DAI-bulletin 2006-2007 number seven March 2007

This is the seventh issue of the monthly DAI-bulletin in the academic year 2006-2007, informing you about our program, and about important dates and events concerning students and alumni.

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


DAI PROGRAMME MARCH 2007

WEEK 11

Tuesday March 13

Here as the Centre of the World

Departure from Schiphol to Diyarbakir for the upcoming workshop.
(See Here as the Centre of the World)


WEEK 12
THE MONTHLY DAI-WEEK PACKED WITH LECTURES, SEMINARS, PROJECTS AND STUDIO-VISITS.

Take notice: this week DAI-students Chris Meighan, Machteld Aardse, Kamila Szejnoch, Astrid van Peet, Mei-yu Tao, Anne Korteweg and Bani Bannwart will not be present in Enschede because of their participation in Here as the Centre of the World: Diyarbakir.

DAI-students Iris Tenkink en Paula Bugni will be in Casablanca for the 14th edition of the International Festival of Video art of Casablanca which takes place from the 19th to the 24th March, 2007. Organized by the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences Ben M'Sik, Hassan II University, the 14th edition of the FIAVC will bring together both established international artists as well as students from various universities and art schools from many countries. The DAI is one of the participants, but the selection for the participating art students was entirely made by a local jury.
The program involves numerous video screenings, workshops,shows/performances, round tables, as well as interactive video and multi-media installations.


Monday March 19

12.00 - 15.00
AFTER NEURATH: LIKE SAILORS ON THE OPEN SEA

At 12.00 SHARP the DAI-students together with Florian Göttke are expected at Stroom Den Haag.
DAI will be welcomed by Steve Rushton, a writer, editor and curator currently based in Rotterdam. He is today’s guestlecturer and will guide us through After Neurath: like sailors on the open sea. In recent years there has been a renewed interest in the work of the Austrian utopian philosopher Otto Neurath (1882-1945), in fields as various as fine art, design, philosophy, cultural theory and urban studies. With the ‘After Neurath' project Stroom poses the question what Neurath, this architect of modernity, this social engineer, can teach us today. The exhibition 'After Neurath: Like sailors on the open sea' brings together a group of artists whose work engages with the implications of the work of Neurath. They investigate the possibilities of collectively building a better future, the unification of different fields of knowledge and emancipation through organisation. Subjects closely linked to the social-democratic ideals from the past, which now, at the start of the 21st century tend to be submerged in a culture of individualism, consumerism and indifference.

16.00 Train to Enschede

19.00 Dinner at the DAI

20.00-21.30 Projectroom
ILLUSTRATED LIVE INTERVIEW WITH KEES DE GROOT
Kees de Groot, Enschede based media artist and Planetart curator will be interviewed by DAI mentor theory John Heymans.
Kees de Groot was one of the very first media artists who graduated from the AKI. In the first half of the live interview both speakers shall focus on the media artist Kees de Groot. They shall discuss the pioneering days of videoart, the period after Kees de Groot stepped in it and the first video art show e ver in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Apart from the young AKI-graduate a lot of highly acclaimed international artists such as Abramovic/Ulay, Vito Acconci, Brain Eno Nam June Paik, Bill Viola and many others contributed to this huge exhibition. In the second half the talk will focus on the period when he returned to Twente and founded Planet Art, an art initiative for the elctronic arts specialised in staged electronic- audio- live- performances. Since 2004 Planet Art is organising the Gogbot-festival in Enschede. The live interview will be illustrated by a lot of excerpts from historical works of video art and from more contemporary media art.


Tuesday March 20


(Regarding the presentations of the Khartoum workshop:
Please take notice: the students who participated in the Khartoum workshop are kindly invited to prepare their presentations for upcoming Friday the 23th, where they will be presented to and discussed by guestlecturer Nat Muller.
There are 3 important things she wants you to keep in mind while preparing your presentation:
- Conceptual framework and points of departure
- Methodology
- Points of friction and (processual) outcomes

Ricardo Liong-A-Kong will be available for help and advice on Tuesday and Wednesday (in the computerroom)).

THE PRIVATE EYE 1
From 10.30 onward: Studiovisits by:
- guestlecturer Jan Rothuizen (www.janrothuizen.nl)

- guestlecturer Kostana Banovic (www.kostanabanovic.com)
Ritual is a recurrent element in the work of Kostana Banovic (born in Sarajevo). Her drawings register the constant repetition of the same action: the drawing of tiny pencil lines. The lines rarely touch and together form a more or less regular, rhythmical pattern of lines and spaces. Yet these are not typical drawings. Sometimes, if the beginning or the end of the line is marked by a small hole in the paper, it looks as though someone has set about the drawing with needle and thread. Clearly, the emphasis here is not on the image itself but on the action, its repetition and the state of mind it evoked. The drawings are the product of intense concentration, bordering on a ‘trance’ state.

In her most recent work, comprising among other two short video films and a documentary essay, Banovic also continues to explore her fascination with rituals. The artist seems driven by the urge to reduce the distance between herself and another by including the Other in her ritual, a ritual that Banovic considers an inextricable aspect of her own identity.

13.00 Lunch at the DAI

18.30 pm Dinner at the DAI

20.00-21.30 Projectroom
Lecture/ presentation by Tomo Savic-Gecan

Tomo Savic-Gecan is an artist who almost as rule exhibits „nothing”. Conceived in the manner of tabula rasa , the author's projects function as empty sites filled with various charges, concealed tensions, references and interlinkings.
By intervening in space, the basic "material" of his work, the artist initiates marginal, uncommon interactions between the space, viewer and the non-existent object of exhibition. Dematerialization, absence and emptiness are the consequences of the specific treatment of gallery space. Overall, artist's works can be seen as an ongoing tactical positioning vis-a-vis and within the space of the gallery white cube the "archetypal space of modern art". It seems that the artist's interest in the perception of architecture and the process of movement derives precisely from his persistent opposition to the museum's white cube seen as a timeless and neutral framework meant for the production of „autonomous art objects”. By abolishing the object of exhibition and impinging on the physical and symbolic dimension of space of art, the artist indirectly interrogates the ways artistic institutions function.
(Part of the text "Tomo Savic-Gecan" by Ana Devic)


Wednesday March 21

THE PRIVATE EYE 2
From 9.00 onward: Studiovisits by:
- guestlecturer Jan Rothuizen (www.janrothuizen.nl)
- guestlecturer Tomo Savic-Gecan (http://www.ugdubrovnik.hr/venecija2005/tomo.htm)

13.00 Lunch at the DAI

18.00 Dinner at the DAI

20.00-21.30 Projectroom
THE HALFWAY LECTURE:
ADVENTURES IN SECOND LIFE
A lecture by Johnny Hartz Søraker
moderated by John Heymans

Johnny Hartz Søraker will talk about Second Life, about what this phenomena is all about and how it can be approached from a philosophical standpoint. Especially interesting in this regard is Plato's theory of art (and the concept of mimesis) and Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (reproduction, and limitation thereof, is one of the key factors in the success of Second Life).
Next to it Johnny Søraker shall show some of the most interesting art initiatives in Second Life. And he shall give a rudimentary presentation of how to create and manipulate objects in Second Life.

is a PhD research fellow at the Department of Philosophy, University of Twente. He is a member of the VICI project on the Evaluation of the Cultural Quality of New Media, working on the sub-project “The Quality of Virtual Environments and Tools”.
Søraker received his masters degree (Cand. Philol.) in Philosophy from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). The masters thesis, entitled “Man vs. Machine – an exploration of the concept ‘continuity’”, was an inquiry into claims about the uniqueness of man, the prospects of artificial intelligence, the reducibility of conscious experience and the adequacy of third-person perspectives when explaining human behavior.


Thursday March 22


9.30–10.30 Projectroom
An art theoretical evaluation of Johnny Hartz Søraker’s lecture ‘Adventures in Second Life’ by John Heymans.

10.30–21.30 IN BETWEEN SPACE
On ongoing project in various parts, run by Florian Göttke.

11.00 Projectroom
Discussion and brainstorm on plans and ideas for "The Expanding Pie" A Project on Economy by the Dutch Art Institute.
http://www.dainaiproject.nl/ibs/

12.30 presentation of "The Newton Project" at the Horst Building on the Campus UT.

A group of students from the Technical Engineering Department of the University of Twente contacted the DAI with the wish to develop an art work inspired on the work and person of Isaac Newton, the 18th century scientist who laid the theoretical foundations for their field of study for the entrance square in front of their main building on the campus.

14.15 Lunch at the DAI

15.15 Projectroom
Continuation discussion on plans for "The Expanding Pie"

18.00 Dinner at the DAI

20.00–21.30 Projectroom
THE IN BETWEEN SPACE lecture
Tonight: Olav Velthuis on Globalization

Olav Velthuis has worked as Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Konstanz and has been a Visiting Scholar at Princeton University and Columbia University. Currently he writes about economic affairs for the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant.


Friday March 23


HERE AS THE CENTRE OF THE WORLD
Today’s guestlecturer is Nat Muller (NL), an independent curator and critic based in Rotterdam. Her main interests include: the intersections of aesthetics, technology and politics; (new) media and art in Middle East. She has published articles in off- and online media, and has given presentations on the subject of media technology and art (inter)nationally. Her latest projects in 2004 include The Trans-European Picnic - The Art and Media of Accession (Novi Sad), DEAF-04: Affective Turbulence: The Art of Open Systems (Rotterdam); INFRA-ctures (Rotterdam), Xeno_Sonic: a series of experimental sound performances from the Middle East (Amsterdam), DEAF07 (Rotterdam), and she has curated many video screening programs in a.o. Berlin, New York, Istanbul, Copenhagen, Oslo and Beirut. Together with Bart Rutten she has been appointed curator of Re:visie, the exhibition accompanying the Dutch Film Festival. After the July War in Lebanon, she initiated with Pierre Sarraf the Né à Beyrouth Film Fund which extends modest production grants to young Lebanese film makers. She is co-initiator of the Upgrade! Amsterdam, and has taught at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam and at the Lebanese American University in Beirut (LB).

Nat Muller will present a working seminar on notions of origin, centre and periphery exemplified by the work of Brian Jungen, Larissa Sansour and Kamal Aljafari. Previous to the seminar all students have to read "Taking Up Residence in Homelessness" van Vilem Flusser in Vilem Flusser, Selected Writings_ed. Andreas Stroehl. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota UP, 2002. p. 91-103
The DAI will take care of the distribution of this text.

The second part of the day will be dedicated to student presentations on the Here as the Centre of the World workshop in Khartoum.
Nat Muller asks the students to adress the following question in the context of their presentation:
“Can you think of notions such as centre and periphery in other terms than spatial ones (i.e. as designations of site and location)?”.

11.00-13.00 Seminar
13.00-14.00 Lunch at the DAI
14.30–15.30 Presentations Khartoum plus discussion
15.30–16.00 Break
16.00-17.30 Presentations Khartoum plus discussion

Drinks in the canteen.

END OF DAI- WEEK

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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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March 13 – April 2
SUB URBAN, the URBAN ESPRESSO BAR VIDEO LOUNGE presents:
‘The Creative Person; in seven parts’
At the invitation of Lazy Marie and Kunstenaars&CO, artist Mariëlle Videler has created a workshop video & performance: ‘The Creative Person; in seven parts’.
The participants are twenty artists from different disciplines.amongst them DAI-alumnus Patrick Ros and currennt DAI-student Jolanda Jansen Performance art was used as a source of inspiration as well as a means of approaching the medium of video.
They used the seven days of creation as a structure for the video; seven scenes. In each scene the group members took it in turns to do the jobs of director, cameraman/woman, performer, light and sound technician.
In two weekends the participants, divided into four groups, each made a video. The premiere of the four video pieces took place in Filmtheater ’t Hoogt in Utrecht.
Projections daily from 12h to 17h, except for mondays
LOCATED @ URBAN ESPRESSO BAR
Botersloot 44A, 3011 HH Rotterdam (near Central Library)
sub@urbanespressobar.nl
www.sub.urbanespressobar.nl

March 16 maart, 20.00
Presentation of DAI-alumnus Simon Schrikker's publication Anything banal can be turned into horror, paintings 2004-2006' at Het Wilde Weten, Robert Fruinstraat 35, Rotterdam www.hetwildeweten.com.
Publication made possible by Centrum Beeldende Kunst (Rotterdam), Dutch Art Institute (Enschede), Fonds BKVB, Stichting Materiaal Fonds, HOTEL en drukkerij Rob Stolk (Amsterdam).
Text by Frank Lisser (artist, teaches at academy Minerva, Groningen)
Interview by Jonas Staal (artist and founder of http://www.leefbaarrotterdam.com English translation by Alana Gilespie)
Graphic design HOTEL, Amsterdam
More information: www.simonschrikker.com.

Tuesday March 27
20.30 at De Balie, Amsterdam
Toppled: Lecture about the fallen statues of Saddam Hussein
by: Florian Göttke
Artist and mentor DAI public at the Dutch Art Institute
http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?podiumid=politiek&articleid=103197
“Toppled” is a slideshow lecture comprised of a selection of approximately 400 images of the statues of Saddam Hussein found on the Internet. From these images several storylines emerge: the statues’ transformation from manifestations of Saddam’s totalitarian power into icons for the defeat of his regime, their desecration and humiliation, their expulsion from the public sphere, their appropriation into his enemies’ museums, their symbolic reinterpretation for use in anti-war protests. Also examined is the self-styled iconography created by Saddam Hussein during his regime and the manipulation of his image in the media following his downfall. Through viewing these images it also becomes apparent that even in our modern image culture the ancient mystical link between the person (Saddam) and his representation (statue) is still alive in the human psyche.

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