DAY 1………………………DAY 2………………………DAY 3
BASIC INFORMATION
Event location
Lettrétage e. V.
Mehringdamm 61, 1st backyard
10961 Berlin
Moderation
Language of conference
English
Days of conference
Friday 3.11., until Sunday, 5.11., 9.30 – 17.00 every day.
CONTENT OUTLINE
At the heart of the matter lies the question of whether texts are ‘merely’ presented and discussed at literary events, and that therefore we have a somewhat indirect relationship to the work of art at hand, or whether – as with CON_TEXT events – the form of presentation, the situation of the stage, the ‘performative practice’ inevitably becomes a part of the work itself. The CON_TEXT conference takes the second viewpoint as a given. As a result the boundaries between a work of art’s production, presentation and reflection become blurred– as does its clear distinction from other art forms. This opening up of the work offers a particular opportunity for discourse and process – the reader is not simply presented with a finished, unvarying product, nor a fixed point of view, but rather a fragile, changeable entity which the reader can become a part of as the ‘text’ is ‘performed’. This does not imply however that we need turn our back on critical thinking – on the contrary, the criticism is instead integrated (ideally) into the work as part of its artistic process rather than being independent of it. Production and presentation become one, the events in the programm will be able to meet the needs of literature as an art form and accommodate its particular capacity for process. Literature will offer an opportunity to communicate rather than to proclaim apodictic truths. We will be able to envisage a text that can only take on its true form when it is performed in one particular setting, without ever being printed or published by other means.
The following questions regarding the relation between process and product, as well as author, curator, event and “work” provide a good basis for the path of discussion on the conference: Is the literary event a work of art in its own right? How does it relate to the text and how does the curator relate to the author? How can a literary event contribute real aesthetic and discursive added value without demeaning the texts own meaning? Does the curation of a work imply the dispossession of the author? Is curation a type of translation? In which case, what would be its target language? What possibilities do analogue and digital means of text production present for literary events? Is everything just a matter of staging something in the end? If not, what language could the literary event invent which would both assert the peculiarity of a literary text as well as developing or processing it further, all the while aiming for an aesthetic and animated literary experience?
DAY 1
Friday, 03.11.2017
Project-external artists and organizers (festivals, institutions)
Panel 1 (9:30-13:00, please be punctual)
Speakers: Project-external artists
9:30-10:00 Welcome coffee, briefing and reception
10:00-10:30 Katharina Deloglu, Linde Nadiani, Daniela Seel: welcome and introduction
10:30-11:45 Sandra Man / Moritz Majce: Writing Spaces
…………………….. Sandra Man / Christine Börsch-Supan: Spacing Voices
……………………..Florian Neuner: Autorenmusik
……………………..Andrea Inglese: Making images unfamiliar
…………………….Tomomi Adachi: Text in the context of experimental music
11:45- 12:00 Coffee break
12:00-13:00 Moderated discussion
13:00-14:00 Lunch break
Leading questions of panel 1:
What motivation drives artists of different art genres to present literary or other text in interdisciplinary events? What understanding of the own “work” underlies them, especially when the events aren’t commissioned (as in the case of the project-extern artists presenting here)? How are the artistic procedures and development processes of each event formed and what is the role of the text in them (in the concrete procedures, as well as for each author, musician, depicting artist, dancer, etc.)? Presently text plays an important role in depicting arts – in artist-books or manifestos, as well as a graphic, audible speaking element in installations. But when is “text” in its aesthetic quality “literature”, when an installation with text a “literary event”? Are there other form of artistic writing beyond literature and if so, what do such artistic processes of production (what consequences do they have) mean for the public presentation of artistic texts? How do they differ from “literature” resp. “literary event”? – If one would also take in consideration new technologies besides the already mentioned artistic arsenal, computer generated texts, software, codes and cover texts offer many more questions regarding authorship, definitions of an artistic work, as well as “literature” and “literary event”.
Panel 2 (14:00-17:00)
Speakers: Festival organizers and multidisciplinary institutions
14:00-15:00 Cordula Hamschmidt, Haus der Kulturen der Welt
………………………Heidrun Primas, Forum Stadtpark
………………………Maria A. Ioannou: SARDAM Festival
………………………Tom Bresemann: SOUNDING OUT LOUD! Organising and Curating New Ways of Presenting Literature
15:00-15:15 Coffee break
15:15-17:00 Moderated discussion
Leading questions of panel 2:
What functions do festivals on one hand and institutions on the other take in the overall process of artistic production and public presentation of new literary event formats? In what relation are they to the artists? What are their motives and what do they try to achieve with public presentations of new forms of literary events? What is the relation between incorporating new forms of literary events and the self-understanding of the individual institutions or festivals? What influence do the funding programs and their guidelines have on the projects and what influence public applications on the program work of the institutions? How do (fund-)political and aesthetic criteria respond to each other because of that? Does the local state, the specter and character of the literary institutions and event projects locally play a role and if so, in what way? How do multidisciplinary institutions and literary institutions differ when it comes to basic conditions for new projects involving literary events? – Which concrete new literary event forms were created as part of the individual festivals or yearly programs (examples) and what are their characteristics (interdisciplinary? collaborative? location specific? new technologies?…)? What aesthetic and/or artistic questions were posed? How was the communication with the public set up: was there interest from media (tv, radio, text/print digital media)? Could an audience be won over and if so, what kind?
Evening event
Conference performance
20:00, Lettrétage
by and with Barbara Philipp (Austria/Netherlands), Andrea Inglese (Italy/France), Aleksei Shinkarenko (Belarus)
Saturday, 04.11.2017
CON_TEXT artists
Panel 3 (9:30-13:00, please be punctual)
Speakers: CON_TEXT artists
Individual artists of the CON_TEXT event series will reflect on their own events. (Short documentation videos, event reports and interviews with the artists)
9:30-10:00 Welcome coffee and reception
10:00-10:15 Katharina Deloglu: the CON_TEXT project – intro
10:15-11:15 Maria A. Ioannou: Concrete Skin (developed and executed with tandem-partner Momo Sanno)
………………………Rike Scheffler: memory foam (developed and executed with tandem-partner Jochen Roller)
………………………Charlotte Warsen: Krieg im Park / War im Park (developed and executed with tandem-partner Yevgenia Belorusets)
11:15-11:30 Coffee break
11:30-13:00 Moderated discussion
13:00-14:00 Lunch break
Panel 4 (14:00-17:00)
14:00-15:00 Mathias Traxler: haut parleurs (developed and executed with tandem-partner Harald Muenz)
………………………Gerhild Steinbuch: Alternative Fiction (developed and executed with tandem-partner Elisa Müller)
………………………Tomomi Adachi: X3: Time to deliver (developed and executed with tandem-partner Daniel Malpica)
15:00-15:15 Coffee break
15:15-17:00 Moderated discussion
Leading questions for panel 3 and 4:
How did you and your partner come to your “theme”, your “questioning”, and how is your work involved in the theme? Did you have your own literary texts or did you use someone else’s, when using your own texts did you choose (or adapted) already existing ones, or wrote something new? In what relation is the event to the text and you as the performer to the author of the texts? Has your connection to your own, already existing literary texts change through the collaboration and performance? What terms hold analytic expressiveness if you try to name the relation of the text and the event, the author and the performer? Would you add the created event to your work, or look on it as more of an external commission? Which criteria of the subjective work term underlie your decision?
How did inter- or transdisciplinarity play a role in your prior work? Where were points of frictions, disruptions and conflicts formed – on one side with the ideas of the partner, on the other with the overall requirements of the project – and how did they play out? Are there terms, theories, concepts or discourses that you see in relation to your collaborative work? Did the perspective on your collaborative work change now, from a temporal distance, compared to the working phase of the conception and execution?
Evening event
We recommend visiting the space-choreography Narkosis by the conference participants Sandra Man and Moritz Majce, on 4./5.11. at 20.30, which will take place as part of the Tanzfabrik Open Spaces Festival in the Uferstudios (Uferstraße 8, 13357 Berlin)
DAY 3
Sunday, 05.11.2017
Scientific perspectives on CON_TEXT (forenoon) and closing workshop
Forenoon
Speakers: Lena Vöcklinghaus, Andreas Bülhoff
9:30-10:00 Welcome coffee and reception
10:00-13:00 Lena Vöcklinghaus, Andreas Bülhoff: Practices of Literary Performances
………………………
13:00-14:00 Lunch break
The literary scholars Lena Vöcklinghaus and Andreas Bülhoff currently work on the theme of “textperformance – current positions and terms”. In the current winter semester they hold a seminar at the Uni Hildedsheim in the course of Creative writing. Based on the documentation material of the CON_TEXT event series – concretely: the videos (5-7 min), the subjective reports on the events and interviews with the participating artists – they will attempt the first terminological and analytical approaches to the event formats in comparison with the conventional “water glass reading”.
Afternoon
Workshop by and with the artist Swantje Lichtenstein
14:00-17:00 Workshop: PUT IN PRESENCE
Until the 1960 „art has seemed to be „out of touch“ with its ‚public’ with ‚social values’, with ‚economic realities’, with information theory, linguistic analysis etc.“ (Art & Language, 1972, 14). This changed tremendously for art, but didn’t affect literature, it even lead contemporary literature to a prohibition of presence and a refutation of literature as language art which is also to be shown, put in public, put in presence. The move to digitality changed the ways of publishing and visibility of language, but the contextualization and theorizing hasn’t even started. This collaborative workshop collects and shares knowledge, liberates ideas and words etc. and tries to find answers and new questions.
Evening event
We recommend visiting the space-choreography Narkosis by the conference participants Sandra Man and Moritz Majce, on 4./5.11. at 20.30, which will take place as part of the Tanzfabrik Open Spaces Festival in the Uferstudios (Uferstraße 8, 13357 Berlin)
The CON_TEXT conference is a closed event. However, we would be happy if literary activists or intermediaries would have interest to attend the discussions. If you’re interested in visiting and participating in the conference discussions, please sign up until 25. October 2017 with Linde Nadiani at linde.nadiani [at] lettretage.de
Funded by:
