DAI-bulletin 2009-2010 number seven March 2010

This is the seventh issue of the monthly DAI-bulletin in the academic year 2009-2010, informing you about our program and about important dates and events.

Please note that:

- biographical information on our guests can be found on our website under ‘Faculty’ and ‘Guests’
- all parts of the curriculum have to be attended by all students unless it is mentioned otherwise.

DAI-week March 22 – March 26

Instead of asking its master students to be present at the institute on a daily base the DAI offers an alternative educational environment: during one week per month (11 times per year) everyone who is involved in DAI stays in Enschede day and night and takes part in an intensive and intense program (consisting of lecture presentations, performances, seminars, face to face conversations, projects, master classes, workshops etcetera) that lasts from early morning until late at night. Guest cooks (most often artists) prepare the afternoon and evening meals that staff, students and guests enjoy together. During the week students spend the night at one of the two DAI houses in the centre of Enschede. In between these so-called DAI-weeks all return to their daily practices - scattered over the Netherlands, or abroad.

DAI-CANTINA

This weeks’ cook is Constantina Roussou: “Currently I am a student at Rietveld Academie, Fine Arts Dept. of Dogtime. Having moved from Greece three years ago for studying purposes, naturally I brought my culture with me. An important aspect of the Mediterranean culture is the strong relation with food: as kids we woke up with the lovely smell coming from the kitchen, grew up around the table with ingredients straight from the garden.  This strong relationship left me no other choice than making cooking an experience I want to share with others. In the past years I worked as a cook in Greek and Italian restaurants, in a range of classical recipes to modern ones. In each one of them top quality ingredients is a must. I always appreciate a nice presentation, but I truly believe that the real sensation comes from the taste”.

Monday March 22

THEORY PROGRAMME:

13:00–17:00
For all 1st year students

Plenary session with thesis mentor John Heymans

This month the group will discuss Vilem Flusser's famous small book Towards a Philosophy of Photography, which will be introduced by students Barbara Wagner and Gonçalo Sena.
We also will continue our discussion on W.J.T. Mitchell’s text ‘What is an image?’  

13:00-17:00
For all 2nd year students

Plenary session with thesis mentor Alena Alexandrova

In this month’ session we will continue our discussion on issues related to writing, research and it’s relationship to creative practices. Taf Hassam and Lado Darakhvelidze will introduce Sarat Maharaj’s text on knowledge production in visual art: "Know-how and No-How: stopgap notes on 'method' in visual art as knowledge production" in Art and Research, Vol.2, N2, 2009.

19:30 (project room)
FOR ALL STUDENTS

Artist lecture by Ansuya Blom

In her talk Ansuya Blom will focus on the elements that form the basis of her work, on the way she adopts texts of others, on how words can fail; on anxiety, on the des-integration of sense and non-sense, and on the works of others that touch her. She will also screen one of her films.

Tuesday March 23

Starting 9:30
Face to face
meetings with Alena Alexandrova.

9:30–17:30 (project room)
For all students

The Kitchen

Lecture-presentations by DAI-students (in no particular order) Patricia Sousa, Charlotte Rooijackers, Alin Naidin, Emilio Moreno, Jeroen Marttin, Julio Pastor and Bárbara Wagner.

Their 20–minute presentations will be reviewed on the spot and before an audience of peers, by guest advisors artist Ansuya Blom and curator Inti Guerrero. The conversations will be gently guided by Gabriëlle Schleijpen.

19:30 (project room)
For all students

The Autonomy Project (Session One)
With Clare Butcher and Steven ten Thije

The word “Autonomy” sounds outdated. In an artistic field, this term finds itself unfortunately wedged between two possibilities: the romantic notion of the isolated Artist, developing works in a studio, unaffected by the socio-political beyond his walls; or the cold reality that to operate within those same socio-political arenas an artist and the mediators involved in a creative action are only there to facilitate a public agendas or to smooth social process. These two positions are not mutually exclusive.
The current state of contemporary art practice in the Netherlands and other Western European countries is multicultural, globalised, professionalized. And it is within this multi-faceted geographic and cultural context that the Autonomy Project seeks to facilitate a number of events over the coming years (including a public debate and formal symposium) in different locations, bringing the issue and practice of Autonomy back into debate.
In 2010, the Autonomy Project will be based in the south of the Netherlands. It’s first activity is an expert’s March Meeting, held in Eindhoven, which will build the conceptual and experiential foundation for the rest of the programme. The meeting will be expanded on in the contexts of a publication and simultaneous internal seminars held in partnering institutions. A networked webspace will facilitate dialogue between the separate sites of discussion and bridge the themes addressed in the lead up to a joint Summer School from 28 June to 2 July, 2010.
Over two sessions during the DAI week, two representatives of the Autonomy Project team will lead a group in addressing some of the broader premises on which the project rests. Highlighting some concerns raised in the March Meeting we will move into a preliminary mapping of possible responses to these. Using a number of guiding texts, such as Claire Pentecost’s “Autonomy, Participation, And” (2006) and the close case study of DAI’s own structural/programmatic initiatives (Negotiating Equity), we hope to emerge with a more nuanced topography of our current options which may then be developed through the online discussions, Summer School encounters and further.
Participating institutions include: Dutch Art Institute, NL; Grizedale Art Centre, UK; Filter-Hamburg, DE/Detroit, USA; Liverpool Art & Design Academy, UK; Lectoraat Kunst en Publiek Ruimte, NL; Onderzoekschool Kunstgeschiedenis, NL; Onomatopee, NL; University of Hildesheim, Kunstwissenschaft, DE; Van Abbemuseum, NL.

Wednesday March 24

9:00-10:30 (project room)
For All Students

The Autonomy Project (Session Two)
Yesterday’s general introduction will be followed up by practical information. Again with Clare Butcher and Steven ten Thije.

For the rest of the day DAI ’s student body is spread over several parallel projects.

10:30-17:30 (space to be announced)

GOODTRIPBADTRIP.reloaded
Curated by Mark Kremer with contributions by John Heymans
Today’s guest: Maxim Chapochnikov

What were the sixties in the Netherlands, what did they signify? What were the changes in the Dutch sixties culture at large, and how did they reflect in the art? What did artists like Wim T. Schippers and Willem de Ridder stand for? What is the significance of an even earlier figure, Robert Jasper Grootveld, a veritable shaman of the sixties, who was an example for Provo and the later Dutch counter-culture?
From 14:00 hours on we will look into the mental and practical preparations for our upcoming Siberia/Buryatia trip, until this month’s guest Maxim Chapochnikov joins us at 16:00 hours to tell us about Shamanism, a range of beliefs and practices based on an animistic approach to the existing world.
Please check the DAI website for an elaboration on today’s GTBT topics.

10:30-17:30 (space to be announced)

AFFECTIONATELY YOURS
Curated by If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, tutored by Phil Collins and Hito Steyerl and co-ordinated by Tanja Baudoin.

This month at the DAI we will be reading the "Affectivist Manifesto"
(November 2008) of theorist and writer Brian Holmes. Holmes writes that "world society is the theatre of affectivist art, the stage on which it appears and the circuit in which it produces transformations." His essay will be the starting point for a discussion about artistic activism and its potential for creating intimacy. Tutor Phil Collins is present.

In the afternoon we will be discussing our trip to Wyspa in Poland with Maaike Gouwenberg and work towards making a programme and an invitation together.

10:30-17:30 (project room)

PLATFORM FOR (UN)SOLICITED RESEARCH AND ADVICE
Organised by Manifesta
Today’s guest:Boris Ondreička
Also present: Saskia van der Kroef, Florian Göttke

CONSTITUTION FOR TEMPORARY DISPLAY - lecture & discussion on the first stage of the development of tranzit.org’s section within Manifesta 8

Representing tranzit.org at DAI, Boris Ondreička will introduce to the group the curatorial conceptual frame of tranzit.org for Manifesta 8, and share its questions around the ‘constitution for temporary display’, which is an attempt to construct a comprehensive environment of exhibition making, conception, communication, space division, programmatic issues, definition of common, definition of a real temporary community, perhaps a temporary polis…

20:00 – 22.00 Public lecture at RIJKSMUSEUM TWENTE, Enschede, curated by IICD for the Dutch Art Institute

BEING MOVED: DESIRE AND AFFECT
Prof. Marie-Luise Angerer

During the last decade affect, performativity and matter have played a major role within art, media and theory production. One could argue that affect functions as bridging matter and performativity, and matter has taken over the position of the subject. Therefore »to perform« not only refers any longer to human beings but includes matter and other species as well.  Whereas the subject of the unconscious (as in psychoanalysis) is defined as desiring its endlessly postponed idealized Ego the new category of »shifting species« performs matter and is moved by matter.

Thursday March 25

Starting 9:30
Face to Face

meetings between individual DAI-students and individual guest advisorsPhil Collins, Maxim Chapochnikov,Marie-Luise Angerer, Boris Ondreička, Brett Bloom, Florian Göttke, Mark Kremer, Binna Choi andRenée Ridgway.

Delphine Bedel will arrange on-line meetings with the second year students during the day. A schedule for this will be announced during the week.

16:30-17:30
For all students

Studio Palaver

Studio Palaver is essentially a student led initiative that aims to create further communication and dialogue between the practicing artists of the institute. Through using the Studio-visit as a model, Studio Palaver initiates a series of Palaveresque meetings to take place during the DAI weeks. Together with one-on-one visits between the artists, the week includes a Studio Palaver Hour where five artists individually play host to a group of six artists. The idea is for the artist to treat this hour however he or she sees fit, encouraging creative responses and ways for using this hour in an investigative and “questionable” manner.

This month hosts are James Skunca, Charlotte Rooijackers, Eva Schippers, Viki Semou, Gonçalo Sena and Omar Koubaa.

19:30 (project room)
For All Students

Temporary Services
Brett Bloom

The evening will start with a screening of the Negotiation Equity showreel. After this, Brett Bloom will give a lecture about works and projects of Temporary Services (Brett Bloom, Salem Collo-Julin, Marc Fischer), including the Half Letter Press. (http://www.halfletterpress.com/store/)

Friday March 26

11:00-19:00 Meeting place of the day is Utrecht Central Station under the large television screen at 11.10 hrs. It is very important to come on time for the visit to the Rietveld Schröderhuis.

‘User’s Manual: The Grand Domestic Revolution’
Curated by Binna Choi/coordinator Yolande van der Heide

The 5th seminar’s focus is “activation”. The trajectory of the seminars visited a series of interconnected topics: the participatory architectural practice in the 60’s (November: with Axel Wieder), Tia Ciata’s open house, a model of social and communal housing in Brazil in the late 19th century and early 20th century (December: with Wendelien van Oldenborgh), the housing struggle, gentrification and the role of art and architecture in contemporary society (January: with Martha Rosler, Graziela Kunsch, Andreas Müller), domestic labour, alternative economy and design practice (February: with Marina Vishmidt). This time we are going to visit an actual site with a radical spatial approach (Rietveld Schröderhuis) and explore actual urban Utrecht landscapes by traversing through the stratum of different districts with Friso Wiersum. After the tour, we will reconvene at the “GDR house”todiscuss the student’s research-project proposals once more concerning the actualization of them. Our meeting will be joined by Ruth Buchanan who’s reconfiguring the Casco space as a last station of her itinerant project ‘Lying Freely’ that delves into the space of negotiation between private-ness and the “public” space, freedom and relationship.

The Rietveld Schröderhuis

Marked by its openness and flexibility, Rietveld Schröderhuis is one of the most reproduced buildings in the world and this occasion is an opportunity to experience its dynamic, changeable open zone architectural configuration. This is also benchmark architecture for artist Ruth Buchanan who approaches the house as a location of mutual demands and adoptions – polyphony of closedness and openness as articulated in the spatial design.

Starting 10:30, at Nieuwe Vide, Minckelersweg 6, 2031 EM Haarlem (http://nieuwevide.nl)

Negotiating Equity
Organised by Renée Ridgway and contributors to n.e.w.s (http://northeastwestsouth.net)

10:30-13:00

DAI alumna Emily Williams and curator of Nieuwe Vide for 2010 will introduce The Object Lag as an extension of her art practice. The Object Lag isan open self-evolving structure conceived to counter the ever-present tendency to focus primarily on the material presence of the (art) object. The Object Lag instead seeks to place the emphasis on the often invisible and intangible interrelated contexts that orbit around the object. Seeing the object and its experience, as something that is constantly in movement and so open to an infinite amount of possibilities and readings The Object Lag transforms the common curatorial practice of organizing and arranging into the very material itself, open to the interventions of the artist and visitor alike.
DAI participants from Negotiating Equity are invited to participate from May until July in the The Outlet Inn, which opens every Sunday afternoon from 14:00 -17:00. The Outlet Inn offers a window for visitors and participants to interact on a more informal setting, each Sunday the program will be hosted by a different participant of The Object Lag.

14:00-17:00 Art Work public workshop at Nieuwe Vide
Brett Bloom, Temporary Services

Brett will show selected publications from Half Letter Press and discuss their conception, making and distribution. We will first discuss Art Work: A National Conversation About Art, Labor, and Economics, a newspaper (http://www.artandwork.us/download/), exhibition, and website (http://www.artandwork.us/) organized by Temporary Services. The paper culls together writings from artists, curators, critics and theorists, from across the United States and Puerto Rico. Contributors were asked to reflect on a range of topics: the country’s (USA) economic situation, how conditions are in their locations, what they are willing to fight to change, and more. Included are historic examples of artists’ projects, initiatives and other efforts to find money for their work or to create broader infrastructural support for others.

DAI participants are asked to bring along images and texts they wish to contribute in making a newspaper modelled on Art Work. We will work on making a ‘dummy’ during the Friday afternoon session that is directed to the local economic situation for artists.

10:30 at Werkplaats Typografie, Arnhem
For 2nd year students

Publications Project
With Delphine Bedel

The Publications Project is a collection of artists publications issued by the DAI and designed in collaboration with the designers from Werkplaats Typografie. The 2009-10 edition is directed by artist/curator Delphine Bedel. The Publications Project is an experimental research and production platform that aims to address the specific process of artist books production, from concept and design to distribution. Designers and artists are invited to team up in couples to develop one project, in close collaboration with an author. The format of this diverse collection can varies from magazine, essays, books, and artist editions to performance artefacts. Through very diverse perspectives the artists and designers reflect on publishing as a versatile medium. The limited editions are distributed through artist's performances, bookshops and artist book fairs.

NB: the next meeting of the publications project will be on 9th of April at WT.

Saturday March 27

17.00-19.00 at Casco, Nieuwe Kade 213-215, Utrecht

Opening and book launch of Lying Freely, a project by Ruth Buchanan
Saturday 27 March 2010, 17.00-19.00