Agenda 2018 - Stefaan van Biesen

 

 

A G E N D A : 2 0 1 8 > >

 

 

 

E X H I B I T I O N S :

 

[Art and Science Exhibits] Humboldt-Universität & Campus Nord Branch Library ⋈ Berlin Germany 2018.

[Platform Projects] the Milena principle. Independed art Fair ⋈ Athens Greece 17.05 > 20.05.2018.

[Utopia, just around the corner?] Athens Multimation 2018. > 12.10.2018.

[Library of Walks] TAF [The Art Foundation] Analogio Festival Athens Greece October 2018.

[Library of Walks] [in situ version XIV] Kinono Art Gathering in Tinos island Greece 25.07.2018.

[Art Science Exhibits] (2) Humboldt-Universität & Campus Nord Branch Library Berlin Nov. 2018.

[S.T.E.P.] Queens Museum Park [Flushing Meadows] New York USA November 2018.

[Libraries ad Gardens/Library of Walks] TAF [The Art Foundation] Analogio Festival Athens Greece 2018.

[Sixth International Exhibition] Serbian Academy of Sciences & Arts Belgrade Serbia 06.12 > 16.12.2018.

[The Walking Body] Gallery of the Minho University Guimaraes Portugal december 2018.

 

 

S O U N D S C A P E S :

 

[Ghost Conference] Bunkier Sztuki Museum gallery in Krakow Poland, on Saturday 16.06.2018.

 

 

M A D E - O F - W A L K I N G . [ IV ] :

 

[Wander Weed] [4th International meeting] Neon Chorio Akamas Peninsula Cyprus 29.06 > 08.07.2018.

[Letters to a tree / the language of plants] Plant(e)scape ⋈ Made of Walking (IV) ⋈ Cyprus 2018.

 

 

L E C T U R E - W O R K S H O P :

 

[The Walking Body] Gallery of the Minho University Guimaraes Portugal december 2018.

[Letters to a tree / Museum of Walks] De Toren School ⋈ Melsele Belgium 19.03 > 23.03.2017.

 

 

P U B L I C - S P A C E :

 

[Obstacle/Passage/Obstacle] sculpture/installation in public space: geboortepark Zwijndrecht Belgium 2018.

 

 

P E R F O R M A C E :

 

[Leafless (III)] Eleftheria Rapti & Lina Eftstathiou Platform Projects Athens Greece 17.05 > 20.05.2018.

[Utopia, just around the corner?] S.T.E.P. Queens Museum/Parsons NY USA 2018. > 12.10.2018.

[Leafless (IV)] Duo performance Eleftheria Rapti & Lina Eftstathiou ⋈ Analogio Festival Athens Greece 2018.

 

 

P R O J E C T S :

[Traces of Memory] an ongoing, current project with Dr. Shaomin Xue [China/Belgium] 2019.

[Traces of Rain] an ongoing, European current project 2019.

[Utopia, just around the corner?] a nomadic traveling book 2019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Landscape/Mindsape] ArtScie Exhibits Berlin Germany 01.11. > 30.12.2018.

Remake portable version panorama/installation 1998-2018.

 

 

[Landscape/Mindsape] Humboldt University Library. Rudower Chaussee 26, Berlin Germany 2018.

 

 

Eco-Connectivity: Public ArtSci Exhibition Series.

Ecosystems, climate change, environmental reclamation.

Opening/Vernissage Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018 16:00 - 19:00.

Thaer-Institut, Invalidenstr. 42, 10115 Berlin Germany.

 

Curated by mp Warming [USA].

 

Featuring Artists: Katrina Abbatuan [Philippines/UK], Suzanne Anker [USA], Theo A. Artz [USA],  Megumi Baba [Japan], Denise Batchelor [New Zealand], Ying Kit Chan [Hong Kong/USA], Adam Crosson [USA], Pedro Cruz [Portugal], Jose Esquivel [USA], Adam Fine of Dropcopter [USA], Liliana Folta [Argentina], Matthias Gorenflos of Gorenflos Architekten [Germany], Virginia Hanusik [USA], Sasinun Kladpetch [Thailand], Dieter Korn [Germany], Saskia Krafft [Germany], Christina La Sala [USA], Guillaume Le Moine [France], John D. Liu [USA], Emma Löfstrom [Sweden], Mara and Tyler Marxt-Lewis [Austria/USA], Tapan Moharana [India], Gerardo Nolasco [Mexico], Silvia Noronha [Brazil], Meadhbh O’Connor [Ireland], Ashley Peevor [UK], Bonnie Peterson [USA], Nathalie Rainer [USA], Jana Schumacher [Germany], Bernhard Schurian [Germany] and Stefaan van Biesen [Belgium].

 

With special Guest Artists from the School for Visual Arts New York Bio Lab.

See the complete program at > > www.artscienceexhibits.com

Location: library Humboldt-Universität & Berlin's Thaer-Institut & Campus Nord Branch Library.

 

Exhibition opening Nov. 2018 for Berlin Science Week ​ International artists working within a wide range of ecosystem thematics: biomimicry, climate change, water systems, agriculture, manipulation, modification, pollution solutions - are welcome to enter! Main gallery at Thaer-Institut is in the very heart of Berlin, next door to the Museum für Naturkunde. The complete program includes a 2D Annex Gallery, Video Screenings, Scientific Lectures, Artists Talks, and more. Chosen participants will be partnered with scientists for virtual, one on one meetings. Results and process work from these partnerships will be presented at the exhibitions.

 

https://www.artscienceexhibits.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Walking Body. School of Architecture [Minho University] Guimaraes Portugal 15.10. > 19.10.2018.

 

 

The walking body A week of conferences, workshops and performances about walking and arts, open to the students and the public are planned in Guimarães and prepare an internation gathering Made of Walking in the Minho landscape of North Portugal later in 2019. The project is hosted by Lab2PT and EAUM Licenciatura em Artes Visuais (School of Architecture - Visual Arts) of the University of Minho and in partnership with the art collective The Space Transcribers and the Museum Nogueira da Silva.

 

It prepares collaborations between University of Western Macedonia - School of Fine Arts, the University of Wales - Arts and Performance Dept and the School of Architecture - Visual Arts of the University of Minho in a contemporary translation of the rural and natural landscapes throught the body and site specific arts, within the emotions and nomadic movements that define our actual anthropocene world, through questions that artists may rise and answers that they may have.

 

[Meander III] performance/walk with the students, Minho University.

Concept by Stefaan van Biesen & Annemie Mestdagh.

 

The meeting in Guimaraes anticipates the fifth international gathering Made of Walking which will have as a topic "The walking body" and will be held in Prespes National Park and in the village of Prespes, West Macedonia - Greece, on the border of Greece, Macedonia and Albania, beginning July 2019, as part of an international conference on arts and walking organized by the University of Western Macedonia - School of Fine Arts.

 

The event will be related to the interaction of the Body to Landscape (and vice versa); the artist or the cultural nomad interprets the Landscape as an open field where he/she obtains experiences and, through them, develops ideas, concepts and his/her artwork. A particular set of emotions is created during the experience of walking in the landscape and that shapes a characteristic venue of art expression.

 

Lectures / conferences in Guimaraes

 

Silent walking / augmented walking. Geert Vermeire talks about his practice in silent walks and sound walks, which he created in the last decade. Specifically, it elaborates on new approaches and new technologies, relating to the movement of the body, in particular with sound devices and mobile phones. Since last years, also extended to mobile video and augmented reality. In Portuguese.

 

Made of Walking / The Art of Walking in the Landscape. Geert Vermeire reviews the previous editions, which took place in Greece, Cyprus and France, defined by a participative approach by participants and inhabitants, collaboratively curated in a dialogue between h the coordinator / curator Geert Vermeire and invited international artists and conceptually framed by Dr. Simona Vermeire and referring to a recent scientific and aesthetic discipline, Spaziergangwissenschaft or Promenadology (Science of Walking), created in the 90s by the urbanist Lucius Burckhardt (Germany). In Portuguese.

 

Artist talk by Stefaan van Biesen. About his walking practive and how this relates to digital media, sound, drawings & performances. The oeuvre of Stefaan van Biesen departs from an associative solidity between thinking, acting, environment: ‘how do thoughts manifest themselves via acts in our environment, what extent do they contribute to our well-being?’. Stefaan van Biesen exhibited in Belgium, Holland, France, Germany, UK, Poland, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Brazil and China. Conference in English.

 

Workshops / performances in Guimaraes

 

Augmented walking (Geert Vermeire). Participants are introduced into methods of sound walking, recording and editing sound, with free software. Each participant creates a personal sound walk that can be immediately downloaded to their smartphone with the Locosonic application. The workshop includes recording environmental sounds during an introductory walk and incorporating sounds through the built-in editor interface, allowing you to search, navigate and use more than 100,000 existing sounds / recordings. The workshop will also include the design of a custom interface for the application, with text, a map and photographs and the immediate creation of a page witha description, a map, photographs and an online audio sample of the walk. https://www.locosonic.com/

 

Meander. (Stefaan van Biesen, Annemie Mestdagh) Walking is an instrument of knowledge and experience in the artistic work of Stefaan van Biesen. Concepts such as silence / time / body / mind, influenced by Eastern approaches, are situated in a Western way of thinking. Stefaan van Biesen invites you to a silent walk / performance: 'Meander' where concepts like 'turn on / let go / lead / trust / care' are the underlying ideas. In this constellation of influences (of feeling and being involved), the participant becomes, like the co-walker, the work of art! Concept and prop: Stefaan van Biesen and Annemie Mestdagh / the Milena principle. Outdoors. Duration: 45 minutes

 

Wander Weed. (Stefaan van Biesen, Annemie Mestdagh) A performative walk with Stefaan van Biesen, where participants explore a nomad work of art on a shared walk with 5 people at a time, along the readings a of poetic letters by Stefaan van Biesen (Letters to a Tree). Production: Annemie Mestdagh. Concept: Stefaan van Biesen / the Milena principle. Outdoors.

http://www.mns.uminho.pt/thewalkingbody/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Fly Ways] installation Queens Museum Park [Flushing Meadows] New York USA 06.09 > 28.09.2018.

 

S.T.E.P.... [Saunter, TREK, ESCORT, PARADE....]. Flux Factory September 6-28  2018 and Queens Museum November to December 2018. Opening + Curators' Tour: Sep 6, 6-9pm. Closing Reception + Walk: Sep 29, 6-9pm.

 

Curators: Christina Freeman, Moira Williams & Emireth Herera. 

 

Saunter Trek Escort Parade...S.T.E.P. Sep 06-Sep 30 S.T.E.P... seeks to be an overlapping convergence and entanglement of walking, walk-based works and programming, mobilizing throughout New York. S.T.E.P... embraces the many ways and bodies we walk while asking how walking as a creative act can challenge notions and open conversations around visibility, gender, labor, exploration, counter-mapping, colonialism, feminism, motherhood, contesting borders, community building, calling out gentrification, street harassment, 'dis'ability, carbon debt, who sets the pace and measurement of the world, the power of dreams, and our entanglements between all of these and one another.

 

 

Artists + Collaborators: Ariel Abrahams + Tal Gluck, Francheska Alcantara, Artcodex - Mike Estabrook + Vandana Jain, Annie Berman, Tom Bogaert, Becky Brown + Annette Cords, Compassionate Action Enterprises - Joan Giroux + Lisa Marie Kaftori, Xenia Diente, Magali Duzant, Katie Etheridge + Simon Persighetti, Brendan Fernandes, Ray Ferreira, Gudrun Filipska + Carly Butler, Alexander Freeman, Frontview, Angeline Gragasin, David Helbich, Claire Hind + Gary Winters, Lisa Hirmer, Maya Kaminishi Jeffereis, Walis Johnson + Paul Sue-Pat, Kyla Kegler, Kubra Khademi, illesha Khandelwal, Dominika Ksel, gil lopez + Mitch Waxman, Mary Magsamen + Stephan Hillerbrand, Coralina Rodriguez Meyer, Lisa Myers, Kristyna and Marek Milde, Sara Morawetz, Clare Qualmann, Morag Rose + The Loiterers Resistance Movement, Julie Poitras Santos, Marcos Serafim + Jefferson Kielwagen + Steevens Simeon, SleepWalks - Lee Pembleton + Andrea Williams, Camille Turner, Geert Vermeire + Stefaan van Biesen + Simona Vermeire, Jevijoe Vitug plus Walking Discourse - Astrid Kaemmerling + Minoosh Zomorodinia.

 

https://queensmuseum.org/2018/09/saunter-trek-escort-parade-s-t-e-p

 

 

 

 

 

[Leafless Variations] Duo performance Analogio Festival Athens Greece 21.09 > 27.09.2018.

 

 

Leafless Variations [the Unity of Polarities] is a duo performance by two female dancers: Lina Efstathiou [Liquid Dance Studio Athens] and eleftheria Rapti. The performance is based on on two props made by Annemie Mestdagh and Stefaan van Biesen. Both dancers participated during the Platform Project in May 2018 in Athens.

 

Stefaan van Biesen [concept] appeals to the experiences of a person to explore a public space. The fundamental fact of moving in time and space. Scanning the environment in relation to others. It is a combination of letting go and remembering. He assumes that the divine wisdom of the body knows what to do. All information is present in the body. Saved impressions and experiences are an emotional archive that can immediately be tapped or addressed to. For Stefaan van Biesen the essence of a performance is a meaningful ritual, a sacral event. No banal action without any meaning. He does not see it as a form of improvisation, rather as a state of being. In our archetypal gestures, the human legacy of our culture and civilization is shown to the viewer as an appealing memory bank. The attribute is a nomadic object that the participant can use to get started. It is an invitation to a feeling thinking.

 

The duo performance is a part of the forthcoming edition of Analogio Festival, September 21-27, 2018, with performing arts from around the world. Analogio Festival has been annually organized since 2005 and in 2018 its focusing on Asia /Far East, including a tribute to South Africa, with workshops from international artists and in collaboration with the Unesco's International Playwright's Forum (IPF/ITI).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wander Weed Variations [Letters]. Made of Walking (IV) Neo Chorio Akamas Cyprus 2018. Letters kept in a copper colored fabric prop. Copper as the origin of the name 'Cyprus': one theory suggests that the large quantity of copper deposits on the island gave the name 'Cyprus', as copper has the Latin name of 'cuprum'. Copper [the Latin symbol: Cu] as a conductor, the Alchemic symbol of the goddess Aphrodithe [mythology: it proposes that the name 'Cyprus' was given by the goddess Aphrodite (also known as Kyprida) who was born on the island].

 

Wander Weed is a performative exercise about 'the language of plants' and 'Letters to a tree' [1996-1997]. You can only feel and touch 'the letters', not read them. The video is taken in an abandoned house in Neo Chorio Akamas, a precious and still untouched nature reserve, gradually threatened by real estate companies. The echos of the past linger on between the stones, inside the ruins of the place. Voices are whispering the old songs.


Camera and prop performance by Annemie Mestdagh. Concept, video and sound composition by Stefaan van Biesen. Made of Walking is an international meeting of walking artists and scientists. Organised by Geert Vermeire / the Milena principle 2018. Time 05:52.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ghost Conference is a multi-channel sound installation consisting of a music/auditive compositional layer, a vocal and soundscape storytelling layer [stories told by physical or metaphorical refugees and migrants from all over the world], a textual layer [spoken live or recorded by narrators], a techno-philosophical layer [told by humans or robots]. The basic assumption of the work is a radical rejection of any hypostatic and monumental definition of identity [national, religious, traditional]. Ghost Conference materialises in a virtual venue, where internet and telephone infrastructures provide the new sensorial organism to manifest its phenomena and co-extension in one and multiple places.

 

In practice, the idea is to have all the participants connecting with us through various means of electronic communications ways [Skype, telephone, Jitsi, Whatsapp etc.] and speak to us and to our audience about given set of topics. The topics for the first event would circulate around the theme of migration [in a very broad sense], space availability, co-existence and/or disappearance of materiality. The event will take place in Bunkier Sztuki gallery in Krakow, on Saturday June 16th, between 3pm and 7pm.

 

Ghost Conference. Together with Marcin Barski (sound-artist/music curator), Lorenzo Brusci (composer, inventor) and with a support of Bunkier Sztuki Art Gallery. Afour-hour-long live-processed global sound-text composition based on materials provided by contributors from all around the world.

We are grateful for their wonderful contributions and we'd like to thank each of them. Thank you so much Andreja Andric, Michel Banabila, Ess Beck, Michael Begg, Burkhard Beins, Stefaan van Biesen, Alessandro Bosetti, Yury Bulka, Luca Canciello, Francesco Capann, Alfredo Costa Monteiro, Patryk Daszkiewicz, Sandra Fruehbing, Charles III Goff, Paweł Górecki, Oriana Hadad, Thomas Harzem, Bogna Juchnowicz, Aleksandra Klimczak, Monika Konrad, Matthias Kranebitter, Joseph Kudirka, Michał Libera, Artur Lis, Aleksandra Łukaszewicz Alcaraz, Svetlana Maras, Claudia Mel, Antoni Michnik, Chrysti Mouratidou, Olia Olina, Dominika Peszko, Antonella Radicchi, Kamil Radomski, Sara Rodowicz-Slusarczyk, Paul Roth, Adam Rzepecki, Jacek Smolicki, Kat Steih, Jarek Tochowicz, Ada Valeria, Geert Vermeire, Sławomir Wojciechowski, Yoshi Yubai, Rafilid Zacharoula, Kacper Ziemianin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Leafless (IV)] performance Eleftheria Rapti & Lina Efstathiou.

Independed Art Fair. School of Fine Arts Athens Greece 17.05>20.05. 2018.

 

 

Leafless IV is a: 'nomadic prop for silent gestures'. Starting from the idea of: 'a prop looking for a performer'. Stefaan van Biesen invites body or movement artists, dancers to use the prop as an instrument of introspection.

 

Special thanks to the performers: Eleftheria Rapti & Lina Efstathiou.

 

Stefaan van Biesen appeals to the experiences of a person to explore a public space. The fundamental fact of moving in time and space. Scanning the environment in relation to others. It is a combination of letting go and remembering. He assumes that the divine wisdom of the body knows what to do. All information is present in the body. Saved impressions and experiences are an emotional archive that can immediately be tapped or addressed to. For Stefaan van Biesen the essence of a performance is a meaningful ritual, a sacral event. No banal action without any meaning. He does not see it as a form of improvisation, rather as a state of being. In our archetypal gestures, the human legacy of our culture and civilization is shown to the viewer as an appealing memory bank. The attribute is a nomadic object that the participant can use to get started. It is an invitation to a feeling thinking.

 

Realisation prop: Annemie Mestdagh.

 

Leafless [IV] by Eleftheria Rapti 17.05.2018.

 

 

Leafless [IV] by Lina Efstathiou 20.05.2018.

 

Read pdf file of the Leafless duo/solo project > > >

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Presentation of the Utopia Book at Platform Projects [the Independed Art Fair] School of Fine Arts Athens 2018. Booth 29 the Milena principle. Curated by Artemis Potamianou (Moma NY & Tate London).

 

'Utopia (just around the corner). A silent group walk, moving in a flow through Nicosia, Brussels, NY City, with no other intention then to get lost, with a book, inspired by Thomas More's, but containing only one word, "Utopia". It is a book that resembles a walk, it is not linear, it opens from different angles, it has pages folded in pages, you can open and browse it in different directions, not a book to be read, but a book to be shared spontaneously between the participating walkers, to be carried around in silence and to be opened on places that come towards them, as an inviting to open and read the place, the walkers and the moment in which they stand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During Made of Walking summer school in Delphi July 2017, there were several talks and meetings with dancers. Lina Efstathiou of The Liquid Dance Theater in Athens is now working on a dance play. 3 music compositions by Stefaan van Biesen will become the musical layer of a dance performance and choreography by Lina Efstathiou. The soundtrack of 'Liquid Trees' is used for an upcoming dance solo at a dance festival in Athens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

©stefaan van biesen-annemie mestdagh 28.12.2020