‘Fathers of the Internet’ is an ongoing exploration of a wandering archive and the entanglements of artificial intelligence, patronage and political intrigue.

       

       


      08 / 07 / 2014


      ‘GUEST HOUSE SERIES : ALMA SODERBERG & HENDRIK WILLEKENS’
      one day practice around Alma Soderberg and Hendrik Willekens’s work curated by Danny Neyman


      Alma Soderberg and Hendrik Willekens are offering one day of happy experimentation with music making. We will play with the idea of starting a band and explore what this collaborative improvisatory way of working with and around sound could mean. Playing instruments together, exploring our voices and bodies as instruments of sound, singing and otherwise. We will learn how to make beats, and how to use microphones and friendly machinery to make voice and sound into a material to be moulded, sculpted, messed around with.

       

       


      09 - 11 / 07 / 2014


      ‘GUEST HOUSE SERIES : JULIEN MAIRE’
      ‘FIELD OF WORK, DEPTH OF FIELD’
      workshop by Julien Maire curated by Hans Van Wambeke and Camila Aschner Restrepo


      There are many definitions and uses for the term “fuzzy” but they all involve some reference to a state of instability. The fuzzy logic, for example, is a programming method used in artificial intelligence: the program sets doubts that are not exclusive and that are constantly negotiable. While the Boolean logic is limited to the use of disjunctions, conjunctions and negations, the fuzzy logic reaches a state of sharpness gradually, but the focus is made with hesitation and by approximation.
      By analyzing the various definitions of what could be “the fuzzy,” the workshop will question the positioning of the actor, the performer and the spectator inside the “depth of field.” The purpose is to experiment with fuzzyness and sharpness under various angles: working in a space with a fixed lens, with a single point of focus; moving through a space with a variable focus (autofocus); reducing the depth of field (macro, micro photography); and overall to devise alternative principles for “focus control,” the intermediate stages that precede a sound, a gesture, a concept or an image.

       

       


      14 / 07 / 2014


      ‘SPEAKING BODIES’
      collective practice by Danny Neyman


      A collective practice about our bodies and our relation to our bodies through language.
      I want to gather together around the "poor material" of our own bodies, selves, memories, speaking mouths, and guide a series of exercises which will generate a verbalization of body-selves, exploring our bodies in fragments, looking at how our bodies are charged with meaning, stories, experience, memory, signification, seeing what can and can't be said about bodies, where words cling onto a body and how and when do they slip off.

       

       


      15-16 / 07 / 2014


      ‘MAKING HI-S-TORIES’
      collective practice by Samah HIjawi and Sara Santos


      The workshop will weave together several ideas around contesting historical narratives, and the power of images, their fetishization, and their potential of/for resistance through methodologies of collage and montage.
      In two separate groups, using texts, images, photographs and video each group will work for a couple of hours in creating two separate narratives of this underground collective and their manifesto, a timeline mapping the trajectory of their activities, and we try to imagine the flag they might have made to represent themselves and present themselves to the world with. Using materials provided, as well as materials we bring with us from our own practice we create an historical document of this precious moment in history.
      Then, the groups switch stations. Using collage and montage sensibilities, the groups reconsider each others historiography to intercept each others narratives.

       

       

      16 / 07 / 2014


      ‘THE GROOM OF THE STOOL’
      collective practice by Gosie Vervloessem


      A diary of digested and not digested practices.
      How does your practice digested by a foreign body looks like?
      The Groom of the Stool (formally styled: “Groom of the King’s Close Stool“) was the most intimate of an English sovereigns’ courtiers. The Groom of the Stool, in the very earliest times was responsible for assisting the King in the performance of the bodily functions of excretion and ablution, whilst maintaining an aura of royal decorum over the proceedings.This physical intimacy naturally led the Groom to become a man in whom much confidence was placed by his royal master and with whom many royal secrets were shared.
      Recipe for a workshop :
      A. Warm up – playing around with maizena
      B. The recipe
      Cook your work/your practice/your life and write down the recipe and present your meal
      C. Grooming
      Sharing practices by eating and digesting, devouring and digesting each others’ dishes.
      Choose and eat the meal of somebody else – the cook assists the digestion and interviews the eater (the actual grooming) – record the interview on paper/take notes.
      D. Stool
      The eater reports on the excrement, using whatever means that seem suitable. How does your practice digested/processed by a foreign body looks like, smells like, …?

       

      18 / 07 / 2014


      ‘GUEST HOUSE SERIES : LUIGI COPPOLA & CHRISTOPH MAIERHANS’
      one day practice and discussion around ‘Alternative Democracy’ by Luigi Coppola and Christophe Maierhans curated by Nicolas Galeazzi


      Whenever people come together, decisions will be taken - explicit or implicit, legal or legitimate, in conflict, consensus or as a compromise, spontaneously or according to a strict protocol. The dominant ‘democratic’ protocols of taking such communal decisions, are put in question from many sides: from Rancière’s concept of equality, to Putin’s rhetorics, threatening western libertarianism.
      However, in the age of flat hierarchies and the emphasised individualism, artistic group decision taking mechanisms are - willingly or not - strongly influenced by the biases, falls promises and suspiciousness against the democratic way of live. Many projects and methods try to avoid, alter or oppose democratic structures.
      a.pass, for example, and specifically Milieus, are in many sense rooted in practising agonistic structures of negotiation and try to find alternative ways.

       


      21-22 / 07 / 2014


      ‘TRANSNATIONAL ART COMMONS’
      collaborative workshop-project by Nicolas Galeazzi


      I would like to invite you all to a collaborative practice around the Transnational Arts Commons, which we are developing in relation with the Dampfzentrale in Bern.
      The aim of the project is, to temporarily run the Dampfzentrale during the Bern Biennale as a Commons, and to use this opportunity as a case study in order to develop a sustainable artistic economies based on the idea of the commons.
      In order to create a legal and recognised status for this commons, we aim to found a european co-operative, which will run its business as a commons. The exact model for this co-op is still very controversial and has to developed through many stages and with the input and interest of many people. You are kindly invited to take part in this procedure.
      Beside this gathering, we are organising a “State of the Arts” meeting. The focus of this meeting is to bring different interests and ideas in relation to each other. We invite some people engaging in alternative currencies, some active in the basic income debate, and others interested in a european network of alliances between the arts and other fields. All these approaches have their problematic points and have things in common.

       

       

      23 / 07 / 2014


      ‘MONOPOLY OF I’s / MONOPOLY OF ID's’
      collective practice by Silvia Pereira / Omniadversus


      It is a Monopoly game, with us as participants.
      We will be the piétons (pedestrians), playing at being and buying artistic identities. Identities that we will create ourselves for ourselves to the purpose of the game. The way the game will be organized will lead the group to movement very similar to the one in dynamics of creating identities as by-products of the subjecthood in relation to the conditionings of the industries of the arts.
      During the game the subject as an art piece will pass through several passes in a spiral of ascension which represents the glorification of the subject as an attributed value constructed in a narrative, a chronology and history.
      While playing we will experience through the practice the process of subjectivation of identity while enquiring about it accordingly to the positions/roles being played in the game, subject/object/art collector.

       


      24-25 / 07 / 2014


      ‘GUEST HOUSE SERIES : MICHAEL KLIEN’
      two days of practice and discussion around the project ‘Parliament’ by Michael Klien curated by Damla Ekin Tokel and Stef Meul


      Michael Klien proposes a 'closed' Parliament for participants. 4 hours long to experience the setup. After that we can discuss how to take this into the city. All day is spent tuning perception to the underlying dynamics of the individual and collective mind, sensing, and interacting with nature’s self-organising dynamics. These choreographies are rehearsals of utopia, nevertheless real social relations. Rather than just commenting on it or deconstructing it, but using that aspect that those are rehearsals for our emerging social relations.

    • postgraduate program
    • research center
    • 2013 BLOCK I 01 January 2013
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • 01 January 2013
    • 31 March 2013
    • 2013 BLOCK I

       

       

       

      Researchers Participants in the Postgraduate Program

      Carolina Goradeszky
      Chris Dupuis
      Daniel Kok
      Fleur Ordoukhani
      Gabriela Karolczak
      Ive Leemans
      Jaime Llopis
      Julia Clever
      Karl Philips
      Lucia Rainer
      Maité Liébana Vena
      Nibia Pastrana Santiago
      Raquel Santana de Morais

       

      Research End Presentation

      Robin Amanda Creswell Faure

       

      Partners

      Buda Kortrijk
      PAF Performing Arts Forum


      Contributors for workshops

      Alessandra Coppola
      Ana Hoffner
      Claudia Bosse
      Elke Van Campenhout
      Juan Dominguez
      Michael Kliën
      Nicolas Galeazzi
      Peter Stamer
      Vladimir Miller

       

      Coordinators a.pass

      Elke van Campenhout
      Lilia Mestre

       

      Mentors

      Claudia Bosse
      Nicolas Galeazzi
      Peter Stamer
      Vladimir Miller

       

       

      21-25 / 01 / 2013


      ‘NOT QUITE, NOT RIGHT’
      (Bodies within Postcoloniality)
      a.pass Basics workshop by Ana Hoffner


      How is a body transformed into an image and how does an image of the body emerge as representation? How are images of the body constructed through differences which are emphasized or hidden? We will start the workshop by having a closer look at stereotypes and visual vocabularies for representing difference by reading basic texts on representational critique by Stuart Hall. Then we will discuss basic concepts of Postcolonial Theory such as Orientalism, Subalternity, Ambivalence, Hybridity and Mimicry by Said, Spivak and Bhabha. The aim of the workshop is to enter these notions through the visual field, therefore we will use the method of Close Reading in order to connect them with the knowledge production within the works of Isaac Julien, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Angela Melitopoulos, Tanja Ostojic and others. In the last part of the workshop we will try to relate the questions raised in the workshop to contemporary societies of global migration and our own artistic research especially the image production within it.

       

       

      26 - 27 / 01 / 2013 & 29 / 01 - 02 / 02 / 2013


      ‘UNFOLDING SENSIBILITIES’
      workshop by Juan Dominguez


      This workshop takes place in two parts, first in Buda Kortrijk to the curated performance program of Juan Dominguez : ‘Somewhere Between Fiction and Reality’ and then, the workshop ‘Unfolding Sensitivities’ at a.pass in Brussels.
      Usually we, human beings, share interests, share situations, share work, spaces, leisure, love. We do it defining our interests, our identities and our territories. We are used to be effective, to not waste time, to feel uncomfortable if we don’t get what we want, we like to be safe.
      In this lab we are going to contaminate each other, we are going to lose ourselves, we are going to find and not to seek for, we are going to laugh a lot, we are going to decide, to create our own work conditions, to auto generate our resources, to work together. Clearly, we will fail miserably. But only if you want, if you don’t want, don’t come!
      In case you need a bit more info about what we will do:
      We will work through situations and practices
      We will discuss about the need of doing what we do
      We will reflect about the concerns of each other
      We will accumulate and document experience
      We will unfold perceptions aspects of space and time
      We will in a way make a trip towards the nearest unknown

       

       

      04-08 / 02 / 2013


      ‘RE-IMAGINEERING THE MACHINE’
      workshop by Vladimir Miller and Elke Van Campenhout


      In this five day workshop we work hands-on on the creation of performance 'machines', inspired by the everyday disciplinary machines that regulate our lives. In our practice we try to re-connect to an environment that is largely manifested and mediated through technological, capitalist, moral and security apparatuses that shape our sense of belonging, of mobility, and our innermost desires. Through a series of case studies we try to reinterpret the machines we know very well, but normally try to overcome by ignoring or looking awry. In this workshop we try to do the opposite: we embrace the machine and its disciplinary rigour but try to turn around its functionality: no longer producing the self-evident affirmation of the social norm, but twisting its capability for change in perception and experience.

       

       

      11-15 / 02 / 2013


      ‘CHOREOGRAPHING AS AN AESTHETIC OF CHANGE’
      workshop by Michael Kliën


      Michael Kliën outlines a fundamentally rethought understanding of ‘choreography’ as a practice vitally relevant to current social and political processes. Choreography as an ‘Aesthetics of Change’ is concerned with the workings and governance of patterns, dynamics and ecologies: the choreography of the living. If the world is perceived choreographically, namely as a moving matrix of relations, interactions, constellations and proportionalities, the creative practice of choreography aims to engage these relations or set specific conditions for relations to emerge.
      The workshop outlines choreography as a deeply political practice, unfathomably entwined with ways in which we perceive the world. Seen through a connecting framework to other fields of human knowledge (such as philosophy, physics, formal composition, sociology, anthropology, etc) participants are encouraged to recognize and challenge epistemological assumptions inscribed in the act of creation. Discussing and demonstrating a series of methodologies, the workshop explores structures and dynamics to be found in and between humans, in and between ideas as well as within the overall fabric of contemporary reality.
      The workshop will also include with an introduction to ‘Social Dreaming’, an experimental psychoanalytical practice designed by Gordon Lawrence at the Tavistock Institute in London during the 70’s.

       


      25 / 02 - 01 / 03 / 2013


      ‘SOUND GARDENING’
      workshop curated by Alessandra Coppola


      The choices the gardener makes to shape the garden result from the knowledge of how different soils accommodate different forms of life, in which ways these species develop, grow, expand above and under the ground as well as how they interact with each other and the environment. Sounds, unlike plants, do not possess such developed taxonomy; nevertheless we expect to identify various forms of sounds' "biotopes": where, when, and how do sounds do appear in the city.
      We will propose a work of observation and analysis of the urban sonic territories in order to "draw" acoustic maps of particular locations. As we won’t be relying on scientific measurements, but rather on perception and senses, our maps will differ from the noise pollution’s maps; we will try to define various given soundscapes in terms of the atmosphere they create, rather than formal units of measurement.
      Our practices aim to observe, analyze and understand the relationships between soundscape and atmosphere in an urban contexts, and eventually propose actions to alter a given situations with a sound-designing ethos. We expect this approach to be highly informative on the action agency and function sound has in shaping atmospheres;
      It will also be a study of urban soundscape from multiple viewpoints: phenomenological, poetic, physic, architectural, social, musical…. We will try not to impose any aesthetics or practice of creation, but be open to as many perspectives as possible with the reception of soundscapes.

       


      04 / 03 - 16 / 03 / 2013


      ‘THEATER OF MEMORY - POLITICAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE SELF’
      workshop by Claudia Bosse


      I am interested in the structure of our memory according to spatial structures which are the conditions of daily routines of our organisation of knowledge, practice, emotions, thoughts. The grammar of the spaces we are producing are structuring our thoughts and imaginations. I would like to work on try-outs and analysis of space, and spatial production between the concepts of theatre, city and parliament, the relations between political, social and individual space and its particular organisations. The memory, is in a way the archive of consciousness of our experiences. Following Guilio Camillos concept of ‘theatre of memory’ (teatro del mundo) as a conceptual arena of thoughts and an encyclopaedic ritual for one spectator, I would like to develop try outs of this concept according to individual concepts of the participants. I would be interested to co-relate this concept of theatre of memory to the concept of the cartography of the self. Cartography of the self as a didactic machine for self construction, as a space related creation of cartographies inhabited with embodiments and speech acts. The aim would be to work on tools to transfer interests and methods into a spatial appearance, to make them understandable and possible for collective discourse. This discourse should relate a combined body - thought - space - voice practice. Thinking in spaces, unfolding thoughts in space. Embody ideas. The try outs should be transferred in different spatial contexts and simultaneous settings as well as transferred into the public space.
      Its all about the production of space. production of thought. production of practice. production of self. production of art. production of analysis. production of aesthetics, production of politics. production of relations. production of memory. production of desires, production of ethics...

       


      18 - 22 / 03 / 2013


      ‘THE ADOPTION PROJECT’
      workshop by Peter Stamer & Nicolas Galeazzi


      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 lend out parts of your research temporarily to someone else?
      The Adoption Project deals with the ties and habits between you and your artistic practice. It challenges the perspectives and positions you engage with in your artistic process and separates them from your personal involvement by handing them over to a different outlook, practice, or routine for a certain period of time. A clearly defined section of your project will be packed in a 'box' and given up for adoption, while you will take a part of someone else's research temporarily under your 'protection'.
In this sense the Adoption Project aims to facilitate you with tools to put your work in a public context long before it is 'completed'. We understand this process as an effective instrument of research.


    • postgraduate program
    • research center
    • Tender Institute
    • 2012 BLOCK III 01 September 2012
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • 01 September 2012
    • 30 November 2012
    • 2012 BLOCK III

       

       

       

      Researchers Participants in the Postgraduate Program

      Chris Dupuis
      Helena Dietrich
      Karl Philips
      Lisa Charlotte Baudouin
      Luanda Casella
      Nibia Pastrana Santiago
      Raquel Santana de Morais
      Robin Amanda Creswell Faure

       


      Research End Presentations

      Aleksandra Janeva Imfeld
      Carlotta Scioldo
      Catherine (Clé) Lé
      Elise Goldstein
      Oshin Albrecht
      Simon Loeffler
      Veridiana Zurita
      Vicente Arlandis

       

       

      Partners

      RITS
      Campo
      Les Bains / Thematics
      Playground Festival
      M-Museum

       


      Contributors for workshops

      Bart Van den Eynde
      Brandon LaBelle
      Carlotta Scioldo
      Einat Tuchman
      Elke Van Campenhout
      Geert Opsomer
      Heike Langsdorf
      Johan Dehollander
      Jovial Mbenga
      Jozef Wouters
      Lynda Gaudreau

      Lilia Mestre

      Peter Pal Pelbart
      Robert Steijn
      Stefanie Claes
      Toto Kisaku
      Vera Mantero

       

       

      Coordinators a.pass

      Bart Van den Eynde
      Elke van Campenhout

       

      Mentors

      Ana Hoffner
      Lynda Gaudreau
      Pierre Rubio
      Robert Steijn

       

       

       

      07 - 08 / 09 / 2012


      ‘TENDER INSTITUTE’
      international conference by a.pass


      After finishing the artistic research post-graduate program at a.pass, 8 participants open up their researches in a performative and multi-layered setting.
      Sharing their insights into questions that are on the table for contemporary artists every day: what is the notion of work? How to deal with intuition today? What is the performative power of the object? How can the city be the witness of time?
      8 cases open up as many different strategies, diverse invitations to engage and experience artistic research from 8 wholly different perspectives.
      During a residency period of 3 weeks, a space is constructed that invites you into all these different cases, constructing crossing points and welcoming the visitors into the research trajectories.
      At the same time, a.pass organizes the conference 'The Tender Institute': an active meeting around the notion of the 'institute' in artistic practices today.
      In the last ten years, more and more artist initiatives have been re-thinking the institute once again as a point of address: a place where people share their concerns and interests, where you can find topical information and engage with it, where knowledge is archived and opened up to public interest and scrutiny. Compared to the more established Institutes these initiatives seem less concerned with classical knowledge conservation than with a dynamic reformulation of knowledge processed in situ. Opening up the monolithic space of recognition and representation into a heterotopic space of engaged interest.
      In these two days, a.pass invites speakers, artists, and administrators to construct new imaginations of what the institute today might look like: how to think of an institute with flexible walls, how to administer an organic institute that grows out of the interests of the people working in it? What is the place of this kind of institute in today's society? In other words: how can an institute still stay an institute when it is embracing its 'tenderness': when it recognizes its dependency on the interest of its users? The risk to become obsolete in the whirlwind of heterotopic interests? The challenge to re-invent its administration to shift from a politics of categorization to one of attention and engagement?

       

       

      Fall 2012

      ‘SCHIZOPHRENIC BODIES’
      series of workshops organised by a.pass in collaboration with Bains Connective (Thematics ‘Come Together (Lilia Mestre) /Schizophrenic Bodies’), RITS, and Campo / Summer School


      Schizophrenic Bodies test the limits of the economy of our belonging and coming together. Interpreting a Schizophrenic Body as a body that simultaneously belongs to different time and space zones, different fields of experience or history, or a body in a synaesthetic space, we'll explore during two months very different schizophrenic models. Our desire is to be working with the input of the BwO of Deleuze, with Peter Pal Pelbart the 'ghostly' bodies as put into perspective in the practice of Robert Steijn, the postcolonial monsters of Vera Mantero, the ways to rethink the hybridity of our history with the Society for the Advancement of People of Elegance and the 'orally disoriented body' of Brandon LaBelle. In each of the stadia we try to come to an overlapping and exchange between practice and theory, placing both participants and mentors into an unknown field of references that produce unexpected exchange and reasoning.

       

      17-21 / 09 / 2012


      ‘SCHIZOPHRENIC BODIES / 1’
      Peter Pal Pelbart & Robert Steijn


      This first workshop around the theme of Schizophrenic Bodies, will explore the notion of the ‘Body without Organs’, both from a theoretical and a physical perspective. In the morning the sessions with Peter Pal Pelbart are organized around texts from his book ‘The Cartography of Exhaustion’ and in the afternoons/evenings Robert Stijn works on creating these bodies through various physical practices that question, stretch or undermine an immediate i-dentification with our body and mind. The practices induce a certain kind of alienation, working out of unmediated desires, splitting up the I into different entities, in dialogue with totem animals, ghosts, out-of-body experiences. All on an experimental scale of rediscovery.

       

       

      01 - 05 / 10 / 2012


      ‘SCHIZOPHRENIC BODIES / 2’

      VERA MANTERO / The thinking body
      Vera Mantero is one of the leading Portuguese dancers and choreographers. She started in the Ballet Gulbenkian, studied contemporary dance technique and started creating her own choreographies in 1987. Since then, her work has been shown in theatres and festivals in Europe, Brazil, USA, Canada and Singapore.
      One of her shorter pieces was based on the hybrid post-colonial body of Josephine Baker, a ‘not-too-black’ American dancer making a career in colonialist France by manipulating the French stereotypes about blackness: blacks as wild animals coming straight from the jungle.
      Relaxation, the use of voice, writing, breathing and free association are some means to be used in her workshop entitled ‘The thinking body’. In this way, we will explore the movements and actions going on inside us, some of them separately first in order to incorporate them later in longer and more complex improvisational processes. The idea of getting inside a particular state of consciousness will be very important. Awareness and use of space, and the exploration of objects and materials will not be forgotten. Irony and empty hands will take us further. The workshop is not only open for trained dancers.

      PAN / The Belgo-Congolese Third Space
      (Toto Kisaku / Johan Dehollander / Jovial Mbenga / Stefanie Claes / Geert Opsomer)
      The workshop develops a research context around a contemporary Congolese performance subculture calling itself SAPE (La Société des Ambianceurs et Personnes Élégantes or, in English: the Society for the Advancement of People of Elegance). They consider themselves members of a sort of science and religion which “escalates into real fashion contests and potlatches in which youngsters would display their European fashion designer clothes, in an attempt to outdo each other”.
      The workshop aims at creating a temporary community of artistic nomads focusing on new ways to relate to the hybridity of our history, our imagination, our collective consciousness, our multiple media, our fashion and above all our of potential of resistance.

       


      08 - 12 / 10 / 2012


      ‘PERMEABLE CITY / 1’
      a.pass Basics workshop by Carlotta Scioldo & Bart Van den Eynde with Heike Langsdorf, Einat Tuchman and Jozef Wouters.


      The urban context has become the working field for many artists over the last decades. This movement outside the established art spaces can be seen as means to make a direct connection with and to have a direct impact on a larger (urban) audience and/or to (re)connect with the social, economical and political realities of the city.
      What are the economies involved in this ‘fieldwork’ and what are the possibilities and difficulties of the artist’s position in this relation? How do these artistic interventions relate to the very different temporalities of the urbanist and architectural timelines involved in the continuous making of the city?
      The concrete case of Brussels and the very different practices in the city of three ex a.pass participants, Heike Langsdorf, Einat Tuchman and Jozef Wouters, are the starting point of a first workshop where their work will be presented and contextualized. Together with the artists we will explore the neighbourhood and places they work in and the theoretical framework they have built.

       

       

      15-19 / 10 / 2012


      ‘OUT OF FRAME’
      workshop by Lynda Gaudreau


      For the next Playground Festival Lynda Gaudreau has been invited to adapt her choreographical exhibition ‘Out of Grace’ for the permanent collection of the M-Museum in Leuven. Elementary devices such as sound, lighting and the presence of the body will draw the visitor in and activate modes of display and perception, addressed here according to a performative and compositional logic. What is entailed by these modes when a collection coexist with the body, the light and the sound? André Malraux’ essay, ‘The Imaginary Museum’, (1947) will serve as a starting point to reflect on history, contemporaneity and the idea of reproduction with copies, photocopies, photos and drawings. This hybrid and experimental project, at the borders of choreography and exhibition questions the nature and relationship of these practices.

       


      25 - 29 / 10 / 2012


      ‘SCHIZOPHRENIC BODIES / 3’
      Brandon LaBelle


      The workshop will explore notions of masquerade, impersonation, clowning and multiple personalities. Through a series of exercises and experiments with voice, masks, and puppets, participants will construct their own double. The double will function as a second body, or an echo of oneself. By using various static materials, the workshop will support a "distribution of agency" away from the human subject and toward an interaction with static materials, audio recordings, and space. How might objects and things come to life, as animate forms? And what consequences might this have for methods of performance and choreography?

       

       

      12-16 / 11 / 2012


      “PERFORMANCE / PERFORMATIVITY’
      a.pass Basics workshop by Elke Van Campenhout


      In this workshop we attack texts and practices that deal with the notion of performance and performativity. We dive into the historical context of the birth of performance as an emancipatory and authenticating gesture, put critical questions towards its aura of ‘authenticity’ and ‘unrepeatability’ (Peggy Phelan), its documentary status, etc... We also go into the philosophical meaning of ‘performativity’ as developed by Austin and Butler. And take in some of the technological and economic uses of the word ‘performance’ to see if this can enlighten a contemporary notion of ‘performance’ today: how this could reflect a changed reality, and societal organization. Is there anything to be emancipated from? And are performative strategies the tools we need to wriggle ourselves out of the restrictions and limitations of an artistic, economic, and institutional field?

       


      19 - 24 / 11 / 2012


      ‘PERMEABLE CITY / 2’
      workshop and conference by Carlotta Scioldo & Bart Van den Eynde with Heike Langsdorf, Einat Tuchman, Jozef Wouters & guests


      Second practical part of the workshop ‘Permeable City’ on artistic interventions in the urban context where the participants of the workshop are invited to explore their own artistic practice in relation to the city and the working spaces created by Heike Langsdorf, Einat Tuchman & Jozef Wouters.
      This second workshop week will be rounded up in a conference, a public presentation and discussion forum, with participants and guests where the two weeks experience of ‘The Permeable City’ will be shared with a larger audience.

    • postgraduate program
    • research center
    • a.p.t.-a.s.-a.r.c.
    • 2012 BLOCK II 01 May 2012
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • 01 May 2012
    • 31 July 2012
    • 2012 BLOCK II

       

       

       

      Researchers Participants in the Postgraduate Program

      Aleksandra Janeva Imfeld
      Carlotta Scioldo
      Catherine (Clé) Lé
      Elise Goldstein
      Elizabeth Ward
      Fleur Ordoukhani
      Helena Dietrich
      Ive Leemans
      Jaime Llopis
      Luanda Casella
      Lucie Eidenbenz
      Oshin Albrecht
      Simon Loeffler
      Veridiana Zurita

       

      Partners

      PAF Performance Art Forum
      Nadine
      De Singel

       

      Contributors for workshops

      Anja Steglich
      Ant Hampton
      Caroline Daish
      Elizabeth Ward
      Elke Van Campenhout
      Julie Pfleiderer
      Nicolas Galeazzi
      Paz Rojo
      Vladimir Miller

       

      Coordinators a.pass

      Bart Van den Eynde
      Elke van Campenhout

       

      Mentors

      Ana Hoffner
      Nicolas Galeazzi
      Peter Stamer
      Pierre Rubio

       

       

       

       

       

      07 - 11 / 05 & 14 - 18 / 05 / 2012


      ‘HIGHER PERFORMANCE’
      workshop by Nicolas Galeazzi & Elizabeth Ward


      The current economic crisis is not only a result of some major failures in speculating practices, it is 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 believe 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 then ever in the last 40 years.
      In this climate, artists are forced to rethink their relationship to economics. 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 by “occupying” and appropriating the "economics" and its terminology and fill it with new practices and new meaning. We will occupy the vocabularies, the practices and the appearance of the economy and to open it to a wider spectrum of life than just a financial success. For that we have to ask, what do we expect from future life? What is it what we really are 'dealing', 'trading' with? What is our currency? What kind of an economy could we establish out of an artistic (researching) practice which will make a real difference?
      In order to compare and relate the differing understandings of 'performance' in a practical and discursive way, we will setup a lab where artistic performances and economic performances should coexist, contradict and corrupt each other.

       


      21-25 / 05 / 2012


      ‘SEEING SOUND’
      two workshops by Julie Pfleiderer and Ant Hampton


      ‘Soundwalk’
      German director Julie Pfleiderer and performance artist Caroline Daish have invited guest artists, including David Helbich, Joanna Baillie & Paul Craenen for the May Soundlab "Seeing Sound". The idea is to create 10 days around Sound and Performance in the context of Soundwalks and inviting an expansive interpretation of the form 'Soundwalk'.
      ‘Fantasy Intervention’
      "Fantasy Intervention" is a workshop by Ant Hampton on imagination and writing for site-specific theatre and live urban interventions. With a focus on observation imagination and writing and involving walks in the city, discussion, film and photography the workshop culminates with a series of presentations.

       


      28 / 05 - 01 / 06 / 2012


      ‘COLLABORATION AND COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH’
      a.pass Basics workshop by Elke Van Campenhout


      Every block, a.pass organizes some ‘B-workshops’: workshops that focus on the basic principles of a.pass as a working environment. Every B-workshop is accompanied by a reader of texts and information that will be the starting point for discussion and a platform for (re)-thinking the a.pass working environment. In the upcoming blocks we will gather around topics like ‘collaboration’, ‘self-organization’, ‘tools, cases and other methodologies for artistic research’, ‘feedback and critique’, ‘collaborative work spaces’, ‘transdisciplinary research practices’, ‘What is political about research?’, ‘Who’s afraid of the Institute?’, etc...
      This first B-workshop on ‘collaboration and collaborative learning’ opens up the field of collaborative practices as ‘open collectives’, as it grew in the artistic practices of the last 10-15 years. We try to get a grip on the social, political, economic and aesthetic context that has produced this proclivity for communal working, and look at some interesting examples of collaborative research projects.

       

       

      25 - 29 / 06 / 2012


      “WHATEVER MOVING LIKE THIS”
      workshop by Paz Rojo


      How could we experience the question "what, why, who, where, what for, how we live the tension between individuation and the necessity of collectivity?” What are the conditions that make WE a problem to sustain rather than a problem to solve? How can we address such a question assuming that the sites where the sensible, the corporeal and unspeakable are the battlefield where to challenge our existence? How could we do so without addressing pre-existent models and protocols? Could we experience (the) body as the very battlefield where the "somatic" prime on the "cognitive" where "creation" prime on the "creative" where “tacit experience” primes over “negotiation and responsibility” and where softness, empathy and dispersion prime over self-representation, self-management and self-control? What does being “democratically in contact means today" as a performative and experienciable gesture?
      This workshop takes place within the framework "C O R E O G R A F X S", an investigation that departs from a series of choreographic cultures that emerged over the 70´s in NY, which sought to incorporate the collective daily life through the body. From this context "C O R E O G R A F X S” studies some of the concepts that defined these cultures and, in turn, questions what they mean in the current market democracies and in relation to the triangle brand-body-work.

       


      02 - 06 / 07 / 2012


      ‘FEEDBACK AND CRITIQUE‘
      a.pass Basics workshop by Vladimir Miller & Elke Van Campenhout


      We want to address the topic of feedback. Since a.pass is a shared environment, we depend a lot on each other as sparring partners in our researches. Often the work is presented within a group and the quality of the feedback is lacking in precision, understanding or communicative strength. What is important in giving or receiving feedback is that both positions are clarified: what position do I speak out of? what kind of feedback would be useful for my research?
      In this workshop we try to construct very diverse feedback techniques: spoken critique, non-negotiated critique, direct feedback, indirect feedback, written, walking, one-on-one or transformative feedback.
      We refer also back to some basic texts on art critique and feedback systems.

       

       

      13 - 22 / 07 / 2012


      ‘THE WALK’
      workshop on location by dr. Anja Steglich & Elke Van Campenhout


      The Walk is a ten day workshop on location, focussing on two main questions:
      How to turn walking into a qualitative tool for artistic research? and How to create a shared landscape through the individual investigation of connecting territories?
      During the Walk we will address these questions out of the proposals of the individual researchers, that will investigate a limited domain and devise a walk that can later be picked by others. Important in this construction is the decisions made on the level of parameters: what do I consider (out of my research) to be important ‘markers’ of the walking experience: fe. sound, shapes, roads, attitude of walking, … Throughout the ten days we try to come back to the PAF ‘headquarters’ with enough information to turn our proposals and experiences into a shared map of the environment, and add the instructions, tasks and guidelines into a useable walking guide for others.
      What is important here that these guidelines are both addressing the walk as a method for artistic research and the walk as an investigative tool to discover the landscape as a ‘narrative’.
      The main guest on this journey is dr. Anja Steglich, who is currently working on two linked themes: the `telling landscapes´ and the ‘landscape choreography’.

    • postgraduate program
    • research center
    • a.p.t.-a.s.-a.r.c.
    • 2010 BLOCK III 01 September 2010
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • 01 September 2010
    • 30 November 2010
    • 2010 BLOCK III

       

       

       

      Researchers Participants in the Postgraduate Program

      Abhilash Ningappa
      Adva Zakai
      Alessandra Coppola
      David Zagari
      Doris Stelzer
      Einat Tuchman
      Esther Francis
      Iris Bouche
      Katrin Lohmann
      Manne Granqvist
      Manon Avermaete
      Margareth Kaserer
      Michiel Reynaert
      Philip Janssens
      Philippe Severyns
      Rodolphe Coster
      Stephen Bain
      Sven Goyvaerts
      Timothy Segers

       


      Research End Presentations

      Agnese Cornelio
      Ana Casimiro
      Charlotte Bouckaert
      Heike Langsdorf
      Iuliana Varodi
      Marcelo Mardones
      Maria Lucia Correia

       

       

      Partners

      Theaterfestival 2010
      Thematics (Les Bains, Brussels)
      Master in Choreography (Amsterdam)
      Campo
      RITS
      De Singel

       


      Contributors for workshops

      Anette Baldauf
      Bart Van den Eynde
      Christian Rizzo
      Elke Van Campenhout
      Epifania Amoo-Adare
      Guillermo Gómez-Peña
      Janez Janša
      Jeremy Wade
      Laurent Liefooghe
      Lilia Mestre
      Sara Manente
      Sven Goyvaerts

       

      Coordinators a.pass

      Bart Van den Eynde
      Elke van Campenhout


      Mentors

      Anette Baldauf
      Laurent Liefooghe
      Nicolas Galeazzi
      Pierre Rubio

       

       

       

      30 / 08 - 03 / 09 / 2010


      ‘DISCUSSION & REFLECTION’
      workshop of shared critique by a.pass in collaboration with Theaterfestival 2010


      During the Theaterfestival, a.pass-participants work together with a group of outsiders on a workshop of shared critique: we go and see a series of performances at the Theaterfestival (a yearly festival that selects performances that have been of particular importance to the development of the performance arts in Flandres/Belgium in the past year).
      Next to this we selected some texts to feed the discussion, that work out some of the themes/aesthetic principles/dramaturgical choices made in these specific performances to feed the discussion.

       


      04-09 / 09 / 2010


      ‘LaZone BRUSSELS’
      project by apass Research Center, Thematics (Bains, Brussels) and Master of Choreography (Amsterdam)


      LaZone is both the second stage in the Critical Hope research by Elke van Campenhout within a.rc (a.pass research centre) and the topic for the 2 month residency Thematics at workspace Bains Connective in Brussels. For the opening week of the projects we share our space with the students of the Master of Choreography in Amsterdam to work on defining the boundaries of LaZone: this in-between place that falls out of our understanding of the different ‘regimes of the sensible/experientiable’ (Jacques Rancière) that define our daily life. In other words: we lead our lives within different zones of understanding, speaking and behaving. What I can see and experience, what I can say and express, is dependent on the particular zone I am moving in at that particular moment (the political zone, the personal, the juridical, the virtual etc...).
      LaZone is trying to construct a space-in-between these zones: the place where behavior, speech and movement have not been negotiated yet, the place where misunderstanding is the leading principle of communication, the environment that drives our hospitality principles to their breaking point, showing us simultaneously the impotence and the potential of our cosmopolitan/transcultural hopes and desires.
      LaZone is a workshop in which three groups (Thematics artists, a.pass participants, MA Choreography) share the same space for one week. During that week LaZone will be created on different levels: the interpersonal level of hospitality and the sharing of theory and practice, and the larger level of the society at large, critically examining the boundaries of our democratic pretentions and preconceptions. Everyone can bring a ‘gift’ to LaZone: a practice, a piece of knowledge, an insight or an invitation you want to extend to the rest of the group. The workshop will create itself out of the proposals of everyone, on the basis of equality and interest, with three or four activities running at the same time, allowing every participant to develop a personal trajectory throughout the week.

       

       

      13-18 / 09 / 2010


      ‘WORKSHOPS WITH GUILLERMO GOMEZ-PENA AND JANESZ JANSA’
      Two parallel workshops by a.pt in collaboration with Campo and RITS


      Guillermo Gómez-Peña
      In this specific physical workshop, Guillermo Gómez-Peña will attempt to create a temporary community of rebel artists, aiming to find new modes of being and discover other ways of relating to their own body. During the workshop the following questions will prove to be crucial: which borders do we wish to cross? Why? Which borders are harder to cross, both in the workshop and in our personal lives?


      Janez Janša
      In this workshop, intellectual challenge and debate will be actively encouraged, triggering an entire series of questions: What is real? What is mediated? How do identity and politics relate to the status of an object of art?
      Each day of the Summer School will be concluded by an evening programme consisting of meetings, lectures, screenings, debates and artistic interventions. The evening guest artists have all collaborated on the research topic 'the performance as document - the document as performance' and include, among others, Hans-Werner Kroesinger, Sarah Vanagt and Carina Molier.

       


      19-26 / 09 / 2010


      ‘LaZone BERLIN’
      project by apass Research Center and Thematics (Les Bains, Brussels)


      A group of artistic field researchers find themselves on unknown territory: LaZone is a place where the spatial rules of behavior have stopped to make sense. It is an environment that has no function, no meaning, no recognizable orientation points. It is a transit area, a stretch of land that falls out of our rule-giving grid of common sense, of law-giving, of understanding and of commonly accepted behavior. LaZone is the space of immigrants, of avatars and aliens, of dislocated complex identities, of lost cases and derailed causes. It is a place that has to define itself through the practice, through the use, through the re-negotiation of the rules of encounter and hospitality.
      During one week a group of immigrants from a.pt (advanced performance training) and Thematics (research project of the workspace Bains Connective in Brussels) will settle down at Fabrikationen, and try to make sense of their role and interaction with the locals. The results of their work will be presented on the 24th. Their Political Party might also infiltrate at the 25th's end party.

       


      20-24 / 09 / 2010


      ‘STORYBOARDING’
      workshop by Jeremy Wade


      In many ways performance is one big performed story board, an invisible text set of directions and nothing more. At the other hand story boarding it self is an art form. So how to use a story board to construct a performance and how to make a story board performative, how to blur the boundaries between story board and piece. Starting from a a written proposal minimum of three pages of each of the participants, story boards will be made, including an application for a grant with a budget of the project.
      During the course of this exploration/composition workshop we will strive to facilitate the great blur through the investigation of numerous storyboarding techniques. We will also research a wide array of taboos, techniques and theories that help us get closer to an essential concern of composition and aesthetics which is the age-old question of… “What is a thing”? We look at a vast index of queer scores that shed some light on the circularity of aesthetics. We can make monsters out of these stagnant aesthetics and gain perspective on how to compose, obliterate, blur and layer our lovely things for an audience. We will find modes to clarify our concepts for the pre production and production phases of creation. We will work towards structuring and deconstructing our ideas, both material and ethereal.
      Jeremy Wade is an American choreographer living and working in Berlin.

       

       


      04-10 / 10 / 2010


      ‘THE GAZE 2.0’
      workshop by Sven Goyvaerts


      Theoretical & practical workshop where the social media and our desktops create the format for communication and knowledge exchange and are being used as tools for artistic creation. Central focus in the workshop is the capture / transformation / (re)routing of the gaze through social media. Featuring crash course in and experiments with social media and other software : Ustream.tv, Snapz Pro, Flickr, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, World of Warcraft, Second Life, Everytrail and Chatroulette.
      The following topics will be discussed : MEDIA MIRROR (on identity), CYBER EYE CONTACT (on the look and the gaze), WELIVEINPUBLIC.COM (on narcissism), SECOND SKIN (on the avatar), THE PERVERT’S GUIDE TO SOCIAL MEDIA (on obscenity).

       


      11-15 / 10 / 2010


      ‘PERFORMATIVE SPACE’
      workshop by Laurent Liefooghe


      Being interested in the negative & constrictive aspects of architecture (obstruction, representation, order) and the idea of ‘active’ architecture (defined by what it does instead of what it shows), Laurent Liefooghe takes an analogy between architecture and contemporary art performance as a departure to try to liberate architecture from its obsession with emblematic objects. For this workshop he wants to investigate the idea of the ‘performative space’. Departing from case studies, he wants to develop possible concepts of a ‘performative space’.

       


      18-22 / 10 / 2010


      ‘BROODTHAERS & KAUFMAN’
      workshop by Sara Manente


      Starting point of this workshop by Sara Manente, former a.pass participant, are the is the investigation of the possible relation between Marcel Broodthaers and Andy Kaufman, two artists that broke rules in their fields, both provocative because acting on the limits of their roles and their positions in society, playing with meaning and expectations. A speculative game to see if a hint is to be found, as if by putting two things close to each other we can find similarities, intriguing associations that we couldn't see before. The overall question is one of sameness and otherness. The research on "similarity" from the two points of view of perception (outside) and interpretation (inside).

       

       

      25-30 / 10 / 2010


      ‘INTERFACE FICTIONS’
      workshop by Lilia Mestre & Elke Van Campenhout


      In this workshop we occupy for one week the gallery/shopping window of a new alternative performance gallery in Brussels. Working together within this space we try to develop working practices that project the gallery space on the outside world: gestures that communicate with the commuters, the neighbours, the occasional passers-by. By blurring the boundaries between living and working in the space, and by not retreating to recognizable artistic strategies, we try to break the rules of expectation, of recuperation and of communication of the arts. Every participants will try, in constant negotiation with the others, to develop practices that open up the activities from within to the viewer/participant outside. This can happen imagining the space to be what it is not: a shop, a restaurant, a library, a TV studio, a social centre, an immigrant office, etc...
      As important as the inside/outside dialogue, will be the negotiation inside of the space: the overlayering of practices and imaginations of the space, the monsterly spaces that grow out of inbreeding, etc... Not only negotiating space, but also behavior, time, attitude, convictions and necessities.

       


      01-12 / 11 / 2010


      “THE 5 SENSES”
      workshop by Bart Van den Eynde and Elke Van Campenhout


      In this workshop we develop on the basis of texts and specialist talks a mapping of the 5 senses as a starting point for artistic thinking and practices. We include artistic practices like the ones of Lygia Clarke, Enrique Vargas, Peter Verhelst, Dries Verhoeven, f0am, Charo Calvo, etcetera... Each of the senses is the topic of 2 days.

       

      15-19 / 11 : 2010


      ‘SPATIAL LITERACY’
      workshop by Anette Baldauf & Epifania Amoo-Adare


      What is space, what is the relationship between spatial conditions and power? How can we envision the transformation of space and the making of different spaces? The premise of this workshop is that a critical pedagogy on space, on the forces involved in the production and reproduction of space, is a necessary condition for any intervention in space. We propose to challenge widespread understandings of space as a structure that is given and fixed, in other words: a structure that is developed for and not a context that is developed by society. We contrast this convention with an understanding of space as both, a manifestation as well as a vehicle of the productive relations of power. Following the equation “space = (social) product” we investigate spatial relations, the making of inclusion and exclusion, centrality versus marginality, legibility, difference and conflict. Framed as an exercise in “spatial literacy”, we discuss techniques of making sense of spatial relations, of making use and appropriating them.



      22 / 11 / 2010


      “LECTURE BY CHRISTIAN RIZZO”
      presented by a.pass & De Singel


      Choreographer Christian Rizzo will be working for a year with and in the buildings of deSingel. In the next block he will also create a workshop for a.pass. This is a first meeting with the artist where he reads texts with us that have been essential in his development as an artist. This lecture is a starting point to speak about different influences and important meetings in their carrier, and to show fragments of their work.
      Christian Rizzo has been fashion designer, rock musician, then dancer and choreographer. In 1996 he created his own company L'Association Fragile. From 2003 he became artist in residence of the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts of Toulouse. Also in 2003 he received Le Grand Prix de la Critique.

       

       

       

       

    • postgraduate program
    • research center
    • a.p.t.-a.s.-a.r.c.
    • 2009 BLOCK III 01 September 2009
      posted by: Pierre Rubio
    • 01 September 2009
    • 30 November 2009
    • 2009 BLOCK III

       

       

       

      Researchers Participants in the Postgraduate Program

      Agnese Cornelio
      Alejandro Petrasso
      Ana Casimiro
      Charlotte Bouckaert
      Dianne Weller
      Fanny Zaman
      Fien Wauters
      Heike Langsdorf
      Iuliana Varodi
      Jozef Wouters
      Julie Pfleiderer
      Kurt Van Overbeke
      Marcelo Mardones
      Maria Lucia Correia
      Sara Vilardo
       

       


      Research End Presentations

      Ariane Loze
      Constanze Schellow

       


      Partners

      Theaterfestival
      De Singel
      CIFAS
      Bourla Theater
      PAF (Performance Art Forum, Reims, France)

       

       

      Contributors for workshops

      Arco Renz
      Benjamin Verdonck
      Hans Op de Beeck
      Laurent Liefooghe
      Lotte van den Berg
      Meg Stuart
      Moritz Kuhn
      Nicolas Y Galeazzi
      Rabih Mrouéh
      Renée Copraij
      Stefan Heinric
      Stijn Bussels
      Timothy De Paepe

       


      Coordinators a.pass

      Bart Van den Eynde   

      Elke van Campenhout

       

       

      Fall 2009

      ‘THEATERFESTIVAL’

      ‘Performance in public Space’ : reading sessions & artist talks by de Singel and a.pass

      The Theaterfestival offers a perfect occasion to make the a.pass training more visible. Three participants show their researches in the context of the festival ( Ariane Loze, Michel Yang and Jozef Wauters) and the reading sessions are open to outsiders. Several artists will be invited to discuss the theme of ‘performance in public space’ with the participants (Benjamin Verdonck, Moritz Kuhn and Lotte van den Berg), combined with a close reading of theoretical texts.  

       

      Fall 2009

      ‘CONCEPT & DESIGN III’

      workshop by Arco Renz  and Stefan Heinrich

      A scenography workshop with a choreographer seems a necessity for a.s. Working on a new project, Arco Renz works with the participants on the development of a - hypothetical - stage design for his choreography. Without the help of a 'performance text' the participants will enter his world and find connections with their own interests, measure up the artistic and practical limitations of the project and find a scenographic vision which inscribes itself in Arco Renz' universe.  

       

      Fall 2009

      ‘THE ART OF MISUNDERSTANDING’

      workshop by Nicholas Y Galeazzi

      Nicolas Y Galeazzi’s workshop 'The art of misunderstanding' explores the different ways in which artistic research is or can be organized. In a very practical setting, the participants will develop one (room-sized) 'paper' on artistic research, using their own attitudes and methodologies for a more thorough mapping out of the field. The workshop both challenges the imagination of the field of knowledge production, as offering a lot of theoretical texts explorations, introducing artistic examples and opening up a lot of discussions.

       

      Fall 2009

      ‘VENICE BIENNALE’

      journey to art biennale by a.pass 

      The visit of the Venice Biennale is a possibility for a focussed confrontation with the referential current visual arts context. Hybridity and the confrontation of cultures, identities and art languages are at the heart of the festival and the context of a cultural event of that proportion, exposure and 'fame' is in itself an important issue of discussion. Parallel with the Biennale there will be also other major exhibitions in Venice: the opening of  Punta della Dogana Art Museum and In-Finitum in the Palazzo Fortuny. There will be no organized workshop and there will be no fixed itinerary, participants will be free to completely self organize through the four days in Venice.

       

      Fall 2009

      ‘ART AS DOCUMENT / DOCUMENT AS ART - RABIH MROUÉ’

      Two weeks workshop with artist Rabih Mrouéh, in the framework of the RITS research project Art as a document/The document as art. Participants will join in first instance in day-long discussions on central topics within the working field of Mrouéh: what is history, what is fiction? can you create your own history? what is latency? when does your personal history become shared? how to create documents? how do documents function? how can you be your own actor?

      In a second phase, the participants will work with the material in a performative way.

       

      Fall 2009

      ‘ARTIST TALK / MEG STUART’

      Choreographer Meg Stuart discusses her development as an artist, the evolution of her work and how she relates to other art forms than dance. Being very aware of the artistic research context of a.pass, she will elaborated on working processes and tools for collaboration as well as the dramaturgy of her performances. 

       

      Fall 2009

      ‘RADICAL HOPE’

      An hybrid program of reading sessions, discussions with guests and practical interpretation of the concept of Hope, ending by the preparation of a 'hope dinner' in a.pass kitchen.

      'Radical Hope, Ethics in the face of Cultural Devastation', Jonathan Lear

      'Hope, New Philosophies for Change', Mary Zournazi: interview with Brian Massumi and Isabelle Stengers

      Guests : Renée Copraij: choreographer, dancer and curator of Huis aan de Werf, Utrecht and Laurent Liefooghe: architect, performance maker

       

      Fall 2009

      ‘ARTIST TALK / HANS OP DE BEECK’

      Visual artist Hans Op de Beeck discusses his development as an artist, the evolution in his work and how he relates to other arts. Using a lot of visual material from his installations and models and fragments of his videoworks, he will sketch an artistic process and an evolution through trial and error. Also elaborating on the practical circumstances of his life as an artist: economics, reception, education, the relation with critics and galleries and museums, etc..

       

      Fall 2009

      ‘CONTAMINATE THE CITY’

      artistic practices in public space

      For this workshop we will join the workshop program of CIFAS in Brussels. ‘Contaminate the city’ is a workshop on artistic practices in public space, trying out different practices and actions, and gradually developing individual projects within the city.

       

      Fall 2009

      ‘AN HISTORY OF DANCE’

      reading sessions by Katie Verstockt

      Starting with a minimal historical introduction from dance as a ritual to the dance history in Europe (focusing on the act of seeing and the scenographic performativity), dance theoretician Katie Verstockt will discuss mainly the important 20th century movements (Modern Dance, Ausdruckstanz, Ballet Russes, Ballets Suédois, Post Modern Dance, Butoh, Contemporary dance, ...) in their more general cultural context. 

       

      Fall 2009

      ‘BAROKTHEATERS’

      lecture by Timothy De Paepe at Bourla Theater

      Scenography researcher Timothy De Paepe will give a lecture on theatre architecture, stage machinery & scenography in the baroque era 1600-1750 based on his research and reconstruction of theatre buildings and stages out of the area of Antwerp. With an historical introduction on the evolution and social context of theatre and illustrated with an impressive visual documentation, this presentation will a perfect introduction to a visit of the Bourla Theater.

       

      Fall 2009

      ‘THEATRICALITY’

      lecture-workshop by art historian Stijn Bussels around the term ‘theatricality'. 

      Following Collins Dictionary it means ‘of or related to the theatre or dramatic performance’, but also ‘exaggerated and affected in manner or behaviour’. How the theatre is related to society? How the theatre is used as a concept that explains conduct outside the norm? However, this negative connotation is historically determined. In the Renaissance, the metaphor of theatrum mundi became a dominant model to show that society is fashioned by role play and scenario’s. This view, however, was not primarily put in a negative context. There is a clear shift in eighteenth-century thought. In this period, our contemporary use of the term ‘theatrical’ comes into being.

      The lecture will focus on the early modern era. By doing so, it will try to make clear how the theatre is divergently appraised in its representational aspect. The theatre is evaluated as reprehensible deception, but also as revealing deeper truth. This evaluation can be linked with views on historical societies where artificiality is not always predominantly coupled with dishonesty, but with skill and learning. 

       

      Fall 2009

      (IN) VISIBLE 

      workshop-research by Maria Lucia Cruz Correia and Bart Van den Eynde

      "The reality: “The Giant Scenario”? Are we participants in a scenario created by humans? Is our reality a scenario built in real scale? Does the space feel that we are there? Does our existence depend on the space, or is it the space that depends on us?" Starting from the distinction between what is "visible" and what is not the participants are invited to join a research of the city in the city. Together with coordinator Bart Van den Eynde a syllabus is proposed (Simmel on ‘Metropolis’, Debord on ‘Derive’ and Marc Augé on ‘non-places’) and the creation of a context for city walks and consequent mapping and reporting. 

       

       

       





APPLY TO THE A.PASS PROGRAMMES

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

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