DAI-bulletin 2007-2008 number five January 2008

This is the fifth issue of the monthly DAI-bulletin in the academic year 2007-2008, informing you about our program, about important dates and events.

This bulletin is divided in three sections:
1. The DAI Week January 2008, where you will find a clear day to day schedule of the January 2008 DAI week.
2. More information about the schedule
3. This Time It Is Private with news on shows by alumni and/or current students and/or lecturers.

Students: please keep it with you as an extension to your diary.
Alterations and additions to the program will be e-mailed to you.
PLEASE READ YOUR E-MAILS EVERY DAY.

///////// DAI Week January 2008 /////////

WEEK 4

///////// More information about the schedule /////////

The ongoing seminar Media Theory by Willem van Weelden

Media Immersion and Social Critique
The media through which news and information are gathered, produced and exchanged have espanded significantly over the last several years. Weblogs, advanced search engines, virtual environments (like Second Life), social phenomena like MySpace, Hyves, Flickr, and YouTube are not only offering new tools and new communicational options, but they serve also as potential platforms for debate and social engagement. These micro media or grassroots media; ideally programmed and filled with content by users (User Generated Content) are ‘informal’ in the sense that they are not organised like the institutionalised media such as broadcast television and the printed press. Distribution of content is fundamentally changed. How to navigate and criticize this content, or the procedures that determine the access to it? We have to better understand how they are programmed and how these interfaces to our new reality are designed, as media have become immanent entitities in our lives. We are being immersed in the reality of their virtuality. Is there an outside to this regime of mediation? Or do we have to leave these old concepts of critique and detachment in order to comprehend the inner logic of these media environments? This session examines some of the ways artists and activists have engaged themselves with various strategies and tactics that refrain from an institutional approach to meet these dillema’s and questions.
In the convergence culture where old and new media collide (vide Henry Jenkins) the blurring of the boundaries between the amateur and the professional seems to be a subtle and dynamic play that harbors no clear picture of what it may lead to. Most likely it will produce an alternative way of living, a mental state that is here to stay. 

Willem van Weelden has a background in social philosophy and visual art. He is committed to new media from 1990 onwards and has published on this topic in various magazines and catalogues. He was involved in numerous new media projects as a creative director and coach. Currently his focus is on writing and teaching.


The Publications Project, a collaborative project between the Werkplaats Typografie and the DAI, run by Emily Pethick

The DAI is not in favour of the concept of graduation shows or Open Days where ‘the’ artworld is invited to come and shop for the most catchy version of the Young & New.

The DAI prefers to guide its students to other, more sustainable platforms and therefore offers them to produce a small individual publication in an edition of 250 copies. A book can be brought to any place in the world at any moment. It is the artist him or herself who decides upon the When, Where and to Whom. While disseminating his or her book each artist can be very precise in addressing specific, possibly more receptive audiences in stead of allowing his or her work to be swayed by the issues of the day.

Each DAI student will be connected to a graphic designer, always a master student at the Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem. Emily Pethick will tutor the editorial part of the production and will mediate the collaboration between artists and designers.

This week Emily Pethick will have individual meetings regarding the DAI/Werkplaats collaborative publishing project.

Emily Pethick is director of Casco, Office for Art, Design and Theory in Utrecht. She was one of the founders of Publish and be Damned. Surveying an abundance of independent publications, Publish and Be Damned demonstrates individual approaches to making and distributing the work of artists, writers and musicians outside of the commercial mainstream through magazine fairs, a touring archive and occasional events.


The Media Theory lecture

The evening lecture will be delivered by Esther Weltevrede. She will proceed on the line that will be set out in the day session.
She will address the dillema’s from the vantage point of her own investigations within the Digital Methods Initiative of the University of Amsterdam.
Must research methods change when they are applied to the Web? 
This question is central to a project recently begun at the University of Amsterdam, called the Digital Methods Initiative. The study of the Web differs from that of other media spaces, as it begins with technical locatable elements such as the hyperlink, the tag, the thread.
Based on these technical locatives, a set of methods and tools have been developed to do research into hyperlink networks, the blogosphere, online newssphere, discussion lists and forums, folksonomies as well as search engine behavior. These tools include scripts to scrape web, blog, news, image and social bookmarking search engines, as well as simple analytical machines that output data sets as well as graphical visualizations.
After a general introduction to digital methods, a number of projects from Digital Methods Initiative will be discussed. Including projects dealing with device critiques - exercises in deconstructing the political and epistemological consequences of search engine algorithms. And projects that take advantage of “web epistemology” by critically displaying the recommender culture that is at the heart of new media information environments.

Esther Weltevrede recently co-founded the Digital Methods Initiative where a group of researchers, programmers and designers are dedicated to doing research into the ‘natively digital’, such as the tag, the thread and the hyperlink. She is member of the Govcom.org Foundation, a group that develops info-political devices for the Web. Esther teaches Information Visualization at the master program Editorial Design, Graduate School of Art and Design in Utrecht and Public Design at Professional College of Amsterdam. Furthermore, she is studying to obtain her research master degree in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam.


Leaving the Cocoon, Facing the World
Today: Individual studio visits

Ronald van Tienhoven is an artist and designer since 1982. From 1993 onward he has worked mainly in the public domain with projects and commissions both in the Netherlands and abroad. Through the wide focus and context of his work he has cooperated intensively with architects, urban designers, landscape designers, engineers and filmmakers. Between 1993 and 1997 he worked as freelance advisor for art in the Public Realm at the Mondriaan Foundation in Amsterdam, and advised and curated projects and exhibitions for Stroom Den Haag. He has taught and lectured in a multitude of art and design institutes. At this moment he is Domain Manager for Domain Play in the Bachelors and Masters Coach at the TU/e Industrial Design department.


The Edward Said-lecture:
Art theft in the era of globalisation - Dilemmas and practical issues
by Jos van Beurden

Jos van Beurden M.A. (1946) is a journalist and publicist, specialising in North-South issues. Since 1990 he has focused on the protection of cultural heritage and the illicit trade in art and antiquities. He has studied the problem in many countries and summarised his findings in ‘Goden, Graven en Grenzen: Over Kunstroof uit Afrika, Azië en Latijns Amerika’ (Gods, Graves and Frontiers: About Art Theft from Africa, Asia and Latin America) (KIT Publishers, 2002). He is also the author of Partnerships in Cultural Heritage: The International Projects of the KIT Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam (2005). See www.josvanbeurden.nl.


Understanding Media Theory
a supporting lecture by John Heymans

Apart from Willem van Weelden’s lectures on media theory, a somehow provoking book written by theorist Arjen Mulder might introduce you further into this field. Two important parts of the book have been copied. John Heymans will introduce this book in a little crash course for the first year’s students. Mulder’s book will be the starting point for the paper with which the first you have to end this part of the DAI-course.

In this specific lecture John Heymans will introduce practical media theory, in particular some notions concerning system theory and interactive art. Furthermore there will be room for questions on Mulder’s book and the mandatory paper.


The DAI Public lecture:
GPS and Public Space
by Esther Polak

The routes people choose are on then one hand very visible, because it all happens in public space. At the same time these routes were very invisible in the past: once turned around the corner, you are gone without a trace. Our informal, daily routes, existed until recently only in our brains: this is also called the mental map.

Since GPS (Global Positioning System) is more widespread things have changed: routes can now be very realistic registered and shared (on the internet). On the level of society that has it’s consequences, but besides that it provides a new way to experience the space on a more abstract and poetic level.

This new way is what Esther Polak investigates in her projects.
In her lecture she will talk about her past projects and give a small preview of a project in Haarlem, where for the first time fictitious GPS data will be used as a poetic tool.

Brief CV Esther Polak >


The DAI Private lecture:
Work and work-in progress / artist’s talk
by Rebecca Sakoun

Rebecca Sakoun, originally from Los Angeles, California, earned a BA in Anthropology and Sociology from Smith College and a MFA (Photography) from Yale University.
Since 2000, she has been based in Amsterdam, where she completed a post-graduate residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten. Rebecca Sakoun has exhibited her photographs, videos, and made performances at among others Museum de Paviljoens (Almere), FOAM FotografieMuseum Amsterdam, CCCB (Barcelona), Museum Ludwig (Köln), Sammlung Essl (Vienna), Netwerk Galerij (Aalst, BE), and W139 (Amsterdam). Rebecca is currently working on an artist’s book entitled "search + research" which explores both personal and social perspectives on nature and urbanism.


Student presentations
Presentations by Chris Meighan, Anna Korteweg, Bani Bannwart, Manami Yoshimoto, Ruben van Klaveren, Tatia Skirtladze, Sasha Miljevich and Witta Tjan, reviewed by: Rik Fernhout - mentor DAI private and Florian Göttke – mentor DAI and one guest. Moderator: John Heijmans – mentor Theory.
Today’s guest reviewer:
Macha Roesink, director of Museum De paviljoens (www.depaviljoens.nl).


Studio visits
Studio visits and private conversations with:
John Heijmans, Florian Göttke, Gabriëlle Schleijpen and Rik Fernhout.
Today’s guest advisors: Rebecca Sakoun, Ronald van Tienhoven, Monali Meher, Tomo Savic-Gecan and Lidwien van de Ven.


///////// THIS TIME IT IS PRIVATE /////////

News on alumni and/or current students and/or lecturers (You are all most welcome to send in your announcements).

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‘Hello Roombeek 25.06.07 12:00h - 26.06.07 12:00h’

Video made during one of the workshops in Enschede of the transnational project Here as the Centre of the World will be projected on the old Grolsch factory in Enschede. Projection and explanation by DAI alumnus Machteld Aardse and DAI student Maciek Duchowski. Location: AXIS, Roomweg 63, 7523 BL Enschede
January 10; 20.00.

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When I grow up...
January 10 – February 3

Photos by DAI alumnus Katja Sonnewend in the Melkweg Galerie.
Opening: 9 January 2008, 17.00
Melkweg Galerie, Lijnbaansgracht 234a, 1017 PH Amsterdam
www.sonnewend.com

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Love to Show it
January 8 – March 7

DAI student Hidenori Mitsue (www.hidenorimitsue.com) is showing together with Anouk Bax,Griet Menschaert, Marissa van Mourik, Rachida Post, Hugo Tieleman and Jeroen Vrijsen.

Opening: January 18, 19.30
Galerie new Untitled, Bolwaterstraat 30, 5911 GC Venlo
www.galerienewuntitled.nl

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DAI alumnus Kristiina Koskentola (www.kristiinakoskentola.nl) is artist in residence in Imagine Gallery in Beijing, China. She will complete her 3 months stay with a studio exhibition ‘Search and Research’ on February 23 and 24. Her project and residency is supported by Arts Council of Finland.
Link (in Chinese): http://exhibit.artron.net/zl.php?zlid=4516

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M A G N E S I A 2
26 January - 23 February, 2008

DAI alumnus Julian Scaff is participating in MAGNESIA 2, an exhibition with land art, painting, photography, video art, poetry & literature, soundscapes and ecological art.

ARTONIVO, Wollestraat 25, 8000 Bruges, Belgium
Open daily from 15.00-18.00.
www.artonivo.be

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