exit strategies and a stand alone complex hard copy backup
2021
book, hard cover, dust jacket, 480 pages, color / 15 x 23 cm
edition of 20 and 1 A.P.
reverse engineering
2020
video, 16:9, color, sound / 1 hour 39 minutes 09 seconds
edition of 3 and 1 A.P.
2021
book, digital file, pdf, 234 pages, color / 10,8 MB
edition of unlimited editions
This book aims to include a set of intangible aspects of artistic production and distribution and deploy these as critical and aesthetic moments.
Borrowing from Fan Fiction, as a divergent field that relies on self-organization, it wants to look at an artwork’s operational levels for its social, economical, political and artistic capacity. On this intersection, it questions how to organize oneself as an artist as he looks for unsound methods and indirect approaches. To be indirectly involved as in Fan Fiction, to be engaged alongside something else is an entry point disguised as an exit. Here, the artworks are demarcations not only of what needs to be done differently, but also of what can be done simultaneously. In this way, the publication likes to step away from binary thinking into the ambiguous, the superimposed and the paradoxical. It adopts a strategy of simultaneity that looks for small diversionary tactics as a permanent, fragile mode of production and distribution. The book looks for its necessity, not in depicting models for linear problem-solving within a work, but in creating interfering moments of paradoxical thinking beyond the work. In this way, it looks at how to create slow, indirect narratives of involvement. Through the lens of distribution it expands the question of “what is produced” with “how it’s produced”.
With contributions by Karina Beumer, Alicja Melzacka & Laurens Otto.
Download the publication at http://www.diversions.be/downloads/book.html
2020
video, 16:9, color, sound / 1 hour 39 minutes 09 seconds
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
A film that reflects on loosely connected positions about the future, narrativity and distribution. It's a rereading of the film Alphaville by Jean-Luc Godard, which in itself displays an out of canon, fan fiction approach. Here, Alphaville is shown in reverse. It functions as a setting for a site-specific artwork that inhabits an existing film. Through text and soundtrack an annotation of interruptions and interference develops.
2020
video, 16:9, sound, digital file / 1 hour 51 minutes 41 seconds
edition of 2 and 1 A.P. editions
Seven different versions of Ridley Scott's 1982 science fiction film Blade Runner have been shown, either to test audiences, in theaters or on DVD. The best known versions are the Workprint, the US Theatrical Cut, the International Cut, the Director's Cut, and the Final Cut. Here, all versions are placed on top of each other as a superimposed vision of diverging futures.
2020
USB flash drive, video, digital file, print / 8,7 x 2,6 x 1,6 cm, 8 GB, 2 hours 41 minutes 29 seconds (video)
edition of 5 and 1 A.P. editions
A sequel to the work "the bootleg redux". A slow crossfade from "Jaws" to "The Last Shark", lasting the entire movie. Due to a cancelled exhibition the video is distributed and sold online as a USB flash drive.
Ask for availability and price by sending an email...
2019
text, glow-in-the-dark paint (yellow) / dimensions variable
unique
Glow-in-the-dark pigment is used to create a text, placed on the border of a newly developed neighborhood. Invisible during the day, it glows yellow once the lights are turned off. The text is the tag line from the movie poltergeist III and reads: "LOOK WHO'S MOVING TO THE CITY... WITH A VENGEANCE". This text will quickly disperse but remain as a residue in the neighborhood.
The work was installed on Sunday 31th of March 2019 — 02:00h, with the switch to daylight savings time.
2018
video, single channel, 16:9, no sound / 9 minutes 41 seconds
edition of 1 and 1 E.C. editions
A series of landscapes scroll slowly across the screen. Backgrounds for a cartoon that saturate each other to become a foreground. A voice-over talks. Not to an audience, but to someone just outside the frame. An unnoticed character, maybe even more than one. A group of bystanders. Maybe a film crew. There is also music, but it's unclear whether this is part of the scene or a soundtrack superimposed in postproduction.
In collaboration with Karina Beumer.
2015
video, single channel, 16:9, no sound / 1 hour 37 minutes
edition of 1 and 1 A.P. editions
When the movie 'My Nikkifor' came out in theaters it was documented there was only one ticket sold. While projecting the movie, it's reflection on the wall as it's playing is filmed. The slightly shifting blue hue allows for an indirect view.
2018
book, 33 unique volumes, soft cover, black & white, 18106 pages / 15 x 23 cm
edition of 1 and 2 A.P. editions
A digital movie file (06 themissingscene_jungletrailerssummary_karinabeumer.mp4) was opened with an incompatible software (TextEdit) resulting in an illegible novelization of the film.
In collaboration with Karina Beumer.
2019
book, 33 unique volumes, soft cover, black & white, 28708 pages / 13 x 20 cm
edition of 36 editions
A digital movie file (06 themissingscene_jungletrailerssummary_karinabeumer.mp4) was opened with an incompatible software (TextEdit) resulting in an illegible novelization of the film.
A second edition as a digital book.
In collaboration with Karina Beumer.
2018
glow-in-the-dark paint (blue), tube light / dimensions variable
unique
A glow-in-the-dark element is placed in the light fixtures of a cultural centre. Invisible during the normal exhibition, it glows blue once business hours are over and the lights are turned off. A foreign agent, a poltergeist, an apparition, a daemon, now integral part of the infrastructure.
The piece was first revealed on Sunday 25th of March 2018, with the switch to daylight savings time.
In collaboration with Kris Van Dessel.
2017
lightbox, spray paint / 50 x 50 x 15 cm
unique
Double sided outdoor light box. Both translucent panes have been sprayed with phosphorescent paint that will be fed by the integrated tube lights every time when they illuminate. A motion detector has been built-in into the light box. When someone moves around, the lightbox switches on. Each time, after one minute without movement, the tube lights switch off again whilst the light box emits green light.
In collaboration with Kris Van Dessel.
2018
3 robot vacuum cleaners / dimensions variable
unique
Three robot vacuum cleaners perform a choreography. Dealing with fixed furniture and each other while cleaning an empty art studio. As the rent came to an end all personal objects of the former resident artist were removed.
In collaboration with Kris Van Dessel.
2018
3 robot vacuum cleaners / dimensions variable
unique
Three robot vacuum cleaners perform a choreography. Dealing with objects and each other while cleaning a private art-storage space. This performance is as an initiation of this space as an exhibition space.
In collaboration with Kris Van Dessel.
2018
3 robot vacuum cleaners / dimensions variable
unique
Three robot vacuum cleaners deal with objects, people and each other while cleaning an exhbition space space during the dismounting of an exhibition.
They perform a choreography that is in a way incomprehensible to people.
In collaboration with Kris Van Dessel.
2017
3 robot vacuum cleaners / dimensions variable
unique
Three robot vacuum cleaners deal with objects and people while cleaning a storage space. This is normally a pre-presentation act disturbing the ideal viewing conditions in a noisy manner.
These robots now also have to deal with each other in an interaction that doesn't occur in normal conditions. They perform a choreography that is in a way incomprehensible to people.
In collaboration with Kris Van Dessel.
2018
print, colored paper / 29,7 x 21 cm
edition of 8 editions
A ghostwriter was given an image from an exhibition with the instructions to write a manual for taking down an exhibition. The text was translated into 8 languages and printed on 8 different colors of paper. Like this each edition was unique.
The work can only be shown during the take down of a show as an awkward moment in between exhibitions.
In collaboration with Kris Van Dessel.
2017
publishing house, digital files, USB flash drive / dimensions variable
unique
All books produced from 2005 - 2017 are collected for reprint under the new publishing house 'CONCAT BOOKS'. Also a single new book, especially made for this new publishing house is added. All print-ready PDF files are copied to a USB flash drive.
The publishing house has the non-exclusive rights to reprint all publications as it sees fit.
2017
book, color, digital file, 40 pages / 17 x 11 cm
edition of unlimited editions
A text was made for an artist's edition of the book series ‘A Number Of Books Becoming A Specific Set’. It was written especially to function as a placeholder text for a single specific book, intended as an English singular Lorem Ipsum. However with the finalization of the original project, it was never used.
Published here as a new autonomous book, the text is redesigned with a dingbat font, rendering it illegible to people. Simply in it's formatting it becomes a specific, but nonsensical text.
The dingbat is a generic word, originally describing an unidentifiable or nameless object or tool. It's also used as printer signature marks. As such it's considered a placeholder font.
2017
cardboard boxes (3x), CD-player, CD, internet radio broadcast (Mixlr), smartphone, cables, stamp, customized tape / dimensions variable, 60 minutes
unique
A work consisting of 3 cardboard storage boxes, a CD-player, a pristine CD with a silent track, a smartphone with an internet radio service (Mixlr), cables, customized adhesive tape. As the CD gets scratched over time in the storage box the clicks and glitches create a soundtrack of its storage.
As a final format for the broadcast trilogy 99,6 FM, 2Mbps and 0dB, this work offers everything needed to create a streaming broadcast for this CD. Originally intended as a pirate broadcast, it is offered to a next generation and put it on hiatus until someone takes over.
Emphasizing downtime as integral part of the work, it works counter-intuitively, becoming a work when it is actually not on display.
In collaboration with Kris Van Dessel.
2017
CD-player, CD, internet radio broadcast (Mixlr), smartphone, cables, stamp / dimensions variable, 74 minutes
unique
A silent track is burned to a CD and broadcast via an internet radio broadcast. Once the broadcast is finished the CD and all the equipment is put into storage as a new work 'A Dark Broadcast'.
In collaboration with Kris Van Dessel.
2015
sound piece, cassette player, cassette tape (2x), FM radio transmitter / dimensions variable
unique
A radio broadcast in Ekeren on 99.6 FM during October 24th and 25th, 2015 (2 - 6pm). An audio cassette of 90 minutes that has been carried around in a jacket since November 4th, 2014 and a regular head cleaning cassette. A- and B-sides of both tapes alternated. The sound was almost imperceptible.
The project started with stickers pasted throughout the city.
In collaboration with Kris Van Dessel.
2017
self-adhesive 3D letters, car / dimensions variable
edition of 5 and 1 A.P. editions
A trim package is a set of cosmetic, mostly non-functional, embellishments to a vehicle.
3D self-adhesive letters pasted onto a car spell the word 'NOOCOODA'.
Following the strategy of exotic names for car models, this translates to 'prototype' from Somali, being one of the countries with the least cars.
Resetting the car as a prototype and an artwork, it's a marker for the future.
As a car, it projects, across car brands, the status of the unfinished, temporary, preproduction and possibly unsafe.
As a prototype, it sits just out of reach of an economic value system.
As a unique artwork, it questions it's artistic scope as well as it's economic position and what to do once the car changes owner or breaks down.
2017
book (x 4), color, soft cover, 256 pages / 27 x 22 cm
edition of 10 and 1 A.P. editions
n 2001, ‘Casino’ was announced as the first quadriennale of Ghent. The exhibition came and went, a catalogue was made. There was however never a second edition.
Here a set of unofficial catalogues is produced for each missing year, all replicating the original layout of the 2001 catalogue, New artworks are included, texts and captions are updated and all context images are replaced.
For 2005, ‘A Group Show That Is Also a Soloshow’ contains one artwork and all contextual images are replaced by a series of everyday snapshots depicting a view from the artist’s apartment window at different times during that year.
For 2009, ‘The Same Exhibition Twice’ contains the same artwork as the 2005 book and all contextual images are replaced by a new series of everyday snapshots depicting a view from the artist’s apartment window at different times during that year.
For 2013, ‘Ante- & Outdated’ contains a newly selected artwork and all contextual images are replaced by a new series of snapshots depicting a completely blue sky at different times during that year.
For 2017 and the forth and last book, ‘Finally A Crisis To Take Seriously’ contains again a new artwork, invites a second artist with a new work and all contextual images are replaced by a new series of images depicting screenshots from the artist’s computer at different times during that year.
It’s a catalogue as an exhibition as an artwork as a book.
2017
bumpersticker, car / dimensions variable, 28 x 7,5 cm (bumpersticker)
unique
By parking a car in it, an exhibition space is returned to it's original function as a garage. The car is used as a display for a bumper sticker. It reads: 'MY OTHERCAR IS FERRARI RED'.
In collaboration with Kris Van Dessel.
2017
USB flash drive, bumpersticker, digital file / 7 x 4 x 1,5 cm (USB flash drive), 28 x 7,5 cm (bumpersticker)
edition of 10 and 2 A.P. editions
A USB flash drive replicates a car key. It contains the digital file for a bumper sticker that reads: 'MY OTHER CAR IS FERRARI RED'.
In collaboration with Kris Van Dessel.
2017
3 crates, manual / dimensions variable, 43,9 x 28,6 cm, 93,7 x 138 x 27,4 cm (crate 1 - DAT), 94 x 137,7 x 29,5 cm (crate 2 - FRAGILE), 94,4 x 138 x 27,4 cm (crate 3 - ARCO)
unique
Three existing shipping crates of approximately similar measures once used for transporting artworks by Marcel Broodthaers, Kris Van Dessel and Peter Lemmens. Three bastard shipping crates are created by taking three times two panel from the existing crate.
A manual, in Chinese, explains how to mount and dismount these bastard crates.
The work was put up for sale on Ebay.
In collaboration with Kris Van Dessel.
2017
poster, color, recto / 28,6 x 43,9 cm
unique
A color scheme, combining a set of 5 unpopular colors. It approaches specific color schemes designed for outlet stores, so they can offer items at a discount price. A color scheme that decreases value while at the same time increasing possible sales precisely due to this decreased value.
2017
poster, color, recto / 28,6 x 43,9 cm
unique
A color scheme, combining a set of 5 unpopular colors. It approaches specific color schemes designed for outlet stores, so they can offer items at a discount price. A color scheme that decreases value while at the same time increasing possible sales precisely due to this decreased value.
2017
poster, color, recto / 28,6 x 43,9 cm
unique
A color scheme, combining a set of 5 unpopular colors. It approaches specific color schemes designed for outlet stores, so they can offer items at a discount price. A color scheme that decreases value while at the same time increasing possible sales precisely due to this decreased value.
2017
print, color, recto / 28,6 x 43,9 cm
unique
A color scheme, combining a set of 5 unpopular colors. It approaches specific color schemes designed for outlet stores, so they can offer items at a discount price. A color scheme that decreases value while at the same time increasing possible sales precisely due to this decreased value.
This work was distributed only as part of the catalogue Casino 2017.
2017
poster, color, recto / 28,6 x 43,9 cm
edition of 8 editions
A color scheme, combining a set of 5 unpopular colors. It approaches specific color schemes designed for outlet stores, so they can offer items at a discount price. A color scheme that decreases value while at the same time increasing possible sales precisely due to this decreased value.
This work was created for a Cyber Monday event.
2017
frame, vinyl lettering, invitation card, recto-verso, digital files, USB flash drive / 23 x 33 cm, 20 x 3 cm (vinyl lettering), 5,8 x 8,8 cm (invitation card)
unique
A logo is retired autonomous work after its first use and replaced by a new generic logo produced by an online logo generator. By immediately discontinuing and rebooting something that might look like a brand, it actively pushes towards it's own bankruptcy and collapse. It's not the 'no logo' as a logo, but the irrational, unwarranted shift to yet another new image, refusing confirmation and consolidation that should be the driving force behind it. What's left might well be all possible logos simultaneously.
In collaboration with Kris Van Dessel.
2017
glow-in-the-dark pigment (blue) / dimensions variable, 50 gr
unique
A 19th century building, marked for renovation, is temporarily supervised by an anti-squatting organization. It's awaiting its urban destination and therefor temporarily assigned to artists.
As we jump from 2:00 to 3:00 when daylight saving time evaporates the hour between 2:01 and 2:59, a moment that doesn't exist is described. One room is opened to the public, with visiting hours stretching way beyond the reasonable.
A blue glow-in-the-dark pigment is poured onto the ground. It will disperse and become a permanent part of the building, long after art was allowed to occupy it.
A foreign agent, a poltergeist, a remnant that will become visible every time the lights goes off suddenly. An ectoplasm emerging into the future of a building of yet another city upscaling project.
In collaboration with Kris Van Dessel.
2016
glow-in-the-dark stick / dimensions variable, ⌀ 0,8 x 10 cm (glow-in-the-dark stick)
unique
A 1970's office building is renovated into lofts as part of a city upscaling project. Before construction starts it was allowed to be used as a temporary exhibition space. A glow-in-the-dark element is placed in a hidden part of the concrete structure. Although now a permanent part of the building, it remains invisible during the exhibition and after. Never receiving the light it needs to be activated, it will be a possibility. A foreign agent, a poltergeist.
In collaboration with Kris Van Dessel.
2016
sound piece, headphones, amplifier, audio player / 20 minutes 7 seconds
edition of 1, 1 A.P. and 1 E.C. editions
Eight goofs from the movie 'The Towering Inferno' are used to construct a narrative touching upon urban planning, soundscapes, language and society.
Narrated through a headphone mounted on the window of an office building, overlooking the city.
2016
sound piece, speaker (1), amplifier, audio player / dimensions variable, 6 hours 57 minutes
edition of 1, 1 A.P. and 1 E.C. editions
The complete book "Brief Histories Of Cleaning" as read by a computer voice. Chapter for chapter, word for word, sometimes even letter for letter. Its impossible words becoming amalgamated sounds, symbols becoming text.
2016
vinyl records (9), transparent, 7 inch, A & B side / 5 minutes 57 seconds (each side)
edition of 4 and 2 A.P. editions
9 indistinguishable, square 7 inch vinyl records, containing - on one complete cycle of the A- and B-sides - the work 99.6 FM.
99.6 FM is a radio broadcast - in Ekeren on 99.6 FM during October 24th and 25th, 2015 (2 – 6 pm) - of an audio cassette of 90 minutes that has been carried around in a jacket since November 4th, 2014 and a head cleaning cassette. A- and B-sides of both tapes alternated. The sound was almost imperceptible.
In collaboration with Kris Van Dessel.
2015
recto, Glossy (paper), 150 gr, black & white, certificate / 29,7 x 21 cm
edition of 200 editions
A certficate for the Red Jacket Box, and edition of 200 numbered copies. The certificate referes to this edition, but alters the number to an absurd high one. Questioning the limitedness and the economic viability by virtually doubling up the whole edition.
In collaboration with Kris Van Dessel.
2015
video, single channel, cinemascope, stereo / 1 hour 49 minutes 37 seconds
edition of 1 and 1 A.P. editions
An existing sci-fi movie. A set of 20 stock footages is used to replace the complete film. The soundtrack remains, color proofing is replicated, cuts are followed. A shift occurs between different layers of the narrative.
2010
video, single channel, 16:9, no sound / 1 hour 53 minutes 33 seconds,
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
'All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl.' is what Jean-Luc Godard said about cinema. Today the gun and girl may be replaced by special effects.
Dario Argento's film 'The Stendhal Syndrome' from 1996 was the first Italian film to use computer-generated imagery.
Here the film is rendered through every possible special effect in a movie editing software. About 90 effects are applied in alphabetical order.
2010
digital file, video, single channel, 1.85:1, stereo / 1,9 GB, 1 hour 40 minutes 46 seconds,
edition of unlimited editions
Enzo Castellari's movie 'The Last Shark' is extremely similar to Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws'. Released in 1982 in the USA, it was immediately pulled out of theaters on charges of plagiarism. It is also known under the titles 'The Last Jaws' and 'Jaws Returns'.
As a way to reconcile the unauthorized copy and the original, the work slowly crossfades from one movie to the other.
The piece is exclusively available as a torrent file on a BitTorrent index (e.g. IsoHunt or The Pirate Bay) for as long as it is being seeded.
2010
video, single channel, 16:9, stereo / 1 hour 40 minutes 15 seconds,
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
An original theatrical version of a movie and the director's cut are timed equally and projected on top of each other. Slowly the two movies develop a time difference and a delay is created before ending back simultaneously.
2007
video, single channel, 16:9, stereo / 3 hours 26 minutes 41 seconds
edition of 5 and 1 A.P. editions
A collector's box of Akira Karosawa movies: Seven Samurai, Ikiru, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Rashomon, Drunken Angel, The Hidden Fortress, High and Low, Throne of Blood, Stray Dog, The Bad Sleep Well, Dodesukaden. All these movies are projected on top of each other. A nearly empty, white screen is formed, sometimes pierced by faint moving shadows, like ghosts. This creates an empty projection screen, a new space - not defined by absence, but overexposure. The soundtrack (also from all the movies) on the other hand is complete chaos.
2009
video, single channel, cinemascope, stereo / 1 hour 50 minutes 15 seconds
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
Four movies from the 'ALIEN'-quadrilogy, layered on top of each other. Each layer in a different color: cyan, magenta, yellow, key (black).
It is an effort to understand this quadrilogy as a whole (as opposed to analyzing it piece by piece).
The soundtrack is a mix of the theme music from each movie.
2008
video, single channel, 16:9, stereo / 1 hour 41 minutes 40 seconds
edition of 6 and 6 A.P. editions
Dario Argento's animal trilogy consist of 'The Bird With The Crystal Plumage', 'Four Flies On Grey Velvet' and 'The Cat 'O Nine Tails'.
Each movie is stripped down to one of the three basic colors of light (red, green or blue) and then projected on top of each other. It is an effort to understand this trilogy as a whole (as opposed to analyzing it piece by piece).
The soundtrack is a mix of the theme songs from each movie.
The six possible combinations of red, green and blue are produced as different editions. Each presentation shows one of these possibilities.
2007
video, single channel, 16:9, stereo, computer / dimensions variable
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
Roman Polanski's apartment trilogy consists of 'Rosemary's Baby', 'Repulsion' and 'The Tenant'. This trilogy can be seen as one work.
At random a computer chooses scenes from each movie. Like this, three scenes are always mixed on top of each other. The three narratives and images start to interact and are continuously reworked into a new endless film.
Like this, each presentation is necessarily a new edit or a trailer, if you will.
The soundtrack is a continuous loop of the song '3 views of a secret' by Jaco Pastorius.
2015
book, color, soft cover, 82 pages / 29 x 20,5 cm
edition of unlimited editions
The book catalogues the works in the exhibition before any work is made or essay is written. It catalogues the anticipated exhibition, the exhibition to come.
The design of exhibition catalogue is appropriated from an art catalogue published by De Garage earlier that year.
The images of the original book are replaced by a set of stills taken from a stock video, bought on the internet. All texts of the original book (title, captions, essay, acknowledgments, …) are replaced by one continuous, original short story.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2015
book, black & white, soft cover, 80 pages / 21 x 13 cm
edition of 56 editions
This second version of exhibition catalogue is formatted as a paperback pocket book. It is an edited version of the short story published in the first version of exhibition catalogue .
In this edition a prologue and an epilogue are added.
Each book carries a unique text on the back cover.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2014
book, black & white, hard cover, dust jacket, 208 pages / 23 x 15 cm
edition of unlimited editions
The first volume in a collection of novels and non-fiction, selected and re-edited by Peter Lemmens and Mark Luyten. The series assembles a number of specific books that once intended to be part of artistic projects that somehow never took place.
The collection installs a set of placeholders as articulated blind spots of artistic practices.
This first volume is available at www.macguffinbooks.be, the Blurb bookstore or go to blurb.com.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2015
book, black & white, hard cover, dust jacket, 160 pages / 23 x 15 cm
edition of unlimited editions
The first volume in a collection of novels and non-fiction, selected and re-edited by Peter Lemmens and Mark Luyten. The series assembles a number of specific books that once intended to be part of artistic projects that somehow never took place.
The collection installs a set of placeholders as articulated blind spots of artistic practices.
This first volume is available at www.macguffinbooks.be, the Blurb bookstore or go to blurb.com.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2015
book, black & white, hard cover, dust jacket, 206 pages / 23,5 x 15,5 cm
edition of unlimited editions
The first volume in a collection of novels and non-fiction, selected and re-edited by Peter Lemmens and Mark Luyten. The series assembles a number of specific books that once intended to be part of artistic projects that somehow never took place.
The collection installs a set of placeholders as articulated blind spots of artistic practices.
This first volume is available at www.macguffinbooks.be, the Blurb bookstore or go to blurb.com.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2015
book, black & white, hard cover, dust jacket, 464 pages / 23,5 x 15,5 cm
edition of unlimited editions
The first volume in a collection of novels and non-fiction, selected and re-edited by Peter Lemmens and Mark Luyten. The series assembles a number of specific books that once intended to be part of artistic projects that somehow never took place.
The collection installs a set of placeholders as articulated blind spots of artistic practices.
This first volume is available at www.macguffinbooks.be, the Blurb bookstore or go to blurb.com.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2015
book, black & white, hard cover, dust jacket, 80 pages / 23,5 x 15,5 cm
edition of unlimited editions
The first volume in a collection of novels and non-fiction, selected and re-edited by Peter Lemmens and Mark Luyten. The series assembles a number of specific books that once intended to be part of artistic projects that somehow never took place.
The collection installs a set of placeholders as articulated blind spots of artistic practices.
This first volume is available at www.macguffinbooks.be, the Blurb bookstore or go to blurb.com.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2016
book, black & white, hard cover, dust jacket, 362 pages / 23,5 x 15,5 cm
edition of unlimited editions
The first volume in a collection of novels and non-fiction, selected and re-edited by Peter Lemmens and Mark Luyten. The series assembles a number of specific books that once intended to be part of artistic projects that somehow never took place.
The collection installs a set of placeholders as articulated blind spots of artistic practices.
This first volume is available at www.macguffinbooks.be, the Blurb bookstore or go to blurb.com.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2016
book, black & white, hard cover, dust jacket, 464 pages / 23,5 x 15,5 cm
edition of unlimited editions
The first volume in a collection of novels and non-fiction, selected and re-edited by Peter Lemmens and Mark Luyten. The series assembles a number of specific books that once intended to be part of artistic projects that somehow never took place.
The collection installs a set of placeholders as articulated blind spots of artistic practices.
This first volume is available at www.macguffinbooks.be, the Blurb bookstore or go to blurb.com.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2016
book, black & white, hard cover, dust jacket, 56 pages / 23,5 x 15,5 cm
edition of unlimited editions
The first volume in a collection of novels and non-fiction, selected and re-edited by Peter Lemmens and Mark Luyten. The series assembles a number of specific books that once intended to be part of artistic projects that somehow never took place.
The collection installs a set of placeholders as articulated blind spots of artistic practices.
This first volume is available at www.macguffinbooks.be, the Blurb bookstore or go to blurb.com.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2017
book, black & white, hard cover, dust jacket, 120 pages / 23 x 15 cm
edition of unlimited editions
The first volume in a collection of novels and non-fiction, selected and re-edited by Peter Lemmens and Mark Luyten. The series assembles a number of specific books that once intended to be part of artistic projects that somehow never took place.
The collection installs a set of placeholders as articulated blind spots of artistic practices.
This first volume is available at www.macguffinbooks.be, the Blurb bookstore or go to blurb.com.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2015
book, color, soft cover, 208 pages / 26,5 x 21,5 cm
edition of 8 and 2 A.P. editions
A second edition for the book A Number of Books Becoming a Specific Set (Jun 2015).
The complete original book was remade in an artist's book format with the text rendered in random colors.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2016
vinyl records (2), 12 inch, A & B side , black vinyl, gatefold / 1 hour 37 minutes 08 seconds
edition of 8 and 2 A.P. editions
A second edition for the book A Number of Books Becoming a Specific Set (Dec 2015).
A voice reads the complete Lorem Ipsum text of the original book as an audio book in a double vinyl format.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2015
book, color, soft cover, 206 pages / 29,7 x 24,4 cm
edition of 8 and 2 A.P. editions
A second edition for the book A Number of Books Becoming a Specific Set (Sep 2014).
The complete original book was opened as a PDF on a computer's desktop. Going from cover to cover, everyday changing to the next double page.
Meanwhile various other daily activities are visible on the desktop screen.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2017
book, color, soft cover, 166 pages / 23 x 15 cm
edition of 8 and 2 A.P. editions
A second edition for the book A Number of Books Becoming a Specific Set (Jan 2015).
The complete original book was photographed page by page at different times. As the light differs, the pages color all different hues of white. Allowing only a single take per page, some are blurry, some cut off too much, others not enough. These raw images are collected as a complete reproduction of the book.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2015
3D logo, print, vinyl lettering / dimensions variable
unique
All language-based communications and signs on the facade of the building are replaced by the placeholder text, commonly used by graphic designers: 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, …'. In this placeholder version all texts are unified as one ongoing text.
The complete original layout, typefaces, materials, positions are respected and duplicated.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2015
video, various objects, projector (4), mirror (3), speaker (2), audio player / dimensions variable
unique
In this gallery all twenty generic stock videos, used for the video installation in the other exhibition room, are projected on the walls with four beamers. These projections rotate through the gallery with a random rhythm and direction.
Also about a dozen of objects are scattered on the floor. These objects weren't randomly chosen but aren't either irreplaceable.
A soundtrack accompanies the videos and objects. A recorded voice reads a narrative about the conversations and movements of two men in an apartment.
This narrative is the same as the short story published in exhibition catalogue.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2015
complete installation, chairs, speaker (6) / dimensions variable
unique
In the central gallery seven speakers are mounted on the walls.
A recorded voice reads the narrative about the conversations and movements of two men in an apartment. This narrative is the same as the short story published in exhibition catalogue.
At the entrance a copy of the second version of the book exhibition catalogue can be borrowed for reading during the visit.
Like this, the catalogue is inserted into the exhibition as an autonomous work.
It lays out loose connections with the other works, whilst circulating through the galleries.
A dozen of ordinary wooden stools scattered all over the room, allow the visitor to sit down.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2015
performance / dimensions variable
unique
In the gallery spaces left and right of the entrance, everything is removed and a table and chair is installed. During the opening hours of the exhibition an alternating group of readers reads out loud a re-edition of the second version of 'Exhibition Catalogue'. This re-edition is part of the series 'a number of books becoming a specific set', an independent book project by Peter Lemmens and Mark Luyten. As with the other volumes in this series, the text of the original story is replaced by the 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, …' text placeholder.
Copies of the posters with a blow up of the back and front cover of the second version of 'Exhibition Catalogue' are mounted on the wall in each reading room.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2014
vinyl record, picture disc, 12 inch, A & B side / 39 minutes 46 seconds
edition of 10 and 1 A.P. editions
Following his vinyl releases, all studio albums of Frank Zappa are superimposed, creating one super record. A complex, chaotic soundscape on an A and B side that is almost impossible to listen to.
Each picture disc is a unique combination of pictures on A and B side.
2017
vinyl record (9x), 7 inch, A & B side, transparent / 6 minutes 11 seconds
edition of 6 and 1 A.P. editions
Following his vinyl releases, all studio albums of Frank Zappa are sped up to fit on one side of a single 7 inch record. An extratone, chaotic soundscape on an A and B side that is almost impossible to listen to.
2014
lightbox, mica / 40 x 40 x 7 cm
unique
A lightbox reads the text 'CREDIT TO THE EDIT'. Each time it is shown the same text is rendered in a new font that resembles the previous one. The old font moves to the back of the lightbox and is replaced by the new one. Like this all previous versions still echo through. It starts out in the most boring font of all: Times New Roman. Over time it will stray further and further away from its original, creating something completely new without ever really changing.
2007
book, soft cover, color, 72 pages / 15 x 20.4 cm
edition of 10 and 1 A.P. editions
A Monday Morning Wave: captions from a picture, sent each Monday morning to my inbox to wash away the Monday Morning Blues if you can't make it to the beach, for whatever reason. Describing where I could have been.
A picture, taken on the same Monday as the Monday Morning Wave in my inbox. Showing where I was, mixing daily life with the exoticism of the captions.
A place.
A date.
A whole year long.
2013
book, color, soft cover, 58 pages / 15 x 20,4 cm
edition of 10 and 1 A.P. editions
A Monday Morning Wave: captions from a picture, sent each Monday morning to my inbox to wash away the Monday Morning Blues if you can't make it to the beach, for whatever reason. Describing where I could have been.
A picture, taken on the same Monday as the Monday Morning Wave in my inbox. Showing where I was, mixing daily life with the exoticism of the captions.
A place.
A date.
A whole year long.
2012
book, soft cover, color, 146 pages, silk screen print / 21 x 15 cm
edition of 20 and 1 A.P. editions
The directions to walk from Antwerp to Kasterlee via a long detour (approx. 3500 km) are searched on GoogleMaps. The road proposed spells the word DIVERSION.
A book was made with the complete directions from GoogleMaps accompanied with a postcard depicting the road from A to B. Copies of this book were inserted in the traveling section of the public libraries of Kasterlee and Antwerp without registration. Visitors can read it at the library and put it back or decide to take it home with them and keep it.
The book was also distributed for free to visitors to my site (www.diversions.be).
2012
book, soft cover, black & white, 175 pages / 21 x 15 cm
edition of 10 and 1 A.P. editions
The novelization of the movie 'Rocky II' is retyped with the left hand only as a way to instigate new neural pathways and new possibilities.
All errors made due to inexperience are left uncorrected as marks of practicing something new.
The first edition.
2014
book, soft cover, black & white, 175 pages / 21 x 15 cm
edition of 2 and 1 A.P. editions
The novelization of the movie 'Rocky II' is retyped with the left hand only as a way to instigate new neural pathways and new possibilities.
All errors made due to inexperience are left uncorrected as marks of practicing something new.
2012
glass / ⌀ 17 x 215 cm
unique
A placeholder is made, but the decision to replace it is postponed indefinitely. It simply keeps referring to something else, without ever specifying what this could or should be. A placeholder is something that refers to a temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, or unknown object and is used as a provisional substitute. It serves as a tool to advance the discussion. What normally belongs to the preparation for a show is now slowed down to become visible to the audience. With the use of placeholders a suitable installation is proposed, but decisions are postponed. The real image is temporarily suspended. After some time the show is reassessed and the placeholders are gradually substituted for the 'real' works.These 'real' works only exist in correlation with their placeholder counterparts and vice versa. It is the work that imparts the placeholder and the placeholder that articulates the work. The actual artwork resides somewhere in between: between shows, between objects, between meanings, between images. It subscribes to at least two possibilities and is irreducible to neither.
2012
granite with self-adhhesive foil (wood print), wood with self-adhhesive foil (stone print) / dimensions variable (complete installation), 170 x 80 x 3 cm, 179 x 89 x 2 cm
unique
A wooden board is covered with a self-adhesive foil with stone pattern. A slab of granite is covered with self-adhesive foil with wood pattern. A placeholder is something that refers to a temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, or unknown object and is used as a provisional substitute. It serves as a tool to advance the discussion. What normally belongs to the preparation for a show is now slowed down to become visible to the audience. With the use of placeholders a suitable installation is proposed, but decisions are postponed. The real image is temporarily suspended. After some time the show is reassessed and the placeholders are gradually substituted for the 'real' works.These 'real' works only exist in correlation with their placeholder counterparts and vice versa. It is the work that imparts the placeholder and the placeholder that articulates the work. The actual artwork resides somewhere in between: between shows, between objects, between meanings, between images. It subscribes to at least two possibilities and is irreducible to neither.
2012
laminated MDF with wood print, cermic tile with wood print, plastic with wood print, wood (oak) (3x) / dimensions variable (complete installation), 60 x 19 x 1 cm, 60 x 15 x 1 cm, 60 x 13 x 1 cm, 60 x 14 x 2 cm
unique
Three identical oak boards serve as placeholders for three different imitation wooden boards. A ceramic tile, a plastic board and a laminated MDF board with wood prints. A placeholder is something that refers to a temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, or unknown object and is used as a provisional substitute. It serves as a tool to advance the discussion. What normally belongs to the preparation for a show is now slowed down to become visible to the audience. With the use of placeholders a suitable installation is proposed, but decisions are postponed. The real image is temporarily suspended. After some time the show is reassessed and the placeholders are gradually substituted for the 'real' works.These 'real' works only exist in correlation with their placeholder counterparts and vice versa. It is the work that imparts the placeholder and the placeholder that articulates the work. The actual artwork resides somewhere in between: between shows, between objects, between meanings, between images. It subscribes to at least two possibilities and is irreducible to neither.
2012
stone, vinyl / dimensions variable (complete installation), 12 x 16 x 13 cm, 12 x 19 x 13 cm
unique
Three vinyl textworks from the preceding show by Hamish Fulton are reused. What is normally thrown away is now used as a placeholder by modelling a replica of a stone found in Furkapass, where Hamish Fulton also made walking artwork. A placeholder is something that refers to a temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, or unknown object and is used as a provisional substitute. It serves as a tool to advance the discussion. What normally belongs to the preparation for a show is now slowed down to become visible to the audience. With the use of placeholders a suitable installation is proposed, but decisions are postponed. The real image is temporarily suspended. After some time the show is reassessed and the placeholders are gradually substituted for the 'real' works.These 'real' works only exist in correlation with their placeholder counterparts and vice versa. It is the work that imparts the placeholder and the placeholder that articulates the work. The actual artwork resides somewhere in between: between shows, between objects, between meanings, between images. It subscribes to at least two possibilities and is irreducible to neither.
2012
photograph (5x lambda print), photocopy (5x) / dimensions variable (complete installation), 43 x 33 cm, 37 x 26 cm
unique
A photocopy of the default JPEG icon serves as placeholders for a customized icon. A placeholder is something that refers to a temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, or unknown object and is used as a provisional substitute. It serves as a tool to advance the discussion. What normally belongs to the preparation for a show is now slowed down to become visible to the audience. With the use of placeholders a suitable installation is proposed, but decisions are postponed. The real image is temporarily suspended. After some time the show is reassessed and the placeholders are gradually substituted for the 'real' works.These 'real' works only exist in correlation with their placeholder counterparts and vice versa. It is the work that imparts the placeholder and the placeholder that articulates the work. The actual artwork resides somewhere in between: between shows, between objects, between meanings, between images. It subscribes to at least two possibilities and is irreducible to neither.
2012
marble with self-adhesive foil (wood print), wood with self-adhesive foil (marble print) / dimensions variable (complete installation), 120 x 50 x 2 cm, 130 x 60 x 2 cm
unique
A wooden board is covered with a self-adhesive foil with stone pattern. A slab of marble is covered with self-adhesive foil with wood pattern. A placeholder is something that refers to a temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, or unknown object and is used as a provisional substitute. It serves as a tool to advance the discussion. What normally belongs to the preparation for a show is now slowed down to become visible to the audience. With the use of placeholders a suitable installation is proposed, but decisions are postponed. The real image is temporarily suspended. After some time the show is reassessed and the placeholders are gradually substituted for the 'real' works.These 'real' works only exist in correlation with their placeholder counterparts and vice versa. It is the work that imparts the placeholder and the placeholder that articulates the work. The actual artwork resides somewhere in between: between shows, between objects, between meanings, between images. It subscribes to at least two possibilities and is irreducible to neither.
2012
photograph (lambda print), frame, photocopy, digital file / dimensions variable (complete installation), 81 x 111 cm, 76 x 106 cm,
unique
A photocopy of the default JPEG icon serves as placeholders for a customized icon. A placeholder is something that refers to a temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, or unknown object and is used as a provisional substitute. It serves as a tool to advance the discussion. What normally belongs to the preparation for a show is now slowed down to become visible to the audience. With the use of placeholders a suitable installation is proposed, but decisions are postponed. The real image is temporarily suspended. After some time the show is reassessed and the placeholders are gradually substituted for the 'real' works.These 'real' works only exist in correlation with their placeholder counterparts and vice versa. It is the work that imparts the placeholder and the placeholder that articulates the work. The actual artwork resides somewhere in between: between shows, between objects, between meanings, between images. It subscribes to at least two possibilities and is irreducible to neither.
2012
wood (oak) with self-adhisive foil (wood print), wood (pine) with self-adhesive foil (wood print) / dimensions variable (complete installation), 225 x 9,5 x 4,5 cm, 225 x 9,5 x 3 cm
unique
A pine wooden beam is covered on one side with self-adhesive foil with wood print. It serves as a placeholder for an oak wooden beam, covered on one side with self-adhesive foil with wood print. A placeholder is something that refers to a temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, or unknown object and is used as a provisional substitute. It serves as a tool to advance the discussion. What normally belongs to the preparation for a show is now slowed down to become visible to the audience. With the use of placeholders a suitable installation is proposed, but decisions are postponed. The real image is temporarily suspended. After some time the show is reassessed and the placeholders are gradually substituted for the 'real' works.These 'real' works only exist in correlation with their placeholder counterparts and vice versa. It is the work that imparts the placeholder and the placeholder that articulates the work. The actual artwork resides somewhere in between: between shows, between objects, between meanings, between images. It subscribes to at least two possibilities and is irreducible to neither.
2012
logo, digital file, purified water / dimensions variable
unique
A logo for purified water from a public source (lake, river, fountain, etc...). Once bottled and crated it is installed as a sculpture. Visitors can take a bottle and drink. The reason for being there is thus consumed and dispersed by the visitors.
2011
news ticker, computer, digital file / 190 x 10 x 8 cm
unique
A news ticker displays the URL on a torrent index. A small built-in computer contains the original work 'The Bootleg Redux (Torrent Edit)' and seeds it via this URL. Whenever the news ticker is switched on, at least one complete seed of the video is available, allowing for endless reproductions. This piece replaces the artist's copy (which is taken off-line) as the original available copy.
2011 - ongoing
copy machine, engraved glass plate, paper, books / dimensions variable, 100 x 67 x 67 cm (copy machine)
edition of 4 editions
The glass plate of a photocopy machine has been engraved. Books are provided (e.g. a catalogue of each artist in the show or a book presented in the show). The engraving will be visible over each copy that is made. An edition limited to the amount of paper inserted in the machine can be made.
The original and the author are simultaneously created and destroyed.
Each time the work is presented a new engraving is added for a new edition.
In a first edition 100 signed and numbered white pages are inserted.
In a second edition 100 signed and numbered opaque pages are inserted.
In a third edition 500 numbered and stamped blue pages are inserted.
2010
raw data, hard disk (39 pcs.) / 100 x 177 x 4,7 cm (complete installation), 11,7 x 19 x 4,7 cm (hard disk)
unique
Thirty-nine gold, designer hard disks are mounted on the wall as a sculpture. Spread over these disks is raw and unprocessed information: everything I have ever used for creating works. They are copies of my personal working archive. It is a way of seeding the information. The pattern reads “Teo Macero” in binary code. Not as a portrait, but as a point of reference. He was a music producer for Miles Davis. Together they used copy/paste editing to rearrange recordings for albums such as "Bitches Brew" and "In a Silent Way". These albums are considered the invention of fusion jazz.
Over time form and content will drift apart, as the hard disks become more and more obsolete and out-dated. The information will search for newer media and here only a shell will remain: a useless design object.
2013
raw data, hard disk (24 pcs.) / 207 x 98 x 4,7 cm (complete installation), 11,7 x 19 x 4,7 cm (hard disk)
unique
Twenty-four black, designer hard disks are mounted on the wall as a sculpture / painting. Spread over these disks is raw and unprocessed information: everything I have ever used for creating works. They are copies of my personal working archive. It is a way of seeding the information.
The pattern reads “Beppe Loda” in binary code. Not as a portrait, but as a point of reference. He is an Italian DJ from the seventies known for his Cosmic Disco sets and slowed down mixing style.
Over time form and content will drift apart, as the hard disks become more and more obsolete and out-dated. The information will search for newer media and here only a shell will remain: a used but useless design object.
2011
raw data, hard disk (37 pcs.) / 100 x 166 x 4,7 cm (complete installation), 11,7 x 19 x 4,7 cm (hard disk)
unique
Thirty-seven gold designer hard disks are mounted on the wall as a sculpture / painting. Spread over these disks is raw and unprocessed information: everything I have ever used for creating works. They are copies of my personal working archive. It is a way of seeding the information.
This edition is the negative, inversed version of 'Hard Disk Sculpture (Teo Macero Edit)'. It also reads “Teo Macero” in binary code, but here a hard disk stands for a zero instead of a one. . Teo Macero was a music producer for Miles Davis. Together they used copy/paste editing to rearrange recordings for albums such as "Bitches Brew" and "In a Silent Way". These albums are considered the invention of fusion jazz.
Over time form and content will drift apart, as the hard disks become more and more obsolete and out-dated. The information will search for newer media and here only a shell will remain: a useless design object.
2010
photograph, digital file / dimensions variable, 83 x 115 cm (example print (lambda on dibond))
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
For some time I took screenshots of my computers desktop. It shows the platform I work on, with its multiple layers. Everything you see is in a production stage. As it is part of a series of photographs, you can see a constant shift of documents and the changing personal, customized desktop pictures.
It is part of a series of a week.
The image can be resized and printed as required.
2010
photograph, digital file / dimensions variable, 83 x 115 cm (example print (lambda on dibond))
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
For some time I took screenshots of my computers desktop. It shows the platform I work on, with its multiple layers. Everything you see is in a production stage. As it is part of a series of photographs, you can see a constant shift of documents and the changing personal, customized desktop pictures.
It is part of a series of a week.
The image can be resized and printed as required.
2010
photograph, digital file / dimensions variable, 83 x 115 cm (example print (lambda on dibond))
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
For some time I took screenshots of my computers desktop. It shows the platform I work on, with its multiple layers. Everything you see is in a production stage. As it is part of a series of photographs, you can see a constant shift of documents and the changing personal, customized desktop pictures.
It is part of a series of a week.
The image can be resized and printed as required.
2010
photograph, digital file / dimensions variable, 83 x 115 cm (example print (lambda on dibond))
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
For some time I took screenshots of my computers desktop. It shows the platform I work on, with its multiple layers. Everything you see is in a production stage. As it is part of a series of photographs, you can see a constant shift of documents and the changing personal, customized desktop pictures.
It is part of a series of a week.
The image can be resized and printed as required.
2010
photograph, digital file / dimensions variable, 83 x 115 cm (example print (lambda on dibond))
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
For some time I took screenshots of my computers desktop. It shows the platform I work on, with its multiple layers. Everything you see is in a production stage. As it is part of a series of photographs, you can see a constant shift of documents and the changing personal, customized desktop pictures.
It is part of a series of a week.
The image can be resized and printed as required.
2010
photograph, digital file / dimensions variable, 83 x 115 cm (example print (lambda on dibond))
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
For some time I took screenshots of my computers desktop. It shows the platform I work on, with its multiple layers. Everything you see is in a production stage. As it is part of a series of photographs, you can see a constant shift of documents and the changing personal, customized desktop pictures.
It is part of a series of a week.
The image can be resized and printed as required.
2010
photograph, digital file / dimensions variable, 83 x 115 cm (example print (lambda on dibond))
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
For some time I took screenshots of my computers desktop. It shows the platform I work on, with its multiple layers. Everything you see is in a production stage. As it is part of a series of photographs, you can see a constant shift of documents and the changing personal, customized desktop pictures.
It is part of a series of a week.
The image can be resized and printed as required.
2010
photograph, digital file / dimensions variable, 90 x 160 cm (example print (lambda on dibond))
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
For a week I took screenshots of my computers changing desktop picture. It shows a platform I work on, with its multiple layers. It also shows the way I mainly look at pictures: on a screen, as thumbs.
A new screen with a different ratio demanded a new series.
It is part of a series of a week.
The image can be resized and printed as required.
2010
photograph, digital file / dimensions variable, 90 x 160 cm (example print (lambda on dibond))
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
For a week I took screenshots of my computers changing desktop picture. It shows a platform I work on, with its multiple layers. It also shows the way I mainly look at pictures: on a screen, as thumbs.
A new screen with a different ratio demanded a new series.
It is part of a series of a week.
The image can be resized and printed as required.
2010
photograph, digital file / dimensions variable, 90 x 160 cm (example print (lambda on dibond))
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
For a week I took screenshots of my computers changing desktop picture. It shows a platform I work on, with its multiple layers. It also shows the way I mainly look at pictures: on a screen, as thumbs.
A new screen with a different ratio demanded a new series.
It is part of a series of a week.
The image can be resized and printed as required.
2010
photograph, digital file / dimensions variable, 90 x 160 cm (example print (lambda on dibond))
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
For a week I took screenshots of my computers changing desktop picture. It shows a platform I work on, with its multiple layers. It also shows the way I mainly look at pictures: on a screen, as thumbs.
A new screen with a different ratio demanded a new series.
It is part of a series of a week.
The image can be resized and printed as required.
2010
photograph, digital file / dimensions variable, 90 x 160 cm (example print (lambda on dibond))
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
For a week I took screenshots of my computers changing desktop picture. It shows a platform I work on, with its multiple layers. It also shows the way I mainly look at pictures: on a screen, as thumbs.
A new screen with a different ratio demanded a new series.
It is part of a series of a week.
The image can be resized and printed as required.
2010
photograph, digital file / dimensions variable, 90 x 160 cm (example print (lambda on dibond))
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
For a week I took screenshots of my computers changing desktop picture. It shows a platform I work on, with its multiple layers. It also shows the way I mainly look at pictures: on a screen, as thumbs.
A new screen with a different ratio demanded a new series.
It is part of a series of a week.
The image can be resized and printed as required.
2010
photograph, digital file / dimensions variable, 90 x 160 cm (example print (lambda on dibond))
edition of 3 and 1 A.P. edition
For a week I took screenshots of my computers changing desktop picture. It shows a platform I work on, with its multiple layers. It also shows the way I mainly look at pictures: on a screen, as thumbs.
A new screen with a different ratio demanded a new series.
It is part of a series of a week.
The image can be resized and printed as required.
2008
book, soft cover, black & white, (2x) 100 pages / 18 x 11 cm
edition of 10 and 1 A.P. editions
A rewrite of the original book 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' by Truman Capote is produced. The new version is written as the inverse of the original with male becoming female and vice versa. Both texts are included in the book, not to compare, but to provoke an active, creative reading.
Although an edition of 10 copies, each copy has its own unique dust jacket and has a unique combination of quotations inside.
2007
poster, recto, black & white, 120 gr / 50 x 35 cm
edition of 100 and 10 A.P. editions
A story of remixes of the song 'Last Night A DJ Saved My Life' unfolds as each title describes a different mood.
A poster that also served as a parallel production for an exhibition. Besides the work 'AINTAPROBLEMICANTFIX' that was exhibited the poster is distributed beyond the time and space of the exhibition.
2007
poster, black & white, recto, 150 gr / 50 x 35 cm
edition of 100 and 10 A.P. editions
A group exhibition. Suddenly the space in between the works does not remain neutral. It becomes tangible. The two exhibition spaces and all the works in it are redefined by a fragrance, 'REMIX' by Armani.
Top notes of basil, cardamom, bergamot, middle notes of lily of the valley, mace, and base notes of vetiver, licorice, white musk. The real reasons why Giorgio Armani decided to name his new perfume 'REMIX' are difficult to know for sure. Maybe he knew it to be a sign of the times, maybe he thought it just sounded trendy, maybe the decisions wasn't his at all but that of his empire's marketing department. What is known is that for this show a space is opened by addition, and not by emptiness. It's a fragrance that opens a space of production, of re-production in real-time and doubles everything up with a footnote. A remix.
Parallel a poster is produced and distributed: a folder showing A4 pages of a text, describing nothing by listing everything that is not nothing. Some smaller papers are sticking out, adding footnotes, remarks.
2007
poster, black & white, recto-verso, 150 gr / 84 x 59,4 cm
edition of 100 and 10 A.P. editions
A possible book.
The first section of a book as a poster. A title page, page numbers, cutting marks, a quotation as introduction, two times two descriptions of a space, maybe a working space. As as a story, as an image, interacting, interfering.
In collaboration with Mark Luyten.
2005
poster, color, recto, 250 gr / 50 x 35 cm
edition of 1000 editions
A poster (depicting a photograph of a window accompanied by a small text about the distraction of a sound) as a platform for an exchange: it was distributed to activate the work. Texts were gathered in return and pasted on the walls of the exhibition space.
Extra City
Eikelstraat 31
2600 Berchem
Belgium
From 20/06/2019 to 20/06/2019
“From white paper to whiteboard” on 20 June 2019, with contributions by Karina Beumer, Brenda Tempelaar and Peter Lemmens.
As a standalone second discussion of a study group on distribution in art, this visual thinking exercise spins off to look more at the artwork itself, its possible configurations and an artist’s point of view. Artworks are often given a very concentrated distribution: an exhibition, sometimes limited to the opening of an exhibition, an article, a quick advertisement, ... They might be an ultimate consumer product, peaking very fast and disappearing arguably even faster. How can art grasp its own distribution? Which roles can distribution play in an artistic practice? How are these models of distribution feeding back into artistic practices? What does art leave slipstreaming in its wake?
CIAP
Lombaardstraat 23
3500 Hasselt
Belgium
From 31/05/2019 to 01/09/2019
With: Anna Godzina – Christoph De Boeck – Daan Gielis – Ersi Varveri – Esther Venrooy – Floris Vanhoof – Imge & Sine Özbilge – Jonathan Paepens – Karina Beumer & Peter Lemmens – Koba De Meutter – Lydia Debeer – Maika Garnica & Willem Coenen – Robert Soroko – Willem Boel – Winnie Claessens
Luigi Russolo's growlers, cracklers and bursters (and many more) would form an orchestra that would first reflect the new world of the machine and then contribute to human development.
Luigi Carlo Filippo Russolo (30 April 1885 – 6 February 1947) was an Italian Futurist painter, composer, builder of experimentalmusicalinstruments. He designed and constructed a number of noise-generating devices called Intonarumori.
The summer exhibition at CIAP will focus on sound as a connecting link. Not, as Russolo had intended his orchestration, to retrain and rework our ears, but to explore the relationship with the parallel reality of art that artists link to reality outside the exhibition space.
This exhibition was orchestrally brought together in collaboration and in dialogue with all the artists.
Sonica
Antwerp
Belgium
From 20/10/2018 to 05/01/2019
"Critical practices do not contribute to the counter-hegemonic struggle by deserting the institutional terrain but by engaging with it, with the aim of fostering dissent and creating a multiplicity of agonistic spaces where the dominant consensus is challenged and where new modes of identification are made available. […] There exists a great variety of ways of bringing about agonistic spaces, and they can emerge both inside and outside institutions. […] such an approach challenges the view that institutions cannot be transformed and that resistances can only develop and be successful outside them, and it encourages a diversity of interventions, inside and outside the traditional world of art."
— Chantal Mouffe
Institutes As Sites Of Agonistic Intervention, Institutional Attitudes - Instituting Art in A Flat World, Pascal Gielen (ed.), Valiz, Amsterdam 2013, p. 68
In 2001, ‘Casino’ was announced as the first quadriennale of Ghent. The exhibition came and went, a catalogue was made. There was, however, never a second edition. Following a discussion if such a curtailed event can be called a quadriennale, the thinking exercise rose on requirements and consequences.
Without trying to seek out a rigorous definition or a cynical position, a new biennale is scheduled with a minimalistic approach. A limited set of artists, non-intrusive artworks distributed over the city's districts, an existing shuttle service for mobility, a basic catalogue. Sonica is articulated as a one-time event thinking about a deliberate downgrade. The event not as an assimilating structure, but as an en route playlist while traversing the city.
Tique
Antwerp
Belgium
From 02/05/2018 to 02/05/2018
For Tique Salon #14, we’ve invited Karina Beumer, Peter Lemmens and Brenda Tempelaar to present their artistic practice and latest publications, entitled ‘A series of (in)direct questions to one or two or three authors of a casually collected set of publications without it being immediately clear whom or which publication these address’.
Where do the characters go when the story ends? is both a book and a film trilogy by artist Karina Beumer. It comprises Beumer’s recent films Open for new challenges, Was het maar zo makkelijk (If only it were that easy) and We have to think of something else (part One and Two). The book chronicles each film frame by frame, interspersing images with texts by Eleanor Duffin, Brenda Tempelaar, Céline Mathieu, Ingrid Verhoeven, Dennis Van Mol, Els, Lise Lotte ten Voorde, Puck Vonk, Stijn Huijts and an accompanying ‘director’s commentary’ dialogue between Beumer and Publication Studio’s Yin Yin Wong, which documents the development of the book itself.
In the spirit of Beumer’s practice, this project is a process of accumulation. Within the films, scripts are build up by being repeatedly enacted, continuously altered and constantly renegotiated. Tools of communication — translation, indication, instruction, and explanation — become stage directions and create entry points for improvisation, weaving reality throughout the scripts that somehow, perhaps through the act of framing itself as art, becomes a fiction of its own. And just as the film becomes an exhibition becomes a book, the status of the participants shifts along with the work too — elements fold onto each other as people unexpectedly find themselves at once an incidental bystander and a star of the film, somehow signing their autographs at its book launch.
Peter Lemmens is an artist and initiator of publishing house Concat Books. HOSTILE TAKEOVER’, 2017 collects all publications produced between 2005 – 2017 for reprint under the new publishing house ‘CONCAT BOOKS’. Also a single new book, especially made for this new publishing house is added. All print-ready PDF files are copied to a USB flash drive. The publishing house has the non-exclusive rights to reprint all publications as it sees fit.
This publishing of a publishing house contains not just publications, but all the necessary means for publishing. It negotiates significant consequences as copyright value is traded for distribution value and ownership points out various stakeholder responsibilities as problematic. It’s part of an artistic practice that questions possible production, distribution and organisational strategies as intrinsic part of the work.
Artist and writer Brenda Tempelaar recently initiated and published The Exhibition Tower, an exhibition catalogue that features four exhibitions that took place at the Jan van Eyck academy in Maastricht. The exhibition venue is a one to ten scale model of a tower designed by OMA for Lafayette Anticipations, a new art institute that recently opened in Paris. The Exhibition Tower explores the 40 different configurations of its mobile floors, enhancing curatorial flexibility in a space with an ultimate height of 18 meter.
The catalogue contains photographic documentation of the presentations by Van Eyck residents Stéphanie Lagarde, Graham Kelly, GVN908 and Golnar Abbasi, who displayed their work in the context of the tower whilst imagining the full-scale project it was modeled after. The editorial essay Animating the Ghost Sonata draws a paralel between The Exhibition Tower and August Strindberg’s 1907 screenplay The Ghost Sonata, a story about expectations, dreams and house rules.
Catherine Bastide
Marseille
France
From 26/01/2018 to 05/05/2018
Exhibition with Jérémie Bennequin, Patrick Bernatchez, Julien Berthier, Nicolas Bourthoumieux, Marc Buchy, Claude Closky, Hanne Darboven, Alec De Busschère, Félicie d'Estienne d'Orves, David de Tscharner, Mark Geffriaud, On Kawara, Joseph Kosuth, LAb[au], Peter Lemmens, Albertine Meunier, Roman Opalka, Bertrand Planes, Sébastien Reuzé, Yann Sérandour, Seth Siegelaub, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Noémie Vulpian
Opening January 26, 2018 from 6 to 9 p.m
Exhibition on view from January 27 to May 5, 2018
Curated by : Société - Manuel Abendroth & Els I.R.L. Vermang
Time is the most difficult term to define in our life, since it is our life itself. To show or to reflect upon is already a paradox.’ Nam June Paik
We all know what time is. Difficulties entangle however as soon as we consciously reflect on time and to bring into account both objective as subjective time. Unlike many other notions, our understanding of time depends of our subjective perception based on an individual reference system which is differing of an exact, objective time notion. Time is such an elementary concept that while everyone knows what is pointed at, it is hardly impossible to describe it precisely.
Accordingly, the exhibition presents artistic models which challenge the notion of time from both different as unusual angles, ranging from objective models to measure and calculate time, to empiric exploration of natural phenomena, over the examination and interrogation of history, to the documentation of personal life experience and the play of individual mythology.
After the exhibitions of ‘xerox’ and ‘modus operandi’ this show is the third of a chapter reflecting on the heritage of conceptual art in algorithmic art. As such the exhibition is based on Eduard Hussels phenomenology of time differentiating the measuring of time (what he calls ‘zeitmessung’); rationalisation, and the awareness of time (‘zeitbewustsein’), subjectivation of our Zeitgeist.
thestockexchange
bouwmeesterstraat 3
2000 Antwerp
Belgium
From 11/01/2018 to 11/01/2018
An artwork's value is difficult. Often a chaotic, random choice averaging out the material, the size, the labour involved, the market position, the artist’s market position, its position in the oeuvre, its editions, its social capital, …
It’s also a longstanding tradition that artists exchange artworks. Especially when they are relatively unknown. Which might play a part in working out an exchange. What are considerations? What is an artwork's exchange value?
Although exchange value is actually a term described in economic theories, In modern neoclassical economics, exchange value itself is no longer explicitly theorised. The reason is that the concept of money-price is deemed sufficient in order to understand trading processes and markets.
Professor John Eatwell criticizes this approach as follows:
"Since the markets are driven by average opinion about what average opinion will be, an enormous premium is placed on any information or signals that might provide a guide to the swings in average opinion and as to how average opinion will react to changing events. These signals have to be simple and clear-cut. Sophisticated interpretations of the economic data would not provide a clear lead. So the money markets and foreign exchange markets become dominated by simple slogans--larger fiscal deficits lead to higher interest rates, an increased money supply results in higher inflation, public expenditure bad, private expenditure good--even when those slogans are persistently refuted by events. So "the markets" are basically a collection of overexcited young men and women, desperate to make money by guessing what everyone else in the market will do. Many have no more claim to economic rationality than tipsters at the local racetrack and probably rather less specialist knowledge."
So how to avoid a simplistic reading of an artwork and its exchange value and allow the exchange to exchange something that can not be weighed by supply and demand, not be a random price set by physical standards or random averages. How to go beyond financial value or a market with an artist’s exchange? What can be alternative parameters in an exchange?
So I would like to add something to the exchange. A responsibility. Exchange a work that asks a question to it’s owner. Maybe treats the owner more as a stakeholder. Asks what can be done with the work. And to do this, first let’s push the work into the information sector. So the proposed trade is not just trading a physical object, but on top of that the information to reproduce the work, to distribute the work. Although maybe somewhat limited, actually offer some degree of control over the information that is traded. It’s a stakeholdership, asking to act as it’s agent. It’s owning by giving away, sharing, making available, distributing, making searchable, making available. Collecting not as keeping things, but as a way of staying connected. A stakeholder can suppress the abundance of the information, or can facilitate the abundance of information. He can make searchable what has intrinsic unlimited supply, never-ending the demand side.
And as a remark on this think about this: the search is more easily controlled than the copy-paste. It’s a filter of what you can reach. What goes beyond the first page of Google stays beyond the first page.
So to come to a certain minor point: instead of merely exchanging objects, what about exchanging a shared responsibility over an artwork as its stakeholder? And the object can be simply a part of this. And as a stakeholder, the shared question is how to manage the artwork. How to act as its manager? How to place it in a network since you have the extreme means to do so? How to set free something you love?
Maurice Verbaet Art Centre
Antwerp
Belgium
From 15/09/2017 to 15/10/2017
An exhibition accompanying the book 'Artist's Publications: The Belgian Contribution'. This book, the first about the topic, describes in detail how artists in Belgium have been using the book and the magazine for their artistic practice. The important role of Belgian art publishers and publishers-galerists is highlighted as well.
Johan Pas begins history with the avant-gardes at the end of the 19th century and sketches out the developments until today. Movements such as Constructivism, Surrealism, Cobra, Pop art, Conceptual art and more recent tendencies are discussed through their printed output.
Société d'electicité
Brussels
Belgium
From 07/09/2017 to 12/11/2017
Time is the most difficult term to define in our life, since it is our life itself. To show or to reflect upon is already a paradox.’ Nam June Paik
We all know what time is. Difficulties entangle however as soon as we consciously reflect on time and to bring into account both objective as subjective time. Unlike many other notions, our understanding of time depends of our subjective perception based on an individual reference system which is differing of an exact, objective time notion. Time is such an elementary concept that while everyone knows what is pointed at, it is hardly impossible to describe it precisely.
Accordingly, the exhibition presents artistic models which challenge the notion of time from both different as unusual angles, ranging from objective models to measure and calculate time, to empiric exploration of natural phenomena, over the examination and interrogation of history, to the documentation of personal life experience and the play of individual mythology.
After the exhibitions of 'xerox' and 'modus operandi' this show is the third of a chapter reflecting on the heritage of conceptual art in algorithmic art. As such the exhibition is based on Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology of time differentiating the measuring of time (so called ‘Zeitmessung’); rationalisation, and the awareness of time (so called ‘Zeitbewustsein’), subjectivation of our Zeitgeist.
Gert Aertsen
Art & Language
Jeffrey Michael Austin
Jérémie Bennequin
Julien Berthier
Patrick Bernatchez
Mel Bochner
Joshua Citarella & Brad Troemel
Claude Closky
Hanne Darboven
Edith Dekyndt
Félicie d'Estienne d'Orves
David de Tscharner
Mark Geffriaud
David Guez
On Kawara
Joseph Kosuth
LAb[au]
La Monte Young & Marian Zazeela
Peter Lemmens
Albertine Meunier
Nathalie Brevet_Hughes Rochette
Roman Opalka
Bertrand Planes
Sebastien Reuzé
Seth Siegelaub
Hirushi Sugimoto
Christophe Terlinden
Kris Van Dessel
thestockexchange
bouwmeesterstraat 3
2000 Antwerp
Belgium
From 07/09/2017 to 07/09/2017
All works in storage are moved to a new storage space.
It is cleaned with robot vaumm cleaners and an online academic service is contacted to write this critical text to inaugurate a storage space.
THE DISORDERLY PRESENTATION OF ARTWORK IN STORAGE SPACE
Introduction
Artwork storage is the process of keeping artworks at a specific place when not in use, where they can be retrieved from later when the need arises. Different works of art require different specifications of storage environment to ensure they are not damaged, and they remain intact until the time of use. Proper artwork storage is very important as it ensures the originality of works is preserved, and its intended purpose and design are maintained, Proper artwork storage is also vital as it saves time and extra cash required to be spent on rectification of errors incurred during storage. Disorderly storage of artwork is a major challenge that faces different types of artwork and results in their destruction and mismanagement. Work of art is delicate, and this creates another reason why work of art should be well stored to avoid any possible destruction of the message and also the used material. Poor storage of art work has been found to destroy the quality and also the ability to the art work to be of use to the future generations (Dubard & Kasprzak, 2016).
For the purposeful role of artwork to be adequately achieved, its storage must be
objectively tailor-made to maintain the originality and functionality as intended by the original creator of the work. This is an important approach to protecting artwork from any potential physical damage to the art work. Any accidental addition of unintended object or element is considered damage, as well as any extraction of an original element from the art work (Nakagawa et al., 2016).
Disorderly Presentation of Artwork in Storage Space
This is the conservation of artwork in a manner that would tamper with its originality. Anything that would bring color changes to the artwork would equally mean destruction, though it may be partial. Poor storage of artwork is rampant in different museums and art exhibition stores due to poor investment in art storage facilities. There is a need for the expansion and also training the curators on the importance of art storage with the aim of securing artwork (Dubard & Kasprzak 2016).
It is inappropriate to store visual artifacts like paintings in the following conditions:
a) Under unfavorable weather conditions like an environment which has moist or water because this may destroy the used material or the color shades used.
b) Under direct contact with sunlight, because fading of colors is likely in this case.
c) Stacking artwork over each other because the pressure exerted can cause damage to delicate work of art.
d) On the ground, racks should be built to avoid the materials from absorbing concrete moisture.
e) With hard objects that could cause scratching of artworks leading to falling off of some content.
f) In small spaces as destruction rates increase owing to congestion.
It is equally vital to observe proper storage during transportation to prevent events such as breakage, and any loses (Nakagawa et al., 2016).
Position of Storage Space of Art Contemporarily
One of the main functions of a work of art is cash generation and conveyance of specific messages. During its oeuvre stages, a suitable location should be selected where people can opt to be part of the art-making process by attending the formation stages, as many would pride in having followed the creation of the material step by step. The amount charged to view this process can be used to improve and fund the remaining parts. This would also capture people mindsets and allow the emotions flow with the design as it slowly evolves into a more meaningful piece. This will also allow people to appreciate the effort put in the making of art.
Instead of storing an art piece in a lone dark place away from the human vicinity, a piece of art should be placed at a location where it will both be safe and at the same time be within ease of reach to ensure it is easily accessible when needed. For example keeping a piece in a certain store easily accessible will secure the artwork from many dangers of destruction during retrieval time (Albertson 2016).
Structuring an Artwork, an Exhibition, a Context and Content
An exhibit is one of the best ways to market art. A well-structured creative work should be properly exhibited for the public to appreciate its meaning and purpose after which it should be passed on to the right destination to allow room for more art work to take place. The artist will, therefore, have room for new artwork creating materials, creating room for a new avenue to express more artistic work. It may also give the artist a chance to learn new things from other artists if a joint exhibit is considered. Consistency in the above processes should be by demand; therefore the art's quality should be of appreciable standards by the consumers to ensure there is no overstock as it would block finances and room for new work. The context of art should be therefore appealing, and its content should be easily relatable to and acceptable by the target audience (Locher, Smith & Smith, 2001).
In conclusion, proper storage of artworks is very vital, yet remains a major challenge to stakeholders. There is, therefore, a need of increment of investment in different art work storage facilities, because this will ensure that different cultural heritages are stored properly and not lost due to poor artwork storage which destroys important delicate and very relevant art works. Different works of art require different resources and elements to ensure their safety and curators should identify the best approaches to ensure the safety of an art work. It takes a lot of effort to create a great piece of art, so it is disastrous to lose such due to poor storage facilities. These unnecessary destructions can be avoided by observing simple proper storage standards.
References
Albertson, R., (2016). Collections Sustainable Storage Initiative.
Berti, S., & Paternò, F. (2003). Model-based design of speech interfaces. Interactive Systems. Design, Specification, and Verification, 205-217.
Dubard, V. and Kasprzak, C., 2016. XL to XXL: Seeking solutions for transport, exhibition, and storage of Charles Le Brun’s cartoons. Restaurator. International Journal for the Preservation of Library and Archival Material, 37(3-4), pp.181-197.
Locher, P. J., Smith, J. K., & Smith, L. F. (2001). The influence of presentation format and q viewer training in the visual arts on the perception of pictorial and aesthetic qualities of paintings. Perception, 30(4), 449-465.
Nakagawa, K., Hirota, M., Ishikawa, R., and Ishizawa, M., Canon Kabushiki Kaisha, 2016. Information processing apparatus, information processing method, and the storage medium. U.S. Patent 9,460,537.
thestockexchange
bouwmeesterstraat 3
2000 Antwerp
Belgium
From 07/06/2017 to 07/06/2017
In a previous work called Music for a library (sounds to read by) a sound installation was placed in a library. As for some people music while reading is a prerequisite, for others it makes it impossible to focus on a text. In this example the books could be read as a score, redefining the sounds, functioning as liner notes, rhythm, lyrics or vice versa the music acting as a soundtrack or an annotated version of the books and the library.
So how to address what is going on here? In a simple description we see a storage space that is setup as a stage or as bleachers for a sound work. By stacking the crates a podium is made for the audio, a sitting space for an audience as well as a performing space for anyone who wants to put on a vinyl record. The construction becomes a makeshift sculpture for approaching the audio work and at the same time editing it with three factors:
1. It is unintentionally performed by random people
2. It is listened to in erratic sequences
3. It is inserted into an inadequate space and setting
Listening to an audio work is here at the same time performing it for an audience. In a very direct and minimal way, the handling of the record by the audience becomes a DJ set in it’s most primitive form. It's choosing and sharing with an audience something you want to hear for yourself, although in a careless and unpredictable manner.
Five vinyl records are available. This is difficult for listeners. Works can be skipped, parts can be played, succeeded by parts from other works, mingling contingent sets of content, without respecting sequences such as an A- or B-side, sidestepping intentions of the artworks. It’s sacrificing the sovereign autonomy and authority of the artwork to a certain layering and juxtaposing, never resolving into a full work or claiming a completeness. The works are fragmented into a set of impromptu trailers for works that interrupt, divert and cross-talk.
This is probably inherent to what the stock space is. A messy, imperfect location failing to present or represent the artwork. Every unpacking of a work is a diversion to what else is in the stock, what to unpack next, what to do next.
But somehow, despite this falling short and interference, it’s an unsound method that still sounds like a plan.
thestockexchange
bouwmeesterstraat 3
2000 Antwerp
Belgium
From 20/05/2017 to 21/05/2017
Allow me to approach this space and point out some of its intended dificulties in three small steps.
IN STORE
INCOMPATIBLITY
SECONDARY MARKET
IN STORE
The storage space is not a zone of tourism. It’s a place reserved for the worker only.The most contemporary storage spaces even have human-free zones. Completely operated by machines and robots, software and sensors. No human is allowed to enter. This is a precautionary measure for human safety as well as the security of the automated distribution process.
So setting up the storage space as a public moment is problematic. Here the open door isn't a marker for a behind-the-scenes tour of the factory. It’s not intended as a voyeuristic moment to see how things work. Instead it wants to approach the storage space as problematic and address some of it’s specific intangible aspects of organising work and objects.
Let’s entertain for a moment the idea of the logistics, not intended as solely servicing the work, but as intervening in the work, inconveniencing some obvious conventions. The storage space no longer as an art-free zone accommodating the art going on outside, it’s no longer the cryogenic box where art temporarily suspends it's potential in some crated hypersleep before being revived again in the next exhibition.
Nor is it the stock and the crates aesthetically pushed out into the exhibition space as the artwork itself. Storage space aesthetics might not be enough.
Instead, here, it's the stock space destabilising the artwork. No longer is the storage a safe, neutral zone, where nothing is supposed to happen to the work. Now it complicates or even endangers the artwork and some of its fragile constructs. It shows work as it is not intended to be seen: in a naked, uncontextualized surroundings. The stock can render the artwork invisible, difficult to read, it can contaminate it, hijack it by diversionary circumstances. It might even work as a kind of kryptonite to the artworks superpowers, disabling it’s normal capacity.
The storage space probably raises more questions than it's equipped to answer when it refuses to become a place of presentation or at least clings to its own specifics with claws. It’s near to impossible to “install” a work here, to define a presentation is at its best always a messy attempt. Where artworks are often closely connected to its context, here the context seems to push back and force a reboot of the system.
INCOMPATIBILITY
As artworks move in and out of spaces, there is always a certain kind of compatibility that should be maintained. Crates are made to make life easier. Stacking goes better, protection is better, handling is better.
By each time taking 2 panels of three existing crates, three new, hybrid crates are made. It's composite nature is further pointed out by a manual that seems to indicate fairly easy assembling and taking apart. These three crossbreeds, because of their diverse and incompatible origins, are riddled with holes. They are crooked, flawed, dirty, unstable, disconnected, unsound. They are unfit to the task of packing yet at the same time can't seem to make the expected or maybe necessary jump to an artwork. They raise questions. But these questions are not clear demarcations of the issues at hand. They do not seem to directly address what is going on.
Three bastard crates among regular crates in a storage space is a difficult proposition. It’s a theory that allows itself to trip over its own logic into a new theory. While at the same time it’s an out of focus image in high resolution, only to better see the blurriness. It’s not the telling pixelation associated with zooming in, but an endemic flou artistique, the photographic bokeh.
SECONDARY MARKET
For the duration of opening the storage space, the three crates are put on a second hand website. So again here the questions aren't clear demarcations of the issues at hand. They do not seem to directly address what is going on. The work also dares to ask difficult questions of its collector. What to do with such a work, obtained from a platform that proudly boasts about the devaluation inherent to the second hand item it distributes? And once obtained do we build a new crate for these secondhand crates?
This second hand market an economy that develops alongside a regular economy. It's arguably the simplest form of a market. It's here that the exchange is most driven by a supply and demand chain. Cars are popular.
SECONDroom
Terlinckstraat 30
2600 Antwerp
Belgium
From 06/05/2017 to 06/05/2017
An exhibition space in a garage, is returned to its original function by parking a car inside. A bumper sticker designates the car as an artwork. The key is replicated as a flash USB drive, containing the files for the bumper sticker.
thestockexchange
bouwmeesterstraat 3
2000 Antwerp
Belgium
From 26/03/2017 to 26/03/2017
An amount of blue glow-in-the-dark pigment is poured onto the ground. It marks a spot on the floor that lights up in a blueish hey whenever the light switches off suddenly.
Here I will try and discuss how this can function as an artwork with three levels of difficulty:
• LEVEL 1: Ectoplasm
• LEVEL 2: Business Hours
• LEVEL 3: Occupy
LEVEL 1: ECTOPLASM
In Ghostbusters, Ray Stantz attempted to hold Slimer by himself, but the ghost escaped through a wall, charged at Peter Venkman, and covered him in ectoplasmic residue.
In Poltergeist a family discovers that the the children's bedroom closet is an entrance to an other dimension, while the exit is through the living room ceiling. In an attempt to rescue her daughter Carol Anne, the mother passes through the entrance, tied by a rope that has been threaded through both portals. She manages to retrieve Carol Anne, and they both drop to the floor from the ceiling, unconscious and covered in ectoplasmic residue. As they recover, a medium proclaims afterward that the house is now "clean".
In short ectoplasm is what stays behind. It's tangible, physical evidence of a presence. It's a marker for something unknown that once was here. It's also a hoax.
LEVEL 2: BUSINESS HOURS
Art is often willingly made to fit into the pattern of the office hours, indicating it indeed accommodates a business model of post-fordist capacity.
Here, as visiting time stretches way beyond the reasonable, a moment that doesn't exist is described. When it's daylight saving time, the hour between 2:01 and 2:59 evaporates as we jump from 2:00 to 3:00.
Pushing heavily on the goodwill of the initiative, the participant as well as its audience, it wants to approach this idea of availability in an unwarranted, almost aggressive manner.
Also coffee is served.
LEVEL 3: OCCUPY
Again in the movie Ghostbusters, a team of paranormal scientists move to a derelict building in New York (and also drive a broke-down heresy), because they are exiled from official research. It's only in this abandoned building they are allowed to stay, right up until some city official again tries to evacuate them and unleashes hell on earth (albeit eventually in the form of a marshmallow man).
An end of the 19th century building is a burden on the city and on city planning. It can't be demolished, renovation is extremely expensive and designation is almost impossible due to our overdeveloped comfort standards. So it stays unoccupied and wears down.
And then in a brilliant move, it gets assigned to a private company by the city council. The goal is to look for temporary tenants, who can be evicted at any moment and are willing to give up all rights. Artists are grateful clients and art gets to occupy it now.
It's all part of an elaborate and refined blueprint planning. A rational planning movement after the industrial revolution that emphasized the improvement of the built environment based on key spatial factors. Examples of these factors include: exposure to direct sunlight, movement of vehicular traffic, standardized housing units, and proximity to green-space. To identify and design for these spatial factors, rational planning relied on a small group of highly specialized technicians, including architects, urban designers, and engineers. Other, less common, but nonetheless influential groups included governmental officials, private developers, and landscape architects. Through the strategies associated with these professions, the rational planning movement developed a collection of techniques for quantitative assessment, predictive modelling and design. Due to the high level of training required to grasp these methods, however, rational planning fails to provide an avenue for public participation. In both theory and practice, this shortcoming opened rational planning to claims of social insensitivity.
In a moment of self-indulgence, we like to think it's the artist being controlled. Except, it is actually much worse. It's the artist being instrumentalized, even deputised, as the controller. This is the exact opposite of the possibilities of an occupation. You can't designate to an occupation. This is not a free space, but a space that needs to be controlled and what better way to do it than by art. It is under surveillance by art. And the art can be cleaned out when it's not needed anymore. It will comply, it won't even resist as it is hard to resist against something you agree with.
So here, at an impossible hour, glow-in-the-dark pigment is poured onto the ground of a building marked for renovation as part of yet another city upscaling project. It will disperse and become a permanent part of the building, for long after art was allowed to occupy it. A foreign agent, a poltergeist, a remnant that will remain and become visible every time the lights go off suddenly.
It might be a moment to be critical of certain types of urban planning. It might also be a way to bite the hand that feeds.
thestockexchange
bouwmeesterstraat 3
2000 Antwerp
Belgium
From 18/03/2017 to 18/03/2017
As artworks spend most of their time in storage, maybe this is the logical place to approach, think about and invest in artworks. This setting is used as a platform to unpack and discuss a work, to show a video while playing a record, to stack shipping crates and make a room divider, to discard an old work before making a new one, ...
The storage space is activated at irregular intervals to assess its artworks and things in its peripheral view. It hesitates between stock and stock market, wavers between stockpile and stock sale, negotiates between in and out of stock.
I also can tell you what THESTOCKEXCHANGE is not. In mathematics this could be a proof by exhaustion, a kind of brute force method that exhausts all possibilities until what's left must be it. It's not an exhibition space, it's not a classroom, it's not a store, it's not a bar. It's also not a social space, it's not a program, a report or an annotation. It's not an institute nor is it a gallery. It's not an event, it's not a free space, it's not a white cube, it's certainly not a studio and it's not a workshop or an essay or a story. It could be a showroom, a study, an exercise or an archive, except that it's not. It's also not an invitation or an exchange, it's neither official nor professional. It's not formal and it certainly isn't theoretical. It's not a solo show but also not a group show or a retrospective. Not logistical, virtual, chronological, in sync, etcetera... It's not alternative.
So what's left is that maybe it's all of these things simultaneously, combined in something that looks like a storage space. And to begin with, it's an empty storage space.
So I would like to structure a minor point along three keywords as a short introduction into futures and options.
COLLABORATION
MODEL
HALT AND CATCH FIRE
COLLABORATION
There a joke by Woody Allen where he explains that two critical magazines have merged. One was called Dissent and the other Commentary. The new name is Dysentery.
So what we have here with THESTOCKEXCHANGE doesn't want to be a merger of two artistic practices like that. It's not a collective, it's not even doing things collectively. It's more living apart together (again Woody Allen waving across Central Park to Mia Farrow). It's an uncompromising simultaneity. It's the incompatible forced together with unsound methods. Or maybe, more accurately: not necessarily agreeing by leaving the conversation unresolved, to be picked up again the next time.
Being aware that "all forms of consensus are by necessity an act of exclusion".
MODEL
It's also, and this is maybe very important, not a model, it's not a manual. It's a place that constantly wants to rethink itself and therefor can not function as a recognizable model. It refuses each definition in order to redefine itself each time it is opened up. Instead it seeks out a certain discourse that disassembles the model at the exact moment it is constructed. And in doing so it offers something else. It wants to impose the discursive upon itself and everything and everyone involved, from initiative over participant to audience. It thinks about the production, distribution and economical aspects of artistic practices, but each time it intentionally trips and stumbles over the limits of its own structure. It's aware of these and yet proceeds and actively pushes towards bankruptcy and the collapse. Not out of a predatory aesthetic destruction mode, but more the compacting, stretching, mirroring and folding that are the actions of the practical experiment. Like the chair in the plexiglass box at IKEA that undergoes a constant stress test.
HALT AND CATCH FIRE
In computer engineering, Halt and Catch Fire is an instruction that causes the computer's central processing unit to cease meaningful operation, typically requiring a restart. It originally referred to a fictitious instruction, but later computer developers created real versions of it. It could consist of continuously firing all commands at the same time. The implication is that, by definition, there's no way for the system to recover without a restart. The expression "catch fire" in this context is normally used jokingly, rather than literal, referring to a total loss of CPU functionality during the current session. Mythically, the CPU chip would be switching some circuits so fast that it would cause them to overheat and burn.
So to end by combining these minor points, we will not venture beyond the front door. The first thing I would like to do for this space, is to retire the logo we created for it. I went online and had an online logo generator produce a new generic logo. The first one will now become a work that consists of the vinyl lettering, the invitation cards and the digital files on a flash drive. The logo will be replaced from now on, wherever it's used.
By immediately discontinuing and rebooting something that might look like a brand, it actively pushes towards it's own bankruptcy and collapse. It's not the 'no logo' as a logo, but the irrational, unwarranted shift to yet another new image, refusing confirmation and consolidation that should be the driving force behind it. What's left might well be all possible logos simultaneously, combined in something that looks like a storage space. And to begin with, it's no longer an empty storage space.
de Garage
Onder den toren 12
1800 Mechelen
Belgium
From 20/11/2015 to 19/12/2015
For this new version of the show the available exhibition space at De Garage is doubled and a circular suite of galleries is established. Hence the works shown during the first version are reconfigured, reedited and sometimes supplemented.
At the entrance a copy of the second version of the book exhibition catalogue can be borrowed for reading during the visit.
CNEAI
île des impressionnistes
78400 Chatou
France
From 26/04/2014 to 28/09/2014
"Credit to the edit" is a work by the Belgian artist Peter Lemmens. This work comes as a lightbox. Every time the work is presented, the title/image is reprinted in a new typeface, inspired by the typeface used previously. All the different typefaces are stored within the lightbox and are echoing through the lit surface, like remixes and audio track reissues. Each version adapts, adds,…until the original version is no longer traceable. The work will be on view during the course of the show. Adapted three times, following the rhythm of the three different presentations that will compose the exhibition. Each presentation will consist of an ensemble of existing editions and multiples, completed with a series of new productions.
°1 : 26 April – 8 June
For the first display, MOREpublishers produces six new editions; the numbers #4, #5 and #6 of the series Exhibition copy by respectively Claude Closky, François Curlet and Yann Sérandour, and the numbers #29, #33 et #34 of the series Hors série by Pratchaya Phinthong, Valerie Snobeck and Manuel Burgener.
The series Exhibition Copy of which the six existing numbers are shown during this first phase is the most recent of the four series started up by MOREpublishers. For now, it gathers the propositions by Belgium artists Vaast Colson, Sophie Nys and Christophe Terliden as well as the ones of the French artists Claude Closky, François Curlet and Yann Sérandour. Exhibition copy is composed of a standard format. An A4 photocopy accompanied by an A2 silkscreen print, the A2 being an enlargement of the A4 print or, reflections on how the enlargement can add something, twist, or create a shift. The editions are produced on the occasion of exhibitions and/or presentations. During these public events the A4 photocopies are distributed to the visitors. The A4 prints are presented alongside the A2 silkscreen prints so that people are invited to continue the photocopy and distribution process endlessly. The term ‘Exhibition Copy' is referring to the use of copies of works (printed matter, video works, etc) without value. To be used in exhibitions or demonstrations only. The A4 photocopy has the colophon printed on the backside. ‘Exhibition copy' is published in an edition of 10 (+ 4 A.P.), signed and numbered.
Hors série is an on-going series. Consisting of various productions- object-like multiples, printed matter, etc. The artists and/or MOREpublishers produce most of the editions on the occasion of exhibitions or events as a result of specific proposals. The first part of Credit to the Edit includes the Hors Séries by Sylvie Eyberg, Alexandra Leykauf, Pratchaya Phintong, Valerie Snobeck, and Manuel Burgener whose edition is also used here as a presentation support for three numbers of the series Sunday: the #009 by Liam Gillick, the #17 by Anri Sala as well as the #025 by Claude Closky.
Sunday is the first series of publications published by MOREpublishers. It is an editorial project published on a bi-monthly basis. A standard format was developed specifically for this project, in which an artist is invited to conduct an intervention, re-think a work, or make an adaptation. Sunday is a cross between a publication, an artist's edition, a multiple, and an exhibition. A foldable exhibition platform, a poster-like monograph, an artwork edition…
The exhibition includes as well the number 4 of the series INSERTS, Inside the Studio by Claude Closky. INSERTS is the third series of editions by MOREpublishers. These editions were initially inspired by Inserts, a publication by Group Material, published in the late 80's. The publication was composed of 10 artist's pages, bound to a small booklet then published as an advertising supplement in the New York Times. Different from the original INSERTS-publication, this series is composed of 8 loose A4 pages. Each issue is made by one artist. The pages are bundled in a signed and numbered (A4) colophon-folder. Published in an edition of 40 (+ 7 A.P.).
°2 : 14 June - 3 August
°3 : 24 August - 28 September
CC Ekeren
Ekeren
Belgium
From 13/10/2012 to 14/10/2012
Met acties & interventies van Vaast Colson, Nico Dockx, F.L.U.T., Carina Gosselé, Gerard Herman, Peter Lemmens, Michèle Matyn, Philip Metten, Warre Mulder, Tom Poelmans, Dennis Tyfus, Bart Van Dijck, Ward Van Grimbergen & Benjamin Verdonck op uitnodiging van Christine Clinckx, Johan Pas & Kris Van Dessel.
De Ekerse putten staan bekend als de perfecte duikplek. 20 meter diep, en goed voorzien van fauna en flora, zijn ze geliefd bij duikclubs in België en Nederland. De putten zijn eigenlijk kunstmatige vijvers. In de jaren 20 van de vorige eeuw werden ze gegraven voor de ophoging van het rangeerstation Antwerpen-Noord. (De lokale mythe wil echter dat ze als waterbevoorrading voor de stoomlocomotieven bedoeld waren.) Het westelijk deel van de grote put ligt op de plaats van het verdwenen polderdorp Wilmarsdonk, dat in de jaren 60 ontruimd werd voor de uitbreiding van de haven. Later werd de site stedelijk recreatiedomein Muisbroek, maar zonder enige infrastructuur die daarop wijst. (Schrijver dezes werd ooit zelfs fiks beboet omdat hij er op een warme zondag aan het pootjebaden was.)
Nogal absurd gelegen in het midden van de Antwerpse haven, tussen Antwerpen en Ekeren, heeft die plek dan ook iets van een no man’s land. Ze valt moeilijk te definiëren omdat ze nogal wat paradoxale eigenschappen bezit. Een site met roots in de industriële revolutie die vandaag een stukje ‘restnatuur’ is, pal temidden van een wereldhaven. Een oase, op een kunstmatige wijze ontstaan en in stand gehouden, geklemd tussen metropool en suburbs. Waterpartijen die niet alleen een biotoop zijn voor paling, snoeken, baarsen en eenden, maar ook voor sportduikers (op youtube vind je zelfs onderwaterfilmpjes). De enthousiaste duikers lieten in de loop van de tijd zoveel ‘objecten’ en ‘kunstwerken’ op de bodem achter, dat er sinds kort een officiële ‘stop’ bestaat voor het plaatsen van kunstwerken in de putten, ‘ongeacht hun artistieke kwaliteit’. De idyllische locatie, bovenop een verdwenen polderdorp, heeft ook een ‘nasty side’; er gaan geruchten over verdronken zwemmers, verrast door het ijskoude water in de steile diepe putten, en in 2010 werd het vijverwater extreem toxisch bevonden door een woekerende giftige variant van blauwalgen. Kortom, dit is een paradijs met weerhaken.
Ekeren, waaraan het domein Muisbroek grenst, heeft overigens al een langere band met Antwerpse kunstenaars: in 1627 kocht Rubens er het Hof van Ursel als buitenverblijf én in de vroege jaren 20 werd het dadaïstische avant-gardemagazine Ca Ira! vanuit Ekeren geredigeerd. Kunstenaars Christine Clinckx en Kris Van Dessel en kunsthistoricus Johan Pas wonen in Ekeren en hebben een ‘band’ met de putten. Ze nodigden een tiental Antwerpse kunstenaars uit om eveneens zich te laten inspireren / irriteren door de tegenstrijdigheden van deze kunstmatig-natuurlijke restruimte. De meeste uitgenodigde kunstenaars zijn goed vertrouwd met de geplogenheden van galerie- en museumtentoonstellingen (‘het Zuid’), maar krijgen hier te maken met enigszins andere condities. Dit is dan ook geen conventionele ‘openluchttentoonstelling’. De bodem van de putten bevat reeds meer dan voldoende beeldhouwwerken. Rond de Put wil deze schemerzone gedurende één weekeinde artistiek activeren via interventies en performances. Kortstondige projecten en acties zullen tijdelijk fungeren als evenveel prikken in dit paradoxale paradijs. Niet meer, maar ook niet minder.
Johan Pas, Ekeren, maart 2012
van der Mieden Gallery
Mechelseplein
antwerp
Belgium
From 09/12/2011 to 21/01/2012
Mirroring a range of ephemera and printed matter on the periphery of exhibition making, publishing, and artistic practices, Brussels-based MOREpublishers have presented the group show "EXHIBITION" to reflect on their own activities of commissioning artist editions. By employing a syntax of framing and formatting, "EXHIBITION" plays on both the notion of an exhibition and that of a publishing house as an image by fragmenting and de-centralizing the various elements and components of printing, and presenting specific works that animate an otherwise static visual culture.
At the center of "EXHIBITION" is a conversation: in lieu of a press release, the edited transcript between artist Michael Van Den Abeele and MOREpublishers, Butlers for Butlers, serves to breakdown the hierarchy between "servers." It also serves as an allegory for institutional procedures: how image and text, exhibition and publication, presentation and documentation can potentially (or not) serve each other in a self-contained, self-referential system. Oscillating between authorship and readership, producer and consumer, labor and leisure, the individual works of the show construct a form of architecture (a Château, a master) that overshadows the circulation of material as a server to images.
For instance, Richard Venlet has painted the windows of the gallery to delineate its perimeters and, likewise, to obscure the interior and exterior views. Emitting the glow of subdued light source, like an advertising light-box, the "showroom aesthetics" have been rendered as a backdrop of opaque white emptiness. Originally presented in 1997 as a documentary photograph in the Belgian arts newspaper De Witte Raaf, (The White Raven), the "new" version of this work employs the same formal procedure while referring to its own history; but this time Venlet used only the cover of the 1997 magazine as the "documentary" insert, distributing its past and current existence as both original and reproduction. Along the same lines of thought, Peter Lemmens's […] And Annotated, For Example […] (xeroxed edit) (2011) alters the photocopier's inherent objectivity. The copy bed is an engraved glass template that frames the re-production of the other artists' catalogues as customized editions. It's an automatic-edition-making-machine through the push of the "copy" button, and a self-serving instrument that simultaneously creates and destroys originality and authorship.
Willem Oorebeek's dot-screen-wall (2008) renders a blow-up of the ubiquitous dot as the primary element of mechanical printing. Following the logic of photographic enlargement, these dots are arranged as a wallpaper pattern to frame a blank cinema screen, subjecting cinematic experience to the language of interior decoration. Relying solely on the descriptive functions of the spoken word, Lieven de Boeck's vinyl LP Let's go upstairs then… (2011) is a recording of the supplementary audio tour of a previous exhibition. As a documentation of Boeck's artworks in their relation to physical architecture, visual references are bypassed through this purely auditory account. The system of visual directions used in bookmaking (crop marks, color bars, registration lines) are rendered semi-abstract in the collaborative overprint The Printer, May 27th, 2003 (2003), by Sylvie Eyberg & Valérie Mannaerts, Thierry de Duve, and Saskia Gevaert, in which the excess of ink incurred during a printer error becomes a pictorial and textual bleed in the production of their artists' catalogue. The intended clarity of representational documentation is re-configured here through arbitrary collage.
Throughout the visible and reductive renderings of ephemera-based material here, simulation is at the core: Steve van den Bosch's … (no date), a digitally projected image of a blank "certificate of authenticity of the artwork"; Pernille Kapper Williams's Brussels 2011/2012 (2011), a framed announcement for a year-long exhibition "by invitation only," yet with no physical address to go to; or Mark Luyten's Cinéma (1995–2004) (2011) poster advertising "Now Showing" and "Running Continuously" all serve to self-contain a time-lapse of idiosyncratic thought process.
The announcement card to "EXHIBITION": "You got some work done today?" "Research!" documents a handwritten note-passing correspondence between the artists Nico Dockx and Joseph Grigely. Implying the imbalance between labor and leisure yet generating an economy of exchange, a compromise has been made in the silent negotiation here. It's a work that's exemplary of the whole, of how the exhibition makes the absence and presence of various procedures, the printed matter, and the exhibition itself serve each other in a dialogue of continuous flux.
DAVID CATHERALL is an artist and writer based in Brussels.
MOCAD
Woodward Ave 4454
MI 48201 Detroit
USA
From 04/02/2011 to 27/03/2011
The exhibition LifeStories presents artworks by six international artists that deal with issues of personal history or that draw from other people’s life stories to eschew traditional ways to present, encapsulate and narrate biography. The individual and suites of pieces presented in the show include video, sculpture, drawing and installation, and demonstrate how contemporary artists see their lives and those of others connected to larger and more complex contexts. They do so by focusing on physical attributes and identity as constructors of a greater whole, critically reconsidering lifetime achievements and production and giving new value to the ephemeral as an integral part of life. Artists included in the exhibition are the famed German choreographer Pina Bausch, undoubtedly one of the most intriguing and influential figures of post-war European dance, as well as Patricia Esquivias, Simryn Gill, Peter Lemmens, Jàn Mančuška and Rachel Mason.
LifeStories is organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit and curated by Luis Croquer, Director + Chief Curator. Major support for the exhibition is provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, to highlight excellence, innovative exploration and promote community engagement in contemporary art.