// tAI // Contribution to the Workplace Show “Hybrid corpses and transgressions of the flesh – The fatal attraction of Bellmer’s prosthetics revisited”

Posted on 12 November 2014 By Gaston Meskens

Elegiac Falls – The Anonymous (click to enlarge)

The Institute of Idle Curiosity for Elements of Seduction presents

Elegiac Falls – design for a sanatorium

installation,various media, dimensions variable

Workplace, Schuttershofstraat 45, 2000 Antwerpen / 16 November – 21 December 2014 / Opening Zondag 16 November 2014, 14h00 – 18h00.

Elegiac Falls is the name of a sanatorium, located near a lake and on the edge of a forest and with direct access to the city. The sanatorium is known for the way it wants to help people to come to terms with their instincts. The instinct under treatment at the sanatorium is the natural tendency to shy away from the ambiguity of discursive or bodily interaction between capable humans.

The researchers of the labs of the sanatorium claim that the human being is an unnatural creature, and that ambiguity is inherent to human interaction. It is now widely accepted that human beings make sense of the world and of their own life and ‘identity’ through interaction with others. The whole philosophy of identity and the ‘becoming of a person’ and the nature-nurture discussion are based on this premise. However, what is systematically overlooked is a fundamental asymmetry that characterises human interaction as such: our means of individual expression are much more ‘primitive’ than our capacities of reflective interpretation. This asymmetry has far-reaching but generally undervalued consequences. Language, in whatever form, is always a simplified version of what one ‘really’ would want to say from out of introspection or reflective interpretation. The ‘negative space’ that arises due to this reduction of nuance cannot be filled with ratio, and that is a good thing, as it provides ultimate aesthetic possibilities in social interaction. Human reflection is unnatural in the sense that it has no instrumental natural function. This capability is therefore also to be considered a principal end phase of biological evolution. To be human is to live against the nature of the human.

At Elegiac Falls, patients may stay for short or longer periods. While their bodies are brought back to nature, their spirits become subject of a treatment programme that stimulates aesthetic experience through encounters that seem uncanny at first impression. Many of them never leave again.

For the Institute of Idle Curiosity for Elements of Seduction,

Gaston Meskens

This installation is part of the group show

“Hybrid Corpses and Transgressions of the Flesh -The Fatal Attraction of Bellmer’s Prosthetics Revisited”

Workplace, Schuttershofstraat 45, 2000 Antwerpen / 16 November – 21 December 2014 / Opening Zondag 16 November 2014, 14h00 – 18h00

Voor de expo “Hybrid Corpses and Transgressions of the Flesh” werden de deelnemende kunstenaars door Bert Timmermans uitgenodigd om hun werk te verbinden met het oeuvre van Duits-Franse graficus, beeldhouwer en fotograaf Hans Bellmer. De lijnen die in diens werk werden uitgezet kunnen doorgetrokken worden naar verschillende evoluties binnen de hedendaagse kunst, en de deelnemers gaan een dialoog aan met dit oeuvre. De werken in de expo lichten de artistieke erfenis van Hans Bellmer en zijn fotoreeks ‘La Poupée’ toe, en gunnen ons een blik op hun genealogie. Ze resoneren in een soort van ecologie die zich ontvouwt langs de volgende lijnen: de fascinatie van de (moderne) mens voor machinelichamen, prothesen, cyborgs; de manipulatie van het vrouwelijke lichaam (door de mannelijke blik en het traditionele rollenpatroon); fantoompijnen, hallucinaties en pathosformules; sexuele driften, verlangens en transgressies.

(tekst Filip Van Kerckhoven).

More at https://www.facebook.com/WorkPlaceAntwerp

Group show flyer:

// tA // Party – Last Day at the AnteRoom

Posted on 1 October 2014 By Gaston Meskens

(photo: ‘Plane of Resistance’ (detail) – click to enlarge)

PARTY!

Last Day at the AnteRoom (in its extended form)

Friday 10 October 2014, 9pm, Kattenberg 93, Borgerhout

> basic drinks are foreseen, but extras are always welcome <

> basic friends are foreseen, but extras are always welcome <

Permanent on view in the passage room:
an archive of research artefacts from the labs of the Institute of Idle Curiosity for Elements of Seduction

(photo: ‘Plane of Resistance’ (detail) – click to enlarge)

// TRF // Film ‘Twilight Hotel’

Posted on 19 September 2014 By Gaston Meskens

The film Twilight Hotel is a trip in three acts. A person dwells through the corridors of politics, science and activism before arriving at the Twilight Hotel. His meeting with her in the lobby of the hotel is a crucial turning point for both of them. What follows is a great escape.

Twilight Hotel – a story (second act).

The boulevard is swamped with humid thick air and bathes in sunlight. You enter the lobby of the hotel, spacious, air-cooled and dark. You breathe. Outside, life goes on, scarcely populated but in a haze of impatience. Inside, the fumé windows and brown carpets shut out the loud graffiti-coloured scenes from the street. The coolness suddenly unveils the fragrance of the city. The air smells smoky and sweet; a late-afternoon promising odour, announcing life that is waking inside, waiting to come out after sundown.

She stands in the middle of the lobby and waits. She stares at some point behind you. You walk in her direction and she pretends she recognises you. You stand still, in limbo.

‘I am not here’, the woman says. ‘I am not here, you are not here, we are not here. I mean: we did not arrive yet. We wait, dispersed but aware of each other. We try not to look angry. We are not angry’.

You think. The soundtrack from the street dims. You put down your suitcase and search your pockets for a business card.

‘We came from different sides’, the woman continues. ‘We came from different fields, backstreets and squares. We have nothing to report. That is: nothing to each other. You may ask us questions, we may know the answers. We will go back, but only when we want’.

You look behind you and your eyes seek the exit. But the woman walks away. You take your suitcase and proceed to the reception desk to check in.

On the way to the elevator, the woman appears again. ‘The Boulevard of Broken Dreams was only a story. It is fiction’, she says. ‘The palm trees were plastic and the street was going nowhere. It was fake, but that doesn’t matter. Every populated physical environment is décor. Also here, outside. The rubbish in the alleys and on the bare zones of the city is fake. It is put there. The animals are dead and stuffed. The shops are full, but nothing is for sale. Taxis drive in circles and trains shuttle back and forth. People are dressed up, but for no particular reason. It is all sculptured, assembled and pretended’. She pauses. ‘But we can easily take it away if we want, and return everything back to normal’.

The air in the corridor is damped and the ventilator thrums. You put down your suitcase again. ‘Why would you do that?’, you ask. ‘The only thing normal here might just be the desert. The desert that connects the cities. The desert that is enclosed by the continents. We travel through it to escape it, and linger in the fata morganas we construct for each other. We set up decors to hide that there is nothing behind them and to enable ourselves to concentrate on pure encounter. So why would you take it away if you need it for us to recognise you in the first place?’

She stares at you and smiles, for the first time. ‘It is true’, she says. ‘I am here. You are here. And we will come back.’ She steps into the elevator. ‘It was nice to meet you’. She closes the door. You hear the elevator going up, and the sound of the ventilator takes over again. You wanted to tell her that she was right; that the normal she referred to is not the normal you had in mind. That with too much recognition one risks becoming a stale artefact of an ordinary world. That …

You leave the hotel and walk down the street. It is twilight hour. The vivid colours of the day faded and the air smells perfumed but mouldy now. The pavement is crowded with wanderers. They are smiling, chatting and going places. You want to walk and dissolve in them, with them, but the sand blown up by the wind prickles your eyes. You turn left into a side street and turn left again. You are at the back entrance of the hotel and decide to go in, but the glazed sliding door is blocked. A placard stuck on the door attracts your attention: ‘Warning. Temporary zone. No entrance. You are inside already.’

Twilight Hotel – a film by TRAGIC REALIST FICTION

performance and voice:
Sarah de Graeve and Sam Geuens
voice:
CJ Bolland
music:
Gaston Meskens, Sarah de Graeve and Gert Lariviere
images, concept and direction:
Gaston Meskens

https://vimeo.com/146157072

// tAI // Show ‘The Consolatory Practice of Leaving’ – part of B.O.R.G. 2014

Posted on 18 September 2014 By Gaston Meskens

Show

The Consolatory Practice of Leaving

On reflexivity as art activism in the age of populism, positivism and profitism

/ – /

Locations

The AnteRoom (B.O.R.G. 2014 off-location), Kattenberg 93, Borgerhout

Collective actions no. 1 to 14

on view:

Fri 19 Sept 2014, 6 – 10pm opening (B.O.R.G. 2014 opening)
Sat 20 Sept 2014, 2 – 6 pm
Sun 21 Sept 2014, 2 – 6 pm
Wed 1 Oct 2014, 2 – 6 pm
Thu 2 Oct 2014, 2 – 10 pm nocturne
Fri 3 Oct 2014, 2 – 6 pm

special programme on Thursday 2 October:
2 – 10pm: show open
9pm: art statement and introduction to the film Twilight Hotel
9:15pm: film Twilight Hotel (25′), a film by TRAGIC REALIST FICTION

Postgebouw (B.O.R.G.2014 central location), Jaak De Braeckeleerstraat 13, Borgerhout

Collective actions no. 0

on view during the general B.O.R.G. 2014 opening times.

/ – /

This show is part of the B.O.R.G. Biennale 2014 (http://b-o-r-g.be/)

Download the flyer.

/ – /

Text

The show explores the idea of reflexivity as art activism ‘in the age of populism, positivism and profitism’. It recalls a series of collective actions performed by the artists of the collective TRAGIC REALIST FICTION and by the members of the PHΛAct Collective. The actions took place in various social and political environments all over the world. Places and times are relative and we were not there all together all the time. The intentions were mutually alienating, but not collectively reluctant.

While the desire for power is always driven by self-interest, activism is always driven by ideology. Activism is therefore not only a stand up against oppressive, corrupt or populist orders, but also a struggle with the own ideology. The fate of activism through art is that, in order for it to generate controllable social or political effect, it would need to become social work or politics itself. On the other hand, the artistic act of critical withdrawal will eventually appeal to a non-conformist audience, but it will not bother those cynically detached subjects of critique. The ‘impossible position’ of artistic activism is not that of a dilemma between withdrawal or contribution; it is that of a dwelling in a twilight zone between those two positions. In a constant awareness of the conditions and implications of agency, it is a state of hyper-reflexivity that, at the same time, also works as a ‘critical mirror’ towards the cynically detached. As a deliberate state of engagement and an active state of resignation, that position at the periphery of the comfort zone is also ultimately melancholic.

/ – /

// tPhC // A dialogue on foundational values and principles for the sustainable development goals, United Nations HQ, New York

Posted on 29 August 2014 By Gaston Meskens

A dialogue on foundational values and principles for the sustainable development goals: learning from the peoples sustainability treaties.

This workshop was organised as part of the 65^th Annual UN DPI/NGO Conference taking place at the United Nations Headquarters, New York.

Scope

The workshop was organised as a dialogue on the meaning of the foundational values and principles for the SDGs and on how they could inspire governance and responsible practice. The scope of the workshop was to explore and determine relevant attention points and to formulate practical recommendations to better embed meaningful reflection on values and principles for the SDGs in the post-2015 Development Agenda.

Time and venue

28 August 2014, 16:45 – 18:00, Conference Room E, North Lawn Building, UN HQ

Moderator

Ashwani Vasishth, Professor, Environmental Planning; Director, Sustainability Studies, Ramapo College of New Jersey

Speakers

Presentations on the Peoples’ Sustainability Treaties (PSTs) and their relevance to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

1. Ashwani Vasishth, Professor, Environmental Planning; Director, Sustainability Studies, Ramapo College of New Jersey

2. Gaston Meskens, Centre for Ethics and Value Inquiry of the University of Ghent

3. Rick Clugston, Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future and Forum 21

Respondents

4. Neera Singh, University of Toronto

5. David Barkin, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco, Mexico

6: Malu Freitas, Peoples’ Sustainability Treaties

Supporting organisations

Sponsor

Centre for Environment & Development, Sri Lanka

Co-Sponsors

Centre for Ethics and Value Inquiry, University of Ghent (Belgium); Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Community Conserved Areas and Territories (ICCA); Kalpavriksh (India); Ramapo College of New Jersey; University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (ULSF)

Information

on the 65^th Annual UN DPI/NGO Conference is here;

on the Peoples’ Sustainability Treaties initiative is here;

For more information on the PSTs, contact Uchita de Zoysa, initiator and Global Facilitator of the Peoples’ Sustainability Treaties, Chairman of Global Sustainability Solutions (GLOSS), and Executive Director of Centre for Environmentand Development (CED).

// tAI // Antwerp, 23 August 2014 – Screening of the film “A Journey into the Land of the 4th Dimension”

Posted on 13 August 2014 By Gaston Meskens

Screening of the film ‘A Journey into the Land of the 4th Dimension‘

A film by TRAGIC REALIST FICTION, featuring MELVIN SHAKUN (Gaston Meskens), MARY H. ACKER (Sarah de Graeve) and JAMES DYER (Mauro Pawlowski), inspired by the book “A Journey into the Land of the Fourth Dimension” by Gaston de Pawlowski.

See an introduction to the film and film stills here.

Watching this film is a mental, physical and spatial experience of which nothing would remain were it to be shown on internet. Therefore the film is not available online. It is leading its own life, and will appear here and there, on occasion. Join us on 23 August 2014 at 8pm at the AnteRoom, Kattenberg 93, Borgerhout-Antwerp. Write to gaston.meskens@theartsinstitute.org for any inquiry.

Further fyi: on 10 September 2014, the film will be screened at the Rijksakademie Amsterdam.

// tAI // Pictures of the show ‘Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory’

Posted on 13 August 2014 By Gaston Meskens

Pictures of the show ‘Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory’ are now online at the website of the Arts Institute.

See the introduction to the show and the picture gallery here.

// tPhC // [Occupy Reflection Space #3] Er is geen logica (van complexe sociale problemen)

Posted on 2 August 2014 By Gaston Meskens

Deel 3 van de serie Occupy Reflection Space

Deze tekst is een herwerkte versie van de originele, zoals verschenen op 10 juli 2014 op Apache.be (https://www.apache.be/gastbijdragen/2014/07/10/er-is-geen-logica-van-complexe-sociale-problemen/).

[Occupy Reflection Space #3] Hoe kunnen we in deze wereld nog een betekenisvol punt maken, in de zin van een argument dat het potentieel heeft om iets ten goede te veranderen in die wereld? In de inleiding op deze reeks essays suggereerde ik onder de titel ‘Filosofisch activisme voor het algemeen belang’ waarom we op zoek moeten naar de theoretische wortels en de praktische mogelijkheden van een nieuwe noodzakelijke vorm van politiek overleg. In drie eerder filosofische stukken ga ik daar dieper op in en daarna trekken we het veld in. In een eerste stuk argumenteerde ik waarom activisme goed is voor de democratie. In deze tekst redeneer ik over wat het kan betekenen als we zeggen dat ‘de organisatie van onze samenleving’ een complexe zaak is, en argumenteer ik van daaruit over de noodzaak van kritiek. Ik vertrek van de stelling dat de complexiteit van onze sociale uitdagingen inherent is aan onze moderne maatschappij, in de zin dat ze onvermijdelijk is. Ik zal ook argumenteren dat er geen geprivilegieerde rationele methodes zijn om betekenis te geven aan die complexiteit, geen politiek-ideologische logica binnen de politiek, geen marktlogica, geen technisch-wetenschappelijke logica. Deze rationele methodes zijn, als producten van een modern emancipatieproces, onvolmaakte methodes die echter vandaag nog steeds in stand gehouden worden door de protagonisten van hun eigen interne logica: de politiek bepaalt zelf de mogelijkheden van publieke inspraak; de markt bepaalt nog steeds initieel haar ethische grenzen en de politiek werkt enkel corrigerend als het te extreem wordt; de wetenschap bepaalt welke vorm van kennis relevant en waar is en de politiek en de markt bestellen de ‘inhoud’ zoals het hen uitkomt. Maatschappelijk vertrouwen in verband met een ‘fair omgaan met complexiteit’ impliceert daarom de formele mogelijkheid van kritiek. Concreet betekent dit dat de afbakening van de competitiviteit en de vrijheid van de markt moet bepaald worden door de politiek, en dat de afbakening die de politiek en de wetenschap zelf optrekken rond hun representativiteit en objectiviteit moet opengesteld worden voor deliberatie met de maatschappij. In een volgend stuk denken we dan verder na over een nieuw begrip van het idee deliberatieve democratie, geïnspireerd op het principe van het ‘recht om verantwoordelijk te zijn’ voor elke mens.

Lees verder in het journal Norms & Dialectics.

// tMT // Christoph Uhles at The Mono Theatre: “The wreck of hope – A very short introduction to the German Green party and its functioning in the ideological superstructure of today’s capitalism”

Posted on 24 July 2014 By Gaston Meskens

Date

Friday 1 August 2014

Venue

The Mono Theatre on location, Kattenberg 93 2140 Borgerhout

Programme

20h00 – welcome & drinks / 21h00 – lecture / 22h00 – discussion & drinks

Intro

Instead of telling you in this introduction my impressions about what I have witnessed in a devolving story in Berlin, I quote (translate) a Kreuzberg local resident who wrote in the Berlin Newspaper Der Tagespiegel (29.06.2014): “If someone would have told me 10 years ago that a green mayoress of the city district government Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain would shut off half of the Kreuzberg district together with 900 police men to block a building that is squattered by refugees I would not have believed it. If there is a reason why police forces are carrying machine guns in the streets, then we as local residents would like to know it” (Hätte mir jemand vor zehn Jahren erzählt, dass eine grüne Bezirksbürgermeisterin mit 900 Polizisten einen halben Kiez in Kreuzberg lahmlegt, um ein von Flüchtlingen besetztes Gebäude abzusperren, ich hätte es nicht geglaubt. Falls die Polizei tatsächlich einen Grund hat, hier auf offener Straße mit Maschinenpistolen aufzutreten, sollte sie den uns Anwohnern bitte schön erklären. source).

This quote may show that a debate on the Green party is topical and that the title “the wreck of hope” is consistent. In my lecture I would like to show that there is not only a ‘gap’ between green politics and its ideology (what they say and what they do), but also that this gap might be the aftereffect of a concept that has been dubious from its very beginning.

As a visual artist I am also interested in questions of Urban Planning. Since 2010 I travelled many of the so called mega-cities in Asia. According to my believe as visual artist, I would say: show me, don’t tell me…

(Christoph Uhles)

You are invited

But confirm your attendance with Brenda Lush at brenda.lush@themonotheatre.com.

Etiquette

Please come on time.

Basic drinks are foreseen, but extras and specials are always welcome.

More

For any inquiries, contact Brenda Lush at brenda.lush@themonotheatre.com.

See this item also on the website of The Mono Theatre.

// tMT // Özge Akarsu at The Mono Theatre: “Multitudo – the Search for a New Democracy”

Posted on 9 June 2014 By Gaston Meskens

The Mono Theatre presents

Özge Akarsu – “Multitudo – the Search for a New Democracy”

Date

Saturday 14 June 2014

Venue

The Mono Theatre, Kattenberg 93, 2140 Antwerpen-Borgerhout

Programme

20h00 – welcome & drinks

20h30 – screening of the documentary “Taksim Commune: Gezi Park And The Uprising In Turkey”

21h00 – lecture “Multitudo – the Search for a New Democracy”, Özge Akarsu

21h30 – discussion & drinks

Özge Akarsu

Özge Akarsu is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Law of the University of Antwerp. Her research is in the field of political philosophy, broadly conceived. She received her bachelor and masters degree in Law at Istanbul. During her studies, she was an activist with Amnesty International. In 2007, she also worked as an intern with the human rights activist and lawyer Eren Keskin (co-founder of the project ”Legal Aid For Women Who Were Raped Or Otherwise Sexually Abused by National Security Forces”).

You are invited

But confirm your attendance with Brenda Lush at brenda.lush@themonotheatre.com

Etiquette

Please come on time

Basic drinks are foreseen, but extras and specials are always welcome

More

See an introductory text at the website of the Mono Theatre.

For any inquiries, contact Brenda Lush at brenda.lush@themonotheatre.com

photo credits

[1] adapted film still from the documentary “Taksim Commune: Gezi Park And The Uprising In Turkey”

[2] Gaston Meskens – photo taken at Union Square, New York, date unknown