°formal: juli 2012

zondag 22 juli 2012

Wim T. Schippers

A theatre play of 1986, performed in Amsterdam. The only actors in the play are the 6 dogs.

Click for the English introduction:

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Katharina Detzel

Katharina Detzel with a male stuffed dummy of her own making 1914

Insane women had no place in the normal society. They went to mental institutions were they had no voice at all. There were almost twice as much women diagnosed for insanity as men. In the early 1910 women were not taking serious in their artwork, they only had the opportunity to put their creativity in the typical female handcraft. The institutions gave the insane women the special opportunity to make art work as well, but the staff didn´t attended to save and register the made artwork like they did with their male patients. All tough most artwork we have today from women around that era, are products of these female mental institutions.

Katharina made a life-sized male doll out of the mattress ticking and straw from her bed, which she’d pummel when she was angry or dance with when she felt happy. This male gave her the surrogate love she needed in the institute.

Katharina was put in the Heidelberg mental institution in 1907 after supposedly sabotaging a railway line as a political protest. Before the Nazis murdered her in 1941, she wrote a play, tried to establish a home for babies, protested against the way the inmates were treated, and created miniature figures out of bread dough she probably chewed herself. More about außsenseiter kunst at Waanzin is vrouwelijk (Dutch)

Rutger Kopland

Meneer K

Meneer K is nu voorgoed naar het gesticht
gebracht omdat hij iedere nacht naar moeder
wilde. Het hielp niets meer als men zei
dat moeder 20 jaar geleden al gestorven was,
5 minuten later besteeg hij toch de brom-
fiets en verdween vol gas in het duister

Meneer K (51), zijn gezicht stil van verkalking
weet niets meer, alleen tegen het einde van
de dag glimlacht hij als hij naar buiten kijkt
en ziet dat het donker wordt. Kom, zegt hij
dan, ik stap maar weer eens op.

Simeon ten Holt

donderdag 19 juli 2012

Lionel Billiet

The project ‘Concrete lichen’ or Living pigment by Lionel Billiet and the Kluyver Centre for Genomics of Industrial Fermentation is an examination of the biological growth of lichens on man-made surfaces such as buildings. The project above all aims to learn to propagate the lichen Xanthoria parietina, the lichen will then be planted on existing concrete walls – and the results observed.

website

Mathijs Munnik

Microscopic Opera is an audiovisual installation created by Matthijs Munnik and the Netherlands Consortium for Systems Biology. In this project lab worms C. Elegans produce images and sounds. Quote: “We are able to manipulate life forms without them even knowing that we exist. What if the same is also true for us? What if humans are not aware that something else is manipulating them?”

website