Monday 12 July 2010

Stimuli + Tropisms


In the beginning is movement that comes from a need, itself being curiosity or neccessity: both presenting themselves as a need borne out of an active or passive stimulus.

Tropism can be a movement to acquire something new and previously not owned, or involuntary, a forced movement due to prevalent circumstances.

Tropisms can include remizing, translation, transcoding [as in the form art takes] pliage, bricolage, cut ups, etc.

Stimuli can come in many different shapes and forms and can be active or passive.

Tropisms can also be in the form of everyday life. 

The purest stilmuli for many today is distraction: reloading of internet pages, status updates, simultaneous channels of information and communication; we do not need the face of Janus, but rather a multifaceted face of some unknown monster.

What kind of tropism is a novel in the face of such a stimulus?

Monday 5 July 2010

Talking about The Readymades and other tidbits

Displacement Series: Open Talks


DISPLACEMENT.jpeg


In July PISO continues the series of open conversations with invited collaborators integrated in the Displacement Project.

These working tables will be documented to create an archive that will be integrated in the upcoming exhibitions of Piso Collective and it will be available in our webpage.


Our guests for this month are:



John Holten


John Holten has spent the last two years writing the novel The Readymades, which tells the story of a group of artists that move between Belgrade, Budapest, Vienna and Paris. The novel uses a mise-en-abyme between a thriller novel and a translation of a found academic text in order to tell these artists' story. In presenting the practice that formed the writing of The Readymades, ideas of displacement, translation and transcoding fiction will be discussed, branching out to look at the art of research, recent   debates in contemporary art (and their possible use for fiction), a writer's audience in today's Europe and the impact travel and living abroad have on the fiction under discussion.

Presentation will include short readings from the novel.


Bio:

John Holten (b.1984) is a novelist and poet from Ireland. Since 2004 he has moved across Europe between the cities of Paris, Berlin, Oslo and Dublin. His fictional work has often taken the figure of the contemporary artist as its main subject matter, investigating the liminal existence of the nomad and the networked individual. His work as an associate editor with Broken Dimanche Press has also seen him involved in numerous trans-national translation projects.



-Altermodern Manifesto


-Three Ragnaröks


..................


Nina Bendzko


Bio:

Nina Bendzko studied Applied Cultural Sciences and a Masters in Creative Documentary Filming. During the past years she has worked and lived in Spain, France and Colombia, collaborating in various film projects. The most recent are the documentaries “Cuchillo de Palo” (http://www.cuchillodepalo.net/) by Renate Costa, “La Terra Habitada” (http://vimeo.com/8051825) by Anna Sanmartí and a new film idea by José Luis Guerín. Now residing in Berlin she is developing her first feature length documentary project “Zwischenräume”. 


Further reading:


-ZWISCHENRÄUME


Doors open at 19:00

Entry is free.


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How to find us:

Altes Finanzamt
Schönstedtstraße 7, access through the yard
U7, Rathaus Neukölln

www.altesfinanzamt.blogspot.com