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Observation of thinking
In the evening, I went to the opening of the
exhibition
Observation of thinking with works by Ray Andreas, which consisted
of painting, litho prints, and creamic tills, all around the same theme. I
talked some time with him about our shared experiences.
Warhol - The Biography
I finished reading the book Leven en dood van
Andy Warhol, the Dutch translation of Warhol - The Biography by
Victor Bockris,
which I started reading on December 1, shortly after I finished reading
The Trip. I bought the book on May 4, 2014. Bockris is quite enthousiastic about a, A Novel and gives some interesting background information. Although
the biography contains a lot of details, I did not get a consistent picture of
Warhol, which is probably also due to his complex personality.
In the evening, I went to the Booster Festival. In "De Generaal", I found an
interesting tile pattern, which is shown on the picture. Later, I concluded it
is the clasical Versaille tile pattern. I went
to "De Grote Kerk" (the old church) and did some programming, while listening
to "GREBE". During the sound check of Vera
Bon, I decided to walk to the front. I enjoyed the performances and
afterwards, I bought their first EP, which was just released afterwards.
Later, I also listened to a performance by The Black Fall and also bought their CD. At last, I went to the
Official Unofficial After-Party. I met some friends outside waiting for the
door to open. The Rave party was in the attick. I did not stay long and took
one of the leaflets on my way out.
Magnolia
It was sunny today, with a maximum tenperature of 20.7°C at the official
weather station, and the back garden was filled with the smell of our magnolia, which is full of flowers now. Some flowers are already
dropping their leaves but there are still some buds that have not opened yet.
I am happy that this year I can enjoy the magnolia such a long time. I got the
impression that in other years it was over sooner.
Be Your Own Robot
I went to the opening of the exhibition Be
Your Own Robot by Sander Veenhof. The
following are the notes that I took during the artist talk during the opening
(with links added later):
It ia about augmented reality. How does it work in the real world. What is
it really about? What do I, as an artist, with it? He started long ago with
a Commodore 64. He
created Biggâr, the largest
virtual art work in the world. In 2010, he made WeARinMoMA. 2011. A virtual traffic light at Oerol. People look a lot
at their smart phones. Project Meet your stranger. Now it is called
leesluid.nl.
Pokémon
Go. Google
Glass. He (re)created a screen saver for it. Slowly all arguments again
augmented reality are disappearing. A virtual glass is looking all the time
with you, through the cameras. The idea of virtual fashion. Google now has
a patent on making the love gesture for liking something now. He created a
patent alert app for
augmented reality. The App Store Review Guidelines are quite restrictive. There seems to be
not much room for art. All tech companies what you to put on these kind of
glasses, because they follow what you see. Companies life Facebook are
interested in this information. In the past he often was in Second Life. Now it is almost empty. There you can buy all kind of
things to improve your appearance and behaviour. The same thing might
happen with AR glasses. He created some apps to make people think about
what could happen in the future. The woordenjutten AR app. You could create theather in which people
become the actors. With IF _THIS_ THEN
I, you can create some rules for yourself. So the answer is:
Be Your Own Robot
Tegelreliëf Ad Dekkers
I was invited for the opening of Tegelreliëf Ad Dekkers, a tile
relief designed by Ad Dekkers measuring 9 by 18 meters, which was recreated at a park in
Bergeijk after it had to be removed from a school in Gouda to make room for buildings.
The offical opening was performed by
Beatrix of
the Netherlands, who knew Ad Dekkers from the meetings she and her husband
organized between 1968 and 1975 on Drakensteyn Castle. It is said that she was rather fond of Ad Dekkers.
She had one of his sculptures placed in the garden. When they moved to
Huis ten Bosch
Palace she asked Ad Dekkers for another copy of the sculpture to be placed
there. I met with Peter Strucken, who was a good
friend of Ad Dekkers. I briefly greated Daniel, the son of Ad Dekkers. I also
shaked hands with Rudi
Fuchs. I talked a lot with Carel Blotkamp, who also gave one of three introduction talks before the
opening of the tile relief. After the official opening, I visited the
exhibition about Ad Dekkers. When leaving, I
received a goody bag with the books:
- Louis van Roode: meester in monumentaal maatwerk written by Willem
Heijbroek in Dutch and published by De Vrije Uitgevers in 2015,
ISBN:9789082453904.
- Rietveld's design factory re_newed written by Toon Lauwen in English
and Dutch, and published by Aerial Media Company B.V. in July 2017,
ISBN:9789402602555.
Book
At 10:48:07, I bought the book Finnegans Wake written by James Joyce in English and published by
Penguin Adult in 2000, ISBN:9780141183114, from thrift store Het Goed
for € 3.50.
I installed and tried out Meshroom on my set of plant pictures. For open source software, the
interface looks good. One of the steps, requires a CUDA (2.0) compliant
NVIDIA graphics card. There is a work around, but it results in a lower
resolution mess. I have to figure out how the graphics viewer works.
I understand they have a plug-in for Maya.
Decentralized web
I went to a presentation about the decentralized web given by two people
from Muze, the developers of
SimplyEdit (the first CMS designed for
the decentralized web) and SimplyView. The decentralized web is seen as a solution for linkrot,
congestion (also due to DDoS attacks), and vendor lock-in. It does not solve
problems with privacy and control. The decentralized web is not the same as
blockchain, although some implementations make use of blockchain technology.
The centralized web is based on peer-to-peer node networks. This makes the
browser into a server as well. More and more often the browser is becoming
the OS, which is, for example, seen in the development of progressive web applications. Some decentralized web technologies are:
I saw the exhibition Windstilte with
works by Manje Dijkman at Bookshop Broekhuis. The exhibtion contains portrets but also some
landscapes consisting of two pannels, where the top one represents the sky.
I saw the exhibition Living Landscape by Marloes Staal at XPO. The guests where
sitting outside because of the nice weather and I talked a bit with some of
them.
In the evening, I went to Tetem artspace for
the talk/workshop Bioart's engagement with life by
Lotte
Pet. She is an artist, studied art and now doing an PhD in which she
researches art as a means to gain knowledge within scientific and technological
discourse. (The following is based on notes I took during the talk.)
Biotechnology is the manipulation of living organisms or their components to
produce usefull usually commercial products. Currently, a lot of research is
done with applications to health care. But there are also big ethical issues
involved. Biotechnology is not neutral. The application of it has an impact on
our culture and how we value things. It changes our opinions. A recent example
is story of two Chinese babies, whoes DNA was modified with CRISPR/Cas9 in order to make them resistent for HIV. But it also might
have improve their intelligence. Should we improve humans? Does increasing
intelligence improve humans? But also direct-to-customer genetic testing has
implications. The cheapest form is genotyping: telling you something about your
ancestory. Another form is whole-genome sequencing, which allows to find for
genetic defects that are associated with certain health risks. And than there
are also issues with the storage of DNA profiles, which could be used for other
purposes. Take, for example, the case of the Golden State Killer. (I made a remark about the impact of prenatal testing.) In the end it all comes down to the question: What does
it mean to be human?
BioArt is a contemporary art
practice started late 20th century. There are two means: Representational
tactic (art presenting the results of the application of biotech) and
presentational tactic (art created through the application of biotech). Goals
of BioArt could be: Involvement with living matter, exposes hidden emotions and
values, demystifies science, public empowerment: enables being otherwise,
and/or just focus on methods itself. Artistic skills that are involved are:
Irony (Dove d'Or), appropriation (Eduardo Kac, GFP Bunny), rule-breaking (Jennifer Willet, BIOplay),
flip-thinking (Chrissy
Conant, Chrissy Caviar), identification/objectivication (Tissue Culture &
Art project, Victimless Leather: A Prototype of Stitch-less Jacket grown in a
Technoscientific 'Body').
At the workshop part, we tried to extract our DNA from saliva using table salt,
detergent, lens cleaner liquid, and alcohol. I put the results of my extraction
in a small glass bottle. A picture of this is displayed on the top. I am not
sure whether this is only DNA, because I might have poured in the alcohol too
fast.
Two books in cassette
At 13:09, I bought the book Ovidius Metamorphosen - Munkedals
Voorbeelden (two books in a cassette) with a forword by Nova Rese and part
of the Dutch translation by M. d'Hane-Scheltema of the text
Metamorphoseon
libri by Ovid written in Latin, from thrift store Het Goed for € 7.50.
Book
At 15:38, I bought the book Handreiking beeldende kunst in de openbare
ruimte edited by Jan Brand, written in Dutch and published by Cultuurfonds
BNG in 2000, ISBN:9032279181, from thrift store Het Goed for
€ 1.50.
Mapping Minimalism
I went to the opening of the exhibition
Post-War and Contemporary Art at Christie's Amsterdam preceding the
auction, which contains four works by Peter Struycken. During the
opening, Carel
Blotkamp gave the lecture: Mapping Minimalism - Galerie Riekje Swart and
her network. (The following is based on notes I made during the lecture. It
does not cover everything being presented.) Blotkamp remarked that you could do
a PhD on this subject. In the sixties he started to visited galeries. When he
finished his studies, he became a art critic besides his position at the
university. In the sixties, the Dutch museums were very active and this was
also recognized international. They were actively searching for new talents and
had a leading role in this regard. Now this is now no longer the case.
Willem Sandberg,
the directory of Stedelijk Museum, was the driving force behind this. In 1938. he curated
an exhibition about abstract art. In 1958 he wrote a statement about how the
museums should be open to current art. The media were rather critical about
this. But he did not only focus on recent art. For example, in the same year,
he also organized an exhibition about Jackson Pollock. He had high regards of the
COBRA
movement. In 1962 he organized the exhibition nederlands bijdrage
(The Dutch contribution to the art since 1940), which included many works from
Dutch members of the COBRA movement. In the Netherlands there were also artists
who opposed the COBRA movement. In 1962 the exposition nul was held with
works from ZERO artists.
Sandberg was followed by Eduard de Wilde, who organized an exhibition about
PopArt. The exhibitions in
Dutch museuma followed recent decelopments, much faster than American museums.
(Blotkamp showed a picture taken at an exhibition with Jan Wolkers in it.) The Stedelijk Museum bought the
boat made by Yayoi
Kusama, which is now regarded as one of the most important works from that
period. The poster of the exhibition vormen van de kleur (shapes of
colour) mentions minimal
art. (Blotkamp showed a picture with Bob Bonies in the exhibition.) Around
that time, The Van
Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, led by Jean Leering, started to focus more on
minimal art. In 1968 there was a large exhibition with works from American
artists at Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. This was followed by a exhibition in the
Stedelijk Museum about minimal and conceptual art. An influencial art magazin
from this period was Kunst & Museumjournaal. Newspapers were still
rather negative about these art developments. The galleries played a small
role. The Dutch market was too small for galleries to get works from foreign
artists. But also the galleries became good at scouting new talents. Most of
these galleries where in Amsterdam, but there were also a number of significant
galleries elsewhere. Riekje Swart, quited her regular job, and opened her
gallery in 1964. (Shows a picture of her before two works by Peter Struycken: Komputerstrukturen 3a and Komputerstrukturen 3.) It was only in the second year that she focussed
more on geometric art. Ad Dekkers and Peter Struycken had exhibitions with her.
(Shows picture with Ad Dekkers, Hans Koetsier, Bob Bonies, Peter Struycken and
her, with one work by Ad Dekkers and two works by Peter Struycken visible in
the backgound: Structuur XXXV - 67 and Structuur XXXII - 67.) They were different artist but all had something
with geometry. She also had conceptual artists, such as: Ger van Elk, Jan
Dibbits and Marinus Boezem. Some of these artist got large solo exhibitions in
and outside the Netherlands. In 1968 the exhibiton junge kunst aus
holand in Kunsthalle Bern showed works of 21 artist. Eight of these were
from Riekje Swart, which is quite remarkable, because her gallery just had
opened for four years. She continued to be focussed on geometric art. Riekje
Swart also exchanged works with some galleries in countries around The
Netherlands. Riekje Swart was not good in selling works, but she had a very
loyal circle of customers, mostly from the middle class as the very rich did
not invest in modern art. The exhibition Three blind mice: de collecties:
Visser, Peeters, Becht was an important exhibition with works from private
collectors. Other Important collectors were Jo and Marlies Eyck and
Geert van Beijeren and Adriaan van Ravesteijn (who later started Art &
Project). Jan and Tieneke Hoekstra also made part of this. (Their collection is
part of the auction.) Although they collected works from various artists, their
collection shows a remarkable consistency. Frans Haks played an important role
in the later development of the gallery.
After the lecture, I watched the works on display. I found the following works
notable (in order of their catalogue number):
- 2 Trames 0°, 90° (intervalles 14 cm et 17 cm) by François Morellet. (nr. 51)
- V70-27B by Herman de Vries. (nr. 57)
- Structuur II by Peter Struycken. (nr. 60)
- random structures: an essay by Herman de Vries. (nr 101)
Someone arranged a hard-copy of the catalogue for me.
Other Places
In the evening, I had a quick look at the
exhibition Other Places at the University of Twente. I found the
works by Judith Schepers most impressive.
This months interesting links
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Booster festival
Sunday, April 7, 2019
Bioart's engagement with life