Week 24

So many things are happening in our world but we always forget to write about them. Here’s a fresh attempt to share with you the things we do.

First, on Wednesday, Michiel – with Tim Verlaan and Mark Minkjan – hosted the third local edition of Failed Architecture, the blog that became an architects’ physical space hang out. This time with distinguished guests Maja Popovic, Paul Groenendijk and Ana Souto. Unfortunately Arnold Reijndorp was ill. Another great mixed crowd of young architects and architecture students gathered in the basement of De Verdieping.

Then, on Thursday, we signed an agreement with the world-renowned contemporary music protagonists the Ives Ensemble, who we have followed and admired for as long as we know about the music of Morton Feldman and John Cage – these American composers have written compositions for this ensemble. We will help them in any way possible with their never-ending search for new contexts for their already existing and yet to be found repertoire. And we will also develop and implement new public instruments for becoming a truly public ensemble in our networked culture. Simply put: we will be one part archaeologists of their artistic history, and one part momentum machine for their sociocultural future.

We cannot emphasize enough how delighted and honoured we are with this new partnership, and we look forward to working with such a landmark of Dutch culture.

Between this, we continued creating new plans for the vast portfolio of city restorers Stadsherstel, for whom we are acting a bit like embedded innovators. Besides Zaanse Schans, where Michiel, Amie and Dea are currently preparing one of the houses to become a new arts residency, we are working helping Stadsherstel engaging with different audiences through adopting new strategies for their projects. One of the examples is the ‘development blog‘ of the Zaanse Schans. Here those involved will share images, quotes and references relevant to the whole process of the little house recently that moved here. We are preparing to set up a crowdfunding platform with Stadsherstel, and we will be imagining new futures for one of the fortresses that is part of the Stelling van Amsterdam. That’s right, a fortress. Should be awesome, don’t you think?

A fortress does come in handy in the current ‘war on culture’ that is taking place in the Netherlands. Maybe we can house the homeless art institutions here after 2013, when the proposed funding cuts will be implemented. But let’s hope someone will find a legal route to stop our Minister of Culture implementing his economically irrational and culturally counterproductive plans.

There are more plans underway, for Teylers Museum, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ and Picnic, but we will tell you more about these in the coming weeks.

For now, drive and shoot straight.

Juha

Presentation for Danish Network for Younger Planners (NYP)

— Read more ›

Book launch ‘Mokum; A Guide to Amsterdam’, May 5, 8PM, Paradiso

We contributed to Mokum; A Guide to Amsterdam. Mokum is an alternative travel guide to Amsterdam that explores the boundaries of freedom in this European capital. On 5 May our friends from Partizan Publik proudly present their most recent publication at Paradiso in Amsterdam.

Mokum is an initiative of the Amsterdam 4/5 May Committee in collaboration with Golfstromen, TD and Studio Beirut and designed by Roosje Klap and published by Archis publisher.

Join us for the book launch at 8pm. You can make a reservation here.

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Mokum: A Guide to Amsterdam

Archis, Amsterdam, 2011

€19.50
Editor-in-Chief: Christian Ernsten
Graphic design: Studio Roosje Klap
208 p. ills color & bw, 16 x 23, pb, English
ISBN: 9789077966556
Available from 27 April via Idea Books.

Book presentation Light in the City at Castrum Peregrini, May 8

For more information, please visit the website of Castrum Peregrini.

Article in MONU – magazine on urbanism #14

We wrote an article for MONU – magazine on urbanism, together with Ben Cerveny, our ubiquitous mentor, digital urbanist and co-founder of VURB. The latest edition of MONU (#14 – EDITING URBANISM) addresses the enormous potential of the already existing urban material under the title ‘Editing Urbanism’.

Other contributions, from a.o. Rem Koolhaas’ OMA and our dear friend and ‘Shinto-architect’ Jarrik Ouburg, focused on such topics as urban and architectural restoration, preservation, renovation, redevelopment, renewal and adaptive reuse of old structures.

In our article, “Controlling the City”, we argue that:

“The contemporary city does not only consist of physical architecture, but is increasingly shaped by flows of data and information that are continuously transforming and expanding. The enormous increase in the use of hand-held devices and mobile applications in recent years is allowing a new and more direct interaction with our built environment.

Together with the tools we use to design cities, the way we envision and understand cities is being transformed just as well. We are slowly beginning to develop systems that allow us to see urban development patterns over large spans of time and space, enabling us to use the information to really improve our cities.”

Given our obsession with music and DJ-culture we immediately liked MONU’s introduction to our text:

“Just as remixes of songs are alternative versions of recorded songs, made from original versions, remixes of cities can be alternative versions of the original cities.”

Just imagine that you can control the traffic lights, simply by using your iPhone…

But how will all these new data and interactive tools affect the way we experience and manage cities? Can a city become a game? Who will own and control all the content generated by smart cities – governments, the community or private corporations? And how can the underprivileged and disconnected also benefit from all of this?

With our article we hope to provide some answers to these urgent questions.

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You can buy a copy of the magazine at a selection of book shops around the world and online on MONU’s website or browse the entire issue #14 on YouTube.

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Hear it! given 4/5 by NRC Handelsblad

“With musical performances and sound installations the museum became pleasantly noisy.” NRC Handelsblad

28 April: Hear it! at the Stedelijk Museum

“I don’t separate ‘Sound Art’ from ‘music’. I am one person; my ideas come from the same place.” 

- Alvin Lucier.

On Thursday 28 April the Stedelijk Museum and Non-fiction present Hear it! – a playlist for the Stedelijk Museum, with works by Dick Raaymakers, Alvin Lucier, Mark Bain, Pierre Bastien, La Monte Young and Gert-Jan Prins, and performances by Paul Panhuysen, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, Alog, Gabriel Lester, Claron McFadden and many others.

When? April 28, 2011, from 19:30 – 23:00 hrs
Location: Temporary Stedelijk 2, Auditorium, museum café and galleries
Entrance: Valid museum ticket
Language: English
Reservation: Reservation is mandatory

A playlist for the museum
Hear It! is presenting a playlist of these different types of work with sound, and is presenting different generations of musicians and artists who work with sound in their own way. This evening does not aim to provide a historical cross-section of sound in the arts, but is a personal playlist of works from the collection of the Stedelijk Museum and performances by (international) artists and musicians who are exploring the limits of the building and sound. The evening was organised intuitively by listening carefully to the building, the collection and the public, and is possibly most comparable to the way in which a DJ works, or to the musical experience you have with Soundcloud and Spotify. That is why there is a mixed succession of a Siren, a Norwegian DIY band, a Gregorian choir and the public which assumes the role of composer and performer, amongst others.

The sound of now, since 1952
It is now almost 60 years since director Willem Sandberg embraced music in the Stedelijk with his famous series ‘The Music of Now’ in 1952. Sandberg’s view was that the museum should provide room for other art forms than visual art as well, including contemporary music. Since then contemporary music has assumed many different forms and is described in various ways: as experimental music, sound art, sound performances, sound sculptures and audio culture. Some musicians call themselves ‘artists’ and some artworks are characterised as being ‘musical’. It is not always completely clear, but what is evident is that there is great deal happening at the point where the visual arts, music and sound come together.

Performances by
Aardvarck (NL) / Alog (NO) / Nathalie Bruys (NL) / Carl Michael von Hausswolff (SE) / Allard van Hoorn (NL) / Brandon LaBelle (USA) / Gabriel Lester (NL) / Claron McFadden (USA/NL) / Paul Panhuysen (NL) / Sarah van Sonsbeeck (NL)  / Schola Cantorum Amsterdam (NL)

Works by
Mark Bain (USA/NL) / Pierre Bastien (FR) / John Cage (USA) / Alvin Lucier (USA) / Gert-Jan Prins (NL) / Dick Raaymakers (NL) / La Monte Young (USA)

Introduction by: Harold Schellinx / Juha van ‘t Zelfde

Programme: Michiel van Iersel & Juha van ‘t Zelfde (Non-fiction)

Advisors: Bart Rutten, Margriet Schavemaker and Hendrik Folkerts (all Stedelijk Museum)

Research: Adelá Foldynová and Pieter Willems

Live blog: VPRO Dorst

Partners: BeamSystems, Nalden, CitizenM and Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht

Photos of day 1 and 2 of the World Minimal Music Festival

Minimal music by Gabriel Lester, Hans Aarsman, Annick Kleizen and Nalden

Steve Reich and Tom Trago interviewed by Radna Rumping (photo: Maarten Jüngen)

On day 3 of the World Minimal Music Festival we have our own personal selection of artists, musicians, selectors and distributors sharing their interpretations of minimal music. Between 6 and 7 pm, artist Gabriel Lester, curator Annick Kleizen and Internet savant Nalden will play 20 minutes of what is minimal in music from their iTunes.

After this, tape experimentalist Wouter van Veldhoven will do a live performance, followed by a site-specific dance performance of work of Liat Waysbort on the music of Phill Niblock. At 8.15 pm, famed Belgian contemporary music ensemble Champ D’Action will play a.o. The Sinking of the Titanic by Gavin Bryars in the main hall.

Then, from 10 pm onwards, our programme continues in the festival café, with special DJ sets by Hans Aarsman, Darco Cezveciyan and Non-fiction’s Juha van ‘t Zelfde. And there will be abstract live performances by Raphael Vanoli, Gareth Davis and Aardvarck. Join us on Facebook, and follow the live blog and audio streams over here. The complete festival café programme is free to visit all night.

The Muziekgebouw during the vibrant opening (photo: Maarten Jüngen)

Live stream of the World Minimal Music Festival

Today is the opening night of the World Minimal Music Festival. Five days of worldclass music from minimal composers and musicians from all over the world. One of the highlights is the presence of one of the key figures Steve Reich. The festival is supported by the local music scene of young electronic producers like Tom Trago, Aardvarck and Mamiko Motto, and experimentalists Machinefabriek, Thomas Ankersmit and Raphael Vanoli.

In collaboration with public network VPRO Dorst we are covering the festival in realtime on their live blog. This is a on-the-fly experiment to embed the Muziekgebouw via social networking tools like Tumblr, Soundcloud, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Shazam, Ustream and WordPress. You can follow the festival below here as it unfolds.