May 12 – June 17 2012  (opening Friday May 11, 21:00 hrs)

Location: Roodkapje
Address: Meent 119, Rotterdam

Biyonse

Be immersed in Dennis van Vreden’s contemporary Versaillesque larger than life installation where one can feel as if they are Beyoncé.

Surround yourself by surrealistic elements; clouds, shells and excessive drapes, while you simultaneously merge into one with the queen of R&B. Get drawn into Van Vreden’s fantasy world where you find cross dressing with pop and the anciene régime.

Saturday May 26 2012, 11:00 – 16:00 hrs

Location: Worm
Address: Boomgaardsstraat 71, Rotterdam

Tactile Noise Workshop

The tactile noise instruments are based on small integrated-circuits (op-amps), usually employed as amplifiers, that do not produce sound on their own, except when integrated into a recursive network (its output is connected to its input).

For the recursive network to be activated and sound to be produced, is necessary the intervention of a body that touches and connects the circuit’s vital nodes, its contact points. When the body touches these points it acts as a resistance, becoming part of the circuit’s electrical flux, and changing the produced sound as a result of its positions, humidity and pressure exerted over the instrument’s contact-points. Such configuration makes these instruments, despite their simplicity, very amusing and challenging to play, a sort of a sonic puzzle, with which the player has to relate in order take control over its sounds.

André Castro

With this workshop is my hope to contribute to the demystification of electronics, as well as encourage a DIY approach to instruments’ making. In the present moment, in which we live surrounded by technology, and this plays a vital role in our lives, it seems awkward that often we are clueless about how must technology works, how it is composed and how it can be repurposed for creative means. If in our own artistic practice we employ technology, and want to explore its potential, and be aware of its implications, it becomes necessary to understand it, rather than letting it take possession of our work. As referred by Kristina Andersen: “By using our crude and clumsy hands to make aspects of computational machinery we are re-inserting ourselves into a process that we are otherwise excluded from”.

Entrance: 40 euros per person

Reservations can be made via lukas[at]worm[dot]org

May 1 – June 10 2012

Location: Nationaal Toneel Gebouw
Address: Schouburgstraat 8, The Hague

Opening: Thursday May 3 2012, 17:00 – 20:00 hrs
Exhibition: May 04 – May 20 2012

Location: BLAAK10 Gallery & Store
Address: Witte de Withstraat 7a, Rotterdam

Double take

During the Dutch Electonic Art Festival 2012 (DEAF), the BLAAK10 Gallery & Store of the Willem de Kooning Academy will present the work of the following alumni:
Birgit Bachler
Walter Langelaar
Olivier Otten a.k.a. Selfcontrolfreak
Jonas Vorwerk
Leonie Urff - In collaboration with Anja Hertenberger, Ricardo O’Nascimento and Meg Grant from the eTextiles Workspace group

Birgit Bachler and Leonie Urff are both alumni of the Master Media Design & Communication: Networked Media programme.

In DOUBLE TAKE these artists paraphrase analogue forms of media with a digital attitude in order to provoke surprising experiences. Some of them let the analogue and digital forms merge where others let them meet in the unknown.

The exhibition is designed by Bowie Barbiers, Daphne Rijkoort, and Nikki Spil, second year Bachelor Spatial Design students of the Willem de Kooning Academy.

DEAF 2012:  The Power of Things, May 17 – June 3.

Sunday April 15 2012, 13:00 – 15:00 hrs

Address: Tamboerstraat 34,  Rotterdam

Under/Up the Stairs in Rotterdam

Site-specific video, poetry and desires for a staircase

• Screening of Noe’s Kidder “What We Call Music” — a short film inspired by the combined legacies of John Cage, Nicolas Cage and Nick Cave.
• WITH AN EXTRA SPECIAL GUEST APPEARANCE BY ELEANOR GREENHALGH! who will present a text on embracing anxiety and unknown outcomes.

Under/Up the Stairs is a temporary project and event space on staircases, by our student Inge Hoonte. In alternating venues, Under/Up investigates hiding/revealing, absence/presence, private/public. Embracing the transitory and in-between nature of these spaces, Under/Up aims to connect places and people, locally and remotely.

The project Selfsurfing by our student Jonas Lund has been published on Rhizome.org.  Selfsurfing is a Chrome extension that creates a self-surfing, auto-updating clone of  Jonas’ browser in real time. The browser of Jonas has a server extension installed which transmits the current state of his browser to a intermediate server, which holds all relevant information. This information is then picked up by Selfsurfing extension. Check out the source code here.

Please follow this link, to read the full articel.

Founded in 1999, the Rhizome ArtBase is an online archive of digital art containing over 2,500 art works. Encompassing a vast range of projects from artists all over the world, the ArtBase provides an online home for works that employ materials such as software, code, websites, moving images, games and browsers towards aesthetic and critical ends. The mission of the ArtBase is to provide free, open, and permanent access to a living and historic collection of seminal new media art objects.

Thomson & Craighead lecture at the Master Media Design and Communication course

Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead are artists living and working in London. They make artworks and installations which are shown in galleries, online and sometimes outdoors. Much of their recent work looks at live networks like the web and how they are changing the way we all understand the world around us. Their work has been shown in major international exhibitions and is part of public collections at Harris Museum and British Council Collection. They are shortlisted artists for the Samsung Art Prize 2012. Recent awards include Current (2011) and Vital Spark (2005). Having both studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee, Jon now lectures part time at The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, while Alison is a senior researcher at University of Westminster and lectures in Fine Art at Goldsmiths University.

Thomson & Craighead, Being Social exhibition, Furtherfield Gallery (2012)

‘Compound’, 2011, Beirut, 120-180 cm

Monday March 26 2012, 10:00 – 11:30 hrs

Location:  Piet Zwart Institute
Address: Karel Doormanhof 45, Rotterdam

On Monday March 26 Hans Wilschut visits the Master Media Design and Communication department. His presentation is open to all students  of the Piet Zwart Institute and Willem de Kooning Academy.

The photographic works by Hans Wilschut are more than mere architectural photography. There is more than form and rhythm in the image. Wilschut is interested in the emotions and stories hidden beneath the urban façades.

The result is unreal and almost abstract, almost like looking at a scale model. The city is reduced to squares and lines, especially in the photographs where Wilschut zooms into a fàçade, where no roof, pavement or horizon can be seen for any anchoring.

Actually, Wilschut creates a form of ad hoc archeology. With his camera, he blows the dust off civilization and shows it to us without the humdrum of daily life. He captures history while it is happening.

‘Resonance’, 2011, Beirut, 160-120 cm

During the Museumnight Rotterdam, on March 10, our student Cola Zhang will be presenting the project ‘Taste of Memories’. This project is a memory cube installation and wishes to recall all the old, good, happy and treasures memories of snacks or food from childhood. Cola has worked on this project together with Studio Zi, a Chinese artists collection.

Date: Saturday March 10 2012
Time: 20:00 – 02:00 hrs
Address: 1e Middellandstraat 50, Rotterdam