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NET_RES
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| 21 Sep, 2009 -
12 Okt, 2009 |
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Kevin Murphy
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Recidency ophold, kunstnermøde
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| Klik på billedet og se flere billeder |
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INTRODUKTIONS MØDE KEVIN MURPHY: TORS. D. 24 SEPTEMPER KL. 19.00 I RUM46
(please find english invitation below)
Fra den 21 september til den 12 oktober er rum46 vært for den amerikanske billedkunstner/kurator Kevin Murphy, der er i recidency i rum46 i forbindelse med NET-RES. rum46 har i år focus på offentlighed og retorik.
Kevin Murphy er under hans ophold i Århus intereseret i værkstedsbesøg og vil gerne starte en diskution med lokale billedkunstnere, der arbejder med spørgsmål relateret til sprog, forståelsen af det offentlige, konstruktionen af rum og emner relevant iforhold til det samtidige danske politiske og kulturelle landskab. Møder og dialoger kan ende ud i en eller anden form for samarbejdsprojekt, handling eller udstilling, som finder sted enten i rum46 eller i et andet offentligt rum i Århus. rum46 opfordre varmt til at interesserede kontakter Kevin Murphy på Denne email adresse bliver beskyttet mod spambots. Du skal have JavaScript aktiveret for at vise den.
eller Denne email adresse bliver beskyttet mod spambots. Du skal have JavaScript aktiveret for at vise den.
for værkstedsbesøg.Find mere info om Kevin Myrphy og hans arbejde på www.rum46.dk under Soft&Hard
En serie af film/videovisninger og læsning relateret til emnet "offentlighed og retorik" er også åben for den brede offentlighed. Tekster og film titler vil blive annonceret på det første møde d. 24 Septemper kl.19.00 og vil tage emner som privatisering af det offentlige rum, fornyligt udfoldet sprogbrug omkring minoriteter og immigranter i Danmark, konstruktionen af sted, offentlighed, medier, og demokrati i den fysiske og virtuelle verdner. Alle deltagere opfordres til at bringe forslag til det introducerende møde. Møderne foregår på engelsk og nedenfor finder I mere introduktion til disse på engelsk.
rum46 byder på let mad, kaffe og øl - og håber på at se mange også gerne nye ansigter!
velkommen til
OFFENTLIGHED & REtorik
Mange hilsner fra
rum46
Studsgade 46
8000 Århus
www.rum46.dk
More Information from Kevin Murphy:
A discussion of "the public space and rhetoric" in present-day Denmark will provoke an examination of the political, economic, social, and cultural shifts that have rocked Denmark since the late 80s. The Welfare State has been declared to be in crisis and increasing privatization is changing the costs and delivery of social services (Venstre, cuts in education and arts funding, Lars Løkke's hospital "scandal"). The widening cultural gulf between "Danes" and ethnic minorities in Denmark is fueled by the inflammatory anti-immigrant rhetoric and legislation of Dansk Folkeparti, in powerful coalition with Venstre ("Gi' os Danmark tilbage"). The Ungdomshuset incident and the growing threat to dismantle Christiania have demonstrated the government's complicity with the private sector in development ventures that threaten cultural institutions ("Normalisere Christiania"). The aggressive police presence in opposition to leftist street culture, immigrant groups, the marijuana/hash trade, and protest movements in Copenhagen has further aggravated tensions between the state and the individual, social order and "freedom", the businessman and the socialist and human rights activist. Traditional and historical notions of janteloven are embattled by new globalized generations and in youth and queer subcultures (the "Fuck Janteloven!" club on www.boyfriend.dk). On these and many other fronts, the public domain is marked by ethical and political debates over rhetoric and what it means to define and articulate 'Danishness'.
In addition to the above political and cultural topics, discussions will address theoretical questions such as theories of spatiality in relation to physical and urban space as well as to language and discourse, the public, and cyberspace and virtual worlds.
For further information, please contact Kevin Murphy (Denne email adresse bliver beskyttet mod spambots. Du skal have JavaScript aktiveret for at vise den.
).
Invitation in English:
Introductory meeting to Kevin Murphy: Thursday September 24, 19:00 hr, rum46
From September 21 until October 12, artist and media arts programmer Kevin Murphy will be in residence at rum46 researching and organizing events around the topic "The Public Space and Rhetoric." During his residency, Murphy is interested to do studio visits and have discussions with local artists and activists who work around questions related to language, notions of the public, constructions of space, and issues relevant to the current Danish political and cultural landscape. The meetings and dialogues may result in some kind of collaborative project, action, or exhibition to take place either in rum46 or in other public spaces in Århus. If you are interested to schedule a studio visit, please send an email to (Denne email adresse bliver beskyttet mod spambots. Du skal have JavaScript aktiveret for at vise den.
) or Denne email adresse bliver beskyttet mod spambots. Du skal have JavaScript aktiveret for at vise den.
Also open to the public is a reading group and series of film/video screenings related to the topic. Text and film titles will be announced at the introductory meeting on Thursday September 24 at 19:00 hr and will address issues such as the privatisation of the public realm, recent rhetoric around ethnic minorities and immigrants in Denmark, and constructions of space, the public, the media, and democracy in physical and virtual worlds. Everyone is encouraged to bring suggestions to the introductory meeting and join us for drinks and discussion.
Welcome to "The Public Space and Rhetoric" at rum46!
BAGGRUND OG TEMATIK:
"IF SOMETHING IS NOT DESCRIBED,
IT ACTUALLY DOES NOT EXIST. IF WE START TO DESCRIBE IT, SOMEHOW WE BRING IT INTO BEING"
Krzysztof Kieslowski
OFFENTLIGHED & REtorik
rum46 vil gerne rette en skepsis i forhold til hvad udsiges i det offentlige rum i dag.
Hvordan begreber overtages, misbruges, og betydnings forskubbes i forhold til deres oprindelige sammenhæng. Kan man i dag tale om "verbal inkontinens" i forhold til hvordan f.eks. forskellige partier fra samtidens politiske scener tillader et talt og skrevet sprog der ikke lever op til, og i den grad udfordre demokratiet.
Retorik betyder at udtrykke sig sprogligt for at overbevise andre, dvs. at det er en aktivitet og ikke mindst en manipulations faktor. I hvor høj grad kan man sige, at individet taler sproget, og i hvor høj grad er det sproget, der taler individet? Og hvordan forholder vi os til retorikkens etiske dimention?
RUM46 OPFORDRE ALLE PÅTVÆRS AF FAGLIGHEDDER TIL ITALESÆTTELSE AF GODE VISIONER, AT TALE MED, TALE TILBAGE OG BRUGE SPROGETS UDSIGELSES POTIENTIALER, NÅR NOGET SYNES HELT HEN I SKOVEN!
REtorik:
Forførelseskunst ud i sprogbrug eller forudsætning for at mennesker kan leve som frie borger i et socialt og politisk fællesskab!
OFFENTLIGHED:
En markedsplads hvor den der har penge får plads eller et selvstændigt forum, et abstrakt rum, hvor den statslige politik kan underkastes kritisk vurdering således at det vedbliver at være et fælles anliggende!
Text for NetRes by Kevin Murphy. Please read Kevin Murphy´s reflections on his stay in rum46 here:
Kevin Murphy
Text for netres
Kevin Murphy presented the solo exhibition "Soft & Hard" at rum46 in June, 2009
(www.rum46.dk). He returned to rum46 as artist-in-residence on the topic "Public Space
and Rhetoric" for 3 weeks in September-October, 2009.
June 11, 2009, 19:45
I nervously pound a beer in the rum46 office rehearsing my solo interpretation of Tina
Turner's "Private Dancer". I wrap multi-colored bed-sheets around my body, cloak my
head in a pillow-case, and am led by a friend out to my installation for the live
performance. The video component of the installation presents webcam views of boys
flirting, strip-teasing, sleeping, dancing, speaking to whoever is watching, and cyber-
chatting in interiors that resemble everything from typical bedrooms to kitschy porn-film
sets to booths in sex-work "call-centers". An exhibitionistic Cuban-American flexes and
flashes his cock at anonymous viewers, hoping to coax a member of the website into a
lucrative, "private" (ie: one on one) webcam viewing session. Cut to the Romanian 19-
year-old in what appears to be a vintage-clothing shop changing room cubicle with
"walls" of hanging bed-sheets. He looks pasty and bored under the fluorescent drop-
ceiling lighting as he mechanically licks his lips, signalling the clichéd sign of horniness,
but there is no wild flash in his eye – another day at the office. We hear him conversing
through the fabric wall with the female voice in the adjoining cubicle. They sound
familiar to one another, fed-up, ready to make a break for it. I climb onto the installation
and, mirroring the projection, I pose, flex, and bump and grind slowly and deliberately
for the public.
September 24, 2009, 18:45
I find myself back in the rum46 office, anxiously necking another beer. I skim my notes
and prepare to deliver my introductory talk in the gallery, announcing a structure for my
time in Århus and the public offerings I have planned for the residency. This time I show
my face and refer to a crude "mind-map" sketched on the wall in black charcoal. The
map depicts a rendering of the path I recall travelling on my journey from childhood in
Pittsburgh, through my mid-20s professional life in New York City, and onward to my
MFA studies and experience with the public social and cultural institutions of
Scandinavia. Through an annotated personal narrative, I sought to illustrate the
development of my understanding of notions of "the public" – beginning with the very
narrow and unprivileged position of the public sphere in US institutional orders (and the
cultural identities engendered within this marginalization), through my experience of the
more developed historical/cultural notions and institutions of "the public" across the
Scandinavian welfare states. After 8 years of a Venstre/Konservativ/DF coalition, the
Danish political and cultural landscape seems a particularly contentious battleground
between public and private interests, marked since the 80s by increasingly Americanized
social, cultural, and economic ideologies, as well as by discussions of the crisis of the
welfare state and Danish national identity.
Applying for the residency, I found myself wondering how to practically approach and
hem in a topic as broad as "Public Space and Rhetoric." Having already shown my work
at rum46, I decided to forego production/exhibition and focus more on interfacing with
the artist and activist communities of Århus, addressing the terms of the topic (ie:
"public", "space", "rhetoric") directly and applying their relevance to recent Danish
political, social, and cultural debates. I imagined my role during the residency not solely
in terms of visiting artist or curator or moderator, but rather as something like
conversationalist, addressing the participants at the events in a non-institutional and non-
hierarchical way. Illustrating my thinking before arriving in Århus, the following text is
lifted from my application and was redelivered in the press release announcing the
introductory meeting that kicked off my residency:
A discussion of "public space and rhetoric" in present-day Denmark will provoke
an examination of the political, economic, social, and cultural shifts that have
rocked Denmark since the late 80s. The Welfare State has been declared to be in
crisis and increasing privatization is changing the costs and delivery of social
services (Venstre, cuts in education, arts, and public health funding). The
widening cultural gulf between "Danes" and ethnic minorities in Denmark is
fueled by the inflammatory anti-immigrant rhetoric and legislation of Dansk
Folkeparti, in powerful coalition with Venstre ("Gi' os Danmark tilbage"). The
Ungdomshuset incident and the growing threat to dismantle Christiania have
demonstrated the government's complicity with the private sector in development
ventures that threaten cultural institutions and non-mainstream communities and
spaces ("Normalisere Christiania"). The aggressive police presence in opposition
to leftist street culture, immigrant groups, the marijuana/hash trade, and protest
movements in Copenhagen has further aggravated tensions between the state and
the individual, social order and "freedom", the businessman and the socialist and
human rights activist. Traditional and historical notions of janteloven are
embattled by new globalized generations and in youth and queer subcultures (the
"Janteloven, hvorfor?!" club on www.boyfriend.dk). On these and many other
fronts, the public domain is marked by ethical and political debates over rhetoric
and what it means to define and articulate "Danishness". In addition to the above
political and cultural topics, discussions will address theoretical questions such as
theories of spatiality in relation to physical and urban space as well as to language
and discourse, the public, and cyberspace and virtual worlds.
Having spent several summers in Copenhagen, living in Nørrebro and working in
Christiania, I have followed first-hand the above-cited political events and debates. From
a US American perspective, I have felt generally refreshed at the level of active
organization, engagement, and dialogue between Copenhageners of all political
persuasions. Accustomed to the feeling of not being represented within the mess of the
two-party US "democratic" system, and frustrated by feelings of political futility and
apathy, I am refreshed by the relative accessibility and specificity of Danish politics.
With more parties bringing local and niche issues to national attention, broader
representation of the political spectrum in Christiansborg through shuffling coalition
partnerships, and a relatively greater degree of transparency and visibility in reporting
political debates (as abetted by the prominence of Danish public media outlets), Danish
democracy wowed me and rekindled my inclination to local political awareness and
action.
With my enthusiasm to activate discussions on national political issues, I proposed a
tripartite structure for my interface with the public that included on-site studio visits with
local artists, a screening program to take place outdoors in public space, and a reading
group that would meet once over dinner in rum46. I received an enthusiastic response
from a diverse swatch of local artists who signed up for studio visits. I met twice with a
group of students from Det Jyske Kunstakademi who were invited to participate in the
rum46-organized group exhibition entitled "Direct Democracy", to be mounted in public
space in Århus in November, concurrent with the Danish regional elections. As a group
we examined the context of the show, the politics and production methods of rum46,
local precedents and possible sites of public exhibition, and questions of audience, media
and content. Each artist also presented his/her own project ideas, interrogated and
developed over the two-week meeting plan. I also had the opportunity to meet with the
students of Ditte Lyngkær Pedersen's class at Århus Kunstakademi, who presented their
artworks for their group exhibition in the smoking lounge in a local club. I, in turn, gave a
presentation of my own recent work, which opened up a sense of reciprocity, familiarity,
and casualness in our meetings over the 3-week residency period. In addition, several
professional artists showed me their work, introduced me to sites of cultural production
around town, and gave me a better idea of how it is to live and work as an artist in Århus.
Ultimately these meetings allowed me to develop more complex personal and
professional relationships to the city and its artists. I no longer felt like a lost tourist in
Århus; I had found a network.
I intended the reading group meeting to serve as a forum for the public to come together
and interrogate the topic from theoretical, historical, and anecdotal points-of-view. In
speed-reading on the topic to select a text, I spent much of August in Copenhagen
familiarizing myself with the writings of Jürgen Habermas and Hannah Arendt on the
emergence and transformations of the public sphere in Western democratic contexts. It
was striking for me to note the two theorists' profound distrust of modern technology and
mass media. Habermas, in particular, argues that the emergence of a liberal society of
advertising, entertainment, and mass-mediated consumption short-circuited
communication between citizens, thereby supplanting their physical presence in public
urban space, disrupting their engagement with local issues, and derailing the practice of
political organization. However, in describing historical moments and spaces conducive
to the emergence of the public sphere, both Habermas and Arendt seem to suggest
complex understandings of spatiality as not purely physical. As an MFA student at
Malmö Art Academy, I remember my advisor suggesting that I do some reading on the
terms and conceptions of "space" and "sites". At the time I did not delve deeply into the
material, but three years later, one month before the start of the residency, I recognized
the opportunity to revisit my old unfinished homework. I turned to Henri Lefebvre and
Michel de Certeau's ideas that liberate space from the 3-dimensional Cartesian grid,
ascribing it also to mental, social, lived, virtual, representational and discursive
dimensions. As a text for the reading group, I decided on a chapter from Diana Saco's
Cybering Democracy, which departs from theories of embodiment and spatiality and
notions of democratic utopias to examine recent debates around the internet as a space
that furnishes sometimes contradictory potentials for the practice of democratic
deliberation.
We met over drinks and a nice dinner prepared by rum46. The reading group moved
fluidly over the terms of the discussion. The participants illustrated their personal
understandings of space through anecdotes and shared mental mapping. I recall the
conversation touching upon:
The spatial theories of Foucault, Lefebvre and De Certeau
Collapsed notions of geographic space in local/national/global communities in the
internet age
The role of the body in debates of democratic participation and deliberation, both in
physical social space and virtual meeting points
Disaffected youth and nihilism
The ideological role and effects of education
Public assertions by Dansk Folkeparti's Morten Messerschmidt human activity
should not be the focus of the global warming debate
The rhetorical responsibilities of politicians and public servants
The representational strategies and ideological effects of public versus private
media outlets
Rum46's practice of serving dinner at its public events
The spatial practice of the dinner in its construction of community
Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal socialism
Obama's push for an expanded public ("the public option")
The Nazi's use of language in the legal institution of terror and mass-murder
Organized crime
Cults
The Manson Family
Torture and war
Guatanamo
Borge's Chinese encyclopedia
Foucault's laughter
The Danish Mohammed drawings
Foucauldian heterotopias
Cruise ships, airports, boarding schools
The mirror
Quantum physics and unperceivable spatial dimensions
Conventional cinematic coding and experimental film
Stan Brakhage and contemporary music videos
The reading group discussion concluded with a private screening of AFR by Morten
Hartz Kaplers. Combining archival footage and fictional scenes with actors, the
mockumentary treads in a contentious space between actuality and fantasy, reportage and
representation, and historical fact and sensationalist tabloid human-interest fiction. It
sparked a conversation about the public image versus private lives of professional
politicians, the role of the media in producing such "infotainment", and questions of
identity and rhetoric in the production of successful political icons.
And to wrap, the outdoor film screening was a total blast! The group assembled at rum46.
Along with some members of rum46, I took a taxi loaded with white paint, rollers,
projection and sound equipment, a generator, a pot of soup, warm drinks, beer, plastic-
bucket-seats, warm clothes, lots of other stuff, and a hunger for the moving image. The
rest of the group went on foot through the city to the screening location along the outside
wall of the abandoned Godsbane, the city's old freight yard. For years, Godsbanen has
been the undeveloped site of the city's plan for a production center for stage arts, visual
arts, and literature and the urban renewal of the adjoining rail areas. Information on the
Godsbanen project follows:
http://www.godsbanen.dk/english
http://www.23hq.com/gydum/photo/4975496
Entitled Streethearts, the mobile cinema program presented films addressing the recent
waves of privatization and gentrification of public urban space in Copenhagen and the
actions of artists, activists, and sub-cultural communities in resistance. Information about
the films screened follows:
CPH Remix (Director: Ulrik Gutkin, Rúnar J. Gudnason, 59 minutes, Denmark,
2005)
CPH Remix is shot during the biggest "fairytale" event during the last four decades in
Denmark: The royal wedding between Crown Prince Frederik and his Australian fiancée,
Mary Donaldson. While the city is dressing up for the royal event, two local artists are
working intensely in the streets with their arts. Meanwhile a desperate graffiti remover
from the city council is trying to clean up the "mess" before the giant event. The film
follows the two artists in their work and gets close to the human need to express itself. It's
a need that even the graffiti remover has to acknowledge in the end of the film. Through
the two artists' work... we sense the organism of a big modern city in Europe. (from
www.cphremix.dk)
69 (Director: Nikolaj Viborg, 59 minutes, Denmark, 2008)
69 tells the story of the Youth House and the community supporting it, before the
building was torn down, told by the youths themselves. We are shown images from the
many meetings and preparations on the roof of the building, and we are there during the
violent moments when the police storm the building. The film portrays the final six
months of the Youth House's 25-year history as a refuge for youths, but also shows the
move from Jagtvej 69 to the new house on Dortheavej. 69 is more relevant today than
ever before: the youths may well have been given a new house, but the legal proceedings
have just started.
The sale and demolition of the Youth House, the normalization of Christiania, the
restoration and demolition of A-huset and the silo on Island's Brygge, the sale of property
on the waterfront: the unconventional and quirky city projects are driven further out into
the city's peripheries. There are less and less sanctuaries for artists, punks, hippies and
other people who don't want a beautification of the city. Has Copenhagen become less
diverse? Should the nature of diversity be determined by the elites or by the masses?
Does the urban space belong to the citizens or has it come to belong to politicians? (from
CPH:DOX catalog)
We had lots of fun that night and accidentally got white paint on our jackets and on the
seats of the taxi home. The taxi driver was pissed off, so we cleaned his upholstery with
soapy cloths. That night marked the final public event of my residency. With one week
left in Århus, I decided to turn to personal production and use rum46 as a studio to test-
drive some drawing experiments and an aborted video idea in public space. I also found
time to enjoy the city's nightlife, danced to some local dj's and live Danish pop acts,
attended the opening of Jeppe Hein's show at ARoS, found a lover, met a shepherd who
writes folk music and does children's theatre and swims in the sea every morning of the
year, saw a 2000-year-old peat-bog-preserved corpse at Moesgård Museum, thought
about human sacrifice, cooked, watched TV, and drank the local beers.
Bio: Kevin Murphy is a US-born artist and media arts curator living between
Berlin, Copenhagen, and Fritsla, Sweden.
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