UNIDEE2007 is over!

CITTADEL-ARTist Lecture Series 2007: Peter Hopkins Miller

Peter Hopkins Miller

October 26, 2007

Lecture: Pistoletto Performance Theater, 21.00

Peter Hopkins Miller makes films, film installations and film performances that focus on the irreducible elements of the cinema: lenses, light, flicker, intermittence, spectacle, spectators, projectors and projection. He is enthralled with exploring the parameters of these essential ingredients, in much the same manner as the magicians and showmen who first set the early cinema into motion with a series of Kinetoscope performances and Nickelodeon installations at the beginning of the last century.
Walter Benjamin predicts that, when a technology is replaced, it first ignites into the highest super-nova state that it can be and, in so doing, revisits and resembles its promised potential, its first state. This interest in exposing an increasingly digitized world to the inner workings of the analog cinema is driven by Miller‘s fascination with the mechanical devices that ushered in the age of film. He is drawn to the light of discovery that illuminated the industrial era, to the Rube Goldberg-like apparatuses that constructed it and to how accurately we thought they would measure our world. Ultimately, Miller creates novel, poetic conjugations of the language of media, to make new marvels out of old magic.

The Cittadel-Artist Lecture Series is part of the UNIDEE in Residence Program at the Pistoletto Foundation,
Biella, Italy. For more information, please contact Chelsea Tonelli Knight at chelsea@chelseaknight.com.

Wolkengestalt (The Form of Clouds)

Saturday 20 October 2007, h.18:00
SCREENING at UNITOPIA:
“Wolkengestalt” (a cinétract by Silvia Maglioni & Graeme Thomson)
The screening will be followed by a debate at the UNITOPIA space

Goethe’s meteorological observations from September 11, 1819 descend on the clouds of the present day from an ambivalent outside, an off-screen dissociated and plagued with doubt. Under the constant menace of global war, the word has withdrawn into itself and the images-temps become an opaque, ineluctable overcast, clouded by abrasive, endlessly echoing sounds.

CITTADEL-ARTist Lecture Series 2007: Roman Dziadkiewicz

“Kidnapping a Curator”, Video Still, 2004

Roman Dziadkiewicz

October 21, 2007

Lecture: Dictionary of Participatotory Strategies
Sunday, October 21, Pistoletto Performance Theater, 18.00

Roman Dziadkiewicz (1972) is an artist and co-founder/leader of the SAOZ Association (1999-2002) and 36.6foundation. He Conducts long-term studies and workshop projects bordering on artistic practices, social investigations, curatorial strategies and testing of forms of participations. Dziadkiewicz is Interested in the processes of the entanglement of art and creative processes in political and cultural contexts, the disintegration/disappearance of a work of art and the reconstruction and redefinintion of historical and multicultural traditions.
The transfiguration of physical spaces and cultural moments in Grimberg’s work produces uneasy performances of absence that question the meaning of memory, place, and attachment. The result is the realignment and play of the structure of fiction and space itself in a psychologically fractured world, in which the connection between secure meanings and official narratives is often distorted or lost.
Dziadkiewicz has realised a number of workshops, lectures and educational projects, e.g. at The Hungarian Art University (2007), The Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow (2006), The Cleveland Institut of Art (2005), Technical University in Krakow (2007) and within World Social Forum Mumbay (2004). The author and editor of publications (poems, essays, visual essays) e.g. Tissues (1996), Group Think or Modern Masters (in: Zniewolony Umysl 2, 2006), Agora-Solidarnosc-SFX-Creative Commons-Publicznosc (2005). Selected art realisations: Imhibition (National Museum Krakow, 2005-2007), Robinson Crusoe or Stranger than Paradise (Spaces Gallery, Cleveland 2005), Luminescences/Shadows of our Forgotten Ancestors (CCA Kiev, Ukraine & Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin 2006), Books/Apperception (Rauma Biennale 2006).

The Cittadel-Artist Lecture Series is part of the UNIDEE in Residence Program at the Pistoletto Foundation,
Biella, Italy. For more information, please contact Chelsea Tonelli Knight at chelsea@chelseaknight.com.

CITTADEL-ARTist Lecture Series 2007: Eiko Grimberg

Eiko Grimberg

Fri, October 12, 2007

Studio Visits: TBA

Eiko Grimberg is a Berlin-based artist working in video and photography. His work shifts and detaches images and stories from their role as signifiers of cohesive histories. In Grimberg’s video of a deserted Wall Street in Post 9/11 New York (The Years to Come, 2005), the space of the image is folded into a mismatched historical narrative about a similar but changed series of events, and produces a sensation of dislocated anxiety.
The transfiguration of physical spaces and cultural moments in Grimberg’s work produces uneasy performances of absence that question the meaning of memory, place, and attachment. The result is the realignment and play of the structure of fiction and space itself in a psychologically fractured world, in which the connection between secure meanings and official narratives is often distorted or lost.
Eiko Grimberg received his MFA from the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig (HGB) in 2003 and is assistant professor at HGB.

The Cittadel-Artist Lecture Series is part of the UNIDEE in Residence Program at the Pistoletto Foundation,
Biella, Italy. For more information, please contact Chelsea Tonelli Knight at chelsea@chelseaknight.com.

Interwiew with Manydee artist Beatrice Catanzaro

Beatrice Catanzaro’s work consists of a contextual approach that declines into temporary installation dealing with the narrative layers of the public space. Moreover, she has initiate and engaged into extensive participatory processes. In 2002 she attended a Master in Public Art at the Bauhaus University, Weimar (Germany) and studied Social Sculpture at the Oxford Brookes University (UK). Since 2004 she has collaborated with the Pistoletto Foundation (Italy) as tutor and project developer.
See also: Bocciami project (with Michele Fontana, 2006)

What’s your personal meaning of “public art”?
«There are various kind of approaches which are labelled under the umbrella of Public Art: community based art, public sculptures, participatory art projects, urban design etc. approaches that do implies different methods and intentions. Public Art, in fact, is a vague term and can mean a number of activities, often even in contradiction one with the other. I guess the definition, contextual art, is closer to my practice: the word CONTEXT refers to a wider spectrum of elements, while PUBLIC seams to me too much related with the political and economical aspects of the public domain.
«Personally I do not see Public Art as an art genre per se and my interest in exploring and working within the public realm relates with the possibility of shortened the distance between art practice and the collectivity. I guess is an attitude, rather then I choice of genre, driven mainly by the urgency of confrontation with the fast changing condition of our contemporarety».

What are the main problems an artist has to face in his/her inter-action with the public space?
«When working within the public space I guess an artist have to be open to reconsider his/her practice following the process and the public response. The control is limited and that maybe is the challenge.
«Listening carefully to the context is an important training.
«Sometimes your intention overtakes the situation and you do not allow the process to change direction.
«Another fundamental aspect, is the ability and possibility of negotiation: when having to deal with public administrations, communities, politicians etc. you need to be able to negotiate your ideas and communicate your work (and I guess this is also part of the art process).
«Moreover, projects which require a large participation and are based on the construction of relations, develop often through a long period of time. This durational aspect, in the frame of an increasing event based art system, appears almost non-sustainable, both in terms of economical means as well as for the personal agenda of the artist, especially considering the mobility of artists today».

Is it possible to monitor the results of a public art intervention? What are the traces that a public artistic action leaves on the field?
«I understand art interventions in the public sphere as a possible shifting of perspective without necessarily having to bring enduring changing in society. We are seeing a wave of community/social based project today, quasi that an art project can substitute itself to a serious social projects … I do not know if this phenomenon is related with the obsolete idea of the artist as sort of prodigious human being, or if it cheaper for the administrations to invite an artist for a short period of time instead of engaging in a long term social project.
«Talking about results, might imply a judgment followed by a conclusion. In other words you might decide that the project succeeded or failed. Success and failure do not represent to me parameters on which we can ground our analysis. In this duality I am afraid you can not frame the relational and experiential (the Life) aspects of the art process.
«Traces? We constantly leave traces and we always generate consequences … an art project have the potential, as I was saying earlier, to shift the view point, to trig the imaginative process towards other possibilities and other perspective».

Beatrice listening UNIDEE residents’ questions

Another moment of the meeting between Beatrice and the residents

TRAILER 31 – fri 29 sept -> 2 oct 2007

Very welcome,

to camp with Trailer 31, in between Cittadellarte and Casa del Mago,
in Italia, Biella, near the mountains, nature, ….

In this extended weekend, we occupy institutionalized in between space, and turn private proprety into an open source environment !?!

Anyway, join the campsite during their stay!
Bring your tent, your thoughts and skills to Trailer 31!

A bit of planning:

In that weekend – I heard – there will be a party on friday?
Hope so, Where? maybe in Casa Del Mago… !
Hopefully the streaming works: Watch UNI-TUBE!

Saturday, we will do a test run of ubliActie: (dutch only)
Wablief? What? Everybody who is interested in chaos, politics, networks, tools, technology, open source design tools and how to publish in university of ideas… (Recipy)
Art, archive, produse! with pancakes?
Join us at 14:30

Monday, Uni-topia or CITTADEL-ARTist Lecture Series 2007,
the visitors of Cittadellarte will give an informal presentation.

Tuesday, some more…

On the program “on going”: experiments in renewable-energy, self-sustaining, inflatable shelters, mesh environments, …

in collaboration with www.ooooo.be code31.lahaag.org www.bilug.it

(we provide shower, electricity supply, wireless network, wood and recycle workshop)

photo diary: visit to Serralunga company

Serralunga is a company in Biella with a 170 years long tradition, nowadays leader in the production of Italian Style plastic flower pot.
The industrial concept is to “revisit” the traditional flower pot with the choice of new materials and with a costant creative reserach, which lead to the production of pottery, lamps and furniture realized by famous designers. Serralunga exports its product in 52 different countries all over the world.

Marco Serralunga, head of Serralunga company

Marco Serralunga takes UNIDEE resident in a tour of the factory in Biella

The big plastic pots of Serralunga, ready to be distributed

A sight of Serralunga’s machinery

Colors in Serralunga

Photo diary: deBuren meeting

Together the Flemish and Dutch government have taken the initiative to establish the Vlaams-Nederlands Huis as a cultural institution and as a centre for debate and reflection. The mission of the Huis is to provide a Dutch-Flemish forum for debate on cultural diversity, society and politics in Europe.
The Huis is a logical continuation of a close association between Flanders and the Netherlands over a period of decades. In 1980 both governments decided to set this language co-operation down in the Dutch Language Union Treaty. Fifteen years later they signed a broader cultural treaty which resulted in the Flanders-Netherlands Cultural Treaty. Now that the European Union is becoming increasingly important, they have chosen Brussels as the site for Flanders and the Netherlands to present themselves as a single region linked by language and culture within the cultural diversity of Europe.
In view of the social importance of this cultural diversity, it is important for European countries to inform one another about their culture and for these cultures to meet. The main task of the Huis is to provide a platform for debate on Europe and for different target groups to come together, to provide European citizens with information in presentations and talks and, finally, to distribute information (digitally or otherwise). The Huis hopes by means of its activities to focus on intermediary target groups as well as on the public at large.

In Cittadellarte, deBuren director Dorian van der Brempt and exhibitions and programming manager Klaartje Brouns explained origin and mission of the centre and illustrated deBuren 2007 program.

The cover of 2007 deBuren brochure

A moment of the meeting with UNIDEE residents

Dorian van der Brempt, deBuren director

Klaartje Brouns, deBuren exhibitions and programming manager

The hypermedia project 0rhizone: UNIDEE meet the authors

Interdisciplinary artists and researchers Silvia Maglioni and Graeme Thomson came to talk to UNIDEE residents about their ongoing hypermedia project 0rhizone which takes as its starting point the thirty books selected for the Letterature di svolta/Living library exhibition initially held at Cittadellarte in 2004 and currently on show again at the foundation.

A lively discussion touched on such matters as Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the rhizome in relation to web and hypertext practice, the question of the multiple, Pierre Lèvy’s idea of ‘virtualization’ (going from a ‘solution’ to mapping the  problematic field which constitutes it at all levels) as well as Guy Debord’s analysis of spectacular alienation and the need to rethink it – in light of the web’s ‘call’ to interactivity – beyond the absolute separation between self and commodified image.

Following on from this was a reflection on attempts, such as those of new media theorist Gregory Ulmer (who coined the term ‘electracy’ to describe the cognitive attitudes and approaches that are currently emerging) to create alternative discursive and rhetorical models that can simultaneously bring into play the different aspects of the subject which are involved in web practice and interaction (their rational and fantasy investments in the information grids – from home to school to entertainment discourse – across which their singularities are distributed).

Questions raised by the residents included the dangers of adaptation (however subversive the intent) to dominant corporate information channels and flows and software tools and rethinking the meaning of ‘resistance’ and ‘communication’ in light of the technological advances of new media. The discussion widened to issues related to alternative forms of education, the need for irony in art and philosophy, performativity,  the ideology of privatization and ‘universalised’ intellectual property, capitalism’s reterritorialization of past strategies of emancipation, the influence of theory (positive and negative) on contemporary art practices and the role of information grids in identity construction.   

The day concluded with a look at a part of the 0rhizone hypertext, based around Mike Davis’s book City of Quartz, and an invitation to the residents to develop their own projects, of whatever type, beginning from a book selected from the Living library.  

A symbolic image of the theoric process of 0rhizone project

Graeme Thomson

Silvia Maglioni