Begin forwarded message:
> From: Ken Goldberg <
goldberg@ieor.berkeley.edu>
> Date: October 27, 2004 11:41:52 AM EDT
> To: "announce atc @ ucb" <
goldberg@ieor.berkeley.edu>
> Subject: atc @ ucb: rirkrit tiravanija, monday 7:30pm
>
> next week, as we put the count into country, rirkrit tiravanija will
> address the subject of land. -ken
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> The Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium
> of UC Berkeley's Center for New Media Presents:
>
> the land
> Rirkrit Tiravanija, New York, Bangkok, and Berlin
>
> Mon, 1 Nov, 7:30-9pm: UC Berkeley, 160 Kroeber Hall
> All ATC Lectures are free and open to the public.
>
> The land project was initiated by Rirkrit and Kamin Letchaiprasert as
> a self-sustaining environment emerging from the artistic community.
> The land is located in the northern part of Thailand, near the village
> of Sanpathong, 20 km southwest from the provincial city of Chiang Mai.
> It is intended to be cultivated as an open space or community free
> from ownership, with elements favoring discussions and experimentation
> in the fields of culture. The land is open to the day-to-day
> activities of local living (i.e. the growing of rice) and to the
> neighboring community. On the social field of the land, artistic
> practices are discussed and tested. This project, a hybrid of
> innovation and traditionalism, contrasts contemporary materials and
> technologies with ancient forms of agriculture.
>
> While the land is a rice field and a garden, freely accessible to all,
> it also supports architectural constructions that may be utilized in
> variety of ways, from shelters for sleeping to kitchens for cooking to
> platforms from which to deliver lectures or performances. A number of
> artists and architects are involved in this aspect of the land's
> potential, though participation is not confined solely to those in the
> arts. The people who have contributed to the land's structure so far
> have come from both local and international artistic backgrounds, with
> artists such as: Kamin Letchaiprasert, Mitr Jai Inn, Tobias Rehberger,
> Philippe Parreno, Francois Roche, Angkrit Ajchariyasophon, Prachaya
> Phinthong, the artist group SUPERFLEX and Tiravanija. These small
> constructions vary from outhouses collecting biogas which is later
> converted for cooking, to kitchens and a central hall with generator
> powered by elephants' movements, to living (meditation) huts are
> designed and built as artistic and architectural experiments, although
> they also function as spaces which artists, students, and farmers
> alike can utilize. Because the land is empty of expectation, it is
> truly open to possibility, and in this openness, science,
> architecture, art, religion, technology, and the environment all play
> a part in determining the design and function of the space. In a
> sense, it is through this complete lack of determination that so many
> experiments, and discoveries are engendered: emptiness as an
> incubator, of sorts.
>
> Anyone may build a new structure on the land with the only condition
> being that the addition remain accessible to all, as is the goal of
> the land generally. We provide the land and commit to care-taking and
> repairs of the buildings that are to remain on the land on a permanent
> basis, but encourage each artist to raise the funding for the actual
> construction. Rirkrit's own structure, as well as that of Tobias
> Rehberger, was exhibited as part of the "What If...Art on the Verge of
> Architecture and Design" curated by Maria Lind at the Moderna Museet
> Stockholm.
>
> ====================================================================
>
> Rirkrit Tiravanija was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1961. After
> high school in Bangkok, Thailand, he studied at the Ontario School of
> Art
> in Toronto, the Banff Center School of Fine Arts, the School of the Art
> Institute of Chicago, and the Whitney Independent Studies Program in
> New
> York. He has exhibited widely, including solo shows at Kunsthalle
> Basel,
> The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Los Angeles County Museum of Art;
> Portikus, Frankfurt; and Secession, Vienna. For the 50th International
> Venice Biennale (2003), he co-curated Utopia Station, which has since
> traveled to several venues, most recently opening at the Haus der
> Kunst,
> Munich. Since 1998, Tiravanija has also been working on The Land, a
> large-scale collaborative and transdisciplinary project near Chiang
> Mai,
> Thailand. Tiravanija is a finalist for the 2004 Hugo Boss Prize and
> lives
> and works in New York, Bangkok, and Berlin.
>
> ====================================================================
>
> The ATC is sponsored by UC Berkeley's: Center for New Media, Office of
> the
> Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, College of Engineering
> Interdisciplinary Studies Program, Center for Information Technology in
> the Interest of Society, Consortium for the Arts, BAM/PFA, Townsend
> Center
> for the Humanities, and the Intel Corporation.
>
> ATC Director: Ken Goldberg
> ATC Associate Director: Greg Niemeyer
> ATC Assistant: Therese Tierney
> Curated with ATC Advisory Board
>
> Full F04-S05 series schedule and video archive:
>
http://www.ieor.berkeley.edu/~goldberg/lecs/>
> Contact:
goldberg@ieor.berkeley.edu, or phone: (510) 643-9565
>