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SONIC ACTS Academy 2018 Unpacking the Processes of Artistic Knowledge Sonic Acts Academy is a new plat- form for investigation, speculation, and reflection, focusing on educational practices and the critical examination of knowledge production in the field of art. By expanding artistic experience into an academy of engagement and exchange, we wish to offer both a play- ground and a radical syllabus at odds with institutionalised learning. The temporary and unstable configu- rations that make up our world today ask for new and flexible approaches to making, learning, and thinking. While education is a breeding ground for an economy of knowledge-as-com- modity, it is essential to re-examine how forms of learning can take place when unrestricted by measurable outcomes or predetermined expec- tations. Nora Sternfeld, agreeing with Irit Rogoff’s text 'Turning', addresses the role of education today: ‘education SONIC ACTS Academy 1 is not about handing down existing national and bourgeois values, as Tony Bennett would have it, nor about the mere reproduction of knowledge, but about exploring the possibilities of an alternative production of knowledge that resists, supplements, thwarts, undercuts, or challenges traditional forms of knowledge.’ 1 As the world becomes more radical and unequal, the need for change in the field of education takes on increas- ing urgency. For new models and ideas, we are turning to a community of art- ists, teachers, mentors, thinkers, and tinkerers. By inviting artistic investiga- Bouffant. Blackie by Photo Walshe. Jennifer tions and research – the processes that challenge the notions of the petrified world – Sonic Acts Academy aims to advance experimentation by including various dynamic perspectives at the podium. Together, we need to rethink how education can again become a tool for discovery, growth, develop- ment, and emancipation and not just a machine to disseminate dominant models of thinking. 1 Nora Sternfeld, ‘Unglamorous Tasks: What Can Education Learn from its Political Traditions?’, e-flux journal, vol. 14 (March 2010). 2 ACADEMY OPENING FRIDAY 23 Feb 20:00–22:30 ○ Dansmakers Nora Sternfeld Jennifer Walshe Mario de Vega Marija Bozinovska Jones J.G. Biberkopf Jennifer Walshe. Photo by Blackie Bouffant. Blackie by Photo Walshe. Jennifer SONIC ACTS Academy 3 The opening evening of Sonic Acts Academy 2018 will be celebra- ted at Dansmakers in Amsterdam Noord. As a fitting introduction to the weekend ahead, the evening will bear witness to an energetic programme of talks and performances that seek to unpack the processes of artistic research, challenging what we know about the world. Educator and curator Nora Sternfeld will deliver the keynote lecture on the topic of artistic and curatorial re- search; sound artists Jennifer Walshe and Mario de Vega will collaborate to perform a live improvisation to Walshe’s film An Gléacht; and we shall close the evening with the world premiere of Marija Bozinovska Jones’ performative piece with an AV and laser set, performed with musician J.G. Biberkopf. 4 OPEN Academy Opening 20:00–21:20 Keynote lecture Nora Sternfeld NEGOTIATING WITH REALITY: ARTISTIC AND CURATORIAL RESEARCH Nora Sternfeldʼs work centres on curating and mediating art, intersecting in numerous ways the Academy’s attempt to unpack the strategies of knowledge production. In particular, she invites us to begin thinking critically about curatorial and artistic strategies of knowledge production as a means of exploration, investigation, imagination, and reflection. Rather than representing valuable objects and objective values, these strategies enter a process of negotiating with reality, acting in the space between representation and presence and chal- lenging what can be seen, done, and said. Nora Sternfeld (AT/FI) is an University in Helsinki. educator and curator. She is She is co-director of the a documenta professor at the ecm – Master Programme Kunsthochschule Kassel and in Exhibition Theory and professor of Curating and Practice at the University Mediating Art at Aalto of Applied Arts Vienna. 21:20–21:50 Live AV performance Jennifer Walshe, Mario de Vega AN GLÉACHT Outsider artist Caoimhín Breathnach lived as a recluse in Knockvicar, a small Irish village. His artistic practice focused on the creation of ‘subliminal’ tapes and films. In these works, Ogham magickal scales, crystallography, astronomy, folklore, and natural phenomena are combined with found audio and visual material to produce an idiosyncratic, esoteric system of correspondences. He spent the last years of his life plan- ning an occult and radical film called An Gléacht. The film was eventually made but not by him because Breathnach is an entirely fictitious character from Jennifer Walshe’s grand project Aisteach, a fictional history of avant-garde music in Ireland. Her film An Gléacht will be a visual inspiration to live sound improvisations by Jennifer Walshe and Mario de Vega. 23.02. SONIC ACTS Academy 5 Marija Bozinovska Jones. Photo by Sash Manev. by Jones. Photo Marija Bozinovska Jennifer Walshe (IE) holds Mario de Vega (MX/DE) is a PhD in Composition from an artist known for his Northwestern University. She site-specific interventions, is a composer and performs sculptures, sound impro- as a vocalist, specialising visations, and experimen- in extended vocal techniques. tal publications. De Vega She performed solo and with is interested in both the Arditti Quartet at the 2017 perceptive capacities and Sonic Acts festival, and this incapacities of humans. He year she will also present returns to Sonic Acts after her research-based practice his spectacular installation at the Academy Symposium Dolmen in 2015, and – in (Sunday, 25 Feb at 12:00). addition to the workshop Speculation as Interface (with Victor Mazón Gardoqui) – he will also perform his sound piece Vertical at the Academy Symposium. 21:50–22:30 Live AV laser performance *World premiere Marija Bozinovska Jones with J.G. Biberkopf (music) FASCIA 171208180222 For the premiere of this particular instalment of Fascia 171208180222, artist Marija Bozinovska Jones – featured as the virtual voice assistant MBJ Weware – teams up with the musician and artist J.G. Biberkopf to create a live au- dio-visual performance employing a range of spoken and programming languages. The performance positions the contemporary self as a relational matrix, enmeshed in sur- veillance economies. Here, data is an elusive currency, and attention-as-profit technologies enable its free brokerage. Algorithmic reason estimates subsequent behaviour and customises future choices. The datafied selfhood occupies a space between the signal and noise of imposed value systems and autonomous decision-making. 6 OPEN Academy Opening Marija Bozinovska Jones. Photo by Sash Manev. by Jones. Photo Marija Bozinovska Marija Bozinovska Jones (MK/ J.G. Biberkopf (LT/NL) UK) explores social, compu- works within the paradox- tational, and living archi- ical relationship between tectures. Through her MBJ club music and art music. Wetware persona, she address- He works intensively with es the formation of identity aural signifiers to explore in an era of techno-capitalist the semiotics of sound. amplification and perpetu- Biberkopf returns to Sonic al online presence, probing Acts after his live set at the self as a datafied and the first Sonic Acts Academy distributed identity. She in 2016 and a performance at is interested in the cryptic Progress Bar in 2017. ways in which subjectivity is forged, auto-regulation, and coping mechanisms. 23.02. SONIC ACTS Academy 7 Dreamcrusher. Courtesy of the artist. Courtesy Dreamcrusher. PROGRESS BAR NIGHT 1 FRIDAY 23 Feb 23:00–06:00 ○ Paradiso Noord Tolhuistuin Wartone Anni Nöps Geng Violence Dreamcrusher Swan Meat Moor Mother M.E.S.H. Kilbourne Born in Flamez 8 DAY 1 Unpacking the Processes of Artistic Knowledge Dreamcrusher. Courtesy of the artist. Courtesy Dreamcrusher. Progress Bar continues the opening night over at Tolhuistuin. Presenting a line-up sure to satisfy all dancers into the late night, Progress Bar also invites the audience to tread heavily into the concept of noise as a means to chal- lenge our preconceptions of the club space. Is there a way for artists to resist or recognise alienation through their practice? 23.02. SONIC ACTS Academy 9 Born in Flamez. Born in Flamez. of the artist.Courtesy 10 DAY 1 Unpacking the Processes Kilbourne. of Artistic Knowledge Courtesy of the artist. 23:00–23:30 Wartone DJ set Wartone (UK/NL) is a Wartone’s practice spans Manchester-born DJ and reg- various formats, including ular feature of Amsterdam’s sound and text, and simulta- underground club scene. neously explores the corpo- Examining ideas and theories real and cerebral. across different media, 23:30–00:00 Anni Nöps DJ set Anni Nöps (EE/NL) is a genre soundscapes. Fascinated by fluid DJ. Her sonic palette the juxtaposition of tech- comprises hard-hitting per- nology and nature, Anni Nöps cussion, floating melodies, explores the overlapping of and tactile noise, forming two opposites to create a dense and abrasive new form of ecology. 00:00–00:30 Geng Live Geng (US) is the sound art- like it has been taken from ist behind the Purple Tape dystopian nightmares. As Pedigree collective based in well producing his own brutal NYC. One of the most respect- experimental music, Geng also ed artists in the underground makes work in a range of club scene, he promotes elec- visual media, textiles, and tronic club music that sounds literature. 00:30–01:15 Violence Live Violence (US) began in 2010 After contributing to compi- as an art-house project by lations for Total Freedom and multi-instrumentalist Olin Mykki Blanco’s Dogfood Music Caprison. Violence’s lyri- Group, their debut album, cal themes derive from their A Ruse of Power, explores experience of growing up in themes of race, gender, Baltimore to meditations on ethics, and religion and was life from primary viewpoints. released by NON Worldwide. 23.02. SONIC ACTS Academy 11 Moor Mother.