FILM AND DOCU
Colorfilm
-------------
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBM_9W_e_D4
- Is your Red the same as my red?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evQsOFQju08
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3unPcJDbCc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8Ng-DlJU84
this is fantastic!
Cultural theory of color
----------------
The very first fragment of Tom Sachs video evokes questions about 'White' as a color that is often seen as the 'neutral' or 'default'. Dutch-Surinamese decolonial scholar Gloria Wekker lectures about what she calls 'white innocence': the fact that white people are blind for their own color.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXVPISNOHKE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUmJQS29XZs
Fun design studios on color:
http://www.alikivanderkruijs.com/wp/
http://www.rawcolor.nl/welcome/
http://laboratorium.bio/colorlab.html
- Darksiders 2 - The Maker Cutscene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COt9y6bsJP4
A PLACE WHERE WE CAN DROP MOVIES
https://hogent-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/luka_peeters_y6550_student_hogent_be/EnFq_lEVYI5LtW63oVq_CdQBnbl2MekZbU3NKK7G8eUZ-A?e=qTiADS
https://www.lumiereseries.com/nl/cinema-bij-je-thuis
- Little Women
-Mishima: A life in four chapters
- Portrait de la Jeune Fille en Feu Sonata
LECTURES
-------------------------------------------------------
Interesting lectures about different practices
- BC architecture (local buildig techniques, learning and implementing) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rES-aTmyoxU
- ROTOR (@Luna @Jaco, this approach of 'collecting'/dismantling might be interesting for you https://www.aaschool.ac.uk/VIDEO/lecture.php?ID=3487
-James Bridle --- one of my favorite lectures: https://vimeo.com/70481902
-Liam Young, dark but good, how does our current situation fit in there? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE_c0hmx9Fg&feature=youtu.be
- ELIZABETH TUNSTALL on Design Anthropology, Indigenous Knowledge, and the Decolonization of Design: https://vimeo.com/22599259
-Formafantasma: visual essay: https://vimeo.com/320151239
- The Ore Streams website presents a study led by Studio Formafantasma on the current state of e-waste management.
- The website collects the research outcomes and compiles an archive of documents, videos, books and articles on the topic: http://www.orestreams.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu6OpJ4N6nM
https://www.lucymcrae.net/institute-of-isolation ---- very interesting speculative designer
Hi, this is Lucas here. Hope everyone is feeling ok and despite the rapidly changing scenarios we will find a way to not slip too far behind in our work. I have been reading a lot and wanted to share some quotes.
I highly recommend Albert Camus speech from 1957 entitled Create Dangerously. It is very short but full of insights which are amazingly very relevant today. @Peter is it also possible to share images on here? Anyway, from Camus:
"To create today is to create dangerously.
Any publication is an act, and that act exposes one to the passions of an age that forgives nothing.
"He [the artist] must first of all answer the question he has put to himself: is art a deceptive luxury?"
"Art for art's sake, the entertainment of a solitary artist, is indeed the artificial art of a facetious and self-aborbed society."
"True art is called upon to unite"
"Art cannot be a monologue"
"We resemble one another in what we see together, in what we suffer together. Dreams change from individual to individual, but the reality of the world is common to us all."
***This seems particularly relevant in light of the Corona virus outbreak.
Also, I had a chat with Hala this morning when I went to de zaal to pick up my stuff. Even before classes were cancelled there seemed to be a general lack of solidarity/focus in the department and I have been wondering how to address this in a way which feel both genuine/not forced/relevant to everyone. I am curious if my peers feel this way and what we can do about this? I also discussed how I wish in hindsight I had pushed further on developing the online platform idea for all students at KASK, a virtual "campus" where we can gather to exchange everything from ideas to trading/buying + selling...it certainly would have come in handy now that we are physically unable to be on an actual campus. I am considering trying to add to my now paused screen project for Autonomous Design II this virtual platform, and welcome any ideas/input/resources that you are able to share. Lastly, I know that in the coming weeks there will have to be many decisions made by the school administration/teachers on if/how to move classes into a virtual realm. I hope that we the students can be a part of the discussion, specifically when it comes to the how to implement part. As we know, everyone learns differently so it would be great if whatever is decided is done so in a collective manner that allows everyone involved to flourish. Thanks!
JACO HERE, I'VE COLLECTIVELY MADE A WEBSITE WITH A FRIEND WHERE WE PUT ON A WHOLE LOT OF INSPIRATIONAL SOURCES. ----------> CHECK OUT: TRIPPYLINX : https://trippylinx.wordpress.com/
@Jaco: brilliant!!!! Will send you some texts you can add!_email send with 4 texts :)
can you see the pictures when I try to put em in the pad?mm don't see anything...AAH I can see the pictures apear while I paste them but as soon as I release my finger, theyre gone haha ask Peter directly
§§§§§§§§§§
§coronaV1§
§ ^^^^^^ §
§ YYYYYY §
§========§
I went to 'de bourgoyen' with some friends and we determined flowers. Color was the first indicator. COlor
How do colors travel the landscape? Colors keep reappearing on a coïncidential scale.
14032020
Watching: Joan Jonas - Volcanic Saga (1989)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=qdSEpXrw8vY&feature=emb_logo
"Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." - opening line of Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
But the flower market was empty - no traders to be seen, no blossoms to be procured.
Corona, using her invisible hand, had thwarted my plans for a Sunday morning spent potting plants.
Undeterred I rode through the eerily still city and thoughts glided in and out of my mind as easily as I meandered the empty streets.
What about WATCHING? Does the act of watching require a certain distance, a concentration that replaces participation?
I often find myself in places where I do not understand the language and thus am forced into the role of spectator, and yet, I wonder, at what point does participation begin? Is my presence itself a sort of silent participation? And what is the difference between participation and engagement, is there a distinction?
Floating by shuttered storefronts with shades drawn, I continually see my reflection running in parallel. I realize that in isolation, in solitude, in a lack of contact we are confronted mostly with ourselves. What do we see? As much as we are a culture that celebrates individualism, do we look with the same intent and attention at ourselves as we do others? Do we WATCH ourselves, or is that not possible given the aforementioned posited required separation between you and what you are watching...and how could we divide ourselves from ourselves without perhaps dipping into schizophrenia? What is identity and how is it constructed? What is our identity in private space vs public sphere?
Listening to: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/16/dressing-for-the-surveillance-age
***If you are unable to open because you must subscribe please let me know I will try and download to repost.
Fascinating article about a disorder called Dissociative Fugue, where people lose their identity: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/02/how-a-young-woman-lost-her-identity
Podcasts suggestions while in isolation: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/podcast-dept/the-podcasts-to-listen-to-while-youre-social-distancing
A reminder of how important freedom of speech is: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/world/asia/china-ren-zhiqiang.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
17032020
LIVING WITH THINGS (Notes I took on a text that I received from Heleen)
Design = matter transforming according to an idea or a concept
For thousands of years, we've made 'things' based on ideas...so now we have all those object that are loaded with inteligence.
Inteligent forms
How do we contextualize these objects? How do we look at them? We could look at them as if the context wherein they where created doesn't matter. They could speak for themselves because they have their own nature.
Associations between these 'things' can be made through different ways of relating them... There are invissible currents flowing.
Objects/things have a mysterious power, it's like they become valuable and loaded just because we can not define them, understand them, describe them. Imagination has to fill the gaps.
A big variety of potential interpretaions gives a lot of space to a (small) object. It's like you could travel the world by interpreting an object.
Objects are transformed matter because of an 'idea', so to get the object to really exist further (into time and space) it needs our believing, thinking and contextualising powers.
Industrialisation has not only changed our perception about objects and their production, it has changed the whole world, politics, economy, time, ontology, filosophy, geography,... (Coronavirus also changes the world in this sense)
There are new invisible influences, people walking in streams and rivers of whispering are guided by something invisisble.
Industry -> new world -> spektakel, objects start ruling the world -> the 'deep' meaning of objects don't matter no more - context = status -> the mall becomes a museum - there's a purposeless perception leading us around the space - it's like we are in some kind of sacral space... Once these objects leave the mall or the museum, their meaning mutates and changes. There are other invisible streams in other spaces.
Objects that are hard to categorize have the power to build their own relationships, they live their own life, they are their own agency.
Often it is only because we don't completely understand something, that we give it a name or label it. By labeling it, it loses a lot of potential purposes. (Toolbending excercise)
Objects have to speak for themselves. We have to stop naming every object because they are their own agencies and they might be very wise if we would take the time to actualy listen to them.
We should reinvent, rediscover, redefine 'the museum' where objects have an own agency.
Text: https://hogent-my.sharepoint.com/personal/heleen_sintobin_hogent_be/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?id=%2Fpersonal%2Fheleen%5Fsintobin%5Fhogent%5Fbe%2FDocuments%2FBijlagen%2FFinders%20keepers%5Fthe%20life%20of%20things%2Epdf&parent=%2Fpersonal%2Fheleen%5Fsintobin%5Fhogent%5Fbe%2FDocuments%2FBijlagen&originalPath=aHR0cHM6Ly9ob2dlbnQtbXkuc2hhcmVwb2ludC5jb20vOmI6L2cvcGVyc29uYWwvaGVsZWVuX3NpbnRvYmluX2hvZ2VudF9iZS9FZmpzTGhqUVFoOUNpdlR0SEVERWNUNEI0cXJ0VzJUV2Z1WEdIdWctZFc0RVlRP3J0aW1lPXYwSFBsZGZLMTBn
Very compatible is this video about this garbage collector in New York who rescued tons of cool stuff out off the trash... he made a museum with these things
video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIHfUOSl8kQ&list=LLZCbieZsmK31Ze53Xe8du3w&index=3
18032020
WHEN ALL THE TOILET PAPER IS SOLD OUT... YOU CAN STILL USE THIS INDIAN TECHNIQUE // https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKkryfdtMNQ
Started editing a montage of documentation from this year...
I MAde A Song Today : https://we.tl/t-nJbOkH6zh3
Reading: The Vegetarian - Han Kang
Watching some video-footy about : ASSPIZZA (clothing designer)
Jaco: cool song! Wish I knew what you were saying! My friend is also making music right now, using plants...and releasing some songs specific to being in isolation at home (with a few others) in Brussels:
https://pluies.bandcamp.com/album/confined Wow, theze soundz are amazing !!
ALSO, I made a Cryptpad as suggested by Peter so we can include images:
https://cryptpad.fr/pad/#/2/pad/edit/Zt5HdilvnG0Rqzid8tHCPMl4/
Do you guys mind if we migrate over there??
Please let me know if you prefer to keep using this platform so I know where to post. Thanks!
I Gotta say that I feel like this pad is less chaotic in a way.
Maybe we can use the cryptpad ONLY for pictures! what do you think?
yes, I do agree that the setup of this pad seems more streamlined. I think it is an interesting idea to only do pictures on Cryptpad, it would be a very different experience/Archive. Should we include captions/text/dates or only images? small texts and captions are okay altough only pictures would be way more abstract.
19032020
200%
Made a beat today : https://we.tl/t-IwBGWzavlQ
very nice ... what software did you use ?
Thanks, I use FL Studio
Playing some Darksiders 2
Did some editing on a video
Went skating a lil bit
Made a drawing with 'Paint' on the computer (check cryptpad)
do you know krita ? open source painting software:
https://krita.org/en/
it is very good in tacky kitscherige effecten, maar that can be fun too
Ow yeah I will definetly try it out
Learned a bit of photoshop
try gimp, very good anti-capitalist community software.
https://www.gimp.org/
May: Thanks for Gimp!!
Oh cool, I've used gimp long ago but I'll give it another try ;)
Did some drawing
I started to create a dance/dub version of the song I made: https://we.tl/t-m7nNwc9cPp
***
2:16 am I'll drop this song online before I go to sleep!
ALso, I'm gonna drop it on bandcamp to explore that platform as well.
-soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/jaco-sette/sets/stiltes
-bandcamp: https://jacosette.bandcamp.com/album/stiltes-remix
waw nice song to wake up with!
.. wat is dat met die sterke 'sch' s uitspraak? schjjtilte ??
Thank you! It's just my imperfect recording and mixing qualities haha
My dad gave me some tips n tricks to do a better mix so I'm workin on it and I will Re-upload the tracks once I have a decent mix :p
20032020
*My room is a dungeon
So my back and knees hurt from sitting in a 'bed position' while I was mixing these tracks. But I think my work is done on those tracks. (typing this in the same position)
It's free to download on bandcamp so if you like it... you can get it here : https://jacosette.bandcamp.com/album/stiltes-remix
Bad Brains
Styrofoam recycling documentation
They always wanna make bricks n shit out of recycled material
Made a night walk with some homemade plaster chalk
Drew a big FLORONA Piece on the street following a line of 34meters long measuring te last amount of chalk I had left
Filmed the path I drew
Filmed some barrier tape around playground-instalations
May: Thanks for Gimp!! @Peter, what are the best alternatives to Indesign and Illustrator? I forgot to extend my school Adobe license when it was possible at the beginning of the school year, and don't know if I can't still ask access to it.
Heleen: Paint? posters and presentations are easy to make in powerpoint as you can move things around easily (you can get this for free as a student)
May: This pad is a great place to feel connected to school and the class thank you! Trying my best to read through everything. Very interesting.
I don't know how this is possible but I feel OVERBOOKED in quarantine. How can it be that this feeling of TOO MUCH follows me in isolation, haha?
I'm going to focus on my work related to school, and try to stay away from everything else.
@lieselot or somebody else: thank for the movies!! Which player should i download to watch movies? Think I had VLC before and now my computer doesn't have a player for some reason.
May: Thanks Lucas for your thoughts as well. This is such a strange situation. It's going to have a huge impact on the economy for one thing (huge economic crisis worse than 2008). It's also going to modify everything else!! Not necessarily in a bad way: arts, philosophy, ethics, our relationship to the DIGITAL world also! And I was wondering; is it going to affect our physical relationships, our tactile senses? I definitely think that depending on how long the physical distancing lasts, it will have an affect on our physical relationships...or at least it could for a while before we re-adjust again to being in close proximity of each other. I already noticed in myself that if someone is less than 2 meters away from me I actually notice them in a way that I didn't before...but I think in general we are creatures of habit and we change/create habits all the time. I also think it is interesting to think about how something like physical distancing affects people differently based on personality. For people who are more introverted and get energy from being alone they are probably finding it much easier to deal with isolation than an extrovert who gains energy from being around other people.
May: I'm preaching here but I want to insist that Corona crisus is not (only) a neutral natural disaster. I've read a few articles which point out that corona is an indicator of the FAILURE of our neoliberal system. (Frederic Lordon wrote this in French https://blog.mondediplo.net/coronakrach. He was influential in the French "Nuit debout" movement in 2016 in France, when people were occupying the streets for whole nights of talking, poetry readings, etc. in reaction to labor reforms) The neoliberal managment rules the financial world, the bank system, the health care and hospital system, research, education, the environnement,... and this is why the health crisis is leading to an economic crisis, because the stability of the economy is in the hands of the unstable market, with cyclic economic crisis that come back regularly. Hospitals are managed like corporations and were already in crisis before corona. Research is also dependant on neoliberal funding; only "trendy" or profitable subject matters get funding. So for example, a researcher who started a study on coronaviruses in the 2000s was interrupted because it stopped being financed at some point, when the subject wasn’t interesting anymore to the academic glamour. So by only funding profitable subject matters we underestimate issue that could become problematic and relevant in the future. And finally, we know the effect of our political and economic system on the environment. OK I'm done. Peace. The same domains (politics, economy, personal perception, ...) have gotten influenced/infected every time there was war, revolution, dictatorship. A big difference is that having social and physical contact (essential human abilities) is strictly not recomended. Now we also become (even more) dependent on technology wich is a versatile concept.
May: I'm not depressed by all of this tho, because we are still very confortable in our houses and that online communities are being built all over!! I went to an online DJ party last night with my friends. And at 8pm everyday, people have started clapping and cheering in my parent's street in Brussels, to thank the medical staff fighting the virus. So for 2 minutes everyday, I clap and wave to neighbours we've pretended to ignore for years!!
I think we have to go through this with responsibility and a progressive attitude. Get the juice out of this tough thang.
Stay positive!
Is Gent clapping? If so what time? I have not heard clapping...
Are you going to make a big documentation of everything you made during the lockdown? It looks prolific.yeah i will... will I am
21032020
Filled some defect markers with ink
Re-organised my room.
" O R G A N I S E "
May: Re-organising my computer - Don't forget to BACK UP YOUR DIGITAL POSSESSIONS, KIDS! I'm in the process of trying to find a huge Apple Note I lost. I've been writing on this note everyday for two years... So much material !! I lost it and I can only find a code version of it, so trying to recuperate that.
Just found a great way to recycle plastic bags into a more durable sheet : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp4vmfVlm2k
^very relevant for who is busy with textile
Working on a new song : beat : https://we.tl/t-nEPEW6MaFM
text:Breek mijn kop
eet mij op
niet te pluis
veeg het stof
hier thuis trap trede op
ik word zot
leef ik nog?
leef ik nog?
ben ik nog?
breek mijn kop tegen de sterren op
links rechts
scherpe bocht
verder nog
zelfreflectie die is zelfbedrog
kan nie stresse om een envelop
aan het wachte tot het helder wordt
laatste druppel drink de emmer op
meer dorst bij elke slok
nooit genoeg dus ik heb ver gezocht
elk detail, ik merk het op
is het niets?
ik denk het toch.
maak een beat en ik rap er op
level up
nooit niet in een writersblock
lukt wel if you try enough
deze kunst is fine as fuck
rare steez die is fly as fuck
Lockdown dat is tijdelijk
veel tijd dat is eindelijk
wil het niet goed praten eigenlijk
is dit verhaaltje veelzijdiger
alle fictie is verleidelijk
houd me bezig dat is ijverig
schrijven is feitelijk lijfelijk
punt aan de lijn dat is pijnlijk
maar er komt altijd een einde
beïndigd
recorded and I notice that my mixing qualities are really getting better now!
first recorded demo: https://we.tl/t-ao5uQremOi
22032020
My friend sent me this article by one of my favorite authors/philosophers, about the idea of traveling with our minds: https://www.ft.com/content/c8114022-650e-11ea-abcc-910c5b38d9ed
I had a sudden realization yesterday when I was scrolling through my Instagram, which I started using in 2011 and have over 8000 photos posted.
I was basically doing what the writer describes in his article, traveling back to places and memories aided through my images...and I was shocked at how many places I had been to, I was almost
confused at my own life, wondering why I am always on the go? Why can I not sit still? It really was like a jolt to my system, a kind of visceral response that begged me to STOP and really
ask myself some hard questions.
I wrote some short lines yesterday while hanging out in one of my favorite places in Gent, the grassy areas by Begijnhof on Lange Violettestraat which always feels a bit like an oasis of calm. May: I was also imrpessed by the begijnhof! There's something very interesting about this place.
How quickly and easily we adapt
I thought,
noticing the surgically blue-gloved hand of the cashier
ringing up my groceries.
I imagined where his hidden fingers had been that morning.
Running wild through the mane of a lover?
Patiently over a teardrop across baby cheeks?
Or stretched across the poles of an apple core,
like mine
sitting in a slice of golden sunlight on a chilly spring Saturday
watching the world stumble - backwards?
Hands are like the preface of a book;
looking down I ask
what is the first sentence of mine?
What will I remember of this time in half a century or even only twenty years?
Yesterday's memories can hardly be trusted. May: Beautiful poem: That's why writing is great for those who like to write. It freezes moments forever. And also the emotional complexity of moments. @Lucas Do you have a writing practice? Do you write regularly? You seem to be at ease with writing down reflections.
Will I recall with certainty the smurf hand
and how it sent me into a reverie
standing under bare vine-covered branches
a confetti of white penny blossoms spread across the damp pelouse at my feet.
Maybe the only way forward is to never turn around again.
Give me your naked hand
so I can kiss it.
Also wanted to share that I am doing yoga online with this pretty funny woman: https://youtu.be/--jhKVdZOJM
Excuse the cheesy music in the beginning/end, I like how relaxed she is and of course it is fun that she does yoga with her dog :)
And for anyone who feels a lot of anxiety right now I really recommend breathwork and meditation. I have gone in and out of a regular meditatoon practice for about five years, but I started with this app which I found useful and right now I think they are offering for free (or free trial?) : https://www.headspace.com/covid-19 May: I think physical exercise and getting some AIR and DAYLIGHT is super important now.
Am reading a book called On Beauty and Being Just by Elaine Scarry. The opening of the second half of the book poses some interesting questions related to LOOKING:
The political critique of beauty is composed of two distinct arguments. The first urges that beauty, by preoccupying our attention, distracts attention from wrong social arrangements. It makes us inattentive, and therefore eventually indifferent, to the project of bringing about arrangements that are just. The second argument holds that when we stare at something beautiful, make it an object of sustained regard, our act is destructive to the object. This argument is most often promoted when the gaze is directed toward a human face or form, but the case presumably applies equally when the beautiful thing is a morning dove, or a trellis spilling over with sweet pea, or a book whose pages are being folded back for the first time. The complaint has given rise to a generalized discrediting of the act of "looking," which is charged with "reifying" the very object that appears to be the subject of admiration. **Reifying means to make something abstract more concrete or real
@May, Loeke, Lieselot: curious your thoughts on this in relation to what we briefly discussed about the Male vs. Female gaze? May: I want to react to this but could you explain this paragraph with your words?
610PM - It is pretty funny and wacky to see Jaco typing at the same time I am because it is a sudden realization of connection in the real time, which is something that we are all trying to replicate even in the digital sphere with these chat apps and now so many video conferences. I had a video chat with two friends, one in Chicago and one in New York and indeed one of the interesting results has been that we seem to ask each other more "deeper" questions, a "how are you?" means something different now than it did a few weeks ago because we understand that some people really are NOT doing so well, understandably. >Jaco is writing about how every decision has outcomes and how sometimes questions cannot be answered so much by thinking but by living, if I understand him correctly. I personally believe that all our decisions, big or small, are made easier the clearer we are about our intentions and values in Life.<* In situations where I have been called upon to make "bigger" choices that had longer term or wider ranging consequences I have found that if I quiet my mind and focus on asking myself how one decisions aligns (or goes against) my values, then it becomes easier to make choices because even if we can never really predict the outcome of every single choice, when we act in accordance with our values then regardless of outcome the chances of regret are slimmer.
>...<* : I think that's it, I like your way of looking at it, I can relate to that.
I went for a jog at the nature preserve and saw lots of people out...of course the more people there are the harder it is to keep a distance and at this moment I sure am thankful NOT to be in a metropolis like NYC where it is just almost impossible to keep 2 meters away from people because there are just too many people!!
I started listening to a new podcast a friend recommended about poetry, which of course is very dear to my heart...because poetry for me is all about celebrating the >>>moments that otherwise are just lost to the endless currents of time<<< but because someone took the time to put words to paper, the are able to immortalize even the seemingly mundane: May: Exactly. And reading poetry is being interested in somebody else's mind. Maybe even more so than with novels/essays,etc?
https://onbeing.org/programs/a-poem-for-what-you-learn-alone/
I would also recommend On Being as a very good podcast where the interviewer talks to all kinds of people, artists, scientists, businesspeople, etc about "Life's Big Questions"
And here is another podcast that is specific to Corona Virus...a bit centered more about the art scene in NY but still relevant: https://hyperallergic.com/548240/covid-19-impact-art-community/
And this I haven't read yet but is obvious something we are addressing ourselves in class, how to teach art online?! https://hyperallergic.com/547986/teaching-art-online-under-covid-19/
22032020
Steven sent me this crazy Busta Rhymes videoclip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSoQDaXh144&list=RDhRN6vgjqcgU&index=16
Inspirational flow
Went for a walk/skate and found some cool objects
I'm experiencing this period as something very timeless. Like we went into eternity. Deadlines and plannings have stopped to infect our day to day life and we have more focus on our bare necesities.
We're all in the same situation but everyone experiences it in a different way. Some people have a lot of domestic problems that only get worse in these times. Some (a lot of)people are alone in this. We should be thankfull for our current household that supports us every day. There's a strange feeling when I see friends on the street and we cannot come close to eachother. Today I saw a friend I grew up with and who I still see every once in a while, he's moving in his old house around the corner (of where I live) and I don't know how to behave. Can we still trust our natural instincts?
On the radio I heard an interesting way to look at life; There are questions about life, like :do we live a good life? can I be more like this or like that? Who are real friends? ... These questions can't be awnsered by thinking about them and trying to formulate an awnser... These questions, you awnser with your life. So there is great responsebility in every decision you make but at the same time you will reflect on your full life cycle and not on that-one-stupid-thing-you-did-once.
Listening :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVCaA7-04Vs
I love this sound!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FoVvS17nmg
I really needed this song today
Very cool! But I kept being like, oh when is the rapping going to start :) The name of the song made me think it was going to have lyrics, but indeed it was almost a meditative state how it just kind of repeats, thanks for sharing!
I suddenly made a pair of flip flops out of some old (but not used) insoles and laces .
check cryptpad:
https://cryptpad.fr/pad/#/2/pad/edit/Zt5HdilvnG0Rqzid8tHCPMl4/
Getting ready for summer?!!
Writing on music by Corbin (Spooky Black)...
23032020
23032020
Found on my bookshelf a book/magazine that I believe I picked up randomly at a book fair (oh yes now I remember it was at a book fair and I went to the table because the guy was really cute) but I never read it, ha! It is called POLLEN and was only the second edition of this magazine. This issue is called Creaturely Life and is actually very interesting and appropriate for what we are all thinking/discussing. In particular these lines in the introduction made me think about May's writing above about systems/government also being a part of Corona Virus. Excerpt below:
In the lectures he delivered to the College de France from the mid-1970s until his death in 1984, Foucault described a shift in political rationality from sovereign to, whose power consists in making die and letting live, to a governmentality regime that makes live and lets die - for example, be reducing social welfare to a bare minimum. The point in Foucault's account was to show how modern government has become bio-political by incorporating biological life into the calculations of political rationality. Beginning in the seventeenth century, political power shifts from regulating subjects through the sovereign's monopoly of the use of physical violence, to maintaining security through the care and discipline of living bodies and a concern with the biological life and health of populations. May: Yup, BIOPOWER! Thanks for reminding me of Foucault, I'm forgot about this aspect of power. I mean I haven't thought about the control of bodies in a long time, while it's so appropriate now. Even if it's for a common good (I KNOW), it was quite of absurd to see police officers asking people not to sit on benches the last few days. It's like the rule is to "Keep moving". "Your body can be here, but not for too long. It can't touch anything, wether it's a human or a hard surface. Levitate, if possible."
Had a paintsession with my friend, Tomas, in "t'graffitistraatje".
Very cool Jaco!!! Love it.
24032020
I listened to a very interesting and challenging podcast yesterday that I really hope some of you will also listen to so we can talk about it. May: @lucas: Hey! I'm going to try to listen to it, sounds interesting.
https://hyperallergic.com/547296/connecting-museums-modern-art-colonialism-and-violence/
The author of the book being interviewed talks a lot about UNLEARNING, which is interesting in light of what we are doing at school, which is learning. I have not read the book but am going to order it. Of particular interest to me was the idea of museums and collecting as an act of imperialism (May: Wow ya! My instant thought: is collecting anything imperialistic? But nah, we're talking about wealth here, wheter it's material or cultural) which inherently is also an act of violence (you cannot really impose your culture onto another without violence I believe) and of course this is a very bold and troubling assertion for me to hear as someone who LOVES museums. Part of what seems to be the condition of our time is coming to terms with dualities or even pluralities, and Corona Virus is yet another example of this. How do we feel connection while actually being apart? How do I enjoy museums and looking at so many beautiful objects created by humans around the world while knowing that many of these objects were looted and also in the spaces of a museum often decontextualized from their original intended functions/story? May: Difficult question, I also love museums. It's their responsability to question the institution (of violence) that they inherently represent, though. Museums should be constantly evolving, parallel to contemporary thought. How can museums reflect society better? I had a lot of classes on museum work, curation, conservation, restoration, archeology at the university. Most of them were really NOT critical, so I'm imagining that most people who are now working in such institutions are not critical or even aware of these matters. IDEA: Many cultures and nations are accusing museums like the British museum of conservating stolen artifacts (Egypt, etc.). If the art market stopped existing and if the economic worth of these artifacts could be canceled, museums could give them all back to their owners. They could then focus on communicating how these obj
ects were found, with an emphasis on the colonial reality of these excavations. And with nowdays technology we are capable of creating good replicas of any kind of object and even cool virtual replicas. Imagine a huge projection of the microscopic surface of a mommy!!
And here is another interesting article about artists who made stuff in isolation, if you need some inspiration: https://hyperallergic.com/548698/artists-isolation/
I happened to open an email from David Zwirner Gallery announcing that their Art Basel show is now online.
https://www.davidzwirner.com/viewing-room/on-painting-art-basel-online
Since Art Basel is cancelled I guess they decided to move to an online platform. I was intrigued to see that several of these pieces have sold and am curious if they sold even without the buyers looking at them in person? I know that it feels like we are far far away from the world of $100k+ artworks but ultimately these artists and artworks are still a part of our overall art ecosystem. What does it mean when a work of art sells for so much money, as in how does this reflect the values of our society?
May: YAAAAASSSSSS. One thing I'm really lacking so far in school is real talk about the ART MARKET!! I'm curious about what teachers (with their experience) think and what students think. For exemple, I'm wondering what student studying paintings at KASK think about the market and if they talk about it with teachers. I'm thinking of painting becuase it's more COMMODIFIABLE than these abstract "social" things we do in AUV hahaha. My secret wish: That we talk about it more and more and eventually explode the art market by multiplying altenatives to this pressure!!
Hello autonomous friends, Luna here
as an entree and try out on wether or not this works what I'm doing I want to share a piece of text/ an article with you. something that might come in handy thinking about observing. Intresting to see what's already on here, thanks a lot for that!
948-Article Text-931-1-10-20161101.pdf
is it readable? if yes, you can let me now for sure, otherwise I'd probably be talking to myself for the next weeks!!
no it's not readable...
you can put pdf's in the Cryptpad or you can create a downloadable link for your pdf=;file
https://cryptpad.fr/pad/#/2/pad/edit/Zt5HdilvnG0Rqzid8tHCPMl4/
24032020
I'm figuring out how to turn a parlophone into a microphone/headset
Found out that if I send my headphones (with mic) through my soundinterface, it would record through the headphone part and not through the mic.
I used to record through this headset's mic when I was not using the interface. My computer could detect the mic but the interface turns the headphones into a microphone.
I'm hangin' all kinds of things on the ceiling of my room. Making some kind of 3D-sketchbooks.
Reminds me of a concept I had in my mind last semester, to make a interior that's based on the ceiling instead of the floor.
I also want to make some lamps to get some feeling with electro-tek.
Went to have distant (1-2m) hang out on the street with a friend and sum wine, cruised through the city on my skateboard. Grime nights
Wrote a text in my Holy Boog
Hello, Im reading up in this new form of 'chatting'. Beautiful conversations happening here. How do I know who is who? Why did I get the color green? cool platform @Peter! Lieselot speaking, over.
@Lieselot, in the right corner you see an icon with some people on, there you can choose your color and put your name next to it, then people know who you are :) that's what I did and it seems to work! (Heleen)
@Heleen, cool thanks!
25032020
I am starting to follow a free online course on happiness, taught by a Yale professor. Seems interesting and not only about the recent studies about happiness but more how to make changes/habits in your life into practice that will actually increase your happiness: https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being/home/welcome
25032020
So I have been very busy with my 2 lock down buddies, also KASK students (drama), making 'quarantaine television'. I don't know if you have been following it? There's allready 50 people on and of working on it, everybody from the safety of their own houses. The initiative came from our collectief 'ZUIDPARK' that kind of got shape during the subsidie cuts a few months ago. During the 'KASK FOR FUTURE' action meetings (actie vergaderingen) the feeling rised that we should work more togheter across all disciples. Here also lies the birth of KANON (@Luka!).
If you want to know more about ZUIDPARK, we have a facebook page with more information: https://www.facebook.com/Zuidpark-108586917417500/
These are our first 3 episodes: EP 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_bzpZrKhP4&t=843s
For you, Lucas, it might not all be understandable, I'm sorry a lot of it is Flemish and about Belgian politics, but other parts should maybe be more clear, I don't know.
I'm personally very proud of the movie we made about a dystopian, empty Gent and abandoned theaters : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imxEgJkFYME
I could talk more and more about all this, but I'll save it for tomorow. I DO WANT TO SAY: everybody who wants to join, make something for 'Quarantaine tv', WELCOME! Jaco is allready making images with his song and we will broadcast it on one of the coming episodes!
Wetransfer it to: zuidpark2020@gmail.com
VERY interesting, will check it out!!!
MOVIES THAT INSPIRED/TOUCHED ME DURING LOCK DOWN:
-REAR WINDOW (HITCHCOCK) One of my favorites, I have watched this film maybe 20 times!!! May: This is one of my childhood movies, I love it!! I like the idea of dense, hot, neighourhood inner blocks. Urghhhh, it really speaks to me. That's why I love "DO THE RIGHT THING" by Spike Lee: it's warm, sexy, sweet,... The way I remember it : It's an ode to not working too hard, to "spending time" in your neighbourhood, saying hello to neighbours, to not needing much to enjoy a summer afternoon, to living together and trying to untangle tensions by living in proximity of other poeple and sharing the public space. That was my impression of the movie, because i saw it a few times, but never all the way to the end, for some reason. So the time I watched the end of the movie,
(((((((((((SPOILER ALERT))))))))))))))))) >>>>>>> I was horrifyied of how violently it escalates into a RACIAL war. And that's why I think it's a great film......The story couldn't escape this violence, because this is the reality: our racist reality. And the whole film was simmering with micro racist aggressions that all came to an explosion in the end because it needed to be addressed.
-IL DECAMERON (passolini) this was supposed to be the beginning point of our Quarantaine tv
-PORTRAIT D'UN JEUNE FILLE EN FEU (i put this on chamilo) May: Thanks @Lotje!!
-
TEXT/BOOK
@lucas, thank you for the beautiful speech of Camus.
This is a beautiful poem by pablo neruda:
Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still. For once on the face of the earth, let’s not speak in any language; let’s stop for one second, and not move our arms so much. It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines; we would all be together in a sudden strangeness. Fisherman in the cold sea would not harm whales and the man gathering salt would look at his hurt hands. Those who prepare green wars, wars with gas, wars with fire, victories with no survivors, would put on clean clothes and walk about with their brothers in the shade, doing nothing. What I want should not be confused with total inactivity. Life is what it is about; I want no truck with death. If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving, and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death. Perhaps the earth can teach us as when everything seems dead and later proves to be alive. Now I’ll count up to twelve and you keep quiet and I will go. May: WAW this is great!!! Beautiful! It's kind of similar to what I like about Do the right thing: this "let's do nothing, or not too much" vibe. Because it's HEALTHY!
Naomi Klein's SHOCKDOCTRINE! We scanned the first chapter: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/2/folders/1lGnk-0hK7dlHM7Yh1qh0KLhvhIYTTTSv
I MISS YOU ALL AND I MISS HUGGING YOU! BE SAFE xoxo Lieselot over and out May: Hahaha, walky talky spy. <3
A friend in Berlin just sent me a photo of a fence which had a very small hand painted sign which says: CONTEMPORARY ART HAS SPROUTED....THE FLORAISSANCE HAS BEGUN!!! cool!
https://floraissance.org/
Nice website, cool interventions in the public space May: Super cool idea!
Am quite intrigued and will look into this more, but I found this idea to be amusing: “Contemporary Art” is the art being made now. For this reason, most people conceive of Contemporary Art as lasting forever. But a century from now, will it still make sense to call art “contemporary”? When is the turning pointthat art begins to become something else? Is this “turning point” already underway? May: There is so much litterature on the concensus of when the MODERN historical period begins and when MODERN art begins. It's depends on the author/art history traditions/country. So it's going to be the same with contemporary art in the future. But is it really so relevant?
It make me wonder, are we right now, at the edge of a new beginning? If so, what will this new reality look like? Who decides when one era ends and another begins? If we think of culture as an orchestra, and played by all the members of society with each section representing various segments of the population, who is the conductor? Are artists the conductors or are institutions? Who do we WANT to lead the way? May: Hmmmmm so many philosophical questions here. I think that 50 years from now, the birth of the INTERNET will condition every historical classification.
***I encourage all of us who are participating to create some fun/interesting monikers (nicknames) following Jaquise' example. don't forget Boogiemann/ Mme Smis/ Boogs/ Nasty Jackson I am actually referred to as Lucrates (believe it or not) in real life by a circle of friends who find it amusing that I am always wandering around pontificating about all kinds of things, constantly asking questions! :) May: What should I be? I LOVE LUCRATES, MAY= FARFALINA
May: I raised the size of the whole text to 14, because we shouldn't hurt our young eyes by over-squinting, right? Love, Mom.
THANKS MOM!!!! But how come my text is still smaller, I guess I have to size up myself? Like this?
May: Copy-pasting this thought I wrote earlier, reacting to Lucas. > One thing I'm really lacking so far in school is real talk about the ART MARKET!! I'm curious about what teachers (with their experience) think and what students think. We can't pretend it doesn't exist. For exemple, I'm wondering what student studying painting at KASK think about the market and if they talk about it with teachers. I'm thinking of painting because it's more COMMODIFIABLE than these abstract "social" things we do in AUV, hahaha. My secret wish: That we talk about it more and more and eventually explode the art market by multiplying altenatives to this pressure!! Yes, very interesting. Painting is one of the disciplines that really depend on galleries and private buyers, or that is what I see among my friend painters. It remains quit elitair this way, but it's also a cool way of making money from the artist's perspective in a way. I have a friend who can live on selling and trading paintings, she has crazy stories about the trading. She made a portrait of her plumber and his wife in exchange for him fixing her whole heating system. But I guess that's a romantic view of being an artist and its not possible for everyone, for sure not for what some of us do. I do think its and interesting thinking practice.
I think that there definitely should be a course about how to make a living as an artist, a kind of practical class or even if not an entire class a few seminars can be offered perhaps? The thing is that the art market as regularly covered by the mainstream and even niche press is often focused on the upper end of this market, which is only where the super rich and the already very successful/have gallery representation artists hang out. For 99% of artists (regardless of what point they are in their career, either fresh out of school or even if they have been around for decades) this is not where they sell their work. Most of the artists I know have other jobs either in the art field (maybe they work in a museum or work in art education) or they have a job completely different (like me an my interior design work) which pays the bills and they have to be honestly very strict/make sacrifices to their time to be able to have an active art practice. I myself have struggled for years and still do on how to make this balance feel ok. I always say, art does not make itself, you have to do it...so that means sometimes I don't get to go to a party, watch a movie, go on a date...I have to prioritize and put in my calendar time for art making. I spoke with an artist today based in Gent, he is in his 60s and retired now. But he said he used to be a tour guide. He would work 7 full days on and then have 7 days off, so that is how he was able to go to the art studio, he would go on his days off, but like almost all day long, treating it like a job. There is also that famous quote from Chuck Close: "The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work." May: I like this, but not for the sake of capitalist-WORK, for the sake of meaningful-life-enhancing WORK. The other artist I spoke with (both of these people have studios at one of the Nucleo
buildings in Gent) is a young photographer and he said that he does wedding photography and some travel photography assignments to be able to pay for his life and make time for personal art photo projects (he is working on a very cool project collaborating with a gay actor in Ghana about life there which is very difficult for anyone who is LGBTQI), so again, you kind of have to mix and match and stitch your life together. Thankfully there are also more and more online platforms for selling artwork which is another way to make money from your creative work outside the strict confines of the gallery world. Anyway, this is a topic which definitely warrants further discussion, and I would say especially so for anyone in their 3rd year considering whether or not to pursue a Master's in art.
+1! May: My instinctive opinion is that is that having to sell your art feels like (I thinking really hard here and cannot finish my sentence. Each time I write something I think: Hmmmm no. Haha) OK, we might need a IRL conversation about this. haha, but now I am so curious, how does it feel like? I've never really sold art, I've been paid for acting, does that count as selling art? It didn't give me the satisfection that I would expect to get when selling a 'painting' or whatever. Is that superficial to say? Is it about satisfection? Is it wrong to be satisfied when selling art because then it would mean you measure the quality of your art in money. ---Other interesting example is my friend Shirleys work. She's very popular among gallerists and buyers, she can live from her art and is known on social media etc. But on the other side she is never taken seriously by other painters & artists, they say 'her technique is wrong', t'here is nothing artisticly interesting about it 'and she 'didn't really deserve her place in HISK'. I've heard people even saying she got where she is because she is multicultural and a girl and that's what the alternative scene wants to see right now. OK I'm on to a point here but to tired to properly finnish it, I'm coming back on this tomorrow
Lucrates: I don't think it is wrong to feel satisfaction from either approval in the form of a thumbs up and positive feedback from someone (be they other artists or a stranger with no background in the arts) or in the form of monetary renumeration from a buyer who wants to aquire your art (also regardless of whether your art is a painting or something more ephemeral like a performance). Indeed I would find it odd if someone did not feel SOMETHING when someone responds positively to their work. However, I think there is a very important difference between feeling satisfied by feedback and measuring the quality of your work. I do not think it is useful to link self-worth or quality of your artistic output with public approval/response. As we know there are endless examples of artists (in all mediums) who had very little success during their lifetime, but after their death or at various points in their life, the public came to celebrate them. One inspirational artist who comes to mind is Carmen Herrera: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Herrera She works (still now at the age of 104) almost every single day at making artwork and was "discovered" very late in life (she didn't have real acclaim until her 80s I think) but she just kept going and now has had shows in major museums and is in their permanent collections. There is a very sweet short documentary about her that my friend made called The One Hundred Year Show (http://www.the100yearsshow.com/). Specific to your point about an artist who happens to fit into the current fad for multicultural women artists, good for her! It is not her fault (she has no control) that the art world is into that right now...it is only problematic if say she was a white man who created a fake public persona of being a multicultural woman in order to capitalize off this...but then again, maybe that is also not really so bad because it shows how ridiculous the art world is with their trends and if someone is able to pull that off I
would also be impressed and would support it as long as the intention behind it was not JUST to make money but to make some kind of critique. INTENTION is the only thing an artist can really control, we have no control over PERCEPTION and RECEPTION of our work. Specific to your question of how does it feel to have someone buy your work? It feels GREAT. Not really the money part I have to say, but just that someone takes enough pleasure in what you made that they actually want to look at it all the time (I assume that is why they buy it) or if they are buying it as a gift that they think SOMEONE will enjoy your creativity enough to want to have it around them.
example: https://www.yamiichi-art.com/home#participating-artists May: cool.
Love this, very interesting. I also just had a passing thought while watching the 1 min video explaining their process...how crazy is it that the Mona Lisa is SO recognizable that they only needed to draw a simple outline of it and put it in a frame and it I knew immediately what it was?! Weird.
opportunity scholarship creative coding course: https://www.superhi.com/scholarship/superhi-spring-scholarship
Fun essay on 'The 24/7 Bed': https://work-body-leisure.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/247-bed?utm_medium=social&utm_source=instagram+stories&utm_campaign=work+body+leisure&utm_content=247+bed+beatriz+colomina May: I skimmed through this article, it's funny indeed! The // between John Lennon + Yoko Ono and Hugh Hefner, haha. Amsterdam seemed to be an exciting city in the 1960-70s. "The 24/7 bed of John Lennon and Yoko Ono anticipates the working bed of today. In what is probably now a conservative estimate, the Wall Street Journal reported in 2012 that 80 percent of young New York City professionals work regularly from bed. The fantasy of the home office has given way to the reality of the bed office." Wow. Don't you? May: Yes, but not all day long, it kind of breaks my energy.
Lucrates: Not to be an old grandma here but I definitely am against working in bed. I believe in keeping certain spaces "sacred" and the bed is a place for love, rest, and dreams...not work. Besides, working from bed is certainly terrible for your physical health. At the studio I worked at in Berlin I actually had two desks, one standing, one sitting, because there have been so many studies that prove that sitting for long periods of time is bad for your health. Now in Gent I also switch between sitting and standing at my kitchen counter to work. Did you also know that there are studies that show that taking a walk (even if on a treadmill so not so much taking in a new environment but just the physical act of moving) stimulates your brain/creativity? May: Yeah! Kind of like the Peripatetic school of Artistotle, where students en teachers walked around during classes.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-19910888
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/walking-helps-us-think
25032020
Had Breakfast Outside in the park
Had a groupcall (+toast) for Adva's Class
I spent a lot of time creating a cryptpad as a procesjournal
Uploading video's to Youtube in order to share them
https://cryptpad.fr/pad/#/2/pad/edit/bvgIFaMJfUJYwZ4Mre7uby-F/
Drawing
DEATH GRIPS
BAD BRAINS
JPEGG MAFIA
KAMAROTTT
Hey, it's Loeke :-) I kind of missed out on this whole pad thing. Tried through it here. To be honest, I have to force myself to like this way of communicating, but I'll try my best ;-) I do like the references though :DDD
The last days I have drawn energy from being in Nature out here in the woods. Sensory input is completely different than in the city:
-there is sillence, real silence
-you hear the wind, the trees, the water from the creek May: waw, dream...
-the big window acts like a television: so many little birds (chickadees, robins... Ndl: meesjes, roodborstjes...) are playing around in the trees
-when the sunshine hits the big window, it feels like summer in the house
-you smell plants, sometimes even sweet smells from the first blossoms and nectars
-when the sun goes down, we start lighting the fire... it is crazy how long you can stare at the flames. I can feel endorfines or serotonines setting free in my body just by looking at the fire. Could it be that this is just another evolutionairy thing? May: I feel you Loeke. I LOVE living in a city but whenever I'm out for some time in the country side, I go nuts. I'm like a cow that is released to the pasture for the first time after the winter; I take it all IN. Sometimes I think people who live in cities can be more sensitive to the beauty of nature??? Because they are not used to it? The way you described your environement is like you were just born and had just discovered nature, I love it. AH LOEKE, sounds like a heavenly sanctuary. I went walking in Bourgoyen today but there were SO MANY PEOPLE. I think everyone in Gent had the same idea to seek nature and have a walk. But it was not calming at all because the pads are small and there were all these old people walking and I didn't want to get to close to them.
Because fire has played such an important role for thousands of years and even today our brains still react to it? Have no idea about the science but I definitely agree that I can stare at a fire seemingly forever...I am jealous in a way that you are in so much nature, which does seem to have such a calming effect on people...maybe because it is a constant reminder that Life is bigger than the issues we face as humans, as just one of so many species on this planet. Lets have a fire when we can be fysical groups again
I just had a pretty grim thought, and while I don't want to be morbid I also think this is important to share. We think a lot right now about how to prevent ourselves from getting Corona or the various ways in which this virus has disrupted our lives but I just realized, this virus has also already killed over 22,000 people. I was trying to visualize that and found out that St. Pietersplein is 16000 sq meters, so if each person who died stood in the center of 1 sq meter, there is not enough space in that entire square for the 22,030 people who have died thus far. Crazy to think about...Since every life is precious I want to leave on a more upbeat note with a poem I love by one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver: May: Mary Oliver makes me think of my cool grandma :) She read me one of her poems once to cheer me up.
*
*The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver
Lucrates! I'm very happy with all your input. Please keep posting these beautiful poems and texts. Very inspiring.
26032020
There was a lil cute kid (carried by her mother) who noticed me skating in the street, a while later when I was sitting in my doorstep, the kid recognized me and tried to make contact We waved at eachother.
Made a lockdownmask
Talk with Peter & Heleen ---------> CYCLI / POLITIEK / ARTICULATIE / DIALOOG / COMMUNICATIE / INFRASTRUCTUUR / MIJN KAMER ALS LAB (ARMCHAIR EXPLORING) / PRODUCTIE-GERICHT / REEKS? / INTERSPIRALING MEDIA /
MElted some chipsbags together using a flatiron ---> I like reflective qualities of this work
Working on a exercise for Adva's class : we have to anonymously give an artwork to someone else of the group. It has to do with Home/Family/Relationships : As my artwork I will give my assigned 'getter' A question about the posible ways of an empty bag of chips... Trying to make this person reflect in various ways about something we throw away... It's a question because I think artworks work as questions and questions can become art.
video: https://youtu.be/zFIMtzjiMoo
So I sent the video through a site called: Send Anonymous Email... I hope it gets to its destination haha
I went on a walk, visited a tunnel where I had drawn a mapping with a friend once. I recorded and captured some interesting elements of that public space like messages people had left on the walls, plastic gloves laying around,... On my way back I recorded a screeching duck. DUCK ---> https://soundcloud.com/jaco-sette/26032020-duck/s-RKlbzyaVxoW
I think this is a beautifull soundtrack from Naruto (animeseries) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d57-85_Sfeg
I Updated the pads
Listening to: Moodyman, Santana, Naruto sounds, Apollo 440, Pink Floyd, ...
May: Can everybody write their NAMES before they write ? I'm confused: are Lieselot and Peter both writing in bright green? but you can also take a font that no one uses or write everything italic,... SO you can also just make it more personal...LOTJE: I think I'm the only green woman? or are we seeing different things? I am fluo right?Peter also writes in green, just a brighter hue...
Lucrates: First of all it was a joy to see/hear everyone even if briefly today. I hope you are all doing well in your pockets of the world. I just watched this intriguing episode on the Arte app and it made me think of our theme, watching.
Man as Spectator
https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/092170-007-A/man-as-spectator/
It brought up some interesting questions for me about participation. When we are looking are we also participating? Specific to this moment, how are we watching the world around us vs engaging with it? Are artists spectators of society or are we creators? I am curious for your thoughts. The film moved very quickly and jumped around a bit but brought up some very important questions and ideas about the role of spectator in society in relation to art.
27032020
Started reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau and underlined something that made me think of Lieslot's post above about the relationship between selling art and measuring the quality of your art based on sales. May: Walden is my bedside book since last year, I'm reading it very slowly and carefully, taking notes of amazing and radical political ideas, and quotes of beautiful descriptions of nature <3 <3 <3
"Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate."
https://www.e-flux.com/video/324452/serpentine-galleries-and-e-flux-present-formafantasma-nbsp-quercus-2020/
film on the perspective of trees ---- nice link with 'watching'
This film has been produced by manipulating a Lidar scan of an oak forest in Virginia.
Lidar technology, which comes from the terms ‘light detection and ranging’,
uses lasers to scan and record large surface areas and has often been used in cartography and archaeology
Lucrates: LOVED this work, it unexpectedly almost brought me to tears thinking about how I have overlooked in some ways the importance of trees, thank you for sharing!!
27032020
Listening to The Prodigy
--> interesting video about the bands song 'firestarter" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JR-qXO2Skw
Suddenly I got stuck between a project with Elly and a project with Adva
Made a song with Steven!! :
https://soundcloud.com/jaco-sette/dumpster-devaughn-zijdeweg
https://jacosette.bandcamp.com/track/dumpster-devaughn-zijdeweg
28032020
https://hyperallergic.com/547919/2500-virtual-museum-tours-google-arts-culture/
28032020LIESELOT
today i crafted in the garden and (tried) sewing a rabbit suit. During all this I listened to all these things:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lxwLHRKaB0 May: Thanks for the link!! And also thank for highlighting the SHOCK DOCTRINE!!
3 very intelligent women (!), Naomi Klein, Astra Taylor, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, giving an online class on capitalism in times of corona. Some of the times it's focused more on USA but a lot of the time it's relevant for the whole world. anyhow they explain things very understandable and it's perfect to listen to while working on fysical work.
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkPE1v1mdN8
German historian & filosopherPhilipp Blomm about our times changing. He calls up to actively think about the consequences of climate change, the world becoming more and more digital and our economic model.
Who here has read books by Celine or Gerard Reve? I have some questions! Especially Reve. May: I don't know Celine very well. I can tell he is super interesting, but all I hear about him in French culture is debates about whether we should keep reading his litterature knowing that he was a fascist. He was very antisemitic. "Céline's vocal support for fascism during the Second World War and his authorship of anti-semitic and pro-fascist pamphlets have made him a controversial figure, which has complicated his legacy as cultural icon." I know how to position myself with Polanski because he's alive, but I don't know how to deal with pro-nazi like Céline or Heidegger.....................What do you think?
ALSO, for those who need to catch up: THIS IS EPISODE 4 OF QUARANTAINE TV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mp619Y_n8I&t=152s
ALSO, is there a way to post pictures in here? @peter? @Heleen ?
Lucrates: no sorry we cannot post pictures on this platform, they are not supported. We started a Cryptpad for images earlier, here is the link. For now I think the idea is to only post pictures there, with minimal text (captions) or no text perhaps...as an interesting contrast to this pad, using images as an archive vs words:
https://cryptpad.fr/pad/#/2/pad/edit/Zt5HdilvnG0Rqzid8tHCPMl4/
29032020
Darlings,
Some thoughts on a Sunday morning.
I read in the newspaper stories about the healthcare workers who are risking their lives to help care for Caronavirus patients. I think of what it means to be brave and selfless. I hear the phrase "non-essential workers" and wonder, are artists essential at a time like this? I see a post by a friend on Instagram that reads: "If you think artists are useless, try to spend your quarantine without music, books, poems, movies and paintings." I sigh and feel a bit better, but then ask myself again...but really, what are we (artists) doing? as for the 'artists' we are an interface or something that connects different realities, situations, filosofies... at the same time we are just normal human beings that might deal with situations in a "artistic" way. We don't have to be doing that much I guess :p. If a musician is an artist and a painter is an artist too, that shows how big of a word 'art' is. What can we do?
I came to Autonomous Design because I had never heard about an art program centered around society. My own practice had never really given society much attention, I thought my practice is well, MINE...a reflection of my mind, my ideas, my creativity. But of course, I and no one, develops in an opaque bubble isolated from the influences of everything around us. My thoughts are not truly my own...they may have formed in my brain but the food that feeds this most vital of all organs is derived from input which comes from outside myself, grown from the alchemy of celestial power and terrestrial earth.
I started watching a few of the Quarantine TV clips and I'm sad that I cannot really understand what is going on due to the language barrier, but I loved the introduction in episode two of Lieselot on the Graslei with the hazmat suit and the Trump doll. I am also greatly inspired by the mere fact that rather than only focus on carrying on with projects before this truly history making pandemic/situation, many of us are responding directly through our creativity to what is happening around us (just like the Kanon initiative)...it really asks me to inquire more deeply within myself about what is my role as an artist?
I decided to go to art school after I had an epiphany three years ago on a beach at sunset. While walking backwards on the sand to avoid having to turn by back on the beautiful fading colors of the western sky, a question suddenly popped into my head: What is your dream in Life? My immediate answer was, "NOT interior design" (as you know this is how I make an income). But I would not let the question go so easily by just responding what is NOT my dream. I thought some more and realized that my dream, and the reason why I think I am alive, is to make art and share beauty. So here I am. But theory is theory and practice is practice, so I have been confronted with what does art making and what does beauty mean to me...I am still figuring this out and I assume will be a question I never fully answer as long as I live, which is wonderful. Perhaps we should consider ourselves more like the trees in the Quercus film...ever growing.
I think if we (artists) are to take our responsibilities seriously, to fulfill our duty as "essential" workers in society, we would do well to take this very special opportunity to stop and examine critically our practices. What exactly are we doing and why? I do not question if art is a necessity. I agree that on the hierarchy of needs, art comes after such "base" neeeds as shelter and food...but for me I believe that it is not worth even the effort of keeping myself alive if I have to exist in a world that has no art. Maybe for certain living organisms like an earthworm or even a dog or our closets genetic relatives chimpanzees, existence is enough to satisfy them, and in some ways I envy their seemingly effortless ability to just BE. But humans, we are indeed exceptional because we are not satisfied by just the reality around us -- we want to create our own realities, through stories, through art, through technology. That's why we have this pretty bizarre crazy thing called the internet that I am communicating to you on right now and we are perhaps the only organism on this planet who dedicates so much time on the question of the future, as something that does not just happen, but as something we can shape through our ideas and actions.
Ok, I think that is enough rambling for me for now. HAHAHAHAHA. Happy Sunday my dears!
- Lucrates
Loved reading this, you have a way with words, Lucas. I would not call this rambling haha.
30032020
WHo here has toughts or knowledge about 5G, I see a lot of friends sharing posts and petitions against it, and articles about birds dying. But mainstream media keeps silent about this, or calls these accusations a hoax. I'm having a hard time finding reliable sources that prove that birds (or other animals) really died of this. It is fascinating me and I am roo very reluctant about the idea of having 200 times more radiaton in the air, but when I watch scientists explain it they make it seem so innocent. All I can really find is that we really can't know yet what it really does to human and enviroment and that it is, in a way, an experiment. For me on itself is quit disturbing, and I also think there is too much money and big companies involved, this will be the technology for cars driving themselves and drones bringing your packages to your front door. I'm curious about your thouhgts or articles with scientific proof. I want to make a movie for quarantaine tv about these dead birds falling from the sky. Because it is kind of sketchy that they will enroll this network when we are all in quarantaine, focused on the COVID 19 virus.... Or am I sounding paranoied? Also visual ideas about dead birds welcome! xxxx May: I feel exactly the same as you ! Can't make my mind by reading all the articles. But I'm curious to have Peter's analysis since he'll be working on it with his group project on 7G !! @Peter; any thoughts!
Lucrates: I understand the frustration in trying to find accurate information. For me my criteria for vetting a source is usually a combination of: who is the author (do they have a specific interest in pushing an agenda), what is the outlet (is this an established medis outlet like a newspaper which has more at stake if they publish false information because they can either be sued or could lose readership which then equates to lost ad revenue, or is this just someone posting their opinion on their blog), and if the information also cites other sources (which to me shows that what is presented is not just opinion but more researched). I did a quick google search and found this article: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/we-have-no-reason-to-believe-5g-is-safe/ which is from an American science magazine which has been around for a long time (since 1845) and while it is NOT peer reviewed it is I think a generally respected outlet. You will see in the article I linked that they cite a lot of other agencies for their information on 5G. Funny you mentioned dead birds since I just posted a photo on my instagram yesterday of a random foot of a bird I saw in front of St. Baafs.
As far as the safety of 5G technology I have not enough knowledge to share an informed opinion. I will just say that in general one of my favorite questions about technology is, what difference does this make in my life? Does it improve my life or not, and if so does it only do so at the expense of something/someone else? I am not a luddite and against the evolution of ideas and products, but I do not believe in "progress" at any cost and certainly do not necessarily define progress in a linear fashion of one thing leads to the next and allows us to climb ever higher up this invisible non-existent ladder towards where...heaven/Gods/Godesses/mastery over our world?? I quickly perused this article about the "benefits" of 5G and the only thing I read which sounds like a real potential benefit is perhaps developments in the medical field? https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/what-is-5g/
I don't know if we really NEED things to be faster? If we need MORE people to be "connected"? One of the fundamental questions that Carona poses to me is to what degree life can be/should be virtual/digital vs. analog, based on real-time face-to-face interactions? For me a big question is also centered around happiness? Are people more happy today than before say, "smart phones"? I was thinking about this yesterday, since I still remember with great clarity getting the first iPhone in 2011 and thinking, wow this is cool...I can stop carrying a cell phone, an iPod, and a digital camera, this one device does ALL of those things...but really, am I HAPPIER now that I don't have to carry around those 3 different electronics? Do I actually communicate in a way that feels more connected with my friends and family through texts vs real time phone conversations? Was it really all that annoying for me to download and be selective about the music or podcasts I listened to? Do I take better pictures with a phone vs a camera I hold up to my face? And most important, what is the trade off? I now have interruptions all the time from my phone, I feel like I can never really "leave" work because I'm always connected, and the joy of actually getting lost and finding your way and exploring is pretty much gone unless I really force myself not to use my map...so anyway, some more rambling hahaha...and questions...
Lucrates: Happy Monday friends! I found this seemingly very long and comprehensive list of experimental films sorted by mood, which I also think is fun(ny), could be nice to screen some of them in de zaal whenever we actually open again!
http://www.katemakesfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/cabinfever-march29-215pm.pdf
30032020
I took a weekend in Offline-land
I got me some guerilla-seeds
Ironed some more (chips)bags
Played some Call Of Duty Black Ops 2 Zombies
Watched a lot of Death Note (anime)
Found a Carlamp (cut my finger with the broken glass)
"you have those who talk and complain, and you have those who do it." JQ 26032020
Today I had a talk with Steven about ways of working: CHILD DREAMS/ STORIES/ SCORES/ CHURCH n' MUSEUM/ PETER BUGGENHOUT/ PLAY AND THE RELATION WITH CONCEPTUAL THOUGHTS ABOUT YOUR WORK
Lookin' at the work of Jasper Rigole
Lookin' work of Rikrit Tiravanija (S/o May)
I made a second email-adres to send files anonymously for Adva's class
I'm getting crazy of 'being on time' and people letting me wait... I can not get in my creative zone when every moment could be disturbed by an appointment (that keeps getting delayed) , Usualy I can keep busy during these waiting moments ; I had a saying about this subject ---> Waiting is only waiting while you're waiting. (so you could always do something else instead of waiting so it doesn't feel like waiting)
Started to work on a song
Made another video for Adva's class
Going crazy
Reading about the brain
Brilliant corona initiative
Desktop Design Academy, Week 1 //// about the desktop academy: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1StXR7dCSL3qeRNDkzzwrsL0JpAlunj-ktKdZdrVeHz8/edit?fbclid=IwAR3CO5LzD_mkwSaoLGtiLJMI-_43vSTMSgocnK-b8nyGTqfjB-8hLG_Jp2U
Issued 30th March 2020
Review: 3rd April 2020, 4pm BST
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cXWvRehaIxshBtzVQVKKTwJ0G8L3-ird_ePzvS7Aav8/edit?fbclid=IwAR1v8zWMGVkRgl3P8HBFwyrnhxt11GfznpHRKIMTfPg7A6H1dWMUfCARpBI
3103202031032020
Searched for a way to create dead birds bevause I want to make a dystiopian image (movie) about 5G
working with papier mache and feathers from pillows haha
started writing a lot, very new thing for me. Always assumed that I was no good at it but now when almost forced to do it, started to love it and don't care about 'good writing' anymore
really starting to get confused and taking this new reality as the new reality May: Yeah!!! So glad to hear this. From working with you on KANON I know you can write really expressively.
interesting read: https://www.ft.com/content/19d90308-6858-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75?fbclid=IwAR163uQumid8dy3nI_aIQNHoJZ19ej8d92l_pxvv41YmUIK0C0FUcdETm1Y
beautiful movie
@Lieselot: https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/103836/coronavirus-king-baudouin-foundation-donates-e5-million/ Looks like Brussels will NOT get 5G according to the newspaper this morning
I worked some more on a song
had a talk with paul (schrijven) : EXPLICITEREN/ EMOTIONELE KICKSTART/ POLITIEKE BOODSCHAP ZONDER POLITIEK TE WILLEN ZIJN/ FLANKEREN
Found some cool objects
Started editing the prejury video.... "do I even want to edit? Can't I make a video in one shot that includes everything I would like to show?" "Is showing my work a work on its own?"
THE CHALLENGE: Your presentation takes max 10 minutes. This is a pre-jury with a focus on learning how to present and articulate your work. The presentations have to be understandable for someone who does not know your preceding trajectory. A nice challenge!
I made a marker (promarker) refill tutorial
Did 130 push-ups in total
https://www.astragales.be/en/nos-spectacles/cold-blood/ (quarantine tv?)
http://wavve.link/wethemost/episodes (podcast Glenn Martens in conversation_Maarten Van Seeveren Foundation (KASK)) lotje: Yes thanbk you, I had tickets for his lecture but unfortunately cancelled due to Corona. He is one of my favourite fashion designers ever. May: I didn't know Glenn Martens but I knew Y/Project !!
01042020
My dad was looking at a video that was pretty inspiring to make the prejury-video : https://vimeo.com/68530966?1&ref=fb-share&fbclid=IwAR1R_IrxV0wex0ERxVRJE39Ww7ZHV0w8C0ZwgMsQG3I9hGKuwmtU7TRpVDY
I filmed an introduction to my room and did a voice over
Used handbrake to compress my prejury video (thanks Peter)
Had to upload it at 16:30 because the groupcall with Adva starts until 18:00
SO we have vacation in this lockdown?
Metatalk about my work still is something difficult in my experience
I labeled some objects in my room : to try out 'assigning objects' --- my monitors; "MONEYTOR" & "MONITOR", "LAPTOP" and "TV-SCREEN" got labeled, ow yeah also the "LEFT FLIP FLOP" and "RIGHT FLIP FLOP" ---> what happens when we define/assign objects and artworks with a 'name', What happens when the name is more a personification, or even a number...
May: This is cool. One things these studies have taught me is to give a different ATTENTION to objects and the material world in general.
- A talk with Adva =====>Telework is ignoring the situation ... We allready learn so much from this situation, we should be busy with this situation instead of blocking it out of our mind by keeping up with studies ... May : Hmmmm...interesting. That's why I included the lockdown in my text for 'Schrijven', couldn't escape it.
- The learner only uses school to fill him/herself with knowledge and goes a way ----> Students dedicate themselves to the situation
Feeling that u have an agency in the situation --- learner : it's about you .... student : situation --> development and growing up
- ]
- Lucrates: some thoughts in response to telework ignoring the situation and the idea of us being busy with the situation instead of keeping up with studies. I am curious what you mean by being busy with the situation? Are there things that you feel we should be doing in place of our studies at this moment? Or do you mean that we should shift focus within our studies to address the situation? Those are two very different ideas so I'm curious which one you are leaning towards? I also just want to say that I think your last statement about development and growing up is interesting in this context. First and foremost, I want to say that I completely understand your frustration...and I am not saying that you/we do not have a right to be annoyed with our current reality...but the fact is, being a student right now in this time of Covid and NOT a part of the workforce, is a luxurious situation. Within the capitalist framework of contemporary life, most of our lives are NOT dedicated solely to our self-improvement, expanding knowledge of ideas and ourselves...most of the hours of most of our days are spent doing some kind of labor (mental or physical) in exchange for money to pay for food, shelter, etc. People who are working from home now do not get to just do nothing but read books or watch Netflix (which is why it is confusing to me why there are SO MANY articles about how to spend your time as if most of us don't have jobs). I think that part of the definition of growing up is learning to adapt to realities and responsibilities as they arise. It is crazy the amount of work most of the people I know currently have. Between either taking care of their children/teaching them from home, trying to work remotely, trying to adapt whatever they do to now be all online, and also not fall apart and break down because of course they also have the same existential questions we have but just are too busy working and making sure they do not get fired. Of course, everything is a matte
r of perspective. I think it is legitimate to want to deal in your own way with the situation, and I think in reality we are so lucky to have A LOT of agency with respect to how we are dealing with the situation each on our own personal levels. At the very least we are able to really take the time to stop and consider our practices, exchange ideas with people who share similar values of creativity, and bask our brains in
ideas :)
aw shit, I wanted to write in here and everything changed colour... sorry (I don't know how to fix this...)
TO awnser your question: I just absorbed this statement (about ignoring the situation) as something that was alot about education, that this is a situation where we can learn soo much from but through the solutions we seek to keep the education going on, we might not learn out of this situation. Maybe we should experience this lockdown emptiness way more instead. (I'm just interpreting this statement) but maybe we just don't take this situation as serious as we should due to the fact that we try to mask the damage it does to education. We could aswell postpone everything that's education-related and come up with a (creative) solution for when this hard time is over. On the otherhand, I do believe that it's also valuable to keep (a big part of) education going and take it as a challenge to find new 'online' (or offline) ways. I have the feeling that we (as a society) want to keep the ball rolling in as many fields as possible, but we can (always) question if that's the right way to deal with it. So I don't necesarily pick a side, I think this statement potentialy has many interesting perspectives.May: And I say REVOLUTION !!! That's what we should be working on.
Big shout out to BOB MARLEY !
01042020
Lucrates: Hi everyone, I just sent a group email to say that if you have not already finished your video, I would really appreciate it if you speau in English. I am genuinely very curious about what all of you are doing and am the stupid American who does not speak a word of Dutch...soooo...unfortuately the only way I can give any hopefully constructive feedback is if I can understand your projects. Also, I noticed that Luna's video is 600MB so it is taking me quite a long time to download...we may all have to download before 2pm tomorrow if we want to collectively watch the videos together without waiting a long time for each other to download. Oww yeah, I did this one in dutch. but I can help you understand (just ask :p)
IS ANYONE ELSE HAVING ISSUES WITH THE RECORDER THAT PETER SENT? I RECOREDED TWICE AND IT DOES NOT SEEM TO RECORD ALL THE SLIDE CHANGES ON MY POWERPOINT BUT DOES KEEP THE MICROPHONE ON THE ENTIRE TIME. ALSO THE FILM QUALITY IS VERY BAD AND PIXELATED?
02042020
Woke up very early
Looked at some (art)books I have laying around the house
Listening to Quincy Jones
Made another hanging sculpture
'Upgraded' a bag of screws n' pluggs
May: Thanks! OK I'm getting lost now.
Feedback (jaco)
@Louke : You say that you lack (female) examples... Maybe this is just perfect to not be demotivated by what has allready been done. Fuck inspiration :) just try to do some random-ass shit.
@Luna: I like the word you give to collecting. I like the analog collages (on paper :p) Have you scanned them? The performative aspect of 'spoenken' is indeed a good thing to point out.
@may: Cookingmetafors always work! maybe look for/ try to present an obsession where you dedicate yourself/a work to. get lost (like peter said) :p ----- as to note what luna and luka said: use your qualities!
@Luka: verveling, TUMBLR GEN, Good video!
@Steven: Mysterieuze associatieve kracht is sterk. Spektakulair met stijl en smaak! Dankuwel voor het verhaal.
@Lukas: sounds like an opurtunity to get some of my creations to be used :p, Maybe the first step could be 'opening a virtual (modular/open source) space' and see how it develops in a bottom-up growth? but that is just what you describe in a way i guess. You could be designing our ways of communicating by leading the way to the right software!
@Lieselot: Read*, The Vegetarian by Han Kang, the second chapter is a lot about erotics. Again: Tom Sachs !!! he did a whole spaceprogram and he has good documentation of it that's easy to find online.
@Maria: Lookin forward to more procestraces!
In dance schools they have such interesting weekschedules (that change every few weeks), they have to be present a lot and theoretic classes happen on a very personal scale. Also interesting to think about the ALexandertechnique : so like trying to focus as much concentration and energy to one specific body part, move it slowly and try all posibilities. This technique is about kinestethic awareness. Also heard about extatic dance meetings : so these are some kind of parties/gatherings where people come together to really dance and move in order to get in to extasy. These gatherings don't allow alcohol or other drugs so movement becomes the spiritual guide. May: I'm sure Laura Oriol from AUV or Delphine from Performance know a lot about this (French speaking girlzzz)
Lucrates: @Jaco - Interesting short article/thoughts about moving in public spaces right now given that we are all trying to keep 2 meters apart:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/arts/dance/choreographing-the-street-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
Also my lover has been going to Estatic Dance in Gent for quite some time and apparently they used to be weekly here, but are also organized almost daily in Brussels?
02042020
PreJury Feedback
@Jaco - since you are more interested in spreading an attitude than perhaps having other people physically use/engage with your creations, perhaps you could find a way to spread your message to a wider audience via online or other platforms? Books? Zines? Posters? Graffiti/Street Art? As for politics and art, I also think that politics are inherent in almost all creative practice. Maybe also check out Elisa van Joolin the artist who made the bags and distributed them at Van Eyck Academie for 6 month periods. ;) thanks
@Loeke - I am curious why you felt that textiles were inferior to other materials like wood and metal, because you feel that they may not last as long? I am thinking of these linen sheets I once saw at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC from ancient Egypt, which are at least 2000 years old. I am also wondering how you feel about sexism in art? What can we do to actively avoid this? Thank you for reminding me of the importance of play in one's practice.
@Luna - I assume based on the visual elements of the film that your project is continuing with your practice of collecting, but is it still stuff to be woven with your loom? I also was wondering if you feel like you are collecting not just objects but somehow something more ethereal, memories? Stories? At 4:41 in your film I see you have several objects that seem to glow with different brands/logos, this I found to be visually very intriguing but am wondering if this is a way you are thinking of presenting the materials or was this just something in the context of making a 10 min film? I am also reminded of this very interesting podcast I heard with an author of a book about collecting/museums and colonialism. Your collecting seems to be very different in approach and inspiration to this but would be interesting to listen I think for you even as a juxtaposition to this other more institutional collecting: https://hyperallergic.com/547296/connecting-museums-modern-art-colonialism-and-violence/
@May - Do you imagine people sitting to "read" your book? Yes. This is why (physical / online) juries are complicated for those who write because they want their work to be read with the same care as someone who would watch a movie or an image. Sometimes I would like to dialogue with specific subcategories of peers, working only with writing, poetry, bookmaking, spoken word and performance. There is cool online and physicial bookshop called Rile in Brussels which promotes (often feminist) artist books and poetry bundles. They also have readings. What is the end that you describe in this context? The end of the year? I want to make a book for the jury, physical or digital. And if I have time, I'd like to make a sort of installation base on the book. What is a wasteland? Are they spaces that are wild or unused but in an urban environment? Yes! They are unused but often only temporarly, waiting for development plans. Is Wilderness something that is unpredictible/irrational? I realise I didn't nuace what I said in the video. When I talked about irrational/wild behavior it was in CONTRAST with the "rational" economic logic of PROFIT. But are we more irrational than nature or the other way round? We're all the same thing. Curious to see how your book would look without text, are you thinking you will scan the pages and digitally remove the text? It was thinking about that. I think this could be very interesting to see what links/associations come up without text - kind of like what we have (mostly Jaco) doing on the Cryptpad for AUV2 of only images. Overall I really like this format of a video to present the pages of your book, I think it may be really engaging. The voiceover as a kind of guide was really nice. It's super encouraging to hear. I also like making videos. There is a very nice flow! May: Thanks for the interview, haha.
@Luka - While I can't understand what you say I found the visuals quite beautiful and peaceful/calm. The video of you with the sky background was very engaging. I am definitely curious to chat with you to find out more about what you are working on now especially since Kanon is postponed or I assume cancelled and how will your work as a curator for KAS also be impacted as physical gatherings are for the time being all suspended.
@Steven - While I could not understand what you said based on the images I wonder if you are dealing with colonialism/belgian history in some way? Race? Would be curious to hear a translation or to discuss with you more about your work.
@Lieselot - I am basically speechless because that was such an amazing 9:20!!! THANK YOU! Very inspiring. I think it was a great summary which gave me access to your process and what you have been working on. I very much appreciate your discussion related to perfectionism, something that I also struggle with. It can definitely get in the way of creating and it is very nice to see you overcoming it. Brava. The voice over was very effective to convey bigger ideas while also showing us plenty of visual intrigue. I am curious how I can participate even though I don't speak Dutch :( For example I am wondering if you can keep me posted about your filming as I would not mind tagging along (keeping 2 meters away) and shooting still of the production. Oh lucas I only see this now! Thank YOU! I would film tonight. Want to join?
@Maria - I really love the feel and quality of the footage you show, thanks for sharing. Are you worried that you may not have more access to the location? I think even with the footage you showd us so far you could probably make a pretty amazing experimental film which would possibly be quite poetic, especially given the more limited footage.
03042020
Lucrates: Good morning friends. Hope you were all able to stretch or go outside after our marathon online class yesterday. Thank you all for sharing, it was truly very insightful and inspiring. I am going to just write as honestly and "off the cuff" as they say here since I think it is important to share and also I feel this is a safe space populated by safe people (all of you). I had a kind of startling realization yesterday after the class that perhaps much of my frustration the last few weeks post Corona has been centered mostly around my feeling of guilt at my "non-essentialness". In a literal world crisis where people are actually dying, it felt very bizarre for me to kind of block it all out and just focus on myself, school, my work that I need to do to complete the year. It felt self-indulgent and irresponsible. I think I kind of turned off my creativity in a way and started to approach myself and the work I was doing/wanted to do in response from more the perspective of a designer with a problem to solve, than perhaps an artist. Your films were a gentle and beautiful reminder that artists in their own unique way, even if not directly approaching issues with "answers" or "fixes", are still able to respond to the world around them. But what actually is at the root of what we do is our way of approaching issues with imagination and ambiguity, which is important precisely because it is not objective. There are many other lines that I have underlined in Camus' speech and perhaps it is as important to ponder those as some of the other lines I shared. "...the battle is waged within the artist himself." Or a quote Camus actually pulled from Emerson: "A man's obedience to his own genius is faith in its purest form." Not that I feel I have genius but I think if you replace genius with creativity it also makes sense. I am going to spend this weekend doing a lot of inner work, trying to excavate from within and dig into what is at the essence of what I am doing here in
school and what is uniquely my own experience/interpretation/understanding that I want to and should find a specific language (written or otherwise) to share with the world. Rather than be resonsive in a way which feels like "what can I do right now to deal with the craziness of the world that will help other people besides myself" I must try and do something which is actually much harder, question what can I do that is genuine and expressive and opening myself up in a way like perhaps I have not done before? I am looking forward to this work even though I think it will be hard...it also feels very necessary. You have all been so very inspiring to me in many many ways, so I just wanted to say thank you for sharing and teaching me lessons which are so necessary and important for me, in some ways a kind of "unlearning" and "rewiring" of my approach. Have a nice weekend!!! xxxxxx May: Wow, thanks Lucas and Thank you!! More on this in the feedback I'm writing for you bellow......
03042020
Worked on Elly's project with May: creating imaginative worlds, and doing a proposal to put this concept into a participative project.
Painting the back of a shirt
Had a talk with Bart (drawingclass) : My raw video for the prejury ---> If I'm still working as spontaniously within ten years, I'm a good artist (lol)... Can't I do a live montage (like a video-dj) ?... I need more chalk --> I might destroy a portrait I made a few years ago to use the plaster pieces as chalk.
Listening some oldschool (UK) ravemusic
GOtta update my procesjournal (so I did)
04042020
Hi there, wanted to share a funny idea. I was talking to my lover about how it is disappointing to be "on vacation" during lockdown, as Jaco mentioned above...and then I was like hmmmm...is it possible for me to go on vacation without leaving my house? So now we have a plan where for 2 days we will each pick a destination, anywhere around the world...and we will "go" there for a day. We shut off our phones. We only listen to music from that country, watch a movie from there, read about the place or books written by authors from there. We cook that kind of cuisine. Basically we pretend we are there, haha! And we go into vacation mode: eat what we feel like, sleep as much as we want, do anything except work. I'm curious to see if I am able to get at least some of the satisfaction of feeling like I went on a break by doing something like this even if I am well, actually not going anywhere at all! If anyone else also tries this would be fun to hear your experience! May: cool idea.
May: Hey! I'm wondering if commenting older comments is useless? Do you go back to see people's answers even a few days later?
Or should I my answers down here? Well I just went back up and commented from the top - down. If you're interested @Lucrates @Jaquise @Space cowboy
FEEDBACK PREJURY BY MAY-------------------------------------------------------------------
@Loeke: I like the fact that you're working with textile and craft. What I was thinking when you and Heleen were discussing is: You should definitly present the blanket bullshit for the jury, but maybe the REFLECTION on this shouldn't be the technical process but something else. It feels like you love making craft and learning a technique but not to talk about it so much. Documentation seems like a burden to you. So what else could you bring in relationship to the blanket/textile work? You asked me a very cool question in December (Which I mention in my video) that was so helpful to me: "What is your URGE"? Something clicked in me. So, what is your urge? And I would even say: where is your LOVE? What do you love in your practise? In the media you work with (textile, knitting, making a blanket, writing music, writing words, perfomance, writing score,...) ? It felt like you were not very enthousiastic about making the video. You said you feel like your only doing all of this (the video, documenting your process) FOR the teachers only and that it makes it difficult. But then how would you do it if it was just for you? Also, what would you expect from the teachers? What kind of insight or experience of them do you need? (I'm also finding my own answers to this question) Why don't you take the requirements they give us (video, process journal) and make your own rules? Or reasons to use them? We have more freedom than you think. Everybody in the class made such different videos. Going back to your work, I think you should still explore performativity/writing within your textile work, if you feel like it. The school teacher lecture you gave the previous time was a good exemple.
@Luna: I love your video and I really spaced out on your artefacts. I like how they were modified and tweaked, how they were "en-nobled". I found the process book appealing. The story you brought is very nice and I want to hear more about this concept of Spoek! Curious for what's coming next! How you can present the collection,... Oh! And what if you created a speech/performance about it??? With your acting skills ;-)
@Jaquise: Very cool video, with the same lo-fi quality that you make other movies/pictures with. The quality of the images and the lo-fi filming techniques makes it already very "material". Once again, you practice is not about a 9-5 design job, it's a lifestyle that's never paused. Life = art = work = beliefs = development. I know you have one of those big old fat 2000s TVs and I woud like to see a screening of your pictures and films! Also, Lucrates' questions are interesting: how do you communicate your practise? How do you show it in a more cohesive way? I would add; What do you expect from the viewer? Do you want to teach something or just communicate your way of life?
@May: Excellent jury. Loved that huge steel sculpture you made! Keep on the good work my friend.
@Lucrates: I like the fact that you want to research the possibilities of an online school, but I don't understand how YOU can make something so exterior to yourself when I think of the person you are. I'm grateful to have more insight into your personnality and mind through this pad, and that you are so generous with your questions. You write about artistic work very beautifully. I can't even choose from all the quotes I could export from the pad. For exemple: "what actually is at the root of what we do is our way of approaching issues with imagination and ambiguity, which is important precisely because it is not objective." You also recently wrote that you want to "question what can I do that is genuine and expressive and opening myself up in a way like perhaps I have not done before? I am looking forward to this work even though I think it will be hard...it also feels very necessary. " Lucas, YOU ARE ALREADY DOING THIS IN THE PAD. The content and the way you write is already full of the poetry, sensitivity, subjectivity in other people's art. Everything you wrote until now is a way to, as you write, "deal with the craziness of the world that will help other people besides myself". Writing about our own experience can always be eye-opening to at least one other person. So my question is, why don't you incroporate writing into your project for school? This could be in the shape of poetry, daily posts, essays, conversations, interviews (what are you doing with the interview you were doing with artists?), poetry workshops, collective talks, group conversations, podcasts (Yes!!),... You could just start by extract your daily reflexions from the pad and instert them into a different media, like a journal or a column. (Like Carrie Bradshaw. Just kidding) Were you already doing something like this...?
@Steven: I like your zine. I would love to see a video that is something between your zine and the one you showd for the pre-jury, with the random (or maybe not so random) footage. I could see you working with animations (very simple even) and also more of those fakely naïve characters of yours! About the footage you use in the video: Does it matter if the viewers think it's totally random? Or would you want them to know the reference or at least what it's about? Do you want to use them in a narration or just as an element of collage? I thought it was very nice to hear your sort of poem / text / spoken word thing and you should do more of that! Just as a track to listen to, or on a speaker in an installation, or as the soundtrack of a film? It felt like your were quite at ease with speaking for a recording! Also, you said that the theme of racism is something that is present but now the main subject. Are there other subject that always come back in your work? Or other things you have in mind? Other kinds of visual references?
@Luka: As I said on the video chat: This video and the previous work you have made is influenced by the illustrious emo-teen-youtuber-tradition, which I think is very relevant today. A relevant way of expressing yourself and the zeitgeist of youth. I sound like a old person, but it's true haha. Since you were talking to the class in that video, it really felt like a youtuber keeping their followers up to date with their emotional life. I liked the visuals, color palette, writing; very poetic and appealing visually. Different subject: the privacy question I asked you about during the feedback. I really think you should keep it in mind and maybe even explore that further (with care). Maybe confronting yourself to unknown viewers like somebody said. You can also work with authorization, like making a sort of agreement with the viewer who is integrated in the piece. What if you played the role of the people you recorded, so that it's your interpretation of the footage? Or what if you only related what the person said through your memory of the event? I could be interesting to see how you emotionnaly remember conversations.
@Maria: It would be nice to see the footage sent direclty to us rather than as a video in a video. I'm still super into the project and I'm curious of what it's going to result in, after the lockdown perhaps. Are you going to work on something else in the meantine?
@Space cowboy or what's your name again? : still writing
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I wrote this for Loeke but it's a question that each of you can think about : WHAT IS YOUR URGE? (Author: Loeke). I think that studying in art school has to do with some PASSION, some kind of DRIVE to make something! (Not in a romantic way tho) What is it for you? If you want to answer it... It could be a nice collection, hehe. Don't do it if you think it sucks or if you don't have time. Maybe i'm being to enthusiastic.
@ Loeke:
@ Luna:
@Jaquise:
@May:
@Luka:
@Steven:
@Lucrates: Through the myriad of methods available in the photographic arts, show and remind people of the beauty of Life, as a starting point for reflection on how we want to live it. I think? HAHAHA, I dunno, that is just what came to mind in the last minute when I read your prompt :)
@Maria:
@Lieselot:
05042020
sO WHEN I CAME to the pad this morning, everything I had written was in another color ---> I cut-pasted everything again in this fontcolour. I hope I will not have to do it again...
Instead of a master I might do a free form study that I would organize myself. Choosing Some inspiring people outside of specific institutions to mentor me... for instance, I ask a chef, a designer and an artist that I get in touch with, create some kind of (educational) relationship. This is very idealistic but might just be reality, I can allways try. May: I like anything that puts education into question. check this out 'making your own masters' :) https://www.dezeen.com/2019/06/11/stacie-woolsey-make-your-own-masters/ thanks :) this is encouraging!
Made myself a bureau on my terras, and installing some kind of flag made out of the barriertape I found yesterday
May: I wrote this earlier. It didn't get better haha :p @Jaco: Can you write your letters in white maybe for some constrast? I'm starting to get headackes from having to spend so much time on my computer. It's worse when content is not readable. for me it's white inside of black
strange or do you mean on white? May: I see black letters on grey background. Weird. was it like this all the time because for me it did change today and I Changed it immediately
I went on a bike tour and did a videodocumentation... playing with silence... video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eqY5U_ax-U&list=PLJ3HJyxHBsdJTSG4tkhAbSS9HmoDB4yPD&index=10&t=0s
Here are video's of today:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ3HJyxHBsdJTSG4tkhAbSS9HmoDB4yPD
06042020
woke up and watched documentation of Michael Landy destroying all his belongings: https://www.artangel.org.uk/project/break-down/
Read an article about making your own masters education: thanks to Heleen
I Translated my video to English, so I could send it to Tom Sachs along with some other documentation asking him to think about being my mentor. so also for Lucas, here is the english version of my jury : https://youtu.be/nJ-meFjK7a4
Trying to make a mix of the songs I made last month(s) for a musicplatform that looks for artists that are not big on the internet or something haha I don't know, I'll see
PLayed a bit with the Kaossilator of my dad (it's a KORG synthesizer)
May sent me a picture of a slipper made by Nicole McLaughin : super cool upcycling! checking her website
Found a good way to Back-up my online procesjournal : I can make copies of the current HTML so I can save the HTML on my computer.
Tried to get in touch with Ronny, teacher in the fashion departement... I doubt that I will catch him online, he's not about that life :) aaaaaand I got his number from someone that studies fashion...
worked on a song, doing 'silent recordings'... https://we.tl/t-hbpdf67jUY
07042020
@Jaco: Thanks for the English version of your jury video!!! Really appreciate it. The first thing that I thought of a few minutes into the video which also made me laugh was wondering, "What would Marie Kondo think if we brought her to Jaco's room?" Are you familiar with this Japanese writer/personality who wrote a book called The Magical Art of Tidying Up?<jaco: haha funny> (can you cut-paste what you wrote so it returns to it's original color?) She also has like a Netflix show now, and she is basically telling people to get rid of stuff that doesn't bring them joy and is pretty much a minimalist as far as I understand it. But of course it seems like the stuff you collect not only brings you joy but is a real embodiment of your philosophy of life and approach to your creativity. I wonder how many things objects you have? Do you organize them in some systematic way or is it more random? I also wonder if organizing it may somehow also make the process of creating less interesting/organic for you since to organize one must first come up with some principles/categories based on something like function or design, and I assume that a lot of what you are striving for is to break free from such ways of thinking? While I was watching the video I also had a desire to see you actually in the process of making and wondered if you had ever considered setting up a camera and kind of just recording yourself while you are making something? I feel like that could be another way of transmitting your philosophy to others, especially perhaps people who agree with your ideas of upcycling/upgrading what is considered "garbage" but don't know where to start. I am also curious to know a little more about what you mean by "functionality" because you say that it is important to you that people are able to hold things in their hands, that your things have a second life, but do you mean that formerly disgarded items (garbage) get to become something else (art) or that the art also has to have
some kind
of function
besides be
ing art? At
one point
you also sho
w footage o
f the playg
round behind barriers and you talk about how their functionality has been taken away. I'm curious given your inclination to steer away from politics how you feel about the state involving itself in the functionality of public space/objects? I also wonder if you have encountered any resistance from the state when procuring your materials/taking "garbage" from the street or from I assume somewhere like a dumpster or construction site where things are destined for the dump? Even though you are not formally making a political statement with your work I think politics seems to be inherent in your work, in a really nice natural way, because you don't really need to address it overtly it is built into the work.
I read the Make Your Own Masters article and also went to the website, am intrigued to see how this develops, certainly a very cool idea!! I am curious whether she felt that she was missing something from not being around other "students" while she was pursuing her masters, or maybe that wasn't so important and being around already working "professionals" was enough? I'm going to email her and ask, will post her response here if I get one.
If your want to participate in a sound Haiku art project related to Coronavirus: https://hyperallergic.com/552081/alan-nakagawa-social-distancing-haiku-ocma/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=D040720&utm_content=D040720+CID_d65b6ad9131c1eb5004f6c0433dba20d&utm_source=HyperallergicNewsletter&utm_term=Send%20This%20Sound%20Artist%20Your%20Quarantine%20Haikus
Also I have been doing this at home yoga series which I wanted to share, usually around 20-30 min each morning. I find this woman to be funny because she is quirky and weird and embraces that...AND she does yoga with her dog next to her which is cute: https://youtu.be/--jhKVdZOJM
A virtual artist residency based in Canada for May/June, which is funded (you get paid approx 1000 Euros): https://www.contemporarycalgary.com/collider-in-residence-artist-residency
Deadline To apply is April 15 coool I might just try this
This is Loeke ;-) Wow, guys really nice the feedback you wrote. It's so valuable to get feedback from your peers, because they might know you differently that teachers/mentors. And also, it's just some extra insights. I really appreciate it. And that's why I will share some of my thought on your work here below. You don't have to agree with me, it's just what popped into my mind thinking of you works/processes :D
@Jaco: You say you don't necessairily want your work to be political. However, I do recognise I strong sense of engagement (which one could read as political in a broader sense) in your work. Also, I really agree on your stance that political systems are just going to shift at some point in time. Therefore, I wonder, would you mind that people that don't know you very well and thus don't know that you are kind of living as you work, that these people might recognise the tendency towards engagement as political/ecological? I think this tendency makes your work actually very interesting ;-)
@Luna: You have no idea how funny you are. In all the project you've been working on in the last two years, I recognise a playfullness that is very humerous. In this project I mostly found it in the last part of your "guideline". The part where you explain that every spoenker should at all times have a plastic bag at him/herself, and how to "clean" the spoenk. It's this kind that I also found in for example: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Gallaxy or Moonrise Kingdom. Although some people might. I know people sometimes describe you're work as naïve, but I think it's not. It hase the same qualities as the works I mentioned: It's made by an adult, people that are too serious think it's made for childern, the people who really enjoy the work realised a long time ago that age is just a number and therefore humour is timeless. I think it's a really nice strength of your work.
@Luka: I think it's very valuable that although you are in a period of 'searching' you still 'produce' in the media that fit you at the moment (live stream, blog, video, music...). Actually, that's the same like a painter sketching, no? ;-) This very pleasant and more dosed energy flow is in stark contrast with the very high and intense engery when you where working on Kanon and Paviljoen. The more subtle energy now might seem unsettling, but it certainly will also bring some long lasting revelations.
@Lucrates: I recognise some of my own struggle in yours. You have a background in disciplines that are very close to art. That makes it very natural to start from there, to use the methods you already know, to rely on what you know/are able to do in general. If you replace the word "natural" in the previous sentence by "not alluring", you might be able to break free from what you already know. I guess it is a little bit like rehab: you feel save by what you're use to, but you know you should be independent from it. I don't know whether this might be usefull for you, but that's how I got in controll of my academic past that was controlling me last year (and even last semester), and preventing me from getting total loooosssee :D What helped for me is, was to accept what I know, to put it aside, to try new materials and new methods of working, thinking, researching.... and only after some month go back to the methods and materials I knew from before. I guess it's then you might be able to blend them and make a killer combo :p
@Steven: It's nice to see how the images in your presentation tell more than words. I think that's very strong. Especially because the images do still rely on a bit of writen/spoken language. I had to think of some of your drawing of last semester that had creepy jokes in it. I guess they worked well because of the combination of image and words. I always find that when you do that, you make a very critical message come through on a very light/funny way. It's like good sarcasm, which actually tells much more than a plain serious message, no? Since you are staying in your familiy home, but got used to live on your own, I can imagine it's not that easy to find "work flow". (Don't know if that's the case for you. It's just what happens to me in such a situation.) If that happens, remember that this is the environement where as a kid, you did feel inspired/energised to make little plans, to secretly discover stuff, to test things...
@May: Your presentation makes me very curious. There are so many ideas and thoughts. This combined with the visual aesthetics of the video give some more linguistic connections, even extram perspectives. It made me think of your reenactment of the Wasteland in the atelier last year. Then, you brought the Wastland to the atelier both by visuals, words (performed) and by actual plants gronwing on that patch of land. I see in similarity between this performance and your video in the way the combination between "down-to-earthness" (visually quite literaly in the 'grass perspective') and the intellectual (critical the ideas and thought). I seems like these two should be miles apart, but you bring them together very smoothly. And it's the connection between the two that carries most of the load, which is very smart, in my humble opion. That's actually poetry. Give me some more please, cuz I'm a fan hehe. May: Oh thank you so much for this point of view!!
@Lieselot: I'm so in awe to see you going strong on your full potential. What the fuck happend? This is nice!! I really like how even in the most isolation times, you gather with so many different creative people (even your brother for the video). It's funny that see that now you should actually feel restricted, you are working most freely. Apart from the fact that I'm super happy for you, I think this is also a very important signal from yourself to yourself that you should cherish. Take it with you in everywhere you go and in everything you do, because it's fucking (pardon my French) powerfull, holyyyyy mama mia...
@Maria: It was nice to get a renewed overview from the movie project. But maybe it's also a bit dangerous to keep on this track. Due to corona I can imagine this project can not moving forward to much. Also I was thinking of how you like collaborating with other people and how being locked and sick in the house is not the best environment for collabs... so maybe this is an opportunity to learn how to programm yourself on working on your own. If I were a doctor, I would prescribe you this: Accept that the film project is parked, take some time to withdrawal a bit from it. This will lead to you not having to waste your energy on making excuses for something that is not your fault in the first place. In between taking time to breath, take little steps in your very individual direction to boost both your artisitc imune sysmtem as well as the rythm of your practice. May: "Artistice immune system" Cool expression, taking good note of that.
Okay that's it for the feedback. As I said, you don't have to agree with what I said. I know that this format doen't allow too much dialogue, so I tried to frame as good as possible. I can also tell you what I've been up to recent days. Firstly, I have been writing quite some stuff. I tried gettting the capturing of my process fitting the medium of text. I have to say, I am not convinced, but it was worth the try :p I will soon upload the text on teams. I also realised why I didn't feel like writing for the last months: I didn't have a place that I want to go to and write. I realised when I was asking myself why I quite doing yoga, while actually I know I get addicted to it quite easily... I looked at the interior of my house and I saw the problem. The place was a mess: dirty, untidy, unorganised... so Saturday I cleaned for the whooollleee day. I mean like in: scrubbing the floor and stuff. Also I put my desk next ánd in front of a window, so I have a nice view and natural day light. This was the best descission ever. Since the day I moved my desk, I have been writing every day and I love it so much. I can write for hours... like for real?! Also i cleared and cleaned to floor so I can put my yoga mat. For the upcoming three weeks, Heike is doing her "Sitting with the body practice every weekday at 10 a.m. (and 10 p.m) on Zoom. Yesterday I was the only one who checked in in the very first morning session. It's so nice because it works as a good reason to put my alarm clock in the morning, have breakfast and be ready by 10 for the sitting. I guess the last week I have been lacking some rythm or discipline and I found it back now. This is the discipline: Every weekday I get up at around 8h30, breakfast at 9h, sitting from 10h till10h30, doing yoga on my own till max 11h30, then going through some voice warm ups for singing, then sing or directly go to my desk and write for a while until 13h30 because then I have lunch. The afternoons are for finishing writing, going f
or a walk, working on the knitting machine, reading a book. If I don't have anything plannend on the evenings, I do research or watch a video. In the weekends I get my "time off" to do bigger chores in the garden or trying new recipes, do some grocery shopping... I know that they've been saying it on the television all the time these days, how important it is to plan your day in order to not get lost/depressed and stuff, but it's only when you start practicing it that you feel it's true. Deep in our souls where all toddlers that like to have some routine I guess hehe. May: It's nice to hear from you and you balanced organisation :) Curious to read you.
07042020
Mentaly preparing myself to destroy a portrait sculpture I made 2/3 years ago. I asked my brother, who just started photographing, to take some pictures of the proces. We ended up in a colaboration that embodied a beautiful moment together. I really wanted to compose this picture with care because I thought I only had one chance to destroy this artwork. This was some kind of symbolic act to destroy 'old' and 'conventional' art to express my critics on the educational canon that only teaches us about painters and sculptors. Shout out to Ai Weiwei and also Deathgrips that also recapped the famous work where Ai Weiwei destroys the Han Dynasty urn. The interesting part of this symbolic action started when, after we tried to get the right image practising with a basketball, the sculpture didn't break. So I had to do throw this work again... and again... the jute kept the work pretty intact. So this was not going as planned, what I actualy really enjoyed. So we moved to a crossroad where I climbed on a electricity box to be able to throw harder. So again we practised and tried to get the right angle with the basketball. And again the portrait kept holding itself together, getting cracks here and there, documenting the damage. Then suddenly the work became very beautifully composed thanks to it being destroyed and laying on the sidewalk like an abandoned soul. This put me in a difficult possision because I really liked the image but that's not what I came for. I really wanted to destroy this and I couldn't stop now. But we did take enough pictures of me trying to throw it to pieces... The moment became frozen in time when I thought this moment had to be captured but we couldn't do it ourselves when there came a passenger to us to ask what we where doing... I explained and he asked if he could take a picture of this scene... This was just what I was thinking about and it came to us. He took a picture of us sitting on top of the electricity box. Thanks to him! He left and we reassured him that he'd had taken good pictures. But now we where in the same situation again, not knowing what the next step would be. So I started filming with my Nokia to just keep this moment going on, however it would end up, this moment had to be caught on my Nokia. So I started recording, gave the camera to my brother, tried to throw this to pieces onelast time. I went down and started tearing the pieces apart, my brother capturing the moment with my Nokia. Then I put all the bigger pieces in the bukcket we brought and started sweeping the smaller pieces together. We walked back home.
video part:https://youtu.be/T7TSVgVWdb0
Did a first drawing with the plaster I collected from the portrait
Did some documentation: https://youtu.be/qWvfLgy5pRI
Made an extended box of milk with an ironing machine: https://youtu.be/ePz6Cbrqk3w
Made a "selfportait" on the pedestal of what's now gone:https://youtu.be/1ybomr_OT2U
Labeled a marker
Went biking @night with Tomas, getting lost ans fast, smelling memories, enjoying the 'super pink' moon
watching Angel's Egg (1985) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIhKqaNp4Dc (thanks May)
08042020
Updated my procesjournal
Went skating with this amazing weather, filmed a little kid that was riding a swegway hoverboard on his knees, it almost looked like his lowerbody was this cyborglike piece. (He and his parents where okay with this and he really liked the atention), I have the feeling that I get in contact with a lot of kids when I'm skating. They know what's good, hangin' around getting tricks and having a good time. My body now feels exhausted and this gives me some kind of natural high.
Little Cyborg video's : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ3HJyxHBsdLJTLFBrXxUBE9Fm1UHAiH3
watching: Memories (animemovie in 3 parts), the spaceship in the first part is called 'Corona' , the second part is about a plague invented but not in control by the government,
Thinking about how I would contact Tom Sachs, what would I show, what would I ask for...
Made a quik videotutorial on a concept I had to turn a belt into a shoulderbag. video : https://youtu.be/3QwyGPtiwKI
@Jaco: cool shoulder bag video. My first thought was, oh this is kind of hard to see what is going on...but then I kept watching and realized it is not so much a traditional "how to tutorial" like you see on many youtube channels...it is more showing people the possibilities of rethinking their approach to everyday objects. So as you said, there are not really many "instructions" or "steps" as opposed to providing a framework for how to approach objects and their use.
This is Loeke: As Lieselot invited my to make a head piece for one of the characters she's creating, I noticed that the particular stitch I was using to knit the letters, is not a good stitch to make the headpiece. For the letters I am using is called interlock or double tricot. It's the stitch you might recognise from the edge of the neck part of your t-shirt. The thing with this stich is that is takes more or less double the volume/thickness compared to single jersey. Single jersey is the stich that makes the fabric of your t-shirt. It looks like rows of V's. So as I was trying to teach myself doing this new stich on my machine, I solved so problems I had not forseen even haha. It's amazing. I noticed that even the letters have lose ends and today I justed bumbed into the solution on how to fix this. Where until yesterday I didn't even realise these lose end might cause a problem in the first place. Also I tried a thicker wool, that's also a different composite/material. It's so cool, I can make pieces that are so thight, they end up being really stif. All this happend while I was actually just trying to get the single jersey stitch right, so I could start developping the pattern by the time Lieselots wool arrives in the mail.
@Jaco: Why can I just imagine the whole of your destruction story by reading what you wrote here above. It's nice, because now it feels like there was and extra camera capturing it and I am looking at this extra footage. oooh cool, this is why I like words ! :)
On growing plants: Apart from buying seeds for my flower and vegetable garden, I also ofter just gather seeds in fall. At the St-Pietsstation for example, there is a designed flower garden/stairs. In fall I just took the seeds of these flowers for free. Also I gathered the seeds of my echinacea's from last year. Now I wonder, will the gathered seeds grow less powerfull than the monsanto seeds I bought in the supermarket this season? Or are the gathered seeds also monsanto seeds? Can the gathered seeds ever free themselves from the monsanto imprint? May: has your yard changed much since last spring when we did a dinner there? -> I am going to answer you question in my next post (the one of 17/04/2020)
GENERAL QUESTION: where do you guys find nice documentaries, podcasts, audiobooks. I think I am searching in the wrong search engine, because I keep on ending up with stuff that is not that interesting, that has already been eaten... May: In France en francophone belgium there are looooads of feminist podcast about sexism, racism, masculinity, storytelling,... If you ever want to practice your French. France is really a podcasting/radio nation. I don't know if the same exist in Flanders/The Netherlands. I don't know about EN podcast but ask @lucrates!!
- https://trippylinx.wordpress.com/ (site with references) , besides that I get a lot of inspiration because friends, teachers and students refer to them, YouTube is an infinite source, you can check the uploads of a channel that had made an interesting docu and maybe you'll find a ton of other cool stuff.
Lucrates: I listen to podcasts via Stitcher app (free) or Spotify. I actually grew up watching ZERO TV and only listened to radio so am a huge fan of podcasts. Some of my favorites: TED Radio Hour, New Yorker Podcast, On Being, Poetry Unbound, Hyperallergic, Fresh Air,
09042020
Changing a little feature in every video I uploaded on YouTube
Taking a lot of time to email Tom Sachs
Scanned some drawings for a friend who wants to create a book where our drawings end up next to eachother.
Attached some more Chipsbags to the sheet
Started a sheet of milk/drink-boxes -----> wanna make some kind of shelter (got videodocumentation)
09042020
Hi Everyone I have a question. Most of you probably already got the email from Hala that I asked her to send to all AUV students and teachers? Just wanted to check.
Also, I was chatting with my friend from Berlin and he showed me a letter he got from the Mayor of Berlin, thanking everyone for their patience, reminding the distance rules, and numbers to reach out to in case of crisis/domestic abuse. I thought this was a rather impressive thing, to actually print and mail letters to every Berlin resident during this time of crisis. It got me thinking about how strange and disappointing it is that the dept has not sent a single email to the students to check in, see how we are, offer any resources if we have issues with housing or dealing with loss of income/jobs (it is important to remember that not everyone necessairily has a safe place to go to/consider Home and also that being Home for some people may cause a lot of tension), and just any kind of acknowlegement about the fact that we are in a very bizarre situation?! It isn't that I want to feel coddled like a baby, but I just find it bizarre that we have had no communication at all...am I the only person who thinks this is strange? Just curious... May: Yes, it would be nice... Maybe you should mail them ? :p
Lucrates: Yes I need to have a chat with Hala, I will see when I can schedule one. I'm honestly just very disappointed in that I feel no sense of community/care from the dept level (I know that we get updates from individual teachers)
10042020
Tryna figure out how to attach a 'grandma cart' to a bike... There are lots of posibilities but I didn't get there yet... "donotfreakout"
I upgraded/transformed the surviving parts of the 'grandma cart' into a "jaquisified grandma-cart 10042020"
Got a new Idea for connecting the cart to my bike!
Made a movable platform for my TV-screen ; filmed a adhoc solution I applied ---<<>> it's funny that I often, when I'm makein' these demonstrationvideos, put my fone/camera in my mouth when I have to use my two hands and still want the good angle.
Man I just realised that I haven't listened to Terence Mckenna in a long time... Gotta let him feed my brain some more.
11042020
According to the numbers, Belgium is the Epicentre of the virus in Europe ----> This could be because we actualy count every corona-death, but at the same time I think everybody is going way to lax with the circumstances. In the city, people don't keep the 1,5m distance at all I guess, it's a longer distance than we expect. What, no Belgium is not the epicentre. The newspaper I have in front of me says 1) SPAIN: 329 death / million of habitants 2) ITALY: 303 / mil hab 3) BELGIUM: 264 / mil hab 4) FRANCE: 182 / mil hab 5) NETHERLANDS: 138 / mil hab 6) GERMANY: 31 / mil hab. Well now considering this, we actually might be one of the worst europeans countries, fuck, because we are a few weeks behind Italy and already with such high numbers. But I'm reading that it's because they have counted all extra-hospital death, in retirement houses,.. So more deaths counted in total. yeah I didn't put it very nuanced, but it's just that I have the feeling that here in Ghent for instance, people are really almost behaving like this is summervacation. I just don't know how to feel/behave about this. I think we should respect the security measures to "flatten the curve", but be critital about what in entails. We'll be able to analyse all of this more clearly in the aftermath........ Yeah for sure, also it's kinda weird to compare numbers of countries that do different measurements n shit.
May: I'm spending a lot of time analysing the news lately. Reading analysis of the crisis. I feel quite alone doing this It's because I'm not talking to my usual fellow news readers that much lately. I'm more and more convinced this is not a "natural disaster" and that we should all be very critical about the situation we are in, deconstructing the narratives we are being given. The coronaciris is a consequence of neoliberalism (Little recap if needed: = The political system we live in: favoring the market and the freedom of individuals for the good of everyone. More market and private freedom of action and less state intervention to regulate the market. Less state welfare, less socialism. More privatised services like health care. In this ideology, the market is almost like a divine entity, with the believe that it regulates itself naturally, and it has almost become the moral of our system. The market is the priority, not humans. The neoliberals don't want to admit that it only helps the "freedom" of a minority, the richest. And that this system leads to cyclic economic crisis.) , the market economy and massive globalisation and industrialisaiton, etc. Just one exemple: How are viruses born and how do they spread? I read in my sister's Human geography course that it's because of deforestation which threatens natural habitats and forces wild animals to come in contact with human habitats, just like it happens with bats, or even the lime tics in the US, which are spreading the lime disease. And it's supeeeer interesting because WE, citizens, are being made responsible of each other's health and of "flattening the curve" when we pay taxes and vote to be represented by a governement. Goverments have been to slow to react to the warnings by the World Health Organisation, and years of budget cuts in the health care system (Previous MR / NVA goverments to blame) and research have led us to the chaos happening now with lack of protective gear and the fact that we will be w
aiting a long time for tests and vaccines. So, yes, people have to now be responsible of other poeple's live and we should all practice social distancing, because governments are failing.
There are millions of things to say, but I'll stop here to not be overwhelming. I just think citizens are being blamed for their carelessness about other humans when we live in a world where POWER doesn't care about well-being. But I'm still positive and solidarity exists!! I decided during the lockdown that I was going to start being vocal about my political beliefs and stop holding back like I've been doing. BECAUSE, the more we open our eyes to how scandalous power is taking advantage of people, the more we can ACT. I sound stereotypical, but how could I say it differently. My dad tells me I haven't found the right way to express myself yet. He might be right, but I also take some distance from his constant mansplaining, haha. I have the feeling you have found you're own voice. It's there. It's May's. Any voice can grow into: smoky voice, creacky voice, belting voice... and then there is the message, now? Become prime minister May, please xx
Lieselot had sent us this link to a video earlier in the pad, with three analysts talking about the US situation, which is interesting for the rest of the world. Because we are also governed by the US, aren't we not?
Naomi Klein is one of them, she's very sweet and gives me a lot of hope >>>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lxwLHRKaB0
Lucrates: I think it is very useful to analyze the news and be critical of all media outlets and analysis but I also feel that it can be very disheartening because for me I'm always like, OH...SO things are SUPER FUCKED UP and the power is very much concentrated in areas that I have no access to...SO, I also hope you are able to find solidarity with groups that are doing positive things? If so please do share! Would be good to hear some positive news on how people/groups are resisting all this crazy globalization/industrialization. As for being vocal I highly encourage that because only by exercising our voice does it become stronger, literally and figuratively. I've been super buse with work and schoolwork but hope to be more active on here soon.
Fun interactive sessions from Tom Sachs - possibility to tune in: https://www.instagram.com/p/B-cbmBTH7Z1/
Just sent my mail to him... Now I'm going pencil to paper myselfCOOL, let us know when he responds!!!
Fun open call: https://www.dezeen.com/2020/04/07/virtual-design-festival-video-message/
12042020
Made some gingerconcentrate
Finished 'The Vegetarian' (book)
Started working on a song with a more 'progressive' approach, playing with some sort of silence, trance vibes ---> proces: https://we.tl/t-QAVjwag7Ys
13042020
Started using plastic packaging as collage/paintingmaterial ---> did a first test using a flatIron.
Felt very weak and useless (not wanting to call it lazy :p), Got lost in the matrix ---> According to The Matrix for Dummies, Neo learns that the matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to make us feel like we are living a normal life, when in fact it is nothing more than an energy factory for AIs. Us poor humans. We have to be good for something.
Made another filmlike song : https://we.tl/t-l2hFOEuWIe
Just watched 'The Platform', a Netflix film ----> really fucked me up mentaly wow
14042020
back-upped my telephone-pictures/videos/recordings in order to have free space again
Added more milkboxes to the sheet
Brought together everything I had made in the last month since we're a month into this 'stay inside situation' ---> made a setup and filmed it (a bit like the jury-thing but it's different) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=met_nemrgFU
Went filming some bikingclips with Tomas
Colaborativly working on a song with Steven
Made a nice drink: water + gingerconcentrate + picon ohlala sounds good!
I'm feeling super stressed so I couldn't sleep --- > ended up writing on a verse for the song I'm making with Steven. now it's 6:30 Am
Jaco: Do you want/need packaging? LIke the cartons that soy milk comes in? I go through about 2 a week and can save them for you if you want? oh yeah sure !
THERE IS BRILLIANT LIVE SESSION ON INSTAGRAM WITH TOM SACHS---IT'S BRILLIANT :D
Aaaah goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo it's amazing
But I still have to make an account maybe you can follow without an account ------just make an account or login with facebook :) and then delete it after!!!!
yeah I did but I don't know if I can see Live videos on my computerbrowser :/ ow it's on GQ I'm here :p
yes you can: https://www.instagram.com/gq/live/
Will let you know when I find a version of the recording ;-) Quote of the session to end/start the day: It's a challenge to create uncertainty! Cheers!
cool thanks for pushing me to get on the grammm ;) May: Was it just now? I watched the very end of it. All I understood is that Sachs is a very nice guy. haha yes he is
15042020
Had a talk with Ronny (Martin) from the minor Fashion
Went to the supermarket with my Jaquisified Granny-Kart
Tried to make a compass
Lucrates: I just read that the shutdown is extended until May 3rd? Anyone have specific thoughts on this?
I also just read that Jeff Bezos is now worth $138 BILLION, up a lot since the beginning of this year (and the fact everyone has to order stuff online def helps his net worth). Apparently...if you spend $10,000 a day it would take you around 37,000 years to spend $138 Billion. So even if he spent $100,000 a day it would take him 3,700 years to spend his wealth. I just don't understand why this absurd amount of personal wealth exists? NO ONE CAN LIVE 3,700 YEARS HAHAHHA!!!! May: Righhhhhhht??? Pffff, it's crazy. Stinky guy
May : And about the community you are looking for. I agree that we really lost it this year, with Heike and Hans leaving the Dpt, and the fact that they decide to just STOP the communal moments... I find it frustrating to hear that you are disapointed. This is why I take this pad seriously and enjoy exchanging with you. <-- feel that, these communal moments are absolutely important May: I don't know how to help you more Lucrates. I kind of felt one pad was enough of work for me. How long do you plan to stay in education in Gent? Let's boost the Dpt in September if we don't manage it this spring!! And let's have dinners during the summer (if they ever free us)
@May: hahaha if they ever free us!! Lets hope so!!! It definitely feels weird that I'm technically not even supposed to go to Brussels and it is so close! I am in Gent for at least another 1-2 years, and well maybe much longer...I don't actually feel inclined to live the US anytime soon. Thank you for your contributions to this PAD and in general...I think that our dept has SO MUCH potential and maybe that is why I feel disappointed? Anyway I am trying to better understand what exactly it is that I feel is missing and I was hoping to include EVERYONE in this exercise of evaluating what works and what doesn't work, what is nice and we want to water and help grow, and what feels more like a weed and we should try and remove (I just read Loeke's writing about permaculture so got into a planting analogy). For me one of the biggest gifts of the situation we are in now is forced time to be alone and when alone, we have to confront ourselves. For me this has meant realizing that even though I have bounced around so many different places and been so independent my entire life, I do actually crave and want a community and one of the main reasons why I came to school is hoping to find that community among like-minded and spirited artists, like YOU ALL :) So I'm just trying to figure out how to keep the communal spirit alive both in real physical life (since we will eventually return to it) and also in the meantime make an alternative virtual version of it (even if it is not AS nice it is better than nothing). Hmmm...I just thought of something...I did randomly call my friend the other day in London and we coincidentally were eating at the same time so we ended up "having dinner" together, and that felt unexpectedly nice...maybe because eating together is a very old custom? Anyway, should we have a virtual dinner party? To me it is nice of course to share ideas related to art but I think community building is also just about sharing in general. Ok time to do my morning yoga, more later.
16042020
Lucrates: I listened to a podcast I thought interesting and wanted to share: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/podcasts/sugar-calling-george-saunders-coronavirus.html
I also found the letter mentioned in the podcast: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-letter-to-my-students-as-we-face-the-pandemic
And came across this website which was interesting: https://www.worldometers.info/
A quick thought. Listening to an author talk about impermanence and the beauty of cherry blossoms falling from the trees, he spoke of a sense of loss. My mind suddenly jumped to the opposite view, gain. What if we did not think of change as the loss of something that was but the gain of having experienced something that was never meant to stay with us? Is there anything in this world that remains static and unchanged? Isn't the very nature of existence change? It just made me aware of the impact of perspective and expectation, how just by shifting both something that can be regarded as a negative can actually be positive. I guess this is also something on my mind this morning because I was thinking of all the people who have died already from Covid-19. While death is something that I have a healthy respect for being inevitable and one only gets the right to die when one has also lived, it still made me a bit sad to realize that in the past few months, many many people who died were prior to their illness with the virus, perfectly healthy people who had dreams and plans...and how fragile and volatile Life truly is...even if you can't live everyday in fear of dying it is also something to recognize that waking up each day is already kind of a gift since no one is guaranteed a tomorrow. With that I am leaving the house for the first time today and going to the nature preserve for a job, taking in the sunshine and exercising physically my body and mentally my gratitude :)
Hi all!
Hope you are fine and enjoying the sun!
little shout and mini improvised open call for those of you who feel like it :)
Covid kinda got Autonomous Design in a tricky position in terms of getting as many students as possible into the Autonomous family!
For this some teachers are working on an SOS publication and launching many posts on instagram soon to communicate the overall atmosphere and identity of autonomous.
In my head I had some ideas about funky GIFS and was wondering if you want to help with this :)
Would like to collect some mini drawings of AUTONOMOUS DESIGN in letters in different colors-different handwritings-....
requirement: the format is a square so I can unite all the drawings together as a collage of can make gifs very easily
-all pictures-scans-drawings-gifs are welkome :) @ heleen.sintobin@hogent.be
Thanks-but again-feel totally free!
Heleen
@Heleen: hope you have been having a nice "vacation" though I'm sure you are super busy with all the work that is needed to transition everything online! I am curious what you meant by “getting as many students as possible into the Autonomous family”? Do you mean recruiting students in KASK to join our dept or promoting the dept externally to attract new applicants?
I’m also wondering if you can share with us studentsmore about what is this SOS Publication and does AUV have an Instagram page?
Lastly just to clarify you were looking for small drawings of the letters A-U-T-O-N-... to spell out Autonomous Design right? When are you looking to get these by? Thanks!
http://canyouactually.com/100-years-ago-artists-were-asked-to-imagine-what-life-would-be-like-in-the-year-2000/?fbclid=IwAR2DMEBq7o2B-dhvJizV0slThytnhdeWIFTx5vLFpRm0mtq1R2Nh6Tj_Ztk
@Heleen: really nice idea! Just a question: the square we sen you is a drawing, right? or is it a drawing of a letter? @Loeke, great!
I imagined a drawing, but a drawing of a letter sounds cool too ;-) Most important is the final format you send me: a square so that all the images I get from you seperately will for a nice collage together or can play in a quick animation ;-)
17/04/2020
This is Loeke: I tried to start reading again, but I have to much energy to be concentrated in a sitting position. My body wants to move :D So I solved that problem by adapting my daily routine: the evenings are for watching docu's. Thanks for responding my previous question (above). The podcasts are for when I am doing detailed work on my knitting. I mainly listen the podcast off bbc through their app.
What has made me very happy is that I found out that for the finishing touches on my knittings crochet is better than knitting or sewing. Maybe some of you know, but I am really a little bit of a crochet addict. The last pieces I made in crochet, I was starting to hate myself for, because I was spending so much time on it while they are not considered "artistic". But now I am so thankful that I did spend so much time doing crochet, because now it's easy peasy doing crochet to finish the edges of my knitting. Even more, I don't have to feel guilty about crochet anymore, because it's needed in my practice hahaha. And then I realised that I have it so often: I am doing something and I don't know why, I cannot explain, it seems like a waste of time... and then... some time later it makes so fuuuuuuucking much sense hehe. It's the best feeling ever (besides other best feelings ever of course).
Also: I finished the balaclava-pussy-hat I was knitting for one of Lieselots new characters. She came by to pick it up some days ago. The hat is so nice (and also a little bit sexy, what did you expect? hehe).
Also: About my garden. It hasn't changed that much. I am only designing it now that I went through all of the seasons on this tiny patch of land. I wanted to see what plants are naturally in the soil. It paid of: there are beautiful flowers that I just relocated. Also, I was think about cutting the trees. But now I see that so many animals need them (insects eat the nectar, birds eat the seeds, they are perfect for nests...) so I should think twice about using the chain saw :p
That leads me to a different topic: permaculture. This philosophy is so awesome on so many levels. I used to only know it for gardening/groing crops, but really it's for everything. It makes so much sense.
Here are some of the things I was already doing, that perfectly fits the permaculture way of life:
-collecting rain water (this is storage of energy)
-making my own compost of vegetable waste, cuttings from the garden...
-starting from what is naturally there on the land (instead of interfering and forcing)
-try not to waste
one extra: today I was cutting the reeds in my garden. I was thinking "I should not just throw them on the compost, I should make something out of it." After some research, I found a nice way of binding them together using crochet. How perfect can the world be? I love it. (I took some pictures of it. I am trying to figure out what is the most efficent way of gather my pictures... anyone a good idea? I don't want to take up to much space in the microsoft teams, for example... Or is that not a concern?)
On documentaries: I get so inspired by docu's on Louise Bourgeouis, Shirin Neshat and Jenny Holzer. If you want, you can recommend me other artists here:
18/04/2020
This is Loeke: I uploaded a first draft of my process in the microsoft Teams. It's sloppy. Not happy with the format. I started the word doc when I was in the woods, have been adding to it throughout the weeks that passed. Searching for a better format now, because I need to add foto's and video's... Did some research on process journals. IB methods seem a little bit like it, but not completely convinced...
Hi all ----- checkout the Autonomous Design instagram! Alive and kicking!
will soon think about a way on how we can collaborate and use it as a visual platform for all!
https://www.instagram.com/kask_autonomousdesign/ enjoy & follow & share! Cheers!
If been slackin last days on the pad
My brain and body are going to a weird state of being
I hope I can regain some flow in the following weeks
@Jaco, good luck! You have writing and reflecting a lot so maybe it is just a bit of hibernation needed to gather up more energy from within :)
Made a song with steven : https://we.tl/t-D0AItXC6q9 Oh very nice! I LIKE IT!!! Too bad I don't understand the words but I like the beat and the vocals!
Realised that I have my first exam in 2weeks :( ---> this switched up my perception a daaaamn lot
Imagination is a super important skill , I want to invest more work in this thing
Spirituality aswell
Watched a documentary about Bob Marley
Went on a nightwalk with a friend and we luckily got lost, this felt sooo good!
Gotta keep to-do lists and a planning for these f'ing examperiod
This extra theoretic spice will stimulate my desire to do practical things sooo I'll have to embrace this thingy and try to get rid of these 'obligations'
21/04/2020
I have to admit that I have been in a bit of a funk the last few days. A lot of existential questioning about what is the point of, well...everything, haha haha! I am very grateful for this online platform because I realize that sometimes it is just good to get things out of your own head, but it also feels different than a journal because you know that maybe someone else reads and connects with what you are writing and that feels nice. ANYWAY, as Jaco also mentioned the realities of exams and the end of the year certainly also weighs on my mind and unfortunately (or fortunately) my job is actually also keeping me very busy so I am really having to schedule my days to be efficient.
I saw that DIY stores like Brico are now allowed to open, and while I appreciate this very much as I myself want to get some plants, it also made me wonder what the motivation was behind letting only this very specific kind of store open? I read that for example, flower stores are not allowed to open or paint stores? So strange. I also read in the Brussels Times that the STIB wanted to remind people that "buying flowers is not an essential trip" which to me is kind of a contradiction and underscores the privilege gap because basically it means if you can afford to have a car and drive to a store then you are allowed to buy flowers and plants. If you have to rely on public transport then you are not allowed to go buy flowers and plants? That seems terribly unfair and maybe because I am a sucker for beauty and especially beautiful flowers, in my heart I'm like "WTF FLOWERS AND BEAUTY IS ESSENTIAL TO LIFE! :)"
On that note I also have been thinking, if they open DIY stores, why don't they open museums?https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5090 ( I am very curious and kind of excited so see how they will handle this digital opening) Even though I am aware of some of the problems surrounding museums and collections, the fact remains that museums and providing the public a space for engaging with art in real space/time (not online) is probably more important now than ever in my view...art as a healing power, as an inspiration, as a reminder of the resilience of the human spirit? If the official rules are that grocery stores and DIY shops must provide 10 sq meters per customer, isn't that something they can quite easily enforce in a space like a museum just by controlling the number of people allowed to enter at any time? The Van Eyck exhibit had timed ticket why don't they just do that for the entire museum, allowing the museum to start recouping lost income and more importantly in my view, letting the public have a place to go outside of their house where they don't have to be engaging in consumption (well of course they still have to buy an entrance ticket but still the experience of seeing art to me is not the same as walking around a supermarket or a DIY store). Curious to hear others thoughts on this? I was thinking we could write a letter to what ever ministry is in charge of regulating what is allowed to open and ask them if museums can be opened?
LAST BUT NOT LEAST, I will be sending an email about this later today to everyone but we are hosting an online COMMUNAL MOMENT this THURSDAY at 8PM. I am waiting for Hala to confirm if that time works for her. Adva suggested that people feel free to eat dinner during the Communal Moment, in the same way that we would have eaten together in de zaal, which I think is a nice idea given that eating is a very communal activity. The idea for now (though if you have other suggestions, please bring them on Thursday!) is to start with just a check in "heart circle" where all who are present are invited to just speak about whatever they want, uninterrupted, and we all take turns. People do not need to respond to each other, it is just a platform for bringing us together and letting each of us feel present and heard. It is my hope that we will learn from what people say how to best plan for the next and future Communal Moments, what are people looking for out of these things, etc. I asked Hala if she is willing to do a Q&A with the students after the check in, as I am sure many of us have questions/concerns about how the rest of the school year is going to go and I thought it would be nice to have a forum to address our questions? I also told her that of course if she doesn't have an answer maybe she can help us find an answer with the admin and that I think it is important for it to be a two way street, that the teachers can also ask us questions. Anyway, I hope that you will be able to make it!
Back to work! Have a nice day!
21042020
SO I have to get my shit toghetter for the coming weeks, suddenly I'm receiving a lot of mails in a short time what looks pretty chaotic to me
Did a walk 'n write session
Studied some arthistory : watched a documentary about William Blake and one about the Pre-Raphaelites
Listening to Body Count
Still busy with analysing The Vegetarian for litrature (course) ---> got it kinda finished
Free stream documentaries during COVID19, one a week, this week: https://www.ohyouprettythings.com/free?fbclid=IwAR15Rx4tuB0Jom8mU4zSZngAUcAchilY9gVhHP4M50kmRh-88gwJDLGiVi0
22042020
extended the milkboxsheet to 5x5 boxes I still have to get more surface in order to use this as a shelter... I guess I'll have to consume more ;)
extended the crispbagsheet with some errors, it's the second time I set my Ironingmachine a lil' bit to hot so there's this molten plastic smell in my bedroom :/, the sheet's also getting crispy haha
I sat on the parking of The Zaal today, beatifull and out of sight for cops...
Had a meeting for Adva's class
Listening to a 'best of Nina Simone' playlist.
Made some notes on the video-lessons by Peter Desmet for arthistory, It was about Antoine Wiertz.
Made a video for my 'cared for person' in the excercise with Adva : https://youtu.be/g4zsDbPa7_c
22042020
Yo Jaquise, I have been saving my drink containers, how do I get them to you! I read you ;p, or you can leave them in the front of your door and you let me know so I can pick them up, or we meet somewhere one of the following days/nights and we can have a talk and maybe a walk. You could also just put em through my mailbox :p. @great lets meet for a walk and a talk :) I'm at +32465756324 and anyone else in Gent who wants to have a talk and a walk 1.5 meters apart let me know, I would be very happy to see your faces outside of the confines of a screen! cool, are you also available in the evening because I rather go walkin' when it's dark when there's less people outside haha :p haha sure, I enjoy evening walks actually because I've always said that sometimes when there Is less to see you can actually see more :)
I saw on Peter's Agenda for tomorrow a reminder that the reflectieverslag are due April 30, I assume we will go over this tomorrow cuz I honestly forget what exactly this is?! Have any of you written yours?
I listened to an interesting podcast about Art Therapy and how the Montreal Museum of Fine Art was among the first museums to hire a full time art therapist, available to museum goers:
https://www.mbam.qc.ca/en/education-and-art-therapy/art-therapy/
This got me thinking about this book I have (but sadly not here in Gent): https://www.alaindebotton.com/art/
I also was thinking, to my earlier point about opening art museums, if it would be worthwhile to try and implement some kind of art therapy program here at the museum in Gent? As a lover of museums I believe strongly in their power (or art's power I guess but art is mostly shown in museums) to heal people and I think it is not an exaggeration to say that some people are experiencing various degrees and forms of trauma from what is happening right now. Anyway just a thought, don't know if anyone is also interested in pushing this idea of art as a healing force further with museums in Gent/Brussels/Belgium? I also just think about ways we can make the museum a more vital and engaged place for the community at large?
23042020
Played the guembri (instrument) alot today
Went for a walk in the city to take pictures because someone from advas class gave me the 'assignment' to take pictures of some things such as, an Icecream, a foreign carplate, a group of youngsters :p, ...
Did some screenshot back-ups of my procesjournal
24042020
Hi folks. Happy Friday!
I woke up feeling a bit guilty today because I was thinking, "I hope my dear classmates are not offended that I spoke yesterday about my need for a community coming from outside of the people I know here..." So I just wanted to give a shout out to you all and say how much inspiration you have already given me in your own unique ways and how I am still very much looking forward to getting to know you better and folding you into my community....you know like a cake batter...you put the ingredients in and you mix it up and it all becomes one delicious cake and all the ingredients are together:) Oh gosh now I really want some cake. Anyway, just wanted to put that out there. :)
Also wanted to share this: https://www.flandersartsinstitute.be/news/5956-the-new-strategic-vision-statement-for-the-arts-a-summary?utm_source=Flanders+Arts+Institute+News+%28CRM%29&utm_campaign=66f94a93a4-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_23_01_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8ba294521b-66f94a93a4-149829031&mc_cid=66f94a93a4&mc_eid=828cde71ad
24042020
Studied (arthistory)
Had a writing-session toghetter with May for Elly's Project
Watched 'Loving' movie
I had a short walk in the evening and it felt like my steps were supersmall so it felt as if I wasn't able to walk fast. The world felt super big.
25042020
Recorded a topline on a beat Steven had sent me
Had a call with Steven : Music and spirituality !
Did some painting
Reorganized my room
The lid of my recordplayer was broken and I fixed it
Studying
Watched 'Sami Blood' (movie)
Made an IMVU avatar and danced with May : I felt super weird after this IMVU thing
Downloaded 'Arkology' 3CD by Lee Scratch Perry
Started reading Tolstoy - Master and Man
26042020
So for the 'opendeurdag' I talked to a couple of people, informing them about the departement/education
Ended with : Be yourself, stay curious, make use of the time you have.
Lee Scratch Perry's Arkology playiing all the time
Some pepperseeds that my mom and I had planted started sprouting
Found some smokeables in my room and rolled up, while smokin' trough the window I felt like I was on the concert of Lee Scratch Perry I had seen years ago. This kind of return to a memorie had allready occured to me yesterday when I was sitting on the green terace. I then had some kind of flashback to Zwevegem where I went fishing with two friends I allready know since we were like 3 years old.
Went outside for a cruizesession with the board, Had a talk with a friend trough his window.
My mom had made a delicious dinner, pasta with peppers.
Dismantled an old slatted frame of my bed. So now I've got some usefull wood.
After that I wanted to go biking to somewhere I baked to a couple of times this lockdown allready. I really wanted to go there looking for a nice place to have my last smokeable.
So I grabbed a brew out of the fridge, put on a jacket, took my pre-rolled spliff, my Leaderman because you never know, a lighter and my headset.
Then it started.
I Was ready to leave when I took a little glimps on what my dad was watching on the TV. There were these screams of a woman, and another woman was getting raped. This was a french movie. This rape-scene was just so horrible, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. But since I was about to leave I left the house with my bike. I put on some music, the first song was a recording I had made of me and my dad improvising toghetter. So I started biking towards the 'scheldeweg' in the direction of 'Melle'. When I passed 'Keizerspark' I was the first one of today passing some kind of meter that counts all the people that pass. Still covered in the light of lanterns, I went through te park, following the waterside. There was nobody on the path and I realised that it was even more dark then usual at this time ('round midnight). The moon looked like a toenail and pretty yellow too. As I biked into the darker part of my 'jouney', away from the street-lighting. I felt like the bottom of my shoe was very unstable on the pedal of my bike. Since I was wearing a pair of sportsy sneakers with an airbubble I tought that the relief on the sole would have caused this feeling. So I went on, but after a little while I didn't believe that it was my shoe so I stoppen and checked the pedal. I found out that the arm of my pedal was getting loose. I tightend it with the surface of my finger and tried to slowly bike further on my way. While moving on, I called Tomas who had assembled this bike to ask if this is a major problem and if this could mean that I should better stop biking... As long as I don't put a lot of pressure on the left pedal (the one that was loose), it would not be a major problem but I should fix this when I get home. I wanted to still get to my destination so I didn't stop. Now I stopped listening to my music and I was hearing everything around me now. Then, as I was getting pretty close, I was biking next to a nature part with a 'secret' lake I sometimes went to
some years ago. This little reservoir had been surrounded with big fences for about almost a year now, so I got the plan to go to the lake. Suddenly there were a big herd of sheep next to the path I was biking on. This was the first time I had seen these sheep. I was thinking about how and where I could get over the fence, into the reservoir. I heard a lot of frogs from the lake. I found a spot to start my mission and descended the hill next to the path, slipping down through the wet grass, struggeling my way to a concrete structure to stall my bike out of sight. I put my bike there and started looking for a way to get over the trench, that was surrounding the fence. After I crossed the trench I had to look for some kind of gap in the fencing where I could climb over easily. Keeping in my mind where my bike was and thinking about the fact that I would have to find my way back through all the vegetation, with the flashlight on my telephone. I found a spot to climb over pretty evidently and hopped the fence. So now I was in the prohibitted nature part, by myself, equiped with my headset, my Leatherman, my telephone to shine and record, a brew, a smokeable and a lighter. Really paying attention to some elements to remember my way back. My first attempt to get to the lake was quikly blocked by stinging nettles. So I walked further across the fencing untill I came across a path. The path took me through the woods, I'm hearing a lot of sounds, coming from the leaves and animals that were invisivle at this moment. The path went uphill and then the path split. The frogs where getting louder and the mysterious patter made me wonder if there would be people camping or even living in this nature reserve. I took the left path leading me over the top of the hill. And then it made a turn right, going downhill pretty steep ending upon a big puddle I had to cross balancing over some trunks that were laying over the puddle. And then I got there standing in front of the lake.
The frog croaking was getting super intense, I was feeling noticed. The croaking felt super unwelcoming, and I felt like an affraid cityboy, visiting this raw place. I recorded the croaking for a while feeling super intimidated by the dark and the loud noises that where really surrounding me as if the nature was trying to warn me. I lit my smokeable but couldn't finnish it in this chaotic space. I didn't even want to stay there too long so I stopped recording after a while and searched my way back. As I came back to my bike and started moving back, I felt that my whole body was still in some kind of shock by nature. I filmed the herd of sheeps who did look a little bit scared at first but as I immedialtly notticed one of them stressing a pose in order to pee, I had the feeling that they where comfortable with my presense. I filmed them and they were going the direction I was going to like they where running away and following me at the same time. I wish them a good night and bike to the side of a bridge where I try to calm down and take my time to think about what I had just experienced. I finnish my smokeable and drink my brew, still hearing the frogs croaking in the distance. I'm ready to return home with some Lee Scratch Perry - Arkology in my ears. After half an hour, almost home, No Peace by The Meditations made me cry while I was feeling super alive. The world changes all the time but after the experience I went through, the world changed a lot and I do not know exactly how. I just feel very alive right now.
Mist
Killed my ego in a dream
27042020
@Jaco, your night bike/pond journey was really lovely to read, it was descriptive in a way that made me feel like I was there too! I noticed when you started writing about the frogs warning my heart raced a bit and was like oh shit is something bad going to happen now, foreshadowed by the violence on the tv as he was leaving the house? But good that nothing happened, nothing except your reacquaintance with nature I guess.
Reading your story it made me think about how we will all have to reacquaint ourselves with a lot of different things when lock down lifts...how it will be normal perhaps forever now to see people wearing face masks in Europe (something already common in most of Asia), how to be within 2 meters of a person and not get spooked out and think "omg why is this person so close to me!?", how to be at a dinner party and surrounded by lots of people...because people are really such adaptable creatures and informed so much by our habits, we will readjust of course but that period of transition I think will be quite interesting/awkward.
Your experience with nature also made me think of the few times I have gone into more "wild nature", off the marked trails and just wandered on my own...there is indeed an interesting balance of feeling both (for me), scared, happy, curious, very alive and sensitive to the world around me, and also at home somehow because in the end I feel that the Earth is our home so no matter where you go, as long as you don't go out into space, you are still at Home somehow :) I wonder if people will develop greater respect and sensitivity for nature when lockdown is over and we are allowed outside again? That would be nice since nature needs our protection and if we don't help out more pandemics will happen so it is in our best self-interest really.
I watched a short clip interview this morning and liked it, wanted to share:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/opinion/esther-perel-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
This also made me laugh:
https://hyperallergic.com/558214/from-shoebox-to-white-cube-a-roundup-of-homemade-pet-museums/
27042020
Studying while listening to some records
- Hassisen - Hassisen (1973)(the cover information was different and even another artist than the vinyl itself so I got kinda confused while looking up what I was actualy listening to)
- Aymeric De Tapol - Talking with Dinosaurs (2011)
- Crosby, Stills & Nash - CSN (1977)
- Destruction Unit - Deep Trip (2013) <---- this one buzzes me out, super trippy, The vinyl comes with a big strip of LSD-tabs printed with some effective op-art.
Discovered some nice music that make me want to play
Did a first line for the Sol Lewitt drawing according to the rules of Tom Sachs ISRU thing : when I was checking the video, it was crazy how many concepts, I was confronted with just the last couple of days, that ended up in the video. Things like a specific quote by Bob Marley: Bad people never take a day of, Why shoud I? ; The (conceptual) Abyss ; Ritual ; getting into nature and nature being perfectly imperfect (something we as artist allways want to achieve in a way) ;
Reading some more Tolstoj
28042020
Received a book from Kristof (van Gestel), While thanking him in a mail I was adding some pictures of my work that are very similar to his proces, because of that I began to see some projects within the stream of different objects...
BAck to studying with some vinyl's playing
- African Shakedown (2013)
- Bernard Szajner Z - Visions of Dune (2014) <---- this is a psychedelic killer LP <3
Very interesting video about Bernard Szajner, he makes his own instruments based on lasershows and visual performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9cYiNkYabM
Did a little breaktraining, refreshing
added my second line to the ISRU drawing
29042020
Wanted to share this: https://beyond-social.org/wiki/index.php/About_Beyond_Social
And also started listening to some very very interesting podcasts from Serpentine Gallery about ecology and art: https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/exhibitions-events/serpentine-podcast
Listening to a podcast at random as I do these days,
Not usually randomly, but you know after a month of the same rotation
You run out
and want to reach into the goodie bag with your eyes half closed,
head turned slightly away as you feel in the darkness
for something to hold on to.
I listen to poets talk about counting and the census
about what and who decides
who is a person and who is not.
There are three more days in April, the month
of Poetry
of shuttered storefronts with mannequins stripped bare
of too many and yet never enough video calls
of midnight rides through empty streets
of smiles of confidence behind flimsy cotton masks
of standing in yellow taped boxes waiting to buy eggs
of holding your breath every time someone passes you by
of wondering when life is going to come back
of wondering IF life is going to come back
...
I realize that I have not read poems this month
nor written them so I sit down with my stomach full of mango juice and a breakfast burrito
I try and recall the things which already are slipping away from me like morning coffee grinds poured down the kitchen sink.
A wise man once told me that you always have to hit the record button BEFORE the action begins, otherwise you are already too late.
Am I too late?
Has the Decisive Moment come and gone
or maybe it has yet to come,
lurking around the corner, patiently, impatiently...
it is probably neither.
Poetry is what I read in the bathtub on sunny afternoons
watching the light make thunderbolts across the water.
It asks me to do nothing
except hold each word one after the other with outstretched open hands of unflinching trust,
waiting
for the reveal that comes with careful attention.
A bead of sweat squeezes through a pore and pearls down the dunes of your face resting in the pocket of your lips, salty.
I decide to write letters to an unborn child starting today and question if he will read them, when,
and what are the feelings that will fill inside his heart like a fast rising tide.
Dishes need to be washed,
art made,
emails read,
life lived.
I’m happy that in this life
I make time for words, for poetry
to ease the suffering of insignificance,
Every dust particle
a miraculous dancing diamond.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-079YIasck
@Jaco: Tom Sachs is live again!!!!
06052020
New Platform for creatives in Europe I read about in Brussels Times: https://creativesunite.eu/
04052020
Had an exam for arthistory : I have the feeling it went quite well
Went biking to 'Drongen and back, really fast :p
Made someone a present: a ring made out of an old electrical resistance ---> but for the packaging I cut of the top of a small soda-can, taped the shard edges, stuffed the can with some foam I, put the 'resistance-ring' in a super underdevelopped origami out of some tinfoil from a 'San Peligrino'-soda-can, used another of those foils to wrap around a card board cirkle to act as a lid, I attached a cord with a 'cord puller' to the lid, blocked the lid from sliding open with splitpins through four sides of the can.
05052020
came across Bilal while I was on my way to go to the store with my grannycart
played on a SP-404
reunite
Nightwalk
06052020
Bought me a bottle of Jim Beam Bourbon (whisky) in the old-fashion 'Mobile liquor store' in my street.
Wasteland
Thinking about a score for a creative game, drawing, ...
nightwalk
saw 'birdman'
07052020
Went to the secret-lake
vacationvibes
Videocall on invitation by Lukas
tried to read a book (CEL 269 by Ernest Claes) but I didn't feel the way it was written (maybe I was just very sleepy...
08052020
Started to read 'De Allerlaatste Caracara Ter Wereld' by 'Peter Verlhelst' --> very nice to read, dreamy
Went to pay a little visit to Loeke and May :p
09052020
vacationvibes
10052020
saw a video about a man that went for a survival dropping on a tropical island- the first thing he did was checking the trash from the sea that ended up on the shore
Readin
- Had a call with Ronny: He dropped me a present on the campus, we talked about 'hooikist koken' (eng. : haybox cooking), The Platform (netflixmovie) being a warning for mankind to allways be cautious (calles couro) and the question of 'how does a hierarchy arise?'. ALso we talked about Cengis Khan and Marco Polo who developped some 'new' language (= agreements) with eachother, in the end Cengiz wanted to stop contact because the more developped (their) language got, the more they argued and got into fights. We talked about the fact that 'my generation' is very visulay orientated while earlier generations where really bounded to literature and imagination. We finished with the thought of naturepeople having a very different way of making appointments, based on trust, respect, friendship, freedom and recognition.
Later on, I went to get my present... check the videos : https://youtu.be/moL2FNU7rKQ
https://youtu.be/pvGvExGqYu4
downloaded an album by badbadnotgood
UPDATIN....
11052020
woke up with noise of neighbours who are renovating their house for 9months allready, like almost everyday I have to wake up with drill-, stomp- , knocking-, pumping- , saw-, grindingnoise.
I was thinking that this sound really disturbs my concentration-capacity because I can't focus for more than 5minutes when the noises arrise through the walls of my bedroom. This starts early in the morning what causes me to not wake up in peace and it also asks a lot of energy.
listened to Terence McKenna
I received the ceramics Steven and I had made at Fiona's studio a few months ago, looked up the food-safety etc of unglazed ceramics, apart from the dificulty in cleaning it's pretty safe to drink, eat, smoke, ... out of.
ceramics : https://youtu.be/MKGls1z1-B4
The second video I uploaded yesterday got deleted by YouTube, don't really understand why so I reuploaded and updated the link I put in this pad. ... aaaand it got deleted again :/
I'm working on making a guitar out of a big oil-can...
reading in the book I started reading
watched a video interview with Stewart Copeland : music based on a sentence, the sentence forms the basis of rythm, melody, sounds, ... ; Scoring is a lot about imagination ; playing fretless ; playing with voodoo
listening to Lonnie smith - Funk Reaction (1977)
Watching The Yogi's OF Tibet (documentary)
did push-ups for the Tom Sachs ISRU drawing, it was a short hectic little line :)
"Without too much complexity in conversation, we maintain realness. "
12052020
Interesting artwork by Olafur Eliasson: https://olafureliasson.net/press/earthperspectives
A nice reminder that what/how we see influences our framework for how we think about things.
The images of the Earth are rotated in a way that defies standard representations of our planet, but of course the Earth is a sphere so really could be shown/viewed from any vantage point if you are in space.
To me it is a metaphor for our situation right now...we are being asked to think about how we view the world, ourselves, society...
Also just a cool reminder of how our eyes/brains/optics work.
Tomorrow: Belgian Release: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGWHhEx_qa0 (not sure if it's free)
Who is just as excited as us for the digital screening of the documentary "Martin Margiela In His Own Words" in Belgium on 13th May?
Put yourself on "attending" and receive notifications of this screening!
The documentary is an intimate profile of Martin Margiela, one of the most revolutionary and influential fashion designers of his time. From Jean Paul Gaultier's assistant to creative director at Hermes to leading his own brand, Margiela never showed his face publicly but reinvented fashion with his radical style for over 20 years, through 41 provocative collections. For the first time, the "Banksy of fashion" reveals his drawings, notes and personal items, giving us an exclusive peek to his vision and career. The film features interviews with, among others, Jean Paul Gaultier, Carine Roitfeld, Trend Forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort, Fashion Critic Cathy Horyn, director and chief curator of MoMu Kaat Debo and Fashion Historian Olivier Saillard. The score has been composed by the Belgian rock band dEUS.
The documentary will be on view from 13 May on ZED, Lumièreseries, UniversCiné, Proximus and Be.tv. The film will premiere on 8 May on dalton.be
Lucrates: Hey, who was the person interested in the Margiela doc? Did you watch it yet? Curious to know how it was, I would love to see it as I am a fan of his work but have to look for it online.Heleen :) still need to check it out!-on the list, will keep you updated
12052020
This morning I finished the Yogi's of Tibet (documentary)
Tried to finish the guitar/guembri I was making
Read a bit, almost finished my book
Listening to Bulgarian Orthodox Hymns
Watched The Wire season 1 episode 11 & 12 (2002 HBO series)
Lucrates: @Jaco: Was the documentary good?
It's interesting
13052020
Gathered some material from my neighbours who are renovating the house. They gave me the key to go and make a selection.
had a lazy day
Repared the doorknob of my bedroom
Gotta finish my book before tomorrows exam
15052020
I cannot believe it is already mid May! Time is passing faster and faster it seems, or is it just me?
I am curious to know how others are coming along with their AUV2 Jury projects/presentations?
I feel a bit like I'm in a bubble and without the usual interactions I would be having in de zaal I would love to see if you are interested in having an inforeal zoom or something to talk/bounce ideas?
I am a bit behind because I have been prioritizing other more pressing deadlines but still have stuff I'd love to share and very curious to see what everyone else is up to!
Oh and there will be another online communal moment NEXT THURSDAY, MAY 21, time TBD, probably in the evening.
Hope you are all doing alright and able to go out and take in some of the SUN!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUjlAGhukhE&feature=emb_title Mind-blowing!!!!! And great articulations on art-design-architecture-computation-nature-biotechnololgy-robotics! Amazingly spot on! waa cool!! thx!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDuLEWQGmwc and this one as I hope everyone is still ok! 'Hold your own' when spoken word (poetry) is stronger then a written line on a pad :) (Heleen)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmMqPgNTS1g interesting documentary about circular agriculture
Inspiring break? Designmuseum reopens this upcoming monday! I already saw a sneakpeek of the exhibition and I can say it's really really good --- hope it can inspire you all! You can book a timeslot ----by sending an email (checkout the website)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=UgUeRmwoaac&feature=emb_logo
https://space10.com/calendar/?fbclid=IwAR0xJAg_LApCX5nkzcQb0GAvTIQh6O5YKO-iRGMH0D3ExbR831B2LuyYWm4 ---- these might be very interesting! I did attend a talk of Space 10 in London and have seen installation work before - their program looks promising! And it's fun the zoom sessions are only 1 hour... Cheers!
India's Water Revolution #2: The Biggest Permaculture Project on Earth! with the Paani Foundation : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDMnbeW3F8A
@Jaco: check: https://www.z33.be/programma/victor-papanek-the-politics-of-design/ oooh merci! I looked for a pdf of the catalogue but I couldn't find it... the book is pretty expensive :/ but the musea are open again so I could actualy visit the expo
---exactly nice silent train trip, with a mouth mask though :( ---- anyway if you go, def also book a ticket for the new exhibition at Z33 (in Hasselt) on 'Time' https://www.z33.be/programma/the-work-of-time/, also looks really good and the museum just opened a new wing --- the architecture is impressive!!!
18052020
Due to a lack of rain and an defect in the roofdrain, the rain water reservoir has reached it's end... To water the plants we now save as much water as possible by changing our usual behaviour: We put a little basket in the sink for every time we rinse things of and don't use soap etc. so we can minimize spillage and maximize the amount of water that we can water the plants with. Today I found a nice way to collect water when you take shower; so in the first seshion (when you are not yet using soap etc.) you stand in a 'flexible tub' while u shower your body with only water, you can step out and hang your head over the tub when you are showering your hair. after that you can put the tub filled with water on the side and continiue with your personal showering method. I tried it out and I have the feeling that I consume way less water then with a usual shower, it's more 'just getting the job done'. I like the feel of standing in that tub, it has something timeless. And oh yeah, This little effort was worth 10 litres of water and a gratefull for this luxury.
HAd a experimentation session on the guembri I made, since it's not easy to play like a conventional guitar I started looking for new ways to create interesting and fun sounds out of this stringed instrument. Playing with a slide or a glas bottle was very nice and I found a way to create interesting drum sound by using an empty soda can as a slide... the can also becomes the/a source of sound what makes the instrument very multi-dimensional.
I watched a video by Tom Sachs - How To Learn How To Surf
Put a lot of information on Trippylinx
Studied for the art-filosofy exam of next week
Did some break-training and made some kind of mapping to structure my mindset before I start to dance
I was listening to some recordings I had made this year and I was amazed by the playfull qualities of these, I might put toghetter a selection and consider it a project. https://we.tl/t-7jQrI6Vnaj (now it's called: 'TEKNOKALIPTIK KAOS' since it's made on a KORG KAOSILATOR)
I love terence McKenna's lectures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_hDX3GzROo
19052020
I'm in a very creative mood but I have to study
Making a sourdough bread from scratch (it's goin' pretty good, I will have to let it rest until 11:30 PM to continue with shaping the bread) ----> the dough is way more liquid than last time, not easy for the last steps... I hope the bake off will work out tomorrow. I played some music for my bread :p
Did some handstand practices, trying to do handhops and switches, one arm handstands and frog to handstand
Spent hours on trying to make a lighter from a battery, it looked pretty easy in all the YouTube videos but I didn't "get the hang of it" altough I succeeced a couple of times... I want to really control this technique.
---> just realising that I'm again working on a very essential and primitive object (fire) with these postindustrial materials. ; https://www.formafantasma.com/autarchy-process --- started from research into this: 'cene di san giuseppe' in sicily // fascinating :-)
from a friend of mine: https://www.instagram.com/p/B_Z5RIojLwB/ and https://www.instagram.com/p/B-1qopTDaFx/
Ow yeah I also made a drawing template, just A4 sheets that have a grid, a 'watermark' ---> reminds me of when I was on Don Bosco (technical school) and we had to make technical drawings
I'm super happy with the TEKNOKALIPTIK KAOS album, feelin' very satisfied by such a playfull moment that I recorded in the begining of february
genious guy - radical materialist Tony Cragg : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuIMv0ur_5c
20052020
I went to sleep pretty late, the sun was allready rising
I woke up to a call with Ronny, about the minor-fashion jury, I allways get good energy from him
My mom had allready put my bread in the oven ----> turns out good but I didn't put in enough salt so it's a bit boring... for the rest, the bread has a nice consistency, krust, ...
Trying to study, we allready left the for me very interesting prehistoric, egyptian and old greek chapters and now it's all (f'ing) christianity again, yay!
Got back to making the lighter, had a hard time working with electronics (cus' I'm really not used to it) but eventualy was able to light something up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W458zmPFhE <-- documentary about John Zorn (musician & composer) : wise words: "You learn about composition and problems by studying music, you learn about esthetics by looking at art. If you work hard and think things through, they become your own. If you're shallow and don't have very incisive mind you end up religiously copying things over and over 'cus you haven't gotten into the surface. I try to break through the surface."
- I think it's beatiful how positive and negative (electrical) energy comes together in ignation. The positive- and negative pole are the superficial, the electrons are realy "doing the job". Without the electrons, + & - are the same thing. Without a circuit/system the electrons don't get pushed in all directions, they are just here. Pole-lythical pole-litical pole-ethical pole-lythium ...
2102020
Made new type of oatmeal porridge that's savory instead of sweet. Used some rosemary, garlic, chili, stock, ...
Started a new bread
Went for a bikesession, I brought my guembri allong, did some nice videodocumentation and made some music there
- Today I started practising my 'primal cry'
finished watching the documentary about John Zorn : it's amazing!
22052020
Ok, this pad changed I see
Finnished reading all the pages for artfilosofy
Started makin' music with rythems based on sentences, playing with new types of rythmic cycles, also experiencing my first steps in score-writing... this is soooo exciting
(inspired by John Zorn)
Repared a broken wineglass -->gave it another foot ... Made a little video-experiment through this analog lens/filter
Made a pedestal for my battery-lighter with the bottompart of the broken wineglass : It's not an immediatly-satisfying result but after taking a picture of this I discovered some new functions on my cellphone for editing pictures. And also the experience of just messing around with different materials is something to learn a lot from so yeah :p
----<><><>>>> ended up workin futher on these objects to create a more precious relationship with them
Listening to Yves Tumor, Dedekind Cut, ...
did some handstand and elbow-freeze practicing
Updated my procesjournal
23052020
The skatespot in my street got prohibbited to skate :(
I was feelin' weird, couldn't eat much and my head was heavy
I went biking all the way to Zele and back, on the way back I had a massive wind against me that made it even hard to go for a walking speed. I really had to push my legs to keep going. Suddenly I got passed by 2 old people on electric bikes haha but I kept riding close to them to remain a single speed and when the wind was calm I gave everything to pass them again :p When I got home I was cooked. Later this night I checked the distance I traveled and I must have biked 75km on an empty stomach, one can of beer and a hell of a wind.
Tomorrow I'll have to study for monday's exam of artfilosofy
I'm gonna watch a documentary : SANYASI - Indian Monks Documentary ... (on YouTube)
^^ haha the images are nice but the same song keeps on repeating and it's more documentation then really a documentary. It made me wonder why we don't look at not-Western art, filosofy and religion in our theoryclasses, such a shame.
24052020
wooow I really trashed my bedroom, it'z getting verry organic here :p
Started filling in the question-examples for artfilosofy
Couldn't sleep, wrote some boughtering bad toughts, i'll destroy this piece of paper soon
25052020
I allready hadn't slept for long and now they started making a damn lot of noise at 7am at the neighboours. It was the same for the other exams :/
THe exam went pretty well, I was done very quik
Made pictures as documentation for the jury of Minor-fashion
26052020
Lucrates: Hm, weird that I'm a different color now? It made me think suddenly about how strange/amazing it would be if you could wake up every day and change the color of your skin just by thinking about it.wooow! I have been very busy with trying to finish projects for classes and also juggling a lot of my interior design work demands, which is also busy at this time. Definitely looking forward to June when some pressure is off and I can focus almost all my attention on work for AUV2 Atelier. I biked yesterday to an abandoned power plant 30 min north of Gent oeeeh cool because I saw there is an open call for projects from Gouvernement and wanted to see more about the space: http://gouvernement.gent/konnektor/
The ride was nice and especially towards the end kind of weird...very industrial and then by the water I saw these HUGE container ships being loaded with what looked like construction debris. It made me wonder if it really was building "garbage" being shipped off to other parts of the world to be "recycled" or just dumped. It made me sad/angry but also curious to know more about what that GIANT (I mean literally the size of many many large buildings) pile of garbage was. I am thinking of what I may want to propose as a residency project for August through this Konnektor Open Call. Maybe some of you would also be interested and we can brainstorm together?
I'm not sure how many of you saw the email about trying to find a way to share process during these last few weeks of school but in case you didn't here is the link to the googledrive. I think the easiest way to get access is for you to click on the link and then it automatically sends me an email requesting access which I can then grant easily.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vM4ubw2P_qm2Qj-TsR_Y2ZujkUGJPHFC
26052020
So this morning I woke up in a tent with a friend in a beautiful hidden spot near 'de Gentbrugse Meersen'. After we had a very nice meeting after a very long time, we decided to camp somewhere. I think it was very important for both of us, to just put the stressiness about this period aside for a sec. ...
Made my Jury for Minor Fashion on Cryptpad ::::> https://cryptpad.fr/pad/#/2/pad/view/BnrYJ66wonAmnd7zNru6E4nPXXp+krCF5FRktBNuEbU/
01062020
So much to process these days, it was very very nice to see a bunch of you today.
I am listening to a friend of mine talk on Instagram Live right now with a doctor in San Francisco who contracted COVID himself and works in the hospital. It is a very sobering conversation which talks a lot about how little we really know about COVID and the reality that it is going to stay with us for quite a while. The idea of "herd immunity" is not really possible since apparently almost 90% of people need to have antibodies for that to happen. I am just hoping that we all stay safe and keep in mind that not only can be infecting others unknowingly but even on a personal level, we have just seen how this virus affects everyone differently and there are people who have died or suffered tremendously who were young (under 30) and did not have other health issues...and there are also many who even after recovery have longer term health issues. I know how much we want to "get back to normal" and especially now that it is summer it is so tempting to just relax...I totally get it...but we really also need to stay vigilant and hopefully figure out how to both interact/see people/give ourselves some kind of relief from two months of isolation, but also stay safe :)
Just saw this: http://www.flanderstoday.eu/12-year-old-girl-ghent-dies-coronavirus-complications So so sad...and yet another reminder that every human is special but no human is more special than someone else..which also means that there is no guarantee that if you get COVID that you will be ok no matter how otherwise healthy you are.
Will get into this more later but wanted to share this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/opinion/coronavirus-colleges-reopen-safely.html?referringSource=articleShare
Even if we do open schools back up in the Fall it isn't going to be the same as before and we really have to start talking about how to structure our academic year ahead whether it be on campus or online in a way that still permits optimal learning experiences for everyone.
HIIIII JACO HERE
I THINK THIS PAD WILL EXTINCT VERY SOON SO I LEAVE A LITTLE MARK
1539 1539 1539 1539 1539 =====>> 1539 times around 20words = 30 000 words on this pad and it will be a lot more actualy .... wow
I copy-pasted all the text to a Word Document, so here are 34515 words spread over 56 pages.
I'm gonna make little booklet with all this 'data' :), as a physical back-up.
hehe
05062020
OOOOOH NICE idea Jaco!!! A relic of corona!
I had a funny idea to pose to everyone or well lets see who is even reading this anymore?
When I met May on Wednesday in the park in Brussels, just before we met I was thinking...hmmmm...since we cannot shake hands or hug or do cheek kisses, how do we greet each other? I asked her: If you are a director of a film and you are making a sci-fi movie about another species, what would you create to be the way they greet each other?
Curious for some thoughts...and then of course I also started thinking about the ways in which we greet each other, i.e. Handshakes and the history of how those came about. Mostly I think it is about establishing some kind of trust/bond with the other...so what are the ways we can do that which do NOT involve physical touching?
http://utumno.medicinestorm.com/index.php?area=Home&sid=2cb91f8343458f08142da4e0b61e0ce6 I'm finding a lot of cool gameforums
https://youtu.be/a8UIoA1UnYY
https://stefangrossmann.bandcamp.com/album/33-free-tracks
https://opengameart.org/content/collaboration-theme-song-shades (amazing sound)
https://opengameart.org/forums/audio (site with forums)
Yesterday night it felt like my mindset became open source Ooh yeah? then check this out!
I am collaborating on this project with 7 other people (3 different countries, 6 different disciplines)
(https://wikifactory.com/+lostfinds/stories/help-us-bring-an-artefact-of-brazils-fire-ravaged-museu-nacional-back-to-life)
Curious how you will apply this mindset in your practice (Heleen) WOW cool! I was actualy lookin for somekind of forum in this style... thanks Wikifactory is in trial mode - def reach out to them...
Enjoying my walk towards Linux
I've exported all my music to mp3 and wav-files in order to take a back-up ::> 179 songs from the past 2,5 years ... I will probably make a selection-album thingy to share with the world
06052020
MAde a shelter with my TetraPak-sheet in my room, I'll sleep in there tonight
Spent a lot of time Ironing these boxes onto eachother, Now I have a sheet that contains 56(7x8) boxes
listening to Mala and Loefah, some oldschool dubstep pioneers <:<:<::<://</<::<: NICE MIX =========------>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fYomfBfEJY
08052020
Did a video performance improvisation with Steven
https://player.vimeo.com/video/360238881?fbclid=IwAR1wDpxwUD1GJK-jYBCI4OIpdwxjLrxf7YgurVFsBbk1MIkikgO98WLU7rA must see (sorry dutch only)
Today I did some exploring with my bike=, came across some new places in ghent + a man suggested me to check out zevergem, there would be some beautiful nature
My tetrapak-tent ripped a little bit so I patched it and set it up again, realised that it's not a very evident tent right now
Had a hard time figuring out in what format I will do my jury, interesting formats are, website, virtual 'world', semi-virtual world, powerpoint/presentation with pictures <--- like giving a course or somethin'