‘migrating democrazy’ at Manifesta8

migrating democrazy at Manifesta8
10-minute TV broadcast
Spanish spoken with English subtitles

Manifesta, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, was this year
located in the Region of Murcia, Spain, focusing on a dialogue with Northern Africa. At the invitation of one of the chosen curatorial teams, Chamber of Public Secrets (CPS), we produced a 10-minute TV programme for Canal 7. Entitled migrating democrazy and made in collaboration with documentary filmmaker Rick van Amersfoort, it was also presented within the exhibition venues in Murcia at the Media Lounge and Cartagena at the former prison.

During a research period this summer and with the assistance of Abelardo Sainz, we interviewed the local residents in the region of Murcia, Velez Blanco, and especially the neighbourhood El Molinete in Cartagena. Anecdotes about their own family histories, ranging from the Spanish Civil War to unresolved boating deaths, migration traumas and border controls all reflect the current state of affairs.

migrating democrazy shows diverse modes of participation and action, between parties large and small, known as well as unknown. If one were to reflect on the migration of democracy and the manifold definitions of what democracy actually means we come to a paradox of movement and standing still. Some of us can move freely without much trouble, others cannot and are sometimes even imprisoned for having tried to ‘migrate democracy’. Or rather migrate democrazy– it is like a gadget everyone wants to have but it is like a foreign language in the mouth, poisonous because of the lack of control in the production process. Addressed by the protagonists themselves, migrating democrazy can be seen as a frenzied cartography of the perception of borders.

It begins with the ‘art of traveling’ with boat refugees coming from Africa to Europe, escaping a lack of a future and capitalist induced poverty whilst going to the source. With the ‘art of economy’, cheap workers from all over the world work for low costs in Spain. Uitilising the ‘art of surveillance’ and the ‘art of war’, Frontex is the new frontline machine in the war on migration, with its Indalo operation. The ‘art of smuggling’ is the very blurred line between criminality and humanity, in similar quotation between humanitarian warfare and welfare. The ‘art of humanity’, in which civilians help/support migrants across the Mediterranean sea connects to the ‘art of hospitality’, where people give others shelter, or work and take care of them. Lastly the ‘art of dying’ surfaces, in which bodies float on the sea and wash ashore.

Financial Support: The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture, Manifesta8

Thanks to: Alicia Alcarez Gómez, Pedro Hernandez, Markane Seck, Arona Seye, Halifa Mbengue, José Lopéz Chacopino, Jesús Perez Rodríguez, Ignaico Peña Ruiz, Mihai Iliana Gigeta, Felipe Segura Gutiérrez, Diego Iglesias Cabrera, Luis Miguel Pérez Adán, José Antonio Martínez López,
José Juan Aniorte, Bartolomé Garciá Gil, Francisco (Paco) García García, Dolores García Hernández, Valeriola Gonzaléz Caridad, Dolores Meca, Karmen González Martínez, Samy Slimani

Holland Mania

DutchnessDial DutchnessPhilip

Holland Mania 

Opening May 16, 2009

Museum De Lakenhal and Scheltema in Leiden, the Netherlands announce the exhibition Holland Mania from May 16th to August 31, 2009. Eight artists are invited to reflect on the American and Japanese pictorial image of the Netherlands. The most recent instalment of my Manhattan Project looks not only at 400 years of Dutch colonial settlement in the United States, but the city of Leiden- 400 years after the Pilgrims settled and eventually departed to the new world. What types of images are conjured up through literature, historical texts, remnants of the past and oral traditions?

Using the museum context as a background with its collection of historical exhibits, prints, paintings and objects, this series of works gathers a range of perspectives in regard to constructions of identity, in the form of ‘Dutchness’ as well as contemporary Wampanoag peoples.  Imagery consists of a Pennsylvania Dutch quilt designed by the Amish yet composed from the Dutch and American flags. Dial Dutchness is an installation throughout the museum incorporating Leiden telephone book pages and eight multi-coloured PTT T-65 telephones with audio tracks from locals as well as Americans with Dutch last names. These ‘vox populi’ voices are contrasted in Pillars of Orange-expert opinions presented as literary silk-screened excerpts from literature, music and academic texts as if for an imaginary book on ‘Dutchness’, contrasted by real books from the secret Pilgrim Press. In the chapel of the museum the installation Wampanoag uses the existent paintings and objects as a staging for two drawings and a single channel video projection where the Wampanoag do not re-enact but rather answer specific questions regarding 17th century conventions, oral histories and the contemporary usage of wampum.

The museum has also kindly offered me a studio during the exhibition as an impromptu call centre in which to continue my Dial Dutchness installation as well as work on my forthcoming online platform Beaver, Wampum, Hoes. Please let me know if you plan on coming to visit or if I should call you instead.

For those Dutch readers the Holland Mania website.

Be(com)ing Dutch

November 19, 2007 at the Van Abbemuseum

Part of the caucus programme of Be(com)ing Dutch

Guest speakers: Sebastian Lopez (Director Iniva London) Shaheen Merali (Head of Art, Film, New Media, exhibitions at Haus der Kulturen der Welt ) Diana Franssen (Head librarian, Van Abbemuseum) Renée Ridgway (former Board member, Gate Foundation, artist, curator)

This workshop which addressed the acquisition of the Gate Foundation within the Van Abbe Museum and its present state and use value by exploring the cultural significance of its history, its accomplishment and ambition of its collection. Taking the Gate as a case study, as an ‘interpretative field of material’, we further contextualised this within the framework of alternative ‘autonomous insitutions’ (Iniva, Haus der Kulturen der Welt) whose mission is to reinstate internationalism, world culture, while working towards inclusion.

Part of the workshop was devoted to attempting to unpack some of the terminology associated with ‘cultural diversity’ used in policymaking over the years within the cultural sector, to question the autonomy of these institutions in relationship to areas of ‘positive discrimination’ as well as the ‘top down’ financing that supports such cultural initiatives. These questions were conceived together with Sarat Maharaj and are being further discussed and disseminated via a wiki. More soon.

A Short History of Dutch Video Art
A Short History of Dutch Video Art

224 pages, 340 illustrations, English/Spanish
design: Sander Boon
publisher: episode Rotterdam
ISBN: 9059730313
Price: € 27,50

This is the last publication of the Gate Foundation.

The publication catalogues the exhibition A Short History of Dutch Video Art, which was curated by Sebastian Lopez and organized by the Gate Foundation. With its 224 pages, this bilingual (English and Spanish) publication has already been shown in 7 museums around the world. It contains 340 colour illustrations and descriptions of the works as well as comprehensive videographies, thereby providing the most complete overview of the artist’s achievements. The publication also includes an essay by Sebastian Lopez, reflecting on Dutch artistic and cultural dynamics around the new medium of video introduced in the 1970s.

Borders, Boundaries & Liminal Spaces

Borders, Boundaries & Liminal Spaces was originally conceived to be an extension of our concept of the new media center. It also seemed logical to have a conference about liminal spaces inside of one. Truly, the conference afforded us an opportunity to interrogate the space more thoroughly. Aside from the specifics of the topics covered (remains, the body from within and without, present and future, and the manipulation of the system) the conference was particularly enlightening with respect to the engine of Second Life and communication within that medium.

Conference in Second Life at Ars Virtua

Panelists:
Laura Jones (J0E Languish for this presentation only)
Renée Ridgway (Chloe Mahfouz)
Brad Kligerman (Kliger Dinkin)

Moderator
James Morgan (Rubaiyat Shatner)

The session was intended to look at the nature of what is left behind by a culture, people or civilization through the lens of an archaeologist, architect and artist. Laura manages to find a new discipline in the archaeology of the virtual, but one that is different in its essential character but not in its essence. Archaeology will still be about putting together incomplete pieces but the pieces will now be recorded bits of data. Brad focuses on the crossing of the threshold into the synthetic environment. He chooses to consider what is left behind in the transition. Renée considers history through visualization and story telling. She reconstructs the metaphoric narrative based on the bits and bobbs of text that refer to events. She also shows us a cultural perspective based entirely within a familar land.

The CADRE Laboratory for New Media, an interdisciplinary academic and research program dedicated to the experimental use of information technology and art will publish Switch 23, ‘Function//Border//Dysfunction’, featuring the ‘Borders, Boundaries & Liminal Spaces’ conference.

More info about ArsVirtua