DETAIL at Kunstfest Weimar
28.08.2019 - 01.09.2019 Kunstfest Weimar 2019
Weimar (D)
A huge boulder hangs by a rope from the ceiling. As soon as the sun shines, it starts to rotate on its own axis. DETAIL is an installation by the Belgian theatre artist Kris Verdonck, presented for the first time at this year’s Kunstfest. A closed cycle of fascinating, but only apparent simplicity. In the tension between poetry and technology, weight and movement, mass and energy, the installation makes reference to fundamental questions of life. The rotating boulder thus becomes a symbol for acceleration and exhaustion, progress and ephemerality. Walter Gropius predicted that human ability to alter nature could become so enormous, that what we gain through technological advances might no longer be in proportion to what we could lose.
Read More
SOMETHING (out of nothing) at Kampnagel
14.08.2019 - 17.07.2019 Kampnagel - Internationales Sommerfestival 2019
Hamburg (D)
The future may be dark, but it comes with arresting visuals and powerful sounds: a synesthetic theater shock in the time of climate change.
Few in recent years have created disconcerting stage landscapes with as strong images as Kris Verdonck. The Belgian visual artist and theater maker has often been interested in existential questions and post-apocalyptic scenarios (at Kampnagel most recently in 2008). In his new intense and contemplative theater experience, he tackles the question of what it means to exist while awaiting an impending ecological catastrophe. What if nature becomes a nightmare and the quiet becomes endless? When we are actually gone? This work is thus a perfect sensory counterpart to our focus on climate-change-related cultures and ideologies.
In the transit zone between visual art and theater, installation and performance, dance and architecture, Verdonck embarks on a synesthetic trip to the end of the world with, among others, long-time ROSAS dancer Mark Lorimer, performer Ula Sickle and noise-cellist Leila Bordreuil. Like ghosts, they populate a magicbox-like theater landscape of impressive visual power – and, in our era of climate dystopia, remind us of the frailty of art and of human existence. A synesthetic theater shock in the time of climate change.
A Sense of Gravity at FILE - Electronic Language International Festival
25.06.2019 - 11.08.2019 FILE - Electronic Language International Festival
Art Gallery of Ruth Cardoso Cultural Center - SESI, São Paulo (BR)
Without us being aware, the body continuously adjusts itself to the gravitational pull. Artist Teun Vonk created an installation that lets you experience gravity anew. Immerse yourself in the transforming space of A Sense of Gravity and explore how your body reacts to the visual, tactile and bodily sensations. As you set foot on solid ground afterwards, your sense of gravity changes in a spectacular yet subtle way.
Teun Vonk asked himself: How can I challenge the perception of gravity?
With A Sense of Gravity, artist Teun Vonk created an installation that lets you experience gravity anew. For two years, Vonk researched how our human bodies perceive and react to gravity. Without us being aware, the body continuously adjusts itself to the gravitational pull and keeps itself in balance. This process seems effortless and self-evident.
Teun Vonk asked himself: How can I challenge the logic of gravity, of the bodily perception of gravity, with a machine or installation? Can I expand the boundaries of our everyday perception of gravity?
Lying on his back on an elevated, floating platform in his studio, Vonk reflected on gravity and weightlessness. He realized that our bodies anticipate and adjust to what you see around you and the surface you walk on. It seems self-evident, especially since we spend most of our everyday life in interior spaces, with levelled floors. The artist set out to create a space that is not static, but that changes in size and shape. This interferes with the logic of spatial perception, ‘waking up’ your body’s sensory system and influencing gravity perception. Vonk experimented with visual and bodily sensations, taking his own physical reactions as a starting point. In close collaboration with designers and programmers, the artist developed the prototype for this immersive installation.
This technological, futuristic looking machine harbours a dynamic, soft space that invites the viewer to submit to a very personal physical experience. The entire body’s sensibility is engaged, an awareness that changes the viewer’s sense of gravity in a spectacular yet subtle way.
A Sense of Gravity is developed with support of CBK Rotterdam, Mondriaan Fonds, V2_lab for the unstable media and STRP.
https://www.teunvonk.nl/a-sense-of-gravity/
https://file.org.br
tele-present wind at New Media Gallery
21.06.2019 - 29.09.2019 New Media Gallery
Vancouver (CA)
tele-present wind - 2019 - This installation consists of a series of 84 x/y tilting mechanical devices connected to thin dried plant stalks installed in a gallery and a dried plant stalk connected to an accelerometer installed outdoors. When the wind blows it causes the stalk outside to sway. The accelerometer detects this movement transmitting the motion to the grouping of devices in the gallery. Therefore the stalks in the gallery space move in real-time and in unison based on the movement of the wind outside.
DANCER #3 at Festival KANAL
21.06.2019 - 30.06.2019 KANAL Centre Pompidou
Brussels (B)
DANCER #3 - We see a robot trying to stand up straight; he always falls down again, but never gives up. He endures this process of trial and error cheerfully and indefatigably. The machine gets to know its own potential. The energy of this automaton is infectious. His clumsiness and constant failure display the optimism of a clown who’s always tripping over. The artist and theatre-maker Kris Verdonck quite often combines his fascination with machines with images and concepts that owe a lot to science fiction.
From 21 to 30 June 2019, KANAL BRUT, which for 14 months saw the former Citroën garage serve as an exhibition and performance space, will end on a high note with the multidisciplinary FESTIVAL KANAL.
tele-present wind & 5twigs at EDEN PROJECT
15.06.2019 - 02.10.2019 Eden Project
Cornwall (UK)
The exhibition 'Artificial Creators: inspired by nature' brings together the creations of five artists inspired by nature that have been modified and co-produced by AI. Their work questions how we work with machines to establish new forms of relationship beyond the utilitarian and explores innovative ways of expression that produce new ways of seeing.
Curated by Blanca Pérez Ferrer, supported by Falmouth University.
tele-present wind - 2018 - This installation consists of a series of 126 x/y tilting mechanical devices connected to thin dried plant stalks installed in a gallery and a dried plant stalk connected to an accelerometer installed outdoors. When the wind blows it causes the stalk outside to sway. The accelerometer detects this movement transmitting the motion to the grouping of devices in the gallery. Therefore the stalks in the gallery space move in real-time and in unison based on the movement of the wind outside.
5twigs - 2017 - This installation consists of 5 found twigs that were three dimensionally scanned and then printed in translucent plastic. Each original twig was then mounted in opposition to its artificial counterpart.
David Bowen - The other side
13.06.2019 - 30.11.2019 Plains Art Museum
Fargo, North Dakota (USA)
With rare exceptions, art objects are created to be experienced visually. The Other Four is an exhibition experience that negates the visually dominant art experience hierarchy by presenting artwork designed specifically to engage the other four senses. Visitors to The Other Four will be able to touch the other side of the world, listen to conversations in the walls of the museum, feel and react to life-like cellular signals through handheld mechanical devices, and listen to unique sounds emitted by each planet in our solar system. Curated by John Schuerman.
David Bowen, the other side
Once every week his installation creates a three-dimensional carving of the current ocean surface conditions and cloud formations on the opposite side of the earth from the location of the gallery space. Using satellite data from the Nasa Earth Observing Information System and the GPS coordinates of the gallery, the installation obtains a current image of an approximately six hundred square mile area on the opposite side of the earth from its location. Using custom software this image is converted into a three-dimensional model which is then carved in pink foam by a CNC machine hanging upside down in the gallery space. Every week a new carving is created and displayed on the gallery walls adjacent to the installation. Viewers are encouraged to touch the foam carvings giving them the ability to touch the opposite side of the earth during the exhibition.
DIARY OF ONE WHO DISAPPEARED at ROYAL OPERA HOUSE LONDON
05.06.2019 - 08.06.2019 ROYAL OPERA HOUSE
London (UK)
Leoš Janaček wrote a song cycle in 22 scenes about a loving village boy. Annelies Van Parys writes an answer to this gripping story. Ivo Van Hove directs.
Produced by Muziektheater Transparant, co-produced by Toneelgroep Amsterdam, Klarafestival, De Munt/La Monnaie, Kaaitheater, Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg and Opera Days Rotterdam.
Tickets: https://www.roh.org.uk
SOMETHING (out of nothing)
24.05.2019 - 25.05.2019 SPRING Performing Arts Festival
Stadschouwburg, Utrecht (NL)
What is the place of the human in a world in which ecological catastrophe and technology are fundamentally challenging this position? The new performance by Kris Verdonck explores the physical and mental state of being in the face of an impending extinction.
The combination of a merciless desire for profit and growth with technological developments, has reduced the human to a disposable object. Making the landscape in which we live inhabitable is the next step. What remains after social, economic and ecological elimination? The dancers wandering around in Something(out of nothing), are oftentimes not more than silhouettes or shadows. They are the ghosts that are the consequence of the destructive dynamics between humanity and the landscape, which in the performance is evoked by large inflatable sculptures, noise cello player Leila Bordreuil and a robot drum.
Production A Two Dogs Company / ICK Amsterdam
SOMETHING (out of nothing)
22.05.2019 - 23.05.2019 Kunstenfestivaldesarts
Kaaitheater, Brussels (B)
What is the place of the human in a world in which ecological catastrophe and technology are fundamentally challenging this position? The new performance by Kris Verdonck explores the physical and mental state of being in the face of an impending extinction.
The combination of a merciless desire for profit and growth with technological developments, has reduced the human to a disposable object. Making the landscape in which we live inhabitable is the next step. What remains after social, economic and ecological elimination? The dancers wandering around in Something(out of nothing), are oftentimes not more than silhouettes or shadows. They are the ghosts that are the consequence of the destructive dynamics between humanity and the landscape, which in the performance is evoked by large inflatable sculptures, noise cello player Leila Bordreuil and a robot drum.
Parallel to the performance, the installations BOGUS I-II-II are presented in the museum context of Kanal Centre Pompidou from 10 until 23 May 2019. Performative objects will create a similar environment in the white cube as they do in the black box. Theatre flows over into the museum and back.
Production A Two Dogs Company / ICK Amsterdam