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2011年6月5日(周日)至6月12日(周日)

Sunday, 5 June 2011 – Sunday, 12 June 2011

“此地无声”计划启动日
6月5日(周日),下午14点
声音地图免费领取日@家作坊
当日提供导游数名
地点:东城区交道口北二条8号

OPENING: Sunday, June 5th, from 14.00
featuring free distribution of project sound map and guides at HomeShop, guided tour of project sites and hidden ephemera
location:Dongcheng District, Jiaodaokou Beiertiao 8

参加艺术家 Participating Artists:打油 Gerard ALTAIÓ(西班牙 ES)、Niko de LAFAYE(法 FR)、Michael EDDY(加拿大 CA)、Alfred HARTH(德 DE)、何意达 HE Yida(中国 CN)、何颖雅 Elaine W. HO(香港/美国 HK/USA)、冯昊 FENG Hao(中国 CN)、奥拉夫·郝赫尔茨 Olaf HOCHHERZ(德 DE)、Elke MARHÖFER(德 DE)、梅志勇 MEI Zhiyong(中国 CN)、盛洁 Gogo J(中国 CN)、苏文祥 SU Wenxiang(中国 CN)、陶轶 TAO Yi(中国 CN)、徐坦 XU Tan(中国 CN)、徐喆 XU Zhe(中国 CN)、颜骏 YAN Jun(中国 CN)、殷漪 YIN Yi(中国 CN)、照骏园 CIAO Jun-y(中国 CN)、组织 ZUZHI(中国 CN)

《此地无声》是一个将要发在北京东城区的艺术活动。所有参与的艺术家,声音艺术家及声音工作者们将以“声音”作为主题并且运用“声音”作为材料完成各自的 作品。作品呈现的方式将为装置、行为与音乐表演等等。作品放置的地点是剧场、艺术空间以及一些公共空间,活动持续时间为一周。在此期间还会发生一些相关讲 座与工作坊等项目。活动组织方会制作一份地图,上面会标示出所有艺术作品放置的地点。这些作品的分布将以国子监为中心,步行20分钟即可到达的范围内。

这个艺术项目希望通过建立一种与公共交流的方式,使艺术家们关注艺术作品与公共空间之间的关系。通过“声音”,这个被我们日常所忽视的感知方式,找到隐藏在人们感知深处的听觉及意识的共鸣;同时也希望通过这种互动参与的方式、通过寻找与发现,让人们关心生活的周遭。

The Sound of Nowhere is an art project to be embedded deep in the recesses of Dongcheng District, scattered in the vicinities of Andingmen and Gulou. This is an experiment with sound and geography, whereby artists and ‘sound laborers’ will for the duration of one week present workshops, lectures, installations and performances for various locations on the map—from art spaces, a theatre, restaurants to a hair salon. The projects will be traceable from a printed map that guides participants for short walks within a 20 minute radius to find and experience these works as interventions and exchanges with the surrounding public space. By working from a conceptual recognition of sound, we seek to locate and initiate certain resonances between this often overlooked sense and its relation to the noise of our daily urban environs.

6月5日至6月12日
具体活动与时间安排
请持续关注:www.soundofnowhere.info

5-12 June 2011
A full programme of all activities will be posted as it is available. Please stay tuned at www.soundofnowhere.info for further information.

地上On the ground:

玉米 corn and 南瓜 pumpkin competing over a rectangle of dirt revealed by the removal of a section of cement.

turtle den becomes a jungle, and potted plants struggle on. We think the clay-rich soil from the riverbed may not have been nutritious enough for some plants.

黄瓜 cucumber and 紫苏(大叶) shiso, like many other plants, are complemented by a deceptive and ubiquitous 杂草 weed.

Once these 杂草 weeds are removed, you can see how small these 紫苏 shiso plants have remained.

菠菜 spinach, 芝麻菜 rucola, 香菜 cilantro, and 杂草 weeds.

屋顶上On the roof:

(L) other 紫苏 shiso crops benefited from a transplant; (R) 秋葵荚 okra

(L) green beans and weeds; (R) small tomato plants and weeds

土豆 potato stacking: when the 土豆 potato plant pokes above the soil by about 20cm, cover it over again with more soil. The potato plant will revert to root state, and will grow more potatoes in a single area. This can be repeated again and again, forming a sort of potato tower, increasing productivity in one area by moving vertically.

The roof system simply uses a small platform to keep the boxes from direct contact with the roof, over areas supported by structural walls downstairs.

变形Transformations:

The 南瓜 pumpkin grows out of its area, and needs some structural support.

南瓜阶梯 The pumpkin ladder.

Digging down halfway, we find the 堆肥compost in the white pot has produced 好的土good soil. It is used to fill a box for a transplant.

Behind the ecstatic 南瓜 pumpkins are three 西红柿 tomato plants that need to move out.

甜菜根 Beets also need more space, and are transplanted to a larger area.

A transplanted 南瓜 pumpkin pouts. Notorious over-achievers (in German: streber). A question that comes to mind: Even if we are successful, what happens to all the stuff that is produced day after day—ideally becoming more healthy soil in the process—but still, basically dictating a general structural expansion, expansion of material, surplus, excess. Where does all this material go? Can we ever really generate a system that recycles? Or do we constantly need more land to exploit, more time, more converts? This in a way illustrates the paradox of self-sufficiency in the city. Surplus is the norm, in fact. Implying: we must go beyond ourselves..

See how other people do it:

花flowers


The CD was composed of American commercial rap and r&b sped up and seamlessly mixed into one-hour mp3’s. He used this pulsing and unrelenting rhythm to fuel his wild progress, despite the near opacity of the lyrics to his ears. Young and tidy, with glistening hair and a craggy cheek surface formed of the new sustenance, he was an image of youth, an animation of the performance of youth under pressures. We climbed in and with the door’s closure, an easygoing promise of timely delivery and an immediate u-turn in front of an oncoming bus set a tone for a sequence of negotiations and split-second decisions informed by flowing intuition. This pointed awareness did not count the law chiefly as its limit, working along its approximate guidelines, but hovering in a parallel state where speed and safety are blurry, immeasurable energies constituting pure duration. Looking at the license on the dashboard, one noted an older, pale, balding man gazing back; the spirit and attitude of driving had either rejuvenated an adult, or made an adult of a boy. The maneuvers, which included burst-passing on the narrow 2-lane causeways that elegantly cross-hatch the edges of East Lake, cutting corners early shadowing mini-vans, and swerving around piles of debris, not to mention hurtling past other speeding cars on the new elevated freeways, all made up a language of an urban space that sprang up and lay half-destroyed and half-in-progress. As such, it was not the code of a single person, though he is the atomic driver in an incalculable system of circulation and friction; but he can only be the atom in tension with the particles exploding around him. Even the pedestrian on the rubble margin senses the shifting values and instant momentum transformations, adjusting to this general spatial intelligence with minimal violence; the other drivers play variations on each other’s motions, together developing the chaotic vocabulary that oscillates between efficiency and entropy, creating such tropes as the cautioning head-lamp flicker and the selfish congesting lane-take. Just like the tireless and carnal mp3 soundtrack accompanying the sequence to its end, these signifying gestures don’t accumulate toward a thesis, but in their isolation gradually chip away at time, leaving us dizzy and early, present, in front of the Hankou train station. There are no straight roads, and in Wuhan, the atomic driver must hustle space with the will of an unstable citizen.

大陆漂着 Continental Drifting

2011年5月18日至2011年6月5日
18 May – 5 June 2011

“大陆漂流.中国”活动将众多的艺术家,策展人,理论家,与活动家召集到一起,共同探索当 代地理政治转化对于公共框架与亲密生存 空间的影响。在一周的时间里,本活动将“漂”在北京,尝试将抽象分析(经济,社会学,都市生活研究,美学等等)直接导入不同的艺术实践当中。通过报告,工 作坊,讨论会与实地考察等方式,我们希望自己能在闹市与乡间的穿梭中构建一个充满欢乐,感觉试验,偶遇与思考的游历方式。

The Continental Drift China brings together artists, curators, theorists, and activists to explore the impacts that current geopolitical transformations are having on the public frameworks and intimate environments of existence. For one week, the roving seminar will drift through Beijing, endeavouring to bring abstract analysis (economics, sociology, urbanism, aesthetics, etc.) into direct contact with situated projects. By way of presentations, a workshop, discussion sessions and site visits, the project provides a movement through space thriving on conviviality, perceptual experimentation, unexpected encounters and informed travel in both metropolitan and rural settings.

活动安排 SCHEDULE

欲知所列每项活动的细节,请看本安排表下的具体内容。请注意不是所有的活动都在同一场所,活动地址安排如下:
For detailed descriptions of each of the events listed, please see below. Note that not all events are at the same location; addresses are listed accordingly.

 

合辑 Selections 】底特律音乐人类学赏析,王念华主讲  /  an evening of musical anthropology led by Dan S. WANG

5月19日,周四,晚上7点开始
地点:家作坊,东城区交道口北二条8号
Thursday, 19 May, 19.00
location:HomeShop, Dongcheng District, Jiaodaokou Beiertiao 8

杨先让 YANG Xianrang 】(艺术家, 曾任中央美术学院民间美术系主任)讲座  /  a Talk with Professor YANG Xianrang, artist and former head of the Central Academy of Fine Arts Folk Arts and Crafts department

5月21日,周六早上10点半开始
地点:家作坊,东城区交道口北二条8号
Saturday, 21 May, 10.30
location:HomeShop, Jiaodaokou Beiertiao 8

西遊计划 Journey West 】艺术假扮旅行社简单开张  /  A “Journey West” Travel Agency performative soft opening

5月21日,周六下午4点开始
地点:钟楼湾胡同41号
Saturday, 21 May, 16.00
location:41 Zhonglouwan Hutong (next door to The Drum and Bell Bar)

《北二条小报》工作坊 Beiertiao Leaks self-publishing workshop

5月22-23日,周六到周一,早上10点开始直到印刷完毕
地点:家作坊,东城区交道口北二条8号
Sunday & Monday, 22-23 May, 10.00 until the presses are hot
location:HomeShop, Jiaodaokou Beiertiao 8

从5月23日“大陆漂流”继续向武汉与重庆漂流,6月4日返回北京。如果你对我们下一步的旅行感兴趣,请e-mail垂询: lianxi[圈A]homeshop[点]org[点]cn
From the 23rd of May until the 4th of June, the Drift continues on to Wuhan and Chongqing before rounding back up in Beijing. If you are interested to continue with us on this leg of the journey, please inquire: lianxi[at]homeshop[dot]org[dot]cn.

“大陆漂流.中国” 总结论坛  Continental Drift China Final Forum】“哪里哪里” 艺术空间将与大陆漂流参加者联合举办一个开放总结论坛。更多的详情稍候发布。 /  The Where Where Exhibition Space in Caochangdi will host a final forum with China Drift participants open to the public. More details to be announced.

6月5日,周日,下午3点
地点:“哪里哪里” 艺术空间
朝阳区草场地村319-1艺术东区A区内
Sunday, 5 June, 15.00
location:Where Where Exhibition Space
No. 319-1, East End Art Zone A, Caochangdi

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本次大陆漂流活动由 “我们家” 青年自治中心,“家作坊”,“哪里哪里”策展联盟,与“罗盘”(美国中西部激进 文化走廊)等组织共同合作举办。
The Continental Drift China is developed by Desireè Youth Autonomy Center, HomeShop and the Where Where Curatorial Collective, in conjunction with Compass (of the Midwest Radical Culture Corridor).

豆瓣同城活动 Douban event page:www.douban.com/event/13954395/

更多关于“大陆漂流.中国”的参加者信息,继续读… For more information about participants of the Continental Drift China, please continue reading.

(more…)

In light of the last Happy Friends Reading Club meeting’s topical foray into the “aesthetics of sustainability” (addressed in an essay of the same name by Hildegard Kurt, as introduced by Victor Margolin’s text in Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art), the validity of pinpointing or negating the any-be-all-whatever of contemporary art still stands at insecure shoulder to the hierarchies established by the art system, the values garnered by its economics and institutions and indices of fame. M.E. pointed out an important question raised by Margolin, of a possible aesthetics of ethics to describe those ambiguous projects (in his example, Mel Chin’s Revival Field “in which the artist explored the use of plants to remediate the soil in a landfill that had been contaminated by heavy metals.”) which become artistically difficult to interpret.

And while perhaps we should have been examining the ethics of any artistic practice all this time, it’s perhaps also true that a sublime—art historically speaking—needs not adhere to any particular ethic (unless that is an ethic in and of itself), as it induces the viewer (until glorious afterlife or perhaps now merely through the clicks) to a mode not unlike Agamben’s bumblebee, in a captivated kind of productivity, guillotined and still sucking for all it’s worth. This is perhaps the pre-thought to what I mentioned in the last post, “towards a ‘new’ language starkly founded in realism, unimaginative”, where aesthetics are the attributes of wallpaper styles and design tools to address real world issues. Not unimaginative by any means, but I wonder at which point in such an assembly line can meaning be redistributed.

Margolin’s essay calls for “a new aesthetic to embrace the three categories of object, participation, and action without privileging the conventional formal characteristics of objects. In this aesthetic, the distinctions between art, design, and architecture will blur as critics discover new relations between the value of form and the value of use.” If we have come towards forms of art-making that ‘see’ us through these categories, it becomes inevitable that ethics comes to the fore, and the voice of the artist be taken much more seriously than “wildly expressionist”. This puts art and its blurriness in danger of always being held to scales of use value, but let’s hope that it is still possible to expand the realms of possibility via the languages that we use, the way the signs are laid to their signifiers, to understand modes of transmission as the aesthetics of our ethics.

In an upcoming exhibition entitled All that Fits: The Aesthetics of Journalism, curators Alfredo Cramerotti and Simon Sheikh bring art and journalism together as “two sides of a unique activity; the production and distribution of images and information.” This elevation of the importance of forms of transmission alongside the production of the object itself is crucial to contemporary thought. It is a call upon the collective, or maybe a confirmation that past forms of beautiful solitude are less relevant in our ways of production, parallel to the ethical consideration of the other as artistic criterion. The press release of the show goes on to state: “Whereas journalism provides a view on the world, as it ‘really’ is, art often presents a view on the view, as an act of reflection.” These are both response-based attitudes towards creation inseparable from their need for reader/audience reception (one could go into that other discussion on intention here), and in our case, perhaps a fitting media for engaging object, participation and action via a context-specific endeavour. It’s an emergent thought exactly without that specific intention that Q.Y.Z. is always disappointed about. But if it’s 涌现 yǒngxiàn, as H.J.Y. prefers to call it, it’s etymologically happening in large numbers, and maybe that’s something to think about. Big time, baby, big time.

Images taken from a ritual for hair-tossed-to-compost, May 2011

QU may ask, “What is your purpose in doing this?” And so if news can never be fully objective, there must be an agenda in there somewhere, or at least a tendency, an implication. “Gentrifier” could be one in this case, as per recent discussions at HomeShop, the Other’s guilt, or being accused of cultural colonialism. Production of any sort could then be nullified, re-organised, rendered meaningless…but to muster up the words—oh!—now wouldn’t that be amazing?

The press was seen as a tool, a transmission belt for public opinion, a marketplace of ideas. It was the platform for public discussion of issues of local as well as national importance. Hence the Chinese government “is well advised to consult public opinion” through newspapers. Pictorial evidence from November 1907 ironically underlines this point. A huge pot is filled with a burning substance labeled 舆论 yulun, “public opinion.” The characters on the lid read: “The power is with the court.” It is apparent, however, that the fire inside the pot will not easily be controlled. Public opinion seethes visibly in spit of attempts to “put a lid on it”: clouds of smoke and flames escape not just through the gap between the pot and the lid but also from a hole at the bottom. [p. 16]

Of course it seems ridiculous to say ‘subversion’, just as it is to render pure identity, forms like ‘global’ can never be slick surfaces but would rather seethe like pots.


“The past is being drafted (consciously or unconsciously) into the service of present needs and purposes.”
—Paul Cohen

A cartoon that appeared in the 申报 Shenbao in October 1907 depicts the role of that alien medium, the newspaper: the caricature shows two buildings, an elaborate one labeled  宫庭 gongting, “the court,” and a much simpler one named 民间 minjian, “the people.” From the court,  秘密消息 mimixiaoxi, “the secret news,” is being transferred by telegraph to the people–but not directly. The node at which the telegraph line from the court and that leading to the people meet is labeled 外国 waiguo, “the West”. This image echoes a declaration made by the Shenbao in its first issue: “新闻纸之制疮自西人搏舆中土 The making of newspapers has been transmitted by Westerners to Chinese lands”. [p. 23-24]

Maybe that time of trying to ‘integrate’ can be laughed at now in retrospect, dynamics change here all the time and I’m just trying to keep up. Would it be possible to propagate from the perspective of distance (BJ to GZ), without being thrust into a commune-like resort of separatism? Words gather for the sake of themselves, sadly just another kind of branding, but what other pretext can there be for the gathering, words and identities on paper, another party?

Since the foreign Xinbao 新报 (= new bao) was a bao just the same, it was bound to be seen as akin to the Jingbao 京报 (capital bao). Foreign-style newspapers were aware that their audience’s perception of the newspaper was conditioned by their familiarity with the jingbao. They were quick to exploit this expectation: among other things, they reprinted the court gazette, imitated its format and punctuation, and adopted a name (xinbao, literally new announcements) formed in analogy to that of the court gazette (jingbao, literally capital announcements). They evidently felt that this foreign medium needed some “Chinese” legitimation. Why, then, did they not pursue the potentially convincing argument that the newspaper was really just a continuation of a indigenous Chinese tradition? Since by the late Qing finding Chinese origins for Western knowledge to be introduced to China (西学中原 Xixue Zhongyuan) had become a well-established rhetorical practice,  would this not have been a striking argument? [p. 25]

The principal difference, then, between foreign papers and their indigenous counterparts is the fact that the newspapers spread news by everyone from everywhere, whereas the Chinese papers report only official news. Naturally, the number of its readers was small and continued to dwindle. Moreover, the increasing centralization of politics, which peaked during the Qing and which was accompanied by a rigid system of secrecy laws (preventing the spread of all the “secret news” hinted at in Fig. I.2) confined the Jingbao to only the most commonplace court news and thus rather “boring” information. [p. 26]

Hurrah to boring news from everyone, all the time. Is it impossible to find a ‘new’ language starkly founded in realism, unimaginative?

… the Xinbao, the new(s)paper, was neither sold nor perceived as a foreign import. Instead, there was a strong tendency to domesticate it for Chinese use and Chinese understanding, for only thus—so it must have appeared to China’s newspaper makers—could it be an effective agent of change. [p. 31]

Indeed, however much the Shenbao may have profited from its foreign background, more often than not it had to defend itself against charges that it was a foreign medium or that it was pro-Western. this is the reason for its insistence that it relied on a Chinese readership and was thus written in Chinese by Chinese according to Chinese customs to be sold to Chinese. Like many other foreign-style papers, the Shenbao took pains to adapt to Chinese “idiom” (kouqi 口气). In the process, it created a “new” language with a “new” syntax that made the newspaper an acceptable and understandable means of communication. [p. 32]

Badiou, truth, new. Trajectory, 你的目的是什么?

All quotes above taken from A Newspaper for China?: Power, Identity, and Change in Shanghai’s News Media, 1872-1912.


失物品 009:橄榄绿和黑彩格呢羊毛围巾
日期:2011年04月(具体时间不明确)
地点:家作坊(交道口北二条8号)

Lost & Found Object No. 009: olive & black plaid woolen scarf
Date & Time: some point in April 2011 (exact date & time unknown)
Location: HomeShop (Jiaodaokou Beiertiao Number 8)


失物品010:新买的”clothes/shop 衣”的蓝白格子衬衫(39号,价格标:人民币680元)
日期:2011年04月(具体时间不明确)
地点:家作坊(交道口北二条8号)

Lost & Found Object No. 010: freshly purchased “clothes/shop 衣” brand blue & white checkered button-down shirt (size 39, listed price RMB 680 yuan)
Date & Time: some point in April 2011 (exact date & time unknown)
Location: HomeShop (Jiaodaokou Beiertiao Number 8)

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如果您要收回这些物品,请跟家作坊联系Please contact HomeShop to reclaim these items.