SLICA is excited to present a new project by South African artist Lester Adams. The Internet Is Made Of Cats will be a one night only event at the SLICA house in Johannesburg on Thursday the 23rd of February from 19h30. Adams looks at how internet cats reflect the way we communicate, use information technology and humour and how this is shared on social media platforms. Recently, Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT delivered a lecture on the "cute cat" theory of internet activism and explains that while the internet is a great place for dissent and activism to start, most users go online to look at pictures of cute cats. As the so-called Arab Spring has taught us, social media can be a powerful tool for voicing dissent at the dominant ideology, but the general population won't notice that something is gravely wrong until their daily dose of cute disappears. A chronological display of the evolution of cat video memes, still images and theories around internet cats will occupy the Sober & lonely house for one night only.
A light meal will be served, but please bring your own drinks. RSVP before Wednesday the 22nd .
Lester Adams is an artist, curator and project manager who studied at Wits and currently lives and works in Johannesburg. Previous engagements include curation and project management particularly in photography practice and various involvements in independent contemporary art platforms.
DOWNLOADS / LINKS
PROJECT ARCHIVE /
Telepathic Crowd is a work currently in development for the duration of Audrey Cottin 's solo show Charlie & Sabrina, Who Would Have Believed? on at Jeu de Paume from October until February 2012. Cottin, together with Sober & Lonely will spend the four months curating a crowd of collaborators. A lawyer has drafted a contract between Cottin and Sober & Lonely stating that the only communication between Cottin in Paris/Brussels and Sober & Lonely in Johannesburg will be through telepathy, every week night at 20h00. During each meeting, Cottin and Sober & Lonely will agree on a person (an ideal collaborator, living or dead) that they wish to work with in some way. At the end of each week these results will be inputted into a Google document. At the close of Charlie & Sabrina, Who Would Have Believed? in February 2012, the list will have 85 sets of names of ideal collaborators. Whether or not Cottin and Sober & Lonely got any perfect matches will serendipitously open up possibilities for future ideal collaborations. The list of names will be used by both Cottin and Sober & Lonely in whichever way each artist sees fit, to conclude the project or make new work.
Image: Audrey Cottin explaining the Telepathic Crowd contract at Jeu De Paume (image courtesy Kristaps Epners)
As part of our current Featured Project, SLICA are proud to present Spectre, a new artwork by James Webb at the 2011 FNB Joburg Art Fair .
In this unadvertised intervention, a volunteer concealed a powerful, portable cellular phone jammer on their person and walked through the fair cancelling reception within a roving 20m radius.
Image: Intervention view of Tate Modern director, Chris Dercon, looking for phone signal at the Art Fair (image courtesy Anthea Buys)
words by Bronwen Shelwell
Dutch artist Bas Schevers , in association with the Sober and Lonely Institute for Contemporary Art , will be hosting a happening entitled Failure House on Thursday 25 August 2011. The project is based on research and experiments conducted by Schevers, and in collaboration with invited artists, using the theme of failure as a starting point. The objective of this project is to bring together various individual failures exploring the subtleties of each artistic interpretation. The residue, as Schevers puts it, of each interpretation, will be documented, chronicled and explored as perceived black spots in each respective artists oeuvre. The experience of art making and the processes therein, eventuate in either the success or the failure of an idea, causing different understandings and questions to arise in ways which are paradoxical, optimistic and subversive.
Schevers work concentrates on the failure of ideas, interventions and actions and the way in which artists deal with differing situations and problems. In a sense, Failure House attempts to unravel a primary aspect in the human condition; that of striving for something that cannot always be achieved, and the inevitability of failure in certain processes. The gaps that separate artistic purpose, intention, realization and expectation, which often lead to failure in trying to bridge those gaps, eventually become realizations in themselves, offering an introspective escape from the pressures of success. The subjectivities of the various people participating in Failure House , and their attempts to tackle the stigma of failure, often embracing happy accidents, reveals something of our humanity to ourselves. Our introspection of failure not only draws us into an interrogation of the process of self questioning, but also suggests the potentialities within the gaps, that when ignored, or overlooked, eventuate in failure.
Just as the worst mistakes often begin with the best of intentions, in reverse order there is unexpected success to be found in failure, where serendipity produces comic relief from the necessity to produce. In this fashion, the contributing artists engage with the necessity to fail, and accept this as a part of the process of making. To quote Sartre, "man's existence precedes his essence." Failure is thus a point of departure, the beginnings of making, the artists companion.
We live in an era that is preoccupied with success, surrounded by media which flaunts the countless ways in which talented, successful people overcome challenges and difficulties: a will to power on all accounts.The impact of the media constantly reminds us of our many shortcomings, transforming our previously private reflections into an overexposure of all we should be. In this sense, the views communicated in Failure House are anecdotal of our pragmatism and discontent, supplying us with a dimension of faith through the embrace of flaws inherent to the human condition. The only antidote to failure is an engagement with failure, understanding that it comes part-and-parcel with success. The people involved attempt to turn this around, finding comfort and companionship in failure as the awkward friend. Failure reveals to us an intrinsic part of learning, and encourages us to wear our battle scars as evidence of our humanity and our craft.
The happenings at Failure House channel these enquiries into an extraordinary variety of styles and techniques. The day will consist of an intervention by Serbian curator Marko Stamenkovic who is currently researching suicide cultures; a recorded interview by Schevers with artist Jan Huijben on his work in relation to failure, An (anti)motivational talk by Deshun Deysel about the time she didn't summit Everest; A video piece by Schevers about Ronald Detige (who recently quit art and now works full time for the police. His job is to meet people who were raped or molested or family of people that were killed and take them through the evidence files); as well as a video work of Hedwig Houben 's in a recent workshop with art students in Holland about their failed works.
Contributors to the event will also be asked to submit a Curriculum Ruinam of things that didn't work out for them, for example grants they applied to but didn't receive, residencies they didn't get into etc. Guests to the Failure House will also get the opportunity to not stand a chance of winning a lottery prize.
The Failure House itself is similarly documented in an estate-agent-type photograph with the house, garden and swimming pool all squeezed into the for sale advertorial, standing in a state of transience as being potentially sold at any moment. This paradox stems from a similar project performed for the 53rd Venice Biennale, titled The Collectors by artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset. With contributions from twenty-four international artists, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset transformed the Danish and Nordic Pavilions into domestic environs, and invited the audience to be guests in them.
In terms of progress and accumulated life lessons through trial and error, the engagement with artworks is a similar serialization, a productive and continuous process of re-readings and misreading across the narrative of ones subjective experiences. As with our understanding of history, our interpretations of failures change and that very subjectivity adds a constant state of flux to our melancholic doubts. In adjusting to the inevitable companionship of failure, the question does arise if art, as the imitation of life, is in-itself the ultimate failure; failure for failures sake.
As John Ruskin once noted, "the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art. . . . Imperfection is in some sort essential to all we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body. . . . To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed".
This July, SLICA is excited to showcase the work of Dutch artist Hedwig Houben. Her video explores the artists practice as a conversation and demonstration as related to form and structure. The artist explains her work as part of a performance, where the audience is invited into a deeper understanding of the work, as defined by the metaphotrical relationship between the artists unique sensibility and attitude, and the spatial and symbolic meaning of shape.
Houben is currently completing a residency at the Hisk in Ghent, Belgium, she has exhibited widely in Holland, Belgium, Germany and France.
One of the key purposes of the Sober & Lonely Institute for Contemporary Art is to share information through alternate and experimental means of representation, bringing a diverse range of contemporary art to South Africa. This first project is a screening of the 50 minute performance by Belgian artist Miet Warlop. Springville has been performed across Europe since 2008 and although it is not possible to bring the piece to South Africa yet, there will be simultaneous screenings of it in Johannesburg and Durban.
Rob Vanderbeeken has written an extensive review on Springville that you should definitely read if you're unable to see the screening or the live show. You can find the pdf below. We also asked Bas Schevers, who will be doing a project with us in the next few months, to share what he thought of Springville. Here is what he said:
First I remember it was hilarious in general, very well thought out, with the storyline and technical stuff exactly matching and spot on. And the use of this Lo-Fi technics was a very strong thing, it was like a home made spectacle that is easy for everyone to relate to. This everyday stuff was used in a not everyday way (understatement) which made it very authentic.. or something. One high point for me was when the lady-table came towards the audience and someone had to pour in the tea or something. Also the tall guy running of course and the final plastic air bag thing. I was very amused. Often I find things that are meant to be funny not funny, so that's the biggest compliment I think. It was going beyond clichés and she created these super good images that are new and funny in themselves already.
To see more of Miet Warlop's work please visit her website or browse through the downloads below and have a look at the Events tab for screening information if you're in South Africa.
Miet Warlop Biography .pdf
We All Go Down Together by Rob Vanderbeeken.pdf
Act Collection by Miet Warlop.pdf
This month SLICA is proud to present Javier Hinojosa as the featured artists of the month. Javier Hinojosa (born 1974 in Mexico City) studied architecture and visual arts at the Academy of the Visual Arts »La Esmeralda« as well as photography and alternative media at the Centro de la Imagen, Mexico. His work has been exhibited in several galleries in Mexico, including Casa del Lago Museum, National Arts Center, Celda Contemporanea, San Ildefonso Museum, Experimental Museum El ECO, Art & Idea Mexico, X Teresa Museum, and internationally in Raid Projects L.A., Museo Reina Sofia Madrid, Ostrobothnian Museum Vassa Finland, Mexican Cultural Institute Paris, Harto Espacio Montevideo Uruguay, Art & Idea NY and Meet Factory in Prague.
Hinojosa creates his own artistic topography exploring the detritus created in our growing cityscapes. The act of walking, and photographing * the city is central to Hinojosa's research process. He states: "I focus in the registration of emerging constructive situations, in the remains of urban activity: an improvised chair between two trees for the unemployed one who has to spend 10 hours in a busy corner, left over carry boxes, bizarre alliances among buckets and concrete to keep available a parking place, piled up cement blocks etc. appear in my photographs in a state of multiplicity. These generally disregarded details of a city become crucial at the point in which I cant say which image comes from where, the city as a concept has become in its everyday peculiarities a global undistinguished reality. Mexico, Istanbul, Los Angeles connect each other through its objects"* (Hinojosa, 2010) Hinojosa then uses the research material as a departure point for the creation of constructed sculptural solutions.
His project Ephemeral Traps Permanent Consequences will be installed at The Collective in Durban.
* See the portfolio download below
Javier Hinojosa.pdf
The Sober & Lonely Institute for Contemporary Art (SLICA) is a non-profit organisation whose main focus is on fostering exchanges and conversations between South African and international artists and organisations. Loosely based in Johannesburg and Durban, SLICA is a non-prescriptive platform with an intrinsic curatorial process focused primarily on performance and interactivity. As a floating platform, each concept is uniquely adapted to the specific project showcased, including exhibitions, screenings, lectures, debates and an online archive. The Suburban Residency is the first in a series of artist residency programmes hosted by SLICA.
The Sober & Lonely Institute for Contemporary Art has been developed as an extension of Sober & Lonely's artistic practice to create a platform of sharing and engagement between artists and organisations.
Founded by Robyn Cook & Lauren von Gogh 2010
ARTISTS /
http://nedkosolakov.net/
http://www.ivanargote.com/
http://rye.tw/more/
PLATFORMS / INSTITUTIONS / GALLERIES /
http://www.vvork.com/
http://pietmondriaan.com/
http://www.fuckinggoodart.nl
http://www.transartists.nl/
http://www.formcontent.org/
http://www.metropolism.com/
http://www.ificantdance.org/
http://www.vanabbemuseum.nl/en/
VIDEO /
http://www.ubu.com/
http://artforum.com/video/
http://performa-arts.org/blog/tv
AUDIO / LITERATURE /
http://verybetastill.com/
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/tendency/
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Six projects have been chosen as part of the 24 Hour Summer Residency Programme at Sober & Lonely Institute for Contemporary Art. The projects include some promising developments including a curatorial seminar, a shrimp cocktail poolside party, a site-specific soundtrack, a 72 hour multi faceted intervention, an exploration of horizons and possibly some deweeding, digging, filling, planting, moving and burying. Please see below for more details on the artists and their plans for the 24 hour programme. Dates are subject to change so have a look at our events page closer to the time.
1. Kidu & Tallulah James
During their residency on the 4th of January, Kidu & Tallulah James will transform the living room into a makeshift recording studio where a soundtrack for the Sober & Lonely house will be developed. Field recordings, improvised instruments and lyrics will all be sourced from the house during the 24 hour residency period.
Kidu & Tallulah James are Nicholas and Robyn Nesbitt, a Johannesburg based brother and sister duo. They have worked collaboratively on numerous audiovisual projects under their alias Kidu & Tallulah James since 2007. Audiovisual projects include the 2008 album Model c - no more songs about girls.
2. The Open Drawer Projects
On the 7th of January Open Drawer Projects members Grace Cross, Jessie Hammond, Io Makandal, and Samantha McCulloch will investigate drawing by constructing a temporary microtopia within the suburban residency space.
A horizon is a reverberation of the infinite in the finite; it is an outside view of an inner vista, an unobtainable location and a literal representation of a definite line. Open Drawer Projects is interested in creating drawn lines that contemplate the perceptual reality of these fluid Horizons. A horizon line drawn within a suburban space, which is not infinite, questions inherent boundary lines and borders. The fundamental forms of the horizon, the line and circle, are recreated continuously through depictions of the sun, the divided line and the cave.
3. Anthea Moys & Amy Watson
Performance artist Anthea Moys and curator Amy Watson will host a joint intervention at the SLICA house on the 10th of January. The two residents will initially work independently in the residency space, extending and testing their current respective research concerns; Moys interest in intervention and play, action and the associated rules that come to define these engagements, Watsons interest in disappearance in artistic and curatorial practice and discourse.
The intention is for the residency space to act as laboratory in which two professional practices - artist and curator - are brought into a dynamic and recursive interaction, allowing for the potential of a more sustained collaboration to develop between their respective artistic and curatorial practices.
4. Bianca Baldi
Bianca Baldi is currently completing postgraduate studies at Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Frankfurt and will be in Johannesburg during the summer, visiting and researching. Bianca will host a shrimp cocktail party at the swimming pool of the SLICA house on 14 January as well as a screening of a Frank Sinatra concert. This specific concert was held at Sun City (a casino/ entertainment resort 126km north-west of Johannesburg) a year after it opened in 1981, during the cultural boycott.
5. Portia Malatjie
There are few institutions in South Africa that offer formal education to aspiring curators. In most cases, young curators rely on independent research on curatorial practice. Often, there are no platforms on which to explore the materials discovered through the research. Some aspiring curators also find themselves in a position where they are not aware of the debates or discussions around curatorship. As a result, they end up felling their way around their own curatorial practices without situating themselves in a broader context. On this note, Portia Malatjie will host an informal seminar at the SLICA house on 22 January, inviting 6 young Johannesburg based curators for en engaging discussion. Portia Malatjie is a curator/ researcher/ art historian based in Johannesburg and has recently been nominated as the guest curator for the 2012 MTN New Contemporaries Award.
6. Georgia Munnik & Ndaxola Nkalashe
Georgia Munnik and Ndaxola Nkalashe are fourth year Fine Arts students of Wits 2012. Ndaxola works with live experimentation in sound and visual information. Georgia works with performance, video and the recoding of received information. Collaboration is essential to the nature of both of their work.
The two will collaborate for 72 hours from 16 - 18 February. The focus is on the receiving and re-coding of information. The work produced will be a product of pure experimentation, using videos, televisions, audio samples, texts (fiction/non-fiction/journals), a tool box, wood, 1 purple perspex diamond structure built by Mitch Nodern and facilitated by Dorothee Kreutzfeldt and paper.
JULY 2011 / Suburban Residency Program : Nina Barnett & Robyn Nesbitt
JULY 2011 / Suburban Residency Program : Dineo Bopape
AUGUST 2011 / Suburban Residency Program : Francis Burger
The Internet is Made of Cats
Lester Adams
23 February
SLICA, Johannesburg, South Africa
rsvp: lauren_soberandlonely.org or robyn_soberandlonely.org
24 Hour Summer Residency Programme
04/01/11
07/01/11
10/01/11
14/01/11
22/01/11
6. Georgia Munnik & Ndaxalo Nkalashe
7-9/01/11
30/12/11 New Hot [C]old War, Verboomstraat 184C, Rotterdam, Amsterdam
07/11 - 11/11 Oh My, Oh My: from the annals of a great telepathic affair, Convocation House, Johannesburg, South Africa (see here for project documentation)
15/11/11 An Evening of Projection, Video & Gazpacho presented by Josh & Jared Ginsberg, Francis Burger & Kyle Morland, SLICA, Johannesburg, South Africa
01/11/11 Suburban Residency Program with Josh & Jared Ginsberg, Francis Burger & Kyle Morland, SLICA, Johannesburg, South Africa
25/09/11 James Webb / Spectre, FNB Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa
25/09/11 Sober&Lonely / Experiments in Telepathy, Blank Projects at FNB Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa
11/08/11 Bas Schevers / Failure House, SLICA, Johannesburg, South Africa
11/08/11 Robyn Nesbitt & Nina Barnett / Where are we exactly - are we near the island? The island- is that what you call it? Outlet (Johannebsurg), South Africa
07/08/11 Talk by Lorenzo Fusi & Kemang Wa Lehulere, SLICA, Johannesburg, South Africa
24/07/11 Open House with Robyn & Nina, SLICA, Johannesburg, South Africa
07/07/11 Hedwig Houben / Colour and Shape, A Short Explanation of my Artistic Practice, Outlet, Johannesburg, South Africa
03/07/11 Suburban Residency Program with Dineo Bopape, Robyn Nesbitt & Nina Barnett, and Francis Burger, SLICA, Johannesburg, South Africa
16/05/11 Javier Hinojosa / Ephemeral Traps, Permanent Consequences, The Collective, Durban, South Africa
14/04/11 Miet Warlop / Springville, artSpace (Durban) and Outlet (Johannebsurg), South Africa
Outlet was originally conceived to be a conceptual space where artists could experiment and communicate ideas in order to break-away from traditional notions of the gallery-as-muse and the archetypal white cube. With a new space in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, Outlet has extended its reach to encompass broader notions of platform and space, encouraging cross-disciplinary discourses and exchanges. Collaboration and conversation are at the heart of the micro space, challenging establishment, creating a more dynamic space for the production and distribution of art. In essence Outlet is a curtatorial experiment, outside mainstream art structures, attempting to find a complimentary alterative to the gallery system in South Africa. In this vein, Outlet has partnered with the Sober and Lonely Institute to give artists in residence an option to submit proposals for projects that they may want to execute in the project space. For more information about the project space please visit www.outletprojectroom.withtank.com .
The Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA) has kindly sponsored equipment for Sober & Lonely Institute for Contemporary Art's FAILURE HOUSE .
http://www.vansa.co.za/
From August until the end of November 2011 the Sober & Lonely Institute for Contemporary Art has partnered up with the Wits School of Arts (WSOA) and Convocation House for a project titled 'Oh My, Oh My: from the annals of a great telepathic affair' . WSOA has kindly offered the use of their Jorissen Street space, Convocation House, for the duration of the project.
