Session

In her practice Adrian Williams lays bare the constructed nature of narratives. Often developed in front of an audience, Williams‘ short stories consist not solely of spoken or written words, but also of spaces and sounds. In collaboration with musicians, actors, composers and choreographers, she sets up a stage and provides a structure which enables improvisation on both the part of the performer and the audience. 

For FdjT Williams presents »Session«. This two hour improvised piece is the second of two workshops lead by the artist in conjunction with her long-time collaborator the composer Theodor Köhler and the choreographer Allison Brown. The first workshop, which took place on 12. September, began exploring a direct dialog between the human body and the bodies of stringed musical instruments. Instructed to focus on moving just one part of their bodies, performers created a body-score which was simultaneously interpreted into sound by musicians. This experience, the building of bodily tools for creating musical scores will be developed further in the public practice session, the opening work on the Saturday of the festival. 

Unlike a traditional score, which often functions as an apparatus of exactitude, the body-score is flexible and malleable: The body-score can listen. In »Session« the score itself is granted the liberty to be responsive, relational and even reactive. Through this process the potential for interpretation is foregrounded; playfully presenting the process of narrating instead of telling a finished tale.

Text: Clare Molloy

Adrian Williams (1979, Portland, US) 
lives and works in Frankfurt am Main, DE

Anna Susanna Woof-Dwight works in performance and painting. Her approach to painting is tangibly influenced by her background as a dancer.

In her new series of paintings commissioned by FdjT, questions of indiscernability, context-shaped meaning, exclusion, inclusion and borderline cases are addressed pictorially.

The first layer is formed by figures and faces of pigment on raw linen that have sociological implications. This layer has then been overlaid with primed structures which support cloud formations.

The clouds, executed in oil paints over egg emulsion, explore an irredeemable confusion of fore- and background. Whether close or far, joined up or disconnected forms, it is impossible to tell. While the simple figurative mark making of the first layer results in highly context-specific illustrations, the clouds look like a lot of things.

The paintings will not be physically present at the festival.

Text: Anna Susanna Woof-Dwight

Anna Susanna Woof-Dwight (1990, Newcastle, UK)
Städelschule Frankfurt am Main

Pretend to Work

Annegret Schlegel‘s artistic interest is centered around reflecting processes and projected content, this is reflected in her project »Pretend to Work«. With the ambiguity of the English expression »to work«, which can mean both »to work« and »to function«, Schlegel provides questions about the process of working.

During FdjT an installation by the artist is to be seen, the starting point for which is a video work made leading up to the festival. The black box of the Frankfurt Lab was recreated virtually with the help of a 3D program so that both rooms – the real and the virtual – could be filmed using tracking shots. Within this framework, both rooms contain identical objects, such as a ball or a rotating cube. These two dimensions are brought together by projecting the virtually constructed space into the real space, so that they are superimposed. This process was also filmed. The result is a two-channel video installation, which is accompanied by a text entitled »Pretend to Work«: »How does it work? It pretends. How does it pretend to work?« Schlegel simultaneously questions work and space. Are they real or are they merely pretend?

Text: Elena Frickmann

Annegret Schlegel (1986, Berlin, DE)
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main

workshop with

Esther Poppe, Laura Brunner, Leonie Martin, Lisa Hopf, Robert Nemec, Pamela Kipp, Rudi Weißbeck, Sebastian Meyer & Sulamith Bereiter

Ballad of Bob

Cally Spooner‘s work stages both the activity and absurdity of speech. She explores how high performance economies affect speaking as a live, undetermined event. The scandal of Beyonce‘s lip syncing at Obama‘s Inauguration, the insincerity of Lance Armstrong‘s confession on Oprah Winfrey or the downright »newspeak« of British politician Michael Gove‘s U-Turn are highlighted for what they are: live speech mitigation. It is such highly-charged material, plucked from current affairs, which feeds into her ongoing musical »And You Were Wonderful, On Stage«, which is developed, remade in public, and then fed back into itself.

As part of the process leading up to FdjT Cally Spooner was invited to lead a two-day workshop for participants with backgrounds in typography, film, music, dance and performance. The workshop examined speech as a score, stemming from an interview in which Bob, an employee in a vast corporation, attempts to tell his own story. Interviewed, however, for a corporate image film, Bob‘s lines are directed, manipulated and effectively rewritten by an interviewer who is intent on image-film-perfect dialog for maximum brand authenticity.

Improvising from this score the workshop drew Bob out of the morass by way of a heckling choir, an existential duo, a forlorn band and a typographic score chalked-up live, contributing both subtle percussion and auto-documentation of the »Ballad of Bob«. During the festival Bob will be granted the chance to find his voice in an improvisation of exactly 12 minutes inspired by Earle Brown‘s guidelines for open improvisation.

Text: Clare Molloy

Cally Spooner (1983, Ascot, UK)
lives and works in London, UK

Superpositionsprinzip

While Laura Eggert is dealing with pop theory, Carina Premer is studying experimental music, and in particular noise. What connects the two, is their interest in the ability to make a landscape both perceptible and to representable. For, an image of a landscape does not require a purely visual experience, it can also be evoked through an atmospheric transmission.

The newly created work »Superpositionsprinzip« is based on intensive research into of this topic. In their multi-media performance the two artists use performative, visual and acoustic elements to create such a diffuse atmosphere. The starting point is Virginia Woolf‘s novel »The Waves«, from which they developed an associative text with the help of John Cage‘s score »___, ___ ___ ___ on circus«. This mixes with the sound produced by synthesizers, the sound of stringed instruments, and also on-site produced sound recordings of the outdoor space and creates a dense, dissonant soundscape. Its rise and fall reminds of the continuous movement of water, which is also reflected in the abstract architectural shapes of the ceiling structure of the EVO Halle.

Yet it is not just the rise and fall of waves that interests the artists here, instead it is the stillness that arises from perpetual motion. A cesura that is also reflected in the performers‘ dance. It is the dance of the dervishes, with their continuous spinning on one spot, which also explores stasis within movement. The combination of sometimes opposing elements creates for the viewer an image of an utopian landscape and transforms the initial »soundscape« into a »landscape«.

Text: Lukas Engert

Carina Premer (1988, Augsburg, DE)
Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen

Laura Eggert (1989, Wismar, DE)
Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen

Untitled

The three artists have already worked together several times in various constellations. Carolin Millner, who mainly works as a director, also acts as a dramaturg or actor in their collaborations. Nils Wildegans works across stage and costume design as well with lighting concepts. He works in the field of scenography, music, and sound design for various film projects. His own artistic pieces consist of room installations, experimental sound situations, and interactive sound objects. Daniel Schauf works as a freelance theater director.

Quite often texts are the starting point for their collective work. The three of them use text as an impetus for experiments, developing further into or even diverging from the text completely. In the framework of their project, the group deals with »The Lost Ones« by Samuel Beckett. During the process of looking for additional links to the site, they stumbled upon the harbor master‘s office. Besides playing an important role as a storage area and loading point for incoming and outgoing goods, the office was once the central point of coordination for everything that was going on in the dock. Today, all that is left is an inconspicuous building. This is where Millner, Schauf and Wildegans have developed a site-specific work, which also remains almost invisible. It only reveals itself to those who are in the right place at the right time.

Text: Marie Sophie Beckmann

Carolin Millner (1984, Halle an der Saale, DE)
HfMDK Frankfurt am Main

Daniel Schauf (1981, Haan, DE)
lebt und arbeitet in Frankfurt am Main, DE

Nils Wildegans (1984, Frankfurt am Main, DE)
HfG Offenbach

say never never

»draw a line in the sand«
»burn with desire«
»touch and go«
»never say never«

44 such instructions were written by the Scottish artist Ross Birrell, at the invitation of curator Roos Gortzak, for the FdjT »Track 1« seminar group. His score »never say never 44 idioms of instruction« consists of a list of single instructions and is also an examination of language. An idiom denotes a curious phrase, the total meaning of which can‘t be deduced through the meanings of its composite words, the context of the phrase is needed. Equally an idiom can be a phrase understood within a specific group.

In contrast to Robert Barry‘s instruction in 1969 to students of his »Projects Class« in Halifax, to develop a secret idea that solely exists within the confines of their group, Birrell‘s instructions for FdjT have a markedly open structure. Accordingly his score exists primarily and formally as a work in its own right, irrespective of whether the listed instructions are realized: »take it or leave it«. In this vein, it is the written form that holds the essence of Birrell‘s score for Günter Baumann and Christopher Weickenmeier.

Based on the Birrell score »never say never«, Baumann and Weickenmeier developed their performance »say never never« in the form of a DJ set. Their song selection accords with the 44 idioms, which appear either in the song titles or in the song lyrics. By repeating the idioms, Weickenmeier and Baumann firstly refer formally to the score, secondly they – according to the score‘s open structure – produce something using it: »change the record«.

Text: Marijana Schneider

Christopher Weickenmeier (1989, Virginia Beach, US)
Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen

Günter Baumann (1982, Leverkusen, DE)
Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen

with

Alexander Buers, Benjamin Renner & Leonie Martin

Eröffnung: Regatta

Launching the model boats and then taking them out of the water again builds the framework for the performance »Eröffnung: Regatta«. Together the boats form a regatta that moves from A to B in the dock of the Offenbach harbor. The spectators can follow the event along the banks of the river. On their way they find drawings, maps and tracks. The group describes their contribution to FdjT as an open form and an affectionate gesture. In a performative way they show a reflection on the artistic practice of scores, instructions and event cards. The connection to the model boat builders stems from a interest in the choreographing of objects.

Text: Marijana Schneider

Christopher Weickenmeier (1989, Virginia Beach, US)

Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen

Emmilou Rößling (1991, Berlin, DE)

Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen & HfMDK Frankfurt am Main

Günter Baumann (1982, Leverkusen, DE)
Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen

Instruction by Dexter Sinister

As a class, devise a new way of counting time. Then, use this system the remainder of the

class.

David Reinfurt (1971, Chapel Hill, US)

lives and works in New York, US

Stuart Bailey (1973, York, UK)

lives and works in New York, US

Instruction by Dominique Koch

TRANSFORMING SPEECH

Spoken words had been analysed by a software that detects and measures the emotional

conditions within ones voice and describes the act by creating a script out of 13 terms,

which are combined repetitively and in changing intervals.

STRESSED

HIGHLY STRESSED

EXTREME STRESS

INACCURATE

EXCITED

HIGHLY EXCITED

HIGH TENSION

EXTREME TENSION

HIGH ANTICIPATION

NOT SURE

PROBABLE FALSE

FALSE

TRUTH

Create a new sequence by combining, repeating or ignoring elements; stop the sequence

when you think that a possible speech act might come to an end; use the new sequence

as a script, translate the terms into another aesthetic form, physically or formally, by

(re)enacting, considering or interpreting the words, thus creating a new imaginary act of

speech, transformed into a new narrative structure, a new aesthetic form.

Dominique Koch (1983, Luzern, CH)

lives and works in Paris, FR and Basel, CH

I g y o o

Émilia Giudicelli, dancer and performer, is currently studying choreography and performance in Gießen. Samuel Fried is a pianist, improviser and performer. Together they founded the duo Fluoressenz in 2012. It is their shared aim to scrutinize and extend the concept of the classic concert, by letting the collective intelligence play a special part within the situation between performer and audience.

»I g y o o« is a choreographic concert. With a clavichord, a Casio, and a plastic ham the performers create a disturbing atmosphere from originally innocent-seeming interpersonal interactions. Cacophonous sounds are cushioned by delicate music which makes it’s way tenderly and claims it’s space. In the beginning, the music seems to defuse the tense situation but in the course of the piece, it becomes the driving force and eventually the main actor, fueling the action. The music ensnares, but behind closed doors it plays its own game. Starting from quiet and order an apparent chaos evolves, which pauses from time to time to rest in harmonic images. The Casio prompts intimate dancing, the clavichord suggests rhythmic trysts. And in between? A clean choreography of moving furniture, which evokes wonderful sculptural moments again and again.

Text: Marina Rüdiger

Émilia Giudicelli (1985, Bourg-Saint-Maurice, FR)
Justus-Liebig Universität Gießen

Samuel Fried (1983, Baden, CH)
lives and works in Bannwill, CH

A mode of experimental behavior linked ot the condition of urban society: a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances

The collaboration of the six students started during a seminar on Institutional Critique. Together they developed a dialogic, performative lecture called »My Work Is About...« in which each of them reflected on his/her own role as an artist, critic and theorist. The participation in the festival was seen as an opportunity to develop new means of collaborative working and exhibiting.

As their objective the six participants took long walks and searched for the stories and the rhetorical treatment of Offenbach’s harbor area, merging their finds into an auditory collage similar to an audio guide. Verbalized text fragments - for instance historic documents from the city archive or current urban project descriptions - and sound elements, such as a choir singing and field recordings, create an observational as well as self-reflective examination of the place. They offer an experience close to what the participants pursued, in the form of a derivation. The Offenbach dock area is undergoing a continuing process of urban restructuring, of which the current »Hafengold« housing project is one example. FdjT and its participants as well as its visitors, use the harbor old buildings just before their demolition and are therefore become part of that process themselves.

In the museum or during the city tour, an audio guide fosters an exchange of knowledge but likewise it limits perception: a voice talks, gives instructions on how to look, it directs the gaze and guides the steps of the listener. In contrast, the group uses the audio guide as a medium that unites several voices and tells several stories, which may overlap and contradict each other.

Text: Marie Sophie Beckmann

Esther Poppe (1977, Soltau, DE)
HfG Offenbach

Imke Greitzke (1989, Saarbrücken, DE)
HfG Offenbach

Jennifer Gelardo (1985, Loma Linda, US)
HfG Offenbach

Julia Eichler (1982, Marburg an der Lahn, DE)
HfG Offenbach

Lilly Lulay (1985, Frankfurt am Main, DE)
HfG Offenbach

Sven Zedlitz (1988, München, DE)
Goethe - Universität Frankfurt am Main

Tours DE or EN

Meeting Point: Blue Container

Samstag / 16:00, 16:30, 17:00, 17:30, 18:00, 18:30
Sonntag / 13:00, 13:30, 14:00, 14:30, 15:00, 15:30

Gegen-Bügeln

The focus of »Gegen-Bügeln« is the context of the Offenbach as a place of economic production: During the run-up to the festival the artist appealed to the residents of Offenbach to supply household appliance made by the company Rowenta. Between 1909 and 1997 the head office of the company in Offenbach‘s industrial area produced all sorts of electronics, steadily trying to improve and modernize the daily lives of housewives. Following on from this local-participative approach, »Gegen-Bügeln« scrutinizes the social discourse surrounding the historic female role model and through both slick and action-based associations drafts a dramaturgical alternative. The hair dryers, irons, water kettles and coffee machines all purportedly function as symbolizations of femininity, sharply contrasted by the reduction of these gadgets to the sound that they can produce. 

This is also seen in the binary structure of the piece: On one hand you have the permanently installed monitors on stage, which show electronic impulses as aesthetic form, on the other hand there is the happening, backed by a wall of electronic sounds, advertising campaigns and snippets from instruction manuals. »Gegen-Bügeln« resists linear interpretation. Instead of aiming for an one-time effect, the media elements used in an intensely repetitive way and in this sense draws parallels with the Fluxus movements.

The piece emerged in collaboration with »Femphil – Feministische Philosoph_innen Frankfurt«.

Text: Miriam Wilhelm

Fanti Baum (1982, Berlin, DE)
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main

Fred

Felix Imiola‘s form-language is informed by contradictions: His rather objective paintings and drawings drift time and again into playfulness. Clear structures meet childlike drawings, which bear a certain irony.

During FdjT visitors will meet Fred, the mascot. A mascot is usually a lucky charm and a figure of identification for a company or an institution. At sports events, the mascot entertains the audience, at mass rallies and in amusement parks, people take pictures with the usually cute and oversized cuddly toys. A mascot is like a piece of childhood, it provides a shoulder to lean on, always and everywhere. A mascot is always in a good mood – this fact carries something distinctly tragic. If one thinks of the figure of the sad clown, the always-in-a-good-mood-face is only ever put-on. It’s nothing but a costume, a game of hide-and-seek. Who hides, sweating, beneath these fluffy full body costumes, which restrict both one’s field of vision and ability to move? In this case, it‘s Fred. Fred will wear a fish costume, maybe. Fred listens. Fred does not represent a company or an institution. Fred is simply there.

Text: Miriam Bettin 

Felix Imiola (1984, Lörrach, DE)
HfG Offenbach

1 ° N ° 1 ° N ° 1 ° N ° 1

The interplay between interior and exterior as well as the question of inner experience and its outer form are subjects that interest Gertje Graef, especially in her work as a theater maker. Graef lives near the harbor area in Offenbach and has observed its structural development for the last two years. 

In preparation for her project, Graef visited the Boxclub in Offenbach several times and made recordings there. She was particularly interested in the soundscape of the place: The sounds of punching boxing gloves, quick steps in the ring and the harsh tone of the coaches’ instructions – it’s no coincidence that the boxing club’s slogan is »hard but fair«. What especially appealed to her was the club’s rhetoric and the dropping of everyday niceties. In the ring, no value is placed on politeness, instead there direct statements are made. In addition, this context gives expression to people’s innate aggression, something that is barely done in everyday life.

Graef’s performance was developed for three actors to be performed on the newly remodelled steps of the dock in front of the »Hafengold« residential complex. By fragmenting the recordings, which she made in the boxing club, she turns them into a new script that serves the actors as the basis for their performances. The sounds and instructions are translated and placed in a new context, highlighting the contrast between the rough language and the utterly polished environment of the dock.

Text: Elena Frickmann

Gertje Graef (1985, Achim, DE)
HfMDK Frankfurt am Main

Internationale Ensemble Modern Akademie

Aki Kitaijma, Cello
Antonio Jimenez Marin, Trombone
Clemens Gottschling, Horn
Chiara Percivati, Clarinet
Diego Ramos Rodriguez, Composition
Gilles Grimaître, Piano
Kyung Won Lee, Viola
Margarita Timoshin, Flute
Galdric Subirana, Percussion
Tom Poulson, Trumpet

IEMA »Internationale Ensemble Modern Akademie« was founded in 2003 as a study program by the »Ensemble Modern«. Since 2006 it has offered a one year Master in cooperation with the HfMDK Frankfurt. Young artists -instrumentalists, conductors, composers, sound designers - have the possibility to work with the Ensemble Modern on a diverse repertoire of modern music.

With a series of eight concerts taking place amongst others at the ZKM Karlsruhe, the Gaudeamus Muziekweek Utrecht, and at FdjT, the ten scholars of the class 2013/14 finalize their Master in September 2014. They will perform pieces of contemporary chamber music from the 20th and 21st centuries. Included is the »Pression für einen Cellisten« by Helmut Lachenmann which experiments with the pressure needed to produce sounds with a string instrument. The strings are played across the range of expression from excessive to hardly audible bowing. Not only the strings but also the whole instrument is involved in the production of sounds by tapping, rubbing and stroking.

Diego Ramos, one of the scholars, presents his composition »Der Sogenannte«. A improvised performance looking for the traces of forgotten meaning. »A collection of scores-images-texts, which are his attempts to give a heart to the lifeless fabrics of his world of forms. Through sound and time the musicians call these strange figures into being and are formulating the question for form and content new.« (by Diego Ramos-Rodriguez)

Furthermore there will be pieces by György Ligeti, Iannis Xenakis and Steve Reich.

Text: Pia Gaertner

EVO Halle/ Lokschuppen/ Ölhalle/ EVO Halle

with Lisa Schettel & Thomas Bartling

All The Things She Said

Judith Altmeyer‘s project is based on Michel Foucault‘s text »Des espaces autres« (Of Other Spaces) from 1967, which analyzes the specificity of spaces and places and their social meaning. Foucault states that we do not live in a homogenous space, inside which it would be possible to study individuals or objects. The overriding question is how to define the term of the individual in the first place.

For the performance at FdjT, the artists chose a small, separate room inside the Ölhalle (a former warehouse for storing oil) where, using a score, she and her collaborators will produce a music video for a participant of the festival.

The work is intentionally put in the context of contemporary pop music videos, which visualize societal norms and patterns.

Text: Elena Frickmann

Judith Altmeyer (1989, Bergisch Gladbach, DE)

Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen

To Immure a Piano

Lisa Hopf‘s artistic interest is a result of her years of engagement with dance. Working with one‘s own body in relation to the space surrounding it led to a deep exploration of places, non-places and how people interact with them. Her interests are the seemingly unnoticed, urban spaces, often subjected to strong changes.

In her new work »To Immure a Piano«, Lisa Hopf returns to these concerns. Inspired by the transformation of Offenbach’s harbor area, she has immured, or buried, a piano into the walls of one of the new buildings. The presence of something which is not visible - the piano remains hidden for the viewer who only sees another concrete wall in a building site - infuses the space with meaning. The former non-place is thus converted into a place of reflection; a monument is created. 

The act of concealment of a piano and the resulting silence of the instrument is reminiscent of works by Joseph Beuys, John Cage and the Fluxus movement. During their »Internationale Festspiele Neuester Musik« which took place in Wiesbaden in 1962, the destruction of a piano, as well as an acoustic silence was undertaken. 

Furthermore the artist focuses on the practice of »foundation sacrifices«. This making of sacrifices – a common cultural act of incorporating a living being or object into a nearly completed building – was thought to protect both the sacrificed person and the building‘s new inhabitants. The building of a functioning piano into the wall of the apartment‘s underground garage carries the possibility of being able to play the instrument - an act that, if it were to be attempted, would lead to the destruction of this work of art.

Text: Lukas Engert

Lisa Hopf (1990, Steyr, AT)
HfG Offenbach

Tours DE & EN (Meeting point Lokschuppen):
Friday / 20:00, 20:30, 21:00, 21:30
Saturday/ 17:30, 18:00 & 21:00, 21:30
Sunday / 15:30, 16:00, 16:30, 17:00

with Craig Leonard

What Happens in Offenbach Stays in Halifax
 

»The whole thing started on 1.5.2014, when we all saw and met each other for the first time. Craig Leonard was giving a workshop here at the HfG.«

This meeting marked the starting point of a communication and connection between two cities, Offenbach (DE) and Halifax (CA). During the workshop, which similarly to FdjT had dealt with questions regarding the Fluxus movement, Lisa Hopf and Marina Kampka received the open call for the festival. Shortly thereafter, Leonard returned to Halifax, Canada, and the communication shifted from the physical to the virtual realm.

The circular connection of the three protagonists gave rise to an interaction under the premise of artistic production. Yet through the intensification of the exchange and a process of getting to know one another, they increasingly questioned their project as well as their own goals. It was no longer the output that dominated their exchanges, but rather the mutual input. The result was no longer dominating the discussions, but the process itself and the accumulation of material objects, such as lists, books, music videos, or drinks. Hopf, Kampka and Leonard reveal this process and thereby also the artistic practice of the exchange of ideas and ongoing self-questioning.

Their work »What Happens in Offenbach Stays in Halifax« also refers to the title of FdjT »What Happens in Offenbach Stays in Offenbach«, however, gives it another dimension in that it connected geographical and virtual spheres. It describes the current state of an ongoing process, but particularly bears witnesses to artistic potential.

Text: Lukas Engert

Craig Leonard (1969, Halifax, CA)
HfG Offenbach

Lisa Hopf (1990, Steyr, AT)
HfG Offenbach

Marina Kampka (1983, Bernkastel-Kues, DE)
HfG Offenbach

Instructions Sanya Kantarovsky and Liz Magic Laser

1. Spend a day looking for people on the street who resemble you in some way.
2. Approach each person and ask if you could photograph yourself with them.
3. Ask each person for their email address, and, after the day is over, send all of the photos to each person photographed. The addresses should be in the BCC field. The subject of the email should read: You and Me.

Sanya Kantarovsky (1981, Moscow, RU)
lives and works in Los Angeles, US

Liz Magic Laser (1981, New York, US)
lives and works in New York, US

Agency Spit/ Lettuce Kill!

In her performative, sometimes filmic works, Luzie Meyer is concerned with problems of subjectivity. Questions of participation, affiliation and connectivity are discussed, as well as their disruption. She composes situations, in which one‘s own self-concept and already defined behavior enter into dialog with their context. Power relations, but also the exercise and loss of control, are examined. Text and language, used in essays and scripts, are often the basis of her artistic practice.

»A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.« (Warrior)

Her experimental lecture »Agency Spit/Lettuce Kill!« is the continuation of a video installation with the same name. In this piece, which she developed for FdjT, Luzie Meyer analyzes as such the construction of an autonomous subject. Equally it is an outcome of research into the processes of cultural appropriation, influenced by Japanese Samurai movies from the 1950s to 1970s. In these films encounters carry forms of appropriation and adaptation. The work deals with the analogies of Western and Japanese ideals and furthermore with questions of autonomous action in restrictive social contexts.

»Perfection will only be found in action.« (Chicory)

Luzie Meyer composes the encounter of a rose, a chicory and a warrior, translating it into fragmentary text passages and actions. Recurring sound patterns connect with absurd-seeming plots and the voice of the artist. The resulting multi-layered work puts a focus on problems of cultural parallelization as well as on the scrutiny of free will, which is always subject to a societal norms.

»You dropped your sword.« (Rose)

Text: Lukas Engert

Luzie Meyer (1990, Tübingen, DE)
Städelschule Frankfurt am Main

The Clap

Performance by Finn Lakeberg & Valeriya Dmitrenko

Marc Spradling, who studied music and ballet (Interlochen Arts Academy, School of American Ballet, Joffrey School NY), has been teaching in the field of classical dancing at the HfMDK Frankfurt since 1997. Alongside the classical dance education, he and his students work with the choreogaphy of William Forsythe, and also work with neo-classical influences.

Within the framework of FdjT, Spradling presents his choreography »The Clap« performed by Valeriya Dmitrenko and Finn Lakeberg. »The Clap« is a dance-version of Steve Reich‘s »Clapping Music« (1972). Spradling‘s dance performance premiered in Frankfurt am Main (Gallus Theater) in 2009. Musical composition segues into movement and hence embraces the multidisciplinary approach of FdjT, which aims to investigate dialog between different art forms. What does a translation process look like, if it takes the structural essences of Reich‘s music and, in a playful duet, transforms them into minimalist movement patterns? Just like Reich‘s composition, written for two musicians, Spradling‘s work if for two dancers. Their encounter is marked by choreographed movements, which dissolve into loose structures of the rhythmic grid. Acoustic and visual senses are challenged in equal measure »in order to let it come«.

Text: Miriam Bettin

Marc Spradling (1961, Michigan, US)
lives and works in Frankfurt am Main, DE

Lokschuppen
Saturday 20th,  16:00

Neither 0 Nor 1 I’m 3 Or Absolute Nothing / This Way Out (Waterproof Skin)

Marcello Spada‘s grasp on reality is characterized by an extraordinary urge to discover. Apart from strictly logical relationships he combines immaterial values with medial structures, the forgotten with forms of censorship, and patents with artist contracts. An absurd, but highly complex moment lies within many of his works.

The work »Neither 0 Nor 1 I‘m 3 or Absolute Nothing« taps into the need to collect statistics, for instance to optimize urban infrastructure, such as roads. Based on »Apollo«, a traffic counter produced by the company »Diamond Traffic Products«, the artist developed a machine with a similar function. Here each viewer who passes by the device is registered, creating a putative statistic. What the viewer cannot see, however, is the collected data, only an electronic noise signals the counting. The duty of organisations to create visitor statistics is counteracted, for Spadas metal box actually registers no data. Its operation exists only in the expectation of the visitor.

His second work refers to the growing importance and pervasiveness of hyper-technical materials within our society, which are increasingly focused on prevention and security. Therefore Marcello Spada was prompted to develop clothes and accessories from the waterproof and yet breathable fabric Gore-Tex. Gore-Tex underpants, Gore-Tex socks, Gore- Tex glasses or Gore-Tex bracelets: Yet his are items that deny the function of the texture of the fabric as well as the manufacturer‘s quality seal. However, they remind us of how we equip ourselves with such new materials and objects against allegedly extreme instances of everyday life, such as the threat of rain showers. At the same time the items are a playful reflection of the industrial creation of new needs for an overcautious society.

Text: Lukas Engert

Marcello Spada (1984, Bologna, IT)
Städelschule Frankfurt am Main

Tablecloth / Umbrellas

The Argentinian artist Mariana López works mainly with canvas, onto which she paints with oils in an illusionistic manner. Her works are a reference to the Trompe l’TLil, a rediscovered way of representation which stems from the Renaissance. This style of painting achieves a very strong sense of three dimensionality, which almost makes the viewer think that the presented
objects are indeed real. López creates an entirely contemporary version of this painterly approach.

During FdjT, the artist´s objects will be exhibited at different locations: a black umbrella lies almost accidentally on the floor as if someone has forgotten it. In another spot hangs a checkered tablecloth which has been cut with scissors. All the objects are made from firm linen canvas, yet their sense of materiality has been created through painting. They appear, perhaps, to be parts of scenery from a play. This is no coincidence. Theatre also offers the viewer a reality which only exists on stage. Deception and disappointment – in their double meanings – are central aspects in López‘s works. 

Whether the work falls under the category of sculpture or painting remains as vague as the classic the work description itself: »Oil on Canvas«.

Text: Elena Frickmann

Mariana López (1981, Buenos Aires, AR)
Städelschule Frankfurt am Main

The Future of Offenbach

Marina Kampka collects, arranges and archives. Educated in the field of art theory and graphic design she is interested in reporting and telling stories as well as in written, spoken, and typographic material. Often her extensive research in both private and public archives is directed by personal impulses. Yet, her artistic practice is not primarily based upon facts, but rather on imagined scenarios and developed narratives.

»Only when the S-Bahn works, will we feel better«, »Savings being made on the building of the train line.« These lines, taken from news articles, depict the future of Offenbach as it was discussed in the late 1980s and early 1990s in relation to the new construction of the train line (S-Bahn), inspired Kampka‘s piece »The Future of Offenbach.« By means of edited newspaper articles, the artist places a focus on the archived dispartiy of the initially planned utopia with the actual reality. While early articles gave rise to a pioneering optimism, the completion of the construction works brought about a debate dominated by voices of usual pragmatism and ordinary banality. For instance, the originally planned architectural competition fell victim to cost-cutting.

Kampka also focuses on the S-Bahn architecture itself. There are detached, seemingly forgotten signs and images, connected through graphic ornamentation on the walls of the train stations, peculiarly reminiscent of a work of Wassily Kandinsky. Despite the archival sources it is her subjective view, the new combination of visual and typographic sources, which enables a fresh perspective on the past, while also pointing into the present day. Currently the future of the city is being defined anew as the post-industrial harbor area undergoes development.

Text: Lukas Engert

Marina Kampka (1983, Bernkastel-Kues, DE)
HfG Offenbach

Blechtransport

Max Brück dismantles and re-forms: An old shed from his grandparents, a hunting stand which harks back to the long line of foresters in the family, memories from his home village, the family tradition of gymnastics. By removing and relocating materials from his past, he seems to bring the pictures, sounds and smells that are stored within them to life through his installations, drawings and videos. The motifs of family, home and childhood run like a common thread through his work.

From time immemorial, the old shack on the neighbor‘s property served as a place for a fun and adventure. Always closed, it hid a secret that awoke the children‘s curiosity. Through small holes and crevices in the rusty tin walls they tried to catch a glimpse into the interior, until the neighbor chased the children away. This year the shack was suddenly gone.
It was disassembled into its component pieces and tossed onto the sidewalk. Brück transported the parts to Offenbach. They retain the childhood memories within their materiality. The question is if and how a space stores contextspecific memory – especially after its deconstruction. 

Text: Miriam Bettin

Max Brück (1991, Königsberg, DE)
HfG Offenbach

moves across the festival site

Instructions of Michael Portnoy 

IMPROVEMENT

Choose an artwork that you can't get out of your head either because you wish you'd done it first or think you could have done it better, or because you think it's mediocre and it infuriates you that so many people find it interesting.

Describe the work simply in a sentence. For instance, "A yellow painting with pockets in it that hold pieces of marble". 

Invent a name for the breed of artmaking that this work could belong to, in no more than three words. For instance, "Capacious Painting". Do not use an existing description. 

Write the artwork's title, creator, description and the breed on one piece of sketch paper. 

Make ten sketches (one per piece of sketch paper) of different ways to improve the artwork. And by improve, we don't mean one-step operations like changing the color of the painting to blue, but throw the seeds within this artwork (its forms, ideas, strategies, etc.) through the wringer a few times, skip a few steps, toss out everything that doesn't make you laugh, and combine with forms and ideas that excite you. Give us not just a new thing, but a new breed of thing. 

There are many methods to improve things, but here are a few to start with. 

Method A 
Figure it out through drawing. On a spare piece of paper make a quick sketch of the artwork you are improving. On a new piece of paper, play and riff on the forms you see in the original, adding or subtracting elements, exaggerating, complicating, etc. 

Method B 
Do it linguistically, by repeatedly replacing and modifying the words in the sentence description until you fall upon an idea you like. For instance, "A yellow painted performer with pockets all over every inch of her clothing that hold different written explanations for why she's making that annoying burbling sound". If you are stuck, make a new description of the artwork that's a bit more abstract - "a thing on the wall which holds other things" - and permute this new sentence. 

Method C 
Permute the words of the breed you invented. For example: "Capacious Painting" --> "Rapacious Painting". Now imagine what kind of artworks could fall under this new breed. (Perhaps this is an unobtrusive painting which somehow steals something from the viewer.) 

Method D 
Merging. Think of another artwork and make a quick list of its inherent forms, ideas, strategies, tropes, or techniques. Merge one of these things on your list with the artwork you're improving. Or similarly, insert an idea or word from the last article you read, or book on your desk. Now, make an arrangement upon the wall with your ten improvement sketches and the paper with the description of the improved artwork.

Michael Portnoy (1971, Washington D.C., US)

lives and works in New York, US

Back Down on my Knees

Personal experiences shape the videos, performances, installations and works on paper by Natasja Loutchko. In subtle, often grim tales she pursues social phenomena, such as the feelings of loneliness and alienation.

»It‘s been a long, a long time coming / But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will.«The song »A Change Is Gonna Come« (1964) by the soul singer Sam Cooke deals with discrimination and racism and was hailed as the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement. Fifty years later the lines of the song have not lost their significance: The extreme extent of homophobia in Russia or the success of right-wing parties in this year‘s European elections show that the hoped-for change is not nearly here.

Loutchko stresses this hopeful/hopeless waiting for a the utopia of a society of diversity, and the related ongoing struggle that is connected with this, in her video and sound installation »Back on my Knees«, in which image, sound and space come together in a formally reduced and intimate situation.

Text: Marie Sophie Beckmann

Natasja Loutchko (1983, Stockholm, SE)
Städelschule Frankfurt am Main

Instruction by Ola Vasiljeva

Conversation of sleeves.

Choose any time period in the history of fashion and select two clothing pieces with sleeves. The sleeves will be your two main protagonists, charge them with importance and significance. Create a dialogue between them on (one of the) topics :

‐ dance
‐ food
‐ memory/forgetfulness
‐ sleep.

Avoid a link to fashion /clothing itself in the conversation, rather address these two objects as self-sufficient specific life forms. Depart from the usual/ practical view of a ‘sleeve”, treat it as a new entity. What would be a sleeve’s hand or arm? Where does he store his memory? “The conversation” can be translated into a visual installation, drawing, dance or an audio piece.

Ola Vasiljeva (1981, Ventspils, LV) 
lives and works in Amsterdam, NL

Instruction by Paul Elliman

»Make a report in all the languages of an incident«

Paul Elliman (1961, UK) 
lives and works in London, UK

Lass das Wunder Deiner Liebe an ihm geschehen 

Philipp Scholtysik, is interested in biographical stories and since having finished his studies in Economics he has been addressing such material in his dramaturgical work. To what extent art and theatre can be political, as well as which effect and relevance they have are reoccurring questions that he poses. 

What started out as something found in a pile of trash on the sidewalk developed over time into downright obsession: Calendars and diaries, in which an unknown woman logged the bowel movements of her chronically husband for more than a decade, opened up an entire world to Scholtysik, a world he could not let go of. Alongside medical details on the consistency of the husband‘s stool and the frequency of his urination, one gets a great deal of insight into the couple‘s private life. The wife‘s own voice emerges from her factual diction, her notes on birthday parties, the visit of an aunt and also her wish that her husband could once again speak properly after the accident. 

Starting from this fi nd and Scholtysik‘s desire to share his fascination with others, he made a video work. The video tries to live up to the intimacy and tenderness of the story. It also offers an opportunity to consider the fine line between empathetic curiosity and voyeurism.

Text: Marie Sofie Beckmann

Philipp Scholtysik (1984, Traunstein, DE)
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main

Instruction Piece (never say never)

never say never

44

idioms of instruction

ross birrell

2014

draw a line in the sand

burn with desire

touch and go

sleep on it

take it or leave it

think it over

tell me about it

cut the crap

kick the habit

be yourself

change the record

go for it

make it happen

let it go

lap it up

talk sense

tell it like it is

give up the ghost

kiss and make up

don’t look back

don’t ask me why

never say never

seize the day

never say die

don’t look down

forget about it

find someone new

come off it

pay your dues

pull yourself together

deny, deny, deny

spill the beans

suck it and see

lose your mind

find your vocation

let it all hang out

don’t let me down

bury the hatchet

lick your wounds

hang loose

call it a day

get your rocks off

walk on by

fuck off and die

//

Instruction Piece (after Mallarmé)

Do not read this instruction.

Ross Birrell, lives and works in Glasgow, UK

Clapping Music

Performance on 19. September: Frankfurter Schlagwerk - Matthias Lang, Philipp Strüber

Performance on 21. September: IEMA Students - Clemens Gottschling, Kyung Won Lee, Diego Ramos Rodriguez, Gilles Grimaître, Antonio Marin Jimenez, Aki Kitajima, Chiara Percivati, Tom Poulson, Galdric Subirana, Margarita Timoshin

Steve Reich is a pioneer of minimal music. His compositions are characterized by repetition, subtle variations of sound patterns and canon structures. One of his best-known compositions is »Music for 18 Musicians«, (1976) that he wrote for exactly 18 musicians in a mixed ensemble. He has took inspiration from jazz, particularly the music of John Coltrane (1926-1967). By changing the timbre, melody and rhythm of a single chord he creates diverse musical compositions. In the methodology that Reich was also instrumental in developing, called »phasing« two or more almost identical soundtracks or phrases are initially laid on top of one another and then begin to diverge evenly, but not at the same tempo, so that they no longer play in synch, which creates a sudden echo. This echo-effect can return to the same sound. Reich first experimented with this technique with his »Tape Music« compositions – for instance »Come Out« (1966) and »It´s Gonna Rain«, (1965) – using looped speech and then transferring it to acoustic instruments in live performances like »Piano Phase», (1967) and »Drumming«, (1970/71) and then later to »Clapping Music«, (1972), in which he completely did away with instruments and additional techniques and simply wrote the piece for two pairs of hands.

»Clapping Music« is both the opening and closing element of FdjT and creates a form of brackets around this year’s festival program. Usually used to honor a finished performance, the act of clapping has been brought forward: it now takes place before anything has actually begun.

Text: Miriam Bettin

Steve Reich (1936, New York, US)
lives and works in New York, US

Instruction by Will Holder

Sonic Meditation XVI

INTRODUCTION I

Sonic Meditations are intended for group work over a long period of time with regular meetings. No special skills are necessary. Any persons who are willing to commit themselves can participate. The ♀Ensemble to whom these meditations are dedicated has found that non-verbal meetings intensify the results of these meditations and help provide an atmosphere, conducive to such activity. With continuous work some of the following becomes  possible with Sonic Meditations: Heightened states of awareness or expanded consciousness, changes in physiology and psychology from known and unknown tensions to relaxations which gradually become permanent. These changes may represent a tuning of mind and body. The group may develop positive energy which can influence others who are less experienced. Members of the Group may achieve greater awareness and sensitivity to each other. Music is a welcome by-product of this activity. 

INTRODUCTION II 

Pauline Oliveros has abandoned composition/performance practice as it is usually established today, for Sonic Explorations who wants to participate. She attempts to erase the subject/object or performer/audience relationship by returning to ancient forms which preclude spectators. She is interested in communication among all forms of life, through Sonic Energy. She is especially interested in the healing power of Sonic Energy and its transmission within groups. All societies admit the power of music or sound. Attempts to control what is heard in the community are universal. For instance, music in the church has always been limited to particular forms and styles in accordance with the decrees of the Church Fathers. Music in the courts has been con-
trolled through the tastes of patrons. Today Muzak is used to increase or stimulate consumption in merchandising establishments. Sonic Meditations are an attempt to return the control of sound to the individual alone, and within groups especially for humanitarian purposes; specifically healing. 

Each Sonic Meditation is a special procedure for the following:

which include everyone

1. Actually making sounds 

2. Actively imagining sounds 

3. Listening to present sounds 

4. Remembering sounds 

Because of the special procedures involved, most of the meditations are available to anyone who wishes to participate regardless, or in spite of musical training. All that is required is a willing commitment to the given conditions. Sound making during the meditations is primarily vocal, sometimes hand clapping or other body sounds, sometimes using sound producing objects and instruments. Some of the meditations involve body movement as well. The term meditation is used simply to mean dwelling with or upon an idea, an object, or lack of object without distraction, or divided attention.

Will Holder (1969, Hatfield, UK)
lives and works in London, UK