Art in the New Field of Visibility
18 January – 17 March 2007
Art in the New Field of Visibility is an event in Amsterdam which aims to explore the complex interactions between art and media, within the context of the debate about the role and the function of image in our society. The program consists of a series of exhibitions, screenings and talks organized by the Netherlands Media Art Institute, the Flemish Arts Centre de Brakke Grond, de Appel, Maison Descartes, Institut Français des Pays-Bas, Romanian Cultural Institute Bucharest and the Goethe Institute Amsterdam. With the kind support of: the Embassy of Romania, Den Haag, Cultures France (Ministère des Affaires Etrangères) and Project Foundation, Amsterdam
PROGRAMM
Flemish Arts Centre de Brakke Grond
Nes 45
1012 KD Amsterdam
T 020 6229014 (office)
International Symposium ART IN THE NEW FIELD OF VISIBILITY
Friday 19 and Saturday 20 January Concept: Bogdan Ghiu, Maria Rus Bojan
Participants: Pascal Beausse, Corin Braga, Edwin Carels, Emilian Cioc, Irina Cios, Ann Demeester, prof. dr. David Garcia, Bogdan Ghiu, Katarina Gregos, Sagi Groner, Hanneke Grootenboer (tbc), prof. dr. Boris Groys, Khalil Joreige, Eric Kluitenberg, Vesna Madzoski, Natasa Petresin, Jean-Christophe Royoux, Bart Rutten, prof. dr. Rolf Sachsse, Ive Stevenheydens, Suzanne van de Ven
Within the context of the debate about the role and function of image in our society, the symposium Art in the new field of visibility attempts to create a broader framework for comprehending the recent metamorphosis of all the communication forms and the implications of this process in the art field. The emergence of a new synthesis of the worldwide communications field has generated an interesting process of unifying the semiotic distinctions between words and images, between art and non-art, between visibility and non-visibility. This process reveals a paradigm shift that is dramatically altering the boundaries, calling for new strategies of research and approach, adjusted continuously to the increasing complexity of our world.
Through four interdisciplinary panel discussions, the participants at the symposium will discuss the various aspects and features of our predominantly visual culture, exploring artists reaction to the generalized media experience and to stereotypes and globalization. Topics referring to the new regimes of image as a consequence of living in a transparent society, as well as topics referring to the crisis of representation and the existing situation of visual homogenization, will also be discussed.
Saturday 20 January, 12.30 h. Lecture Prof Dr. Boris Groys
Exhibition CORCORAN, Strategies of Confinement in the Age of Biopolitics
19 January 25 February
Opening: Friday 19 January 17.00 h Artists: Alexandra Croitoru, Johan Grimonprez, Mladen Miljanovic, Solmaz Shahbazi, Sean Snyder
Curator: Zoran Eric
His later studies of the political techniques the State uses to embrace its subjects, to the extent of taking care of the individuals natural life, led Michel Foucault to establish the theory of biopolitics. Giorgio Agamben deepened this analysis by focusing on hospitals, prisons and camps as the ultimate metaphors and exemplifications of biopolitics. The camp is the space where the biopolitical aspect of power and control over bare human life can be seen at its most gruesome. Next to camps and prisons, we can also detect methods of socio-spatial segregations in both ghettos and gated communities, where the later could be seen as desirable camps. The aspect of self-confinement related to the psychological feeling of security and protective control is what motivates the individuals to create such self-regulated zones of distinction. This argument on macro social level leads us to the notion and concept of CORCORAN, as developed by futurologist Rüdiger Lutz. He stated that terror-driven societies tend to create safety-belt environments as to the point of imprisoning themselves behind the material and immaterial curtains of control and surveillance.
This exhibition explores and questions different means and techniques of confinement or self-confinement.
Filmscreening CLUB VOYEUR: CORCORAN, Strategies of Confinement in the Age of Biopolitics
Thursday 8 February 20.30 h, Zoran Eric in dialogue with Bart Rutten Videoworks from: Harun Farocki, Walid Raad & Atlas Group, Artur Zmijewski
Curator: Zoran Eric
Netherlands Media Art Institute
Montevideo/Time Based Arts
Keizersgracht 264
1016 EV Amsterdam
T 020 6237101
Exhibition Ready Media
18 January 10 February
Opening: Thursday 18 January from 17.00 – 19.00 h Artists: Pierre Bismuth, Heather & Patrick Burnett-Rose, Claude Closky, Sagi Groner, Sami Kallinen, Matthieu Laurette, Gabriel Lester, Anna Maltz, Cristi Pogacean, Julika Rudelius
Curator: Maria Rus Bojan
Coined in 1995, by Kinema Ikon artists group, Ready Media was used to signalize the stereotypical visions induced by the media culture and the self evidence that surrounds the experience of seeing.
How do these visual constructs reveal a new regime of image and artistic language? Maria Rus Bojan regards Ready Media as the most appropriate term to define the chameleonic visual synthesis of our time. The Ready Media visual discourses are based on an increasingly sophisticated use of images. It juxtapose references from different contexts, different media, different historical periods and social experiences, weaving all these together into a texture which defines a symbolic construction with new visual qualities.
The works selected for this exhibition reflect artists different strategies, attitudes and reactions to the generalized media experience. Re-using already valorized images or other elements from media, which in this context function as signs, artists create new semantic shifts, breaking up the ready made perceptions which media generates, making us also more aware about our own process of perception.
Exhibition Faith in Exposure
24 February 17 March
Opening: Friday 23 February, 17.00 h Artists (t.b.c.): Beirut Letters, De Geuzen, Govcom.org, Lynn Hershman, Olia Lialina, Avi Mograbi, Oog (Nanette Hoogslag / Volkskrant), Sean Snyder, Thomson & Craighead, Jody Zellen
Curator: David Garcia
In a universe of facts, what are the facts matter? Or rather what kind of facts can be made to matter? At its most basic the news can be defined as the act of making things public, but what things? Must news always be revelation in the classical style of a Woodward and Bernsteins scoop that brings down the President and his men? Is the only scoop worth its name the story that someone, someone important, doesnt want you to know?
Faith in Exposure is an exhibition in which media artists will create installations that articulating the barely understood appetites and assumptions that drive the exponential growth of real-time 24 hour real-time news channels. An exhibition to question the claims and myths that legitimize our faith in the dubious epistemology of transparency and exposure, myths that underpin the authority of todays ubiquitous real-time news media.
Seminar Faith in Exposure
Saturday 24 February With contributions by: Jody Dean, Noortje Marres, Richard Rogers, Sean Snyder, David Garcia (moderator)
De Appel
Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10
1017 DE Amsterdam
T 020 6255651
Exhibition The Shadow Cabinet: Distorted Fabric
19 27 January
Opening 19 Januari 20.00 h. Artists: Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige
Curator: Natasa Petresin
In the framework of The Shadow Cabinet a fixed part of de Appels auxiliary program, especially created for the past and present students from the Curatorial Training Programme (CTP), Natasa Petresin presents a short-term installation realized by the Lebanese artists Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige.and organizes a two-part screening within the program Art in the New Field of Visibility.
Distorted Fabric traces the production of the plausible in contemporary art. The works shown warp our sense and knowledge of reality. They deal with the logic of facts and the logic of fiction. These two categories are treated as two extremes on the same line of experience and though can be blurred. The works in the video screening are described by Petresin as subjective documentaries, docu-fictions or autofictive narrations. In a way the works function as statements that try to change the common belief in the material authenticity of the images and information that construct our daily reality.
Videoscreening Distorted Fabric
Curator: Natasa Petresin
Friday 19 January 21.00 h Videoworks from: The Atlas Group/Walid Raad, Daya Cahen, Sebastián Díaz Morales Saturday 20 January 20.30 h Videoworks from: Egle Budvytyte, Keren Cytter, Jakup Ferri, Mario García Torres, Driton Hajredini, Ahmet Ögüt, Natascha Sadr Haghighian & Judith Hopf, SilentCell Network, Clemens von Wedemeyer & Maya Schweizer
Maison Descartes
Vijzelgracht 2A
1017 HR Amsterdam
T 020 5319501
Exhibition INVESTIGATIONS
20 January – 10 February
Opening Saturday 20 January 17.00 h
During the opening Pascal Beausse will talk to Bruno Serralongue Artists: Ziad Antar, Alain Declercq, Clarisse Hahn, Florence Lazar & Raphael Grisey, Bruno Serralongue, Olivier Zabat
Curator: Pascal Beausse
How can artists tell about the world today? What can we do to oppose other images to those supplied to us every day by the information professionals? One of the most fascinating aspects of artistic work is to set up new means of production and disseminating information. Its no longer about questioning the methods information is produced by, as the ”critic” artists did in the ’70s. On the contrary, certain contemporary artists place the bet of directly experiencing the mechanisms of documentation and information. This is why, the exhibition Investigations proposes works that investigate the real. Going beyond the patterns of sociologic or journalistic investigation, the artists reveal something else about the real, different information.
Investigations is a device, presenting five videos on screens and a set of photographs, which take up the form of the archive. The exhibition is designed as a space for documentation, allowing the visitor to approach the work of each artist.