Symposium 2015
Bright Collisions 2015 The fourth edition of the Bright Collisions symposium program takes place on the 25th and 26th of September, in the framework of the TodaysArt.NL Festival on The Pier in Scheveningen.
Sessions
Bright Collisions 2015 is focused on creative explorations on the border of natural elements, technology and humanity. The program is composed of several themed sessions staged in collaboration with many partners, networks, participants and audiences.
Sensory Experience and Enhanced Realities 25 September
Some of the world’s leading thinkers and practitioners meet, discuss current developments and urgent issues, present challenging ideas and foster holistic approaches. Visit our website for updates and further information: www.todaysart.nl
ZEROnow: Beyond the White Cube 24 + 25 September
Hack the Body 25 September Sound, Heterogenous Art and Performance in Europe 25 + 26 September Thinking with the Sea 26 September Space Science in the Arts 26 September Failed Architecture: Excavating the North Sea 26 September
ZEROnow: a symposium on the topicality of ZERO Thursday 24 September + Friday 25 September Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam / The Pier, Scheveningen Partners: Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam / ZERO Foundation / Stedelijk Museum Schiedam
‘ZEROnow: a symposium on the topicality of ZERO’ is a collaboration between TodaysArt, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the ZERO Foundation and Stedelijk Museum Schiedam. In this two-day symposium in Amsterdam and The Hague, practitioners aim to re-read the history of ZERO and address the topicality of its legacy today. Halfway through the fifties, an influential, international art movement was born, called ZERO. Exactly fifty years ago, ZERO planned the event ‘ZERO on Sea’ on The Pier, but it never took place. With the event, they aimed to stage large-scale installations and performances that would respond to the elements of nature and the context of The Pier. About 50 participating artists including Lucio Fontana, Yayoi Kusama, Yves Klein and the Dutch Nul group, proposed site-specific works challenged by the building and the natural elements of the seashore. The iconic Pier and the ‘ZERO on Sea’ plans, in relation to current tendencies in art and society, are the main sources of inspiration for the eleventh edition of the TodaysArt.NL Festival. Recently there has been a lot of attention regarding the ZERO movement. From the 4th of July until the 8th of November 2015, a large exhibition is set in the Stedelijk Museum, titled ‘ZERO Let Us Explore the Stars’.
Recently, ZERO exhibitions were presented in the Guggenheim Museum, New York and Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin. Even though ZERO reached its zenith in the art world more than half a century ago, it was not until a few years ago that this international artist’s network was established as a fixed feature in art historical scholarship. Why did it take so long for ZERO (roughly active between 1957-1966) to be accepted into the canon of twentieth-century art? And why did it happen, of all times, at the outset of the twenty-first century? How are the contemporary returns to ZERO (re)shaping the artistic legacy of this international network? And last but not least: What does the legacy of ZERO mean to contemporary artists? These probing questions fuel this two-day symposium, via which the organizing partners hope to critically frame and contextualize their current curatorial practices related to the ZERO network.
Photo montage by Henk Peeters using work by Akira Kanayama, Heinz Mack, Yves Klein en Gabriele Devecchi,1965. The smoke columns on The Pier indicate the design by Yves Klein.
Photo montage by Henk Peeters using work by Saburo Murakami, Pol Bury, Otto Pienne, Henk Peeters, Gianni Colombo, Hans Haacke and Akira Kanayama, 1965
ZEROnow Session 1:
Curating ZERO in 21st Century Thursday 24 September Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam - Teijin Auditorium Participants: Beatrix Ruf, Margriet Schavemaker, Colin Huizing, Mattijs Visser, Johan Pas, Renate Wiehager, Marga van Mechelen, Petra Heck and other participants After a welcome by Beatrix Ruf (Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam), the first session of the symposium showcases a series of short presentations by curators of recent ZERO exhibitions.
ZEROnow Session 2:
Topicality of ZERO Thursday 24 September Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam - Teijin Auditorium Participants: Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Birnbaum, Beatrix Ruf Renowned architect Rem Koolhaas (OMA) provides a keynote lecture on the topicality of ZERO and the inspiration he found in the visual and conceptual practises from the 50s/60s. Afterwards Koolhaas engages in a roundtable discussion with Daniel Birnbaum (Moderna Museet, Stockholm) and Beatrix Ruf (Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam).
ZEROnow Session 3:
The Artist as Curator Thursday 24 September Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam - Teijin Auditorium Participants: Bruce Altshuler, Tiziana Caianiello, Margriet Schavemaker Most of the historical ZERO exhibitions were curated by the ZERO artists themselves. Bruce Altshuler (Professor of Museum Studies, New York University) contextualises in his keynote lecture the ZERO practices in the larger field of artist curated shows in the 20th and 21st century. Tiziana Caianiello (ZERO Foundation) launches the brand new publication ‘The Artists as Curator: Collaborative Initiatives in the International ZERO movement, 1957-1967’. Margriet Schavemaker (Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam) poses questions for the two academics in a conversation that follows on their presentations.
ZEROnow Session 4:
Beyond the White Cube Friday 25 September The Pier (Zuid +1) Scheveningen Participants: Antoon Melissen, Margriet Schavemaker, Caroline de Westenholz, Dirk Pörschmann, Gwyneth Wentink, Petra Heck, Berndnaut Smilde, Dmitry Gelfand, Evelina Domnitch, Lisa Park, Lotte Geeven,Natalie Jeremijenko, Zoro Feigl Gwyneth Wentink (TodaysArt) introduces ‘ZERO beyond the white cube’, which sheds light on the original 1965 concept for ‘ZERO on Sea’, the circumstances of its cancellation at that time, and the interpretation of the characteristic Pier. Caroline de Westenholz (art historian) presents extensive research on the organizational network, the participants and their proposals from 1965. Antoon Melissen (art historian) focuses on ‘ZERO on Sea’ within the context of other benchmark presentations in the Netherlands. Dirk Pörschmann (ZERO Foundation) elaborates on the utopian philosophy of ‘ZERO on Sea’. Afterwards there will be a panel discussion moderated by
Margriet Schavemaker (Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam). In the second part of the session, Petra Heck (TodaysArt) introduces a new generation of artists who talk about their site-specific work for The Pier at TodaysArt. Afterwards there is a closing debate with Margriet Schavemaker, Petra Heck, Berndnaut Smilde, Dmitry Gelfand, Evelina Domnitch, Lisa Park, Lotte Geeven, Natalie Jeremijenko and Zoro Feigl.
Sensory Experience and Enhanced Realities Friday 25 September (Lounge: 25 + 26 September) The Pier - Zuid +1 Lectures Participants: Leslie García + Paloma López (Interspecifics), Lisa Park, Plastique Fantastique, Baltan Laboratories + Holst Centre (Hack The Body) and other participants Lounge: Arjan van Meerten, Julius Horsthuis, Kite & Lightning, Leslie García + Paloma López (in collaboration with Masha Ru, David Goedicke and Thomas Beelen), Sam van ‘t Oever + Tommy de Bruijn, Sander Bos, Squarepusher (in collaboration with Marshmallow Laser Feast, Blue Zoo and Rob Pybus and Warp Records)
The ‘Sensory Experience and Enhanced Realities’ session is focussed on the rapidly increasing amount of applications of processing bodily feedback, virtual and augmented reality devices and applications and imaging technologies. The session builds further on the previous ‘Sensory Experience’ programs during Bright Collisions in 2012, 2013 and 2014. The increasing development and deployment of sensors and hand held electronics in recent years are allowing artists, scientists and other practitioners to design new ways of interaction that were practically impossible in the past. We as humans are using, understanding and even extending our senses in ways never done before. Immersive audiovisual environments are playing with the senses and materializing the immaterial. With this program we aim to give insight into different approaches in the developments of new sensory experiences. In addition to the symposium session you will be able to experience innovative sensory experiences in the Zuid 0 - Lounge of The Pier on Friday and Saturday dedicated to this theme. The ‘Sensory Experience and Enhanced Realities’ Lounge features a variety of makers who will present existing projects, new works as well as experiments which deal with immersive audiovisual environ-
ments, augmented and virtual reality devices and applications and the processing of bodily feedback are presented in a living lab setting.
Hack the Body
Ilinx Chris Salter and TeZ at TodaysArt.NL 2014
Sensory Experience and Exhanced Realities
Resonate De Naakte Ontwerpers
Hack the Body Saturday 26 September The Pier Expert Meeting Participate: Invitation only - if you feel you can contribute, please contact us via info@todaysart.nl Partners: Baltan Laboratories, Holst Centre, Fourtress, Philips, TNO
Baltan Laboratories, together with its partners, critically reflects and explores emergent developments and blurring boundaries between intimacy, privacy and technology. The subject focuses on how artistic ideas and innovative projects explore the relationship between the human body and technology. ‘Hack the Body’ is a program on the intersection of art, science, technology and society. Artistic ideas and innovative projects explore the relationship between the human body and technology. These cultural approaches can offer a radically different perspective compared to the traditional market oriented technological R&D approach and believes that these can benefit from each other. Next to inspiring artistic installations, this program generates new technological and scientific practices and new ideas for tools, products and services. The program generates both quantitative and qualitative data: valuable information for everyone connected to big-data studies and algorithms. The program aims to translate gained insights into the development of new and existing hard- and software platforms that can be used in real-life situations as well as other contextual research trajectories.
Currently associated projects: Karen Lancel + Hermen Maat (LancelMaat) - EEG Kiss Chris Salter (Research Chair Concordia University Montreal / Hexagram) + TeZ + Luis Rodil Fernandez - Qualified Self Tijl Akkermans + Thijs Blom + Hester Swaving - WE ARE DATA in collaboration with Stichting Autres Directions, VPRO Medialab and other partners
Sound, Heterogenous Art and Performance in Europe (SHAPE) Friday 25 + Saturday 26 September, The Pier Workshops Participants: Jonathan Reus, John Connell (4DSOUND) , Leslie Garc铆a + Paloma L贸pez (Interspecifics), Marco Donnarumma and other participants Partners: SHAPE Platform, Creative Europe, 4DSOUND
SHAPE is a platform for innovative music and audiovisual art from Europe. It consists of 16 festivals and centres and aims to support, promote and exchange innovative and aspiring musicians and interdisciplinary artists with an interest in sound. SHAPE is a threeyear initiative, co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union. As a partner of SHAPE, TodaysArt and Bright Collisions provide audiences and professionals with insightful lectures, talks and workshops in various fields related to sound.
work of their ‘Interspecifics’ project, focusing on the relationship between waveforms, living matters and the way in which electromagnetic phenomena can be used to create a sonification (frequency) and visualization (cymatics).
Jonathan Reus + Judith van der Elst - Surfing the Semiosphere
TodaysArt will host the world premiere of 4DSOUND: Circadian. From the 24th to the 27th of September you’re able to experience interactive spatial sound performances in the impressive E.ON Electriciteitsfabriek.
Workshop Friday 25 September The Pier Artist Jonathan Reus collaborates with an anthropologist Judith van der Elst to research geospatial effects on mental states. They host a workshop in which sensors are used to track and sonify sympathetic nervous system responses through different environments. Leslie García + Paloma López Interspecifics Workshop Saturday 26 September The Pier Leslie García and Paloma López will host a workshop in the frame-
4DSOUND: Circadian - Musica Mundana Artist Panels Friday 25 September Saturday 26 September E.ON Electriciteitsfabriek
4DSOUND is a fully omnidirectional sound environment exploring Spatial Sound as a medium. 4DSOUND: ‘Circadian’ investigates how spatial listening influences conscious states throughout the day and night. Performances explore how to physically connect the listener with the surrounding space through movement, bio-physical media and psycho-acoustic stimulation. The program features sound and movement workshops, immersive sonic meditation, participative spatial performances, overnight collective dreamstate.
As a part of the Circadian program and related to the SHAPE program, there will be two artist panel and talk sessions. Already in his time (~570 -500 B.C.), the Greek philosopher Pythagoras distinguished a particular category of music as ‘Musica Mundana’, also known as the harmony of the spheres. This music distinguishes the everlasting harmonic order between numbers, tones and the cosmos. ‘Musica Mundana’ encompasses the incessant but inaudible tones and rhythms that the body produces, like a continuous question and answer between the body and the mind. In the present we witness an emerging field of technologies and methodologies that allow us to capture those inaudible streams in the body and the mind, and make them audible in ways we might not have held possible. In the artist panel on Friday the 25th of September John Connell, Robert Jan Liethoff, Kazuya Nagaya and others discuss concepts and practices that investigate cosmic forces on our consciousness, like the effect of frequencies on our mental and physical state and the relationship between intuition, dreams and space. On Saturday the 26th of September Marco Donnarumma, Michelle Lewis-King, Lisa Park
and others discuss different approaches, both old and new, how to musically read the body.
Thinking with the Sea
Ĺ pela PetriÄ? Naval Gazing
Sound, Heterogenous Art and Performance in Europe (SHAPE)
Thinking with the Sea Saturday 26 September The Pier - Zuid +1 Lectures, Panel Participants: Natalie Jeremijenko (xCLINIC), Patrick Healy, David A. Garcia (MAP Architects), Eric Geboers, Ĺ pela PetriÄ? and other participants
In the course of this program speakers reflect on several subjects concerning the relations of humans to the sea and its geographical, environmental and symbolical perspective. The main questions raised in the session are “How do we think from the sea and with the sea?”, “How does this help us engage differently with spaces around us?”, “What is the role of humans in relation to environment?” and “Can human existence be defined by the sea?”. The first part of the session is inspired by the ideas of Wet Ontology, a specific direction in contemporary philosophy which advocates the notion of the sea as a crucial part of the definition of human existence and perception of the world. The second part of the session addresses progressive technological strategies for inhabitation in extreme environments, biomimetic attempts to create architecture using seawater or developing complex socio-ecological systems. Furthermore, philosophers, artists and makers bring forward ideas on how they are currently using creativity and science to work towards solutions for global environmental and ecological challenges related to the sea. Patrick Healy is an Irish writer and philosopher who works as senior researcher Delft School of Design, Faculty of Architecture,
TU Delft. He has published extensively in the area of aesthetics, art, and philosophy and is titular Professor of inter-disciplinary research of the Free International University in Amsterdam. Healy will give an introduction lecture in which he presents one of his essays related to the topic. Natalie Jeremijenko’s practice develops the emerging field of socio-ecological systems design (or xDesign) crucial in the anthropocene, using attractions and ongoing participatory research spectacles that address the challenge of the Centre for 21st Century Issues to reimagine and redesign our collective relationship to natural systems. For TodaysArt, she has created the newly commissioned project ‘Pier 2 Pier’. Map Architects travel two times per year to places in the Arctic and North Sea to explore issues such as sustainability, technologies and architecture in extreme environments. Eric Geboers is working on ‘The Salt Project’, a biomimetic attempt to create architecture using seawater in the desert. By using locally available resources we can grow plants and create architecture without producing waste.
Space Science in the Arts Saturday 26 September The Pier - Zuid +1 Lectures, Workshop Participants: Evelina Domnitch, Dmitry Gelfand, Dr. Bernard Foing, Ewen Chardronnet, ArtScience Interfaculty students and other participants Workshop support: Oscar Kamps, Houssem Laroussi, Daniel Schultz, Annalisa Galeone, Balazs Fejes, Jolanda Preusterink ArtScience team: Katarina Petrovic, Alexander Winther, Ronald Schelfhout Partners: European Space Research and Technology (ESTEC) / International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG) / ArtScience Interfaculty The Hague / Convener: Prof. Bernard Foing
We are entering the next era of human presence beyond Earth. The European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) and ArtScience Interfaculty representatives, together with artists Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand and author and curator Ewen Chardronnet trigger the audience’s imagination by merging art, physics, chemistry and computer science with uncanny philosophical practices in a quest for new outerspace realities. Even before the space age began, already in the 1910s, artists such as Kazimir Malevich envisioned art laboratories orbiting the Earth and traveling to other celestial bodies. Though such laboratories have yet to be launched, a vast variety of art experiments are being conducted in preparation for future missions. Today, the ‘Moon Village’ as proposed by the new chief of the European Space Agency would consist of a settlement using the capabilities of different space-faring nations in the fields of robotics as well as human activities. The ‘Moon Village’ project would be a prime driver of technological advancement as well as basic scientific research and the initiation of this next phase of humanity’s foothold in space. The International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG) and experts at the European Space Agency (ESA) and European Space Research and Technology (ESTEC) have been
studying concepts for a ‘Moon Village’, and precursor steps. We call for ideas, concepts, demos, prototypes, art projects coming from the explorers at large: artists, designers, innovators, art-scientists and audiences. The workshop ’Space Science in the Arts: Towards Moon Village’ consists of a 1-hour lecture program and a 1-hour ‘jam session’ interactive hands-on workshop with three sub-groups.
Failed Architecture: Excavating the North Sea
(CUMBUGO on Flickr)
Space Science in the Arts
Failed Architecture: Excavating the North Sea Saturday 26 September The Pier Workshop, Public Presentation Reservations: info@failedarchitecture.com
Research studio Failed Architecture is returning to this year’s edition of TodaysArt with an exciting one-day mapping workshop on the North Sea. This year’s edition of TodaysArt takes place on the Scheveningen Pier, whose predecessor was originally built to walk into and subsequently enjoy the ‘emptiness’ and ‘purity’ of the North Sea. These ideas were rooted in 19th century romanticist (and naive) perceptions of being immersed in wild, endless and ‘uncontrollable’ nature. Over the years, The Pier has been rebuilt, closed and reopened a few times and still offers spectacular views on a seemingly empty sea. Failed Architecture, always trying to open up new perspectives on a variety of spaces, wonders if the North Sea is really devoid of anything. Who owns and controls the North Sea? What flows, borders, connections and obstacles can be found? Who and what inhabits the North Sea? What plans have been made for its future? Using The Pier as a panopticon for the North Sea, Failed Architecture hosts a 5-hour workshop (concluded with a public presentation). In the workshop they aim to demystify this foggy part of northern Europe and map the North Sea’s current realities, together with you.
The Creative Industries Fund NL Friday 25 September The Pier Q&A Reservations: j.vanballegooijen@stimuleringsfonds.nl. Want to know how to get your project or practice funded? The Creative Industries Fund NL is present at TodaysArt to provide information and advice on funding possibilities for E-culture projects. The Creative Industries Fund NL (Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie) is the cultural fund for architecture, design, e-culture and every imaginable crossover. Make an appointment in advance or drop by in the foyer at The Pier between 16:00 - 18:30.
TodaysArt 2015 TodaysArt.NL - an international festival organized annually in The Hague - revolves around the presentation and development of adventurous and contemporary visual arts and performing arts in the urban environment. On Friday the 25th and Saturday the 26th of September, The Pier in Scheveningen is the center of the TodaysArt.NL Festival 2015. TodaysArt transforms The Pier into a unique venue above the waves. The program features performances, club programs and installations and interventions on The Pier, on the beach, on the sea and in the air. In addition, from Thursday the 24th of September until Sunday the 27th of September, you can experience 4DSOUND performances in the E.ON Electriciteitsfabriek. The Pier, an architectural and technical highlight from 1959, is not just an icon for the Netherlands; it is also well-known outside the Netherlands. Over the past few years,
this building on the sea has been the battleground of the natural elements, the economy and failed ideas. That is about to change: the new owners of The Pier, KondorWessels Vastgoed (VolkerWessels) and DanZep, are working to create an attractive location that is open to creativity and innovation. To celebrate and embrace this new direction, TodaysArt.NL opens the cultural program of The Pier. The iconic Pier and the ‘ZERO on Sea’ plans, in relation to current tendencies in art and society, are the main sources of inspiration for the eleventh edition of the TodaysArt.NL Festival.
Bright Collisions Bright Collisions aims to form a meeting point with a cross-sector focus aiming to promote transdisciplinary and creative explorations. The main concept lies in its paradoxical title, Bright Collisions refers to a specific moment in time in which people from usually disconnected backgrounds gather out of either necessity or curiosity. Through these ‘collisions’, either directed for this occasion or displayed, the event aims to contribute to developing a greater understanding of, or initiating alternate perspectives on, a range of contemporary and urgent topics in society. Experts, policy makers, technologists, entrepreneurs, artists, company representatives, researchers and other practitioners look at what creative solutions can contribute to society in a time when the forms, values and relations of technology, media and social structures are changing, intertwining and exerting forces on each other. Available knowledge
is being reconfigured to facilitate our interaction with the world of today and tomorrow. In order to create a cohesive view on these developments, the topics are approached from various scientific, social, historical, futuristic and artistic perspectives on both a practical as well as a theoretical level.
Bright Collisions Coordination / Program: Tena Lazarevic Ivan Antonov Tim Terpstra Education / PR: Jelle Verhoeff ZEROnow: Gwyneth Wentink Petra Heck Margriet Schavemaker
Volunteer Coordination: Joya de Bock Moniek van der Kwaak Design: Collective Works Web Development: buurmen Print: NPN Drukkers
TodaysArt Supervisory Board: Piet Barendse Robert Koetsier Alex Adriaansens Nicole van Vessum
Presented by
Board of Directors: Olof van Winden Gwyneth Wentink TodaysArt.NL: Tim Terpstra Galina Bartelds Brecht Hoffman Ivan Antonov Bjรถrn Remmerswaal Irvin van der Houdt Felipe Luiz dos Santos Artistic Team: Remco Schuurbiers Petra Heck Tim Terpstra Peter Zuiderwijk Gwyneth Wentink Olof van Winden Production: Kwinten Vissers Marjolein Veerman Sanne Kruithof Laura Stolk Ramses Nieuwenhuizen
Supported by
Creative Partners
photocredit page 4 Archiv Henk Peeters / ZERO foundation page 5 Familiearchief Anthing Vogel / Haags Gemeentearchief, Den Haag
Creative explorations on the border of natural elements, technology and humanity