September’s Open Office For Words

THE OPEN OFFICE FOR WORDS: In The Abyss of The Present.

Phrenology illustration.

An attempt at categorising human abilities and psychic attributes to separate zones of the brain. Woodcut, 1864.

The theme for September is: Consciousness, memory loss and the breakdown of personal narrative.

September’s Open Office for Words looks at consciousness and the creation of personal narrative by looking at the breakdown of autobiographical memory in the case of Clive Wearing, a British musicologist and conductor suffering from anterogade amnesia.

The Office invites you to a screening of the BBC documentary ‘Life Without Memory; The Case of Clive Wearing’, followed by a discussion. Introduction to the theme by Deirdre M. Donoghue.

You are cordially invited to search through your resources and to see whether you perhaps might have something to contribute to the themes of identity, amnesia, the processes of remembering and forgetting. Books, journals, research papers and images related, whether from the field of arts or science are all welcome, as are art-works, documentaries and interviews in a dvd-format.

Practical Information:
Sunday 6 September 2009 | Theme: Consciousness, memory loss, personal narrative.
13:00 -15:00 | studio 207 | Houtlaan 21 | Rotterdam
The Office commences at 13:00 sharp.

Contact:
E: openofficeforwords[at]gmail[dot]com
T: 06 – 53323708

Please Note: Due to the building regulations it is necessary to inform The Office in advance about attendance. You can do so by email up to the day before and by phone on the day itself.

June’s Reader

Theory:

-The Nature of Landscape; A Personal Quest, Han Lorzing, 010 Publishers, Rotterdam 2001.

-Landschap en Herinnering, Simon Schama, 2007. ISBN: 9789046700679

-Intangible and Tangible Landscapes: an athropological perspective based on two South African case studies.Author; Liana Müller. (http://www.up.ac.za/dspace/bitstream/2263/9628/1/Muller_Intangible(2008).pdf)

-Giflandschap;Vervuilde Locaties en Landschappen in Nederland, Wout Berger, Fragment, 1992. ISBN: 9789065790743

Photography:

-Humanature, Peter Goin, University of Texas Press, 1996.

-Innocent Landscapes, David Farrell, Gallery of Photography, Dublin, 2001.

-Tatorte; Bilder Gegen Das Vergessen, Joel Sternfeld, Schirmer, Mosel, ISBN: 3-88814-668-2

-Utö, Het Laatse Jaar Van Een Eiland, Marcel Borsten, 2003.

June’s Open Office For Words

THE OPEN OFFICE FOR WORDS: Innocent Landscapes

June’s Open Office for Words took place on the 2nd of June at ADA, Area for Debate and Art, Rotterdam.                                                                     

The Office looked at the notion of  innocence together with the concept of landscape. Apart from the Sublime, various ways of reading and understanding landscape were discussed. The Office served French Chocolate Cake, Passion Cake and Apple Crumble Cake and a selection of tea’s and coffee was poured.

 

Speakers included: Marcel Borsten and Lasse Lau

Marcel Borsten’s talk Innocent Landscapes looked at the relationship between landscape and photography in territorial conflict areas. By focusing mainly on two different notions of landscape: the territorial and the rational, he touched upon the history and philosophy of landscape as he looked at the photographic works of Paul Graham, Peter Goin, Avi Holtzman and Richard Misrach. 

Lasse Lau‘s talk When Space Becomes Imaginary looked at what the naïve eye and the innocent can add to any unknown site. As part of his talk he will screen his latest film Pine Nuts, which examines the political and social relevance of the “invented” city park Horch al-Sanawbar in Beirut. The unusual history of this closed park becomes told through the recollections of US immigrants of the Lebanese Diaspora. Read More…

To subscribe to The Open Office for Words -podcasts in iTunes click here.

 

 

 

 

 

MAY READER: (In Discussion on) Re-enactment

Theory:

-RE:akt! Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Re-reporting, ed. A.Caronia, J.Jansa, D.Quaranta, FPE Editions, ISBN 978-88-903308-6-5 

-Life, Once More: Forms of Re-enactment in Contemporary Art. ed. Sven Lütticken, Witte de With Publishers, Rotterdam 2005.

-Correspondence; The Foundation of The Situationist International. Guy Depord, Translated by Stuart Kendall, MIT Press, 2008.

-Experience, Memory, Re-enactment, ed. A.Bangma, Steven Rushton, Florian Wust, Piet Zwart Institute/ Revolver Archiv für Aktuelle Kunst,      2005.

- Looking For Alfred,  Johan Grimonprez, ed. Steven Bode. Published by; Film and Video Umbrella, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Pinakothek der Moderne, Zapomatik,    2007.  ISBN: 978-3-7757-2008-3 and ISBN: 978-1-904270-25-6-

-Re-enactment & Realism, ed. Iain Mc Calman, Paul A. Pickering, Palgrave MacMillan, October 27th 2009.

 

Specifically related to talks:

-Saints & Avengers; British Adventure Series of the 1960’s, James Chapman, I. B. Tauris &Co Ltd, London, New York, 2006.

-Re-enacting Emma Peel, MA Project Report, Margo Onnes, 2008. 

 

Art Works:

Nola Dee and The Invasion of Rats, Margo Onnes, 2008.

 

*The reading lists are compiled from texts present at The Open Office For Words, with minor exceptions.

 

 

 

Announcing ‘The Open Office for Words’ theme for the month of May 2009.

May’s theme at The Open Office for Words is: In Discussion on Re-enactment.

 

History Will Repeat Itself, KW Institute for Contemporary Art.

 

Speakers:

Margo Onnes presents material from the 1960’s popular television series The Avengers in conjunction with her own work on re-enacting Emma Peel, one of the original characters of the series. Gerwin Luijendijk will present his current work-in-progress on re-enacting 1980’s music videos and Sjoerd Westerbroek will talk about his experience on taking part in an re-enactment of Allan Kaprow’s piece ‘The Birds’ at The Van Abbe Museum in 2007.

A discussion on the related topics of viewers vs. participants, documentation vs. a singular experience, and many other questions concerning re-enactments from the points of view of the artist/performer and the viewer/participant will follow. 

For more information and to reserve contact:

openofficeforwords@gmail.com

Book Launch and Screening at Etablissement d’en Face: Resonant Bodies, Voices, Memories

 

Date 26.03.2009
Time 20h
Location ETABLISSEMENT D’EN FACE, RUE ANTOINE DANSAERT 161, B-1000 BRUSSELS

Etablissement d’en Face, Piet Zwart Institute and Revolver Publishing are pleased to announce the book launch for a new publication, entitled Resonant Bodies, Memories, Voices. A special screening programme will accompany the launch of this publication, with films and audio works by Samuel Beckett, Lina Issa and Fanni Futterknecht, Alvin Lucier, Anri Sala, Imogen Stidworthy, Katarina Zdjelar, and Artur Zmijewksi, amongst others. With thanks to Johnen Galerie, Berlin, Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zuerich, and the artists for lending the works. 

The publication Resonant Bodies, Memories, Voices is edited by Anke Bangma, Deirdre M. Donoghue, Lina Issa and Katarina Zdjelar, and is published by Piet Zwart Institute of the Willem de Kooning Academy/Rotterdam University, MA Fine Art Programme (Course Director Vanessa Ohlraun). It contains texts and artist’s contributions by Ernst van Alphen, Özlem Altin, Steven Connor, Mladen Dolar, Deirdre M. Donoghue, Jeroen Fabius, Brigitte Felderer, Gunndís Yr Finnbogadóttir, Lina Issa, Suely Rolnik, Imogen Stidworthy, Jalal Toufic, and Katarina Zdjelar. Design by Johanna Bilak. 

Publications by Piet Zwart Institute and Revolver Publishing are available internationally at selected bookstores and via International Book Service GmbH & Co.KG, attn.: Vice Versa Vertrieb, Benzstrasse 21, D-48619 Heek, info@vice-versa-vertrieb.de, http://www.vice-versa-vertrieb.de

ISBN 978-36895-022-9

‘The Open Office For Words’ -Podcasts

You can now subscribe to ‘The Open Office for Words’ -podcasts in iTunes by  clicking here.

Alternatively to link to the feed, go to: http://podcast.recordingbox.nl/feeds/openofficeforwords.xml

MARCH READER: Representation

Theory:

- The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories, New York; Palgrave MacMillan, 1988.

- Techniques of the Observer, Crary, J, Cambridge, Massachusetts,The MIT Press, 1992. ISBN 0-262-53107-0.

- Suspensions of Perception, Crary, J, Cambridge, Massachusetts,The MIT Press, 2001. ISBN 0-262-53199-2.

- The Return of the Real, Foster, H, Cambridge, Massachusetts,The MIT Press, 1996. ISBN 0-262-56107-7.

-Camera Lucida, Barthes, R, London: Vintage, 2000[1980]. ISBN 0-09-922541-7.

- The Crisis of The Real: Photography and the Postmodern,Grundberg, in The Photography Reader, London: Routledge, 2004[1990]. ISBN 0-415-24661-X.

-The Task of The Translator, Walter Benjamin, in Selected Writings Vol.I (1913-1926), ed. Bullock, Jennings, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992.

-Paintings, Or Signs and Marks, Walter Benjamin in Selected Writings Vol.I (1913-1926), ed. Bullock, Jennings, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992.

-The Work of art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin in Art in Theory 1900-1990; An anthology of Changing Ideas, ed. Harrison, Wood, Blackwell Publisher ltd. 1992.

-Ways of Seeing, John Berger, Penguin Books, 1972.

-On Photography, Susan Sontag, Penguin Books, 1971.

-Against Interpretation and Other Essays, Susan Sontag,Picador, USA, 2001 (1962).

-De Sublieme Historische Ervaring, Frank Ankersmit, Groningen 2007.

-Questioning History, ed. Frank van der Stok, rotterdam, 2008.

-Cosmic Imagery; Key Images in The History of Science, John D. Barrow, Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.2008.

-Art and Illusion; A Study in The Psychology of Pictorial Representation, E.H. Gombrich, Phaidon, 2004. 

- Experience, Memory, Re-enactment, ed. Bangma, Rushton, Wust, Piet Zwart Institute for Postgraduate Studies, Revolver Archive fur aktuelle Kunst, 2005.

 

Art Works:

-The Writing Room, Maria Barnas, 2007.

March Open Office For Words

THE OPEN OFFICE FOR WORDS

March’s Open Office for Words took place on the 1st of March at ADA, Area for Debate and Art, Rotterdam.

Speakers included: Priscilla Fernandes, Edward Clydesdale Thomson and Ruth Legg.

The above reader has been compiled from the texts and artworks that were present.

The talks are also available as podcasts: 

To subscribe to The Open Office for Words -podcasts in iTunes click here.

Alternatively to link to the feed, go to: http://podcast.recordingbox.nl/feeds/openofficeforwords.xml 

The Office served Chocolate Date-Cake, Classic Cheese Cake and Lemon Taart. A selection of Coffee, Rooibos and Chinese Jasmine tea was poured.

Announcing ‘The Open Office For Words’ theme for the month of March 2009.

March’s theme at the Open Office for Words is Representation.

  

  

Speakers: 

Edward Clydesdale Thomson’s talk: A Leopard, Some Monkeys, Numerous Butterflies, Dozens of Peacocks and a Sublime Vista, looks at the politics of representation by observing how different technologies of display affect our modes of looking and thus our visual experience/s. Together with Jonathan Crary’s notions about modes of attention and Foucault’s ideas on technologies of  power, he brings us on a journey through the Rotterdam Zoo via three different modes of spectatorships; spectacular vision / social vision / fully immersive vision, as they are shaped for us by the surrounding architecture. 

Ruth Legg’s talk: The Look of Science looks at how images are used to display meaning and knowledge in different contexts, particularly within science. Her focus is on examining the ways in which an image, object or set of words is made to represent a range of ideas, system of beliefs or produce a collective mood. She will be presenting a work in progress, which addresses the way in which science, through-out history has used imagery to present difficult ideas.

Priscila Fernandes’ work: The Ultimate Explanatory Representation of the Self (video performance realized exclusively for this talk) is the documentation of an absurd effort to find an ultimate representation for the notion of identity. The character in the video, in a didactic exercise of incongruous references from the Enlightenment individual to the postmodern subject, explains the imagining of multiple personalities (or shared personalities) as reflective of a sense of the fragmented representation of identity in contemporary society.

For more information and to reserve contact: openofficeforwords@gmail.com