Mostly It Happens At Night

Closing party

2009-03-18T19:50:00.002+01:00

Saturday 28 February we organised an evening with performances by some of the participating artists and invited local rappers and musicians from the Bijlmer and dj Nathalie Bruys closed the project with some nice music!

We will post images very soon....

Mostly It Happens At Night closing

2009-03-18T19:34:00.010+01:00

At 28 February we wrapped up the ten days working period. We had amazing guest appearances by different experts in the real and virtual space. The artists created wonderful projects and performances. And the audience responded enthousiastically.
Some images of the working period:

Lively discussion on art in public and virtual space with Rob van Kranenburg, Hicham Khalidi and Klaas Kuitenbrouwer. Photo: Regina Kelaita

Sunday brunch with live skype meeting with Jonas and Daniela from Rio and short presentations by each participating artist about their inspirations and concept development of their project in the Bijlmer. Photo: Regina Kelaita

Tewaterlating LC's Fantasy Island

2009-02-27T17:53:00.005+01:00

Yesterday the utopian island of Marcel van den Berg was moved to the 'G-buurt' in a small pond, surrounded by the old flatbuildings of the Bijlmer. Partly renovated and partly old school flatbuildings.
During these rainy days the Le Corbusier's Fantasy Island is a nice colourful intervention in the area of gray flatbuildings and muddy roads...

foto: Regina Kelaita

Harm van den Dorpel on internet art

2009-02-26T12:39:00.003+01:00

Last Tuesday (24 February) Harm was our guest and we invited him to talk about cyberspace..
He showed multiple examples of the work of mainly young artists on the internet. Artists who mainly develop works which explores the formal notions of internet as a medium. Harm collects these artworks on internet at the ‘online-gallery’ Club Internet and presented them in online groupshows as a curator. So, Harm is actually an online curator.
He collected the works and used to email the owner/artist for permission, this approach led to an online community of internet artists from all over the world. At the same time he tried to create a sort of imitation of an opening. By imitating this ritual moment in the artworld, these artists all over the world created a sort of parallel world in which they performed this festive moment..

Etherealself - Harm van den Dorpel, 2008 - Courtesy Manetas Collection

We discussed quite briefly the difficulties on authorship and ownership: how to sell or collect these (temporary) works of internetart?

We were totally surprised by the wonderful artworks, containing beautiful web based concepts. Don’t forget to check his own website presenting internetart: www.harmvandendorpel.com

Mostly Nothing Happens At All

2009-02-25T13:25:00.002+01:00

Visit Mostly Nothing Happens At All, the live performance of Maurice Bogaert!

Sunday brunch with contributions by the artists

2009-02-25T00:39:00.001+01:00

We gathered in the studio space for a nice meal and via Skype Jonas Ohlsson and Daniela Bershan joined us at the table.
At the moment they are celebrating Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro and told a bit about the bailafunk parties in the ‘favelas’ and the drumbands on the street, which I actually spotted one on the street in the Bijlmer, the day before...of course Carnaval is celebrated in the Netherlands as well.
Luckily the Brazilian / Latin American traditions have found their way to the Bijlmer, instead of the Catholic Carnaval traditions from the South of the Netherlands…

Bailafunk is a very popular sort of music mainly produced in Rio de Janeiro. Jonas and Daniela combined the influence of living in the Bijlmer with the characteristics of this music and presented their record.

All the artists prepared a short presentation of their inspiration or working method.
Marcel showed parts of a Dutch documentary on the downfall and revival of the Bijlmer architecture. He talked about his interest in Utopian architecture, which is also the fragile funding of the Bijlmer.

Maurice showed us on the internet all the webcams in the Bijlmer, which were mainly cameras in computer server spaces. He used one of these online webcams to create a scale model of the space that was watched and create a narrative/story on the developments within the confinements of this space.
On the website you can see two live videos placed next to each other on the page. These videos show recordings of the original webcam and the recordings of his scale model.

The source material for the ‘alternative’ google map of the Bijlmer was presented by Regina. She showed amazing photographs of the weirdness of the surroundings and told a bit about her fascination with these kinds of images. She will create a ‘zoom in and out’ map of the Bijlmer based on her photographs.

Pilvi presented her working method for this project. The last few weeks she visited several religious services in the Bijlmer and asked these people to pray for her. She collected websites and phone services for prayers on request, most of the Dutch phone numbers are based in the Bijlmer…
She made several audio recordings, which she will present at Flatstation in the Bijlmer and she’s preparing her performance this Thursday (26 February). Come to the Florijn 42!

Marktplaats.nl (Dutch Ebay) provided the main characters for the project by Constant Dullaart. He researched the services offered in the surroundings of Florijn 42 and he will invite some people who provide very different services to the Florijn to create a ‘bonte avond’: join us at Florijn 42 this Friday!
This group of people create the basis for the work he’s developing on the internet, see posting: Ghetto Princess...

Stay in touch and keep a close eye on our website: www.mihan.flatstation.nl

Ghetto Princess

2009-02-24T00:46:00.003+01:00

i have collected several pictures from advertisements for services offered in the area of the exhibition. Most advertisements were for hair dressers that spiced up their ads with pictures showing the proof of their abilities to do extensions, weaving waving, what ever its called. Anyway, I really liked the way they take the pictures, rather not showing the face, rather sexist, taking away the personality. I added some music I found through the people that bought http://www.bijlmer.com, called "ghetto princess".

all pictures collected here

Musica

2009-02-21T10:56:00.013+01:00

Three wonderful artists gave us an eclectic music night!
From Sint Maarten to Georgia and back to Belgium;
spoken word, DJ-VJ, Roland TB-303:
they made us laugh, dream, think and dance till we dropped.

U.N.O.M (image Regina Kelaita)

Gogi and Marika

Acid Furious (image Regina Kelaita)

Kick off MIHAN: Thursday 19 February

2009-02-20T10:29:00.005+01:00

Yesterday we kicked off the project with the presentation of the project of Quinsy Gario. He developed a tryptic-based concept to research the different notions of internet: online performance, expanded by a documentary shot on location, expanded by liv-performance at Florijn 42.
Watch the online performances by Bijlmer musicians/singers/rappers via mihan.flatstation.nl and don't miss part 2 on Thursday 26 February (documentary) and part 3 during the closing party on Saturday 28 February (live-performance)..

This afternoon we will install the sculpture of Anne Schiffer in the Bijlmer. Join us at 5pm at Florijn 42!!

MIHAN website launch

2009-02-11T21:11:00.005+01:00

screenshot mihan.flatstation.nl

The website of Mostly It Happens At Night is online!

mihan.flatstation.nl

Developed and designed by Timo Hofmeijer specially for this project. The concept is based on Flatstation being the base of the project in the Bijlmer, and this website will be the base for the online projects of the artists.

Check it out!!

ten days of serious fun

2009-02-02T21:29:00.020+01:00

From February 19th till February 28th Flatstation (Florijn 42) will be the base for the presentation of Mostly It Happens At Night. After two inspiring events and lots of talks together with nine great artists, we're ready to present 18 new projects that take place in the Bijlmer and on the internet.

Participating artists are Marcel van den Berg, Daniela Bershan & Jonas Ohlsson, Maurice Bogaert,Constant Dullaart, Quinsy Gario, Regina Kelaita, Anne Schiffer and Pilvi Takala. Our great designer is Timo Hofmeijer from Newfolder who collaborated with Jonathan Puckey.

Some of the artists will work at Flatstation and present their works on a certain day, and some of the group will present their work every day or only on the last day of Mostly It Happens At Night.

During the ten days there will be a dinner every night at 19:00, followed by a program of performances, films, music and more at 20:00.

Specialties by the artists:
Thursday February 19: Performance I by Quinsy Gario, at 20:00
Friday February 20: Presentation sculpture by Anne Schiffer. Leaving Flatstation around 16.30
Sunday February 22: Artists lunch! at 13:00
Wednesday February 25: 24hrs performance by Maurice Bogaert starting at 9:00
Thursday February 26: Performance II by Quinsy Gario, at 20:00
Friday February 27: Presentation of the very special work of Constant Dullaart, at 20:00
Saturday February 28: Performance III by Quinsy Gario, at 20:00

On the 28th of February we close the project with a funky party in Flatstation. There will be live performances, bijlmer musicians and the super DJ team DJ Lonely & Baba Electronica live from Brasil.

Come over and join us at Flatstation, Florijn 42 in the Bijlmer and on the internet at mihan.flatstation.nl

Designed by: Timo Hofmeijer and Jonathan Puckey

Mostly It Happens At Night is curated by Maaike Gouwenberg in collaboration with Sandra van Dongen.

Filtering the World Wide Web

2009-01-27T14:45:00.014+01:00

Sunday afternoon 11 January the artists from Mostly It Happens At Night got together to talk a bit more about art on the internet. Maaike Gouwenberg invited artist Sander Veenhof and blogger Anne Helmond to present their work and talk about it with the public and moderator Lucas Evers.

Sander concentrated his presentation on his work and research on Physical Reality. He investigates the boundaries of new techniques and uses an experimental approach towards these techniques and towards art. During the presentation of his work he constantly explains the techniques and his unique approach. He mentions the great possibilities of the world wide web to reach a broad and big audience, but he underlines the difficulties to connect to larger networks with small art projects.

On the world wide web it's easy to interact for the public: easy interfaces are available. But, people should be aware of the ideas of the artists involved, believes Lucas. He wants to know how you can attribute more meaning to the presence of artists in this area, including interaction with the audience. Sander believes filtering of information is an important tool for clearing up this area for public and artists. Lucas mentions mapping as a means to create awareness and meaning.

Anne Helmond tells the audience a bit about the (short) history of blogging and her research at the University of Amsterdam on this subject. In the end the 'searchability' of a blog seems to be the most important element to get your message out there. Lucas Evers also observes the tendency of blog users creating content to be searchable by search engines. Blog users become aware of the searchability. Lucas wonders if the search engine is your new public? (Anne commends on this subject: 75% of your visits are bots.) Does a blog reach a broader audience? Does it reach the largest world wide possible public?

Quincy briefly mentioned the subject of authorship on the internet an the difficulty for artists to delete their work online. Loosing authorship after publishing artworks on Flickr or Facebook. Lucas agrees it’s difficult to determine who is the owner of the work after publishing on in internet. He advises to use a creative commons license to determine authorship.

Sander, Lucas and Anne agree on the importance of being connected to a network. This means you will have to be traced by ‘bots’, so blogs will write about it, such as We make money not art (curatorial blog). Sander emphasizes the involvement of people in your projects and trying to keep them connected to this on-line or off-line project.

Images: Performance by Lester

Twitter funnies

2009-01-26T02:29:00.003+01:00

I was surfing last and came up on Valleywag, a Perez Hilton like blog about Silicon Valley. And one of the many pretty funny things on there is their perusing of Twitter nonsense.

Check out this post and their complete list of posts on Twitter and the Twitterati.

I still don't really get what the point is though. But then again, i didn't get blogging until i started doing it myself. It's interesting though, how much meaningful stuff can you say in 14o characters? Or is it another step in prepackaging and depersonalizing communication and emotion?*

*Every communication is on the other hand being theorized as a form of mediation and is thus always prepackaged and depersonalized.

Public event 2: WWW, Art and Reality

2008-12-27T13:42:00.009+01:00

We would like to invite you to the second event within the project Mostly It Happens At Night.

Date: Sunday 11 January 2009
Time: 16:00 - 19:00 hrs
Location: FlatStation, Florijn 42, Amsterdam-Bijlmer

Mostly It Happens At Night is the first FLAT Project by guest curator Maaike Gouwenberg, in collaboration with Sandra van Dongen.

The project is an experiment and research on how artists present their work in physical and virtual space with the Bijlmer as the starting point of their works.In two public events and a 10-days presentation period, nine wonderful artists will discuss and try out possible ways of working in de Bijlmer and on the Internet.

For this first special evening programme, Mostly It Happens At Night focuses on how artists deal with the internet for developing and presenting their work in this virtual public space. Invited guests are: Anne Helmond http://www.annehelmond.nl/, professional blogger and new media researcher; Sander Veenhof http://sndrv.nl, artist who works a lot in virtual space; Lucas Evers www.waag.org, Lucas will moderate the event and will give a small introduction about art in virtual space, linked to physical space. He is Head of Programme E-culture at Waag Society and Henno Eggenkamp http://metroindebijlmer.web-log.nl/metro_in_de_bijlmer/, Bijlmer believer.

Public event 1: Art in Public Space

2008-12-12T21:04:00.008+01:00

Maaike introduces Mostly It Happens At Night to the public

DJ Lonely & Baba Electonica
http://www.myspace.com/blodfetdjlonely

The public discussion, moderated by Huib Haye van der Werf

Public Event 1: "But...Let's get back to the problem neighbourhoods.."

2008-12-12T13:35:00.012+01:00

Saturday 29 November 2008 was the kick off of the project at Florijn 42, Amsterdam Bijlmer! Mostly It Happens At Night invited the public to join in a public conversation on art in public space. One of the main interests in the framework of this project.

During the day artist Melle Smets and Maria Pask we’re invited to talk about their practices. The participating artists had the opportunity to share experiences and ask them questions and ofcourse get inspired by their work.

Melle Smets is an artist who works in public space. He believes it’s very important to be aware of your surroundings, of the context of your work. Create meaning!
More info: www.mellesmets.nl

Maria Pask believes collective creativity to be a very important aspect within her practice as an artist and as a human being. She creates live moments, by working with non-performers. More info on her project at Skulptur Münster: www.beautifulcity.de

The artists, guests and speakers we’re invited by Roosje Klap and Kaleb de Groot for a wonderful diner at their apartment at Florijn. Roosje and Kaleb are artists who live at the Florijn and are involved in Foundation Flat. The foundation which commissioned this project.

In the evening the public was invited to join in on a conversation with artist/curator Sabrina Lindemann and architect/theorist Matthias Pauwels. Moderated by Huib Haye van der Werf (curator NAi). Huib set the framework for this conversation by inviting the speakers to introduce their critical practice and discuss transformation as part of the idiom of discussing areas like the Bijlmer.