| |
|
|
| Art, Action and Academia are separate domains which
rarely combine all three. When these domains intersect or overlap
it is mostly in pairs, with one element being subordinated to the
other, like the combination of art and political action in 'agit-prop'
and the practice of 'action research' or 'participatory observation'
in sociology and education. Art is often an object of academic research,
less frequently it is the other way around. Over the years I have
learned to combine these three domains, finding my way in the fields
of art, action and academia, in that particular order. The aim of
"Art Action and Academia" project is to show the variety
of elements that made a series of 'cultural events' happen in the
last forty years, a glimpse at the social and technical context of
these events in their time, an appraisal of daily realities which
had to be reckoned with, a non-glorifying view of the past, an inventory
of limited resources, resourceful improvisation, endearing clumsiness
and unintentional discovery. It is my purpose to make it both permanent
and temporary. A permanent documentary system and a temporary series
of exhibitions. The documentary system combines the methodical with
the associative, a growing repository as the project develops, stimulating
public participation, allowing for adjustments and |
|
modifications by those who wereinvolved, facilitating
adding of new material. The exhibitions will show some working installations
(in their original form, or reconstructions). The emphasis will be
on 'interfaces' and ways of 'interaction'. Several events can not
be (anymore) presented in such a way, and will be shown by audio-visual
documentation, display of possible left over artifacts and some content
examples. The technical context will be presented by showing contemporary
examples of materials, equipment, building plans, software and hardware
manuals, and visualization of production processes. The social context
by interactive galleries of portraits and venues, and chronologies
that lead to maps of social networks, views of localities, contemporary
reports and reactions. This contextual approach will be supported
by narrations of creators, participants and observers that can be
accessed at different points in the exhibition (for instance by flashing
a chosen portrait card over a sensor). Further detailing of the exhibition
part will be done as the documentary work progresses. At this stage
the proposal is focused on my own practice and social circles, but
this can well be extended and applied to related practices of others
(a list of such other 'events' has been added as an appendix). |
| |
|
The emphasis will be on what I like to call 'cultural
events'. Having ideas, for a work, action, intervention, making them
real, make them happen, creating unique events at a given place and
time. One's own idea, or someone's else initiative; acting or reacting;
being inspired or provoked, by occasions and circumstances. Associating
with others; joining or creating a collective project; being in opposition
or part of a common cause. In all of these cases temporal situations
are created by people at specific locations, with oratory, motion,
sound, sign, tracings, presentation and interaction with objects.
Objects can be stable or have changing properties, they may be fixed
things or only instrumental devices, making an audience witness the
process of their creation or modification. Divisions between
|
|
performer and spectator, producer and consumer, of creative
arrangements and objects, may fade, but the sequence of roles, from
originator and initiator to collaborator, supporter and participator,
is rarely reversed. Each 'cultural event' has its impetus, a timely
combination of social, financial and technical elements. Cultural
events may be the showing of art works; happenings, performances,
created environments; concerts, theatrical works; creative forms of
demonstrations and manifestations; parties, festivals and other joyful
events; systems for collection and representation; visualizations
and dramatizations of political and historical information; manifestos,
public debates; broadcasts and internet works, publications and lectures.
|
 |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
The events I have chosen, show both recurring themes
and function shifts in the use of materials, equipment and objects.
In several cases the same elements have been used for different purposes
and in different circumstances, 're-contextualization' in other words:
smoke at first used for experimental film projection and later in
a protest action against a theatre play; inflatable tubing as part
of pneumatic happenings and later as a playful way to denote in real
space the lines of contested urban plans; sculptural assemblage as
part of a farewell monument to the outdated curriculum of an Italian
art academy, and as a method for an imaginary museum that represented
two centuries of revolutions; mapping as a tool to show the devastating
impact of certain urban plans and as a way to travel in time, space
and mood through urban environments on the basis of psycho-geographic
quotations.
Continuous growing and the temporal existence have been a recurring
theme, like the branching system of continuous chalk drawings with
their short existence on pavements and walls; the "endless"
looping continuous film with its flashing subliminal graphic moments;
bifurcating hydraulic tubing as part of an environment for heads;
long lengths of inflated plastic tubing as short lived play objects.
This fascination with continuity led to a playful study of topological
systems, knotting, twining and weaving, starting with the continuous
drawing and reappearing in later projects with Inca quipu cords in
an installation on shamanism |
|
and in a design for an installation named "a true
source of religion with mathematical sand drawings from different
cultures and a special loom that would display string figures from
all over the world.An example of reuse of objects is a huge inflatable
dragon, originally made for the movie "Mister Freedom" by
William Klein in 1969 by the Event Structure Research Group (ERG),
later recycled as a play object in the streets during a neighbourhood
festival in 1971 in the Nieuwmarkbuurt in Amsterdam (where the ERG
had their studio). In a similar way equipment was used in both art
and action contexts. A big slide projector once bought for projection
on the inflatable Corpocinema in 1967, was used several times for
political campaigns in Amsterdam, projecting on special painted walls
and facades of public buildings. Wireless microphones (still a rarity
in the early seventies) borrowed from the Studio for Electronic Instrumental
Music (STEIM), together with powerful amplifiers, used during a demonstration
in front of the Amsterdam city hall in 1974. In 1982 'electronic instrumental
music' (by the AMM music ensemble of Cornelius Cardew) with squeaking
and cracking sounds was played over a high power sound system during
a demonstration against the start of the building of the Stopera (the
disputed combination of city hall and opera on the Waterlooplein in
Amsterdam). This avantgarde music was combined in real stereo with
"Vieni, o guerriero vindice" from Verdi's Aida, while the
crowd pulled down the fences of the building site and set some of
the building machines on fire. A clear example of re-contextualization,
a fusion of art and action. |
|
|
|
Such cultural recycling was not only a typical Amsterdam
phenomenon, as shows a 1968 London example: a big inflatable made
by Graham Stevens, at first used during an peaceful open air hippie
gathering in Battersea Park, was later carried around at an anti-Vietnam
War manifestation on Trafalgar Square, on the raised hands of the
crowd, till the police ordered its deflation, and when the crowd refused
and walked off with the inflatable, a policeman turned hooligan and
slashed it with his pocket knife. (*)
|
|
Examples of reuse of art elements in political and civic
action, but also the other way around, with an experimental tent-like
Mongolian 'yurt' structure, first appearing during the occupation
of a building site in the center of Amsterdam in 1987, later used
during an alternative United Nations conference in Vienna in 1989
and reappearing in 1997 as a part of an art-installation on shamanism
in the Tropical Museum in Amsterdam. |
|
| 1976 urt under construction at Waterlooplein Amsterdam and as
a alternative bookshop in Vienna in 1979 |
|
Assen 1970 inflated tubing as an art spectacle by the Event
Structure Research Group and Amsterdam 1977 tubing for urban action
during opening event of radical bookshop by jeffrey Shaw. |
|
|
|
| Most of the selected events have been realized , shown,
performed or distributed in several ways, at different occasions.
Some - for all kind of reasons - did not get beyond the stage of concept,
design or proto-type: financial restraints; insurmountable sensitivities
(not to use the heavy word 'censorship'); or because certain grandiose
or utopic schemes better remain at the level of the imaginary. Nevertheless,
such schemes and plans may show the ideas of their creators in the
purest way, as most concrete realizations do involve some form of
compromise. The selection is not only about the past, some chosen
events have been conceived recently, are still developing, thus pointing
at the future, like the project on provocation and tolerance 'De Tolerantia". |
|
Making a selection needs a strategy: picking, gathering,
assembling, heaping things up and then some form of clearing and sifting,
till there is a body of information, a collection that at first contains
more than possibly can be shown. Next is a process of de-selection
which starts with the ordering of the collection, the grouping of
things into classes and categories; rules for making distinctions;
trying, changing and applying them. Then one needs to envisage what
will be the end product of this process, how things will be presented
and represented, which elements need to be grouped, which ones to
be separated, to make an impact. To do this one needs to take different
viewpoints and change one's focus. Attention is oscillating between
object and subject and as the idea of 'event' is at the core of this
proposal, also differences in context need to be considered.
|
| xx = collective
events the rest are author(s) events |
01 Abiura Pax Brera ’Academia
di belli Arti di Brera, Milano 1966
02 Continuous Drawing 1966-1967
03 Continuous Film 1966-1967
04 Pneumatic Theatre 1966-1967
05 Hommage ŕ Clovis Trouille 1966-1967
06 Situaties Haags Gemeentemuseum 1967
07 Happening Cinestud Film Festival 1967
08 Breathing, Airmatter, Soundform (heads environment) 1967
09 Corpocinema 1967
10 Waterspelen (water plays)
1967
11 Research Center Art Technology and Society 1967-1969
12 Discussion paper for ICOGRADA
design Congress 1968
13 Pariss May-June ‘68 exhibition
1969
14 Manifesto against World Expo in Osaka 1968-69
15 Toller action - revolutie is geen theater (revolution is no theatre)
1969
16 Nieuwmarkt Feesten (neighbourhood festival) Amsterdam 1971
17 Het Echte Metro Museum
(the real metro museum) 1974-1976
18 Yurt construction Anti-City
Circus/UNCSTD 1978-1979
19 Celdroom (prison dream) 1983-1985
20 Vrije Culturele Ruimtes
(free cultural spaces) 1984-1992
21 Andere informatiebronnen
(other information sources) 1984
22 Controlled Language Visual Information System CLAVIS 1986->
23 Het IJ Geopend (visualizing
urban plans for Amsterdam)1986
24 Radiophonic Installation of the Stopera 1986
25 Literary Psychogeography of Amsterdam 1986-1988
|
|
26 Hallofonische (intercom) installatie Anthoniesbreestraat 1988
27 Extreme Information Streams 1988
28 Europe Against the Current:
Bill Stickers Will Be Prosecuted 1989-1990
29 Europe Against the Current:
Radical Information Carriers 1989-1990
30 Imaginary Museum of Revolution 1988-1989
31 Videodisc Sculpture 'Revolution' 1990
32 Micro-Chrono Machine 1994
33 Orbis Pictus Revised: Looking and Pointing 1995-1996
34 Orbis Pictuse Revised:Touching and Feeling 1995-1996
35 Neo-Shamanism: Hand Scrolls 1997
36 Neo-Shamanism: Horizontal Drum in yurt 1997
37 Neo-Shamanism: Vertical Drum 1998
38 Neo-Shamanism: Stones and Primordial Myth 1998
39 Neo-Shamanism: Cyber-Shamanism 1998
40 Neo-Shamanism: Quipu cords and optical fibres 1998
41 The Gate of Language Unlocked 1999 (design)
42 Unbombing the World 1999->
43 True Source of Religion project design for Berliner Festspiele
2000
44 Paradox of Traceless Art visual lecture 2000->
45 Literary Psychogeography of Edo/Tokyo 2000->
46 Shadow Play 2003->
47 Digital Papua music scrolls 2003->
48 Ars Memoria System 2003->
49 De Tolerantia 2004->
|
|
|
|
While trying to accomplish this task an interpretative
framework grew in the form of a audio-visual and textual database
– "Art Action Academia" - with a series of interrelated
'tables' (units). At the moment of this writing there are ten units
that relate in a non-hierarchical way and allow many different ways
of interpretation: Events; Localities; Organizations, Persons, Narrations,
Chronologies, Documentations, Technologies, Objects and Reactions.
One may imagine them as sections of a 'wheel of knowledge' (rota scientiae)
whereby each unit can be placed in the center to create another point
of view, another focus. All units purposely did get a plural name
as multiple entries, interpretations, levels, classifications and
connections are facilitated by this 'documentary machine'.
|
|
The "Art Action Academia" (AAA) database is
founded on the principles developed for the "Ars Memoria System"
database project. Several units of this system have been grouped in
another rota (wheel) called "Kritikon" (originally meaning
the critical evaluation of reading and recitation of literary texts,
their aesthetic aspects and authenticity, both of entire works and
parts thereof): Bibliography, Quotations, Monades, Dictionaries, Scroll,
Author/Biography, Cornucopia, Scrapbook, Movies, Pictures. They hold
descriptions of all kind of documentary sources and links to digital
source materials (pictures, movies, sounds, websites) relevant for
the AAA system. |
 |
Events 'cultural events', a work, action,
intervention, situations created by people at specific locations.
The showing of art works; happenings, performances, created environments;
concerts, theatrical works; creative forms of demonstrations and manifestations;
parties, festivals and other joyful events; also systems for collection
and representation; visualizations and dramatizations of political
and historical information; manifestos, public debates; broadcasts
and internet works, publications and lectures.
Locations
documents buildings, temporal structures and other venues where events
took place, including public spaces: streets, squares and parks and
the spheres of electronic media: radio, television and the Internet;
Organizations related to these events, ranging
from loose groups and all kind of foundations and associations, to
private and public institutions, enterprises and governmental bodies;
Persons names, functions and roles of all people
(traceable) involved in each event, clarifying authorship by distinguishing
between collective works/undertakings and author works, refining the
last notion by differentiating between 'author' and 'contributing-author'
(added to this are 'named' groups and anonymous groups of persons/people,
with some indication of their number);
Narrations
recordings in the form of interviews, oral history and other audio
based documentation or transcriptions thereof, which can be both registrations
afterwards and selections from audio material or interviews made around
the same time of a particular cultural event;
Chronologies
are lists of, and links to, associated and related cultural events,
with a selection of one to three small pictures;
Documentations
can be inspirational publications by others, conceptual documents:
manuscripts, scores and designs, representational publications like
catalogues, posters and flyers, press reports and other public reactions,
also reflective publications: history and criticism;
Technologies
documents the equipment, materials, processes and protocols used in
an event, allowing for detailed description (firms, brands, types)
and archiving of plans, schemes and software with linkages to enterprises
and persons;
Objects is the unit that draws
the inventory of which real artifacts remain, what they are, where
they can be found, who owns it, or is in charge, in what physical
condition they are (with cross linking to the Documentations and Technologies
units);
Reactions gathers written and audio/visual
reactions on the content of the AAA system, differentiating between
those directly involved and outside observers. This unit is also the
place from which Narrations will start. |
|
Bibliography description of paper and non-paper
information carriers in the form of books, periodicals, pamphlets,
brochures, maps, posters, manuscripts, scores, document collections,
gramophone records, sound tapes, CD-Audio, Video tapes, CD-Rom, DVD,
etc.. Not only formal title descriptions, but also documenting the
context of these information carriers, through personal comments,
and links to comments of other people. In some particular cases critical
evaluations by others, or strong opposing views will also be noted.
A small selection of libraries, archives and personal collections
where a particular item can be found is given.
Quotation
some textual and visual quotations from the information objects are
given, Most text quotations are of such a length that they can have
some "life of their own"; visual quotations are scanned
in such a way that they can be displayed 'full screen' in horizontal
digital scrolls;
Monade are compounded headers
that summarize core elements in a quotation; they are used as indexes
to quickly survey the content of a series of quotations or to get
a quick impression of the chosen content of a book or another text
based document;
Dictionary sets of dictionaries
that form the basis of consistent language control of the descriptions
(collections of inter-related descriptors/keywords, thesaurus);
Scroll a routine that generates web versions of both
horizontal scrolls for visual quotations and vertical scrolls for
textual quotations;
Author a biographic and bibliographical
database;
Cornucopia a database system for archiving
and documentation of web-pages, web-sites and other fluctuating digital
objects; it registers embedded 'meta-data' and allows for adding external
meta-data (information about information) like owners of 'Internet
domains', statistics of Internet traffic, number of internal and external
links, etc.;
Scrapbook a utility mainly used
for gathering in a controlled way images from the Internet (with semi-automated
source and caption registration); can also be used to store, import
and export images and 'image layers' for digital productions (keeping
track of their origin and original and/or changed context;
Movie
a new module in development to document and summarize content of movies
and sound tracks;
Picture a database that manages
all picture materials of all units and databases; it reads and writes
the meta-data from and to pictures. |
All this will be not only represented in text, but also visualized.
Each event will be summarized in a 'tableau', mostly made up of several
fused picture elements. These tableaus will function both full size
and as small mnemonic pictures. In a similar way persons, organizations,
localities and objects will be shown in a visual and concise way.
The documentation part will contain both textual and visual descriptions
and quotations. |
|
|
|
|
|
Many of my works in the art field have been realized
in association with other people, either co-authored or as collaborative
works. It goes without saying that actions in the civil and political
domain were mainly collective undertakings. Collective as an associations
of individuals, a group of people bound by a common cause, which -
under special circumstances - might act as if it had one body, one
soul. When one looks back in time, this 'unity' decomposes, as it
is easier to focus on names of individuals and their interactions
than on something so volatile as the collective or group spirit of
a certain historical moment or period. Individual authorship and collaborative
or collective creation may seem to be at the extreme ends of a scale,
but one can not exist without the other. There always is a social
context, creation ex nihilo does not occur.
When non traditional materials, and new technical processes are used
in an art work, creation - in most cases - will depend on more than
just 'the individual artist'. In the process of realization of a project,
a group or collective, combining the skills of different people, will
arise. It need not be in the form of a production company or an enterprise,
as in the movie industry, but some form of division of labor, of contracting
and sub-contracting, will occur. Till today the official art world,
curators, art historians and art critics, fail to deal with this new
reality and tend to ascribe art works, projects and events, that are
clearly the product of a collaborative or collective endeavor, to
a single artist, or, at best, mention some form of co-authorship.
|
|
There are hardly any attempts to recognize individual
skills within a collaborative group. In the realm of what has come
to be known as 'media art' or 'multi-media art', the good example
of opera, ballet, theatre and film with their long lists or 'credits
rolls', naming all collaborators and their exact function within a
production, has not been followed. This is surprising, because even
the name of this category of art – multi-media - denotes usage
of multiple technologies and skills, hence involvement of more than
one person.
The practice of singling out 'one', or only a very few names, certainly
has an economic background. Someone who is publicly credited with
singular authorship stands a better chance in the competitive art
market, will also be better equipped to attract the necessary funding
for multi-media projects, that are often costly. There is also an
ideological side to it: the search for a leader, a conductor, a director,
who exercises dominant artistic influence upon a labor and capital
intensive medium. In the field of motion pictures this focus on one
person – mainly the film director - who has made a personal
imprint on a body of films, who had the principal responsibility for
making aesthetic choices, is called 'auteurism', an idea originating
in French critical writing on movies in 'Les Cahiers du Cinéma',
half a century ago, by André Bazin and François Truffaut
(1). The most quoted opposite view on this aspect of cinema comes
from the German-American art historian Erwin Panofsky who - two decades
before - defined the medium of film as "a co-operative effort
in which all contributions have the same degree of permanence (...)
the nearest modern equivalent of a medieval cathedral" (2).
|
| 
A small and random selection of portraits
of people involved in the selected events, 300 more of such contemporary
portraits need to be collected.
|
xxx
= at least 1 time involved as co/author or contributing author
|
Adalbert, Curt 3x
Adriaanse, Alex 1x
Aerschot, Rob van 1x
Alborn, Keith 1x
Amende, Frans 2x
Anyas, Ernest 1x
Arkel, Jan van 1x
Asch, Jan van 1x
Aubert, Jean 1x
Baanders, Bert 2x
Baanen, Peter 1x
Bakker, Frank 1x
Bakker, Gijs 1x
Bakker, Henk 1x
Bakker, Klaas 1x
Balint, Anna 1x
Baumunk, Bodo-Michael 1x
Beem, Arie 1x
Beeren, Gerrit van 2x
Beeren, Wim 1x
Beerling, Dane 1x
Beers, Ank van 1x
Berck, Bas 2x
Berg, Gerard van de 3x
Berg, Han Bentz van den 1x
Berg, Marjet van de 1x
Berge, Hans Cornelis ten 2x
Bergen, H.C.J. Struyk van 3x
Bergeyk, Gilius van 2x
Berkel, Edith van 1x
Berkvens, 1x
Bertalosi, Italo 1x
Bertschinger, Bernard 1x
Beukers, Henriet 1x
Beumer, Mieke 2x
Bijlsma, Auke 1x
Bijnen, Hein 1x
Bishop, Ryan 1x
Bismarck, Beatrice von 1x
Blazer, Carel 1x
Boelen, Olivier 2x
Boersma,
Pieter 14x
Boesten, Ellen 1x
Bonomi, Aldo 1x
Boots, Maaike 3x
Bos, Wim 1x
Bosch, Robert 6x
Boshard, Antonia 2x
Bossinade, Bas 3x
Botschuyver,
Theo 4x
Bouhuijs, Daan 1x
Bouman, Tom 1x
Bouwman, Tom 1x
Braak, Krijn ter 1x
Braches, Ernst 2x
|
Brandenburg, Paul 1x
Breebaert, Dick 1x
Breenen, Jan van 1x
Breuker,
Willem 2x
Brinkman, Jorgen 1x
Brouwer, Ruud 1x
Bruinsma, Max 1x
Burleson, Felix 1x
Cadat, Anna 1x
cafe, Wouter (Jazz cafe) 1x
Cairo, Edgar 1x
Cate, Ritsaert ten 1x
Cattaneo, Enrico 1x
Cavaliere, Alec 1x
Ceriez, Meriam 1x
Chopin, Henri 1x
Citroen, Charlie 1x
Clay, Jean 1x
Clement, Muriel 1x
Cobbing, Bob 2x
Courbois, Pierre 2x
d’Heilly, David 1x
Davidson, Steef 3x
Derks, Hans 1x
Dibbets, Karel 1x
Diedrich, Axel 2x
Dieleman, Edmond 1x
Dijkhuizen, Guus 1x
Dorst, Tankred 1x
Duijnhoven, Martin van 1x
Dukes, Jeannet 2x
Duller, Annet 1x
Eeden, Michael van 1x
Egger, Philippe 1x
Eissens, Josien 6x
Elsken, Ed van der 1x
Erkel, Frans van 2x
Feggelen, Finy van 1x
Francken, Wim 1x
Friedman, Lin 2x
Fujihata, Masaki 1x
Fukuzawa, Shuichi 2x
Gaehme, Tita 1x
Gales, Fred
15x
Garcia, David 1x
Gastkemper, Erik 2x
Gevers-Deijnoot, Wendela 1x
Glas, Aram 1x
Gorter, Arjen 2x
Graaf, Midas van der 3x
Griffioen, Marijke 4x
Grootveld, Robert Jasper 1x
Haan, Tristan 1x
Haas, Polo de 1x
Haensel, Bart 5x
|
Haga, Hiraku 1x
Hahn, Chris 1x
Hak, Koos 1x
Hall, van 1x
Hamel, Maxim 1x
Hampel, Gunther 2x
Hamsch, Katja 1x
Hans, Job 1x
Harn, Piet van 1x
Hartzema,
Robert 2x
Hattinger, Gotfried 2x
Heemskerk, Willem 1x
Heesakkers, Chris 2x
Heijn, Jan 1x
Heijningen, Matthijs van 3x
Henegouwen, G.K. van Beijeren Bergen en 1x
Herzog, Ralf 1x
Hey, Jozef 1x
Hidenobu, Jinai 1x
Hoeben, Max 1x
Hoef, Jan van der 1x
Hoeneveld, Herman 1x
Hofman, Hannes 1x
Hofman, Tini 1x
Hoogveld, Frank 6x
Hudrisier, Henri 2x
Huisman, Zegert 1x
Hurk, Yvonne van der 1x
Inui, Yoshikazu 4x
Ito, Toshiharu 4x
Jansens, Magda 1x
Jong, Jan de 2x
Jong, Rudolf de 2x
Jonigkeit, Elke 1x
Jozef, 1x
Jungbaum, Charly 2x
Jungman, Jean Paul 1x
Jungmann, Jean-Paul 1x
Kaagman, Hugo 3x
Kaan, A. 1x
Kaigere, Gerson 1x
Kakudate, Masahide 4x
Kaminski, Harmuth 1x
Kamperhout, Daan 1x
Kasander, Kees 1x
Keevel, Chris 1x
Keuken, Johan van der 1x
Klaassen, Piet 2x
Klarenbeek, Iniek 1x
Kleynen, Theo 2x
Kloos, Maarten 1x
Kloosterman, Jaap 1x
Klundert, Arnold van der 1x
Knegtman, Marise 1x
Knipscheer, Frank 1x
|
Knoppers, Rijkert 1x
Kohei, Sugiura 1x
Koide, Izumi 1x
Kondo, Noriko Vroonen 2x
Kooren, Walter 1x
Koot, Winanda 1x
Kraaijvanger, Hubert 2x
Kraan, Peter van der Pouw 7x
Kransberg, Dorian 1x
Kupka, Karl 1x
Lakerveld, Carry van 2x
Landkroon, Jan 1x
Latham, John 2x
Latham (Steveni), Barbara 1x
Lebouille, Max 1x
Ledoux, Jacques 1x
Leen, Tante 1x
Legene, Suzan 3x
Leursdijk, 1x
Leusink, Gerd-Jan 5x
Lok, King Choi 1x
Lovink, Geert 1x
Lucieer, Rudolf 1x
Luns, Martijn 1x
Maio, Alessandro 1x
Maioli, Walther 1x
Mannetje, Hans 't 1x
Maroribo, Eefje 1x
Marsch, Sjon ter 3x
May, Gideon 2x
Melis, Liesbeth 1x
Merwen, Jaap van der 1x
Mijksenaar, Paul 1x
Miller,
Sean Wellesy- 1x
Mills, Barney Platt 1x
Mogaki, Hiroko 1x
Molenkamp, Rob 2x
Mona, 1x
Moreel, Bas 2x
Morel, Huib 2x
Morita, Takashi 1x
Moroni, Primo 1x
Morris, Desmond 1x
Mullens, Harry 1x
Murchland, Tony 2x
Nanaki, Julian 1x
Neeteson, Kees 1x
Nelisse, Huib 1x
Nevejan, Caroline 2x
Nijenhuis, Tineke 1x
Nijland, Nico 2x
Nimwegen, Lou van 2x
Nishijima, Noriko 1x
Nooijer, Paul de 1x
Odette, Birgitte 2x
|
Oklobdzija, Mira 4x
Onderwater, Jelle 1x
Oosterwijk, Willem van 1x
Oostrom, Bruce van 1x
Os, Hans van 4x
Os, Mara van 1x
Oster, Guus 1x
Oudshoorn, Suzan 1x
Overbeek, Mariet 2x
Ozon, Diana 1x
Panhuysen, Paul 2x
Pape, 1x
Passoni, Franco 1x
Penner, Reinaldo 1x
Perasovic, Benjamin 1x
Perry, Clay 1x
Pieters, Ludo 2x
Pieterson, Sjors 1x
Piromalli, Aldo 1x
Pixley, Alex 1x
Pixley,
Rolf 10x
Plas, Wim 1x
Poel, Klaas 1x
Poncia, Klaas 1x
Porte, Andree de la 1x
Post, Leo 1x
Prins, Jan 1x
Prüst, Toon 1x
Raijmakers, Bas 1x
Ravensteijn, Leopold van 1x
Reinout, 1x
Riemsdijk, Jan van 1x
Rietveld, Marieke 1x
Rijn, Cor van 2x
Ros, Guus 1x
Rosema, Wim 1x
Ruller, Jaap van 1x
Sangregorio, Giancarlo 1x
Scha, Remko 1x
Schat, Peter 1x
Schiks, Carine 1x
Schindowski, Waldemar 1x
Schmidt, Lothar 1x
Schook, Ammeke 1x
Schook, Florence 1x
Schouwenburg, Dirk 1x
Schuiling, Dick 1x
Schuurman, Otto 4x
Schwarz, Hans-Peter 2x
Scott, James 1x
Serexhe, Bernhard 2x
Shaw,
Jeffrey 12x
Sinke, Ine 1x
Smook, Rutger 1x
Sonepouse, Pim 1x
|
Sonsbeek, E.H. van 2x
Spek, Johannes van der 1x
Spitteler, Henk 1x
Stevens, Graham 1x
Stolk, Rob 3x
Stolk, Saar 2x
Stranger, Miek 1x
Strijkers, J.M. 2x
Suzuki, Akira 2x
Swaanswijk, Henny 1x
Swart, Herman 3x
Taken, Claudia 1x
Tamminga, Mini 1x
Tellegen, Adinka 1x
Thackara, John 1x
Thimme, Eva Maria 1x
Tieghem, Jean Pierre van 1x
Tijen, Lena van 1x
Tijen,
Tjebbe van 49x
Tillemans, Walter 1x
Tobu, Akiko 2x
Tol, Bas van 2x
Tonka, Hubert 1x
Toorn, Jan van 1x
Tuijnman, Dick 1x
Tummers,
Nic 2x
Ueno, Toshiya 1x
Uytenhaak, Rudi 1x
Veen, Gerda van der 1x
Velthoven, Willem 1x
Ven, Frans van der 1x
Verlaan, Tony 1x
Vermeij, Eef 6x
Vink, Stefan 1x
Vinkenoog, Simon 1x
Visser, Hans 2x
Vojtechovsky,
Milos 3x
Vugt, Ewald van 1x
Wahedi, Mazdak 4x
Wakabayashi, Yayoi 4x
Walraven, Boudewijn 1x
Waterbolk, Niek 1x
Weiland, Frits 1x
Wessing, Koen 2x
Wibaut, Josje 1x
Wiedeman, Hans 3x
Wilde, Eddy de 1x
Wolfswinkel, Gerrit 1x
Woud, Foke 1x
Yamashita, Kazumasa 1x
Yongsuwan, Suphab 1x
Zijl, Sietze 1x
Zoest, Pepijn van 1x
Zouteriks, Cock 4x
|
|
t |
|
|
I have in mind neither the 'cult of the individual artist',
nor the over-glorification of 'the collective', when attempting to
make an overview of forty years of collaborations. My intention is
to go beyond this dichotomy, to show both the unique influence of
an individual creator and the indispensable skills and qualities of
specialists and generalists in the production process of a work or
event. Maybe some of the vocabulary in use should be changed, like
using the object oriented term 'contributor' instead of the person
oriented term 'collaborator', putting the creative work 'itself' more
in focus than its "alleged" authors.
While working on the list of collaborations, more and more names of
persons, groups, organizations and institutes surfaced. Some names
came up by checking archival material, others were unearthed from
memory. Names thus found, often triggered series of other names and
associations. During the first attempts to categorize each person's
or organization's involvement, it appeared that some of them had played
a role that did not fit the usual scheme of professions or functions
linked to media production. Still they had been instrumental.
|
|
Persons who were inspirational, electrifying, gave moral
support, lend their name, or the name of their organization. In short:
those who helped to get a project off the ground or kept it going
(mostly an invisible phenomenon, sometimes signaled by a personal
dedication). It is important, to also document this aspect, to give
some understanding of the time and social context in which a project
was conceived and realized. Collaborations combining conceptual, financial,
technical and managerial skills, within a supportive social network.
Small picture galleries with – for each project - contemporary
portraits of those involved, will personalize, what otherwise would
be just a list of names. Some of these people can be interviewed or
oral history material can be searched for.
It goes without saying that there were also people who were opposing
certain 'events', or events that were targeting certain persons or
organizations. These may be listed and represented as well in a way
that breathes some historical distance and allows for counter-interpretations
by others. |
 |
| Logo's and letter heads of some o the supportive
organizations during the last 40 years, the complete list is below,
this is just to give an idea of the variety. |
xxx
= commissionar. sponsor, subsidizer |
AUT Linz
Brucknerhaus
1x
BEL Bruxelles
Cinemathčque
de Bruxelles 1x
La Ligne Générale 1x
BEL Ieper
Lernhaut & Hauspie 1x
CZE Prague
Knihovna Národního Muzea 1x
Národní Knihovna 1x
National Gallery (Valdstejnská Jízdarná) 2x
Soros
Center for Contemporary Art 2x
DEU Berlin
Berliner Festspiele 1x
DEU Karlsruhe
Fachhochschule Karlsruhe 1x
Medien
Museum Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie 3x
DEU Köln
Stadtarchiv Köln 1x
Verlag der Buchandlung Walther K nig 1x
DEU Lüneburg
Kunstraum der Universität Lüneburg 1x
DEU Nürnberg
Stadbibliothek Nürnberg 1x
DEU Wolfenbütel
Herzog August Bibliothek 1x
FRA Paris
Les États Généraux du Cinéma 1x
Nouveaux Printemps 1x
SNESUP 1x
GBR London
Artist Placement Group (APG) 1x
Better
Books 3x
Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) 1x
London Filmmakers Coop 1x
Maya
Fim Productions Ltd. 1x
St. Martins School of Art 1x
ITA Milano
AASTER 1x
Radio Populare 1x
JPN Tokyo
BOCTOK 4x
Inter Communication
Center NTT 4x
Japan
Foundation 1x
Library International House of Japan 1x
Tokyo Geidai (art academy) 2x
Wacom
Japan 1x
NLD Amersfoort
Documentatie en Informatie centrale (DIC) 1x
NLD
Amsterdam
Amsterdams Historisch Museum 4x
Amsterdamse
Jeugdraad 2x
|
Bewonersraad Nieuwmarkt 1x
Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica 1x
BRS
Premsela Vonk 1x
Bureau Jeugdzaken Gemeente Amsterdam 3x
Buurtcentrum De Boomsspijker 1x
Cinestud
Filmfestival 1x
Criminologisch Instituut Universiteit vcan Amsterdam 1x
Dadadata 3x
De Pleinwerker 2x
Doors of
Perception 1x
European
Cultural Foundation 2x
Event Structure Research Group (ERG) 1x
Fonds
voor de Beeldende Kunst 1x
Gallerie Het Getal 0 1x
Gallerie W139 2x
Gemeentearchief Amsterdam 2x
Geologische Faculteit Vrije Universiteit (VU) 1x
Het vrije Archief Nieuwmarkt 1x
Instituut voor Phonologie Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA) 1x
International Institute of Social History 3x
Kunstzaken
Gemeente Amsterdam 2x
Leeszaal voor de bevrijding van de Consument 1x
Maatschappij
voor Oude en Nieuwe Media 2x
Mozes en Aaron Kerk 1x
Museum Fodor 2x
Nederlands Filmmuseum 2x
Nederlandse Comedie 1x
Next
5 Minutes 1x
Obibio
2x
Oost-Europa Instituut 1x
Prins
Bernhard Fonds 1x
Projectgroep
Nieuwmarkt 1x
Projekt
Alternatieven voor Samenleving en technologie (PAST), Stichting
1x
Radio 100 2x
Radio Factum 1x
Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (RIOD) 1x
Seminarie voor Massapsychologie Universiteit van Amsterdam 1x
Sigma Centrum 4x
Sigma Projekten 6x
Staatsarchief 1x
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam 4x
Stenoscoop 1x
Stichting De Straat 1x
Stichting Europa Tegen de Stroom 2x
Stichting
Goed Wonen 1x
Stichting Montevideo 1x
Stichting
SKOR 1x
Stichting TOOl 1x
Stichting Vrije Gemeente 1x
Studentenvereniging Machiavelli UvA 1x
Studio Stampij 3x
Tropenmuseum
5x
|
Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam 11x
Verening Voor Vreemdelingenverkeeer (VVV) 1x
Wijkcentrum
d'Oude Stadt 4x
Xinema Xinix 1x
Zomerstraat Theater/Theaterstraat 3x
NLD Den Bosch
V2 1x
NLD Den Haag
Haags Gemeentemuseum 1x
Haagse
Filmstichting 1x
Ministerie
Cultuur Recreatie en Maatschappelijk Werk 1x
Ministerie
Welzijn Volksgezondheid en Cultuur 1x
Raad voor de Kunst 2x
Royal
Dutch Airlines KLM 1x
NLD Eindhoven
De Andere Krant Eindhoven (DAK) 1x
Globe Theater 1x
Nederlandse Filmmakers Cooperatie 1x
New Electric Chamber Music Ensemble 1x
NLD Emmen
Cross Point 1x
NLD Haarlem
Spaarnestad Archief 3x
Uitgeverij Knipscheer 2x
NLD Hattum
De Waal Scanning B.V.
1x
NLD Leiden
Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde 1x
NLD Lisse
Microformat Systems 2x
NLD Loenersloot
Mickery Theater 1x
NLD London
Kingly
Street 26 Keith Albarn & Partners 2x
NLD
Odijk
Kodak Nederland 1x
NLD Rotterdam
Kunstzaken
Gemeente Rotterdam 2x
Museum
Boymans van Beuningen 3x
NAi Publisher 1x
Rotterdamse
Kunst Stichting 2x
NLD 's Herenberg
GENAP 1x
NLD Schiedam
Qcat 1x
NLD Utrecht
Ekologische Uitgeverij 1x
Geluidsarchief Instituut voor Geschiedenis UvU 1x
Stichting Film en Wetenschap 1x
Studio voor Elektronische Muziek 1x
NLD Zeist
Nederlandse Kunst Stichting
3x
|
|
|
|
|
In a similar way the technical context will be documented.
Listing for each work or event the configuration of elements used
at the time: equipment, materials, substances, processes and protocols;
explaining their use (sometimes misuse), their availability and cost
aspects. Not only elaborating on 'high-tech' devices and processes,
but also expounding on the low-tech and intermediate and household
technologies that have been used.
The technological changes that impacted on the chosen ‘events’
in the forty year period to be documented, can hardly be discerned
from the shifting labels once applied to them. The meaning of these
terms needs to be specified to be still understood. Just a few 'labels',
that apply to the selected events, as an example (mid sixties - beginning
of the seventies): ‘action art’, ‘happenings’,
‘expanded cinema’, ‘environments’, and ‘mixed
media’.
‘Action art’ and ‘happenings’,
real-time events, often starting with an idea with loose ends allowing
for inadvertent interventions, with frequent use of materials |
|
that could make a big impact with little money (plastic
foil, bags, bottles, tubing, foam, spray cans, felt pens, tape, party
fun articles and household equipment like vacuum cleaners used as
blowers to fill primitive inflatables); ‘expanded cinema’,
indicating real-time manipulation of the movie projection surface
or other changes in the display context (with the use of special welding
machines for plastic foil, synthetic fiber textile, tensioning cords
and industrial blowers to make big inflatables, with water pumps,
paint sprayers and pyrotechnics, high power projectors and sound systems);
‘environments’, spaces that physically could be entered
by the spectator, with often some form of manipulation of objects
(with film and slide projections, tape recorders, chemical effects,
and soft surfaces with foam rubber and the like); ‘mixed media’,
a mish mash of things thrown together as a spectacle with some form
of audience participation (film, slide, liquid and stroboscope projection,
combined with bubble blowing and smoke machines, action painting,
electro-instrumental music, and other sensorial effects and tricks). |
|
l |
|
|
| In hindsight all this can be labeled as analogue forms
of multi-media, which have - for the part of the audio and visual
elements - been succeeded by digital multi-media technologies, but
that is a too simple divide. There is a big grey zone where analogue
and digital technologies coexisted and still coexist. Not only through
the digital recycling of analogue originals of text, image or sound
documents, but also because of cost factors, limited data storage
and process capacity. This lead to hybrid configurations of analogue
and digital equipment, and processes. Sound and moving imagery were
for many years too demanding tasks for the kind of |
|
computer equipment artists would have access to, so
analogue tape decks and video recorders, even slide projectors, had
to be interfaced to digital computers. A growing demand for interactivity
and instant response to give the user a feeling of being in command,
was another problem to tackle. Lack of processing speed would force
the designer of an interactive system to “cheat” the user
by some detour that would create the necessary time to load and display
a chosen series of images and or sounds. These are interesting backgrounds
to be recorded in the form of audio/video interviews and selected
and annotated production documents. |
 |
|
|
|
| The digital apparatus is progressively absorbing most
of the textual, audio and visual tasks, providing for our eyes and
ears, but this leaves out the other senses: the tactile, smell, taste
and balance of the body. In the varied list of funny materials and
unexpected equipment used in the cultural events of sixties and seventies
one finds several examples of materials that have something to offer |
|
for these senses. This need for materiality and tactility
must be something left over from having been a sculptor and has found
its way in several of my later installations where computers are combined
with all sorts of materials, either as triggering devices for computer
steered events or as environmental elements that can be touched or
manipulated. |
|
|
|
| As there is a tendency to present only the most spectacular
and advantageous images of the 'final product', it will be interesting
to show as well pictures of experimental phases, proto-typing, construction,
technical functioning and working situations. Such images will have
a sobering, and also familiarizing effect and might change the way
this period is conceived. Next to that, small tableau like |
|
'picture strips' with 'genera' imagery of the listed
equipment and processes, will make the technical background understood
in a glimpse of an eye. In the search for the right technical images
one often needs to go in detail, finding back manufacturers, brand
name and type. This process forces one to be specific, thus enhancing
the quality of the technical documentation. |
 |
|
|
|
| The development of art and technology in the last half
of the twentieth century reflects of course the social and political
changes of that period. Describing these changes at this stage of
proposal is hardly possible, it would become either a too long expose
or a schematic oversimplification. Such an effort of summarizing and
analyzing will be better done after the working stages of documentation
of events, construction of chronologies, inventories of technologies,
and registration of |
|
personal narratives. Then it will be possible to combine
the specific with the general, the personal with the collective, to
base an analysis on more than just a few remaining personal impressions
and opinions. Still social and political changes are explicit in many
of the 49 selected 'cultural events' and the following somewhat chronological
and associative ordered overview may convey the gist of the time. |
|
|
|
| Art student at the beginning of the sixties, specializing
in sculpture, going to different art academies, in the Netherlands,
Italy and England, noticing the discrepancy between the experimental
art of the time and what was taught in the art school, criticizing
these institutions in a playful way with a monument that abjured the
art academy (shown in 1966 in Milano). While the role of the artist
in the sixties was still predominantly that of a producer of lasting
fixed objects for the art market, deviant approaches appeared, which
emphasized the temporal, evading the art market and institutions,
using alternative venues or taking to the streets. I found my way
to this public space by asking a question: Why should a drawing or
painting end at the edge of a piece of paper or a canvas, and, when
it will spoil over the edge, why should it end at all? This theoretical
question did get |
|
a practical expression in a system for continuous drawing
on people, through buildings and out in the streets, over all kind
of surfaces with erasable materials. Subsequent projects evolved in
collaboration with other visual artists, industrial designers, musicians
and technicians with materials and techniques that expressed and emphasized
temporality: plastic foil and tubing, inflatables, projections, smoke
and other pyrotechnics. Such happenings, momentary environments and
installations, were still somewhat related to the art field, but also
fused easily with the mixed media events, parties and festivals of
the cultural underground movement, from the mid sixties to the beginning
of the seventies. Some elements also fitted a changing public policy
that was looking for new forms of recreation and child play. |
|
|
|
| The first big series of outdoor events took place during
the happy summer of hippies and flower power in 1967. It was like
being in a cyclon’s eye with all the turbulent troubles of the
world almost out of sight. Apart from some anti-consumerist references
there was hardly any political content in our projects of that time.
That was going to change soon. Winter 1967 at the Experimental Film
Festival of Knokke Le Zoute in Belgium, the ‘Moviemovie’
was shown, a big bouncing inflatable structures surrounded by the
public (which was invited to participate) on which from all sides
different movies and liquid projections were shown. One of these movies
was a promotional American government film on |
|
the war in Vietnam another an anti-communist cartoon
film of the John Birch Society. This political intend got mostly lost
in the fierce movement of the projection structure and was misunderstood
by some in the audience, including a group of marxist activists. They
later stormed the stage, when the relationship between art and society
was discussed, waving a big banner with a manifesto against the imperialist
American Vietnam War and the ‘cine-imperialist’ (Agfa,
Kodak and the like) that supported experimental film festivals only
as a tool to blind the artists and help evade the real political issues
of the time. |
|
|
|
| Half a year later, spring 1968, I co-authored a manifesto
that was send all over the world, discussing the hypocrisy behind
the lofty ideals of ‘world exhibitions’, this as the 1970
World Fair of Osaka was in preparation and had as it motto “progress
and harmony for mankind”. The text spoke about the early history
of world fairs with all nations represented exhibiting in one communal
space and the shift after 1867 when each nation was represented by
a ‘national pavilion’ which led to the outdated Olympians
of ‘national ideals’ we still know today. This manifesto
was debated during a series of meetings of Dutch artists, architects
and designers on cooperation between art, technology and industry,
known as the Fodor Conferences. Several participants were potential
candidates for the Dutch Osaka representation. |
|
These conferences held in the period 1968-1969, also
discussed a new American model of technical cooperation between artists
engineers and industry (Experiments in Art and Technology/EAT founded
in 1966). Now, some of the enterprises involved in EAT were also part
of the military-industrial complex linked to the growing war in Indochina
(the American EAT group did – in the end - participate in Osaka
with lots of resources in the Pepsi Pavilion). This frustrating fact
damaged the positive view of the art, technology and industry combine.
For me personally it marked the beginning of a decade in which I took
a critical distance from the art world and got more and more involved
in civic and political actions in which, nevertheless, artistic elements
would surface. |
 |
|
|
|
| This started in the summer of 1968 by making a critical
publication on art and design at the occasion of an international
ICOGRADA conference (International Council of Graphic design Associations)
and later that year initiating and working on an exhibition about
the French May-June 68 movement, held early 1969 in Amsterdam. A political
demonstration late 1969 against "bourgeois representation"
of a revolution in the theatre play Toller by Tankred Dorst (part
of many similar actions at that time, questioning established art
institutions). A questioning also of urban renewal plans combined
with a fight for housing and against inner-town gentrification, concentrating
around the Amsterdam Nieuwmarkbuurt, involving the use of wall posters,
murals, pirate radio, exhibitions and neighbourhood festivals. A critical
inventory, in 1984, of groups and projects related to other ways of
economic development, ecological conscience and appropriate technology,
against a backdrop of a social-geographic analysis of 'world views'
and beyond Western models and Third Worldism. |
|
Likewise a databased inventory, made in the period
1985-1989, of alternative and radical publishing, performing and other
cultural activities in a Europe beyond the 'iron curtain' cumulating
in an international fair and exhibition in Amsterdam in September
1989, just before the fall of the Berlin wall. 350 groups from 21
countries took part in this manifestation organized by many volunteers
around the group and foundation ‘Europe Against the Current’.
The idea was to come to a direct cultural exchange between East and
West Europe, on the basis of contacts between persons and groups,
outside the official exchange of nation-states. We wanted pluriformity
and diversity, freedom of expression and free exchange of information
and so a wide variety of groups took part, often with opposing ideologies.
This led to some exemplary confrontations with Italian and Dutch 'autonomous'
radicals from Western Europe during the manifestation and wondering
East European participants who could have little sympathy with such
militant leftist behaviour. |
|
|
|
From the end of the eighties some of these political
themes resurfaced in an artistic context, backed by historical research.
The Imaginary Museum of Revolution project is such an example, studying
different meanings and representations of two centuries of ‘revolutionary
moments’ on the basis of small replicas of statutes that directly
or indirectly commemorate such moments. The installation made it possible
to navigate through time, space and ideology, starting from one chosen
statue - which could be bought from a dispenser machine - showing
different relationships between the three elements.
Actions against the destruction of parts of old Amsterdam, with at
its epicenter the struggle against a new subway line in the mid seventies,
generated questions: which and whose past to preserve and reconstruct;
how did older generations experienced their living environment; how
can new urban design reflect the spirit of the past, without simply
copying and cloning outer forms. These questions triggered the idea
for a study of 'literary psycho-geography', a method for mapping time,
space and mood on the basis of short literary quotations. |
|
Starting with a study of the former Jewish quarters
of Amsterdam in 1977; later involving other parts of town, and in
2000-2001 extending to a comparative psycho-geographic study of the
'world city' of Edo/Tokyo with the 'world village' of Amsterdam. Another
theme related to urban destruction and reconstruction, not of singular
towns but of hundreds of towns on a global scale, can be found in
the ‘Unbombing’ project that began at the end of the nineties.
This project attempts to visualize and dramatize almost one century
of aerial bombardments, of targeting or unintentional hitting humans
and human habitat; how perpetrators and victims experienced these
disasters; what was destroyed and how it was rebuild; how the dead,
and the vanished urban and other landscapes, lived on in the minds
of the survivors. This project started in 1995, as a reaction on the
heated international debate on the dropping of the atom bombs on Japanese
cities in 1945. A debate that mainly flourished on the Internet, mostly
between Americans and Japanese, which hardly got beyond the exchange
of mutual accusations and failed to address the wider historical context
of modern warfare and its use of direct terror against civilians in
the form of aerial bombardments. |
 |
|
|
|
| still to be written] |
|
|
|
|
|
| At first there is one's own life time which brings –
at certain stages – many to some form of retrospect., which
in itself could well remain a private exercise. Next there is the
confrontation with other people's interpretation and representation
of the past you have lived yourself, by people of your own generation,
or generations after. One may recognize oneself in it or fail to do
so. On the positive side one may identify with opinions expressed
by participants, outsiders or newcomers, or at least understand their
criticism and interpretation. On the |
|
negative side one may feel a lack of dimension and
detail, or notice mistakes and distortions. One may grumble over such
shortcomings, leave it, forget about the past - that anyhow will always
be made different by each generation. One may choose not to try oneself
to do better, because each reconstruction of the past must remain
fragmentary and will become once more debatable. Such a relativist
and defeatist point of view belongs to a linear view of time, with
history as an endless series of progressing events: uncertain beginnings
and no end in sight. |
|
|
|
| There is also a more personal experience of time that
makes another approach possible. Remembering how you learned from
other people. How you loved to hear their stories; the books they
recommended; the things they showed you; their support when you were
eager to learn more. Joy of reading, urge of discovery, searching
bookshops, libraries, archives. Left traces of other people, |
|
other lives. Receiving from others who came before
you implies giving to the ones after you. This can be seen as a more
cyclical approach to time, a 'passing on' from generation to generation,
not so much as an act to escape oblivion, or create eternal values,
but as a social venture, just for the pleasure of communication itself
and the human need for some form of recognition. |
|
|
|
| Making the 1966-2006 overview - as proposed - might
be seen as an act of posing, self-importance, pride - who does not
like some form of flattery? - but there is more to it: the mere fact
that my initial research made surface over four hundred names of persons
and organizations involved in just fifty or so events, points in another
direction. Covering these forty years in such a detailed way |
|
will help to understand how human creativity finds
its way, will show how indispensable the contribution of so many people
has been.
For an era that over-valuates the individual, creates stardom and
its related lower strata, that protects claims of personal ownership
of creativity and denies the communal, such an insight might point
to other ways.... |
|
explanation
of navigation system 
