[artinfo] Visual Culture @ De Balie, 6 & 7 April, 2001

[Adele Eisenstein]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 16:53:20 +0100
From: De Balie <epk@xs4all.nl>
To: syndicate@aec.at
Subject: Syndicate: Visual Culture @ De Balie, 6 & 7 April, 2001
FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT
________________
Visual Culture

De Balie, Amsterdam
Friday 6th & Saturday 7th of April 2001

Visual Culture in De Balie
An important theme for De Balie in coming months is Visual Culture. This
new interdisciplinary terrain is typical for current times: it focuses on
different disciplines simultaneously while searching for connections. Film,
television as well as visual art, advertising, the urban environment and
new digital and electronic presentation forms are part of Visual Culture,
but also dress codes and the manner in which magazines and shops present
themselves in our experience economy that is strongly based on visual
stimuli. Visual Culture looks at the totality of visual messages, icons and
codes that confront us on a daily basis.
Two days, two themes
The program kicks off on the 6th and 7th of April with a two-day research
conference in the Balie in Amsterdam in which the subject Visual Culture
will be explored. Our wish is to further reflection beyond establishing
that so-called `high-' and `low' culture are increasingly less easy to
distinguish from each other, that art, culture and commerce are currently
developing ever more hand in hand and that our notions on art and culture
are changing - among other things because contemporary image culture is a
multiculture.
Two main themes will be broached: the increasing interrelation of art,
culture and economy and the mix of different image cultures in
multicultural society.
What does the convergence of all these cultural and social fields - that
were hitherto separate - mean? What consequences will this all have? How,
as an image producer caught up in that network of interests can one still
take a critical stance and put it into practice? What then does such a
critical stance look like? These questions among others will be dealt with.
Who's attending?
Nicholas Mirzoeff, an American authority and advocate of Visual Culture as
a new perspective. Olu Oguibe, visual artist and art-critic, expert on
critical issues on contemporary (African) art and cinema. Together with
Okwui Enwezor editor of Nka, journal of contemporary African art. Cath=E9rin=
e
David, artistic director of the last Documenta. John Akomfrah, a black film
maker and critic who unlike anyone else is able to analyze and depict value
judgements on the basis of ethnic and/or cultural differences. Jeff Rian,
editor in chief of the magazine Purple.
 >From Holland those attending are among others: Felix de Rooij, artist and
film maker, producer of the famous exhibition Wit over Zwart. Matthijs de
Jongh, responsible for strategy at advertising agency KesselsKramer. Chris
Keulemans, writer and journalist. Patricia Pisters, tutor and researcher
into gender in film and video clips and co-author of a book on Madonna.
Henk Oosterling, philosopher, associated with the center for philosophy and
art at Erasmus University. Felix Janssens, graphic designer.
But there will certainly not only be talk and theorizing. There are also
many visual presentations involving people who are formative in Visual
Culture themselves: artists, designers, media and theatre producers,
fashion designers, photographers and architects, people from business and
advertising - especially those whose perspectives cut across the boundaries
of their discipline. An interdisciplinary field calls for an
interdisciplinary approach.
Preparations are being made on a special Visual Culture - website, that is
currently being developed for the Balie by a group of students from the
department of Interaction Design of the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht
(HKU). This will be operational in February 2001.
Further information at De Balie:
e jet.zeiss@balie.nl
t +31-20-5535151
f +31-20-5535155.
Research & production: Ineke Schwartz, Ingrid van Tol, Tessa Boerman, Jet
Zeiss.
_________
We kindly request you to send this message to interested parties in and
outside your organization.
A mailing will insure that everyone interested in the Visual Culture
program of the Balie is kept up to date on developments.