24 May 2010

Performance night at NIMk: Performmikka Internettikka

An evening with internet/teleperformances by Annie Abrahams, Christophe Bruno, Constant Dullaart, Robin Nicolas and Igor Stromajer & Brane Zorman, focused on the relations between contemporary performance practice and the internet.

With performances by:
Annie Abrahams, Huis Clos : No Exit - On Translation
Christophe Bruno, Human Browser
Constant Dullaart, Arranged online moments
Robin Nicolas, Removal, about an event that occurred (video-versie)
Igor Stromajer & Brane Zorman, Ballettikka Internettikka Insecttikka

Performmikka Internettikka focuses on recent new possibilities surrounding tele- or internet performance. With the increased speed of internet connections in recent years and the omnipresence of the net, it has not only provided these media artists with inspiration, but also with a platform and a medium. In their work the participating artists respond in various ways to the technical possibilities and limitations of the internet, and to the implications the medium has for content. How does a simultaneous and collective performance being carried out at different places around the world look? What does the delay and distance contribute to the chances and limitations? How does an audience deal with viewing a live 'event' with illegal recorded images that are being made at that moment somewhere else in the world? In addition, the artists respond with irony to the Internet as a source of entertainment, and as a capitalist instrument. In short, what does the internet contribute to contemporary performance art practice in terms of inspiration, mediation and as a platform?

Annie Abrahams
Huis Clos : No Exit - On Translation
Telematic performance with 6 performers
bram.org/huisclos/ontranslation/
Annie Abrahams is an internationally recognized pioneer in network performance art. While social network sites give us the impression of clean and transparent communication, in contrast Abrahams brings the mechanisms and emotions of internet communication to the surface. Using simple interfaces, she exposes participants and spectators to glitches in communication. In this way she asks them to reflect on the ways of 'getting together' in a world in which machines stand between us. What happens when six net artists only use their native language and codes to communicate?

Annie Abrahams (www.bram.org ) at NIMk
Ruth Catlow (www.furtherfield.org) from London
Paolo Cirio (www.paolocirio.net/) from Turin
Ursula Endlicher (www.ursenal.net/) from New York
Nicolas Frespech (www.frespech.com/) from Montélimar
Igor Stromajer.(www.intima.org) from Hamburg

With thanks to the French Ministry of Culture and Communication - Dicréam and the Languedoc-Roussillon Region for their support for the Huis Clos / No Exit research program www.bram.org/huisclos and Théâtre Paris-Villette x-réseau for their technological assistance.

Christophe Bruno
Human Browser
www.iterature.com/human-browser
www.christophebruno.com
Human Browser is a series of wireless internet performances based on a Wi-Fi Google hack. The paradoxical system of capitalism is here projected on the performer. Freedom of speech seems to have become a means of colonizing intimacy, and seen in terms of economics 'irrational conduct' is suddenly a new field for advertisers. Your thoughts, wishes and ideas are analyzed. You become predictable, transparent, banal, even in your most intimate dreams.

Constant Dullaart
Arranged online moments
www.constantdullaart.com
A series of performances by Constant Dullaart, in which he investigates the value of the spectator and the performer by means of web usage – an arranged online moment, where the medialised, paid online performer not only is the shared focus of attention in the performance, but also the audience's mascot.

Robin Nicolas
Removal, about an event that occurred (video-version)
'Removal' - The deconstruction of space in response to the release of voice...
Nicolas Robin does not only look at the Internet; he thoroughly breaks it up by observation. This artist experiments the net with the attitude of a person who learns a foreign language. Between the archaeologist and the surgeon, he scrapes the surface of the data-flows to detect its basics, obsessions, and he tries to connect one after the other. 'Removal' is an effort two connect two things during an internet connection: you are hearing a woman telling a story about her relationship, and you see the clearing out of an apartment. The works of Nicolas Robin are dealing with intimacy and communication altered by the use of Internet. At the border of absence and presence he explores in data-flows and surfaces even the most negligible contradictions.
[originally written in French by Cyril Thomas]

Igor Stromajer & Brane Zorman
Ballettikka Internettikka Insecttikka
Guerrilla Internet Ballet
www.intima.org/bi
'Ballettikka Internettikka' is the umbrella name covering a series of tactical art projects that started in 2001. 'Ballettikka Internettikka' uses impossible combinations to develop resistance and disobedience. The artists are investigating the idea of 'today', surrounding live internet performance. Stromajer and Brane Zorman are staging a new 'Ballettikka Internettikka' action under the title 'Ballettikka Internettikka Insecttikka'. During the event the artists will penetrate a building with a number of robot insects with wireless cameras and sensors. The camera images are transmitted live.

*The title of the event – Performmikka Internettikka – is an adaptation of Stromajer & Zorman's Ballettikka Internettikka project (2001-2010).

Authors: Igor Stromajer & Brane Zorman
Theoretical adviser: Bojana Kunst
Live music composed and performed by MC Brane vs BeitThron
Live video editing by Igor Stromajer

Performed live from Hamburg, Germany.
Live internet broadcast to the Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
29 May, 2010

Ballettikka Internettikka Insecttikka is part of the Performmikka Internettikka event.
Co-produced by Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Intima Virtual Base, and Cona Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia


'We shall fight them on the beaches. We shall fight them on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.' (Winston Churchill)

With thanks to the Amsterdam Fund for Art