Na The Invisible City, het concert van Paume afgelopen december, borduurt Paume nu verder op het thema: de stad. In The Tidal City staat de groei en krimp van de stad centraal.
Op het programma staan: Electro-Harmonics, een live improvisatiesessie waarin muzikanten elektronische en akoestische muziek laten samengaan, twee lezingen waarin de (on)mogelijkheden van de eb en vloed beweging in de urbane omgeving worden besproken en de gelauwerde (geluid)kunstenaar en grafisch vormgever Stefan Hanser / Anemone Tube. Hij presenteert een reeks werken waarin de focus ligt op de snelle stedelijke en industriële ontwikkelingen in het moderne China. Hanser trekt, zoals van hem verwacht mag worden, een ambiente en dronenende sonische architectuur op die het hedendaagse urbane China onmiddellijk binnenbrengt in Huis aan de Werf.

-Anemone Tube – field recordings / drone / ambient - www.anemonetube.de

-’Electro-Harmonics’ II – een live electro-akoestische improvisatie sessie met:
Machinefabriek – electronica; www.machinefabriek.nu
Martijn Pieck – electronica; www.cinemaperdu.net
Tobias Klein – basklarinet; www.tobiasklein.nl
Oscar Strik – percussie; www.eveningoflight.nl

-Hans Karssenberg (STIPO / Inspiring Cities) – lezing / discussie - www.stipo.nl -www.inspiringcities.org

-Theo Ploeg (freelance (muziek)journalist en urbaan socioloog) – lezing / discussie -www.theoploeg.net

- DJ-set: Bob Rusche (X-Rated)

Kaartverkoop via www.muziekweek.nl of via deze link: http://utrechtsuitburo.activetickets.com/ProgrammaDetail.aspx?id=212430&mid=38

prijs: € 15,- / €12,- (student, cjp, u-pas)

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Following The Invisible City, the concert PAUME presented last December, we now embark on a further exploration of the theme called: The City. With the programme The Tidal City PAUME presents an evening based upon the growth and decline of cities.

The Tidal City features: Electro-Harmonics; a live improv session of electronic and acoustic musicians, two lectures on the (im)possibilities of the tidal movement(s) in the urban environment, plus: the accomplished and much-lauded sound-artist and graphic designer Stefan Hanser / Anemone Tube. He will perform a selection of sonic works focussing on the rapid urban and industrial development(s) in contemporary China. True to the very nature of Anemone Tube: expect a set of ambient and drones which shape a sonic architecture of the present day China, right here and now and therewith immediately present in Huis aan de Werf in Utrecht.

-Anemone Tube – field recordings / drone / ambient - www.anemonetube.de

-’Electro-Harmonics’ II – a live electro-acoustic session featuring:
Machinefabriek – electronics; www.machinefabriek.nu
Martijn Pieck – electronics; www.cinemaperdu.net
Tobias Klein – bass clarinet; www.tobiasklein.nl
Oscar Strik – percussion; www.eveningoflight.nl

-Hans Karssenberg (STIPO / Inspiring Cities) – lecture / discussion - www.stipo.nl -www.inspiringcities.org

-Theo Ploeg (freelance (music)journalist en urban sociologist) – lecture / discussion -www.theoploeg.net

- DJ-set: Bob Rusche (X-Rated)

Tickets per: www.muziekweek.nl or: http://utrechtsuitburo.activetickets.com/ProgrammaDetail.aspx?id=212430&mid=38

Entrance: € 15,- / €12,- (student, cjp, u-pas)

You can just play long-play records, but you can also make use of them in
a different way. For instance scratching. The same goes for tape: making
long tape loops, letting the sound bounce between tapes and literally
cutting and pasting. These are good old proven techniques.

Philip Jeck sometimes plays a lot of turntables simultaneously and
constructs in this way his sound collages. With plug-ins for syntesizer
and music programs one can add tape hiss and tics of damaged vinyl to
digital recordings. Just as we see the CD carried to it’s grave,
foundation Plan B presents a programme in which new compositions for tape
and vinyl are the focus; two analog media which seemed to be completely
lost.

In Smart Project Space from the trusses above stage tapes are hanging in
serpentine lines and on tables onstage old cassedecks, walkmans,
dictaphones and portable turntables are parading. Voice artist and singer
Anat Spiegel is guiding the listener, who’s ostentatively as well a
spectator, through a special and unheard soundworld. The visual part of
the concert is at least as important as the sonic part, for Muziek als
Vinyl, Tapes & Songs wants to present live music as a theatrical art in
which light, colour, objects, words, gestures and movements are of equal
importance as the music.

 
The design is strongly conceptual but through the accomplished solos of
Spiegel the evening doesn’t end up in navel-gazing or arty-farty-ness and
the essence doesn’t get lost in technical mannerisms. For this second
concert in a cycle of three applies the expression: less is more.
Especially for this concert new works were written, like the playful piece
of Lola Linares for voice, metronome and dictaphone, or a spatially
diverging composition for three cassetteplayers (Piet Jan van Rossum).
Arnold Marinissen fetched works in which Spiegel indulges in dramatic
melodic lines and fysical expressiveness and the trio for two record
players and vocals by Cecilia Arditto is raising nostalgical feelings by
the crackling noise and ticking of the records.

The final is an installation piece, a composition for voice and two

shopping trolleys in which are placed two tapedecks. These specially
prepared tapedecks play tapes stretched between 2 walls. The trolleys are
controlled by 2 gentlemen, playing a score which tells them how to move.
(piece by Wobbe van der Meulen) This is no bulshitting around, this is
contemporary composed music at it’s best, consciously exploring the
(im)possibilities of tape and vinyl, resulting in brand-new and
progressive music. If you like to be surprised by the many ways of
presenting and experiencing music, be sure you’re at the third concert of
this cycle.

Review by Lasse Gerrits.

Does Asia lead the avant-garde in art? Surely, there are some major artists who have risen to prominence, such as Ai Weiwei. But do a (small) number of artists from Asian countries make an Asian avant-garde? The Wereldmuseum Rotterdam proposes that there is such a thing as an Asian avant-garde and hosts the exhibition Fütüre Pass to prove its point until March 2012. The exhibition has a great number of very different works – including video-art, sculptures, paintings and installations – from a great number of different artists from different places around the world. Here is the reasoning behind that diversity: Asian avant-garde means stylistic, aesthetic and narrative coordinates that surpass the Asian continent or Asian artists. It proposes a specific influence that could define art in the 21^st century to a much greater extent than it has in the past – exoticism and orientalism notwithstanding.

This Asian avant-garde is characterized by a mixing of media, considerable collective work and a dynamic eclecticism that challenges the spectator with numerous and sometimes obscure references, rainbow colors, and combinations of images unthinkable in other artistic quarters. The whole collection is eccentric and sometimes painfully weird but very, very interesting. This art is rooted in manga and anime, in music videos and in stories about heroes fighting for a better world, but also in traditional forms of art, including religious art. And here is something interesting: avant-garde revolves around the idea of destroying the old status-quo and replacing it with something radical. Asian art as it is presented here doesn’t do that. Rather, it refers to its roots in more ways than can be counted and it connects with global arts from the past rather than rejecting it. While it has a personality on its own it does not revolt against its past. And it obtains further resilience by doing things collectively. As such, it is not much of a break-away or goal-setting (“we can do this better”) but more of an exploration of boundaries. It does this with the greatest of effort and a maximum effect.

Apparently, Asian art is not necessarily expressed by Asian artists. The Wereldmuseum speaks of ‘Art from Asia’, which is a subtle but important difference. But how does one do Asian art? It appears that helps not to be Asian. The Economist journal run an article about South-Korea and argued that children are pushed to study at a university and to get ‘a proper job’, i.e. not to become an artist. The December issue of the Kaat journal did a similar story on Dutch-Chinese artists, who all experienced that parents generally frown upon a living as an artist. Children are supposed to study hard and to work at an important company, say Samsung, rather than making a meager living in arts. Personal experience of your reviewer when traveling through Asia is that contemporary avant-garde art appears harder to find and sometimes appears as a faithful copy of Western art. But that does not mean that genuine Asian avant-garde is not there – it is just more hidden and spreading across the globe quickly. This wonderful exhibition pays attention to a wonderful parallel universe that deserves much attention. It is also a great opportunity to visit the Wereldmuseum in Rotterdam, one of its hidden gems after its beautiful restoration a year ago.

Wereldmuseum Rotterdam
Willemskade 25
3016DM Rotterdam 

Marshall starts his book with a thought-provoking question. Why is it, he asks, that of all habitats available to man, modern planned urban environments are often perceived as “inhuman, alienating environments: with ugly and brutal ‘concrete jungles’, landscapes of barren tarmac, looming slab blocks and gloomy undercrofts.” (2009: 1)? After all, the modern planned city is the pinnacle of man’s efforts in changing the environment to suit its needs for living, working and recreation. It therefore seems paradoxical that it is exactly this type of urban environment that is detested and is seen as inhospitable to the same people who created it. He then asks the important question: “In what other field of human endeavor would the deliberate, professionally designed product be routinely assumed to be worse than products arising in the absence of the efforts of that profession?” (2009: 2). This paradox is the starting point for an evolutionary revision of the city and the purpose and methods of urban planning.

Thinking about the city and the paradox mentioned above can be discerned into two major debates: [1] modernism versus traditionalism, i.e. Le Corbusier versus Jacobs; and [2] planning as a deliberate activity versus absence of planning. Marshall rightly notes that modernism is criticized by traditionalists who offer an alternative that is equally modernist because it still assumes that a planner is able to create an ideal city by carefully planning it. He argues that we need to understand the city as tempo-spatial order without deliberate design of the city as a whole.

Cities, Design and Evolution by Stephen Marshall (Routledge, 2009)

The focus of this book is therefore on emergent, evolving urban order, not superimposed order. In urban planning it is clear what is evolving (i.e. the city as witnessed by its physical records of built layers) and how it is evolving (through human imagination, design and construction). Both elements are explained in great detail and the case for understanding urban design as order without a master planner or designer is convincing. Emergence holds that the whole is more than the sum of the parts. The argument of emergence here builds on the work of Michael Batty but also resonates strongly with Allen and Portugali. Here it appears that Marshall’s work is not only based in evolutionary theories but also in complexity theory because he defines cities as complex adaptive nested systems. By merging (intentional) design, evolution and emergence, he defines urban evolution as adaptive emergence: “[…] the recognition of evolution as an emergent effect that […] may include local purposive intervention as well as non-purposive interactions. And hence, we can have functional order without overall design but with individual design increments.” (2009: 175, italics original) The claim is persuasive.

Does this evolutionary revision answer the paradox presented in the first chapter? First of all, modernism should not be regarded as a deviation from what is (supposedly) normal. From an evolutionary perspective, modernist planning was just a phase of variation and mutation. But where does that leave the urban planner? Marshall believes that there are concrete lessons to be learned. Most of his proposals are about removing barriers and rules instead of creating new ones. And will the result be good, one may ask? Time will tell. It is through evolution that successful adaptations of urban order appear. It is also through evolution that it will be determined whether Marshall’s proposals are useful in supporting urban evolution. The final verdict: this book is highly recommended.

BJ Nilsen
‘Electro-Harmonics’ – een live electro-akoestische improvisatie sessie

do 8 dec, 20:30 uur
Powered by Gaudeamus Muziekweek / PUMP

‘The Invisible City’ is een avondvullend programma waarin de heterogene klankwereld van de hedendaagse stad centraal staat.

‘Electro-Harmonics’ is een live improvisatie sessie waarin muzikanten uit de elektronische en akoestische muziek samenkomen en on stage en on the spot gelaagde procesmuziek maken; eenmalig en niet-herhaalbaar. Het is ontsproten aan een idee van Martijn Pieck (The [Law-Rah] Collective) en zal in de eerste editie bestaan uit Pieck, Zeno van den Broek (Machinist, elektronica & field recordings), Peter Johan Nyland (Hadewych, percussie) en Coen Polack (Living Ornaments, saxofoon).

Na de pauze volgt een inleiding op het concert van BJ Nilsen over noise en urbane geluiden en een kort interview met Nilsen. Hij speelt daarna een exclusieve live set gebaseerd op het album ‘The Invisible City’ (Touch, 2010). Daarin tekent BJ Nilsen een letterlijk ongeziene en ongehoorde stad in klank, in de vorm van een complexe en desolaat prachtig narratieve suite vol dronende ambiente geluiden, noise, ruis en gekraak die de onvermoede en onvoorspelbare fysieke en psychogeografische impact van (urbane) geluiden verkent en die barst van levendigheid.

http://youtu.be/4e_CwRIEPdM

Kaartverkoop via www.muziekweek.nl
prijs: € 15,- € 12,- (student, cjp, u-pas)
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Huis en Festival a/d Werf
Boorstraat 107
3513 SE Utrecht

Aanvang: 20:30
Prijs: € 15,- / € 12,- (student, u-pas, cjp)
Titel: The Invisible City
Uitvoerenden: BJ Nilsen, Zeno van den Broek, Peter Johan Nijland, Coen Polack, Martijn Pieck

release date: February 2010.

Featuring five tracks, this record touches on ambient and drones, besides subtle melodic patterns that are more prominent than with previous Machinist releases. VIENS AVEC MOI DANS LE VIDE opens up the auditory point of view of the listener at an open and wide panoramic vista of emotions with a sharp focus on the horizon.

herman de vries in front of his work

It is with this goal that I visited ‘Nul=0’ at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam. ‘Nul = 0’ is a retrospective on the avant-garde of the Dutch Nul-group in the international context of its peers in Germany (Zero), France (Nouveau Réalisme), Italy (Azimuth) and Japan (Gutai). Although short-lived (1691-1966 by some accounts), it had quite an impact on the art scene. Artists within the group included Jan Henderikse, Henk Peeters, Jan Schoonhoven, herman de vries (he insisted on no capitals because everything had to be equal), and perhaps most famously Armando. Examples of their work are on exhibition, next to work from other international groups.

Armando

Most of the works encompass objects and a small number of paintings. The common theme is the emphasis on the beauty of emptiness, serenity, and repetition. Thus we can indulge ourselves with the industrial beauty of stacked crates of beer bottles or tires on a black wall, or with the playful moving lights of the German objects. There is the inevitable Yves Klein with his blue objects. Armando contributes with paintings (if that is the correct word) made of industrial steel plates and de vries contributes with his ostensible randomness (that was very carefully crafted). The works of art show a high diversity and are remarkable for the craftsmanship that has gone into it. The works range from pieces stuck to the wall to larger-than-life installations to happenings – the latter have already passed but are discussed to create context for the movement.

Work by Jan Schoonhoven

The first thing I noticed that the works are highly refined and fully finished. No raw edges, unfinished ideas or poor workmanship. Everything is polished, thoughtful and well-crafted. There is a great focus on well-rounded concepts and careful execution of those concepts. As such, there is much beauty to be seen. It pales some of the more recent works I have seen and that were unfinished and poorly thought-through. However, the most noticeable aspect is that the works are very timeless. They still look like they have been made yesterday. This provokes a number of questions. First of all: does this mean that they were indeed a sign of things to come? Secondly, how has art moved on since that time? Thirdly, to what extent has it changed the art works prior to the Nul-period? Unfortunately, the museum does little to provide a before-and-after context so that last question is hard to answer. What is clear, though, that the Nul-movement was important in its own right and the fact that it appears familiar means that it must have had an impact, one way or the other. The Stedelijk Museum Schiedam does a great job of bringing these works together with humble means. I recommend paying them a visit, it is well-worth it. And let’s not forget that the museum has a great collection of works from the CoBrA artists, which is also worth a visit.

Yves Klein blue