The objective of this project has been to merge an art-related research project with a critical / creative writing practice. The project’s focal point is Feux Pâles, an exhibition produced by the agency ‘readymades belong to everyone®’ — a project of French artist Philippe Thomas (1951, Nice – 1995, Paris) — presented at the Musée d’art contemporain in Bordeaux from 7 December 1990 to 3 March 1991.
The thesis critically engages with the exhibition through the lens of the novel that inspires its name: Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire. Nabokov’s novel develops through its paratexts (foreword, commentary, index), a structure which this thesis applies to its analysis of the Feux Pâles exhibition catalogue. After a full translation from French to English (unofficial, by the student) of the catalogue's 11 essays and interviews, the paratextual spaces of the document were identified (a director’s foreword, a list of errata) then modified with new texts that apply narratological strategies common to both the artist and novelist (diegetic shifts, unreliable narration) and attempt to re-contextualize and criticize Feux Pâles within the narrative of the show.
The final product is a 1:1 replica of the catalogue, a formal decision inspired by Thomas’ comments on verisimilitude: to ‘stick as closely as possible to reality’ when adding fiction to it. Even if the final work resembles the exhibition catalogue in appearance, it has, arguably, more in common with the novel: a fiction written in paratexts that grafts itself onto (and potentially disrupts) the text it serves.
The KP came together through two common needs—that of examining the term artistic practice and that of working and processing collectively. With three different languages and each of us a different disciplinary background, we constantly analyse and exchange with different approaches and methodologies, bringing and cultivating diverse perspectives, interests and understandings to our common work. We are asking: Who determines artistic practice according to which criteria? Under what circumstances can I call myself an artist and what definition of value is attached to the work I do? What makes a practice artistic and what makes something be a practice? Can we go beyond the dichotomy of theory and practice? In a wider sense, where are the borders of art as a definition and where are its borders of action-ability in comparison to other fields like the social? We decided to open a Künstlerische Praxis together, not to find definite solutions, but to explore and expand our questions and to give space to practice together. The word play that we create through the double meaning of the term Praxis sets artistic practice as an action in a relationship and dependency with the place, that is in the conventional sense a place to see a doctor, to find healing
or knowledge. In scientific fields knowledge and expertise are well embedded in a system of legitimacy and truth, manifested in the example of a doctor, a therapist and a patient. We are asking, is this also the case in the arts? Who is the patient and who is the expert then? By inventing a Praxis in an art context, we have the freedom to define the knowledge and truth ourselves. Patients and experts, truths and solutions don’t exist—instead, we mark out a playground of experimenting and make the group itself the object of observation. Taking the group as a fixed point, we regularly open the experiment to public encounters hoping for a mutual influence and reorientation. Through our methods, tools and discussions, we seek to explore artistic practices in the realm of social space in order to make visible
social aspects within artistic practice—while also exploring creative perspectives within community networks. Working with process-based methods where field research, discussion and participation shape the character of the project, our focus is not put on finding answers, but rather on keeping questions alive, testing boundaries and blurring them where necessary.
Mit dem rasanten Fortschritt der künstlichen Intelligenz wächst deren Einfluss auf das Leben und die Denkprozesse des Menschen. Aktuelle Smart-Technologien verfolgen unsere Aktionen und setzen diese in Computeralgorithmen um, so dass eine hybride Entität zwischen Mensch und Technologie entsteht.
Chimaera erforscht im Rahmen einer zweiteiligen künstlerischen Performance und mithilfe von zeitverzögerten Feedbacksystemen jene Elemente, die dazu beitragen, dass eine hybride Entität als autonom wahrgenommen werden kann, wie sie in Interaktion mit Menschen tritt und wie sie Menschen inspiriert und beeinflusst.
Der erste Teil von Chimaera besteht aus der audiovisuellen Komposition Mreža und der zweite Teil aus der Tanzperformance Schatten. Beide Setups haben ihren individuellen Interaktionscharakter, die zur Entstehung einer hybriden Entität beitragen. Im ersten Teil der Aufführung wird die Interaktion eines Performers mit einem speziell für diesen Zweck entwickelten Instrument namens Pauk beobachtet. Im zweiten Teil wird die Interaktion einer Performerin und ihres Avatars beobachtet.
It is an experimental piece of interdisciplinary mixed media that incorporates Hip Hop music and Chinese calligraphy. (Music produced by Kahoo Yang, a beat maker from China)
With long studying of Chinese calligraphy, Dai has generated her own understanding and style of writing. However, she also gets confused by some questions from time to time. She wants to ask, argue, and answer her own questions by means of a planned experiment. Instead of contemplating, she wants to listen to the audience.
It is a work to challenge herself as well as the audience.
The basis of this performance is an experimental poem in which I challenged the definitions of the
documentary and the poetic. I combined two very different types of documents – original doctors’ notes of a
relative of mine and her personal letters to me – and added my own column in the poem. I trans-formed the
docupoem into a performance-text with the intention to move the language – to develop new patterns and
therefore more possibilities to explore movement, text and their relation relying language and expression. In
the performance, I embodied the text and the movement within it, including the variety of perspectives
involved. The setting of the performance put the following elements into play: my physical body including the
voice, projected live-drawings (with Eren Karakuş as stage artist) and sounds of the MRI scanner (from the
album MRI by Simon Grab and Patricia Bosshard, 2010). The combined aimed to blurr the frames of
conventional categorizations such as objective/subjective, author/reader, drawing/signs.