de Appel - curatorial programme

On 28 Sep 2011, at 12:46, alec steadman wrote:

The Black Swan is the name we give ourselves in an attempt to define a collective identity over and above being De Appel Curatorial students. On this blog we will attempt to genuinely open the process of formulating what The Black Swan is. Using this as an open fluid and productive site.

- What possibilities are there for an artwork come to an audience, both through its own physicality and that of a meditative body?

- What constitutes an audience and what is the nature of this encounter? (who / how many / how?)

- Does taking things outside necessarily make them public?

- Is any space that’s not an art gallery automatically in 'the public realm' irrespective of general use, private or otherwise? Is a museum or gallery genuinely a public space?

- How do we move beyond the limited view of 'public space' as being literally in and around the urban environment?

- What other forms of 'space' might constitute themselves as public? What other forms of distribution? Facebook? TV? Systems of governance Etc……

Some notes:

Information exchange

Real time information and object flows.

The flow mobility of capital around the stationary subject.

The boys school.

The de-appel archive.

A network of other sites; (cinemas for film! Theaters for theater! clubs for club)

innit!

On 28 Sep 2011, at 09:51, Sanne Oorthuizen wrote:

Hey guys,

Sorry for my late reply. Sleepy sleepy. Thanks for all your thoughts before! Here are my "short" notes.

First, I want to share with you a song by Andrew Bird called "The Naming of Things" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7c8kKE2xvs). I love its energy and it's a song that can be infused with a variety of meanings, as you see when surfing lyrics forums, people come up with love, relationships, rather grim interpretations of dead bodies being pushed down lakes etc. Anyway, I don't want to go into the song's possible meanings, but instead imagine watching waterbugs skate as they draw figure eights as they draw.

Question: how can we (and why should we!) change the spectaculous and moneymaking world we live in, where capital resides over the social and politics over the political. Does stinginess (gierigheid) really make us happy? I wonder how human relations can be torn from the realm of commercial immediacy and surplus value into an invested social exchange? To change something we need to be able to imagine it first (who said this again?). Though no one knew The Black Swan existed until it was there, even afterwards people tried to make excuses for the unlikelihood of its existence because it had been and still was so far removed from their conventions and expectations. It was impossible to sustain a different perception of reality. A defense of the status quo. I don't know if I have seen a black swan but I would defend its existence, just to show myself that maybe yes, there is something else possible and that there are multiple realities. For me, The Black Swan functions as a reference for the imperceptibility of the unknown and unexpected, for the blind spots of society, as something that challenges, either in reality or imagination, the status quo.

Then what does it mean to operate within a collective that calls itself The Black Swan? I think in this moment in time, as we are part of De Appel CP for one month, it is the act of naming that is important. We present ourselves as a collective, as a way of thinking how we may operate, as Alec states, outside or at least rubbing against our institutional surrounding. Although it sounds paradoxical, as you may say the naming of things fixes them in a way, the current nature of The Black Swan is to experience and scan an ambiguous situation that is essentially in process (not progress!), without trying to force out this ambiguity because it makes us feel nice and safe. We understand that it may not work, we may fail, but it is exactly the idea of failure that makes it interesting. What it means is that we are not trying to hold onto white swans (or turkeys or geese, but really, think about it, are they really white?) we don't (re)instate them as the real deal. Simultaneously, let's not instate Black Swans either, because who knows if they really exist. So for now, maybe we can imagine seeing waterbugs skate [from the bottom of the lake] as they draw figure eights as they draw.

xxx S

P.s. As a side note: Taleb's wikipedia page there is a quote taken out of the second edition of The Black Swan that says a lot:

I found out that telling researchers "This is where your methods work very well" is vastly better than telling them "This is what you guys don’t know." So when I presented to what was until then the most hostile crowd in the world, members of the American Statistical Association, a map of the four quadrants, and told them: your knowledge works beautifully in these three quadrants, but beware of the fourth one, as this is where the Black Swans breed, I received instant approval, support, offers of permanent friendship, refreshments (Diet Coke), invitations to come present at their sessions, even hugs(...) They tried to convince me that statisticians were not responsible for these aberrations, which come from people in the social sciences who apply statistical methods without understanding them.

P.p.s. I love the Diet Coke! :-)

On dinsdag 27 september 2011 at 23:01, Katia Krupennikova wrote:

Hy everyone! Here is mine.

The notion of The Black Swan intrigues me as a concept of contemplating the unexpected. As Taleb stated “For example, what may be a Black Swan surprise for a turkey is not a Black Swan surprise to its butcher.”

The dynamic combination of social, cultural and political backgrounds (Italy, the Netherlands, Macedonia, Russia, Singapore, UK), our gang is engaged in conversations questioning habits of both exhibition making and perception of art.

I’d like to add some questions of those we usually debate on in trains during our endless trips throughout the Netherlands, striving to go deeper into cobwebs of curating and trying to imagine the future of this practice:

- What could be the aim of exhibition making?

- Is there a harmony between complexity and simplicity?

- Why should one look at art?

Think of what we can expect less. Meet you in the train.

KATYA KRUPENNIKOVA

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P Think Green, please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to

27.09.2011, в 20:45, Qinyi Lim написал(а):

Off the top of my head and on the very shaky train back.

Deriving inspiration from Nicholas Taleb's identically named theory of supposed societal anomalies, The Black Swan functions as a collective of 6 individuals informed by said theory and conditioned by formative experiences gained through the De Appel Curatorial Programme of 2011 and individual contexts. It exists firstly as a self-reflexive discussion platform for critical and timely examinations of issues such as complicity, human agency, the political and politics, centre and peripheries, the pluralism of publics, histories, artistic and curatorial practices. Secondly, it may also function as an active operative of engagements outside the immediate context of its initial conception. Through the lens of the 6 core individuals and invited guest participants, The Black Swan is also an attempt to enable a collaborative exploration of ideas and perspective with a focus on constructive means and not a conflation of individuality through a constructed and enforced sense of collectivity.

Qinyi Lim

e |

On Sep 25, 2011, at 6:31 PM, Antonia Alampi wrote:

this is really interesting. I like the idea of starting with The Black Swan trying to relate it to the power/space/reason/meaning/necessity of our curatorial practice as a collective.

Connect the theory of The Black Swan to the curatorial practice that defines us (albeit still in abstract):

· the unpredictability of art and curatorial practices and so the inability to control and foresee possible outcomes as well as the effect on the audience - outside the dictates of neo-liberal capitalist logic.

· the importance of different audiences. The narrator has to take into account the exclusion or inclusion in the narrative of the "you" and “the third person” that is exposed. Constitute ourselves as a unit allows us to have a more dialogical narrator, and consequently envisage a pluralistic “you”.

· the “form”, the “structure” of the exposure itself must by nature be coherent with the intentions and content that it aims to address and achieve.

2011/9/25 Katia Krupennikova ‪<>

Taleb states that a Black Swan Event depends on the observer. For example, what may be a Black Swan

surprise for a turkey is not a Black Swan surprise to its butcher; hence the objective should be to "avoid being the turkey" by identifying areas of vulnerability in order to "turn the Black Swans white".^{[citation needed]}

KATYA KRUPENNIKOVA

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P Think Green, please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to

25.09.2011, в 16:55, Ivana Vaseva написал(а):

Hey guys,

before our meeting I wanted to gather my thoughts so I tried to write something.

Here it is.

We can talk about it later. The language is very basic, I hope that you can understand it.

Also I was trying to find something that I read from Irit Rogoff concerning the special moment when something occurs, she explained it in one text but I cannot find it. It was something about the moment when things get clear in your mind, when one work reveals itself to you...I guess the illumination moment...I was thinking about this for a long time. [As I'm writing it seems as a romantic idea no?]

Ok, See ya soon!

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The Black Swan (in singular)

What are the limits of the possibility/probability?

The Black Swan is a platform that provides an opportunity for unexpected things to be born. It is also a general feeling, a process and an aim.

It was inspired by The Black Swan Theory or Theory of Black Swan Events developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. According to him, The Black Swan Theory is a metaphor that encapsulates the following notion: “The event is a surprise (to the observer) and has a major impact. After the fact, the event is rationalized by hindsight.”

THE BLACK SWAN IS A PROCESS – NOT AN OBJECT

POSSIBILITY – THE UNIMAGINED

Our aim is to test the boundaries of curatorial practice and move beyond existing patterns of thinking.

We operate collaboratively but keep our own integrity.

We try to question:

- The dynamics of curating in a public realm.

- What constitutes an audience and how it is constructed?

- What is a common ground?

- What is inclusion and what is exclusion?

- Why now – the shift in isms???

- Political art

- Language as a tool for cultural translation (Katia is not Ivana) just joking!!!

….

Suggestion:

Each one of us to write a short text relating to this topics and using the exhibitions, lectures, conversations as an example. Then all of us should read and approve the text. We should put photos about each topic.