Curriculum 2020-2021

Credit Points (ECTS points) are assigned two times a year, at the end of each semester and before the presentations. Each credit point represents 28 hours of ‘study load’. Students (both Bachelors and Masters) should earn a total of 60 credit points per year. Part of the courses are obligatory, other courses can be chosen regarding certain rules and besides that there are a number of credit points for elective courses or alternative study related activities (this is called the individual study trajectory (IST) or portfolio). Obtaining IST points is not mandatory in B1, but allowed and encouraged.

Credit points for participation in courses,MediaTechnology courses,KABK and KC courses are assigned on the basis of the evaluations given by the teachers of those courses.

The credit points for the individual study trajectory are assigned on the basis of written reports or other forms of project documentation. The student is expected tocheck beforehand with his/her coach whether the activity is applicable for IST. Afterwards, the IST report is evaluated by the coach and the head of department.

* The ‘ArtScience Courses of Choice’ in the curriculum can be chosen from all the courses offered by the department (or in collaboration with KC/KABK) that are mentioned in the Course Descriptions (including those in the Exchange Weeks with Sonology and Composition). The student is required to follow enough courses to obtain the amount of ECTS as mentioned in the Curriculum of his/her year of study. Eventually, other courses within KC/KABK and MediaTechnology (Leiden University) can alternatively be taken, but only after prior approval by coach or head of department and to a maximum of 6 ECTS. Courses part of the CASS Exchange Weeks count as normal ArtScience courses.

ArtScience B1 Curriculum
ArtScience B2 Curriculum
ArtScience B3 Curriculum
ArtScience B4 Curriculum
ArtScience M1 Curriculum
ArtScience M2 Curriculum

Curriculum Handbook Bachelor (in preparation)
Curriculum Handbook Master (download PDF)

ArtScience B1 Curriculum ECTS
ArtScience Courses of Choice* 2
Collecting Observations 2
Introduction to ArtScience 1
Introduction to Electronics 1
Introduction to Programming 4
Introduction to Studio Techniques 1
Int(r)o Projection 2
Lighting as/for Performance 2
MetaMedia 2
New Arts & Music Theory (Semester 1+2) 3
The ‘Other’ Senses 2
Quick & Dirty 2
SoundWorlds 4
IST 3
B1-Meetings (Semester 1+2) 2
Manic Mondays 2
Semester 1 Presentation 8
Midterm Presentation (Semester 2) 2
Semester 2 Presentation (Propaedeutic Exam) 15
Total 60

ArtScience B2 Curriculum ECTS
ArtScience Courses of Choice* 22
Studium Generale (Semester 1+2) 2
IST 8
B2-Meetings (Semester 1+2) 1
Manic Mondays 2
Semester 1 Presentation 8
Midterm Presentation (Semester 2) 2
Semester 2 Presentation 15
Total 60

ArtScience B3 Curriculum ECTS
ArtScience Courses of Choice* 18
Professional Practice Preparation 2
IST 12
B3-Meetings (Semester 1+2) 1
Manic Mondays 2
Semester 1 Presentation 8
Midterm Presentation (Semester 2) 2
Semester 2 Presentation 15
Total 60

ArtScience B4 Curriculum ECTS
ArtScience Courses of Choice* 10
IST 14
B4-Meetings (Semester 1+2) 1
Manic Mondays 2
Bachelor Thesis 8
Semester 1 Presentation 8
Preview Exam 2
Semester 2 Presentation (Bachelor Final Presentation) 15
Total 60

ArtScience M1 Curriculum ECTS
ArtScience Courses of Choice* 18
Introduction to ArtScience 1
Introduction to Studio Techniques 1
IST 9
M1/M2-Meetings (Semester 1+2) 4
Manic Mondays 2
Semester 1 Presentation 8
Midterm Presentation (Semester 2) 2
Semester 2 Presentation 15
Total 60

ArtScience M2 Curriculum ECTS
ArtScience Courses of Choice* 8
IST 13
M1/M2-Meetings (Semester 1+2) 4
Manic Mondays 2
Master Thesis 8
Semester 1 Presentation 8
Preview Exam 2
Semester 2 Presentation (Master Final Presentation) 15
Total 60

 

Archive

* Curriculum 2019-2020
* Curriculum 2018-2019
* Curriculum 2017-2018
* Curriculum 2016-2017
* Curriculum 2015-2016
* Curriculum 2014-2015
* Curriculum 2013-2014


Courses 2020-2021

This is an overview of ArtScience courses given this Academic Year, subject to the ‘ArtScience Courses of Choice’ stated in the curriculum. Some courses are mandatory for students of certain years, which is mentioned with the course description. All courses are open for all students of the Bachelor as well as the Master programme, unless the course is full.

CASS Exchange Workshops are part of the exchange weeks (two weeks after the Autumn Break and two weeks after the Spring Break) between the Creative Departments of the Royal Conservatoire (Composition, Sonology and ArtScience), where all departments offer courses accessible to all of their students.

MasterPrimers are courses on a higher theoretical level. They are focused on our Master students. Bachelor students can attend, though they should realise the level. In cases of a limited allowed number of students to a Master Primer course, Masters will have priority over Bachelors.

KABK IST Courses mentioned here are those courses of the KABK IST programme that are organised by ArtScience.

PLEASE NOTE: Due to the current Covid-19 pandemia, this schedule can be subject to changes over the year. We hope for your understanding.

This list is not 100% complete yet. More course descriptions will be added here in the very near future.

AIOTMLWTF 0.2a — Arthur Elsenaar
Art <> Science Methods — Valery Vermeulen
ArtScience Repertoire — Marion Tränkle & guests
B(l)ack to Spaceship Earth — TBA
Coding Max for Creative Output — Johan van Kreij
Cognitive Dissonance — Arthur Elsenaar
Co-Lab: Performance, Cybernetics and Experimental Play — Marion Tränkle
Collecting Observations — Marion Tränkle & guests
Communication and Production — Marisa Manck
Disobedient Devices — Dani Ploeger
Excavating Imagination Landscapes — Michiel Pijpe, Roel Heremans
Exploring the Game Engine as a Medium — Jan Robert Leegte
Introduction to ArtScience — Taconis Stolk
Introduction to Electronics — Lex van den Broek
Introduction to Programming — Jeroen Meijer
Introduction to Studio Techniques — Robert Pravda
Int(r)o Projection — Kasper van der Horst
Lighting Design for/as Performance — Katinka Marač
Lighting Design for Digital Stages — Katinka Marač
MetaMedia — Taconis Stolk
New Arts & Media Theory — David Dramm, Gabriel Paiuk, Marion Tränkle
’Pataphysics — Matthijs van Boxsel
Patterns of Ebb and Flow — Cocky Eek
Practical Perfumery for Olfactory Art — Renske van Vroonhoven, Lauren Jetty
Presentation as Performance — Hilt De Vos
Professional Practice Preparation — TBA
Pro Projection — Kasper van der Horst
Prototyping Decolonization in the Art Studio — Milton Almonacid, Darko Lagunas
Quick and Dirty — Cocky Eek
RecPlay (Semester 1, Semester 2) — Kasper van der Horst, Robert Pravda
Redeconstruct Media — Kasper van der Horst, Nenad Popov
Sensors, Actuators & Microcontrollers — Lex van den Broek, Johan van Kreij
SoundWorlds 1 — Robert Pravda, Milica Ilić
SoundWorlds 2 — Robert Pravda
Spacious: The Architectural Body (SpaceTime 2) — Renske Maria van Dam
Spacious: Tiny Perceptions (SpaceTime 1) — Renske Maria van Dam
Spectra: Space as Organism #5 — Andrea Bożić, Julia Willms
Studium Generale — Erica Sprey & guests
The Choreography of Daily Life — Esther Polak, Ivar van Bekkum
The ‘Other’ Senses — Caro Verbeek
What to Sonify when Lending an Ear to an Event — Willem van Weelden
Why Look at Animals? — Cocky Eek, guests
Writing as/in Research — Maya Rasker


 

AIOTMLWTF 0.2A – Computation in Art
Arthur Elsenaar
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Weekly Course, online

Course Content:
A year long research group aiming to explore – from a historic perspective – a variety of topics that relate to generative/process art, computation, AI/ML, complexity, cybernetics, emergence, chaos vs randomness, etc.
In seminar style, the group will pick a topic (paper) for the next session that will then be presented by one of the participants and discussed in the group.
Next to theory, we will work on practical code examples and collectively work on individual programming problems.
A previous iteration of this course can be found here: https://aiotmlwtf.xyz

Requirements:
Students need to have experience with programming (Python).

Objectives:
– you will have a better understanding of named topics and how these relate on one another
– you’ve gained some practical skills in implementing these topics in your own art endeavours
– you became wise enough not to go under in a sea of complexity

Work form:
Seminar style with hands-on exercises and problem solving.

Assessment:
Attendance (min 80%) and proven understanding of the topics by showing working code (whatever that is).

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: TBA


 

Art <> Science Methods
Dr. Valery Vermeulen
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, online

Course Content:
Main focus of this course is how creativity and creative processes can be used and understood from an artistic, a scientific as well as an intersectional point of view.
When working as a creative mind it is often unfortunately still preassumed that there is an inherent choice between an analyticand more intuitive approach. The analytic being more associated with a “scientific” approach and the “intuitive” being with a more artistic approach. Recent new developments in the field of artscience try to dissolve and put this dichotomization in a new perspective. Despite this evolution the missing link between the method and world of the artist and that of the archetypal scientist still persists. This course is aimed at guiding the students to find this missing link in their own work and practice. In doing so we’ll seek to provide guidlines for an intersectional approach to working in the artscience domain.
We’ll start the course by diving into the methods, strategies and techniques that are the driving force of new discoveries in various scientific domains. Domains hereby include mathematics, physics, econometrics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology and data sciene. By studying various examples you’ll learn how to dissect and discover the parallels between “scientific” analytic creative processes and similar processes typically associated with artistic creation. The examples cover a diverse range both on an historical as well as cultural side.
Subsequently you’ll learn how to hack scientific creative processes and ideas and put them into practice in your own work. This is done under the form of a personal project for which you’ll be creating a blueprint and production plan throughout this course. This project can be related to your own work or can be build around a new topic you’re interested in.
As a first step you’ll learn how to find and incorporate the best fitting knowledge resources (literature and online recourses) related to your project. A key element hereby is to develop the skill to find recourses you can work with using personal background and knowledge that have the necessary scientific relevance. Moreover in doing so it will also give you an insight into the knowledge and expertise that is out of your personal scope and would require collaborations with external (academic) partners.
In the next step you’ll learn to design an analytic framework around the central question(s) and/or paradigm(s) in your project. You’ll be thought the basic principles of quantitative inference as used in various scientific domains such as data science, statistics, mathematics and information science. This will on the one hand learn you how to transform concepts and questions into a quantitive framework. On the other hand this will also provide you with the necessary knowledge to understand and use the limitations and pitfalls of quantitative methods and inference strategies. Hereby you’ll also learn how to connect the different quantitative methods to an artistic practice and/or point of view.
Subsequently we’ll zoom in on the use of various intermediate disciplines and knowledge fields and their tools in artscience context and your own project in particular. We’ll not only be creating an overview of the different domains from a knowledge point of view but we’ll also focus on the different soft and/or hardware tools and devices that are typically used. As we want to use such tools in an artscience context we’ll be also investigate how these can be hacked for artistic purposes. Examples of such tools include R (https://www.r-project.org/), Octave (https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/), Python (https://www.python.org/) or Paraview (https://www.paraview.org/).
Towards the end of the course you’ll have build an overview of the scientific knowledge, tools and/or techniques you’ll have need external input. You’ll then learn in a next step how to look for possible scientific partners and the strategies to setup up viable collaborations.
To end the course we’ll incorporate the concept of recursiveness in developing a project. This will guide you how to set realizible milestones in your personal project and how to create under various constraints such as time and/or resource limits.

Requirements:
There is no prior knowledge required for this course. Key qualifications of the students are both an analytic as
well as creative attitude.

Objectives:
– you will have a thorough understanding of the practical similarities and differences between creative process
employed by scientists and artists
– you will have a working knowledge on the different creative processes and analytic strategies used by
scientists
– you will acquire the skill how to transform analytic strategies and methods used by scientists for artistic
purposes and your own practice in particular
– you will have a thorough knowledge how to create and design a production plan for an artscience project.
This includes:
– thorough understanding how to look for knowledge domains and resources, soft and/or hardware tools for
the realization of an artscience project
– skill to how and where to find the relevant scientific disciplines, how to hack the knowledge in seach
discipline for use in artistic context
– skill to work and set up collaborations with external scientific partners
– gaining deeper understanding and build a practical experience to incorporate an intersectional approach in
artscience context
– you will have the skill to balance between the scientific integrity and artistic interpretation and incorporation
of scientific domains in artscience projects

Work form:
Presentation of final project.
Final project as written document.
Literature and knowlede recources review.
Group discission.

Assessment:
Presentation of final project.
Presentation will be held on 19/02.
Project proposal and description under the form of a written document.
Due date is 26/02.
Weighting for final quotation:
Presentation of final project: 30%.
Project proposal and description: 50%.
Attendance: 20%.

Grading System: Numeric
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours


 

ArtScience Repertoire
Marion Tränkle and guest lecturers from LIMA
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
This workshop is the first edition of a new format that is dedicated to explore the history of ArtScience on a case-base. Every year, one seminal work is researched in great detail, placed in its historic context, re-enacted and re-interpreted. The tangible results of the workshop will be presented during the Open Day. The process will be documented online. The workshop is conducted in collaboration with LIMA, a center of expertise on archiving, preservation, and distribution of media art.
This year features the genre of telematic art, remote encounters, and the work “Telematic Dreaming” (1992) by Paul Sermon.

Requirements:
Availability during the open day 2021 (22-23.1.2021).

Objectives:
– learn about digital preservation, presentation and documentation of media artworks
– research into the genre of Telematic Art
– analyse and contextualize Paul Sermon’s work in its historic context.
– re-enact “Telematic dreaming”
– experiment with different forms of re-interpretation of the work
– publicly present/perform the workshop outcome
– document the results and publish it online

Work form:
Students work collectively on a project, present it during the Open Day to the public, and publish the documentation of the outcome online. Self-study and lectures complement the program.

Assessment:
Attendance, active participation in group process, participation in the performance/presentation during the Open Day and individual contribution to the production and online documentation of the work.
60% attendance, participation in group process.
20% participation and performance during the Open Day.
20% individual contribution.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 casses of 6 hours


 

B(l)ack to Spaceship Earth
TBA
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Master Primer Course, physical

Course Content:
“There is no cure for the condition of belonging to the world.”
(Bruno Latour – Facing Gaia)
We used to have our reveries about an escape into space, but no longer. Philosopher and sociologist of science Bruno Latour, arguably the most prominent thinker alive in this domain currently, mentioned in one of his lectures on the state of ecological politics that he asked some befriended physicists to calculate how much energy it would take to build a giant spaceship and take all of humanity and as much as possible other species of Planet Earth and bring them to a shining brand new and ecological sane planet. If such a place would exist at all his physics’ friends quickly calculated that aside from the material investment in building such a giant spaceship, powering it sufficiently to reach any other start system (let alone find a suitable planet), would take all the energy of the sun.
So even if we could achieve this daunting engineering feat, and if we could organise it so that all inhabitants of planet Earth could join there in an orderly fashion (without civil wars, famines, ideological and religious conflicts, domestic abuse, #metoo scandals, Tesla flame throwers, Kalashnikovs and/or any other debasement we would not want on such a post-modern day Arc of Noah), then it would mean literally burning our bridges and boats behind us – obliterating the entire solar system in order to venture into an uncertain and destined to fail future.
It may be clear: this phantasy is an utter absurdity. Hence there is no cure from condition of belonging to Earth, except for a privileged very few (Musk, Bezos, Gates, Trump – would you want to join that company?).
The good news is though, we already have a spaceship. We are already on it, and it is marvellous despite ll its glaring imperfections. That spaceship is called planet Earth, and the question is not wether or not Earth will continue to exist, nor if life on the surface of Planet Earth is going to persist. The question is much rather whether human life is going to persist on planet Earth, and whether ‘we’ as a collective can continue to exist with a basic sense of dignity? More importantly still, how many other species would we take down with us in our fall if we are finally not able to tend to our Spaceship Earth?
To address these questions we need to begin by understanding ‘we’ as the collective of humans and non-humans. ‘We’ (as humans) are not alone on this planet. ‘We’ (as humans) have never been alone. ‘We’ (as humans) must now simply start to acknowledge this obvious condition that we are part of the collective of humans and non-humans and take responsibility for that. The old dictum of ‘Man’ as ‘master and proprietor of nature’ (Descartes) is over and done with. We knew that already when the permafrost was defrosting, but the Sars-Cov-2 outbreak has made that obvious ‘reality’ impossible to deny or escape. With our without the virus, we are bound to earth, and thus we need to face Gaia – like it or not.
In Latour’s words: “The time is past for hoping to “get through it.” We are indeed, as they say, “in a tunnel,” except that we won’t see light at the end. In these matters, hope is a bad counselor, since we are not in a crisis. We can no longer say “this, too, will pass.” We’re going to have to get used to it. It’s definitive.”
But to state the obvious (as above) is not enough. First we can speculate: What could post-colonial theories tell us about an existence in dignity on planet Earth? And how do these ideas link up with the narratives of an escape into ‘Space’? Why were / are these narratives so much fun (and so popular)?
Conversely we can ask: Is there pleasure in facing Gaia? How / where can we find it? Where is the basic eroticism of our planet? How can we liberate our existential territories from servile utility and still act responsibly to the collective of humans and non-humans and its demands (the least of which is the demand to exist in dignity)?
In yet other words the question is: How can we (as the collective of humans and non-humans) reinvent a sovereign life on the surface of Planet Earth?
Topics:
– Space was the Place! – Black to Spaceship Earth
– Transversal expeditions to existential territories – Back to Spaceship Earth
– Modes of living / existing together: The Collective of humans and non-humans and the parliament of things – or how to bring the sciences into democracy (at last)
– Four ways in: material / existential / aesthetic / organisational – from ecology to art to politics and back (to earth)
– Another Post-COVID-19 World is Possible: Composing the ‘good common world’ (of humans and non-humans.
– Dignity in the embrace of a planetary erotics.

Requirements:
Academic level 3rd years BA and beyond.

Objectives:
– introduction to current political and ecological thinking that is crucial to our survival (humans and non-humans) on the Earth-ball.
– fostering an understanding of post-colonial and post-anthropocentric ecological theories.
– Ssimulating a critical engagement with these theories, including a well-argued rejection if required by one’s specific ideological predisposition.

Work form:
Seminars.

Assessment:
Practical assignment and group presentation.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours


 

Coding Max for Creative Output
Johan van Kreij
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, online

Course Content:
The visual programming environment Max has many potential uses: audio processing, interaction design, image manipulation, online data usage, and more. This brief course won’t be able to deal with all of this in depth but will help building a general understanding of using Max for generating creative output. Based on student’s projects and interests, the content of the course can be adjusted. Overall it will cover subjects such as basic programming strategies, dealing with simple and complex data, making use of different types of input and output (audio, visuals, sensors and actuators) and various approaches to simple (or more complex) interaction. Since the application Puredata has many similarities it will be introduces as well.
Requirements:
In order to participate you will need access to a computer with Max or Puredata installed on it. Having some prior knowledge about Max is fine but not at all a requirement.
Objectives:
At the end of this course, you:
— Have acquired basic Max programming skills
— Know how to step by step work towards solutions to complex problems
— Understand how creative output has its representation in abstract data
— Have a better understanding of various digital protocols
Work form:
The course consists of morning sessions on four days in which a topic is introduced after which the student works on a personal project. This personal work is guided by sharing results and receiving feedback. It is advisable to have an idea for a project at the beginning of the course. The course will take place completely online.
Assessment:
At the end of the course the project of each student will be assessed based on a small presentation. This can be done live or handed in as a pdf document. The presentation shares the initial ideas, documents the process of defining problems and finding solutions and shows the final stage of the project. Furthermore, it expresses what was successful and what was not (yet) achieved. Since the range of possible projects can be very diverse, and the course is relatively brief, the assessment will not include an absolute level of skills but instead focus on the progress that was made while realizing the project.
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: Four Thursdays in March (18, 25) and April (1, 8) from 10:00 to 16:00 through video conferencing


 

Cognitive Dissonance – Theory in Practice
Arthur Elsenaar
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, performs an action that is contradictory to one or more beliefs, ideas, or values, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.
This two week practice-based course is exploring Leon Festinger’s classic cognitive dissonance theory. We learn what this theory is about and how to effectively deploy it in artistic practice with the aim to maximize the impact of the artwork on the recipient.
Be(come) psyched!?

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
– you have learned about cognitive dissonance as a powerful human ‘feature’
– you have become a master in designing the ultimate brainfuck

Work form:
Seminar style with hands-on exercises and problem solving.

Assessment:
Attendance (min 80%). Presented project evaluated on concept and practical implementation.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours


 

Co-Lab: Performance, Cybernetics and Experimental Play
Marion Tränkle & guests
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
In this lab, collaborative work and the experimentation with art as process and system will be central. In two weeks you will develop a cybernetic practice and a basic theoretical understanding of structures and functions of systems. We will study among others feedback loops, self-regulation and homeostatic systems, autopoiesis and self- organization, and find ways to “game play” and performatively embody those principles.
This lab draws loosely on the work of the British artist Roy Ascott who has worked since the 1960s with computer art and telematics. In his Groundcourse and cybernetic classroom which he developed at Ipswich Civic College, Ascott conceptualized cybernetics as a model for art practice and teaching.

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
Introduction to cybernetics and system thinking as a method to drive artistic experimentation.
— Learn to work together and experiment collaboratively
— Gain theoretical understanding about the basic operating units of
systems
— Know how to translate system features into action and performative
scores
— Know how to deduct system mechanisms from the observation of
phenomena
— Be inspired by Roy Ascott’s cybernetic classroom practice

Work form:
Students work collectively on a set of experiments.

Assessment:
Attendance and active participation in group process. Self-study and reflection.
70% attendance, participation in group process
30% self-study and individual contribution.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours


 

Collecting Observations
Marion Tränkle
Mandatory for: B1
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
Experimentation – observation – documentation. In this workshop we will cycle through a process of making work, starting from fiddling and free-flow experimentation to razor sharp selection and decision making. Taking the medium of light as our field of experimentation, we will discover how ideas can take shape and how observation and documentation can inform further actions and the sharpening of those ideas.
The workshop claims fiddling as an important tool for art making, and looks for ways to draw constructive consequences from it. Therefore, documentation and recording of this process will be an important aspect of the workshop. Please bring your cameras and sketchbooks.

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
– gain basic skills concerning the creative process of art-making
– get to know each other and discover ways of stepping into the process together
– learn to identify and switch between modes of experimentation, observation and documentation
– develop a personal vocabulary to capture observations in a diary format

Work form:
You will work in group processes to get to know each other and to generate diverse input. Furthermore, each of you is required to keep an individual record of those processes.

Assessment:
Attendance, active participation in group processes, individual report (work diary) at the end of the workshop.
70% attendance, participation.
30% self-reflection, individual report.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours


 

Communication and Production
Marisa Manck
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, online

Course Content:
In this course we will focus on your role in production processes in the arts. You will practice giving and receiving feedback in order to keep good communication with the production team. Doing so will enable you to meet the timelines and – very importantly – do this in good communication and in a good atmosphere.
At the end of the course you will:
— Be able to make a realistic production sheet with timelines;
— Have knowledge on how to communicate within a product organisation;
—Be more aware of your own position within the organisation and responsibilities you can take/have.

Requirements:
None.

Objectives:
— Have knowledge on how production processes in arts works.
— Have knowledge of giving and receiving feedback.
— Have knowledge of making and production sheets, time tables etc

Work form:
Theory: we will explore the theory of project organization and communication by lectures and discussion.
Assessment:
Individual assignment: presentation of your production proposal
Individual assignment: make a production sheet
Groups assignments: practice new learned communication skills
Weight:
— 60% attendance
— 20% presentation and assignments
— 20% self-reflection

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours


 

Disobedient Devices: Practice Based Media Archaeology of Disruptive Technologies
Dani Ploeger
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
clean consumer spaces that are prevalent in the Global North in mind. However, devices are also used outside these contexts, for example in situations of environmental hardship or violent conflict, where they are oftentimes appropriated by users in reponse to local circumstances. Wifi routers are hacked to connect storage media and serve as information resources in areas without Internet connection; cooling fans from obsolete computers are repurposed in DIY vacuum cleaners; mobile phones are used as remote triggers for Improvised Explosive Devices. Studying these appropriation practices can offer new perspectives on the ideologies of high-tech consumerism and inform approaches to everyday resistance and activism.
In this course, we will draw from methods in media archaeology to examine the appropriation of everyday consumer technologies since the 1980s and develop artwork in response to this. Media archaeology concerns the theoretical and practice-based study of the histories of media technology to trace the ways obsolete, neglected or forgotten technologies and their imaginaries frequently resurface in subsequent innovations. Based on such analyses, critiques of contemporary media technologies are developed.
The course will combine theoretical and practice-based inquiry to create artistic artefacts that explore possible, but unrealized alternatives to the historical development of contemporary devices and use these to reflect on the politics of production and marketing in everyday consumer technology. We will read theory in media studies and cultural studies of technology, browse the web for museum archives and informal user accounts, dig through our own memories and closets of everyday technologies, and make new devices through appropriation of existing ideas and stuff.

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
– you will be familiar with a range of critical perspectives on appropriation of everyday technologies
– you will have gained knowledge of various ways in which consumer technologies have been appropriated since the digital revolution
– you will have explored theoretical and practice-based methods in media archaeology
– you will have gained experience in making or adapting a digital device in response to critical reflection on everyday technologies

Work form:
The course will combine critical inquiry based on theoretical texts and archival research with practice-based explorations of consumer electronics. The latter may include hands-on hacking and modification of existing or newly developed devices, but prior knowledge of electronics is not necessary.

Assessment:
The course will be assessed on the basis of attendance and a final presentation in which participants will present an artefact they found or made, accompanied by a critical reflection that draws from the course contents.
50% attendance (assessed throughout the course).
50% final presentation (assessed on the last day of the course).

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours


 

Excavating Imagination Landscapes
michiel Pijpe, Roel Heremans
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
Central theme; To speculate on and fictionalize on the (local) archaealogical assemblage of a city or landscape and develop a new provenance for an historical object.
Sub theme(s); (history of) archaealogical subcategories; i.e. forensic archeology, maritime archaeology, landscape archaeology, battlefield archaeology. History and Imaginary solutions (pataphysics), Narrative techniques in historiography, rhetoric skills and the language of archaealogy & history…
Requirements:
A general interest in historiography and archaealogy.

Objectives:
– Collectively develop and present a series of imagination choreographies in which poetic positions towards (local) archaeological histories are explored.
— Gain insight in (the history of) archaealogical surveys and field work including explorations of the contemporary interface of archaeology with other disciplines.
— Develop basic scientific literacy towards history and archaealogy and learn how to position an artistic practice towards these disciplines.
— Translate course content to a performative-installation and apply various narrative techniques, usin language to choreograph a imaginative sequence.
— Gain experience as a host and/or a performer in a theatre.
Work form:
Public presentation, practice based workshop in Zaal 3, The Hague.
Assessment:
Presentation, collectively.
Assessment criteria:
— Originality in approach to central theme
— Ability to reflect, interpret and reconstruct central theme
— Approach to narration and translation to performative context
— Ability to collaborate and reflect on central theme
Weight:
— 70% presentation, assignments
— 10% attendance and participation
— 20% self reflection
Grading System: 1-10 point grade system.
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 60 hours in semester 2.


 

Exploring the Game Engine as Medium
Jan Robert Leegte
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: IST Course

Course Content:
The video game industry dwarfs Hollywood and the music industry in net worth and has increasingly become a defining cultural influence the last decades. Technically, the digital game has been the pinnacle of personal computing, pushing the technology by always operating on the cutting edge of what is possible. It is a highly complex medium, dealing with simulation, AI, complex interaction, CGI, networks but also is the ultimate Gesamtkunstwerk, mixing all art forms.
Since the first home computers, and again after the arrival of the internet pushing cross platform accessibility and distribution, game design has entered the individual sphere, resulting in a flood of indie-game developers. The push has resulted in game elements to have entered all kinds of new fields. Serious games, gamification, game appropriation in art, art games, games as activism, games as design strategy, etc.
The lab aims to introduce the game engine as a medium of expression, research or design tool.

Requirements:
None.

Objectives:
In this lab we will look into this fascinating and rapidly developing field. We will watch many examples of artists and designers using the technology, analyse the video game and deconstruct it. We will look into the ability to generate images and video, at it being a platform for virtual installations and performances, how it can be used as interactive medium and how to use it for websites and mobile / desktop apps. With the end goal not of making a game, but to look and take from it, so it works for you.

Work form:
TBA

Assessment:
TBA

Grading System: TBA
Credits: 6 ECTS
Duration: 10 weekly classes of 6 hours


 

Introduction to ArtScience
Taconis Stolk
Mandatory for: B1, M1
Type: Introductory Course, physical

Course Content:
This course is an introduction to historical and contemporary works from and around the ArtScience domain. It presents works in five narratives, each representing a different strategy for producing artistic works. The presented works range from realised and unrealised artworks to concepts. The five approaches are chosen in such a way as to trigger discussion and reflection both on existing works and your own work.

Requirements:
None.

Objectives:
— To gain insight in the artistic realm of ArtScience.
— To distinguish different creation methodologies.

Work form:
Lectures with interdisciplinary examples.

Assessment:
Attendance, participation in discussion.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 1 ECTS
Duration: 2 classes of 6 hours


 

Introduction to Electronics
Lex van den Broek
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Weekly Course, physical

Course Content:
This is a general introduction to working with electronics. It consists of three introductory classes. After those you are expected to finish your first electronic patch in individual appointments with Lex van den Broek.
Requirements:
None.
Objectives:
To gain fundamental skills in how to build electronic circuits for artistic purposes.

Work form:
Practicum.
Assessment:
Attendance, assignment.
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 1 ECTS
Duration: 3 classes of 1.5 hours plus individual appointments.


 

Introduction to Programming
Jeroen Meijer
Mandatory for: B1
Type: Standard Course, online

Course Content:
This is an introductory course into computer programming, using the Python language. After following this course, students will have a basic insight into computer programming and will know where to start creating digital prototypes for future projects that involve interaction, image, sound, video, networks and electronics.

Requirements:
None.
Objectives:
To learn the basics of computer coding for artistic use.

Work form:
Online classes.
Assessment:
Attendance, assignments.
Grading System: Pass/fail.
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours.


 

Introduction to Studio Techniques
Robert Pravda
Mandatory for: B1 and M1
Type: Introductory Course, physical

Course Content:
Practicum in usage of the ArtScience studios. The aim of this practicum is that all participants get familiar with the studio environment.
An introduction to basic use of the studios hardware and software such as:
-– booking te studios
-– mixing desk
– amplifiers, speakers, necessary cables
-– recording
– microphone sorts and use: XY, AB, MS, Binaural
– audio interfaces and editing software
– studio ethics
All the students attending the course are expected to accomplish the exercise and be able to use and operate the studio facilities and techniques.

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
Learning how to use ArtScience studio facilities.

Work form:
Meetings in the ArtScience studio CAM10 CAM20 and CAM30.

Assessment:
All the students attending the course are expected to accomplish the exercises and be able to use and operate studio facilities and technique and have attendance of 100%.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 1 ECTS
Duration: 2 classes of 1.5 hours (for 4 different groups)


 

Introprojection
Kasper van der Horst
Mandatory for: B1
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
The intention of this course is to experiment in a playful way with projection of image, light and sound in relation to your work.
keywords: •projecting on objects •surfaces •live playing •how to use audio signals •no-source •feedback video •minimal projection •ganzfeld projection •we’ll also briefly look into how tv’s, videorecorders and analog video mixers work

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
– think about how to define a space using projection
– have insight in the analog technique of video
– learn how to combine analog and digital video
– use sound in a spatial way in combination with image
– set up a video projection
– play in a live video setup
– look into complex video feedback systems

Work form:
The course consists of 4 workdays. Every day we set up a practicum with a different focus.

Assessment:
As an assignment, you will be asked to make a projection design or sketch that connects with your own work and/or ideas.
Due to the limited number of days, a 80% attendance is required.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours


 

Lighting Design for/as Performance
Katinka Marač
Mandatory for: B1
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
The goal of this course is to give an introduction to the theory and practice of lighting design and handling basic stage equipment. We will explore how meaning can be created using the exceptional possibilities of the medium light and how lighting design can be deployed in / as performance. In the seventies artists as Robert Rauschenberg and members of the New York based Judson group shared a keen interest in working at the intersection of (dance) performance, visual art and art & technology. They drastically changed (theatrical) performance, and the role of set and lighting design, freeing it from its former supportive role and incorporating them as equal elements in, or as starting points for performances. During the course we’ll trace back the origins of lighting design in contemporary performance, by looking into the work and compositional methods of renowned American artists from the sixties and seventies and contemporary predecessors such as Xavier le Roi, Meg Stuart and Martin Spangberg.
The course is set up as a creative lab. We’ll start with a short introduction in the various elements of a lighting design, including types of light, angles and colour and an introduction to technical aspects such as patch board, dimmers and the lighting board. We’ll research how lighting design can be used to create, structure and alter content, space and time and will work on lighting design as performance.

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
To master theory and practice of basic lighting design for artistic purposes.

Work form:
TBA

Assessment:
Attendance, assignments, evaluation.

Grading System: TBA
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours


 

Lighting Design for Digital Stages
Katinka Marač
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Exchange Course, online

Course Content:
Since the Corona outbreak we spent much of our time online. We make works in different spaces than before; our homes and public space have become production studios and much of our performative works are presented on digital stages. In this workshop we we’ll explore how we can use lighting design to add layers of meaning to our digital performative works. We will research how we can use light, location/space/set to tell stories and create experiences, whether we take audiences to fictive realities or we stay in the here and now. Since the visual has become so dominant, emphasis will also be placed on how light can support the haptic and sensory in our digital works.
What will we do ?
The week is set up as a hands on creative laboratory.
We start with an introduction in theoretical and technical aspects of working with light. How can we use light to create meaning, composition and mood. What are the different properties we can work with; light sources; daylight & artificial light; hard & soft light;
the effect of shadows, light angles, color and color temperatures. We’ll look into ways how we can manipulate daylight and how to work with the theatre spotlights in PB 301.
During the week you will work on a project of your choice. This can be an art video,
video installation, music video, or (live) streamed concert / performative event through social media platforms or conference software like Zoom. You can either re-stage an existing work for the digital stage or create new material.
During the days you will be shooting material. You can shoot outdoors or on location and work with available daylight or existing light sources, or work in studio PB 301 where you can use the theatre spotlights. The last 2 h of each workshop day we meet all in studio PB 301 to study and share materials, findings, questions eg. Depending on how the work goes, we can organise a presentation, life or streamed on Friday evening.
Since this is a short workshop basic knowledge of handling camera equipment and editing software is assumed. Work with materials you already are familiar with. You can use video cameras from the KABK rental department, your own DSLR camera or smartphone (eventually with the Filmic Pro app).

Requirements:
None.
Objectives:
To learn how to deal with online communication and lighting.

Work form:
Online classes.
Assessment:
Attendance, assignments.
Grading System: Pass/fail.
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 5 classes of 6 hours.


 

MetaMedia
Taconis Stolk
Mandatory for: B1
Type: Standard Course, online

Course Content:
A work of art does not confine itself to an object, a picture or a sound composition. Especially not in the 21st century, where all kinds of communication technologies and strategies can be used to compose the context of art, or even to create works in disciplines and using methods that were never explored by artists before. In this course, students are given a theoretical and practical framework on how to compose concepts and context. Approaching contemporary art as a conceptual communication model opens possibilities for unusual works of art and a critical attitude towards traditional artistic paradigms, but it also creates a framework for students to develop new and effective strategies for a professional creative position in a media world. Students will create their own metamedial works during the course.

Requirements:
None.

Objectives:
— To develop a more abstract view on possibilities of artistic expression using media that are not normally used in an artistic manner.
— To investigate and understand the parameters for creative manipulation in any potential medium.

Work form:
General introduction, working groups, individual coaching.

Assessment:
Attendance, developing and presenting a metamedial project.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours


 

New Arts & Music Theory
David Dramm, Gabriel Payuk, Marion Tränkle & guests
Mandatory for: B1
Type: Creative Departments Weekly Course, online

Course Content:
This course is offered to all first-year bachelor’s students of ArtScience, Composition and Sonology. It is aimed to nurture an awareness of the possibilities of reciprocal expansion that exist between the domains of theory and artistic practice. The course tackles areas of enquiry that traverse both the substrate of artistic practice and theoretical research, articulated in thematic segments throughout the year. These segments comprise questions on the nature of: Language, Materiality, Media and Technology, Sensation and Affect, Ecology, Culture and the Collective.
These thematic axes promote the familiarisation of the students with recent as well as historical theoretical tools, through an exposure to texts and artistic practices sourced in different traditions and knowledge disciplines. The course includes the participation of a substantial number of guest teachers coming from diverse areas and institutions across the Netherlands (and beyond) including Musicology, Art History, Media Theory, Performance Studies, Cultural Critique as well as art practitioners.
The course aims to foster the receptiveness of students for open-ended and transdisciplinary explorations in which the role of histories and models of thought become inherent in the artistic process.

Requirements:
None.

Objectives:
At the end of this course, you have knowledge and the ability to discuss a wide range of approaches that inform contemporary thought within and in relation to artistic practice.
Nurture an awareness of the possibilities of reciprocal expansion that exist between the domains of theory and artistic practice.

Work form:
Online Group lesson.

Assessment:
The student has to produce a brief essay (ca. 1200 words) on a topic of choice, showing the intention to develop an investigative, critical stance. Attendance.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 3 ECTS
Duration: 120 minutes per week during two semesters, 30 weeks


 

‘Pataphysics
Matthijs van Boxsel R/OCS
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
Pataphysics is the Science of Imaginary Solutions. ’Pataphysics moves in the quadrant of science, religion, humour and art, four attempts to get a grip on the idiocy of existence.
’Pataphysics was at the root of futurism, dadaïsm and surrealism, but has since developped in the Oupeinpo (Ouvroir de peinture potentielle): with selfimposed constraints pataphysicians develop new forms of potential art.
On the other hand, they search for the pataphysical dimension of everday life by means of simple interventions: ’Pataphysics being the science of the exception. Inspired by everything imaginary (islands, languages, calenders, artists!) we try to figure out the pataphysical planet we are living on.
As a source of inspiration, we are studying the morosophers (‘foolosophers’), people with an evidently absurd theory about existence. Unlike the mediocre theories of New Age gurus, astrologers, ufologists and so on, morosophical studies are so queer that they cannot help acquiring a literary quality. Are atoms spaceships? Can the floor plan of the pyramid of Cheops be found in the street plan of ‘s-Hertogenbosch? Is the world entering the Lilac phase? Did abstract thought commence when the clitoris evolved from the inside to the outside?
As a rule, a morosopher is somebody whose world has been destroyed by a shocking event. With the help of his theory he constructs a new universe from the wreckage, for the sake not of a higher truth, but of an endurable existence. Unimpeded by any scientific knowledge, their imagination enables them to force their way through to the world of science and technology. From there they design a parallel universe in which the limits of the possible are sought out and transgressed; they enter the area of the wondrous and the monstrous, and discover a world that, like the world of the comic and the fairy-tale, is out of the reach of the physicists. Morosophy is science in wonderland.

Requirements:
A thirst for imaginary knowledge.

Objectives:
– you acquire a conscious pataphysical mindset (everyone being a pataphysicien by birth)
– you will be able to recognise the laws of the exception, the aberration
– you will see art from a different, pataphysical angle
– you will embrace the homo ludens in yourselves
– you will hate me

Work form:
Lectures on ’Pataphysics, stupidity, imaginary topography, Powerpoint-presentations, movies: but always interacting with the students, torturing them with questions to get to the core of ’Pataphysics inside of them.

Assessment:
Every day, each student will have to make notes and drawings or pataphysical schemes in a small booklet, which will be judged after the course. (A personal Handbook ’Pataphysics.) And everyone has to present a personal pataphysical answer (in text and image) to an impossible question during the course. I expect a full-time presentation, and 100% selfreflection, ha. In case of absence due to illness, dentistry and the like, the student has to make an additional contribution on paper.

Grading System: Numeric
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours


 

Patterns of Ebb and Flow
Cocky Eek, Rachel Schuit
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Exchange Course, physical

Course Content:
This week is an opportunity to experience working with the natural elements, while being part of the process and be challenged by their continual movement and change.
We’ll reside on the relatively young sandy strip of Almere Beach, along the IJ-Lake where we will specifically zoom in on – movements of sand –
Sand mediates in the liminal space between sea and land. It combines qualities of solid and liquid. Sand is both ancient and renewing. A simple storm across the beach clears all of yesterday’s traces, but a grain of sand may take eons to travel from rockformations to coastal sediment before ending up in your swimsuit and sandwich.
The interventions look for an immediacy of relating action to their environmental sources, which encourages diligent observation and accidental discovery. We will start working from a phenomenological approach to explore this specific landscape. We will do daily exercises to activate our listening body and to to open your ‘physical presence’. Test setups and prototypes are based on hands-on means of enquiry in the field and fully exposure to the elements. There will be 2 public lectures by archaeologist Dick Jager who will zoom in on the dynamics of geological/archeological layers of this place and one by Kees Hoogendam who will lead us in to the sound of soils (ceramics). The closing Friday afternoon our observations will be shared with a small audience. Documentation is an important part during the whole week.
This course is a collaboration with StrandLAB Almere; a set-up as a project, initiated by the city of Almere and the province of Flevoland, to accelerate cultural activity in the area around the ‘Almeerderstrand’ or Almere Beach. Important consideration is to always work with the intrinsic values of the area and to contribute to the place as an area for excitement and renewal. Through working with artists and researchers StrandLAB relates to the bigger questions of Almere as a new town and the region on new ‘polderland’: how do you build an Almere identity? how do you extend the cultural facilities and how do we make use of water and land in a sustainable way?
This exchange week is a 24/7 residence on site in Almere Beach, and needs your full-dedicated participation. We are there all the time, including sleeping, eating, working, and strolling around.

Requirements:
It’s mandatory to write a motivation, as the course is availabele for a limited amount of students.
Your own costs will include: your meals 9 we try to cook ourselves so we can keep the costs low), your travel costs: basically a two-way travel from The Hague to Almere, and the material costs you want to invest in this project. (StrandLAB Almere will arrange your lodging)
If you enroll for this course it is mandatory to come to the preparatory meeting: March, 16:15H in room PB301 at the KABK.
In this meeting we will provide more details about the location, the facilitations, the context of the project and how to prepare for the artistic work and documentation for this week.

Objectives:
To create artistic projects in the context of tidal movements in nature.

Work form:
Physical/sensory exercises, field-explorations and hands on prototyping, conversations with locals, documentation

Assessment:
Working without preconceived ideas. Presentation to a small audience, documentation during the process, writing a reflection.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: Prepatory meeting + 5 days working and sleeping on location


 

Practical Perfumery for Olfactory Art
Renske van Vroonhoven, Lauren Jetty
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
Practical Perfumery for Olfactory Art is a practically oriented class that aims to teach students about the making of scent, mainly focussing on artistic practice.
Although some fine fragrance methods will be covered, the aim of the class is to learn to apply scent in a more diverse context. As part of the course the students will be hosted at a perfumery lab in Arnhem for a few days during this course, where they can experiment with a vast array of materials to create a
final work.

Requirements:
It is not required but recommended that students have already taken the course The Other Senses.

Objectives:
– you will get to know the materials used in perfumery, both synthetic
and natural, and how these are extracted or created.
– you will have a knowledge of and experience with basic materials used in perfumery
and their application.
– you will understand the relationship between a smell and its context and be able to
avoid mistakes applying scent to contextual work.
– you will understand the basic principles of perfumery and lab safety.
– you will be able to write and read a fragrance formula and compound a fragrance
correctly.
– you will know which types of extraction methods a perfumer can use and what the
limitations of these methods are.
– you will start to form a mental olfactory library of scents.
– you will develop an olfactory project.
There will also be a small theoretical part of this class focusing on application of scent in art, to give some
context, but since “The Other Senses” covers this theory as well, we will assume a prior knowledge.

Work form:
Practica, projects, excursions, lectures, assignment

Assessment:
60% presentations.
20% attendance, assignments.
20% self-reflection.

Grading System: TBA
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours


 

Presentation as Performance
Hilt De Vos
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
In this Course you will learn how to use your body-voice-mind as communications tools for presentation and performance.
How does an audience perceive you as an human being on stage.
What role does your body play in communication.
What tone of voice will work best in a given context and …how to overcome anixiety and a possible nervous breakdown.

Requirements:
Being open-minded.
Objectives:
At the end of this course, you:
— get the tools to effectively use your body-voice-mind, while remaining yourself on stage.
— learn to reflect better on yourself as a communications medium.
— use humor to help in the process of creation.
Work form:
Experimental learning.
Assessment:
A final presentation.
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours.


 

Professional Practice Preparation
TBA
Mandatory for: B3
Type: Standard Course, physical/online (TBA)

Course Content:
As the Professional Practice Preparation course of ArtScience, this week offers specific training in writing, focusing on how to write clearly about your work for grant applications, catalogues and to sponsors and press.

Requirements:
None.
Objectives:
To learn practical professional writing skills.

Work form:
TBA.
Assessment:
Attendance, assignments.
Grading System: TBA
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours.


 

Pro Projection
Kasper van der Horst
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
The Pro Projection course is aimed at students who are planning to use some form of projection in their work.
Besides displaying computer- and video images, projection is often used to define a space or, for example, to enhance the meaning of an object in a space. In this very hands-on and practical course we’ll explore these aspects considering the projects or ideas that the students bring in individually.

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
– you will explore how different technical resources are best put to use and what impact that could have on the experience of the work. This might result in some radical alternatives to the original plan!
– you will try out and test a lot so that a high level of precision can be reached.
Hopefully in this way we’ll put the original ideas into an enriched perspective.

Work form:
There will be a daily group-evaluation of the work’s progress, get feedback on a daily basis and test in practice.
The first week we’ll work in the CAM rooms in the conservatory, second week we can build bigger sets in PB301 in the academy.

Assessment:
At the end of the second week we’ll present an overview of the works in PB301.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours


 

Prototyping Decolonization in the Art-studio
Milton Almonacid, Darko Lagunas
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Master Primer, online

Course Content:
According to Elizabeth Chin (2017), “there are few social spaces more unrelentingly white than the art and design studio”. This is a research and practice workshop challenges students to a) critically reflect on their practice within a colonial epistemology perspective, and b) challenges them to visualize and create an artwork/methodological prototype that emancipates (or decolonizes) whiteness of their practice and their curriculum. This workshop departs from the ‘why is my curriculum White?’ discourse.

Requirements:
Students need to do some desk-research beforehand in order to participate in the workshop

Objectives:
– you will be aware how colonial epistemology works
– you will be able to critically reflect on your own practice as an active agent within the colonial framework
– you will havel a (maybe) first prototype of a personal decolonial methodology

Work form:
The workshop takes four days and is given by philosopher Milton Almonacid and urban sociologist Darko Lagunas. Around the central question – ‘why my curriculum is White?’ – students are guided through the following program:
– Day 1: How colonial epistemology works?
Students present desk-research: ‘why is my curriculum white?’
If colonial society is structural, how does colonial epistemology work on my own identity, reasoning and practice?
What would art studio’s look like, and what would they create with non-white curricula? Why do we colonize the future?
– Day 2: Decolonial epistemology source of inspiration
Students choose inspirational artist/thinker/cultural artefact for their decolonial methodology design.
How design gps to navigate non-western epistemologies?
– Day 3: Visualization
How did my non-western ancestors make sense of the world?
What was their explanation about the Milky Way?
Historical and epistemological context in which [source of inspiration] was produced. And subsequently write/draw/build/create what you visualized.
– Day 4: Prototyping and presentations
Prototyping and presentations (assessment): design a art/method/protocols prototype from one’s own non-western epistemology.

Assessment:
Weighting is individual:
50% prototypes (10)
– is in itself a critique on colonial epistemology and the white arts curriculum (5)
– are self-communicative (5)
30% presentation (10)
– shows an understanding of colonial epistemology (3)
– shows a critical (self) reflection of art-practice within the colonial framework (2)
– explains how prototype reflects itself as a non-white, decolonial agent (2)
– students have to critically interrogate each others presentations (3)
20% attendance and participation (10)
– needs to attend all sessions (6)
– active participation and self-reflection (2)
open attitude (2)

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours


 

Quick and Dirty
Cocky Eek
Mandatory for: B1
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
In this course you will be dipped in a method of the making process. The making process by its own nature, offers many surprising, irrational, accidental possibilities that the mind simply cannot predict or imagine.
The class will explore this creative process as a dialogue between maker and matter in diverse mediated forms, in which matter can be interpreted broadly. We’ll do quick hands-on experiments and dirty prototyping, with the aim to train our skills of perception, to trust the process not-knowing, to learn to recognize when/where things get interesting, and to tap in the enormous potential that comes by working open-ended.
You will work on an individual base as well in duo’s and groups. Documentation will be helpful tool in the making process.
No Matter – Try Again – Fail Again – Fail Better, Samuel Beckett

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
Learning how to master quick artistic sketching methodologies.

Work form:
Hands-on (no-head)

Assessment:
Presentations, active participation.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours


 

RecPlay
Robert Pravda, Kasper van der Horst
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Weekly Course, online

Course Content:
Since 2001, RecPlay is the ArtScience improvisation ensemble. Some od the research topics that are addressed in RecPlay are multi-layer interfaces, improvisation structures, noise art, feedback in image and sound, realtime composition systems, spatiall compositions and interaction with architectural elements. Its practical focus wll be on developing improvisations and on developing ensemble playing by using conventional and unconventional instruments.
It is possible to join RecPlay in the first and/or in the second semester.

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
To learn how to work in an audiovisualiomprovisation ensemble

Work form:
Weekly meetings and jam sessions.

Assessment:
Attendance and participation.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS (per semester)
Duration: DURATION


 

Redeconstruct Media
Kasper van der Horst, Nenad Popov
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
In a number of steps, we aim to look a bit into the phenomena of fragmented media. We will look into ways of deconstructing ideas into smaller fragments, or constructing larger structures out of smaller pieces all the while trying to keep the original knowledge(idea) present as long as possible. “Ecological thinking” – we look at the artwork as an ecosystem of ideas: we try to think and find out in which way the fragments interact with each other. During the course, we like to look at media in the broadest (metamedia) sense – for example text, literature, data, music scores, dna, wikipedia articles, pixels, artworks, social interaction, audio and video can all be your point of interest.
A positive artifact of this method is that it helps in cases when we are stuck: it helps find interesting points in an unfinished work, partial idea, and have them mutate into a new work.
The course itself consists of many small self-contained exercises focused on simple outcomes, which can be applied to personal projects that are stuck or moving too slow.

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
You will be able to find interesting points in an unfinished work, partial idea, and have them mutate into a new work

Work form:
The course consists of a series of simple exercises, starting with the art of abbreviation, gently crossing the media boundaries and then getting into more or less speculative reconstruction methods of media (veracious or manupilative: redeconstruct). We also look into how the meaning mutates when the artwork passes through multiple minds.
Our objective is to design individual systems, and because we can also design these systems in an artistic way, that is where we will focus on.

Assessment:
At the end of this two week’s course we ‘ll ask you to present your system in the format of a work or to present a conclusion of how your system works.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours


 

Sensors, Actuators & Microcontrollers
Lex van den Broek, Johan van Kreij
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
This course is a continuation of the Introduction to Electronics that is given in the first year. It is open to other students who have at least some familiarity with the most basic concepts of electronics. In this course students learn how to understand and build simple setups consisting of a sensor, a controller and an actuator. The concepts behind controllers like the ipsonlab and the Arduino or Wiring board are introduced. The most common types of sensors are introduced and how to connect them and interpret the data they produce. Also the most common actuators will be introduced.
Requirements:
None.

Objectives:
– To gain more advanced insight in the creation of electronic circuits for artistic purposes

Work form:
Practical classes, assignments

Assessment:
Attendance, assignment

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours


 

SoundWorlds 1
Robert Pravda, Milica Ilić
Mandatory for: B1
Type: Standard Course, physical/online

Course Content:
The goal of this course is to introduce the theory and practice of working with sound.
The theoretical part will cover:
– Basic parameters of sound, such as the concepts of sound as change of pressure through the air, waveform and harmonic spectrum of te sound, wavelenght, aplitude, frequency and perception of pitch and loudness. Also we eill discuss the basics of analog sound, digital sound, sythesis basics (additive, substractive sythesis, Frequency modulation) and MIDI
– An introduction to the basics of musical dramaturgy, or “how to organize sound” – historical overview, explaining & exploring different musical tools and their practical use with the goal of expanding the palette of means that can be used in artistic work which includes music/sound

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
Gaining fundamental insight in the workings of music and sound.

Work form:
During the course we will listen to pieces from important composers and discuss them We will discuss examples of noise music, musique concrète, soundscapes, electronic music, sound-plays and field recordings but lso oter types of music in order to see how musical systems work.

Assessment:
Attendance 88%, assignment 100%

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours


 

SoundWorlds 2
Robert Pravda
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
SoundWorlds 2 is a hands-on course. During the course te focus will be on developping individual performative or instalation pieces. All participants are required to have a basic knowledge of working with sound and starting idea of a project or direction that they want to work on.
As much as we experience our environment visually, we also have an ability to sense our environment through listening. We sense the spatial attributes through hearing as something parallel to our visual perception. What we hear is a complex mixture of the surrounding sound with its reflections, dispersion, refaction and absobtion, all determined by the specific (unique) acoustic character of the space. While listening we react both to the sources and to spatial acoustics.

Requirements:
Rounded up SoundWorlds 1 introduction course.

Objectives:
You will gain more advance knowledge in the workings of sound in its environment.

Work form:
In the two weeks of the course, we will build upon individual ideas, with emphasis on research in materials and techniques for development and hands-on experiments in; how to approach sound organisatioan for a multichannel sound reproduction, a live performance setup, or a sound installatioan based on individual artistic ideas of the participants.

Assessment:
Attendance 86%, assignment 100%

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours


 

Spacious: The Architectural Body (SpaceTime 2)
Renske Maria van Dam
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
In this course we study the work of artist and philosopher turned architects Shusaku Arakawa and Madeleine Gins (hereafter A+G). In two weeks you will develop a practical as well as theoretical understanding of their approach to ArtScience.
To study The Architectural Body; the crucial bodily dimension that gives way to the emergence of our spatiotemporal experience, A+G developed a specific form of ArtScience that they refer to as ‘coordionology’ and ‘biotopology’. In this form of ArtScience architecture is used as a creative tool to figure ourselves out and construct ourselves differently. To further their philosophical implication’s and its impact on human life they designed architecture as so-called procedural tools. Their working system is based on observational, transformational and re-configurative procedurals to construct life. Procedural architecture offers process-oriented speculations to the way our moving bodies and environment mutually form and extend each other. A functional tool, whether it be a hammer, a telephone, or a telescope, extends the senses, but procedural architecture examines and reorders the sensorium. New meaning and actual habitual changes emerge from which alternative experiences inevitably form.
In this course we favour thinking through action and experimentation. Departing from A+G’s artistic work ‘The Mechanism of Meaning’ and their book ‘the Architectural body’ we examine and reorder the sensorium ourselves by means of minor artistic interventions.

Requirements:
– Motivation to work and think spatially
– This course is a continuation of 2019/2020’s course on the architectural body. It helps when you have followed the previous course, but this is not mandatory as a summary of last year will be provided at the first day of the course

Objectives:
– you will learn to examine and reorder the sensorium by means of minor interventions
– you will be inspired by the basics of A+G’s practice and philosophy
– you will know how to enact philosophy as creative practice in its own right (create concepts in and through the event)
– you will know how to exploit spatial interventions as the ArtScience of Life (Biotopology)
– you will know how to exploit spatial interventions as the ArtScience of moving bodies (Coordionology)
– you will know how to set parameters that allow for the expansion of human possibilities by means of spatiotemporal interventions (Reverse Destiny)

Work form:
We will shift focus between:
Collectively study the artistic as wel as philosophical body of work by A+G by means of close reading, attending lectures and watching videos.
Activation of the above-mentioned material by means of movement practice and free artistic experimentation

Assessment:
At the last day of the course the students are asked to present a minor intervention that:
– is in line with the procedures from A+G, extends and reorders the sensorium.
– is framed by a self-created concept
Individual or in groups of max. 3 students

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS (per semester)
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours


 

Spacious: Tiny Perceptions (SpaceTime 1)
Renske Maria van Dam. Guest Teachers: Kenzo Kusuda and Alexander Johannes Heil
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
Current developments in contemporary sciences sparks a general willingness to re-entertain questions on perception, experience and even consciousness. What is particularly interesting in these new sciences is the enactive-embodied- embedded- extended and affective (4ea) approach to cognition. In this course we explore what this means for the experience and creation of spatial installations. Guided by motivating questions such as ‘How do we respond to particular materials, textures, sounds and movements?’ or ‘How does walking diagonally differ from walking a straight line?’ we explore how to transform from working and thinking in/on objects to (spatial) experience.
This course forms the fundaments of SPACIOUS, the practice-based research trajectory that explores the reciprocal relationship between organism and environment by means of tiny perceptions to reconsider habit(at)s in which space and time, mind and body, theory and practice have too long been considered as distinct and abstract notions. The course is set up as a research-atelier; the afternoon program consists of collective lectures, reading and workshops. In the evening we work collaboratively on a creative research project ‘walking through doors causes forgetting’.
We will closely collaborate with students of the master INSIDE on two days of this course

Requirements:
– Motivation to work and think spatially
– It is possible to join this course for multiple years to develop a long-term practice-based research

Objectives:
– you will understand the basic modes of spatiotemporal perception
– you will have improved to think and work spatially
– you will become familiar with the exploitation of tiny perceptions as research methodology

Work form:
We will shift focus between:
– lectures/close reading
– movement practice and experimentation focused on tiny perceptions
– working on a personal project (see assessment)

Assessment:
Set up and execute a practice-based research that:
– questions a spatiotemporal phenomenon in relation to the theme ‘walking through doors causes forgetting’.
– involves a focus on tiny perceptions as research methodology
– is presented by means of a mini- exhibition that includes a spatiotemporal experience, curated documentation of the experimentation process as well as a written statement or reflection
Presentation of the assessment will take place collectively at the last day of the course.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours


 

Spectra: Space as Organism #5
Andrea Božić and Julia Willms
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Exchange Course, physical

Course Content:
In this in-disciplinary workshop we will approach space as performative and as an organism. We will explore a combination of live performance, cinematic/virtual and architectural space merging them into one layered hybrid space in their overlap, a merger between the physical, imaginal and virtual.
The students will work in small collaborative groups exploring performative and audio-visual installative spatial set ups, departing from the idea that every performance, time based or spatial art work (and even every situation) is based on a performative setup, that a performative set up is a carrier of the concept in practical form, that each performative set up generates a set of relations with the spectator, a particular mode of spectatorship and an engagement with the environment.
We will look at the development of dramaturgy, how a work works depending on its placement in space and time. We will work through a combination of making, presenting and feedback discussion. We will give some examples of set-ups from our own work and works by other artists.
The students are asked to bring their own audio-visual digital devices that they normally use in their artistic practice.
Full participation in the workshop is requested, as each day will build on the previous.
Keywords: in-disciplinary, porous space, performance, live art, performative space, choreography of space, gaze and attention, space as an organism, audio-visual installation, architectural intervention, installation as a performance.
Requirements:
none

Objectives:
– conceptionialising and practical development of performative set-ups and their mechanisms
– dramaturgical devices in live performance and installation works
– collaborative group work in practise and reflection
– reflection of modes of spectatorship implied in the work

Work form:
– introduction of the conceptual framework, vocabulary and examples
– collaborative small working groups
– several rounds of working on artistic set-ups using their own audio-visual digital devices that the students normally use in their artistic practice
– presentation and try-out of the set-up to/with the rest of the group
– feedback, reflection
– selecting and identifying the most interesting key objectives within the set up

Assessment:
The students pass due to their attendance in their collaborative group, engagements with the assignments, presentations, feedback and reflection.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours


 

Studium Generale
Erica Sprey & guests
Mandatory for: B2
Type: KABK Weekly Lecture Series, online

Course Content:
For over ten years the Studium Generale at the KABK has been organized as an interdisciplinary lecture series that ´hovers, as it were, over the departments, addressing themes that may not have an immediate practical use, but are potentially relevant to each and every student.’ This year the Studium Generale is making its own educational turn, from an active-passive lecture-theatre to a self-directed learning place to be owned up by students who may use it as a testing-ground and amplifier for their issues of concern.

Requirements:
None.
Objectives:
To gain general contextual insight.

Work form:
Online lectures.
Assessment:
Attendance, assignments. Information on the assignments: https://www.kabk.nl/en/studium-generale/studium-generale-kabk-2020-2021-lecture-series-witch-craft
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS (Semester 1: 1 ECTS, Semester 2: 1 ECTS)
Duration: Approximately 12 lectures of 1.5 hours per Semester (approx. 24 in total).


 

The Choreography of Daily Life
Esther Polak, Ivar van Bekkum
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Exchange Course, online

Course Content:
We will explore the choreographies of daily life through ‘plein air’ drawing in public space during this workshop. We will draw movements as we see them happening life.
In Esther and Ivar’s work, mobilities play a central role. Involved in early ‘locative media art,’ they explored technologies like GPS from its first introduction to its contemporary ubiquity in daily life.
They have been deeply fascinated by how the human experience of space irreversibly is altered by these technologies.
During the workshop, we want to find out how the classic method of artistic landscape depiction, ‘plein air’ drawing, survives in this new awareness of space.
What happens with the visual language of drawing when we make ‘plein air’ drawing collide with our experience that is formed by digital mobile technologies?
Theory:
You will explore the art history of ‘plein air’ painting and drawing and the influence of technology on these artistic realms. If time allows, I will touch upon insights from the field of mobility studies.
Practice
You will explore ‘spaces of mobility’ as locations of ‘plein air’ drawing. You will be helped to find places of mobility around your house.
You are expected organize drawing materials, (improvised) easels and drawing surfaces like paper. You will be encouraged to do experiments with materials and gear.
In case of bad weather, you are expected to be inventive and stretch the concept of ‘plein air’ to its limits.

Requirements:
None.

Objectives:
— To explore the art historical tradition of ‘plein air’ drawing and painting and how technologies influence this. (location-aware technologies, means of transportation, but also photography and for example, paint tubes)
— To explore the collision between traditional techniques and digital technologies in a broad sense. • To enjoy the act of drawing and develop skill and routine.
— To enjoy the act of drawing in public space (how do passers-by react?)
— To enjoy the sharing of results without judgment.
— To experiment with drawing gear that can easily be transported. To overcome obstacles like rain, cold and other inconveniences.

Work form:
We will meet every morning in a shared Zoom room. We start the first morning with an introduction to theory and art history. Over the 5 days, I will offer a series of art historical examples as a source of inspiration and discussion. If time allows, I will touch upon insights from the field of mobility studies.
During the afternoon, we will explore spaces of mobility in the proximity of the houses each of us finds themselves in. The next day after the theory moment, share our drawing results. This structure will repeat every day. Our objective is to attempt and to be open and gentle to failure honestly.
Finally, all workshop results are shared within the group and discussed. You are expected to create (curate) as a group, a selection of the totality of produced drawings that opens up to the experience of public space as mobility driven. We will discuss possibilities of an online publication.

Assessment:
Attendance, individual assignments and group presentation.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 5 classes of 6 hours


 

The Other Senses
Caro Verbeek, several guest teachers
Mandatory for: B1
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
The senses of smell, taste, touch and proprioception are powerful tools for engaging an audience in an intimate and often interactive way. They require little knowledge and they are strong inducers of vivid memories.
Whereas sound and vision always gained a lot of academic attention, the so called ‘lower’ senses only recently (re-)entered the artistic debate. The ArtScience Interfaculty, formerly known as the Institute for Image and Sound, underlines the importance of those other senses that go beyond our traditional occularcentric approach.
This course is about creating awareness and understanding of the role of the ‘other’ senses – smell, touch and taste – in (history of) art, education and science.
For they are not as divided as we assume, the correlation between the senses will also be addressed (synaesthesia).
Due to their animalistic nature important thinkers like Plato, and later on Kant and Hegel excluded the lower senses from the aesthetic debate. As a counter reaction famous artists like Marinetti and Duchamp and composers such as Scriabin incorporated olfactory and tactile dimensions to their work. Unfortunatly this quite volatile heritage was partially lost due to its fleeting nature and the impossibility of registering and preserving smells, tastes and tactile experiences. Museums and other institutes that address vision, have always been primed to collect and conserve. That is why many tactile and olfactory works of art never made it into written history. Anthropologists, art historians and other academics are now working on a reconstruction.
During classes students will encounter sensory art historical reconstructions to stimulate debate on the senses and as an inspiration to create small olfactory and tactile compositions. A colour-smell synaesthesia test will be executed on the first and the last day of the course.
Furthermore there will be a linguistic translation of a Futurist tactile poem, and an olfactory-musical recital composed by Scriabin.

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
– you will have general knowledge and understanding of the role of the other senses in history of art
– you will have an increased sensory vocabulary
– you will be able to use other senses more analytically and discern between them better (even become of aware of previously unknown senses)
– you will be well equipped to start using more senses in your art practice and daily life in a meaningful way/ you will be able to engage an audience by triggering their senses

Work form:
– lectures with an interactive character (in which you sense sensory replicas)
– small assignments such as creating smell maps and tactile poems
– a smell-color synaesthesia test
– small sensory experiments in which you analytically study your own perception, guided by a set of questions by the teacher
– reading assignments and discussing articles
– socratic discussions among yourselves and with the teacher
– a joint multi-sensory performance in the end and an evaluation of the course and your own progress

Assessment:
– overall engagement and participations in discussions, reading of articles and presence (4 out of 4) (20%)
– execution of smell maps and tactile poem and presentation thereof (technically, by means of content, and effect, verbalization of what he/ she did and why (first 2 days, 20%)
– their role in the multi-sensory performance (did the student step out of his/ her comfort zone?/ how was his or her sensory input related to the whole?)/ can he or she verbalize his or her intentions afterwards? (final day, 30 %)
– self-reflection/ the student’s own insight in his or her improvement/ development. Did the student learn new things? Can he or she reflect on what he or she learned (oral examination after the performance) (final day, 20%).

Grading System: Numeric
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours


 

What to Sonify When Lending an Ear to an Event?
Willem van Weelden
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Master Primer Course, physical

Course Content:
‘WHAT TO SONIFY WHEN LENDING AN EAR TO AN EVENT? excursions in the “inaudible”, the timbre of the sublime, and the immaterial matter of “postmodern music”’
The seminar and workshop will be based in the aesthetic theory of Jean-Francois Lyotard especially concerning music. His theoretical approach will be used in the analysis of musical compositions of the sixties and the seventies (Stockhausen, Berio, Schat, Cage). The delivered input (8 lectures) and study and analysis will be the basis for an assignment to develop an interactive sound work, that will be presented at the close of the seminar.

Requirements:
Prior to these weeks the students are asked to read a few texts that will be send as preparation to the seminar weeks; and it also comprises some listening assignments. (e.g. ‘The Inaudible, Music and Postmodernity’ (1991) by Jean-Francois Lyotard, and Ashley Woodward’s comment on this text (2014))

Objectives:
– learning how to use philosophical approaches to develop an artistic concept: creation of an aesthetic answer (interactive sonic installation) to a philosophical problem
– understanding of the philosophy of the event (Lyotard, Deleuze)
– understanding of the philosophy of unrepresentability (inaudibility)
– rendering all input into a concept for an interactive work
– analysing and contextualizing Lyotard’s work in our current media landscape and practice

Work form:
The Students work individually on a project, that will be presented at the end of the 2 weeks.
Self-study and lectures complement the program.

Assessment:
Attendance, active participation in group process, and individual contribution to the production and online documentation of the work.
60% attendance, participation in group process.
20% participation and performance during the Open Day.
20% individual contribution.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours


 

Why Look at Animals?
Cocky Eek, guest teachers: Renske Maria van Dam (architect and former zoo-keeper) and Kenzo Kusuda (dancer, improviser)
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, physical

Course Content:
Animals differ from man. They are both like and unlike. In this course we will work in Artis zoo in Amsterdam. Animals can offer a key in opening a gate. Until the 19th century, anthropomorphism was integral to the relation between man and animal. In the last centuries, animals have gradually disappeared. Today we live separated from many of them. Yet our customary sensory order is not solitude; it coexists with other orders. We think and operate differently in the presence of animals. How can we extend our sensitive and cognitive capacities by means of synthesizing and sharing perspectives with Artis’ inhabitants?
In this course you will be guided by one of Artis’ non-human inhabitants, to explore different ways of knowing and sharing. Through an unfolding creative process we will work towards the creation of a polyphonic performative work. This work will be shared with a wider audience and hosted by FoAM Amsterdam and Zone2 Source in the context of the Machine Wilderness program: artistic research in Artis.
The title of his course has been appropriated from John Berger’s little book “Why look at Animals? “
Important your own costs for this course include;
4 days travel to Artis Zoo in Amsterdam plus one performative-presentation day in Amsterdam for the audience.

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
– you have widened your sensory and cognitive perception
– you are able to take your stand in the midst of a polyphonic rhytm
– you have opened a new question

Work form:
Hands-on prototyping, physical/sensory exercises, building, performing.

Assessment:
Presentation in the form of a collective performative work for an audience, documentation during the process and small written reflection.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours


 

Writing as/in Research
Maya Rasker
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Master Primer Course, physical

Course Content:
To write means to allow ideas to come into being, which is why so many fear the act of writing: once written, your thoughts become a reality of their own. During the workshop Writing as / in Research we will investigate what writing means as an act of discovering and unravelling, rather than to fix embryonal thinking.
Point of departure is you: a creative creature that oscillates between who you are, what you do, and where you are heading. Through a systematic analysis of the creative research process you will discover how different writing techniques support and enhance your personal search for artistic growth, independent of you medium or main artistic interest.
Language is our material, which means you will do a lot of hand writing, reading out, listening and taking notes. We will work with prose, poetry, letter writing, essayism and other genres. The use of pen or pencil and paper (notebook) is obligatory. No laptops allowed in the classroom.

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
– you know how to overcome the fear of ‘beginning’ and to start writing
– you have an idea how to use verious writing techniques, depending on your creative process
– you understand what tools to use for text analysis – either your own or someone elses
– you have written in different genres, registers, and styles

Work form:
Classroom lectures and in-class (writing) assignments; take home writing assignments.

Assessment:
In-class writing assignments.
Take-home writing assignments.
Texts (by writers and theorists) to be read, analysed and reflected upon.
An end text, to be presented in class.
80% Class attendence is obligatory. All writing assignments are to be gathered in a portfolio. End text and presentation is obligatory.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS (per semester)
Duration: 8 casses of 6 hours

 


Faculty 2020-2021

Cocky Eek
Arthur Elsenaar
Kasper van der Horst
Anastasia Loginova — assistant coordinator
Marisa Manck — coordinator
Leandros Ntolas — assistant coordinator
Michiel Pijpe
Robert Pravda
Taconis Stolk — head of department
Marion Tränkle


 

Cocky Eek
Cocky Eek studied Fashion Design at the Utrecht School of the Arts and graduated in 1993 with a final collection ‘Fashion is so ugly you have to change it every half year’.  She did her Master degree European Fashion and Textiles Design in 1994 (FR/IT). After her studies she realized several experimental ‘wearable’ collections presented amongst Le Salon des Jeunes Stylistes in Hyeres (FR). Meanwhile she worked as a guest teacher (HKU, Rietveld Academy and Konstfack -Stockholm).
From 1999 – 2002 she collaborated with designer Maria Blaisse, investigating form and material in relation to the moving body, resulting in the Kuma Guna series (nominated by the Dutch Design Award). Together they gave a number of master-classes (MA European Fashion & Textile Design, the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg, and the Curtin University of Technology in Perth).
Since 2001, Cocky Eek has been an active member of FoAM [Brussels]. In close collaboration with scientists, and media-designers she did the spatial designs for responsive environments as Tgarden, TxOom and TRG (presentations include V2 and Ars Electronica 2001). Since the millennium her work has been mainly revolving around lightweight spatial compositions and her favorite media have become wind and air. This resulted in floating or flying experiments or large, voluminous forms. Her Human-Kite performances with Patrick de Koning were shown along various coastal lines, such as the Oerol Festival (NL) and the International Kite Festival in Weifang in China. She is co-founder of  FoAM [Amsterdam 2005] whose main focus is the topic of human-plant inter-relations. One of their sprouts Boskoi,  a project on urban foraging received an honorary mention Prix Ars Electronica 2011, was presented at ISEA and implemented in many local community’s. In 2012 she created Sphaerae, an inflatable multi-dome pavilion for immersive and synaesthetic experiences (presented at Ars Elctronica, TodaysArt festival 2013). With Schweigman& she develloped two contemporary theater pieces; Frame (presented in Shanghai 2012) and Blaas (Oerol, Torino, Boulevard, Utrecht  2013).
cockyeek.com


 

Arthur Elsenaar
Arthur Elsenaar is an artist, electrical engineer and facial hacker. Since 1993, Elsenaar has investigated the computer-controlled human face as a site for artistic expression. He holds a Ph.D. in Art and Design from Nottingham Trent University in the UK for his thesis entitled “Facial Hacking: The Twisted Logic of Electro-Facial Choreography.” Elsenaar’s work has been shown at many internationally renowned conferences, festivals and institutes such as Ars Electronica, ISEA, DEAF, SIGGRAPH and MIT Media Lab. In 2008, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam acquired the algorithmic facial choreography work “Face Shift” for their permanent collection. He has been a core member of the Institute of Artificial Art in Amsterdam whose work received several awards; a Prix Ars Electronica honorary mention (1997), the Leonardo Award for Excellence (2003) for a paper on the history of electric performance art. For his most recent work, Elsenaar received the Technarte Best Speaker Award (2012) in Bilbao, Spain.
artifacial.org


 

Kasper van der Horst
Kasper van der Horst studied photography at the School of Photography in The Hague. During his studies he developed an interest in video, computer animation and computer graphics and started his own studio, Sparks.
In 1988 he was invited to teach video at CAM, and a year later to become a teacher at the Interfaculty Image & Sound, where he first taught analogue video and, since 1993, digital imagery. During his classes at the Interfaculty students started to develop moving digital graphics, resulting in some of the earliest VJs and visual musicians who created visuals and moving images that accompanied DJ acts, shown during the Sonic Acts Festival in 1994. During the collective research projects he often works with a small group of students on special visual effects that relate in delicate ways to the general theme of the project. In 1998 his research on dynamic video projections resulted in an astounding contribution to the closing night of the Holland Festival in Paradiso. For the ArtScience curriculum he developed many introductory courses on the subjects: Freestyle Video, Image & Sound (with Robert Pravda) and MetaMedia (with Taco Stolk). Next to these courses van der Horst organised many video workshops and collaborated on almost all of the large-scale projects at the Interfaculty. The resarch project “Structet : Building Music” in 2006 was one of the most successful performances in the Todaysart festival that year and it is the only project in the festival ́s history that was invited again, in 2011.
Since 2010 van der Horst has been directing multi screen installations for Rockheim, the museum for Norwegian pop music in Trondheim. He also designed 3d avatars for the interactive part of the museum. His work engagements range from established art institutes to broadcast and commercial media production. He directs and produces audiovisual projects.  As a multidisciplinary art and technology advisor Kasper works with students, art-collectives and media-companies.


 

Marisa Manck (coordinator)
Marisa Manck studied Cultural work at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam and proceeded to work as a project-manager at the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam where she managed in-house production for big festivals like the Drum Rhythm festival and put effort in professionalizing cultural entrepreneurship on this unique site of industrial heritage. In the following years she produced several exhibitions and events at W139. As senior project manager at the Dutch Theatre Institute and Museum, Marisa produced several exhibitions and programs. After the Theatre Institute had to close its doors due to government budget cuts, she started studying at the Master of Education department at the HvA. Besides attending classes, she continued working for several smaller projects.


 

Leandros Ntolas
Leandros Ntolas is an interdisciplinary artist from Greece, currently based in the Netherlands. He has graduated from Athens School of Fine Arts and is a recent graduate from the master course of the ArtScience Interfaculty. With a background in sculpture and spatial studies, his practice spans many different mediums; having in its core a specific interest in the use of light as an artistic medium. Ntolas has been researching light through the study of optics, atmospheric optics, and the study of visual perception. He is as well involved in theoretical research around the topics of history and philosophy of science–with a specific focus in astronomy and archaeoastronomy–and the field of philosophy of perception.
www.leandrosntolas.com


 

Michiel Pijpe
Michiel Pijpe graduated with distinction in 2005 at the Interfaculty Image and Sound, and studied narrative techniques and style procedures for film at the University of Leiden (2002-2004). Afterwards, he briefly studied at the Dutch Art Institute (MA) in Enschede. Within the context of the curriculum of the former interfaculty his athletic background led to his development as a performance artist in 2001, specializing in visual art performances in various productions and coproductions. The correlation between play and technology is an ongoing experiment and is generally applied in the theatrical works of Pijpe: the results are minimalist but visually rich solo performances that can be characterized as both formal as well as expressive.
In recent years his work within performance and theatre has come to include the development of ideas for scenography and lighting setups for theatre and opera productions.
Apart from his stage work, Michiel Pijpe has been working on an ongoing project involving liquid experiments for film wich he started in 2003. After many years of experimentation and research he is now working with methods and techniques for a higher and more detailed control of chemicals, light and optics. He is continuously refining these techniques which resemble the traditional methods of 18th century painting combined with current technologies translated into innovative printing techniques.
www.haagsekunstenaars.nl/cv/73480


 

Robert Pravda
Robert Pravda studied engineering from 1987 through 1991 at the Technical University of Novi Sad (former Yugoslavia), after which he dedicated himself to making music in experimental underground circles. His interest in the interdisciplinary arts brought him to the Interfaculty Image & Sound, where he earned his degree in 2002. In 2001 he started WEIM, a workshop for his fellow students on electro-instrumental music. When he became a teacher at the Interfaculty, this workshop was transformed into the electronica improvisation ensemble RecPlay. During his studies he concentrated on building instruments for multimedia performances and making algorithmic compositions for spatial sound and light installations. His examination project, the sound-light installation 5x5x5, was awarded with the visitor’s prize of Shell’s Young Artist Award.
Recently he has been developing new musical and light instruments, performing in many formations and contexts, and he worked as composer and sound designer for several theatre productions.
www.sonicutopia.net


 

Taconis Stolk (head of department)
Taconis Stolk is a conceptualist and metamodernist. He is the initiator of WLFR, studio for conceptualism in Amsterdam. Since the mid-nineties WLFR has been developing metamedia projects and theory concerning the aesthetics of concepts and contextual technology, often at the intersection of art and science.
WLFR projects have been exhibited, performed and published in Europe, the Americas and Asia. They deploy a wide range of media and disciplines. Examples through the years are P.I.A (interactive audio performance for magnetic card readers, 1994), fZone (website generating audio compositions based on weather conditions in the world’s time zones, 1995) PARR (research project on nano-aesthetics resulting in computer generated books and animations, 2000), BuBL Space (pocket device to disable mobile phones, 2002, with Arthur Elsenaar), Gradually Zero (experimental theatre on the beauty of numbers, 2003, with Sanne van Rijn), Genetic Design (media project on art education in genetic modification, 2004), o—o—o—o (project on intention hacking the game of chess, 2010, with ConceptsAssociated), Wf–– (nanotechnology project on creating magnetic fragrances, 2011, with Radboud University Nijmegen) and WLFRGB (video series exploring ‘impossible colours’ by hacking stereoscopic technologies, 2013).
Stolk earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at the ArtScience Interfaculty. He lectures at the Interfaculty since 1998. Current other lecturing and consulting activities include MediaTechnology MSc programme of Leiden University (since 2001), STEIM Amsterdam and the Dutch Arts Council. He is a regular speaker and writer on topics related to his practice.
wlfr.nl


 

Marion Tränkle
Marion Tränkle is an artist and designer based in Amsterdam. Her work engages systems thinking, cross-disciplinary perspectives, and experimentation. She preferences live-performance as her artistic environment and to constantly negotiate between the carefully constructed and generative processes, between risk and responsibility, and between autonomous performance and human intervention.
She studied architecture at the TU Berlin, hold degrees in Contemporary Dance from the Amsterdam School of the Arts and from the Media Technology program at Leiden University, and was awarded her PhD from the School of Arts, Brunel University London in 2012. Last year she spent focussing on software engineering.
Her stage scenarios and installations have been shown internationally including Thessaloniki Biennale at the State Museum of Contemporary Art, OK Centre for Contemporary Art in Linz, Netherlands Media Art Institute Amsterdam, University of Michigan, Bavarian State Opera Munich, State Theatre Saarbrücken, and the Artefactfestival for Art and Media.
Marion has taught at Universities and Art Institutions in the Netherlands, Canada, and her native Germany. Currently she is associated with the Department of Industrial Design at TU Eindhoven.
mariontraenkle.eu

 


Guest teachers 2020-2021

Merel Boers — thesis coach
Matthijs van Boxsel
Andrea Božić
Lex van den Broek
Renske Maria van Dam
Hilt De Vos
Milica Ilić
Johan van Kreij
Jan Robert Leegte
Katinka Marač
Jeroen Meijer
Leandros Ntolas
Esther Polak
Nenad Popov
Maya Rasker
Caro Verbeek
Willem van Weelden
Julia Willms

This list is not 100% complete yet but will be updated soon.


 

Merel Boers
Merel Boers (that is Frau Dr. Boers to you) has a background in history, argumentation theory, journalism, public speaking… She likes her sherry bone dry and her risotto all’onda, please. She collects historical cookbooks and is still mourning Iain M. Banks. At the ArtScience department, she is a thesis coach.
www.merelboers.nl


 

Matthijs van Boxsel
Literary historian Matthijs van Boxsel (b. 1957) has been studying the topic of stupidity since 1980. In 1999 he published De encyclopedie van de domheid (The Encyclopedia of Stupidity), which was nominated for the prestigious Generale Bank Prize for Literature. In 2001 the sequel Morosofie (Morosophy) appeared, studying the 100 most stupid Dutch theories of the 20th century. This was followed in 2006 by a volume on stupidity as an art of living: Deskundologie of Domheid als levenskunst. Van Boxsel is now working on De topografie van de domheid (The Topography of Stupidity), in which he gathers all the cities and regions that are proverbially known for stupidity. De encyclopedie van de domheid has already been translated into more than 10 languages.
www.matthijsvanboxsel.nl


 

Andrea Božić
Andrea Božić (HR/NL) is a choreographer based in Amsterdam with a degree in Comparative Literature and English Language from the University of Zagreb, the School For New Dance Development and the Amsterdam Masters of Choreography, both at the Academy for Theatre and Dance Amsterdam.
Andrea’s work revolves around the choreography of attention, space and gaze. It is in-disciplinary and takes form of live performance, installation, attention exercise and collaborations with the weather and night sky. The work reorganizes perception combining conceptual with sensorial and physical, creates paradoxical situations and asks questions about the effects of attention and imagination, perception of presence, the politics of viewing, presentation of reality and distribution of authorship.
Her work was produced by the Frascati and she was artist-in-residence at the International Choreographic Arts Centre Amsterdam (ICK). She has collaborated with visual artist Julia Willms and sound artist Robert Pravda since 2005 with whom she founded in-disciplinary platform TILT in 2009, a platform that currently produces the work. Her work has been presented internationally in performing and visual arts field (Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid, Centre Pompidou Metz, Vooruit, Gent, ImpulsTanz, Vienna, the Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam, Frascati, Amsterdam, HAU, Berlin, a.o.).
Andrea is tutor at the DAS Theatre (formerly DasArts, master of theatre programme, Amsterdam), was mentor at the Amsterdam Master of Choreography 2012-2015 and has given workshops and lectures and mentored many artists internationally (ICK, Interrarium – the Banff Arts Centre, ArtEZ, a.o.). Andrea is co-initator and curator of the We Live Here – summer academy and the Come Together Festival in Amsterdam and is one of the co-founders of BAU – dance and performance Amsterdam.
www.andreabozic.com


 

Lex van den Broek
Lex van den Broek finished his studies Electronic Engineering and Information Technology at the Hogeschool Rotterdam in 1993. After a couple of years designing sound amplifiers for active speaker systems, he started working as the head of the Electronics Workshop at the Royal Conservatoire in 1997. He gives courses to students of Sonology, The Art of Sound and ArtScience departments. He also guides students in realising their own projects involving electronics. In its long history, the Electronics Workshop at the KC has collaborated on many impressive interfaces and installations and is a center for developing musical interfaces and computer installations. Lex has been developing various interfaces and controllers that are available for students to assemble, such as the IpSonLab, Microlab and MTVlab.
www.koncon.nl/lex


 

Renske Maria van Dam
Since 2013 Renske Maria works as independent architect and artistic-researcher. In February 2017 she started her doctoral research at KU Leuven.
Always motivated to think and do Renske Maria initially started her studies in Fine Art and Philosophy, but finished her BSc and MSc in Architecture at the Technical University Delft. During her architecture studies she also followed courses in urban anthropology and worked for architectuurstudio Herman Hertzberger, Amsterdam and Atelier Li Xiaodong, Beijing.
From 2009 to 2011 she was part of Vision included; a co-initiated, pro-active design practice and discussion platform. From 2013 to 2016 she was part of ALEPH; a co-initiated artistic-research laboratory for the exploration of progressive heuristics focusing on philosophy as creative practice in its own right. If you feel inspired please feel free to contact us about possible collaborations.
www.renskemaria.com


 

Hilt De Vos
Hilt De Vos is a professional Belgian director and actress that has worked extensively in theatre, for television and film. Hilt is also a dancer and teaches yoga and pilates.
www.hiltdevos.com


 

Joan Heemskerk
Joan Heemskerk has a background in ornithology, physics, photography, digital.art
since 1995 she is part of the art collective JODI >>>
JODI, or jodi.org, – pioneered net.art in 1995. JODI were among the first artists to investigate and subvert conventions of the Internet, computer programs, and video and computer games. Radically disrupting the very language of these systems, including visual aesthetics, interface elements, commands, errors and code. JODI stages extreme digital interventions that destabilize the relationship between computer technology and its users by subverting our expectations about the functionalities and conventions of the systems that we depend upon every day. Their work uses the widest possible variety of media and techniques, from installations, software and websites to performances and exhibitions.
jodi.org


 

Milica Ilić
Milica Ilić, born in 1985 is a is a pianist from Serbia, specialised in opera and chamber music. Her repertoire covers a wide range of musical styles and she performs in various types of chamber ensembles. She is full time employed as an repetiteur and vocal coach on the department of Solo Singing at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, Serbia.
Next to her employments as a pianist, Milica works as a composer and librettist. Her latest works include Higher, for two pianos, baritone, actor, singer and choir of shouters, The Chamber Thriller Opera in Episodes (a)Mantis Religiosa performed both in Belgium and Serbia, Lego project series I for voice and piano as well as other song cycles. Exploring new possibilities and combinations in the classical musical repertoire, and connecting different styles, genres and forms in her creative work are the main characteristics of Milica’s artistic practice.


 

Jan-Kees van Kampen
Jan Kees van Kampen studied Electronic Music (composition) and ArtScience. He likes plants, water, light, sound, and (dark-) chocolate. Having applied much uncertainty to his morning rituals, he now feels that application of chance & probabilistic machine learning algorithms as well as deterministic complexity (eg. chaos, fractals) can be equally instructive if not inspiring for life and so almost any artistic practice.
0x56.net


 

Johan van Kreij
Johan van Kreij is a musician whose artistic output focuses primarily on improvisation and composition using electronics. He studied music at the Institute of Sonology from 1994 at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, graduating in 1998. Frequently he performs his music, both as a soloist and with other musicians.
Starting in 1998 van Kreij has participated in a long running and intensive collaboration with choreographer Ted Stoffer. This resulted in music composed to a great number of dance choreographies that were performed throughout Europe and the United States. And for more than a decade he has been active within the field of music theatre trough cooperations with Dick Raaijmakers and Paul Koek.
Another important aspect of his work is the development and realization of his own instruments. This development covers the fields of hardware—sensors and other electronics—used for gestural input, and software employing a wide range of sound synthesis models. In the role of developer, he has participated in many projects in the field of music, visual arts and architecture. Since 2001 he has been a permanent member of the teaching staff at Sonology.
jvkr.nl


 

Jan Robert Leegte
Jan Robert Leegte is among the first artists who were involved in the 90s net art movement. Since 1997, he creates art in the form of websites, which he connects to art historical movements such as minimalism, land art and conceptualism. Leegte also translates the themes of his work to offline media such as print, sculpture and projections. A reoccurring theme in his work is the sculptural materiality of interfaces of computer programs. Like the early graphic design of cursors, selection boxes and menu bars that were to give the user the impression of actually physically pressing the buttons with graphic shadows. Leegte often uses these components and by placing them in a new context, giving them their own, sculptural legitimacy.
Jan Robert Leegte (1973, the Netherlands) lives and works in Amsterdam. He recently participated in seminal exhibitions such as Electronic Superhighway at Whitechapel Gallery in London, and Open Codes at ZKM Karlsruhe. His work has been exhibited in venues such as MAAT Lisbon, MOTI Breda, iMal Brussels, Nomade Art Space in Hangzhou, and Upstream Amsterdam.
www.leegte.org


 

Katinka Marač
Katinka Marač studied theatre design at the Utrecht School for the Arts. Since 1997 she has worked both as a scenographer and lighting designer for contemporary dance performances and installations in the experimental circuit. Among others she has collaborated with Golden Palace, Sara Wookey, Lidy Six, Martin Nachbar, Sanja Mitrović, Seon-Ja Seo, Daniel AlmgrenRecen en Roser Lopez Espinosa.
Katinka writes regularly on lighting design and scenography in Zichtlijnen, the Dutch technical journal for stage technology. She also advises students at the School for New Dance Development and at the master Choreography at the AHK Amsterdam. Katinka’s preference for experimental works is based on the significant role played by space and spatial experiences, and as co-maker in multi-disciplinary productions in which space and light exist as partners. Her lighting designs possess a particularly physical quality and encourage and generate movement. In addition to her work as a designer, she has made short video films, so-called audio- visual choreographies, which bring together her fascinations for the body, movement, space and rhythm.
www.katinkamarac.com


 

Jeroen Meijer
Jeroen Meijer is an independent creative technologist, trainer and filmmaker who bridges the disciplines of art, science and technology. His background in Artificial Intelligence reflects his broad and interdisciplinary thinking. He is an experienced software architect, specialized in developing tools for scientific research, simulation and realtime 3D visualisation and is proficient in a multitude of programming languages, frameworks and design patterns. Hardware and electronics also have his interest and create a rich toolset when working on (art)projects. As a passionate and sociable trainer he specifically focuses on teaching foundational and conceptual technical knowledge to fascilitate self-learning. Ethics and critial thinking currently motivate him to research the social, ethical and political implications of the growing asymmetry of knowledge and control in a society that has grown fully dependent on deeply intrusive information technology, hardly understood by it’s users. Jeroen is a promotor of free (libre) software and it’s philosofy and advocates critical and conservative usage of information technology.


 

Benny Nilsen
BJ Nilsen (Benny Nilsen) is a Swedish composer and sound artist based in Amsterdam. His work is primarily focused on the sound of nature and its effects on humans. His two latest solo albums released by Touch Eye Of The Microphone (2013) – a personal audio rendition based on the sound of London – and The Invisible City (2010), have explored the urban acoustic realm. He has collaborated with Chris Watson on Storm and Wind, released by Touch (2006, 2001).
His original scores and soundtracks have featured in theatre, dance, and film, including Microtopia and Test Site (2013, 2010, dir. Jesper Wachtmeister), Enter the Void (2010, dir. Gaspar Noé), and, in collaboration with Jóhann Jóhannsson, I am here (2014, dir. Anders Morgenthaler). In 2014, he co-edited the book+CD publication The Acoustic City (jovis) together with Matthew Gandy.
bjnilsen.com


 

Leandros Ntolas
Leandros Ntolas is an interdisciplinary artist from Greece, currently based in the Netherlands. He has graduated from Athens School of Fine Arts and is a recent graduate from the master course of the ArtScience Interfaculty. With a background in sculpture and spatial studies, his practice spans many different mediums; having in its core a specific interest in the use of light as an artistic medium. Ntolas has been researching light through the study of optics, atmospheric optics, and the study of visual perception. He is as well involved in theoretical research around the topics of history and philosophy of science–with a specific focus in astronomy and archaeoastronomy–and the field of philosophy of perception.
www.leandrosntolas.com


 

Esther Polak
Esther Polak is a visual artist active in new media. She is most well-known for her locative media projects. Polak studied at the Royal Academy for Visual Arts in The Hague from 1981 till 1986, and at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunst in Amsterdam from 1986 till 1989. With a consistent interest in landscape and in contemporary ways of visualizing space and geography, Polak turned to visualization and mapping as artistic tools, and an integral part of the basic concept of her work. In several of her long-term projects such as Amsterdam Realtime, the MILK project and NomadicMILK, Polak makes mobility, routes and trajectories visible from the perspective of participants, in an intuitive and personal manner.
With the MILK project, Esther Polak won the Gada Balva Prix (Riga, Latvia) in 2004. In 2005, she was awarded the Golden Nica for Interactive Art at Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria. Since the beginning of 2010, Polak collaborates full-time with Ivar van Bekkum. Both live and work in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
www.polakvanbekkum.com


 

Nenad Popov
Nenad Popov is a media anarchist whose interests lie in, or better, between art and plain research. The output of these processes are live cinema pieces, sound installations, film installations, weird sound making contraptions, impossible collaborations and occasional parasitism on public cultural funds.
Not just that: huge amount of written code, public and private, interfacing this with that, embodied algorithms, alleged bar fights, organizing workshops and giving classes.
He has collaborated with many artists working in similar fields, such as Daan Brinkmann, Electronic Opera, Thomas Köner and Lillevan/Rechenzentrum. Solo performances include Dis- Patch, TodaysArt, E-Pulse and Share.
His latest research topics are possibilities of collaborating with non-human entities.
morphogenesis.eu


 

Ine Poppe
Ine Poppe is writer, teacher, journalist and artist. She did art school in Utrecht, was an intern in Hamburg and studied Dutch literature in Amsterdam. Became internationally renownded for her project Mothermilk cheese, in the 80-ties. Poppe wrote the tv-script for Necrocam: death online, directed by Dana Nechustan (award for best dramascript European Broadcasting Union -EBU- 2002). She made tv-programs and wrote scenario’s for computergames. Ine Poppe directed the documentary Hippies From Hell, about the group of hackers and activists that introduced the internet in the Nederlands and Them Fucking Robots about the Canadian robot artist Norman White.
Poppe nowadays leads the Hacking department at the Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam, makes documentaires and contributes to transmedial projects. Ine just finished ‘Teeth‘ a documentary about her obsession with teeth in the broadest sense of the word. She wrote for Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad for more than ten years and recently wrote the scenario for The Modular Body, a trans medial project with Dutch artist Floris Kaayk that was released in April 2016. This project was awarded with a ‘Gouden Kalf’ -the Dutch equivalent of an Emmy award- for the best interactive project of 2016.
poppeenpartners.nl


 

Maya Rasker
Maya Rasker (b. 1965) wrote articles and essays for the daily newspaper Trouw and other publications before debuting in 2000 with the novel Met onbekende bestemming (Unknown Destination). The book won her the Gouden Ezelsoor (Golden Dog-Ear), the prize for the year’s best-selling literary debut. She has further published the novels Rekwisieten (Props, 2003) and Xenia (2005). Her work has been translated into English, German, Spanish and Hungarian.
www.letterenfonds.nl/en/author/163/maya-rasker


 

Caro Verbeek
Caro Verbeek (1980) is an art historian specialized in art and the senses. She graduated at the University of Amsterdam on the topics of olfactory (MA) and tactile (MA) art. She writes and lectures on olfactory and tactile art accompanied and designs multi-sensory tours for museums. She is currently working on a PhD on the role of olfaction during the avant-garde, which consists both of theory and actual olfactory (re)constructions that will enable us to literally inhale history of art.
www.caroverbeek.nl


 

Willem van Weelden
Willem van Weelden (1960), has a background in social philosophy and visual art. As a former visual artist he never stopped linking media theory to the dilemmas and intrinsic ‘problems’ within the tradition of the visual arts, and probes network culture from the vantage point of trying to open new vistas and habitats for the arts and social emancipation. He is committed to new media culture from 1990 onwards and has published on this topic in various magazines and catalogues. He was involved in numerous new media projects as a creative director and coach. In the summer of 2018, as a research fellow, he completed a research Master at the Sandberg Institute (department Critical Studies) with a project on Jean-François Lyotard’s media theory and his will to develop a way ‘to do philosophy by other means’. Currently his main focus is on research, writing and teaching.


 

Julia Willms
Julia Willms (DE/NL) studied Visual Communications at the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht (The Netherlands) and Media Art at the University for Applied Arts in Vienna (Austria). Her work deals with the nature of perception, the very act of viewing itself and the shifting position of the spectator within the proposed environment. It takes form of video installations (often site specific) for the borderlines of spaces and architectual environments, performances, photo collages as well as installations and paintings.
Her works have been shown in solo and group exhibitions (GAM | Obrist Gallery/Essen, MUSA/Vienna, De Appel/Amsterdam, BNKR/Munich, Altana Kulturstiftung/Bad Homburg, a.o.), as well as in media & video art and performance festivals internationally (EMAF/Osnabrück, Almost Cinema/International Filmfestival Ghent, Netaudio London a.o.).
Since 2003 she has collaborated closely with choreographer/director Andrea Božić (www.andreabozic.com) on in-disciplinary performance projects and installations. In 2009 she co-founded in-disciplinary platform TILT with Andrea Božić, and sound artist Robert Pravda.
Julia is one of the co-founders of BAU – space for performing arts Amsterdam and teacher at the Royal Academy of the Art The Hague and mentor at the Amsterdam Master of Film. Julia has given workshops internationally (Royal Academy of Art The Hague, ICK, SPRING Festival, Interrarium – The Banff Arts Centre, a.o.).
willmsworks.net