PAF SUMMER UNIVERSITY 2007 3/8/2007 – 12/8/2007 | PerformingArtsForum, St. Erme, France www.pa-f.net
The «Universities» at PAF are a project initiated in the year 2005 by a number of artists, theoreticians and practitioners during the initial meeting in PAF. The «Summer University» [SU] in August 2007 is the third «University» project organized in the building in St. Erme.
The main interest of SU07 is to experiment with and to test the practices PAF is developing and will develop in future: areas of research, modes (methods, proce- dures, techniques) of production, frames of collaboration, types of projects, discur- sive engagement by all interested participants. In a few words: all activities that make up knowledge production in the arts, theory and cultural practice, open and specific.
«University» and participation «University» is the term that replaces «Academy» referring to the Renaissance prin- ciple of combining research and education in one location. Secondly, it is called «University» because PAF will be open to all areas of knowledge, even though art is the starting point.
SU07 isn’t another international summer academy, offering workshops, lectures, panels etc. under a representative topic for which participants apply. The participants of SU07 are at the same time its organizers, in that they are proposing, organizing, and taking part in different projects and activities during SU07.
In contrast to existing academies SU07 isn’t based on the principle of «pay to learn and teach to earn». Every participant pays the same fee (the equivalent of food, lodging and technical organization) to take part, no matter what competence or specific knowledge he/she can offer.
The access to SU07 is open, but more specifically determined by each project/activity. (See the programme on the website) The aim behind the open access and self-organization is to enable parallel hetero- geneous research platforms, to experiment with configurations, extensions, transformations, interferences, mergings and forkings of projects/activities.
Preparation & Program
Everyone is invited to propose the project or activity he/she would like to organize within SU07. The only limit of choice is the capacity of the house. The proposals for the SU07 will be announced on the PAF-website: www.pa-f.net
How to become a participant?
It’s as easy as sending an email with or without a proposal to Jan Ritsema: janritsema@mac.com
Report/«press conferences»
Aproposed format for sharing knowledge and information is the so called «press conference». Somewhat old-fashioned and too official for the informality of these meetings, «press conferences» can be used as a format for reports made by a group or individual to the others, either on regular basis or by special appointment.
Do you need to make a proposal to take part in the SU07?
No, you can take part without making a proposal. Expenses The participation fee is 10 EUR per person per night plus 15 EUR per day for food (three meals a day). Period 3–12 August 2007 is the core period of SU07, but it is possible to come earlier or stay longer or to join SU07 only some days within this main perdion.
Contact & Information
Jan Ritsema / PAF | 15, rue Haute | F-02820 St Erme Outre et Ramecourt T/F +33323801846 | mobile: +33637031645 email: janritsema@mac.com | skype: janritsema www.pa-f.net
PROPOSITIONS so far: MANUELA ZECHNER At PAF Summer Unviersity, there will be a presentation of the future archive project (see below) and an ongoing series of future conversations taking place.
future archive
a topology towards futurity
The future archive is a project that issues a series of responses to the problem of how to perform futures. It engages interview- conversations that are set in possible times and spaces to come, which two or more people performatively inhabit as proposed versions of futurity. From there, contemporary society is remembered. Upon every conversation, a different future is at stake.
Aiming to offer spaces for carefully developing vocabularies and gestures which might point towards potential ways of thinking, acting and existing, the project encourages articulations of hopes and desires for future ways of co/existing, negotiating the space between a remembered present and a potential future, as well as facing up to the problematics of the proposals and imaginaries at hand. With the questions of transformation and the social as its starting point, the future archive generates a map of divergent scenarios and tactics, focusing on connections as well as points of disagreement between interlocutors.
While there is an interviewing party and an interviewed, what is engaged is working together to make a movement towards what could be/ go beyond contemporary language, problems, politics, etc- never a great success, but more of a negotiation-play with imagination and responseabilities. Conversations are video recorded and become part of an online platform that acts as archive as well as space for exchange and discussion, offering all material as open content.
At futurearchive.org, all material (audio/video/text etc) generated in the framework of the project becomes available for download, commentary and non-commercial use.
In 2007, the future archive brings forth a series of collaboratively curated activities, pertaining to thematic strands within the project, that take the form of discussions, performances, screenings, and so forth. In a relevant institution or open space, collective transformation of a present space into a site of futurity is attempted.
to get in touch, email manuela@thisappearance.org
Proposal for contributions to PAF SU07 of Joannes Vandermeulen (computer-specialist)
Joannes Vandermeulen jv@namahn.com +32 476 62 62 46
Workshop – The user-centered design of digital products A run-down of industrial practice in designing user interfaces for interactive software applications in order to make them appropriate to the intended users • Practical - Nine participants at most (because of interactivity) - Six hours
Seminar – Mental models: how people shape their understanding of how things work People are profligate interpreters of their environment. What are the cognitive processes involved and how can an understanding of these processes be useful in product design. • Practical - One-hour lecture with discussion
Seminar – Navigation: how people navigate real and virtual spaces Animals move about in space with great ease; it is fundamental to their survival. How can designers help people move through software spaces (and not just Second Life) with equal skill? Which navigational mechanisms are fit for human consumption? • Practical - One-hour lecture with discussion
Seminar – Where technology will take the great apes As our mastery of physics (the very small, the very fast) grows, technologies can continue to profoundly change the way we inhabit our world, for the better, probably.
Discussion – ‘Forget about it’: technological utopias and dystopias Technological utopias are equally numerous as technological dystopias. What makes technology so controversial? Because it is important? • Practical - Half-hour lecture with hour-long discussion
FLORIAN MALZSACHER: i will bring the movies of alexander kluge, especially the early ones (they have english & french subs i think) and maybe someone wants to join watching them. i also would like to have a look at his books, but i tried to find something in english, but didn't manage so far. and i have his interviews with heiner müller which are really amazing. i always wanted to get deeper in this, but didnt manage so far: so i don't really know a lot about it but if people want to join in finding out, it would be nice.
ALICE CHAUCHAT: EVERYBODYS/ OPEN SOURCE GROUP
One of the basic motivations for Everybodys is to consider Open Source as an artistic strategy for the Performing Arts, to develop ways of sharing knowledge and producing specific discourses on the Performing Arts in order to refine the conditions of work in general, the parameters of exchange (collaboration/ process-product-usage-share-audience), to produce heterogeneous works, to escape the restricted accessibility to work, to deviate traditional conceptions of authorship etc.
One line of work is the development a Workshop Kit, encompassing tools and interview-games, which enables discussion on our work. This Kit is meant to be developed by the "integral feedback" of usage, in order to enhance its possibilities.
As an input for everybodys' research on the implementation of open-source methodologies into performance practices, we propose to those who are interested to take over and share the development of générique. A basic concept and toolbox for its realisation already exist, and it is a perfect moment for the project to take several forms, so that the 1st finalisation already is more than one. We would like to work in the same time on an internet platform for its spreading and the possibility for feedbacking, i.e. reworking the toolbox along its use.
Générique is an offer to reconsider the theatrical frame as a place for sharing and complicity. Traces and absent parts give space for a common discourse and imagination to arise, tangling levels of reality and fiction through multiple possible interpretations. Each performance is a specific combination of generic items. These items address issues such as quotation, adaptation, signature, everydayness and virtuosity.It is made up from the scraps that survive. In the creation process, the body simultaneously becomes a receptacle, a vessel, a processor and a generator.Thanks to the use it makes of incorporation in the creation process, it is also a true metaphor of memory.Through complicity the performers produce an informal unison."
Everybodys” also continues to discuss modes of sharing, formats of distribution and exchange and stategies for development of the field of performance on a more general level. Discussions around publications and alternative formats (magazine, book, dvd, cd) understood as venues will take place during the PAF summer university.
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