In January, February and March 2015, through talks, readings, discussions, performances, workshops, film screenings and an exhibition of student work, Studium Generale Rietveld Academie* & Rietveld Uncut** are collaborating on an extensive, artistic research trajectory.

ACT 1, SCENE 7

WED 11 MAR MAAGDENHUIS SPUI 21 Amsterdam

ARE YOU ALIVE OR NOT? / HAPPENING with Charles Esche, Mercedes Azpilicueta, Gabriëlle Schleijpen, Tarja Szaraniec, Nikos Doulos and many others

"Today we are faced with a discourse that looks like a carcass, one that is on the brink of death if not dead – so what must we turn to? We must turn back to life, we must search out the real of life in the depths of the critique of this weakened, dying discourse...."
" ....The only true resource is thus situated at the level of the body."
Alain Badiou


Studium Generale Rietveld Academie received an invitation to relocate it's March 11 session from the Rietveld's GYM to the occupied Maagdenhuis. We have accepted and will join the staff and students at the University of Amsterdam as an act of solidarity and as an alternative mode of "looking at art through the lens of theatre".

1 3 . 3 0 – 1 4 . 1 5
'Are You Alive Or Not?' introduction to the program of the upcoming conference-festival & master classes Are You Alive Or Not ? March 18-22 by Gabriëlle Schleijpen, Tarja Szaraniec, Nikos Doulos
1 4 . 1 5 – 1 4 . 4 5
'I committed a Happening' is a lecture performance especially created for this occasion at the Maagdenhuis, that tours some of the works of a generation of artists in Argentina during the 1960´s who understood artistic practice as a form of action towards a social change.
Mercedes Azpilicueta (AR) is a visual artist and performer currently in residence at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam.

1 4 . 4 5 – 1 5 . 3 0
Open discussion around art, theatre, democracy, autonomy/heteronomy, academy, university and how to reclaim the commons (air, water, land, food, care, education, culture, art) from 'capital'. Moderator: Charles Esche.
Charles Esche is the director of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven.

1 5 . 3 0 – . . . .
An attempt will be made to create a group performance as a collective gesture of re-appropriation. This is a Rietveld student & alumni initiative.

http://areyoualiveornot.rietveldacademie.nl/

*Studium Generale Rietveld Academie is a rambling, cross departmental and trans disciplinary lecture and performance program with an annually changing, overarching research theme, addressing students of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, as well as the general public.

**Rietveld Uncut is an annual joint presentation by the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. Within the Rietveld the process of making, from concept to work, is an important element throughout the whole study. This process often stays invisible to the outside world; Rietveld Uncut aims to shed a light on this unique, dynamic and experimental part of the academy and reveals this process to the public. Departments and individual students contribute with projects evolving around the research topic introduced by the many guest lecturers invited by Studium Generale Rietveld Academie.