VA13 Performances 

As part of Venice Agendas workinprogress and Arts Pavilion Bournemouth have commissioned a series of performances respectively, to take place in different locations.

There are three strands to the performances. Jenni Cluskey will be making a three durational works throughout the morning events at CZ95, Aaron Williamson will be performing in different parts of Venice and The Girls, Marcia Farquhar and Tim Russell will be performing at Palazzo Zenobio.

workinprogress invited artists Jennifer Cluskey and Aaron Williamson to respond to Venice in relation to its site, context and identity.  Cluskey’s new work explored the politicisation of culture through the action of ‘peaceful protest’ using the traditional art form origami.  For Williamson the letters ‘J, K, W, X, Y’ which only appear in the Italian alphabet through imported words, form the basis of his performance in the streets of Venice.  

Aaron Williamson: Venice Invasions

Diamonds & Toads performance by The Girls (Zerelda Sinclair & Andrea Blood)

Boîte-en-valise

Palazzo Zenobio, Fondamenta del Soccorso, Dorsoduro 2596, Venice, Italy

Wednesday 29 May - Sunday 2 June

Arts Pavilion Bournemouth present Boîte-en-valise by The Girls (Zerelda Sinclair and Andrea Blood), Marcia Farquhar and Tim Russell.  Appropriating and transmuting Marcel Duchamp’s Boîte-en-valise and responding to Venice Biennale Art Director Massimiliano Gioni’s theme of The Encyclopedic Palace, each of the selected artists has been asked to pack work in a suitcase and travel to Venice for presentation.  Boîte-en-valise is co curated by Carol Maund, Stephanie James and Mark Segal. 

VA13 Venice Discussions

The Alternative Art Scene

“Visual art production at International Events and on the Alternative Scene: a possible dialogue? Cultural production in times of financial constraint. Production, Networking, alternative cultural policies. What is going on and what can be done to improve, the conditions of work in Venice during the Biennale“

Chaired by Vittorio Urbani with Elisa Genna, Francesco Ragazzi and Francesco Urbano.

TABLE 1.

Are the International Biennales and international art events becoming the sites for the production of artworks rather than just the places to consume and view art? The fringe events are acquiring more and more relevance around the stage of official cultural events and in many cities hosting international events, a flowering scene of spontaneous non for profit institutions has appeared in recent years.

Can we state these two actors are more and more co-related and collaborating? Is it possible to create a real network between institutions, biennials and non profit, that goes on also when biennials are shut down?

Speakers:
1) SECRETARY: Vittorio Urbani - Venezia
2) Penelope Curtis - London
3) Magda Guruli - Tibilisi 4) Salwa Mikdadi - Abu Dhabi 5) Branko Franceschi - Zagreb 6) Beral Madra - Istanbul 7) Ruben Arevshatyan - Yerevan 8) Ala Younis - Amman 9) Reem Fadda - New York 10) Noura al Sayeh - Manama, Bahrain 

TABLE 2.

Emerging scenes are modifying the Biennial model at different levels: how are projects involving educational institutions and residencies, alongside these

'main events' able to change the habits of a globalized art world where values and formats are intended to be exportable and repeatable?
Venice Biennial is a collection of National pavilions that don't get in contact each other; this is a loss of opportunities and enrichment. How can we supply to this?

Speakers:
1) SECRETARY: Francesco Urbano and Francesco Ragazzi - Venezia 2) Antonia Carver - Dubai
3) Aaron Cezar - London
4) Marina Fokidis - Athens
5) Georg Schöllhammer - Wien
6) Yasmina Reggad - London
7) Hoor Al Qasimi - Sharjah
8) Kathrin Becker - Berlin
9) Stefanie James - Bournemouth

________________________________________________________

TABLE 3.

When times are hard and museums and sponsors are cutting back what can be done? Are there innovative forms to engage sponsors in cultural production, minimizing the risk of a control by the sponsor on the cultural content? What is the role of society in this process? Can we state that art should consider thesocial environment and try to involve local artists and the community hosting the stage for the artworks? Maybe a new collaboration between Institutions and Non Profit Sector could offer an answer to the current crisis. In which ways these two sectors could collaborate? And which kind of strategies can be useful for this purpose?

Speakers:
1) SECRETARY: Elisa Genna - Venezia
2) Maria Hlavajova - Utrecht/Amsterdam 3) Deniz Erbas - Istanbul
4) Jinny Yu - Venezia and Ottawa
5) Kalliopi Lemos - London
6) Terry Smith - London
7) Franco Gazzarri - Venezia
8) Agnes Kohlmeyer -Venezia
9) Aurora Di Mauro - Padova

Live Art - Are you here? Were you there?

As performance art becomes increasingly visible in the programmes and collections of major museums and galleries, this event aims to evaluate the current status of performance and live art. Through a series of brief presentations by artists and professionals, as well as performative interventions, it will ask whether this inclusion kills the element of risk that is often related to performance or if live practices enable institutions to challenge their audiences as never before. The session will also consider the unintended performer and raise issues that encompass disability and gender.

Chaired by Jean Wainwright, speakers included Kathy Battista, Tony Heaton, rAndom International, Lois Keidan, Lauren A Wright, and artists Marcia Farquhar, Joan Jonas, Marta Jovanovic, Andrea Pagnes and Verena Stenke.

Risk - and contexts for risk - what might risk mean for an artist and what might risk be for an institution. Different forms of risk - risky practices or dangerous ideas, issues around the 'right to fail' and the risk of 'new work'

Documentation - what documentation is and can be, the privileging of the object (the document) over the experience (the live work) and how this influences and disrupts the histories of performance etc. Shifts in artists' approaches to documentation (now embrace it within their practice) and the forms it can take - including writing about/as performance.

Audience and participation - huge shifts in recent years in relationships between artworks and their audiences. As Joshua Sofaer puts it "Contemporary culture is marked by the emancipation of the spectator and the transformation of the audience from passive recipient to active participant."

Alternative spaces/institutions - the recent institutional embrace of performance in relation to the independent-risk-taking-under the radar alternative space - what do these different contexts offer artists and audiences.

VA:13 Speed Dating

Networking / twitter / facebook / YouTube

Social networking has become a means to communicate your lunch menu or a means to start revolutions and riots.

Connecting is important. It is essential to share and develop links with others to make the world a more interesting place, where ideas can be exported and imported without boundaries, where we can bypass political and cultural borders and create new pathways.

Discussions and talks are important catalysts for further debate. Often, one to one conversations can be the most informative. This model of discussion plays with the idea of speed dating and the notion of working the room - to dissolve the idea of the audience where every participant is an active part of the session.

In this speed dating experiment, we will pursue the idea that sharing on a basic level our interests in many subjects from painting to poetry, from stamp collecting to football we all share an interest in the wider world. The questions are designed to open up possibilities and to play with the idea of a blind date where each becomes the inquisitor and each must face their own nemesis.

Speed-date with Kathy Battista, Sacha Craddock, Tony Heaton, rAndom International, Brett Littman, Beral Madra, Richard Mosse, Andrea Pagnes, Verena Stenke, Hilde Teerlinck, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and Jinny Yu among others. See biographies below: 

VA13 Audio Works

Chantelle May Purcell: Out of many one people

Duration 1.41

Within Chantelle Purcell’s work there is a continual rewriting and revising of image and text, that works together to create a cacophony of meanings that explore the authenticity within historical representation. The ephemeral nature is inherent within the work through utilising materials that are non-permanent, exploring the mediums of sound, film and performance and placing importance on the role of documentation.

Taking its cue from the symbolic motto ‘Out of many one people’, the piece explores the rich history of Jamaica and the prevalence placed on storytelling. Delving into the infamous legend of ‘The White Witch of Rose Hall’.

 The audio extract that the audience hears are the songs of 8 participants who were asked to sing transcripts from a previous performance that explored the patterns that emerge when a legend was passed along a transmission chain. The participants were instructed to emphasize the words that were carried along the transmission chain the furthest to create a heightened and monumental version of the narrative.  Played in unison the songs collectively join in a cacophony of voices. This piece explores how fact and fiction interweave within history.

Bill Furlong: Ughms & Aghs (1989)

Duration 3.07   

Through the tape editing process, the Uhms and Aghs, (which are often a characteristic of human speech), are removed and saved and then edited together to form an orchstrated sequence. Uhms and ahs normally represent thinking pauses in speech; moments when thoughts are organised and ideas formulated. Far then from being redundant mannerisms, uhms and aghs could be regarded as succinct audial equivalents to thought outside of language.

William Furlong was part of a generation of British artists of the 1960s-70s including Gilbert & George, Richard Hamilton, Bruce McLean, Paul Richards(whose Nice Style performance group was the first pose band) who were consciously moving from traditional art forms to conceptual art, performance, new media, cheap materials, in a dematerialized and process-oriented ethos.[1] Furlong is now a sound artist with sound installations exhibited in Lisbon (Walls of Sound, 1998), Bexhill on Sea, Sussex (Anthem, 2009), Genillard Gallery, London (Possibility & Impossibility of Fixing Meaning, 2009).

With the acquisition of the Audio Arts archive by Tate in 2004 (itself a long-time subscriber to Audio Arts cassettes releases), over 200 boxes of master tapes used to edit the magazine are now secured for future researchers. A selection was exhibited at Tate Britain March–August 2007. The archive is now being catalogued, digitized and preserved there.

In October–December 2006, a retrospective exhibition curated by Lucia Farinati took place at Rome’s Sound Art Museum showing a selection of Audio Arts releases and adding a new sound art by Furlong: Conversation Pieces, a reworking/remixing of preview Furlong interviews, making famous interwiewes respond to each other by the magic of cut-up.

William Furlong’s Audio Arts project was featured in the See This Sound (Promises in Sound and Vision) exhibition, curated by Cosima Rainer, August 28, 2009 to January 10, 2010, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz, Austria.