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OPPORTUNITY

Curating as a form of assembly: a weekly residential module led by Aria Spinelli and Tullio Brunone in Italy


Deadline:
Sat Apr 18, 2015 23:30

Location:
Biella, Italy

Curating as a form of assembly
Mentor:
Aria Spinelli
Guest:
Tullio Brunone (Laboratorio di Comunicazione Militante)
When:
18 May / 22 May, 2015
Deadline for application submission:
18.04.2015
Where:
Cittadellarte, Biella
Language:
English

TOPICS/TAGS: Art politics, activism, curating, curatorial, imagination, imaginary, exhibition, culture, transversality, participation, horizontality, consciousness, responsibility

Module outline

Taking from recent forms of anticapitalist protest, this module on exhibition practice wants to focus on alternative modes of thinking society. In reference to the political imaginaries that have been provoked by temporary occupations of public squares, through this week-long module we will embrace and analyse the notion of collective and political consciousness in the writings of J. K. Graham and Gibson, and transpose their methodology to the framework of curatorial practice. “Curating” here becomes a process of gathering, a situation of social engagement that should be declined under terms such as horizontality, transversality and cooperation. In this sense, the act of curation does not want to allude to a top down, authorial process of selection and installation, but a context-specific and reflective mode of positioning cultural production within a given situation.

The week will be fragmented into three different sessions: the assembly-building collective consciousness; curating: means and modes of addressing necessities; gathering: temporary situations of conscious and unconscious engagement. All three fragments will be composed by a series of actions, activities and readings, including a one-off workshop with Laboratorio di Comunicazione Militante (Tullio Brunone). By the end of the week, students will create their own form of assembly, embodying the week-long research and experience.

The module hopes to reflect its final stage on the potentiality of political imaginaries in a contemporary context, and how “Curating” in its broadest sense is key to shifting power relations between artists, authors and contexts, specifically through the use of imaginative forms of political emancipation.

SCHEDULE

May 18th
morning
Guided tour to Cittadellarte, including the Pistoletto, Arte Povera collections and temporary exhibitions (curated by Luca Furlan)
afternoon
Workshop and group presentation
Curating: means and modes of addressing necessities (Case study: A lived practice SAIC, Chicago)
The assembly-building collective consciousness - role taking: mediating/minute taking/questions manager
Participants presentations

May 19th
morning
Gathering: temporary situations of conscious and unconscious engagement. exercises: Alan Kaprow; readings J.K. Graham and Gibson (reading groups - regrouping - collective discussions)
Curating: means and modes of addressing necessities (Case study: the 7th Berlin Biennale)
afternoon
Curating: means and modes of addressing necessities (brainstorming, keywords, collective discussion)
Curating: means and modes of addressing necessities (exercises and short per-formances)
Participants presentations

May 20th
morning
Gathering: temporary situations of conscious and unconscious engagement. exercises: Ultra Red; readings: Paul O’Neill (reading groups - regrouping - collective discussions)
Curating: means and modes of addressing necessities. (Case study: Democracy: a project by Group Material)
afternoon
The assembly-building collective consciousness - role taking: mediating/ minute taking/ questions manager
Curating: means and modes of addressing necessities with Laboratorio di Comunicazione Militante.
Participants presentations

May 21st
morning
Gathering: temporary situations of conscious and unconscious engagement. exercises: Brett Bloom (reading groups - regrouping - collective discussions)
Curating: means and modes of addressing necessities. (Case study: Instituting - Simon Sheikh)
afternoon
Curating: means and modes of addressing necessities - roundtable: thematic brainstorming
The assembly-building collective consciousness - role taking: mediating/ minute taking/ questions manager
Participants presentations

May 22th
morning
Gathering: temporary situations of conscious and unconscious engagement. exercises: Amy Franceschini; readings JK Graham and Gibson (reading groups - regrouping - collective discussions)
final regrouping and organisation of assemblies
afternoon
Self-organised assemblies (public or not)
evening
Party

REFERENCES
The mentor will prepare a reader for participants with key texts, some of which will be discussed during the week. The reader will include pieces by authors, artists, curators and intellectuals such as Paul O’Neill, Irit Rogoff, Mick Wilson, Dave Beech, Mark Hutchinson, Simon Sheikh, Judith Butler, and J.K. Graham and Gibson.

Artists & Artists’ projects

Mosireen Collective [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mosireen-independent-media-collective-in-cairo]

Collectivo En medio [http://www.enmedio.info/en/]

Bruguera, T., Museo D’Arte Util, 2013 [http://museumarteutil.net/]

Grupo Ectera, C.R.I.S.I Bologna 2013 [https://crisiproject.wordpress.com/]

Fortune, B. & Bloom, B., The Library of Radiant Optimism… Guide, 4th & Final Edition, January 2013 [http://mythologicalquarter.net/2013/01/13/the-library-of-radiant-optimism-guide-4th-final-edition-january-2013]

Shows

“A Proximity of Consciousness: Art and Social Action”, September 20–December 20 2014, Mary Jane Jacob, Kate Zeller [http://blogs.saic.edu/alivedpractice/]

“Art Turning Left: How Values Changed Making 1789–2013”, Tate Liverpool: Exhibition 8 November 2013 - 2 February 2014 [http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/exhibition/art-turning-left-how-values-changed-making-1789-2013]

“JO EM REBEL•LO, NOSALTRES EXISTIM” [http://www.fundaciopalau.cat/fundacio-palau/ca/exposicions-temporals/exposicio.html?title=JO%20EM%20REBEL%E2%80%A2LO,%20NOSALTRES%20EXISTIM&html=13230.html] 2013

ARTUR ŻMIJEWSKI, “THE 7TH BERLIN BIENNAL”, Associated curator: Joanna Warsza Associated curators: Oleg Vorotnikov (a.k.a. Vor), Natalya Sokol (a.k.a. Kozljonok or Koza), Leonid Nikolajew (a.k.a. Leo the Fucknut) and Kasper Nienagliadny Sokol from Voina [http://www.berlinbiennale.de/blog/en/1st-6th-biennale/7th-berlin-biennale] 2012

Group Material, “Democracy: A Project by Group Material - Discussions in Contemporary Culture 1987-89”, DIA:Chelsea New York (USA) [http://www.diaart.org/programs/main/70] / [http://eipcp.net/transversal/0910/ashford/en]

Martha Rosler, “If You Lived Here…Discussions in Contemporary Culture”, DIA:Chelsea 1987-1989 [http://www.diaart.org/programs/main/69]

Enrico Crispolti, Biennale di Venezia, sezione italiana, “Ambiente come sociale”, 1976

Mentor

BIOGRAPHY AND STATEMENT

Aria Spinelli is an independent curator and researcher, currently a Phd Candidate at Loughborough University with a project on curatorial practice and the social imaginary. Her primary area of research is investigating the relationship between art and activism. Her research suggests that the “assembly”, as both a curatorial format and exhibition display, will possibly activate forms of agonistic politics that can potentially affect the social imaginary necessary for capitalist reproduction. She holds a BA and a MA in Art History, Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies.

Since 2009 she acted as curator at Isola Art Center, an open platform of experimentation for contemporary art that has developed in the Isola neighbourhood in Milan, Italy. In 2009, she also founded the art and curatorial collective Radical Intention and created long-term research projects on socio-political issues related to art and its practices.

Recent projects include: Decompression Gathering Summer Camp with Amy Franceschini (Corniolo Art Platform, FI, Italy); FLOAT residency at Luminary art centre, St. Louis (MO, USA); Marfa Dialogues, Pulitzer Art Foundation, St. Louis (MO, USA); Collateral Effects - Beyond a Radical Milan, Homesession, Fundacio Tapies, Sala d’art Jove Barcelona, Spain; Taking Positions-Identity Questioning Fare arte, Milan, Italy w/ACSL-Art and Cultural Studies Laboratory, Yerevan; Milano Radicale, Medionauta/Liceo artistico Caravaggio, Milan/Corniolo Florence, Italy.

GUEST
Laboratorio di Comunicazione Militante was co-founded in Milan in 1976 by Tullio Brunone, Giovanni Columbu, Ettore Pasculli and Paolo Rosa, to unmask the ambiguous mechanisms of communication. Until 1978, LCM started a number of experiments, among which the noteworthy experience of Fabbrica di Comunicazione - in Milan’s occupied church of St. Carpoforo - an artistic endeavour deeply connected to that historical period characterised by political engagement and activism. Yet, Fabbrica di Comunicazione still stands today as an example of cutting-edge, stimulating research criticising those very means and strategies of communication that would later become central to political and social studies.

Participation fee
570.00 € Including accomodation and half-board


OPPORTUNITY

Changing nothing so that everything is different, a weekly residential module led by Silvia Franceschini and Stefano Rabolli Pansera (Beyond Entropy), in Italy


Deadline:
Sat Apr 11, 2015 23:00

Location:
Biella, Italy

Changing nothing so that everything is different
Mentor:
Silvia Franceschini
Guest:
Stefano Rabolli Pansera and Beyond Entropy
When:
11 May / 15 May, 2015
Deadline for application submission:
11.04.2015
Where:
Cittadellarte, Biella
Language:
English
TOPICS/TAGS: Transformation, city, entropy, tools, collective imagination, responsibility
Module outline

Radical pedagogy, dystopic visions, refusal of architecture and contamination with visual arts - radical designers and architects in the ’70s implemented all these strategies in different ways, to question the role played by humankind within territorial transformation. How could environmental thinking develop beyond the concept of sustainability? Which are the possible strategies of urban regeneration and creation of new urban space? How can the city and the countryside merge into an uninterrupted social factory? How to create new consciousness of precarious living between “cities” and “territories”? Revisiting the history of architecture and questioning the fundamentals of its theory, Beyond Entropy has elaborated, through transdisciplinary research experiments, exhibitions and fieldwork investigations, a philosophy where interventions on site are realized through a methodology of “Changing nothing so that everything is different”.

This workshop proposes to reflect on the idea of the city and its evolution after the end of industrialisation in Europe. The attempts at redefining the space of the urban settlement in keeping with ideas of post-industrial economy and gentrification highlight the issue of the role of artistic practices in these processes. Taking as its starting point Aldo Rossi’s ideas (The Analogous City, 1976), that the city should be shaped by historical imagination, collective memories and participation, the laboratory will conduct a case study on Cittadellarte, to verify how this model could become a paradigm for the regeneration of post industrial cities in Italy and beyond.

The week will comprise of lectures, discussions and film screenings focusing on several examples of pedagogical and architectural initiatives attempting to define new operational tools for urban and rural environments.

SCHEDULE

May 11th
morning
Guided tour to Cittadellarte, including the Pistoletto, Arte Povera collections and temporary exhibitions (curated by Luca Furlan)
Group presentation
afternoon
Introduction to the workshop's core topics

May 12th
A day with Beyond Entropy
evening
Film screenings

May 13th
Tool globalism. Case study lecture on Global Tools and Radical Architecture

May 14th
Self-study day, production

May 15th
Summary and reflection on the workshop’s outcomes

REFERENCES

The mentor will prepare a reader for participants with key texts, some of which will be discussed during the week.

http://www.beyondentropy.com

Global Tools’ e-book (upcoming)

Mentor

BIOGRAPHY AND STATEMENT

Silvia Franceschini is an independent curator and researcher in contemporary art and architecture. Her practice deals with the political intersections of education, history and institution making within research based art and design practices.

Her recent curatorial projects address the connections between radical pedagogy and the operaist theories during the “years of lead” in Italy (Global Tools 1973-1975: Towards an Ecology of Design, SALT, Istanbul), institutional critique and political commentaries in the urban sphere of post-socialist Eastern Europe (The Way of Enthusiasts, VAC Foundation, Venice Biennale, 2012) and the notion of “strategy” in global art practices (Sources go dark, Futura Center for Contemporary Art, Prague, 2015).

She studied Cultural Policies at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow and Design and Art Theory at Politecnico di Milano, where she is now a PhD fellow. Silvia Franceschini is a member of the curatorial team of the upcoming Second Kyiv International Biennale of Contemporary Art 2015 led by Georg Schöllhammer and Hedwig Saxenhuber.

GUEST
Beyond Entropy was founded by Stefano Rabolli Pansera in 2009 as a trans-disciplinary research laboratory at the Architectural Association, School of Architecture, London.
Beyond Entropy is now an independent collaborative practice operating at the threshold between art, architecture and geopolitics while developing a variety of projects: from curatorial activities to art installations, from architectural interventions to master-plans, from public debates to publications.
Beyond Entropy is structured as a network operating in situations of territorial crisis: from the urban sprawl of the most industrialized parts of the planet to the derelict infrastructures of deserted islands; from the overcrowded urban development of emerging countries to the preserved areas of historical urban centres.
Beyond Entropy questions preconceived notions in order to produce new ideas about the space we inhabit — our homes, cities, and territories.
www.beyondentropy.com

Stefano Rabolli Pansera is the Director of Beyond Entropy. After working as an architect with Herzog and de Meuron between 2005 and 2007, he taught as Unit Master at the Architectural Association from 2007 to 2011. He has lectured in the Universities of Cagliari, Cambridge, Naples, Wuhan, Seoul and Madrid. In 2009 he founded Beyond Entropy, which operates in Europe, the Mediterranean and Africa. He curated the exhibition Beyond Entropy. When Energy Becomes Form as a collateral event of the "12th International Architecture Exhibition – Venice Biennale 2010". With Paula Nascimento, he has curated the first national participation – the Angola Pavilion at the "13th International Architecture Exhibition – Venice Biennale 2012" and the first national participation – the Angola Pavilion at the "55th International Arts Exposition – Venice Biennale 2013" which received the Golden Lyon. In 2014 he curated the Albanian Pavilion at "14th International Architecture Exhibition – Venice Biennale". Since 2012 he is director of Mangiabarche Gallery in Sardinia.

Participation fee
570.00 € Including accomodation and half-board


OPPORTUNITY

Ubiquitous Infoscapes, a weekly residential module led by AOS (Art is Open Source: Salvatore Iaconesi, Oriana Persico) in Italy


Deadline:
Sat Apr 11, 2015 23:00

Location:
Biella, Italy

Ubiquitous Infoscapes
Mentor:
Salvatore Iaconesi, Oriana Persico
When:
04 May / 08 May, 2015
Deadline for application submission:
11.04.2015
Where:
Cittadellarte, Biella
Language:
English

TOPICS/TAGS: Participation, information, knowledge, experience, territories, public/private spaces, perception, behaviour, responsibility

Module outline

Data and information are everywhere.
In our times, we constantly and ubiquitously generate data and information. The masses of data and information generated by others (people, objects, organizations and algorithms) radically transform our daily lives, the ways in which we work, relate to each other, express emotions, experience places and spaces, consume, do things together.
Seamlessly augmented with information, the physical landscape becomes infoscape (a landscape of information).

The module Ubiquitous Infoscapes combines experiential, theoretical, practice and performance based phases, each continuously flowing into the other.
The experiential sessions, aimed at expanding knowledge and imaginaries, will develop around case studies to unveil the many facets of the Ubiquitous Infoscape, how it radically transforms both our lives and our perception of the world, affecting public, private and intimate spaces, our rights, and our approach to knowledge-sharing, learning, expression and communication. Examples will be drawn from a wide spectrum of international practitioners, including artists, designers, hackers, architects and researchers, with a more in-depth focus on AOS and Human Ecosystems.

The theoretical sessions aim at broadening the understanding of the subject through discussing those issues (social, political, aesthetic, psychological, cognitive, anthropological) highlighted within the experiential sessions. We will explore the production of a number of theoreticians, researchers, writers and other influential figures, trying to discern the narrative(s) of the mutation of human beings in the age of ubiquitous information.

The practice and performance sessions aim at constructing a small – yet meaningful - artistic and creative production inspired by those instances discussed within the previous phases and highlighting one or more elements of the human mutation brought by the continuous emergence of Ubiquitous Infoscapes. In this phase we will create, and express ourselves, through texts, images, software, installation, movement, gestures and curious rituals.
Previous technical knowledge is not required. The artists will provide extensive support (even for writing small pieces of software) across all activities, ensuring active participation of all throughout all sessions. At the end of each day, an “ubiquitous ritual” will allow all participants to express themselves in meaningful ways.

SCHEDULE

May 4th
morning
Guided tour to Cittadellarte, including the Pistoletto, Arte Povera collections and temporary exhibitions (curated by Luca Furlan)
Group presentations
Methodologies and technical set-up
afternoon
The artists present themselves and their philosophy
Experience Session I (examples and interactive experiences, discussion)
Ubiquitous Ritual I

May 5th
morning
Experience Session II (examples and interactive experiences, discussion)
Theoretical Session I (short readings, screenings and discussing theoretical approaches)
afternoon
Theoretical Session II (short readings, screenings and discussing theoretical approaches)
Practice & Performance Phase I (brainstorming to define the concept of the production, and its iterative redefinition)
Ubiquitous Ritual II

May 6th
morning
Theoretical Session III (short readings, screenings and discussing theoretical approaches)
Practice & Performance Session II (introduction to the tools we will use for the creation of the artistic production, and set-up of the projects) afternoon
Practice & Performance Session III (project development and collaboration)
Ubiquitous Ritual III

May 7th
morning
Documentation (all participants work on assembling the documentation so far)
Practice & Performance Session IV (project development and collaboration)
afternoon
Practice & Performance Session V (project development and collaboration)
Ubiquitous Ritual IV

May 8th
morning
Documentation (gathering of all the materials generated in the last P&P sessions for inclusion in the documentation, including video, software, images, concepts etc.)
Presentation
afternoon
Performance Ubiquitous Ritual with all the guests coming to the presentation

REFERENCES
The mentor will prepare a reader for participants with key texts, some of which will be discussed during the week.

Web Articles:

The Third Infoscape: http://www.artisopensource.net/network/artisopensource/2013/11/20/third-infoscape-de-certeau-clement-casagrande-smart-cities/

P2P Ethnography: http://www.artisopensource.net/network/artisopensource/2014/07/30/communication-knowledge-and-information-in-the-human-ecosystem-p2p-ethnography/

Cultures, communities, roles and emergence: http://human-ecosystems.com/home/relations-in-the-human-ecosystems-cultures-communities-roles-and-emergence/

Transmedia Design: http://www.artisopensource.net/network/artisopensource/2014/04/30/transmedia-design/

Anthropological Innovation: http://www.artisopensource.net/network/artisopensource/2013/07/28/anthropological-innovation-observing-and-understanding-the-mutation-of-human-life/

Mentor

BIOGRAPHY AND STATEMENT

Created by Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico, AOS - Art is Open Source is an international informal network exploring the mutation of human beings and their society with the wide and ubiquitous accessibility of digital technologies and networks.
“We move across arts and sciences, using technology, communication, performance, art and design, to instantiate emotional actions and processes able to expose the dynamics of our contemporary world. We are interested in cities (and in how they have become infrastructures for ubiquitous flows of data, information, knowledge), bodies (and the ways in which they are being extended with technologies and network connectivity), economies and education (and the ways in which they are being redefned through peer-to-peer models and ubiquitous practices of many different kinds). We turn these observations into designs, artworks, scientifc research and innovative business models.”

Salvatore is Designer, Artist, Robotic Engineer and Philosopher, TED Fellow 2012, Eisenhower Fellow 2013 and Yale World Fellow 2014; Oriana is Communication Scientist, Artist, Writer and Cyber-Ecologist.

Participation fee
570.00 € Including accomodation and half-board