<nettime-ann> retriever | Soundperformance Friday 29 February, 19.30-12.

retriever

voiceoverhead and guests:

Casper Cordes & Ellen Ugelvik | Discoteca Flaming Star | Will Holder | Guy-Marc Hinant - subrosa | Achim Lengerer & Dani Gal

Friday 29 February 2008, 19.30-12.00 hrs

?Retrieve to hand? is an evening of performances in the framework of the exhibition ?voiceoverhead? by Achim Lengerer & Dani Gal, featuring several guests. In their collaborative practice Lengerer & Gal deal with audio-acoustics and storage mediums used for acoustic material. Their core interests are audio-recordings, particularly of language, spoken word and speech, original footage taken from radio-broadcastings or other archives. Their work found its multiplicity in the project ´voiceoverhead´ which is rooted in a record collection of approximately 350 records, that includes footage documenting political speeches and language orientated radio-programmes covering historical events.

Lengerer & Gal developed the idea ?voiceoverhead? in order to locate the record collection and their artistic practice within a broader context and to include the work of other artists, filmmakers and musicians working with archived language materials in multiple ways and diverging modes. So too do divisions exist in the cultural field: such as electronic music that is entrenched in elements of language and radio-sounds and there is a sub-genre of visual artists, filmmakers and documentarians who also focus their work in this area. Both fields are conceptually and practically applying different approaches to the given speech material: differences in working and presentation methods, as well as differences in distribution and public reception. ?voiceoverhead?presents, confronts and merges the approaches applied in these diverse cultural productions in the exhibition and in the upcoming evening of sound performances.

The ?voiceoverhead? project deals with searching, choosing or finding aural material with distinct socio-political contents and re-contextualising it. ?Retrieve to hand? is an action performed by dogs and their owners during hunting. The dog (a species called retriever) would bring the hunted animal unhurt and alive to the hunter's hand.

During the evening Guy-Marc Hinant from the Belgian record label subrosa will give a short talk on subrosa´s distribution and editing methods and play a live-set.

British designer and author Will Holder will act as a sort of ?second publisher? of the Czech/British visual artist Pavel Büchler?s record collection.

Casper Cordes? work ?Axes? is shown in the exhibition; he will give an introduction on how he generated musical notations and composition from spoken speech and language and will perform ?Axes? live together with piano player Ellen Ugelvik.

The Spanish-German performance-duo Discoteca Flaming Star uses popular culture for their powerful set-ups by incorporating elements like costumes and banners in their musically and verbally highly referential performances.

Achim Lengerer & Dani Gal will perform as ?voiceoverhead? playing parts of the record collection displayed in the show.

On Friday 29 February, the exhibitions will have extended opening from 20.00-12.00 hrs

voiceoverhead

Casper Cordes І Harun Farocki І William Furlong І Sharon Hayes
A project by Achim Lengerer & Dani Gal

Exhibition from 12 January ? 1 March 2008

In their collaborative practice Achim Lengerer & Dani Gal deal with audio-acoustics and storage media used for acoustic material. Their core interests are audio-recordings, particularly of language, spoken word and speech, original footage taken from radio-broadcastings or other archives. Their work found its multiple form in the project 'voiceoverhead' which is rooted in a record collection of approximately 350 records, including footage documenting political speeches and language orientated radio-programs. The records aurally cover historical events and were originally designed to function as ?documentations of the real?. This notion of the 'documentary' has been questioned throughout the history of the medium itself and developed as one of the inherent debates around the emerging modes of reproduction in the late 19th century - the phonograph, film and photography. Starting with the early Lumière-movie 'Workers Leaving the Factory,' this discussion emerges. Harun Farocki has shown, in his 1995 video-essay on the Lumière-sequence, the complexity of a playful representational conspiracy between the audience/viewer, the document/documentarian and the documented beginning at the birth of the genre itself. This act of conspiracy takes place when any document from the archive is brought back to the public sphere as a kind of reenactment of a communicative and rhetorical figure.

Lengerer & Gal developed the idea ?voiceoverhead? in order to locate the record collection and their artistic practice within a broader context and to include the work of other artists, filmmakers and musicians working with archived language materials in multiple ways and diverging modes. So too do divisions exist in the cultural field: such as electronic music that is entrenched in elements of language and radio-sounds and there is a sub-genre of visual artists, filmmakers and documentarians who also focus their work in this area. Both fields are conceptually and practically applying different approaches to the given speech material: differences in working and presentation methods, as well as differences in distribution and public reception. 'voiceoverhead' presents, confronts and merges the approaches applied in these diverse cultural productions in the exhibition and in an evening of sound performances, taking place on Friday 29 February.

'voiceoverhead' is a co-production with the Jan van Eyck Academy.

Coded Cinema | February Programme Code: 0200

Films selected by Dani Gal & Achim Lengerer in the framework of the project voiceoverhead

The Conversation

(1974) 120 min
Francis Ford Coppola

The Conversation is an Academy Award nominated 1974 mystery thriller about audio surveillance, starring Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Teri Garr, and Cindy Williams; it also features an early performance by Harrison Ford and an uncredited appearance from Robert Duvall. In between The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Coppola directed The Conversation, the story of a paranoid wiretapping and surveillance expert (played by Gene Hackman) who finds himself caught up in a possible murder plot. Though the script was written in the mid-1960s, the film was released shortly after the Watergate scandal broke and thus reflected contemporary issues of personal responsibility and the encroachment of technology on privacy.

Vampyr (1932) 30 min

Carl Theodor Dreyer

Freely adapted from classic Victorian supernatural tales by author Sheridan Le Fanu, Vampyr tells the story of a young man who becomes involved with two sisters, one of whom, wasting away with a strange sickness, turns out to be the victim of a vampire.

Klassenverhältnisse (1984) 122 min

Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub

This adaptation of the Franz Kafka novel Amerika - retains the prevalent theme and tone of Kafka?s work - an air of paranoia, a fear of authority, of being unaware of all the facts and not behaving in the correct way, of not knowing one?s rightful place and of being unable to persuade one?s case to a distant, uncaring authority. Being set in America, one would expect Kafka?s to be looking beyond the confines of his oppressive life, upbringing and employment towards a new beginning, but there is never any sense of Kafka?s America being the land of opportunity that it is for so many other immigrants.

Halfmoon Files (2007) 87 min

Philip Scheffner

Mall Singh's crackling words are heard as he spoke into the phonographic funnel on 11th December 1916 in the city of Wünsdorf, near Berlin. Ninety years later, Mall Singh is a number on an old Shellac record in an archive - one amongst hundreds of voices of colonial soldiers of the First World War. In his experimental search The Halfmoon Files, Philip Scheffner follows the traces of the voices to the origin of their recording. Like a memory game - which remains incomplete right until the end - he uncovers pictures and sounds that revive the ghosts of the past. His protagonists' words intersect along the concentric spirals the story follows. Those who pressed the record button on the phonographs, on photo and film cameras, were the ones to write official history. Mall Singh and the other prisoners of war of the Halfmoon Camp disappeared from this story. Their spirits and ghostly appearances seem to play with the filmmaker, to ambush him. They pursue him on his path, to bring their voices back to their home countries. Philip Scheffner lives and works as a filmmaker, video- and sound artist in Berlin.

Vampyr (2001-2002) 15 min
Michael Pfrommer

The Japanese Chie Nagaura reads a phonetic transcription of a German text. The Latin characters used in German have been transcribed into the sign language "Katakana". This enables her to read a text in a language she doesn't know. The original German text was taken from the film Vampyr "The dream of Allan Grey", by Carl Theodor Dreyer produced in 1932.
Michael Pfommer is a visual artist working in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

The man who knew to much (1934) 75 min
Alfred Hitchcock

Vintage Hitchcock, with sheer wit and verve masking an implausible plot that spins out of the murder of a spy (Fresnay) in an equally implausible Switzerland (all back-projected mountains), leaving a pair of innocent bystanders (Banks and Best) to track his secret - and their kidnapped daughter - in a dark and labyrinthine London. Where the remake had Doris Day maternally crooning with fateful foreboding, sharpshooting Best simply grabs a rifle and gets after the villains. Pacy, exciting, and with superb settings (taxidermist's shop, dentist's chair, mission chapel complete with gun-toting motherly body, shootout re-enacting the Sidney Street siege, terrific climax in the Albert Hall), it also has nice villainy from a scarred, leering Lorre (here making his British debut). At two-thirds the length of the remake, it's twice the fun. (From an original story by Charles Bennett and DB Wyndham Lewis.)

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) 122 min

Fritz Lang

This is a very unique crime-horror film by director Fritz Lang. Though you may initially be lost it doesn't take too long to figure out what is going on: the titled character (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) has plans to create havoc and destroy order in the World. However, his detailed instructions have to be carried out by others, like Dr. Baum (Oscar Beregi Sr.), because Mabuse is in an insane asylum. In fact, Mabuse dies and his ghostly soul inhabits Baum?s, who then directs the minions to do terrible deeds. One of these henchmen is an ex-con named Thomas Kent (Gustav Diessl), who's recently fallen in love with Lilli (Wera Liessem), from whom he'd borrowed (and repaid) money after he was released from prison. Kent is uncomfortable with performing his role and, after an ingenious escape with Lilli, ends up assisting the (feared by all criminals) police Commissioner Lohmann (Otto Wernicke), who'd been trying to figure out what happened to a former associate named Hofmeister (Karl Meixner) and the assassinated Dr. Kramm (Theodor Loos). Hofmeister had been drummed out of the department for accepting a bribe, but had learned both Mabuse?s name, which he etched on his apartment window, and of his counterfeiting plans.

The Coded Cinema offers 24 hour access to an intimate 12 seat film theater, allowing visitors to let themselves in at their own leisure. The Coded Cinema is located in a small building adjacent to the main entrance. The access codes and programmes are distributed monthly.

I Know the World

Fucking Good Art І Tamar Guimarães І J&K І Søren Lose І Tanja Nellemann Poulsen & Grete Aagaard І Daniëlle van Zuijlen
Guest curated by Lise Nellemann (Sparwasser HQ, Berlin)

Exhibition from: 12 January ? 1 March 2008

?I Know the World? focuses on the issue of artists in transit and the manner in which the production of artworks is influenced by experiences abroad. 'I Know the World' is an exhibition and a day of talks focusing particularly on works and artistic practices that have been informed by encounters with another local context, often as a result of the artists? participation in international residencies. As with the previous edition of 'I Know the World', which took place at Sparwasser HQ in Berlin in 2007, this exhibition relates to issues of internationalism, mobility and cultural differences, but especially aims to take a closer look at the art works themselves. The works are based on research, sensibility and insight gained by the artists on location and some include presumptions and personal artistic strategies which function as useful obstacles when encountering the host country and a foreign context.
Artist duo J&K bring forth ideas of the Orient framed by their own culture and mix them with what they actually observe and discover in their host country. The result is a work that brings to life a futuristic fiction where religions fuse and new world orders unfold before our eyes. Søren Lose's work comments on the heritage of Danish culture by juxtaposing the classical icons of so called Danish national romanticism with his own photographs and found tourist snap-shots. The work also reflects on how a country succeeds in bringing home an international artist when he gains foreign recognition and questions how the artist's work is then inscribed into national art history. Tamar Guimaraes? work ?Jan Leton and the Archive? uses footage of outdoor theatre play, re-enacting a historical situation around a former slave, Jan Leton. 'Today, please stay home! Please stay home today stay home stay home home home home' is a quote from a digital running text display that is part of Tanja Nellemann Poulsen & Grete Aagaard´s installation ?Set Up Tours ??. With this work the artists express a critical voice towards these clichés of the 'travel and life style industry' images. Daniëlle van Zuijlen is currently finishing a five-year residency in the town of Hoorn. In this sort of inverted residency, she stays in her ?own? country and hosts visitors from abroad. She presents a pamphlet that can be taken home by visitors. 'Hosting' in a slightly different sense is also introduced by the artist duo Nienke Terpsma & Rob Hamelijnck. Through their participation in residencies the artists produced and published issues of the magazine 'Fucking Good Art' collaborating with artists in the host cities. These issues will be presented in the exhibition.

Job vacancy ? press, marketing & communication

SMART Project Space currently seeks an employee Press, Marketing & Communication for 20 hrs per week. For the full job description and how to apply, see: www.smartprojectspace.net/vacancies

Renovations Underway

In August 2005 SMART Project Space acquired the former Pathological Anatomical Laboratories of the Wilhelmina Hospital area in Amsterdam Old West. After two years of developing plans, fundraising and permit procedures, renovation work began in May 2007 to the 3600m2 building. Peter Sas Architects and Bouwborg Nordwest are developing it into exhibition spaces (500 m2), a 3 screen cinema, a multi platform auditorium (120 seat capacity), ten studios, a café/restaurant, library with reading room and an art bookshop. Renovations will be complete in early 2008. During this time, access through the main entrance will remain available for all visitors and resident artists.

SMART Project Space, I Know the World and voiceoverhead are kindly supported by the Mondriaan Foundation, Gemeente Amsterdam, VSBfonds, Stichting Doen, Filmfonds, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Stichting Dioraphte and the Danish Arts Agency.

SMART Project Space

Arie Biemondstraat 105-113 | NL-1054 PD Amsterdam

phone: +31 20 42 75951 | fax +31 20 247 59 53

http://www.smartprojectspace.net/

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Opening hours: Tuesday ? Saturday, 12:00-17:00 hrs

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