E D I T

Gijs Frieling W139 artspace Amsterdam (:commentbox:)

Dear Mirja, the registration of the performance/show is almost finished, I asked Jasper if you can have the original material and that is oke, when some of you come for the party, one should bring a harddisc with 50 GB free space then He can put it on. A photograph of the vitrine folows, My best, Gijs.

• : kewl. Ich freue mich auch!

Bis morgen M

• : Super!

Empfangskomittee wird kommen! Wir freuen uns..

• : Was meldet die utopische Vorhut?

Die künstlerische Mitarbeiterin wird versuchen, am Montag den 5.10. unserer Zeit um 17:01 von Amsterdam Centraal zu Euch in die Phase Null vorzudringen.

Viele Grüße Michaela

• news from amsterdam?: Hi Maxi

Just wanted to let you know about accomodation. We are renting the big dance studio behind W139 for you to sleep. It will be available from the 2nd of October until the 1st of November. On the 2/10 it will be emptied and cleaned by the people renting it now. Gijs has to check this, since the rest of us won't be there.

We bought a couple of extra matrasses. So there should be enough for all of you: 8 single matrasses 1 double matrass ( in the app.) 1 double sleeping bed (in the app)

The rest of the group coming on the 23rd should bring mats/sleepingbags.

There are some sheets (12) pillows (10) and blankets (7) towels (8) in the cupboard in the app.

If some of you still want to bring tents for some privacy this is possible. The space is big enough to put up tents. And there is a shower, a big gasheater and a toilet and a small kitchen. You can use our kitchen to cook. There is an extra fridge that is yours to use.

I will make 6 sets of keys for the dance studio and the entrance on street. and 4 for the W139 space. G Ijs? will explain the alarm/locks etc.

On 2, 3 and 4 october there will be guard in the space from 11 till 19.00 and Monday we will be back in the office at 10.

I planned Monday and Tuesday for taking down current exhibition.

Sorry a lot of information! If you have any questions let me know. I will be in the office on coming Monday but Tuesday we are off to Venice.

See you all on the 5th Have a safe trip! Best Sabien

• new mail aus amsterdam, bitte lesen?: Hi guys,

Thanks for the mail. We have a guest appartment in W139 where 4 people could stay, It has a bathroom, sleeping couch for 2, double mattrass. and a couple of extra matrasses (I think 4). But like I wrote before we want to rent a space next door to W139 Its a dance studio, it's quite big space I think 200m2, has a toilet, shower and a simple kitchen. Lots of people could stay there. But of course also in our space. But this space is only available from the 14th of October.

2nd of October is quite early. We thought you would come around the 7th. Current exhibtion is until the 4th and we have to take it down for at least 2 days. So our space is available to work/sleep from the 7th or 8th of October.

Have you already booked your flights? What time are you arriving on the 2nd?

Best Sabien

• und hier die englische version?: "Aufruf zur Phase Null – A voyage to Levitaria"
  

The Heat is on. Vertigo. Victuals have run out. The engines fall silent. Stop breathing. A hold. Everything standing still. Cut. Things of the past coming to an end. Restart is pending. Retrospects and departure. Beginning and end. Where are the directives? Standstill, stasis, phase zero. Staggering. Whirling around the final frontier of offspaces. Hitting white washed walls, rife with nostalgic sweat and messages, sticky with critical analysis, with attempts for something new. New positing! Diffuse silhouttes, former objects of art, are forming up, dancing. Past desires of days gone by. Their vapour testifies to physical presence. It nestles up against your skin. Encircles. Surrounds. Dazzling fetters. Transforming to nonentity. Oscillating particles. White glittering light teasing our eyelids. Matter is forming. Creating. And space becomes time. Dissolution.

Levitaria, a space, in conscious abeyance, full of opportunities, chosen by us, worked out by us. 30 years of a space – what do they tell us? Starting from there, discovering, reading, retelling the tale – a plan. We don't need islands, nor a fortress, we've got shovels for digging, and we're setting up camp.

Digging. Disassembling the present state. Even with the market encroaching on all areas of life, attempting to exert palpable influence on all its facets, we don't intend to draw a scenario of decline: this is about making a survey of what there is. Reviving experiences from history. Where is the steam? Does it still exist, the "steam", Saint-Simon's fifth element, that is trying to burst the bonds? "Simple fire and plain water will blow the aristocracy up in the air and dash it down into the earth. There are the old four elements, but steam is a fifth one, and no less important than those: it creates the world of the future, it separates our present from the past."

Ideas from 19th century socialutopian novels are serving us as metaphors. We're looking for parallels to present situations. We discover inferences! What was merely imagined back then is partially accomplished today. But the social project reveals itself as an ur-belief; errors in the former utopias, now partially realised, turn out as a crisis. The desire for equality is realised in hidden hierarchies. Utopia as a social system with its own dynamics and rotten compromises? Finding fragments, in permanent peril of failure. Taking stock of the puzzle-piece construction, discovering new approaches. Can there be new utopian approaches? Aren't those the ingredients for good fiction: a seemingly barren, arid desert, ready to be explored. In Levitaria, plans are drawn up, and history is re-written along the surface topography. A born ruin becoming a reality! Let's set off to Levitaria!

• einladungstext von miri, maxi und ruta geschrieben?: Aufruf zur Phase Null - a voyage to Levitaria

Die Luft wird dünn. Zustand des Schwindels. Der Proviant ist aufgebraucht. Die Motoren verstummen. Luft anhalten. Ein kurzes Innehalten. Alles steht still. Einschnitt. Vergangenes neigt sich dem Ende. Ein Neubeginn wartet. Rückschau und Aufbruch. Anfang und Ende. Wo liegen die Direktive? Stillstand, Zustand, Phase Null. Taumeln. Strudeln in unendlichen Weiten des Offspaces. Stoßen an getünchte Wände, voll von nostalgischem Schweiß und Botschaften, verklebt mit Hinterfragung, dem Versuch von Neuem. Neue Setzung! Diffuse Shiluetten, einstige Objekte der Kunst, formieren sich tanzend. Begierden vergangener Tage. Ihr Dunst zeugt von Anwesenheit. Sie schmiegt sich an die Haut. Umgibt. Umfängt. Schillernde Fesseln.In Nichts übergehend. Oszillierende Teilchen. Weißes gleißendes Licht reizt unsre Lidwände. Materie entsteht. Schafft. So wird Raum zu Zeit. Auflösung.

Levitaria, ein Ort, in der bewussten Schwebe, voller Möglichkeiten,von uns auserkoren, ausgegoren. Was erzählen uns 30 Jahre eines Raumes? Von da aus zu starten und zu erkunden, abzulesen und neu zu erzählen - ein Plan. Inseln brauchen wir keine, auch keine Festung, Schaufeln zum Graben haben wir und unsere Zelte schlagen wir auf.

Wühlen. Den Ist -Zustand zerlegen. Auch wenn der Markt in sämtliche Lebensbereiche eingreift, indem er versucht konkret Einfluss auf die Facetten des Alltags der Menschen zu nehmen - sie einzunehmen- , geht es nicht um ein Untergangsszenario, sondern vielmehr um eine Bestandsaufnahme der Situation. Erfahrungen aus der Geschichte neu erwecken. Wo ist der Dampf? Gibt es noch den "Dampf", das fünfte Element, nach Saint-Simon, der die Ketten zu sprengen versucht? >>Durch das schlichte Feuer und das einfache Wasser wird die Aristokratie in die Luft gesprengt und in die Erde geschmettert werden. Es gibt die alten vier Elemente, aber der Dampf ist ein fünftes und nicht unwichtiger als jene, denn er schafft die Welt der Zukunft, er scheidet unsere Gegenwart von der Vergangenheit<<

Ideen der sozialutopischen Romane des 19. Jahrhunderts dienen uns als Metapher. Wir suchen Parallelen zu aktuellen Situationen. Wir entdecken Rückschlüsse! Was damals gedacht wurde, ist heute teils durchgesetzt. Aber der Gesellschaftsplan erweist sich als Urglaube, Fehler der damaligen Utopien, die sich in Teilaspekten realisiert haben und sich als Krise herausstellen. Der Wunsch nach Gleichheit realisiert sich in versteckten Hierarchien. Utopie als Gesellschaftssystem mit eigener Dynamik und faulen Kompromissen? Bruchstücke finden unter der ständigen Gefahr des Scheiterns. Bilanz ziehen aus der Konstruktion der Puzzelteile, auf neue Ansätze stoßen. Kann es neue utopische Ansätze geben? Das sind doch die Bestandteile, die Stoff für gute Fiktion liefern: eine scheinbar unwirtliche, karge Wüstenlandschaft gilt es zu erkunden. In Levitaria werden Pläne entworfen und anhand der Oberflächentopografie die Geschichte umgeschrieben. Eine geborene Ruine wird Wirklichkeit! Wir rufen: auf auf nach Levitaria!

• : Das Baby heißt nun: Ausruf zur Phase Null - a voyage to Levitaria

sind heut dabei einen Text zu dem Janzen zu verfassen

• :Text von Gjis: When I was first appointed director of W139 in May 2006, what I dreaded were graduation shows, art fairs and art magazines. As an artist, I had never felt the slightest interest in any of them, but felt that in my new position I should be – and stay – informed of all these things.

So I went to a graduation show which was infinitely depressing: who was this sorry collection of little white cubes intended for? I got hold of a copy of Frieze magazine. In September 2006, Frieze was given over entirely to art education. There was a photo on page 144 but what did it show? A kind of room with a wooden picture rail, a fireplace with a fake fire and books on the mantelpiece. To the left was a painted spiral staircase and faux gothic glass-stained windows, organic plaster lamps, ceiling and wall paintings of romantic landscapes and conspiracies of shadowy monks. Everything was made from cardboard, plaster, paint and light bulbs. The caption read k2 aufbau organisation, tableaux 2006, mixed media. Installation view from Stephan Dillemuth’s class’ final show. Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.I couldn’t get the photo out of my head. I saw in it the positive mirror image of everything I found distasteful in contemporary art: the overwhelming individualism, the identi-kit hangers-on, the pretentious air of reductionism and intellectualism. My timidity made it hard for me initially to discover who had created the work, subconsciously fearing that I’d only be disappointed. But I finally met Stephan Dillemuth in the spring of 2008 in New York and his students a couple of months later in Munich.

During these encounters I learned that artist collective K2ao (Klasse 2 aufbau organisation) came about through Dillemuth’s class, which originally focused on painting and art education. A number of years previously he had decided to trade standard art education (with its concentration on post-1945 art) for a collective research practice in the local - Bavarian - politics and esoteric sources of the avant-garde and the incidents prior to and resulting in the Räterepublik München of 1918. He christened this project Bohème-Forschung. The students study the individuals, movements and thinking of the various Bohèmes in Munich and surrounding areas, and write and debate about it. From the outset, however, the research took the form of re-enactments, performances, installations and operas.To my mind, the activities of K2ao are the first practice to really give shape to the over-used term ‘artistic research’. The creative artistic work of K2ao is itself a kind of research. The refreshing and naive way in which K2ao works is kept in balance by the critical gravity with which Dillemuth writes and talks. Initially intended as a two-semester project, “Bohème-Forschung” blossomed into such a fertile melding of people and content that K2ao also began to present it to the outside world. First in the form of a “jahres abschluss” in the art school where they remodelled and painted their class room, transforming it into a nineteenth century salon (the photo in Frieze), in which they threw a masked ball. This was followed by performance in the Frieze 2006 performance programme and guest projects at the Hamburg and Berlin art colleges.In the context of the thirtieth anniversary of W139 in October 2009, K2ao have been invited to come and spend a month in Amsterdam and make a live documentary about the history of W139. In their approach and their external characteristics, I recognise the anarchic spirit typical of W139’s first years. The interdisciplinary approach and punk’s irreverent D-I-Y stratagem to anything and everything, from nineteenth-century salon painting, to opera singing or acting, leads me to expect that they will render the “Werdegang” of W139 visible and experiential in a totally unique way. With an average age of 23, when it comes to both generation and culture, the group is bound to take an altogether different approach to W139 and come up with objective, totally unexpected observations. The 15-person K2ao collective will live and work in the rear space of W139 for four weeks. Besides the W139 archive, their research will also cover “field work” and interviews. W139 will be open throughout their stay so that visitors can follow the research / creation process. The work process will culminate in a presentation on Friday evening, 30 October. Afterwards, the decor/installation will be on view for another week, until Museum Night.

• : For your consideration when making plans tomorrow: we decided that

the aniverseryparty wil be held on the 13th of november and not on the nicht after your performance. We did that because when 800 people wil dance and drink until 05:00 in the morning inside your installation, not much of any art will be left over, which would be a pity. We are very curious for your ideas! see you soon, Gijs.

• : um einen Überblick zu kriegen..

wer kommt mit und wann ist mit Dir zu rechnen?! der ganze oktober

• Miri
• Lissy
• Ruta
• Felix
• Rupert
• Maxi
• isabella

• : Hallo!

Gijs benötigt erste Information zwecks Konzept und Titel! Alle Amsterdamfahrer die nicht ausgeflogen sind, wenns geht bitte am Dienstag zum brainstormen und Ideen vorstellen in D.s Büro kommen...11.00Uhr. ES geht lo os! B Este? Grüße Miri und Maxi.

18:36 by Gjis?: Hi K2ao, die erste gäste unseres appartements war das kunst und landwirtschafts collectiv KULTIVATOR aus Schweden die mit sieben erwachsene und funf kinder dort schliefen. Das wurde ich ihnen aber nicht empfehlen. Es ist ein nicht so grosen Raum mit badezimmer und kleine kuche, es gibt ein doppel bed, ein doppeltes schlaf-sofa und verschiedene matrazzen und bedwasche. Also funf oder sechs ist moglich, Ich kan ihnen fur die reise und ein tagesgeld insgesamt 500 euro geben und dazu konnt Ihr mit uns mittagessen, my best, Gijs.

Super, when would a visit to amsterdam fit in your schedule, early january, somewhere between 6 and 18 there will be a quite heavy sound installation by Idan Hayosh, and from january 30 to february 28 there will be a show by Frank Koolen, in the mean time we will be transforming, which is also always a nice atmosphere, probably the best period is to come around the opening of Frank so for example ariving on tuesday januari 27 and going on saturday or sunday. My Best, Gijs.

Dear K2ao, unfortunately I recently had to cancel the "Wear Yourself" performance program in December. We have three substantial shows/ events in four months and the productional capacity and financial means are used up for this year. I have to apologize for not being able to bring and present you here in 2008. I hope you are still willing to do a larger project in 2009, either in september or oktober. For that we should arange a K2 ao delegation to come to Amsterdam in the early 2009. We could invite for example three of you to come flying or more by car, you could stay in the W139 apartement, we could talk and make plans, tell me what you think, My best, Gijs.

15:33 by Gijs?: I will try to get a clear view on the money for december, and want to invite you in any case for a show in oktober 2009. In oktober 2009 W139 exists 30 years, so it will be high times for us. It could be interesting in terms of boheme forschung to make an inquiery into the history of W139 in connection to other movements in Amsterdam and Europe, When I thought of how to celebrate our anniversary I thought of a fiction film based on our history, I you have ideas about that, I think it could be wonderfull. I think it could mean a new chapter when we would be able to do something completely beyond the obvious documentary or book, and make a retrospective in the new form such as you have invented: partly research, partly reanactment, serious, cheerfull, and beautifull. The agriculture & art collective I told you about is called: KULTIVATOR check them out on http://www.kultivator.org they are lovely people.