Tallieu Art Office

ACT - A Beckett Evening

NTGent Minnemeers
Gent (B)

In ACT, Kris Verdonck explores various aspects of the relation between the human on the verge of disappearing in the work of Samuel Beckett. ACT approaches Beckett in three ways: with a monologue with Beckett texts (Stories and texts for nothing), performed by Johan Leysen, with a scientist, invited to react to Beckett and with an autonomous scenography, a possible landscape for a Beckett text. 

The variety and multidisciplinary approach reflect the complexity of Beckett’s work and are at the same time an attempt to literally take apart this complexity. The triptych of Science, theatre and high-tech show, as in three acts, each a different facet of the diamond ‘Beckett’. They deepen each other’s experience: a particular way of performing brings a scientific insight to life and vice versa, a performative scenography zooms in on the underlying world of or perhaps after the actor and offers a more contemplative experience.

ACT was selected for Het TheaterFestival 2020. From the jury’s report:
“In ACT Johan Leysen shapes one of Beckett's most elusive characters in an inimitable way. For an hour you hang on the lips of a man who gets hopelessly entangled in his attempt to define himself and the world around him. A moving portrait of Western human beings in search of sense and meaning.”

English spoken 
NL & FR surtitles

TICKETS

They Have Waited Long Enough - MEDEA

Oranjewoud Festival
Heerenveen (NL)

Composers Annelies Van Parys, Aftab 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. Three colourful soloists enter into an intense dialogue on clarinet, duduk and qanun. British stand-up classicist and captivating storyteller Natalie Haynes provides an introduction for the three characters.

Oranjewoud Festival - Tickets

Plant drone

Share Festival - Searchlight
Torino (IT)

This edition of the Festival brings new trends in tech art to Turin with exhibitions, conferences and performances.

David Bowen's plant drone is selected for the Share Prize.
A drone’s movements are determined by real-time variable resistance data collected from a live on-board plant. Data from each of the plant’s leaves determines the drone's left to right, forward to reverse and altitude movements. Essentially the plant is the pilot of the drone. An ultra-bright LED is mounted to the plant piloted drone. Using a camera with an open shutter on the ground to document the flight path enables the plant pilot to create long exposure drawings in the night sky.

Share Prize and Festival

RE/VERSE

Work in progress
Brussels (B)

Laura Colmenares Guerra is working on RE/VERSE, the 3rd chapter of the Ríos Trilogy.
RE/VERSE is a Virtual Reality (VR) piece that deepens into the complex situation of Amazonia: The ancestral indigenous populations and the biome of the Rainforest are endangered by the extractive practices operating in the region and the commercialisation of commodities distributed to the rest of the world.

RE/VERSE is conceived to generate a VR experience that underlines the tensions present in the territory by the pressure between the local and global perspectives. Where human, cultural and environmental aspects rub with power, economics and multinational interests in a context of climate stress in which the importance of preserving this unique ecosystem is vital for the survival of the current life on Earth.

Ríos Trilogy 
- Chapter I: RIVERS // AMAZONIA geo-linguistics online application
- Chapter II: RÍOS // sculpture series based on the nineteen major sub-basins of the amazons
-  Chapter III: RE/VERSE - VR

plant bot (working title)

work in progress
Duluth, Minnesota (USA)

With plant bot (working title), David Bowen is creating a time based interactive art installation where the fates, a living plant and a computer are interdependent. Essentially the plant will train a computer using image recognition. Through this process the computer will learn to recognize when the plant needs water, light and food based on images it takes of the plant. If the plant appears healthy, the computer will maintain a regular water/food/light regiment. If the plant does not appear healthy to the computer it will attempt to aid the plant by adjusting to what it “thinks” the plant needs based on the images gathered. As the computer becomes more intelligent and hence more adept at caring for the plant, the plant will conceivably thrive and grow in proportion. If the computer is unsuccessful, conceivably the opposite will occur.

NEVEL 1/66 Scale model

new edition
Tromsø (NO) & Brussels (B)

Commissioned by the Hamsunsenteret in Norway, Lawrence Malstaf integrated an adapted version of NEVEL 02004/10.

A new version of NEVEL is now permanently installed in the award winning museum designed by the American architect Steven Holl. 

On this occasion we are launching a limited edition of the scale model 1/66 of NEVEL. 

NEVEL 1/66 
Hand polished aluminium 
20 x 20 x 6 cm 
Edition of 5 copies + 1 A.P 
https://vimeo.com/715908582

Price on request: ischa@artoffice.be

Hamsunsenteret
Lawrence Malstaf

News & Agenda May - June 2022

Various Locations
Various cities

News & Agenda May - June 2022
World Première Pianoconcerto by Antwerp Symphony Orchestra at Muziekcentrum De Bijloke Gent & Koningin Elisabethzaal - MEDEA (organ version) by Helikon Quartet - They Have Waited Long Enough at Oranjewoud Festival - Time Machine by EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble at Linos Festival - Residency at Tokyo Arts and Space トーキョーアーツアンドスペース

Read more

EXTRACTIONS 22

A Two Dogs Company
Brussels (B)

EXTRACTIONS 22 is an exhibition that brings together different artists who work along the themes of extraction and landscapes. The selection of installations, new and mixed media, photographs, paintings, drawings, sculptures, performances and music, sketches an image of humankind that seems to have no other choice than to exploit its environment. Extraction does not only mean destruction, or at least not right away. It can also mean cultivation, making land available for growing crops. Nowadays, extraction has degenerated into consumption, a devastating process that is wreaking havoc at micro and macro levels, from our intimate thoughts to the layers of the Earth. EXTRACTIONS 22 is the second edition of this annual exhibition organised by Kris Verdonck / A Two Dogs Company and takes place in the company’s atelier.

Photo credit © Barthélemy Antoine-Lœff, Soleil Noir, installation, 2017

EXTRACTIONS 22
23 April - 8 May 2022
Saturday & Sunday
14:00 - 18:00

With photographs, sculptures, paintings & installations by:
Barthélemy Antoine-Lœff
Alexis Destoop
Justine Emard
Gloria Friedmann
Ritsart Gobyn
Kiki Smith
Kris Verdonck
Cindy Wright

With performances by:
Nick Steur
Kris Verdonck 
Michael Schmid
Yannick Guédon

A Two Dogs Company 
Rue Adolphe Lavallée 41
1080 Molenbeek (B)

EXTRACTIONS 22

Europalia Trains & Tracks: SCREENS

Event on train
Belgium

Just like any other form of transport, the train has altered our perception of distance and space: speed makes distances shorter. Moreover, with the arrival of the Internet, the entire world is just a mouse click away: it comes to us in real time via all sorts of screens. Conversely, we go out into the world with a screen in our hand to record, adjust and share landscapes, monuments, and other landmarks. How does that affect our experience of the here and now? Can we still distinguish the ‘real’ world from the virtual one? For SCREENS, you get on a train and find yourself in another world: the windows of the carriage turn into high resolution screens showing images created in a model train landscape. As you travel along the Belgian railway network, you feel like you are rolling through toy versions of other landscapes and cities. From the ‘real’ world to an unreal, virtual world. As if you are travelling inside Google Maps, or in the Caribbean, thanks to a filter on Zoom... Kris Verdonck perfects illusion in this new immersive video installation. When you get on a train in Screens, you sit inside a real carriage and at the same time you are elsewhere. You are ‘real’ in an artificial toy world. Both here, and not here: an ultimate form of being in transit?  

EUROPALIA TRAINS & TRACKS: SCREENS

NEMO OBSERVATORIUM 02002

LES SAFRA'NUMÉRIQUES 2022
Le Safran, Amiens (F)

NEMO OBSERVATORIUM 02002 by Lawrence Malstaf.
Styrofoam particles are blown around in a big transparent PVC cylinder by 5 strong fans. Visitors can take place one by one on the armchair in the middle of the whirlpool or observe from the outside. On the chair, in the eye of the storm it is calm and safe.Spectacular at first sight, this installation turns out to mesmerise as a kind of meditation machine. One can follow the seemingly cyclic patterns, focus on the different layers of 3D pixels or listen to its waterfall sound. One could call it a training device, challenging the visitor to stay centred and find peace in a fast changing environment. After a while the space seems to expand and one's sense of time deludes.

LES SAFRA'NUMÉRIQUES 2022