Presentation by The Trinity Session on
Positions in flux: On the changing role of the artist and institution in the networked society
Friday, May 8th, 2009

Organised by Susanne Jaschko and the Netherlands Media Art Institute (www.nimk.nl), Amsterdam
Symposium venue: Trouw Amsterdam Wibautstraat 131, Amsterdam

The symposium ‘Positions in flux: On the changing role of the artist and institution in the networked society’ centered on some of the major parameters for the current and future development of contemporary art. In particular it reflected on the aspect of cultural sustainability of art projects, art and technology initiatives and art curating. ‘Positions in flux’ offered international artists, theoreticians, critics, cultural producers a platform to initiate a truly critical debate. The symposium was designed for a broad audience working in the field of contemporary culture and art, with a desire to understand what comes ahead and how to respond to these changes on an artistic or institutional level, to envision the future in our field and to provide us with the necessary information to make choices for a meaningful and sustainable development of society and culture.

On Saturday 7 March, the Trinity Session guided a select number of special Business Day and Jaguar guests on a curated tour of Johannesburg’s rapidly evolving artistic and cultural landscape. While the tour was aimed at introducing guests to the current offerings of the contemporary art market, the tour struck a balance between contemporary art galleries and the dynamic politics of art in the public domain. Special thanks to Anthea Moys for her tailor-made performance (image).

Map of bus tour PDF

click here to download a pdf of the article

The Star Newspaper features The Fire Walker by Gerhard Marx and William Kentridge on its front page – article by Gill Gifford.

Invited as part of the video documentation team with fellow Austrian collaborators Machfeld, this three day sound-scape experiment was captured for further artistic interpretation and reconfiguration of the content. A first manifestation of this was after the first day of the parade in a large three-screen projection.

PARADE made the cityscape resound with music. Music on the move from various directions mixed up Linz suburbia and enhanced it with new senses. The encounters of different sound-worlds and resonances in public space provided for a very special listening experience. PARADE was an artistic sound experiment and at the same time exciting entertainment.

Eight musical groups from different parts of the world cooked up a fascinating blend of strange and familiar environments – from archaic-sounding antelope horns to a modern version of the alphorn, from the balaphone to the bagpipe. But it is less a matter of the geographical origin of the various musical styles, and rather about their interaction. It was not so much a world music spectacle as a musical experiment.

In this barrier-free environment, the PARADE audience was taken by surprise, encircled and involved. Within the interplay of convergence and distance, public space was renegotiated. PARADE opened the ears and widened the horizons of the city

www.linz09.at/parade-blog

click here to view the article

An article on William Kentridge and Gerhard Marx’s The Fire Walker, by Alex Dodd, features in The Weekender.

A Special Issue of Third Text has just been published focusing on the development and current state of new media arts in under-represented regions and contexts of the world. Work by Hobbs/Neustetter and Marcus Neustetter are featured in Analogue and Digital Anecdotes and Artworks from South Africa
You can find it in bookshops, libraries and online
(http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title ~db=all~content=g912391250).

Third Text (http://www.thirdtext.com/)
Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Art & Culture
Volume 23 Issue 3 2009
MEDIA ARTS: Practice, Institutions and Histories
Guest Editors: Sean Cubitt, Jose-Carlos Mariategui and Gunalan Nadarajan
ISSN: 1475-5297 (electronic) 0952-8822 (paper)

click here to view the article

Landscape SA # 31, Sept/Oct 2009, features William Kentridge and Gerhard Marx’s public art installation The Fire Walker, 2009 on the cover of the magazine.

An article appearing in The Weekender’s food and travel section, speaks about the public art additions to the Jozi landscape.

Artwork by Gordon Froud (detail)

Recent procurement of artworks for the dynamic Bara Taxi Rank in Soweto saw Marco Cianfanelli, Paul Cooper, Gordon Froud and Claire Regnard each develop a site-specific sculpture to complement the robust and fluid design of this taxi rank.

This film project by Hobbs/Neustetter focused on life in Alexandra post-xenophobia. Hobbs/Neustetter were commissioned by the Austrian Embassy in South Africa to do an investigative work on Alex as an urban phenomenon. The artists, in collaboration with various community leaders, Leratong Creche and The Presbyterian Church, set out to capture conversations with people from the community about the place they call home. The piece forms part of an ongoing investigation into urban networks focusing on African cities in particular, and can be seen as an extension of Hobbs/Neustetter’s broader UrbaNet project.

The piece saw its first manifestation as a rough cut, designed to create an opportunity for further conversation and commentary and for laying the foundations for further investigation at the screening event. Following the response to the first version of the project, the film is set to be re-worked and extended to include additional footage.

A screening of the rough cut was presented Wednesday 10 December in front of Leratong Creche in Alexandra to present the project findings and collect feedback and commentary from the local public on the content.