The 50 twigs in this installation point in unison in the direction of the oldest piece of spacejunk currently above the horizon in their location. The invisible network of forgotten debris being tracked are spent rocket bodies, parts from defunct satellites and wayward tools launched in missions as far back as 1958. Constantly circling the earth at over 17,000 miles per hour these unseen distant relics enter our physical space approximately every 90 minutes. With decaying orbits the debris rise and set in ever changing arcs. As if compelled by phototropism, the twigs collectively strive in unison bending toward these tiny, invisible, inert suns sweeping across the sky. When the debris being tracked drops below the horizon the twigs all go to a downward pointing position and await the rise of next orbiting fragment.

David Bowen - spacejunk
Beeler Gallery

NOTWEHR

What is freedom? And what are you willing to sacrifice it for?
During an illegal protest action, a young activist is arrested. She is locked up for the night together with an older barmaid, who’s been accused of killing her husband. The two women unwillingly share the small prison cell: their forced togetherness starts out on a tense note, but as time passes they open up to each other. First reluctantly and uneasily, then more intimately, they share their fears and hopes. Sheltered by the night, they look back on their lives, and wonder what freedom really is and what they are willing to risk it for. And if the end justifies the means, even if that means breaking the law. Where at first they have no understanding at all for each others actions, they soon find out they have more in common than expected. Their encounter, confined in time and place by their imprisonment, becomes an internal journey that will change them both.

Just like in Adriano Banchieri’s (1605/1623) madrigal cycle Barca di Venetia per Padova (two) people with a very different social background are brought together by coincidence — or is it fate? — and forced to spend a certain amount of time together in a limited space. And just like Banchieri’s travellers, these two women are ‘in the same boat’... Composer Annelies Van Parys’ music enters into dialogue with the Banchieri madrigals, as librettist Gaea Schoeters weaves the old texts into the new libretto and the vocal ensemble paints a picture of the events that led up to incarceration of both women. The two soloists share their thoughts and feelings not only with each other, but also with the audience, as they comment on their own situation — thus turning Notwehr into a performance that is both playful and touching, light and dark. Staged by Sjaron Minailo.

Chamber Opera (50′)
Concept & creation:
Annelies Van Parys — music
Gaea Schoeters — libretto
Sjaron Minailo — stage

A commission of La Biënnale di Venezia, in co-production with Studio Minailo, Hermes Ensemble & Muziektheater Transparant.

Dedicated to Maria Kalesnikava & all other brave women who lost their freedom fighting for a better world. 

PREMIERE
SOLD OUT / UITVERKOCHT 

Biennale Musica 2022

SHRINK 01995
Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body (in this case the artist himself) vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

The future is
Today, you can choose your social media pronouns and decide how you want to be defined. It hasn't always been that way. It was not until the 1970s that homosexuality was decriminalised in Norway. Sexual liberation was connected to the student revolution that raged throughout the West. It was a time for new ideas and utopian visions of the future. The exhibition seeks to find a way back to this optimism of the future – a non-binary society – where anything is possible and where everyone can fly. What might a non-binary society look like? The exhibition is a laboratory, an investigation, a thought experiment over a utopian future society.

Lawrence Malstaf - SHRINK 01995
Trondheim Kunstmuseum - The future is

Composers Annelies Van Parys, Aftab Darvishi and Calliope Tsoupaki create new, contemporary sounds for three women who have had to wait in the wings of the great Greek myths far too long. They shine a new light on these women’s stories, add a new nuance to them and infuse them with new power. Is Medea a revengeful monster or a mother consumed with compassion? Is Circe an evil witch or a heroine filled with great humanity? And what about Penelope’s so-called helpless waiting? 

Author Gaea Schoeters found the words that do these women justice: moving yet liberating. Soprano Katharine Dain sings them to life accompanied by the all-female Ragazze Quartet. Three colorful soloists engage in an intense dialogue on clarinet, duduk and canun.

Evelien Roels, classicist and compelling storyteller, provides the three characters with an introduction.

"Every time we play this program, something magical happens on stage. The stories of three Greek heroines, retold by three female composers. In this concert we are complemented by the warm sounds of duduk, clarinet and canun, plus one of our favorite singers Katharine Dain."  — RAGAZZE QUARTET

Tamar Brüggemann, Wonderfeel — concept

Lunalia, Wonderfeel, Antwerp Liedfest, Mittelfest, November Music, Oranjewoud Festival — co-production 

Annelies Van Parys
TICKETS September Me

The sculptures in the series ENTITIES are performative machines, objects that move by virtue of their own independent energy source. They perform without any interaction or connection with people. These autonomous mobiles are powered by solar, wind or residual heat energy and follow the rhythm of the natural element that sets them in motion.

In ENTITIES #1, two hollowed-out halves of a boulder spin silently opposite and around each other. The motor that drives them is connected to solar panels. Heavy material is thus connected to "light." As with the planets, the sun here too sets a rock in motion - albeit in a different way and on a different scale. 

The ENTITIES series is an investigation of energy as an ever-changing, unstable natural phenomenon. The machines powered by such a source consequently follow a similar unstable rhythm. This goes against how almost all appliances and devices work: they need a continuous, stable supply of energy. Electricity producers therefore generate much more energy than is actually needed or consumed. The study of unstable energy thus poses a fundamental question: what if our technological environment were not based on continuous and instantaneous efficiency and instead operated rather like an irregular ecosystem? 

One immediate consequence of this research is that it goes back to the basics of modern technology. The way almost all machines work today needs to be reconsidered. The mechanical elements of ENTITIES are very similar to Leonardo Da Vinci's mechanics, such as hinges, levers or pivots. This kind of mechanics gives the installations something magical, as if the moving objects are not real, as if gravity does not exist.

One could argue that "performance" in an artistic environment is something exclusively human, or at least reserved for living beings. However, the relationship between performance and unpredictability could be even more essential. When an object and its energy source are completely self-sufficient and its movements unpredictable, it becomes an entity with its own independent cycle. It is no longer just "serving" or performing for people, but has a life of its own. Between old and new techniques, old materials and science fiction, between heaviness and lightness: the entities are hybrid sculptures for a time in search of a new balance.

Kris Verdonck - ENTITIES
Panorama 24 - Le Fresnoy 

Laura Colmenares Guerra was selected to participate at Labverde - Arts Immersion Program in the Amazon. Laura is working on 360° cinematic images for  R€V€R$€, the third chapter of the Ríos Trilogy that is currently under production.

Secondly, Laura Colmenares Guerra was granted for a two periods residence at Fondation Martell. In Cognac she will be working on the script of a new 360° cinematic project.

Labverde
REVERSE (video preview)
Laura Colmenares Guerra - RÍOS // CHAPTER III
Fondation Martell

This new installation by David Bowen enables a live plant to control a machete. plant machete has a control system that reads and utilises the electrical noises found in a live philodendron. The system uses an open source micro-controller connected to the plant to read varying resistance signals across the plant’s leaves. Using custom software, these signals are mapped in real-time to the movements of the joints of the industrial robot holding a machete. In this way, the movements of the machete are determined based on input from the plant. Essentially the plant is the brain of the robot controlling the machete determining how it swings, jabs, slices and interacts in space.

David Bowen - plant machete