EXHAUST

22.06.2024

Wiener Festwochen
Vienna (AT)

EXHAUST by A Two Dogs Company / Kris Verdonck is all about the execution of an internal combustion engine: over-revving a truck engine in a public space until it blows up.

EXHAUST follows the same steps as a medieval execution. The subject of the execution sentence, in this case a combustion engine, is carried through the city followed by a procession to a square where a scaffold has been set up and its crimes are read aloud from a balcony, after which the execution is carried out. The goal of EXHAUST is to bury the combustion engine once and for all. Its crimes are the broken promises of endless progress and endless growth. Violence is subjected to violence, so that catharsis can take place. (photo © da-kuk)

Wiener Festwochen

EXHALE 01998 - 02004

06.06.2024 - 12.06.2024

Saint-Ex, Culture numérique
Reims (F)

A large inflatable fills the room and  slowly transforms into different abstract shapes. Like an enlarged deep sea creature it slowly and quietly contracts and expands into different corners of the space.   

EXHALE  starts from a movement we all share: breathing. This process of inhaling and exhaling as an expression of our physical and mental states is in constant change and usually unconscious. Yet it can also be a portal to control psychosomatic phenomena like stress and anxiety. Breath connects mind and body, the yogi said a 1000 years ago. However in these eco-calyptic times where fear is the best selling currency, science tell us about earlier mass extinctions and the cycles of life in our earthly atmosphere. With scientific prose, dance and electronic sounds, the audience is invited inside a large inflated lung where performers and visitors become one and the invisible air is shared as a physical and tangible medium. ‘Breathing is the first and the last thing you will do, you will breath about 10000 liters of air today. Without breath, no life.’

Visual artist Lawrence Malstaf is manipulating, pulling and re-shaping the bubble in a dance that also makes the audience move. Text by Vibeke Thorp.

EXHAUST

04.05.2024

NTGent
Ghent (B)

EXHAUST by A Two Dogs Company / Kris Verdonck is all about the execution of an internal combustion engine: over-revving a truck engine in a public space until it blows up.

EXHAUST follows the same steps as a medieval execution. The subject of the execution sentence, in this case a combustion engine, is carried through the city followed by a procession to a square where a scaffold has been set up and its crimes are read aloud from a balcony, after which the execution is carried out. The goal of EXHAUST is to bury the combustion engine once and for all. Its crimes are the broken promises of endless progress and endless growth. Violence is subjected to violence, so that catharsis can take place. (photo © da-kuk)

NTGent

SHRINK 01995

20.04.2024

Sismògraf Festival
Olot (ES)

SHRINK 01995 - Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body 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.

At Sismògraf Festival there will be 3 Shrinks and the bodies of 3 performers.

Photography by Martin Argyroglo at Nuit Blanche Paris 2023.

Sismògraf Festival
Lawrence Malstaf

Impulse

08.04.2024 - 13.03.2024

MUTEK / Roca Barcelona Gallery
Barcelona (ES)

Impulse is a suspended work of five juxtaposed parts. Each part is made up of two metal panels linked to each other by eight wires that light up in a computerized sound and light program.
In this project, Martin Messier proposes a poetic analogy with a technological twist to the functioning of the brain, in the form of the circulation of energy rendered visible by the paths of light travelling between one panel and the other.

MUTEK Barcelona
Martin Messier

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Tipping Point & Ce qui disparait se transforme immédiatement en éternité

06.04.2024 - 07.04.2024

Nouvelles Formes
L’Entrepôt Besançon (F)

The installation Tipping Point by Barthélemy Antoine-Loeff  is a sensitive and poetic tribute to those dying glaciers. It stages the (re)birth of an artificial glacier protected by a dome; a drip is feeding the glacier that will grow during the exhibition. The device invites the viewer to attend the birth of this artificial glacier. It is inspired by the “ice stupas” invented by the engineer Sonam Wangchuk and used to fight against water shortages during the summer in Ladakh.
Between a laboratory experiment, an attempt to repair the climate or an ironic collector’s item, the installation confronts us with time and scales; 10.000 years ago, the stabilisation of our cryosphere coincided with the first human traces we found in Mesopotamia, while the fist glaciers are disappearing in 70 years under the pressure of the human activity.

Barthélemy Antoine-Loeff in collaboration with Antoine Meissonnier
Ce qui disparait se transforme immédiatement en éternité explores the multiple questions of climate repair and technosolutionism using artificial intelligence. 
The installation stages a fictional laboratory for measuring the melting of symbolic mini icebergs which are generated in ice before being placed in an analysis cell with the aim of finding the ultimate iceberg: the one which, by its shape, will make a consensus, which one will take the longest to melt, based on the analyzes of the icebergs previously generated.
The installation uses a genetic algorithm specially developed to try to solve this problem of climatic optimization...
Obviously, the starting postulate is absurd, and ironic. Just like the idea of ​​imagining being able to "repair" the climate by artificially prolonging the life of icebergs with the help of a genetic algorithm.

Nouvelles Formes

1 drop 1000 years

05.04.2024 - 02.05.2024

On tour
The Hague, Barcelona, Gijòn

Martin Messier - 1 drop 1000 years, an original performance that reflects on a fundamental phenomenon for the balance of life: homeostasis. The Global Conveyor Belt is a huge ocean stream that stirs up the waters of the five oceans and conveys heat on a global scale. Seeking to highlight the finesse of our homeostatic system and the fragility of its balance, the artist proposes an artistic interpretation of these intimate and global currents that happens to be essential to the survival of our species and its environment.

Rewire Festival
5 April 2024

MUTEK Barcelona
11 April 2024

LEV Festival - Gijòn
3 May 2024

Medea / They Have Waited Long Enough

21.03.2024

Gewandhaus Leipzig, Mendelssohn-Saal
Leipzig (D)

Composers Annelies Van ParysAftab 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 klarinet, duduk and canun.

"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

Annelies Van Parys
Medea  (for soprano, clarinet in bes and string quartet)
text  Gaea Schoeters
translation  Rona Kennedy
concept  Tamar Brüggemann, Wonderfeel
coproduction  Lunalia, Wonderfeel, Antwerp Liedfest, Mittelfest, November Music, Oranjewoud Festival

In the framework of alles ausser flach, during the Leipziger Buchmesse

TICKETS

Notwehr - Belgian première

19.03.2024

Concertgebouw Brugge
Brugge (B)

Volver meets Hiroshima mon Amour in this moving story of injustice and hope.

Two women involuntarily share a prison cell: a young activist who was arrested after an illegal protest and a working-class woman who murdered her boyfriend. Their forced togetherness starts tensely, but as the nights go by, they share their fears and hopes. Notwehr brings together old and new music: a cycle of baroque madrigals by Banchieri provides a sort of echo of the past and of the outside world and intertwines with the new music of Annelies Van Parys.

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

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

Annelies Van Parys & Adriano Banchieri - music
Sjaron Minailo - director
Raphael René Jacobs - director’s assistant
Gaea Schoeters - libretto
Sjaron Minailo & Maarten Warmerdam - scenography
Patricia Hofstede - costume design
Johanna Zimmer & Els Mondelaers - soprano & mezzosoprano
HERMESensemble - ensemble
B’Rock Vocal Consort -  choir

Annelies Van Parys
Concertgebouw Brugge


tele-present wind

07.03.2024 - 31.03.2024

Kontejner
Zagreb (Croatia)

tele-present wind by David Bowen consists of a series of 126 x/y tilting mechanical devices connected to thin dried plant stalks installed in a gallery and a dried plant stalk connected to an accelerometer installed outdoors. When the wind blows it causes the stalk outside to sway. The accelerometer detects this movement transmitting the motion to the grouping of devices in the gallery. Therefore the stalks in the gallery space move in real-time and in unison based on the movement of the wind outside.

The sensor is installed in an outdoor location adjacent to the Visualization and Digital Imaging Lab at the University of Minnesota. Thus the individual components of the installation moved in unison as they mimicked the direction and intensity of the wind halfway around the world. As it monitored and collected real-time data from this remote and distant location, the system relayed a physical representation of the dynamic and fluid environmental conditions.

KONTEJNER Zagreb