Platform is proud to announce a week dedicated to performance!
The main performance events will take place on Wednesday the 7th of August in the Platform studio on Kasern 14 in Vaasa starting at 3 pm.
The events will be based on this years Platform theme “The End of World – Or Why the World Won’t End”. A theme that was selected shortly before the ending of the Maya calendar. Out of a western perspective, in today’s information society, news reach us from all over the world, about climatological threats and environmental disasters and also there is a growing awareness, about the earths limited resources – all factors that make the future seem more uncertain than ever; Is this the beginning of the end? On the other hand, the things that seem the furthest apart, perhaps even opposites, may actually lay close together. ‘The end’ and ‘the beginning’ could be seen simply as two points on the same line, or even in the same circle…
The week dedicated to performance will be a kick off for PRESERVED, a project by Swaantje Güntzel and Jan Philip Scheibe (D), Platform’s Artists in Residence during August and September 2013. The project PRESERVED reflects the topography of the relationship of the people of Vaasa with their environment and shows what collective knowledge; how to collect, cook and preserve local food has been passed from generation to generation.
Former Platform Artists in Residence Mari Kretz and Girilal Baars (SE) are performing and conducting Gracing Space, a live installation and performance that uses live feeds and field recordings of Very Low Frequency radio waves from the upper reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere. The so-called VLFs are generated by cosmic and solar radiation and reflect the energy state of our local part of the universe; the outer bounds of Earth’s ecosystem.
Anna Lundh (USA/SWE) will perform her lecture performance Q&Q – 2022, a project that was initiated in March 2012 and during one year collected and shared questions about what the future will be like – 10 years from now. The online component of the project was developed for the New Museum First Look: New Art Online series, and has accumulated questions from people world wide. Q&Q – 2022 is a reconsideration of the project Telex: Q&A, organized in 1971 by New York based Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) as part of at the show Utopia & Visions: 1871–1981 at Moderna Museet in Stockholm. It involved the installation of telex machines in four cities; Stockholm, Tokyo, Ahmedabad and New York, and the public were invited to send questions about 1981 – ten years into the future – to the other sites. Lundh’s lecture performance concludes with a Q&Q (Question & Question session) together with Julie Martin, who is director of E.A.T. and also one of the initiators of the original 1971 project.
John G. Boehme (CA) makes direct and physical performance actions which interrogate the junctures between aggression, exploitation and competition, often inspired by sports. Channeling the historical connections between art and sports, manifest in society’s idealization of the body, his actions do not interrogate specific contests or competitions, but rather those subjects within sports that ‘jump the hurdle’ and ‘cross the line.’
Julischka Stengele’s (D) heart beats for artistic expression that require a physical presence – such as performance but also a good face-to-face conversation. She is curious about constructions of social space and like to design situations that enable personal encounters.
Ida Grimsgaard (NO) is interested in how the space can be read and perceived. Her work is an investigation; observations and reflection of what is already present in form of objects and relations.
Using one of the models she created to support the articulation of her thinking, Ingrid Cogne (SE/FR) will propose an improvised lecture performance by challenging the presence and the performativity of her speaking in the meeting with an audience. Cogne will sound record her proposal to collect data and later rework the contents in a written forma… to go against her tendency toward immateriality.
For detailed program updates and participation please register at:
info@platform.fi
Girilal Baars (SE) is a composer, singer and musician based in Uppsala, Sweden. Girilal works with vocal, acoustic and electronic music and holds to the idea that all rapid air-pressure changes are music. His piece Litanies in Zero Kelvin for voice, theremin and electronics was chosen for the Nordic Music Days in Oslo in 2009. In 2010 he wrote and staged an opera for two voices based on Karin Boye’s novel Kallocain. Girilal is particularly interested in exploring sounds from the cosmos, as he has been obsessed with space from a tender age. www.girilal.com
John G. Boehme (CA) early art practice included painting, sculpture, performance video and digital technology, installation and photography. Boehme describes recent work as ‘trans-disciplinary’ often employing performance, video, audio and objects in a number pieces simultaneously, Boehme is not constrained to any particular creative mode and therefore utilizes integrated approaches to realize the work. John continues to have exhibitions, screenings and participate in Performance Art festivals across Canada, Australia, the Americas, United Kingdom, Europe and China. John is continuing faculty in the Visual Arts Department at Camosun College and adjunct faculty at University of Victoria.
Ingrid Cogne (F/SE) Artist-choreographer based in Stockholm, Cogne sees choreography as a way to create movement and suspension, circulation and time, positioning and displacement in relation to Economy, Knowledge, Work and Individuals. Obsessed by the ‘in between’ and what constitutes the dynamics of meeting, Cogne focuses on the process and the dramaturgy of existing or created situations. Labor, consistency and time are central. With soft provocation for movement in representations and structures, she is slowly, progressively shaking, shifting the perception(s) and the perspective(s). Her artistic proposals problematize the relationship and create a floating definition of the positions and status subject-object of both the artist and the spectator(s). Ingrid Cogne also works as dramaturge or performer for other artists. In October 2011, Cogne started a PhD in practice at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Cogne‘s project is titled ‘Displacement(s) as Method(s)’. Since November 2012, her research is being developed at the CEAC Lille 3 as well. ingridcogne.net
Ida Grimsgaard (NO) is based in Oslo and studied scenography at the Norwegian Theater Academy. Due to her background in the fine arts she has exhibited and performed her work at numerous festivals and venues around Europe. Blending scenography with fine art she is exploring the coincidences and searches for the unsure and unexpected. The body and its physicality is the starting point of her work.
Scheibe & Güntzel (D) consists of the Hamburg based artists Jan Philip Scheibe and Swaantje Güntzel. In addition to their individual artistic work they realize artistic projects as an artist couple. Both artists deal with man’s perception of nature – Jan Philip Scheibe analyzes the facets of a romantic idealization of nature while Swaantje Güntzel questions our ethical value-system. Before studying fine arts Swaantje Güntzel graduated with a Masters Degree in Anthropology. She participated in numerous exhibitions in Germany as well as abroad. The main subject of her work is the dissection of the alienated interrelation of man and nature. She works across a range of different disciplines such as performance, object, installation, photography and video. Jan Philip Scheibe studied Art & Design. His artistic work is characterized by installations and performances in the public urban space as well as in the open landscape and the work often involve light. http://www.swaantje-guentzel.de/, http://www.jan-philip-scheibe.de/
Mari Kretz (SE) is based in Stockholm working in the fields of acoustic and visual art. In her work, she has focused on scientific studies of acoustical phenomena in the atmosphere, low frequency radio waves traveling around Earth and in the depths of space, as well as electric signals generated by internal organs and the nervous system of the human body. Working with researchers and engineers, ranging from astronomy to medicine, she has visualised the barely perceptible worlds around us. www.marikretz.se
Anna Lundh (SE) is an artist, based in Stockholm and New York. She studied at Konstfack and at the Cooper Union School of Art. In recent years she has participated in renowned residency programs. During 2012–2013 she is an artistic research resident at The Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. Lundh has exhibited at venues in Sweden such as Bonniers Konsthall, Haninge Konsthall and Kalmar Konstmuseum, and internationally in Bergen, Norway, The Hague, The Netherlands, Copenhagen, Denmark, as well as in New York at Apexart, Exit Art, The Kitchen and New Museum, to name a few. She has also published text pieces in various publications. Lundh is also the initiator and organizer of Visions of the Now, an international festival and congress on the subjects of art and technology. www.annalundh.com
Julischka Stengele (D) is a multidisciplinary artist. Her body of work includes photography, happening, performance, installation and video. She lives in Vienna and Berlin. Her main interest is devoted to artistic forms of expression that require a physical presence – to one or another extent. The human being in its social context serves as a base for the work in general. Main topics include interpersonal relationships, cultural role models and body politics, sexuality, identity and divergence/ subculture. Stengele’s work has been exhibited / presented at numerous internationally renowned festivals in Europe, Asia, North America and Latin America. www.julischka.eu
