Image&Word

Image & Word researcher Arno Roncada will give a presentation on the next SeminArt in Ghent.

SeminArt is a cross-association doctoral seminar aimed at researchers in the visual arts. It gives doctoral students the opportunity to present their research to a critical group of fellow doctoral students, supervisors and (external) referees. International referees are invited to give feedback on the presentations. The aim of SeminArt is to contribute to the development of doctoral research in the visual arts and to create a discursive community for artistic researchers within an international framework.

SeminArt partners are the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Sint Lucas Antwerp, LUCA Visual Arts Ghent & Brussels (former Sint-Lukas Brussels & Sint-Lucas Visual Arts Ghent) and the Media, Arts & Design-faculty Hasselt/Genk. SeminArt is supported by the Higher Institute for Fine Arts Ghent (HISK).

You can register by sending an email to: Seminart

Getekende klanken – tentoonstelling grafische partituren
In 2012 is het tien jaar geleden dat MATRIX [Centrum voor Nieuwe Muziek] haar deuren opende in het zeventiende-eeuws pand aan de Minderbroedersstraat in Leuven. Inmiddels kunnen we bogen op een unieke collectie met ruim 24 000 partituren en zo’n 13 500 opnames. MATRIX zette daarnaast een veelzijdige erfgoedwerking en een gespecialiseerde educatieve werking op het getouw.

Om deze kristallen verjaardag extra in de verf te zetten, organiseert MATRIX i.s.m. de Centrale Bibliotheek van de KU Leuven een tentoonstelling over grafische partituren met werk uit de eigen collectie, onder de titel Getekende klanken.

Grafische partituren zijn een fascinerend fenomeen binnen de (hedendaagse) muziekgeschiedenis. Ze kenden een grote bloei in de jaren ’50 en ’60 toen componisten zochten naar een ‘andere’ manier dan de traditionele muzikale coderingssystemen om muziek en klank te noteren. Maar ook vandaag kiezen bepaalde componisten bewust voor een grafische invalshoek. De tentoonstelling zal enkele van de meest tot de verbeelding sprekende exemplaren van deze grafische composities exposeren. Zo zal zeker werk van John Cage (Aria), Cornelius Cardew (Treatise), Karlheinz Stockhausen, Earle Brown (Folio and Four Systems), Sylvano Bussotti (Rara), Anestis Logothetis, Robin Hayward, Lucien Goethals, Karel Goeyvaerts (Parcours), György Ligeti (Volumina) en Thomas Smetryns te zien zijn. MATRIX zal deze partituren ook tot leven wekken met verschillende audio- en videofragmenten, interviews, foto’s, enz.

Als kers op de taart stelden we een publicatie samen, rond hetzelfde thema en met dezelfde titel. Het is daarbij niet de bedoeling een omvattend beeld te schetsen van dit Westerse muzikale fenomeen, wél om vanuit verschillende invalshoeken een blik te werpen op de grote rijkdom en diversiteit van grafische partituurvormen. Van waar die drang naar een ‘andere’ grafische notatie en welke historische precedenten zijn er te ontdekken? Wat is de motivatie voor de keuze voor deze of gene notatievorm? Waar begint improvisatie, en hoe om te gaan met vrijheid? Is de grafische partituur een kunstwerk, of is het kunstwerk een grafische partituur?

Stip alvast – grafisch – donderdagavond 22 november 2012 aan in uw agenda voor de plechtige opening van deze tentoonstelling en de voorstelling van de publicatie in de Centrale Bibliotheek te Leuven. Deze avond start met een muzikale en grafische noot, waarna u wordt rondgeleid op de expositie.
19u | Verwelkoming door prof. dr. Marc Vervenne, voorzitter
19u15 | Concert
Frederik Neyrinck – Mischung IV door Seraphine Stragier
John Cage – Aria door Françoise Vanhecke
Peter Jacquemyn & Sigrid Tanghe – improvisatie voor contrabas en live aquarel
20u | Voorstelling van de tentoonstelling en aansluitende publicatie
Aansluitend: bezoek van de tentoonstelling & receptie

De tentoonstelling is gratis te bezoeken in de Centrale Bibliotheek, Mgr. Ladeuzeplein, 3000 Leuven (Openingsuren)

U kan gratis de plechtige opening op 22 november bijwonen, mits reservatie bij Pauline Jocqué via mail of telefonisch op het nummer 016 33 20 43

Date: don, 22/11/2012 – 19:00 – zat, 26/01/2013 – 13:00

Successful Parallel Manifesta Event RE:CONVERSE #1 closes its doors after four months and 5469 visits. (www.reconverse.be)

Carbon Print / Kooldruk throws light on the past of the Beringen mijn site in a unique exposition with unseen photographic material and new figurative and documentary work of photo artists Liesje Reyskens and Kristof Vrancken.

The starting point of Reconverse #1, Carbon Print is the never before seen Kodak Collection. This unique photographic time document includes as many as 2.740 photo negatives on cellulose-acetate film and is entirely dedicated to the mine of Beringen.

Liesje Reyskens and Kristof Vrancken were giving permission to browse through this archive and came up with an intruiging selection. The snapshots not only have historical value, the two curators find current themes in them.

Curators Kristof Vrancken and Liesje Reyskens want to crystalize the history of the mine and its socio-cultural and spatial tissue in a positive image and combining the heritage with new artistic works.

In the same way that coal is the result of plant deposits in a geological past, the photographers want to lay down the mine’s history in new material. A documented dialogue using the waning light of the past to shed new light on the Beringen Mine Site.

Artists:

Liesje Reyskens

Kristof Vrancken

Patrick Ceyssens

Pieter Geenen

Jonny Vekemans

Remco Roes

Joris Perdieus

We have created a new project blog for the OOF project we are currently working on. Michiel Kragten is working on the project and will keep you updated on the proceedings of the project on  www.imageword.be/cv21.

Organised by the Art and Social Practice MFA students at Portland State University under the direction of Prof Jen Delos Reyes, the Open Engagement conference (18-20 May 2012) is now in its 4^th edition. As the major gathering in North America bringing together academics and practitioners in the field of art and social practice, it functions as a kind of reflective counterpart to the more production-oriented Creative Time in New York. It is a broad church, too, where “social practice” is understood as embracing almost everything from public art and politically-oriented performance art at one end of the spectrum, to community art, curatorial outreach, and elements of participatory social planning, at the other.

I was there to take part in a panel on ‘Relational Filmmaking’, organised by film maker Julie Perini who teaches at PSU, as part of the conference’s ‘Representation’ stream. This panel was organized in two parts: a screening at Fifth Avenue Cinema on the Friday evening, and the panel itself on Sunday afternoon. The other presenters were Jodi Darby and Erin Yanke, Meg Knowles, Manuel Molina Martagon, and Helen Hyun-Kyung Park, none of whom I had met before.

Our conversation was focused by Julie’s term ‘relational filmmaking’, which she first expounded in a manifesto published in 2009. I presented extracts from my ongoing work-in-progress Fragments for a revolution, a series of films and video installations, inspired by, and in some cases made out of, YouTube videos from the Arab Spring. Doing this work has really brought home to me what Julie was getting at in the following phrase from her manifesto: “Reality is the consequence of what we do together”. It was good to be able to explore this, and other related ideas, with filmmakers who are plowing similar furrows, and in front of an interested and informed audience.

The conference as a whole lasted three days, providing a rich mixture of high-level keynote talks (Shannon Jackson, Paul Ramirez Jonas and Tania Bruguera), eclectic panel presentations, and a range of experiential workshops and happenings. I concentrated on attending the panel presentations in the ‘Politics’ stream, which was very rich both in documentation of previously executed projects, and in provoking discussion and ideas for the future. The shadow of the interrupted (but not abandoned) Occupy movement was a continuous, even if only occasionally explicit, presence.

Portland may have a curious reputation in the rest of America (“the city where young people go to retire,” dixit Fred Armisen.) But to judge from what I saw, a lot of these young people are leading a pretty active retirement. There were around 150-200 people attending OE events at any one time, with between 3 and 10 parallel sessions running from 8 in the morning till after 10 at night.

It was an intellectually and creatively enriching experience, for sure. But it was also simply invigorating to be at a conference where so many people were mobilising so much energy (intellectual, physical, and emotional), and having so much fun in the process.