Artatouille

maandag 17 december 2007

Quadra Popular Alentjana

Eu sou devedor à terra

A terra me está devendo,

A terra paga-me em vida

Eu pago à terra em morrendo.

(Autor anónimo)

Foto: Christophe Agou

zondag 16 december 2007

Op donderdag 10 januari organiseert de Andy Warhol Club van het Stedelijk een exclusieve sleep-in in de Supperclub, in Amsterdam. Nadat je eerst een nachtelijk bezoek hebt gebracht aan de tentoonstelling Other Voices Other Rooms, begeeft iedereen zich naar de Supperclub voor een knusse Warhol pyama-party! Er zullen allerlei artistieke verrassingen zijn van o.a. acteurs en VJ’s. Daarna lekker slapen om de volgende dag wakker te worden aan een overheerlijk Andy-ontbijt. Mocht je bang zijn niet in slaap te komen omringd door al die andere kunstliefhebbers om je heen , dan kan je altijd nog een tijd kijken naar Warhol’s film ‘Sleep‘: een 5 1/2-uur-durende registratie van een slapende man. Als dat niet rustgevend is!

Meer info wordt binnenkort bekend gemaakt via de Volkskrant. Er zijn maar een beperkt aantal plekken beschikbaar voor de sleep-in. Vergeet je slaapzak niet!

Meer weten?

Impression expo Warhol Other Voices Other Rooms

Ternura

Uma inexplicável ternura,
um remorso comovido lacrimoso,
Por todas aquelas vítimas - principalmente as crianças -
Que sonhei fazendo ao sonhar-me pirata antigo,
Emoção comovida, porque elas foram minhas vítimas;
Terna e suave, porque não o foram realmente;
Uma ternura confusa, como um vidro embaciado, azulada,
Canta velhas canções na minha pobre alma dolorida.

Ah, como pude eu pensar, sonhar aquelas coisas?
Que longe estou do que fui há uns momentos!
Histeria das sensações - ora estas, ora as opostas!
Na loura manha que se ergue, como o meu ouvido só escolhe

As coisas de acordo com esta emoção - o marulho das aguas,
O marulho leve das águas do rio de encontro ao cais...
A vela passando perto de outro lado do rio,
Os montes longínquos , dum azul japonês,
As casas de Almada,
E o que há de suavidade e de infância na hora matutina!...

Uma gaivota que passa,
E a minha ternura é maior.

Fragmento de Ode Marítima
Fernando Pessoa

In het Nederlands te beluisteren in de uitzending van 13 december van Radio Cicada
>>> zie ook het bericht High Culture on the Air :)

Wake up

Wake up, warchildren, watch the dark
burn in our lights from hell
until the ones that missed their mark
find you will burn as well.

Watch in the seconds that remain
adults insane with hate
kill dying to be born again
for they shall die too late.

With not a baby’s body won,
their childhood and their children gone,
the fathers go on fighting.

The sun will rise and shine upon
thick smears as it has always done.
Why do I go on writing

wake up, thick smears of war-torn child,
and let your seedling cells grow wild:
the wind will turn the earth afresh
and needs the flavor of your flesh.

Expose your past, your virgin cuts,
kiss with those sweetly yielding lips
of your wounds the brainless hips
of soldiers strangling in your guts.

Wake up, vaguely remembered face,
photo from a forgotten place,
and do what you can do:

come back through rotten time and space.
I have been living by your grace
and am in love with you.

Leo Vroman

zaterdag 15 december 2007

Warhol does Beatrix

Mais um mesinho para ver o expo de Warhol no Stedelijk CS te Amsterdam

Radio
15 juni sprak Theodor Holman in Desmet Live over de kunstenaar Andy Warhol met Stephan Sanders (De Volkskrant, Met het oog op morgen), Karel Wasch (biograaf van o.a. Dylan Thomas en Jack Kerouac), Chris van der Heijden (historicus), Max Pam (vaste columnist van het programma), Nicole Delissen, Hoofd Presentaties & Collecties Stedelijk Museum.
Te beluisteren en bekijken: Desmet Live

Luister naar kunstcriticus Hans den Hartog Jager over zijn boek 'Warhol in essentie', 8 oktober j.l., bij De Avonden op Radio 6

Lou Reed opened the expo in the Stedelijk. Listen and watch Reed years ago telling about his meeting Warhol

donderdag 13 december 2007

High culture on the air :)

Luister naar ONZE UITZENDING VAN VANDAAG: over o.m.
-August Willemsen ~ auteur en vertaler van Pessoa, Camoes, de Andrade
-Lluis-Anton Baulenas ~ Catalaanse auteur, over zijn boek La Felicitat, pas vertaald in het Nederlands Het Geluk
-La Colombina ~ Spaans Kerstconcert in de Waalse Kerk in Amsterdam
Van RADIO CICADA!

Post tenebras lux

Na duisternis komt licht

Gerechtigkeit als nackte Frau mit Schwert und Waage
Lucas Cranach de Oude
ca 1537

Finalmente, justicia ~ Eindelijk, gerechtigheid

woensdag 12 december 2007

Media Art of the '90

Essay on Consolidation Service, (1999, Eija-Liisa Ahtila)

People had gradually gotten used to film, and after the second half of the 20^th century, the invention of video and later the handheld camera put the magic in peoples own hands. It made artists want to use this magic for artistic means. In the nineties there came even more tools to create magic. In this essay I will review the two-screen version of the media art piece Consolidation Service (1999) by Eija-Liisa Ahtila.

As Weibel describes in his article have experiments with single and double screen presentations been explored in the sixties.[1] Therefore is the work Consolidation Service not entirely new; there is a basis to be found in these experimental works from the sixties. At that time artists already were trying to exceed regular projections and thus linearity, namely in the Avant-garde films, albeit, as Weibel states, in a more subjective way. Multiple narrative perspectives were expressed, much like some painters sliced up the canvas, with multiple screens, projections and/ or different films alongside one another.[2] As Weibel puts it:

“From the outset, the extension of the single screen to many screens, from the single projection to multiple projections represented not only an expansion of visual experience. It always engaged in the service a new approach to narration”.[3]

This is a big similarity between the experiments of the sixties and those of the nineties. But it differs as well, mainly in the part that the viewer plays, which I will later elaborate on.

Since narration is the way of telling stories, it is communication. Consolidation Service is a work about communication, molded in the form of a story about an estranged couple that’s seeking help from a therapist. It is funny and probably no coincidence that it is a story about communication, since the experiment that Ahtila is conducting is also one of communication. Communication between the couple, between the two versions she presents, between the story and the spectator and indirectly between the spectator and herself. Ahtila is exploring the way narrative is coming across to a spectator by offering her piece in different ways; she is researching narrative and at the same time technical possibilities (which fits this day and age).[4]

By using images and sound effects that are real – not real, staged – not staged, she deconstructs the narrative and by offering a two-screen version she plays with the two narratives, and the effect of these on the viewer. The at one time converging and another diverging images supplement or comment on each other.

For instance when one is talking to the therapist you see the other in the second screen looking at the first talking, and thus the facial expressions provoke by the text of the first. Because of the setting of the room of the therapist, this is not possible in a single-screen version.

Later on when the drowning scene is about to happen, you see the group walking on the ice; on one screen you see the bodies, the second the legs. On the faces you see the moods provoked by the progress of the evening and the joke told by one of them, the other just legs. Why this is an interesting shot the spectator understands when they fall through the ice. Often, one of the images can be seen as reflecting upon the just passed or the just following.

The sequence of the images is also provoking; for instance when the image of the fighting dogs is shown after the couple has barked at each other. The cuts are so that they fall exactly irregularly, creating a daring unity. For example, the sound comes sooner then the image or visa versa. Sound creates an extra dimension and or challenge for a non Finnish speaker, as it is difficult to get a grip on the screen that one is not watching when one cannot follow the voice-over. Maybe this is meant as part of the elusiveness of a double-screen version, as often life itself is.

At a certain point the estranged couple sits separated on either side of the two screens and as they look at the edges of the screen, they look not at other people in the off-screen space, but at the spectator. In contrast with viewing cinema where one is supposed to forget the self, the spectator suddenly becomes aware of herself, and therefore becomes part of the story; the setting for the installation makes up a great part of this whole. One could say that this whole, the space, its contents, the installation, and the spectator, is the piece of art.[5]

Innovatively, Ahtila puts a lot of responsibility in the eye of the beholder by setting up the installation in a large room with sometimes wall filling projections of the double-screen version with maybe two large fauteuils in front. This creates the sensation for the spectator of being physically part of the narrative; she gets a sense of playing the part of the therapist, listening to both the man and the woman and not choosing sides. But as suggested earlier, the couple sometimes looks at the spectator, as if they do appeal for her to choose sides. Ahtila opens up the dialogue with cinema by forming the physical space of her installation like she has.[6] It enhances the realistic effect of the piece enormously and provokes an interactive feeling. “Consequently, observation of the world gives way tot the observation of communication” (Weibel, 2000).[7] The spectator is (un)willingly communicating with the given by continuously making choices. Even though the sound makes sure that you are involved with both screens*, because of the enormity of the projections one has to choose at which to look, which can also be seen as a metaphor for an interactive situation. Are we a spectator or a visitor?[8]

Consolidation Service is an interesting development of the experiments of the sixties; in using modern technology Ahtila exceeds precedents. The difference between (the technology of) cinema and video is no longer important. Artists of the nineties use whichever means necessary to get their message across; which in this case can be described as: where does narrative go when technology of the nineties gets involved?

[1] Weibel, 1999, p. 28.

[2] Weibel, 1999, p. 25, 26; Gregory Markopoulos is a good example: “I propose a new form of narration as a combination of classical montage technique with a more abstract system. This system incorporates the use of short film phases that evoke thoughtimages. Each film phase comprises a selection of specific images similar to the harmonious unity of a musical composition. The film phases determine other interrelationships among themselves; in classical montage technique, there is a constant relationship to the continuous shot; in my abstract system there is a complex of different images that are repeated.”

[3] Weibel, 1999, p. 26.

[4] Shaw, 2000, p. 150.

[5] Morse, 1990, p. 154, 166.

[6] Bellour, 2000, p. 37.

[7] Weibel, 1999, p. 34.

* Besides the previously mentioned language barrier; this by the way is a very interesting aspect to be elaborated on by one not limited to an amount of words since this piece is about communication!

[8] Smoking – non Smoking (1993) by Alain Resnais: Bellour, 2000, p. 40, 39; Morse, 1990, p. 158.

maandag 10 december 2007

Das wunderbare leben

"Das wunderbarste Märchen ist das Leben selbst."

Hans Christian Andersen

[Het wonderbaarlijkste sprookje is het leven zelf]
[O conto de fadas mais assombroso e a vida propria]

zondag 9 december 2007

Stockhausen

In Memoriam Componist Karlheinz Stockhausen 1928 ~ 2007
Audio & image: Himmels Tür (bron: NRC)
Bericht NRC

Interview with Stockhausen

Sacha niet alleen lekker

Expo van Sacha de Boer

het Nederlands Instituut van Beeld en Geluid Hilversum

7 december 2007 t/m 5 april 2008

(foto: Nos)

A cultura portuguesa está em saldo, quem dá mais?

(fotografia: o Publico)
Se vende os originais do Fernando Pessoa
E um manuscrito de Mario Sá de Carneiro

P4P, galeria onde e que se vende os
Mais informacao sobre a galeria
Artigo no Publico

zaterdag 8 december 2007

Lieve A, A en N

Gefeliciteeeeeeerd!!!!

Go Pedro Magalhaes!

Inauguração: 30 de Novembro, sexta-feira às 22h
Opening: 30th November, Friday 10pm

Uma exposição colectiva que irá reunir obras dos 15 fotógrafos/artistas representados pela Lab.65, bem como trabalhos dos seus respectivos convidados.

A collective exhibition that will gather the works of 15 photographers/artists represented by Lab.65, and the works of their guests.

Patience

"Geduld verliest men het gemakkelijkst als men het niet bezit."

Alec Beaufish

Televisao

Ja nao pósso.... Nao ha mais.... Ik kán niet meer.... Ben leeg geschreven....

Essay on Window on the World. The story of Europe’s TV, BBC 30 Oct 1986

Window on the world is a walk thru of television history in primarily Europe from the prewar period till the eighties. The overall mood in the documentary is quite cheerful and uplifting. The wonder of the technique is celebrated, and the reactions to it as well. On the other hand the difficulty of introducing the cameras to the public and the different ways of coping with them and the overall concept of television are discussed. The hindrances in perfecting the technique for the global community are also reviewed. All and all does the documentary give a peek in a one sided view, a British view, on the development of television in Europe.

For example, letting a person coming from each of the countries speak about this period in time, seems to provide a factual story, or might say something about a well connected and conniving BBC editor. History must speak for itself, and the problem is that history is often built on prominent companies making believable presentations like this documentary by the prominent BBC.

Of course there is factual information to be found in this presentation, like the reception of television; the possible immediacy of the medium wondered the people and provided a difference with say cinema. Television could be really immediate and live and soon people understood that this offered possibilities, which founded the concept of live news broadcasting. In this the BBC still had, like in radio, a paternalistic way of broadcasting, and a wish for television being a medium to ‘build the nation’; the spreading of optimistic modernist seeds, albeit mainly nationalistic.[1] Like Gripsrud suggest, the BBC wouldn’t mind to ‘inject’ opinions and attitudes in people’s heads.[2] The use and implementation of the medium had different means to an end in different countries.[3]

I must thus conquest the idea introduced in the documentary, and concord with Fickers (2006), that the television has been the primary agent of early globalization and modernization; I think that this property should be appointed to radio. The implementation of the new technology of television and its contexts took place in already existing institutional en technological contexts.[4]

The central narrative found in the documentary is quite positive and presented as a success story, but there are definitely alternative narratives to be found; the whole is not entirely realistic. For example the case of the difference in lines between the countries; this BBC documentary presents Great Britain in this struggle as being a lenient partner, as granting other countries an own approach about how many lines to use, whereas a similar documentary made by say the Germans or the French might present a pushy Britain.

This ongoing inequality suggests that Great Britain wasn’t a driving force in the construction of a European public sphere; they didn’t succumb to a better technology but hold on to their 405 lines. The French weren’t very forthcoming either, their view on the television like a gadget let the European public sphere stagnate, as did their holding on their line standard of 815 lines. Germany spread itself over Europe but since this was a war strategy it didn’t exactly built a communal nation. It did however left behind well operating TV stations in for example Paris which the French took over after the war. After the war, compared to other participating countries were Holland with its Philips and the hidden behind the Iron Curtain Soviet with its satellite, the motor behind the European public sphere, but the indispensable equality of opinions and technology went on.[5] So the wish of a selected few who were striving for a real European Community as can be deducted from the initiative of Eurovision by Jean D'Arcy, strangely remained the wish of a selected few for a long time.

The war played a big roll in the development of European broadcasting because the non-Nazi countries stopped broadcasting in the war, and the others used it solely for spreading Nazi propaganda. The technology didn’t come to a complete standstill but the building of a European community did, and only after the war were cross country circuits built, for the broadcasting of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. This opened the eyes of many viewers and of countries like France (Smith, 1998, p. 49).

I must agree with Gripsrud in the point of view of television being a form of not only economic interests, but also of deep-structures of modern societies.[6] This will most certainly have influenced the development of the medium; people will have felt this underlying power of the institution of television and will have probably feared it. Since not everybody had a direct interest of some sort, not everybody will have worked evenly hard to explore, implement and develop the use of it.

However, the development from the 50’s and 60’s on worth paints a different picture. The Tellstar satellite, launched by the Soviets in 1962, rang in a new era; besides quarrels over the first test was a baseball game the beginning of worldwide broadcasting. A few funerals, a sequence about birth and the man on the moon appeared to become the foundation for D’Arcy’s Eurovision, but Eurovision has never flourished as D’Arcy wanted it to.

To get back to the documentary, one can now say that the main narrative of it is backwards wishful thinking. It appears to present a confirmation of a self thought up roll in the history of the development of the institution of television. It is self-serving whole; it introduces a subjective story, which confirms itself. With out judging the ‘objet d’art’ it is, which is what I wish to name it, I conclude that one should approach it mainly as such, and not solely as a trustworthy historical source.

[1] Gripsrud, p. 20.

[2] Gripsrud, p. 29.

[3] Gripsrud, p. 24.

[4] Fickers, 2006, p. 16; p. 30.

[5] Fickers, 2006, p. 17; p. 19.

[6] Gripsrud, p. 22.

Frísia 1975

Coisas Bonitas

Diller Scofidio & Renfro ~ Museum of Art and Technology (há coisas bonitas não há)

Zanguei-me

Amália Rodrigues - Zanguei-me Com Meu Amor

vrijdag 7 december 2007

De Bedreigde Zwaan

Jan Asselijn, 1652, olieverf op doek, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Met D naar het Rijksmuseum geweest vanavond. Tegenwoordig open op vrijdagavond.
O Rijksmuseum tambem abre as seixtas noites agora.

La femme

"La femme est le rayon de la lumiere divine."

Djalal al-Din Rumi
Of in 't NL

donderdag 6 december 2007

Facile

"Il est plus facile de faire guerre que la paix."

Georges Clemenceau

Poème Cinématographique

lalalalalalala
lalalalala
lalalalalalala
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lalalalalalala
lalalalala

lalalalalalala
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lalalalalalala
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lalalalalalala
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lalalalalalala
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lalalalalalala
lalalalala

K. Schippers

dinsdag 4 december 2007

Dromen

Twee werre-werelden bewoon ik overhands:
Een die 't volkomen is, een andere bijkans.
's Daags vind ik mij in d' een, 's nachts dunk ik mij in d'ander.
In arbeid en in ernst gelijken zij malkander.
Dit scheelt het: deze zie 'k, die dróóm ik dat ik zie,
Of is deez' mogelijk zo wel een droom als die?

Constantijn Huygens (1596 - 1687)

Maçador ~ Eng

Spooky, doe maar, faz-o!!!

Sinterklaas..ehh .. Sinterklazen

maandag 3 december 2007

Een korrelig humeur

Ik heb snert in mijn snavel
en kijk in mijn keel.
Ik heb niets aan mijn navel
en haartjes te veel,

ik heb gruis in mijn oren
en grind als ik praat.
Ik wil niets van tevoren
maar ook niets te laat,

ik heb een steen in mijn schoen
en ik heb hem niet aan.
Ik zal er water in doen
en een dag laten staan.

Ik heb dorst in mijn tenen
de vloer is te droog,
ik heb touw in mijn benen
en iets in mijn oog,

ik heb haar op mijn hoofd
en mij op haar hand,
ik heb vaak iets beloofd
maar knikker met zand

ik heb zand in mijn smaak,
en een hand in mijn zak,
ik weg dat ik maak,
kom zaagselgebak

ach ik heb de pest
aan mijzelf als een vent.
Goed dat hij de rest
van mij niet goed kent.

Zo. Dit is voorbij.
Weg is mijn verdriet.
Dus dit vers was voor mij.
Lees het maar niet.

Leo Vroman