UNICULT2020 _ 6th edition

Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka
22nd and 23rd September 2020

Program

DAY 1, 22.09.2020

17:00 PM – 19:00 PM / LIVE
UNICULT @ MAST Roundtable

5:00 - 5:30 Daniela Urem - Welcome
“Career development AST”
5:30 – 6:00 Keynote - Milena Dragicevic Sesic "Art professions at the crossroads: culture & aesthetics of care, hospitality, and solidarity"
6:00 – 6:30 Session 1 - Jan Fabre, Luk Van den Dries, Ivana Jozic - “From Act to Acting”
6:30 – 7:00 Session 2 - Phil Griffin “The Price of Truth – finding your voice as an artist”
Moderated by CPP Alumni: Collective Igralke
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm Film Screening “Surrender” by Phil Griffin
Finish of DAY 1 - Thanks for today

DAY 2, 23.09.2020

MAST Education and Policy Workshop // 10:00 - 12:00 10:00 – 11:30 (co-host, University of Graz)
10:00 - 11:00 Keynote - Lev Manovich  - “Artificial Intelligence, Aesthetics, and Future of Culture”
15:00 - 16:00 Sesion 1 -  Luk Van den Dries - “Expanding the Regiebuch. Refigurations of the Director’s Notebook in Contemporary Theatre”
16:00 - 17:00 Sesion 2 -  Barbara de Coninck - "My only Nation is Imagination - On the total art of Jan Fabre”
17:00 PM – 19:00 PM SYMPOSIUM: Exploring innovation challenges through Arts, Science and Technology
Michela Magas, Viviane Hoffmann, Peter Purg and (streamed LIVE from the Culture Action Europe)
19:00- 20:00 - Rijeka Underground - platform presentation
Finish of DAY 2 - Thanks for the Unicult2020 MAST

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Milena Dragicevic Sesic at Unicult MAST | Hybrid Interfacing Academy
"Art professions at the crossroads: culture & aesthetics of care, hospitality, and solidarity"

A reflection on values and ethics in the cultural realm, both in cultural policy and in art management had rarely entered into the theoretical and research fields. This lecture is aiming to explore certain ethical dilemmas, controversies, and dichotomies that are facing cultural professionals, and that should be the precondition of their career development. At the time of globalization, migration and COVID-19 crises, populist political communication, and new public management demands had affected the cultural realm and brought instability, precarity, and confusion diminishing agency strength in this area, as well as citizenship dignity among its audiences (users). New public management asked the art sector for "performance measures", efficiency, productivity - market measures and market values; populist policies asked for "national responsibility", respect to traditions... Art as a public value and public good stopped to exist, and cultural workers: artists, curators and managers have been forced to become entrepreneurs, while "transversal" skills teaching and learning became the must of the art schools. Old (sclerotisized) patterns of cultural governance were not replaced with those that would put public interest in the heart of the matter, but imposed new values and new moral rationales: ethnic-based policies vs. transculturalism; market vs. public interest; entrepreneurialism vs. institutional logic; financial accountability vs. qualitative evaluation; socially insensitive policies vs. socially over-sensitive policies, etc. In both the practice and the theory realm there were a few debates about the need for the new aesthetics, that would replace aesthetics and spectacular performativity of the world market demands (Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Marina Abramovic...). To whom we are truly responsible? To whom we should be responsible? New theories and aesthetics that are emerging that go beyond the usual activist critical (engaged) participative or non-participatory art practice might be named as: - culture of hospitality (Derrida), - culture of care (Thompson), and - culture of solidarity (Kabakovs, Jestrović. It is about empathy, participation, artivism, civic imagination - and citizens` responsibility. Thus, this lecture will be a "plaidoyer" for a new aesthetics of hospitality, aesthetics of care, and aesthetics of solidarity - and how we, cultural agents (artists, designers, curators, managers and scholars) can contribute to their contextualization.

Jan Fabre, Ivana Jozic and Luk Van den Dries: From Act To Acting at Unicult MAST | Hybrid Interfacing Academy
Presentation of the book "From Act to Acting", Fabre's guidelines for the performer of the 21st century by Jan Fabre, Luk Van den Dries and Ivana Jozic

From act to acting. Fabre’s guidelines for the performer of the 21st century is a book that wants to prepare the performer for a new age. It is conceived and designed by Jan Fabre, author, theatre artist and visual artist, active since the seventies of the previous century. The book is written by Luk Van den Dries, dramaturg and theatre researcher of the University of Antwerp, in tight collaboration with Jan Fabre and the three most important performers/teachers of Troubleyn (Annabelle Chambon, Cédric Charron and Ivana Jozić). For ten years they worked together on this new manual for performers, based on Fabre’s extensive experience as a theatre artist and choreographer. This book sheds new light on the physical, mental and vocal training of the performer and furthermore gives insight in Fabre’s revolutionary thoughts on contemporary theatre. The contemporary performer that Fabre wants to give shape to is situated in the intermediate area of performance, theatre and dance. Jan Fabre has developed his own acting approach that could be called 'physiological'. He is always looking for physical impulses in and on the body of his performers and stimulates them to act on stage on the basis of this 'real' physical sensation. The exercises Fabre has developed are aimed at bringing the performer into a heightened state of physical alertness. His pumping heart, his adrenaline, his excitement, his irritation, his exhaustion, create a reality of the body and the presence on stage is fed by that reality. The central notion of Fabre's acting guidelines for the 21st century is thus physical affection. The physical surrender to an action causes a physiological reaction in the body and also brings an emotional effect. This is the essence of his pedagogical project: from action you come to acting: in other words, the performer uses his real exhaustion (or any other physiological state) and its effect on his body as an input for acting. Real experience is the fuel for acting. Psychology is not used: the inspiration for the performer is taken from his physical state, an obsessively performed action causes physiological effects on his body and these bring an emotional charge to bear. The performer does not pretend, he does not imitate, and he certainly does not look for psychological motivations. In Fabre's universe, only the truth of the body reigns: the physiological state is the match that creates an emotional flame. And the performer's imagination watches over the further fueling and spreading of that inner fire. The hybrid, project-concluding event brings together key players, t(h)inkers, creators and decision-makers from the fields of art, science, industry and policymaking to attempt a bold shift towards new paradigms in industrial and social innovation. In what way can the imagination of artists and their creativity tools bring about true novums at the crossings of technology and science, tackling the most complex challenges of the future, both for society at large, and the industries in particular? Participants from a variety of disciplines will jointly explore and identify the vectors of possible policy impacts and priorities for the future of Europe as well as create alliances for forward-thinking future actions. Cover photograph by Helmut Newton from 1987 with (from left to right): Kim Adamski, Tamara Beudeker, Paul Vervoort, Els Deceukelier, Marina Kaptijn, Paulien Haakma, Maarten Koningsberger, Miet Martens, Renée Copraij, Jan Fabre. Made in a hotel in Frankfurt, during the performances of 'Das Glas im Kopf wird vom Glas' (The Dance Sections) in Theater am Turm, Frankfurt.

JAN FABRE Jan Fabre is regarded both in Belgium and abroad as one of the most innovative and versatile personalities in the contemporary international art scene. Over the past 40 years, he has made his mark as a visual artist, theatre artist and author. He describes himself as a consilience artist, someone who is constantly searching for bridges between different disciplines. Thanks to this undertaking, he gives fresh interpretations to the world of visual art, theatre and literature. Jan Fabre changed the idiom of theatre by bringing real action and real time onto the stage. Following his historic eight-hour production ‘This is theatre like it was to be expected and foreseen’ (1982) and the four-hour ‘The Power of Theatrical Madness’ (1984), he explored new territory with ‘Mount Olympus. To glorify the cult of tragedy, a 24-hour performance’ (2015); a monumental marathon piece with which he rewrote international theatre history. In his visual oeuvre, Jan Fabre has developed a unique and coherent world; a highly personal visual language with recurring symbols and motifs. Whilst studying in Antwerp at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and the Municipal Institute for Decorative Arts and Crafts, he developed a profound love of beauty and its spiritual power. Curious by nature and influenced by the manuscripts of the entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre (1823-1915), Jan Fabre became fascinated by the world of insects at a young age. The interaction between human and animal, and between animal and human, is an important component of metamorphosis, and is thus a constant in Fabre’s body of thought. Research into the meaning of the body is essential in the oeuvre of Jan Fabre: the body is the entrance to every emotion, thought and higher contemplation. Fabre uses interventions on his own body to explore its fluid boundaries. This is an endless quest for the self, the shell which serves as the entrance to deeper contents. The artist’s enduring fascination with the body is also strongly apparent in the personal actions and performances, from 1976 to today. Jan Fabre has been invited to integrate artworks into various public locations in Belgium and abroad, including: ‘The Man Who Measures the Clouds’ (1998), which can be seen at various sites in Europa and Asia. In Brussels, you experience ‘The Gaze Within (The Hour Blue)’ (2011-2013) in the stairwell of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts and ‘Heaven of Delight’ (2002) at the Royal Palace. You can find ‘Totem’ (2004), an installation depicting a jewel beetle on the Ladeuzeplein in Leuven which became a symbol of the city. In Antwerp, the artist’s hometown, you encounter ‘The Man who Bears the Cross’ (2015) in the Cathedral of Our Lady. In the same city Fabre created three altarpieces in the footsteps of Rubens, Jordaens and Van Dyck in St. Augustine’s Church/AMUZ. Like ‘Heaven of Delight’, these altarpieces are made with the wing cases of jewel beetles. His latest addition to his public installations are four red coral sculptures in the chapel of Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples (2019), in dialogue with a masterpiece of Caravaggio. As well as being a visual artist and a theatre artist, Jan Fabre is also the author of a large oeuvre of theatre texts that are regarded as reference works by theatre directors, academics and performers alike. Over the years, Jan Fabre has created his own language of ‘physiological’ acting, summed up in his guidelines for a performer in the 21st century. Jan Fabre Teaching Group also passes on his theatre texts and specific language as an instrument to a new generations of artists all over the world. The imagination and physical awareness are gradually sharpened and the performer is challenged to build a bridge to a state of physical transformation. https://www.troubleyn.be/eng https://www.angelos.be

IVANA JOZIC Ivana Jozic is a dancer and actress, born in Zagreb, Croatia. She studied dance at the School for Classical Ballet in Zagreb and London Contemporary Dance School, and acting in Drama Studio London. She started to work with Jan Fabre in 2003 for the production Je suis sang (2003). Later she continued with other productions: Tannhäuser (2004), The Crying Body (2004), Histoire des Larmes (2005), Requiem for Metamorphosis (2007), Orgy of Tolerance (2009) and Prometheus Landscape II (2011). She toured for 4 years with Fabre’s solo Angel of Death, a worldwide succes which won the Golden Laurel Wreath at the MESS International Theatre Festival, honoring the best overall performance. In 2008, Fabre had written and created another solo for her: Another Sleepy, Dusty, Delta Day. Ivana is part of Jan Fabre’s 24-hour project Mount Olympus (2015), and continues to work on other projects. As an actress, Ivana Jozic appeared in Chantal Akerman’s movie-installation Women from Antwerp in November (2007) and in Pierre Coulibeuf’s Doctor Fabre will cure you (2013).

LUK VAN DEN DRIES Luk Van den Dries is Full Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). His research deals with contemporary theatre, with a focus on postdramatic theatre. He wrote extensively on Jan Fabre, one of the main examples of postdramatic theatre in Flanders. He wrote also on the representation of the body in contemporary theatre and co-edited three books on this topic. Other important research topic is the creative process : the dynamics between director’s notebook and rehearsal process He was editor of the theatre magazine Etcetera, organiser of the Flemish-Dutch Theatrefestival, president of the jury of the Flemish-Dutch Theatrefestival and president of the Flemish Arts Council. He co-founded the postgraduate academy in theatre Apass and the arts centre for starting theatre artists in Antwerp De Theatermaker. He is co-convener of the working group Les processus de création (International Federation of Theatre Research) His latest bookpublications are Marianne Beauviche, Luk Van den Dries (ed.) Jan Fabre Esthétique du paradoxe (Harmattan, 2013) ; Thomas Crombez, Luk Van den Dries (ed.) Mass Theatre in Interwar Europe (Kadoc, 2014), Luk Van den Dries : Het geopende lichaam. Verzamelde opstellen over Jan Fabre (De Bezige Bij, 2014), Thomas Crombez, Jelle Koopmans, Frank Peeters, Luk Van den Dries, Karel Van Haesebrouck : Theater. Een Westerse geschiedenis. (Lannoo Campus, 2015). Works as a free lance dramaturg for Jan Fabre (Tannhäuser, Requiem für eine Metamorphose, Mount Olympos) Together with Louise Chardon he founded the production house AndWhatBesidesDeath and co-created Ay¨n – La Biagnoire du diable (2008) and Sensorama (2009); he was a dramaturg for Fenestra Ovalis (2011), and Vortex (2012).

Prof. Dr. Luk Van den Dries: Expanding the Regiebuch. Refigurations of the Director’s Notebook in Contemporary Theatre

In this presentation Prof. Dr. Luk Van den Dries will examine the recent evolution of the theatrical notebook or Regiebuch. The notebook is the preferred instrument of the director, or the theatrical ‘author’ that has developed along the playwright from the beginning of the twentieth century. The notebook is literally standing between the drama-text and the staging. It is the director’s sketchbook recording the design of a production. Yet it is also a log of the rehearsal process. In the developments of the last century, often grouped together as the evolution towards a ‘directors’ theatre’ (rather than a dramatists’ theatre), the importance of the Regiebuch has increased spectacularly. In the history of the modern stage, the text becomes less prominent or even disappears in favor of the visual and auditory imagination of the director. With the emergence of new media, such as digital recordings and computer-based applications for editing audio and video, the mediality of the Regiebuch is also changing. From its initial status as sketchbook and log it transforms into a kind of ‘storyboard’. Starting from this ‘genetic’ point of view Prof. Dr. Luk Van den Dries will present the preparatory work of two major directors: Jan Fabre and Romeo Castellucci. What precedes their performances? From what do they start in conceiving their performative work?

Unicult MAST | Hybrid Interfacing Academy presents: Surrender: the Art of Jan Fabre Belgium/UK | 2018 | 117 minutes | directed by Phil Griffin

Jan Fabre is a Belgian artist and director whose work is never far from controversy. Surrender focuses on his intense preparations for one of the most radical theatre projects of all time: Mount Olympus, a 24 hour performance with 27 actors on stage. This feature-length art film was shot entirely by hand on a single camera and a a crew of one. Captured onstage, backstage and in Fabre’s private atelier, the film offers a quiet and intimate glimpse of the human body when it truly surrenders and reveals its truth.

CCA’s Contemporary Performance Practices (CPP) program WITH Troubleyn Jan Fabre and SITI Company Anne Bogart, aims to acknowledge and expand the performing arts canon, tracking current trends and discovering new ones, for the benefit of contemporary performers and performance-makers. CPP is offering intensive education, taught by prominent international practitioners and educators, focusing on developing strategies for jump-starting new work from scratch by layering compelling visuals, vivid relationships, coherent text, and propulsive narrative.
The CPP Alumni: Vanda Velagic, Anja Sabol, Ana Marija Brdanovic and Sammy Glover continued collaboration by currently working on a theatre play called "Zolfanelli".
During the MAST HIA events as part of our Career development process, they will present their work and moderate talks with Jan Fabre, Luk Van den Dries, Ivana Jozic and Phil Griffin. __ The Collective Igralke is an art organization founded by four actresses Sendi Bakotić, Vanda Velagić, Anja Sabol and Ana Marija Brdanovic which all have professional background at the faculties of comparative literature, philology, social anthropology, cultural management and speech therapy. They independently perform their projects as authors and producers. As a female collective, they nurture a feminist, non-hierarchical structure of work organization, fighting for the equality of all vulnerable groups, with an environmentally conscious attitude towards the technical and artistic needs of individual performances. “We explore new performance practices that challenge the direct and reciprocal relationship between the arts and the community.” "Plastika fantastika" was their first project, while the next one (satirical-documentary play "Bake") will have its premiere in December as part of the official program Rijeka 2020 - European Capital of Culture. In July 2019 they were part of Contemporary Performance Practices with SITI Troubleyn Jan Fabre and SITI Company Anne Bogart organised by The Croatian Cultural Alliance (CCA) where they started collaboration with Sammy Glover (London based theatre director) and currently working on a theatre play called Zolfanelli. „ZOLFANELLI“ Zolfanelli is a play about bargains with the devil, powders and the contradictions of freedom. Set in a highly industrialized/revisionist society of Free State, inspired by Rijeka, and in the world of the play the site of sulphur extraction and refinement for Blandex, a vast comercial empire run by Dietrich Dietrich. The play’s “Zolfanelli”, are divided into two groups. First Dietrich Dietrich herself is sulfureuse (a French word for ‘’hellish’’) via her connection to the underworld/ sulphur extraction. Second, Blandex’s opponents spark a resistance against Dietrich Dietrich, as Zolfanelli (an Italian word for “matches”), through members of the resistance against Blandex. The play’s scenes take place in a villa, a factory and a theater and follow a plot that begins with Anabel’s return to Free State from Berlin, where she is reunited with her lover Francesca. In Berlin, Anabel has learned that Dietrich Dietrich, is suffering from MCDT, a hereditary disease, and manufacturing and antidote in the factory where Margarit Ajda (a former member of the resistance) and her cousin Brusli are enslaved. When Anabel and Francesca free Brusli and Margarit Ajda from the factory, they all face problems trying to spark a revolution based on the freedoms available to them through the resistance.
VANDA VELAGIC
Studied Cultural and social anthropology in Ljubljana university, Acting and media on the University of applied arts in Rijeka and is now employed as producer in organization for contemporary arts and theory Drugo more in Rijeka. As a co-founder of Collective Igralke she aspires to build many of her future performance projects with this young independent collective.
ANJA SABOL
Rijeka based actress and co-founder of artistic collective „Igralke“. Formal education in acting gets at the Academy of Applied Arts in Rijeka through mentorship of Rade Šerbedžija, prof.emeritus and doc. Lenka Udovički. With collective „Igralke“ currently working on two international projects. She also works as a speech and language therapist with children.
SAMMY GLOVER
Sammy’s is currently a Resident Director at The Almeida Theatre, London. Sammy's theatre work is focused on platforming young people’s experience, staging unheard or marginalised voices and improving access in the arts through exciting, form interrogating and site-specific theatre. In 2017-2018 Sammy was the Associate Director of The Big House, working with care leavers and at risk young people between the ages of 16-25, empowering young people through theatre.

Lev Manovich: "Artificial Intelligence, Aesthetics, and Future of Culture"

While debates on questions such as "will AI replace artists" and "canAI be truly creative" continue, AI has already been shaping contemporary global culture for a number of years. Examples include systems that model our taste and aesthetic preferences, recommending books, music, and movies, enhancing photos, designing websites and visualizations, writing newspaper articles, making movie trailers, TV scripts, etc. Starting with this real situation, I want to explore with you a few key issues. If contemporary culture is organized around templates, conventions, and vocabularies of repeated elements, why its creation has not been automated a long time ago? Is there any data to suggest that AI culture automation will contribute to a decrease in cultural diversity over time? Or does it on the contrary increases cultural diversity? Can we imagine what design, media, and art we will have in 20-30 years - and will "contemporary art" still even exist? And what about "general-purpose cultural artificial intelligence" - will it ever be achieved, and what it may look like?

Dr. Lev Manovich is one of the leading theorists of digital culture worldwide and a pioneer in the application of data science for analysis of contemporary culture. Manovich is the author and editor of 15 books including Cultural Analytics, AI Aesthetics, Theories of Software Culture, Instagram and Contemporary Image, Software Takes Command, Soft Cinema: Navigating the Database and The Language of New Media which was described as "the most suggestive and broad-ranging media history since Marshall McLuhan." He was included in the list of "25 People Shaping the Future of Design" in 2013 and the list of "50 Most Interesting People Building the Future" in 2014. Manovich is a Presidential Professor at The Graduate Center, CUNY, and a Director of the Cultural Analytics Lab that pioneered analysis of visual culture using computational methods. The lab created projects for the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), New York Public Library, Google, and other clients. His latest book "Cultural Analytics" will be published by The MIT Press in Fall 2020. http://manovich.net

Barbara de Coninck: "My only Nation is Imagination" On the total art of Jan Fabre

Lecture will be very extensive answer on the question regarding the crossover between theatre - visual art. Barbara de Coninck will focus on three deep intuitions in the oeuvre: Fabres relation to (1) history (the matrix: the Old Masters in painting / the greek tragedies in the theatre) / (2) nature (human nature - in both the theatre - cfr. The self-portrait - and the art; the relation to the animal in both theatre and art) / (3) the body (bodily fluids in theatre & art / the body as a canvas / the stigmata / idea of physiological acting). Ending with the central intuition of the metamorphosis (everywhere!) & the idea of ‘consilience’.

BARBARA DE CONINCK Shortly after her studies in French an Italian literature Barbara De Coninck (Bruges, 1965) started working with Jan Fabre. She was the managing director of Troubleyn (1995-2001) and the artistic director of the artist’s studio Angelos Jan Fabre (2002-2018). She was a performer in Je suis sang (2001) and Histoire des Larmes (2005) and played the female Dionysos in Mount Olympus (2015). Beside her all-time love for the arts she is a mother of two twins and a passionate birdwatcher.