14 – 19-6-2019 Exhibition
The And Of The World Show 2019
21:30 – ‘’General Apathy’’
By Sara Daniel
(with the musical production of Octave Rimbert-Rivière)
speaker’s performance – karaoke style
Exhibition Weekend Hours:
15 June, 12:00 – 22:00
16 June, 12:00 – 18:00
17 June, 12:00 – 18:00
SUN CHANG Thesis ~Permanent Alienation: Discontent or Impetus, 2019 Graduation work ~Common Belongings, 2019
Bio ~Sun Chang’s participatory projects respond to concrete daily-life problems such as a lack of student meals and excess of food waste and loneliness. Often based on cooking interventions, they are sparked by the need to offer relief to individuals in moments of crisis, while also seeking to establish sustainable forms of resistance to institutional pressures. They are always context-specific, built on a circular economy and aimed at bringing people together whom wouldn’t have otherwise.
Work description ~Common Belongings is an ongoing program grounded in the Sandberg student community. Initiated in November 2018 in collaboration with fellow student, Sara Santana, it first sought to provide care and connection through a mobile food service. Based on a donation system, Common Belongings has evolved into a sustainable structure that not only provides lunch, but also functions as a platform for the Sandberg community to meet on a regular basis and discuss topics of collective interest, such as the housing shortage, immigration and the legal status of non-EU students. Common Belongings then supports events initiated by other members of the community, helping to establish a culture of discussion, shared decision-making and collective emotional labor. Its ultimate goal has become to help its participants and co-initiators to regain a sense of belonging in the face of institutional pressures and shortcomings.
Thesis abstract ~In her thesis, Sun Chang explores the ways in which individuals become alienated from themselves and others under both State communism and neo-liberal regimes in the late-capitalist West. Drawing from her own experience in China and the Netherlands, as well as from her family history, she establishes uncanny parallels between cultures based on her analysis of interior design, architecture and urban planning. Chang reflects on how these patterns of alienation across nations and ideologies have led her to develop a practice based on actions and interventions aimed at breaking the wheel of exclusion and isolation.
SARA DANIEL Thesis ~I no longer wish to be an artist or a designer, 2019 Graduation work ~The show must go on, everything must go, 2019
Bio ~Originally trained as a product designer, Sara Daniel has developed an interdisciplinary practice dedicated to rethinking the possibilities of social and political engagement. In her work, she combines forms associated with
activism such as sit-ins and protests with the making of context-based scenarios, complete with props, music, costumes and performances. With them, she seeks to make visible and accessible major societal issues, including the housing crisis in Amsterdam and increased atomization of communities.
Work description ~When looking at contemporary Western culture, the triumph of what Guy Debord famously described as the ‘society of the spectacle’ is visible in every facet of daily life. We wake up to fake news, procrastinate with Facebook, shed anxiety with shopping and end the day with Netflix.
With her graduation work, Sara Daniel utilizes the spectacle for her own means: self-written songs of protest performed live for the neighborhood. She thus reclaims entertainment as a potential site of social interaction and political engagement.
Thesis Abstract ~I No Longer Wish to Be an Artist or a Designer questions the place of the creative worker within a late capitalist society. This analytical text challenges the modernist myth of the “creative genius” in art and design, showing how designers and artists fail to become the actors of social change they often claim to be, and rather contribute to the production of dispositifs towards control of individuals, nature and collectivities. WALTER GÖTSCH Thesis ~Where and back again, 2019 Graduation work ~The Settlement, 2019 Including the following pieces: An Outfit for a Didact, 2019 A Temporary Place of Rest for Humans, 2019 An Artefact for an Organic User, 2019 An Unknown Signifier, 2019 A Subprime Carriage System, 2019
Bio ~Coming deep from the Taiga, Walter Gotsch creates textile-related tools and artifacts to survive and make sense, or further confuse the meanings of domesticated life. They are the essentials of a journey of discovery beyond the bourgeois lethargy of the daily settlement — a travel through objects, dresses and rituals.
Work description ~The Settlement consists of a number of artifacts that could be best described as future relics. They are anthropological objects meant to show future generations how human beings today organize their life and ensure their own future. They are for someone or something who wants to become a human being. Each of the artifacts on show constitutes a commentary on contemporary culture and the title they give to the found objects translates their own fundamentally changed understanding of the world and its past.
JASON HARVEY Thesis ~MindCrisis, 2019 Graduation work ~Prospective Microstate Flags, 2019 Reclaimed Offshore Drilling Platform Lifestyle Facility, 2019 Annotated Guide to My Personal Grave, 2019 Fecally-based OneWorld Global Non-crypto Currency, 2019
Bio ~I am interested in proposing new variations of the world, investigating the limits of stupidity and exploring the natural entropy of our modern atomized inescapable macrosystem of capital. I propose products, maps and ideas for a new paradigm shift, exploring the tension between dystopic and utopic possibility. We all have dreams and desires but what do they mean, and what forces, visible or invisible, have made us feel and be the way we are in this current moment? I am trying to melt the division between our shared reality and my own; I hope perhaps greater truth or connection can be discovered.
Work description ~I am trying to draw a map of delicate boring moments, modern lifestyle solutions and new micro-countries for everyone. I examine the financial, political, technological, geopolitical and scatological systems, which govern both the small and big moments in our lives. Hopefully through this we can feel some sort of human connection together.
Thesis abstract ~In a series of nonlinear text-based thought-scapes, various financial, logistical, esoteric and cosmological problematics of the author are described and occasionally, theoretically resolved. The journey zooms out from a small illegally sublet bedroom in a quickly gentrifying neighborhood, to the great unknown and terrifying expanses of an unfathomably large universe, and of course back again.
SELMA KÖRAN Thesis ~Repairwork in the past – The deconstruction of the patriarchal hierarchy through the final justice of Athena, 2019 Graduation work ~Exit Athena, 2019
Bio ~Selma Köran is a multimedia artist working with animation, video, painting and sculpture. She deploys mythology and narrative in order to subvert, mock and pastiche gender roles and hierarchies. Every detail of her work is hand crafted and subjectified, overlaying her own political and conceptual position on the narrative.
Work Description ~Exit Athena is a film installation based on Köran’s own version of the famously missing last chapter of Hesiod’s “Theogony”. In her vision, Hesiod’s last prophecy is fulfilled; Zeus is annihilated at the hands of goddess Athena. Aiming to dismantle patriarchal hierarchy by adding a missing piece of its literary history, Exit Athena is a feminist satyricon located in the world of
the Olympic gods. It is a baroque musical full of pink clouds, perfume and genitals, for which Köran crafted every detail—from painted clay props, to elaborate face paint and cardboard costumes.
Thesis abstract ~Hesiod’s “Theogony” is the first known text written in relation to the Greek gods; a cornerstone of Greek mythology. Köran has supplemented the text with her own additions, completing the famously missing last chapter. In Köran’s version, Zeus is slayed by his offspring Athena, upending the patriarchal hierarchy omnipresent in the text. Köran merges personal history and observations with a pointed analysis of the patriarchal state of society and ancient mythology, which frequently acts as a model for contemporary archetypes and gender roles. JEROEN KORTEKAAS Thesis ~Departure, Arrival, Return: Becoming and the Crisis of Subjectivity, 2019 Graduation work ~With Flying Colors, 2019
Bio ~Jeroen Kortekaas creates sculptures and illustrations in which motifs of transportation—such as flight, cruises, traffic signals and signage—become metaphors for metamorphosis. His works present crossroads; a space of infinite possibilities and choices.
Work description ~With Flying Colors is a series of sculptures which hold the ambiguous status of signaling objects, alluding to the question of how individuals relate to space and its boundaries, markers and objects. Taking the signpost as the image of guiding life along a beaten path, his work can inspire us to reimagine those and our other boundaries. With the urgency of an emergency vehicle and the joy of fairground rides, they oscillate between crisis and ecstasy.
Thesis abstract ~Moving beyond ideas of the unitary, Departure, Arrival, Return, investigates the multiple material and spatial movements of becoming. Using the spatial theory of Marc Augé, and the ontological theories of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, along with the object-oriented ontology of Graham Harman, Kortekaas’ thesis looks at the various ways in which the subject becomes decentered. With it, Kortekaas demonstrates the fundamental ambiguity entailed in works which bring about the dizzying spin of de-subjectivation, argued through a double-use of Derrida’s concept of the ‘pharmakon,’ in which the notion of autonomy becomes challenged by the strange heteronomy of writing, technology and drugs. Throughout the text, the associations between the literal and metaphorical meaning of ‘travel’ and ‘movement’ are evoked to describe trips and drifts away from, and back to, the center. Like a train of thought, the text navigates objects, myths,
personal stories, travel logs, poetry and experiments—with art and substances alike. This encyclopedic whirl is catalyzed as much by the ‘disorientation’ of modernity as the practices developed in opposition to it—acting both as a prompt for trailing unexpected paths and seeing where they lead, and as novel prescriptions for constructing the self.
LESLIE LAWRENCE Thesis ~Several Uniques and their Properties: Group Decision-making for Egoists, 2019 Graduation work ~The Man Who Was Thursday, 2019
bio ~Leslie Lawrence works on the application of psychoanalysis and anarchist philosophy to collaborative models of production with a focus on ambitious communal film projects.
Work description ~Filmed according to a collaborative method that uses the context of shared art production to produce a fantasy narrative, The Man Who Was Thursday follows a wild anarchist plot to destroy the world. Under the cover of ‘art practice’, an esoteric cabal publicly flaunts their dangerous activity while moving forward with a deadly plan. At the heart of their scheme is a mysterious briefcase that one undercover operative must find before the mysterious figure known only as ‘Sunday’ has the chance to use it.
Leslie Lawrence, Jason Harvey, Andrea Lopez Bernal, David Haack Monberg, Tom Kemp, Walter Götsch, Selma Köran, Jean-François Peschot, Léo Ravy, Jeroen Kortekaas, Daniel Ordonez Munoz, Veronika Babayan, Constantin Dichtl, Janina Fritz, Coilin O’Connell, Sophia Simensky, Linda Stauffer, Rachele Monti, Sara Daniel, Sun Chang, Tomasz Skibicki, Harriet Foyster, Pierre Bujeau, Sara Santana López, Octave Rimbert-Rivière, Natalia Jordanova, Lotte Hardeman, Quentin Dupuy, Nagaré Willemsen, Giovanni Bozzoli Parasacchi, Andrès Garcia Vidal, Anna Läderach, Nicola Baratto, Ioannis Mouravas, Jasmine Alakari.
With thanks to: Erasmus Scherjon, Lovis Caputo, Alessandro Veneruso, Leonardo Ruvolo, Francesca Maciocia, Ana Shametaj, Luca Chiaudano, Emanuele Braga, Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi, Jerszy Seymour, Tamara van der Laarse, Aurélien Lepetit, Anna Reutinger, Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin, M^C^O, Young Boys Writing Group, Lost Dad Radio, Daddy Issues, Welcommon, The Municipality of Syros-Ermoupoli and The Dirty Art Department.
Thesis abstract ~This thesis reads a historical-materialist conception of four main types of group decisionmaking through an egoist-anarchist perspective. It aims to see if there are principles to group decisionmaking that can avoid being negated by the philosophy of Max
Stirner. From this, the intention is to speculate on a method of organisation that synthesises the extreme egoist regard for individual autonomy with the necessity for democratic control of group projects.
The idea of a group project is conceived broadly to include interactions with the State and production as well as smaller endeavours. An egoist desire to either control the power of these projects, or at least avoid being controlled by them, appears natural. However, if the fundamental unit of a group project is the group decision, this appears to raise a question of conflict and possible compromise that is difficult to account for in Stirner’s bombastic eulogizing of the “Unique”. By following a history of the development of group decisionmaking practice, five principles are developed with an emphasis on the notion of how increased “capability” is served by the decision-making paradigm used. An understanding of how hierarchy, counsel, majority, and consensus function, leads to an assessment that the best strategy depends on the material context, but that an imaginary “union of egoists” would favour certain features of some decision-types over others. This may provide a starting point for organising at a historical moment characterized by powerful individualism.
DAVID HAACK MONBERG Thesis ~Viscosity, 2019 Graduation work ~Icons Made Without Hands, 2019 Including: Hellgate, 2019, in collaboration with Tom Kemp. Acheiropoieton [sample], 2019 Exo Exo Exo Exo, 2019 Icons Made Without Hands, 2019
Bio ~The work of David Haack Monberg moves between history and fiction to explore how the technological replacement of artefacts summons a more total annihilation of memory than that caused by the physical destruction resulting from iconoclastic terror.
Work description ~On the 19th of April 2016, Boris Johnson, then mayor of the city of London, unveiled a reproduction of the Arch of Palmyra. As the crusade of the Islamic State bulldozed through the land of the Levant, one of its architectural victims reappeared on the steps of Trafalgar Square. Shrouded by a satin cloth, stood one of the finest physical manifestations of virtual archeology. Caught in-between the physical and the digital, the historical artefact, our memory, had finally been completely destroyed. If cultural heritage is the beating heart of a society, what happens when its representatives are replaced by surrogates?
Thank to: Tom Kemp, Octave Rimbert, Uffe Isolotto, Center for Signifikante Oplevelser
Thesis abstract ~At the downfall of the Islamic State, the destructive crusade bulldozing through the land of Levant had come to a hold. On the steps of Trafalgar Square in London, Boris Johnson had, in defiance of the caliphate, ordered the digital reproduction of its architectural victims. The Black Standard had quite possibly achieved Herostratic Fame. Shrouded by a satin cloth, stood a physical manifestation; the finest of virtual archaeology. It was an empty shell of Egyptian marble, a memory that observed the shape of the real but had no actual substance. In the age of historical simulation, where artefacts are homonyms and ruins are caught in the act of transforming between the physical and digital realm, the subjective historical artefact of our memory has been destroyed. “Viscosity” is a text that explores the stages in which monuments travel, from dust to data and back again. RACHELE MONTI Thesis ~Panicorgasm, 2019 Graduation work ~Impeto No1, 2019
Gravitating between the solid world and sensorial experiences, Rachele Monti’s work thematizes the symptomatic transformation of emotions into images. Technicalities of the photographic medium are challenged by the deliberate use of light, color, layering and sound, as tools to touch upon one’s sensations and memories of all that is unspeakable. The intimacy of Monti’s work invites the viewer to become a voyeur of both the visible and the unseen.
DANI ANDRES ORDONEZ MUNOZ Thesis ~Towards a Subverted Curriculum, 2019 Graduation work ~Transmissions from The Archipelago, 2019
Bio ~As a reaction to traditional mainstream education and its outdated modernist principles of standardisation and authority, Dani Andres Ordonez Munoz designs and leads creative workshops for children of primary school age. These workshops are based on speculative fiction narratives that incorporate different artistic approaches, which guide the participants to experiment, imagine and create radical alternative visions of future societies.
Work Description ~Transmissions from The Archipelago is a workshop that will take place for children at the I Am Jong Foundation, a youth centre in Bijlmer. Based on the notion of a ‘subverted curriculum’ that aims to build upon children’s instinctive ways of learning, it seeks to guide participants to create the new culture needed for the coming automation age. The workshop is facilitated by means of a science fiction narrative in which human technological interventions cause a future worldwide ecological
catastrophe. The goal of the workshop is to imagine and create a new world using different artistic approaches. Transmissions from The Archipelago offers tools for the children to express their fantasies and empower them to see themselves as the true creators of our future society.
JEAN-FRANÇOIS PESCHOT Thesis ~The ‘Locus of Images’, 2019 Graduation work ~Unable to speak, this kid traces, 2019
Bio ~Jean-François Peschot explores the mechanisms at work in the production of signs under semiocapitalism. In his analysis, imagemaking devices do not serve their users, but rather, the other way around. Users are there to fulfill the design of technologies programmed by the corporations that produce them. The effect of this reversal of things is the homogenization of people’s imagination. In his work, Peschot repurposes image-making technologies in order to counter this standardizing effect, and emphasizes the need to reclaim our means of image-production.
Work description ~Unable to speak, this kid traces seeks to give a voice to domestic image-making technologies. The installation consists of two inkjet printers connected to each other in order to create a single image—that of a trigger from a gun one can 3D-print at home. The title of the work is inspired by Fernand Deligny and Renaud Victor’s documentary “Ce gamin, là” in which drawing becomes the means of expression of a boy with autism in order to communicate with the filmmakers and his audience.
Thesis abstract ~Images are everywhere and yet they seem to be suppressed—their importance is necessarily downplayed in the face of their ubiquity. In his thesis, Locus of Images, Jean-François Peschot reflects on his own practice of appropriating imaging technologies with the aim to reclaim them for emancipatory purposes. In order to do so, he uses the scholarship of a.o. Hans Belting and W.J.T. Mitchell on the topic of visual regimes. His inquiry is structured using three different perspectives in order to better understand how to repurpose technologies to build alternative modes of symbolic exchange and create divergent semiotic constructions. These perspectives are: the individual observer, the sphere of production, and the intermediate space of techno-symbolic fabric constructed by networks of image circulation that bind individuals to collectivity. LEO RAVY Thesis ~Can we get together?, 2019 Graduation work ~who’s your daddy? 2019 & The closer I get, the further I move away, 2019
Bio ~From live interventions
to editorial objects, Léo Ravy’s work focuses on investigating collaborative models of production and their structural circumstances.
Work description ~who’s your daddy? is a site-specific publication produced through live collaboration with the public. In an exhibition setting, who’s your daddy? becomes a catalogue without method, embodied by an editor questioning the authority of their medium.
The closer I get, the further I move away is a video document exploring the influence of institutions on a creative worker. TOMASZ SKIBICKI Thesis ~thę hóąrdęr gąthęręr, 2019 Graduation work ~thę hóąrdęr gąthęręr, 2019
Bio ~Tomasz Skibicki produces sculptures, films and installations based on what he likes to call “firsthand encounters with second-hand stuff.” In the manner of a forensic scientist, he performs autopsies on abandoned spaces and objects, incorporating found fragments as signs of the vernacular into his work. A hoarder of objects and stories, Skibicki uses traditional craft techniques such as wood carving and assembling to create riddles in personal and arcane narratives which speak to broader concerns of migration, consumerism and death. Inspired by the aesthetics of sports gear and DIY culture, these patiently crafted artifacts act as icons of a future within the decayed remains of consumerist Western culture.
Work description ~thę hóąrdęr gąthęręr is a series of sculptures and video works that incorporate nomadic research with material accumulation. Experienced as a training trail that explores different ways of moving through space and time—both bodily and mechanic— The Hoarder-Gatherer traverses abandoned buildings, forests, cementeries and a test drive in a Tesla Model X.
Thesis abstract ~thę hóąrdęr gąthęręr is a description of Skibicki’s own persona as well as a protocol for journeys of discovery. It is a manual for gathering signs, objects and stories that has developed over the past two years, and functions as an instruction for future work. In this thesis, Skibicki presents a series of narratives layered as stories in a building. Here, a story can then be both understood as a narrative and as an architectural presence, blurring the lines between fiction and space.
The text begins with an encounter with a religious painting, which leads to a reflection on the icon as shortcuts to shared memories and desires. Then comes an exploration of two different ways of moving through space and time: a walk through a forest and a test drive in a Tesla Model X. These methods spark reflections on our misplaced understanding of nature as virgin, and on our human predisposition to desire shiny objects because of an evolutionary quest for hydration. The Hoarder-Gatherer ends his journey with a portrait of a building—a ruin in the making, examining materialized traces of vulgar presence and other vernacular signs.
This text is not only a compilation of Skibicki’s memories of gathering materials and inspirations for his work, but also a memory palace within a memory palace. Each place, object and sign encountered are revealed to be themselves endowed with traces of past histories, which ultimately resurrect in Skibicki’s work.