Laura Eldret, Week 1/50

fig-2 is opening with Laura Eldret’s project in progress. ‘3 | The Juicers’ brings together the research and documentation of the rug makers of a pueblo in Mexico that Eldret visited over the course of 2014. The exhibition is composed of a number of rugs made by the people she has met, their respective designs reflect her experience and emerge as receipts of exchange. The exhibition will serve as a catalyst for the development of a new work that will be shown in the final week of fig-2.

About Laura Eldret's Work

Laura Eldret’s work explores the production of materials and events as a process of social exchange. As the first instalment of fig-2 at the ICA, ‘3 | The Juicers’ includes new fabric works alongside drawings, and video rushes resulting from her time spent in late 2014 researching, documenting and making work in a pueblo in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Laura Eldret CV

Laura Eldret (b.1982, Macclesfield) lives and works in London. Her practice explores social formats by looking at divergent aspects of how groups of people gather. She explores the agency of art within this broad cultural sphere, and is interested in aesthetic elements that bind people together.

Fig-2 Launch Party at the ICA

The opening of Laura Eldret week 1/50 was followed by a fig-2 launch party at the ICA, supported by the Art Fund and Outset, including a speech by fig-2 curator Fatoş Üstek, and a performance by Anat Ben-David and DJ Neil Prince.

Charles Avery, week 2/50

Charles Avery will realise the second of fifty exhibitions. His project at fig-2 unites different surfaces of reality through the collision of two and three dimensional forms, combining drawings, film and sculpture. Avery’s film uses dihedral figurations in motion that trace a pattern, which points to the constructs of time and space. This piece is a departure from Avery’s established practice, through the use of moving image and installation, which will be shown for the first time in the UK.

fig-2 would like to thank James Holcombe from No.w.here for his generous support in providing technical support.

About Charles Avery's Work

It is a constructed world. The fact that it is constructed does not refer to the sceptics’ idea of the evil genius, the game is not rigged. The construct is that the dimensions which exist, and the dimensions that human eye perceive, are not aligned. In other words, we live in the projection of n-dimensional space. The bird on a wire, can aid to illustrate this picture.

Charles Avery CV

Charles Avery (b.1973, lives and works in London and Mull, UK). Works include major solo exhibitions (forthcoming) What’s the matter with Idealism?, GEM, Den Haag (2015); The Great Acceleration: Art in the Anthropocene, as a part of Taipei Biennale (2014); Onomatopoeia, Part 1 at Frac Ile-de-France Le Plateau, Paris (2010) and The Islanders: An Introduction at Parasol Unit, London (2008) that also toured the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

2/50 Fatos Üstek interviews Charles Avery

Hiraki Sawa, Week 3/50

Hiraki Sawa’s large scale installation at fig-2 will showcase the first and second part of his ongoing trilogy. In his recent body of work, Sawa depicts the dialectics of memory and the self. Employing surrealist film techniques, he defines perception of reality dependent on the inner voice of individuals. Lineament, 2012 profiles a man searching for his memories through meditating on the objects of his everyday. The two channel black and white film is accompanied by a palindromic score composed by Dale Berning and Ute Kanngiesser, printed on a vinyl record.

About Hiraki Sawa's work, A narrative of a life

Imagine what your life would be if you could remember nothing of your past. Nothing but your ability to function remained. Your understanding of life has a weight, which is dependent on your experience of being alive. What would it feel like to have your vitality and history erased? Unable to recount what it was that brought you here and who you are now; your face, your characteristic features become unrecognisable. Everything you could possibly conceive becomes alien. Familiar patterns and habits are lost and life becomes estranged. Would you hear sounds from your past? Would there be resonances of yourself? Would you still be guided by your parental patterns? Would your inner voice disappear? Who would be the person that replies? What would you do?

Hiraki Sawa began a trilogy of works, which explore the nature of memory, after the encounter of his close friend woke from a short nap, having completely lost his memory. Inspired by the counter positive condition of an amnesiac state, Sawa narrates circumstances of his friend in the aftermath of the incident. Following a series of interviews Sawa founds the basis of this trilogy of video works that depict the protagonist at a loss. In ‘Did I?’ 2011 Sawa explores the dependence of memory through the effervescent presence of memories. He depicts the states in which recollections begin to melt into thin air. Objects will not be as they were; something in their nature and solid state has shifted. This relationship to the variant nature of objects is furthered in the two channel video installation ‘Lineament’ 2012. Sawa depicts his subject studying the objects he is surrounded by, surveying them in their singularity, with a sheer ingenuity and patience. A single thread unravels a record, and traverses the screens. Everything is altered. Something, if not the self, something shall remember something about their subject who sentimentalises, assigns function to them. At the same time something stays the same, it is echoed, mirrored in the sounds it generates. In other words, the surreal depiction of the protagonist is embodied in the vinyl record that plays back and forth, forth and back. Composed as a palindrome the sounds that fill the room repeat and differ reciprocally. The palindromic print forms a circle into a line, the line that crosses Sawa's body of work as a cyclical relationship of memory and the self.

fig-2 would like to thank Parafin Gallery for their generous support.

Hiraki Sawa CV

Hiraki Sawa (b.1977, Ishikawa, Japan). Lives and works in London, UK. Solo exhibitions and screenings include: Tokyo Opera City Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2014); Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, UK (2013); Figment, James Cohan Gallery, New York, USA (2013); Airliner, Mori Art Museum, MAM SCREEN, Tokyo, Japan (2013); Whirl, Kanagawa Prefectural Gallery, Yokohama, Japan (2012); Videos, Museum Goch, Germany (2012); Hiraki Sawa – Dwelling, Kunsthaus Essen, Germany (2012); Carrousel, Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie et Musée du Temps de Besançon, Besançon (2010); Animated Screen, Husets Biograf, Copenhagen, Denmark (2010); Void, Derry, N. Ireland (2010).

3/50 Fatos Üstek Interviews Hiraki Sawa

Simon Welsh, Week 4/50

fig-2 is hosting a week of encounters with poet, environmental activist and public speaker Simon Welsh, who will be delivering a series of forty–two minute lectures, as well as activating a poetry café and producing poetic portraits. Welsh’s lectures incorporate his world view on the interconnecting forces that are at play in humanity today, embarking upon margins of new spirituality and cultural mythology. Please find the detailed programme as below.

SIMON WELSH CV

Simon Welsh (b. 1979, Ascot, UK). Lives and works in London, UK. His poetry spans many concepts, from the magical and ridiculous, through the stark truth behind 21st century society, to practical solutions to leading a whole and happy life. Essentially there is a single message running through the work: we are all connected.

Rebecca birch, WEEK 5/50

Rebecca Birch’s ongoing investigation around a lichen-covered stick takes on a new stage at fig-2 premises. ‘Lichen Hunting on the West Coast’, is an expanding multiple channel media and drawing installation, accompanied by a series of conversational encounters between the artist and audience.

A particular lichen-covered stick has travelled with Birch since 2011, after casting a shadow across her dashboard during a road trip performance work with artist Dan Coopey. Birch produces the incident as re-enactments, anecdotes, narratives that are performed in dialogue with the audience. This new body of work informed by following trace-lines of the stick emerges as performance in two parts, the first to take place at the opening night on Monday between 6 and 8 pm, and the latter on five consequent afternoons between 3 and 6 pm. The projections produced during the second part through one-to-one encounters will be added onto the body of the installation. Thursday late at fig-2 will host a studio visit to Birch, where she will give a talk about her exhibition and her new research on waulking songs and weaving communities in Scotland between 7 and 8 pm.
Please book your 15-minute one-to-one session for Tuesday - Saturday by emailing ben@fig2.co.uk

Rebecca Birch CV

Rebecca Birch (b.1978) lives and works in London and Lancaster, UK. Recent exhibitions, performances and screenings include: Multiplexing, LUX/PeckhamPlex, London (2014); ArtLicks Weekend (2014); Test Run, Modern Art Oxford (2014); And the days run away, commissioned Camden Arts Centre/ Junction Consortium (2012) and The Year-Going, in collaboration with clock-maker Johan ten Hoeve, Quare, London (2011). Rebecca Birch was a LUX associate artist 2012–13, and co-directs, with Rob Smith, the artist-led live broadcast platform, Field Broadcast. From 2010 to 2012 Birch ran a project space, LEDGE on her bedroom windowsill.

Week 5/50 Opening
Photography by ©Sylvain Deleu

Performances

Monday 9 Feb
Thursday 12 Feb
7.00 – 7.25 pm

YOUNG IN HONG, WEEK 6/50

Young In Hong’s new commission for fig-2 takes place at the ICA Studio and ICA Theatre. Hong’s piece will be the first of four commissions that will activate the ICA Theatre, where the performance will then feed back to the installation at the ICA Studio.‘In Her Dream’, introduces a new breath of interest to the production of a performance with Baroque elements, staging its production of drama, tension, exuberance within the frame of Korean ethnicity and folkloric tradition. Hong’s detailed study of induced violence and isolation in the everyday lives of women from various countries of affiliation comes forth in the form of a performance. Please book your tickets for the Thursday performance here. This will be followed by a Q&A with fig-2 curator Fatos Üstek and the artist Young In Hong.

Synopsis

On a dark evening, Ann (26, a night worker), Una (22, a jobseeker and a single mum), Jin (31, job unknown) and Elvire (26, a migrant worker, nanny) are having a dinner party. It is not clear whether this is a dream or a real setting. As the party progresses, Ann, Una and Elvire become increasingly drunk and start behaving wildly. They intimidate Jin who finds herself isolated and unable to communicate with the others. She slips away in the middle of the dinner, finding herself left out, starts to talk to herself. This is how her secret starts to unfold.

About Young in Hong's Work

Young In Hong is a prolific artist working with a variety of media from embroidery works to installation, photography to performance.

Young In Hong's ‘In Her Dream’, is a production of drama, tension and exuberance with a Baroque aesthetic, in the frame of Korean ethnicity and folkloric tradition.

Young in Hong CV

Young In Hong is a South Korean artist based in London, working in performance, textiles, embroidery painting, site-specific installation and drawing. Hong participated in exhibitions in Asia, Europe and the US, selected shows include Burning Down the House (2014), Gwangju Biennale (2014), South Korea (2014), Artsonje Centre, Seoul (2014), PLATEAU, Seoul (2014), Museum of Art and Design, New York (2011), Saatchi Gallery, London (2010), A Foundation, Liverpool (2008), Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2007) and Taipei Fine Art Museum (2002).

6/50 Q&A with young in hong and Fatos Üstek

Claire Hooper & Maria Loboda, Week 7/50

Claire Hooper and Maria Loboda are making a collaborative work for the seventh week of fig-2, looking at rediscovered sacred places. Forgetfulness and omnipresence are evoked by a tomb for forgotten gods, alongside weapons, a flawed colour study of the universe, and an anthropomorphic piece of burned wood. Missing swords stashed in preparation for an unknown future, juxtaposed with the riches built in the old temple, shine through the cracks in the walls exposing the gold within. Hooper and Loboda capture the atmosphere of the archaeological dig, through a battle between atheism and culture, reminiscent of the past and the archaeology of forgetting in anticipation of the ruins. Their installation expands onto the surfaces of the ICA Studio, contracting to a room of charged content.

‘The Totality Of Everything That Exists (Error)’ consists of bright turquoise paint and is based on computations by Karl Glazebrook and Ivan Baldry made in 2001. Glazebrook and Baldry conducted a spectral analysis of the light of over 200,000 galaxies and calculated the median colour value in order to pinpoint the exact colour of the universe. Unfortunately while the computation was running there was a glitch in the software, leading to the shade calculated “Cosmic Turquoise” being wrong - one year later they rectified the value to a beige-white.

‘The God Storage Unit’ is a depiction of a temple for forgotten gods, walls covered by watercolour application of patterns taken from archival imagery of a storage building in Uruq that was used to store damaged or out of use gods. The piece is a composite of various components, the burned wood as the night goddess of Ephesus is stacked alongside the gateposts of Sumerian goddess of love, fertility and warfare presenting a scene of an (un)excavated worship. These representations of higher values are studies of charged objects that are only traced through archaeological surveys and analysis, suggestive of their reality, emerge as fictional projections on to what might the revelations of a distant past.

‘Weapons are stashed securely for an unknown future’ is based on a story of duty of every samurai, who returned home after a war, was to hide his Katana in the house that only he was the one to know where it is. So peace was maintained by the knowledge that there is a hidden weapon in almost every household. Activating the tale, Loboda instigates the teachings of a samurai, concealing the two swords in the premises.

‘Movements that mattered’ is based on an anecdote told to the artist by an archaeologist friend: when building the Alhambra palace, the emirs of the Nasrid Dynasty were said to have ordered precious stones to be hidden randomly inside the walls. The day on which the immense structure were to be abandoned and destroyed, the Nasrid’s name would live on, revered as being of the greatest emirs who ever lived, so rich and powerful that he embedded precious stones on the insides of walls, knowing that no one would be able to see them. It is possible, therefore, that some of the walls of the ICA Studio contain the riches like that of the tale. Hence, gold nuggets charge the space, adhering towards its glorious demolition.

Claire Hooper CV

Claire Hooper (b. 1978) is an artist and filmmaker from London. She is the winner of the 2010 Baloise Art Prize, and was nominated for the 2011 Jarman Award and shortlisted for the IFFR Tiger Award 2013. Solo exhibitions and performances include: Bonner Kunstverein (2014), Lothringer 13 Munich (2011), MUMOK Vienna (2011). Her work has been screened and exhibited at national and international venues including the Serpentine Gallery, the ICA, Jerwood Space, Kunstwerk Berlin, WUK Vienna, and IT Park Gallery, Taiwan.

Maria Loboda CV

Maria Loboda (b. 1979, Kraków, Poland). Lives and works in New York and Berlin. Solo exhibitions and presentations include: Kunstverein Braunschweig (2014); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2013); Ludlow 38, Goethe-Institut New York (2012); and Bielefelder Kunstverein (2010). Recent projects and exhibitions in the UK include: Firstsite, Colchester (forthcoming); residency at Acme Studios via Hessische Kulturstiftung, London (2011); South London Gallery (2013); ICA, London (2012) and Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (2010). Participation in major international survey exhibitions include: 13th Taipei Biennial (2014); 16th Biennal de Cuenca (2014) and Documenta 13, Kassel (2012).

7/50 Fatos üstek Interviews Claire Hooper

7/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS Maria Loboda

Live Sessions

Monday 23 Feb
Thursday 26 Feb
7.00 – 7.25 pm

Edmund Cook, Week 8/50

For the eighth week at fig-2 Edmund Cook will produce the voiceover and soundtrack to a short video currently in post-production. The video, with the working title ‘Enumerators’, depicts an interaction with the eponymous group of objects, which use a fictional technology to record people’s thoughts in a public space. However, these objects do not function as initially desired, redrawing the boundaries between interior and exterior states. The work and its process of production reflects the artist’s interest in staging scenarios with tactile sculptural objects in order to look at how we record and exchange information and experiences in the context of both current and previous technological conditions.

Edmund Cook, alongside collaborator Laurence Byrne, will run two live recording sessions to create and animate the sound for the video at the opening on Monday and on Thursday evening. Throughout the week, the artist will use the ICA Studio as an editing suite to incorporate the recordings into the film.

Edmund Cook CV

Edmund Cook (b. 1984) lives and works in London, UK. He recently studied on the Masters Programme at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam. Recent exhibitions include: Mega Armageddon Long Version, The One Minutes, curated by Nathaniel Mellors (2015), Inventing Temperature, The Korean Cultural Centre, London (2014) and They Unduloping, Parkour, Lisbon (2014).

8/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS Edmund Cook

Deborah Coughlin with Gaggle, WEEK 9/50

Deborah Coughlin with Gaggle bring music and speech performed by women. Claiming the fig-2 space to generate ideas and positions taken by women today, the week will cultivate performances and speeches delivered live. Coughlin has invited significant female figures for series of speeches, which are interspersed by live performances from Gaggle’s new track, ‘MAKE LOVE NOT WAR’. In celebration of International Women’s Day, the project reinforces the significance of women’s speech today and through history and charges the space with sounds and voices. Speakers include presenter Ruth Barnes, feminist and sci-fi writer Ama Josephine, singer Charlotte Church, founder of Clit Rock Dana Jade, and performance and video artist Paula Varjack.

On Thursday a new group of women singers and sound artists are invited for a performance at 6.30 to create and record a series of sounds with artist Michael Shaw. The dichotomy of vocal expression will activate the soundscapes of fig-2 with a strong visual manifestation of female personas. Please book your tickets for the Thursday performance here.

About Yap! Yap! Yap!

Yap! Yap! Yap! Is a celebration of women’s voices. Uncovering the great things that women have said throughout history and also saying new things, now, very loudly, with a roster of incredibly special guests. It’s like the Vagina Monologues only not just about fannies.

Deborah Coughlin + Michael Shaw + Gaggle: ECHO, ECHO, ECHO

As part of fig-2, Deborah Coughlin, Michael Shaw and a 22-piece all-girl choir Gaggle present Echo, Echo, Echo.

Echo, Echo, Echo is an experimental, multi-layered piece of recorded improvisation made of from the voices of Gaggle women past and present, live instruments and our recording of the opening night of Yap! Yap! Yap!. Michael Shaw will record the piece live on experimental, recycled and modified hardware as part of this 20 minute performance.

For her comission at Bicester Village, Deborah Coughlin and her women’s choir Gaggle will activate the streets of Bicester Village with performances that illustrate and comment on the image of contemporary women

Deborah Coughlin CV

Deborah Coughlin is a writer, artist, director and producer. Included in New Work Network’s list of the UKs Top New Emerging Artists before forming her first band 586. Deborah was Editor of The Feminist Times and is currently a reporter and contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and feature writer for Guardian Weekend Magazine.

About Gaggle

Deborah Coughlin founded Gaggle in 2009 as an experimental choir and performance group. Since then they’ve won awards and gained critical acclaim across their diverse body of work, including opera, pop records, video, apps, pop ups, immersive theatre and comedy.

Deborah Coughlin with Gaggle, 'yap! yap! yap!'

Performances

Monday 9 Mar
Thursday 12 Mar
6.00 – 8.00 pm

Saturday 14 Mar
4.00 – 6.00 pm

Annika Ström, WEEK 10/50

Annika Ström introduces short definitions to the public domain of an art encounter in the manner in which her performances emerge and appear as singular acts. ‘Six Lovely People’ is an exhibition that activates fig-2 as a space of encounter, where six actors and actresses act in a lovely manner. Through highlighting a concept, in this case loveliness, as a value to be experienced and explored Ström positions language and human expression as initiators of behavioural science that stimulate physical and mental engagement promoting an awareness of body and mind. Akin to Nauman’s Body Pressure, 1974 piece, Ström’s ‘Six Lovely People’ use instructions for the creation of ideas to be exhibited as verbal directions. Ström works with concepts in a playful manner in a way in which numbers and words collide to produce meaning and value in her depictions of scenarios. Her performances produce mise-en-scènes that are improvised by the actors and actresses and concentrate on a singular act or a feeling, such as ‘Ten Embarrassed Men’ which was commissioned for Frieze Projects in 2010.

ABOUT Annika Ström's WORK

Annika Ström explores the domain of performance and the notions of performativity in her body of work. Throughout her artistic practice, she has handed over the agency of production to third parties, inviting her mother to make drawings of her for her solo exhibition in 1995 to recent performance pieces where she worked with actors and actresses to enact her ideas for instruction based performances. In between, she engages.

Featuring two characters who are frequent Bicester Village shoppers, Annika Ström’s comissioned film for Bicester Village, reveals the peculiarity and intimacy of friendships that can develop in the public-private space of retail venues.

Annika Ström CV

Annika Ström (b.1964, Helsingborg, Sweden). Lives and works in London and Hove, UK. Recent performances include: ‘Seven women standing in the way’, Moderna Museet, Malmö (2014); ‘The Upset Man’, Kunstnerernas Hus, Oslo (2014); ‘Look the other way’, Winchester Great Hall (2013); ‘The Inept five’, Corner House, Manchester (2012); ‘The book left Behind’, Centre de Pompidou (2013); ‘The Swede-the rehearsal’, Gallery Gerhardsen Gerner, Berlin (2012); ‘Songs by Annika Ström’, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, CAAC, Seville (2011) and ‘Ten Embarrassed Men’ Commissioned by Frieze Art projects 2010. She recently made her first Public permanent installation at LUX in Lund (2014) commissioned by The Art Agency, Sweden.

10/50 FATOs ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS Annika Ström

Beth Collar, Week 11/50

Transformation and change lie in the heart of Beth Collar’s exhibition at fig-2. Her observant practice is embodied through a set of works, producing an installation with many components including moving image, drawings and sculpture. The room is configured as a container of impressions that reveal reversible and irreversible processes of nature and human behaviour. The confluence of liquid and solid matter, is explored throughout the installation which allows the processes of deterioration, mergence and personification to surface. Collar, thus, is testing the boundaries between the subject and object, through collisions between matter and entity, humanity and nature.

Beth Collar CV

Beth Collar (b. 1984, Cambridge, UK). Forthcoming projects include: solo exhibition at Friends, Glasgow and a residency at Rupert, Vilnius. Recent performances and exhibitions include: ‘Saturday Live’, Serpentine Gallery (2015), ‘Anatomy of Anxieties’, Edouard Malingue Gallery, Hong Kong (2014), ‘Palimpsest’, performance with William Cobbing, Hayward Gallery Project Space (2014), Field Broadcast (2014), Flat Time House (2014), ‘From script to reading to exhibition to performance to print’, Rowing, London (2013) ‘Whitechapel London Open’, Whitechapel Gallery (2012). She currently has a newly commissioned artist book on display at David Roberts Art Foundation, London, and work in ‘The Cipher and the Frame’, Cubitt, London.

11/50 Fatos Üstek Interviews Beth Collar

Events

Think Tank
26 Mar 7 – 8.30 pm

Company Report
28 Mar 12 – 7.30 pm

Tom McCarthy, Week 12/50

Tom McCarthy’s new novel Satin Island is transformed into a gallery installation at fig-2, coinciding with its publication. Realised in collaboration with set designer Laura Hopkins, the exhibition presents a real-space version of the world that the book’s protagonist inhabits, providing visitors with a unique opportunity to physically step into, walk around, touch and interact with a work of fiction.

Satin Island is narrated by U., a corporate anthropologist pimping his skills to an elite consultancy in contemporary London. Tasked with unpicking his culture’s weft and warp in order to help clients get better penetration of their markets, U. instead spends his time procrastinating, meandering, drifting through endless buffer-zones of information, and growing obsessed with the images with which the world bombards him on a daily basis: oil spills, African traffic jams, roller-blade processions, zombie parades. Is there (he wonders) a secret logic holding all these scenes together – a codex that, once cracked, will unlock the master-meaning of our times? Maybe, maybe not.

The exhibition will host two major public events: A ‘Think Tank’ and a ‘Company Report: All-day reading of Satin Island’.

fig-2 would like to thank Fat Boy for their generous support in providing the Beanbags; The Westbury Hotel and to Anthony Auerbach for the design of The Company logo.

Think Tank

Director of the Weltkulturen Museum Frankfurt Dr. Clémentine Deliss, feted media consultant Alfie Spencer and leading critic and novelist Mark Blacklock discussed on Thursday 26th March, the triangle (central to McCarthy’s novel) linking anthropology, capitalism and literature within contemporary culture.

Recording Of The Think Tank

Company report: all-day reading of satin island

Specially invited figures from the world of writing, theatre and art read on Saturday 28th March, from 12 to 7 pm, McCarthy’s novel from start to finish, non-stop in relay, in the style of an extended press conference or AGM statement.

Tom McCarthy CV

Tom McCarthy’s work has been translated into more than 20 languages. He is the author of Remainder, which has been adapted as a major film by Omer Fast to be released later this year; C, a finalist in the 2010 Booker Prize; Men in Space; and the brand-new Satin Island. In 2013 he was awarded the inaugural Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction by Yale University. He is also Founder and General Secretary of the semi-fictitious underground/bureaucratic network the International Necronautical Society. He regularly writes on literature and art for publications including The New York Times, The London Review of Books and Artforum.

Laura Hopkins CV

Laura Hopkins is a celebrated designer who has created numerous experimental and devised productions (many in collaboration with director Pete Brooks) at the ICA, the Barbican and Tate Britain. She has also designed Shakespeare productions for the Globe and the Royal Shakespeare Company; classic drama at the National Theatre; costumes for dance pieces at Sadler’s Wells and the Volksoper, Vienna; and opera sets for English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera North, New Israeli Opera and New Zealand Opera. She is an associate artist with two of Britain’s leading experimental companies, and Environmental Engineer of Tom McCarthy’s International Necronuatical Society.

12/50 Fatos Üstek Interviews Tom McCarthy

SHEZAD DAWOOD, WEEK 13/50

For his week at fig-2, Shezad Dawood uses the text of his forthcoming novella as a conceptual starting point, weaving diverse strands of visual and literary references into an immersive virtual tapestry. ‘The Room’ is a digital animation that questions how we read and experience both the physical and the intangible. Mirroring the space of the ICA Studio, the animation takes the viewer on an epoch-spanning satirical journey into occult conspiracy and the true powers that govern the world. Alongside the interior/exterior space of the animation, Dawood is showing a new painting and accompanying woodcuts that chart an analogue, and analogous development of the project in more traditional media, as a fluid continuum of critical gestures and craft.

For his commission at Bicester Village Shezad Dawood will lure visitors into an unconventional journey through time-space coordinates that explores cultural inheritance depicted in a hybrid landscape.

SHEZAD DAWOOD CV

Shezad Dawood (b.1974, London, UK). Current exhibitions include: Towards The Centre. Once More, Sadler’s Wells and Tate Visual Art Commission (2014-15); The Anthropology of Chance, OCAT, Xi’an, China (2014-15). Recent solo exhibitions: Towards the Possible Film, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds (2014-15) and Parasol Unit Foundation For Contemporary Art, London (2014); Wolf Panel, Paradise Row, London (2013-14); Piercing Brightness, KINOKINO, Sandnes, Norway (2013); Trailer, Art in General, New York (2013); Shezad Dawood: New Dream Machine Project with PRAED, Parasolstice, Parasol Unit, London (2013); Piercing Brightness, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford (2012).

13/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS SHEZAD DAWOOD

EVENT

Tarot Reading
Wednesday 8 Apr
5 – 7 pm

SUZANNE TREISTER, WEEK 14/50

Suzanne Treister brings forth her investigations of traumatic histories of the 20th century in HEXEN 2.0, manifested as a series of drawings, deck of Tarot cards, a film and a book. The exhibition surfaces unverbalised parallels between modern technologies and their occult double, explored through diagrams of topological displacements and transformation of knowledge. In relation to the Macy Conferences held between 1946 and 1953, Treister retrospectively stirs the ideas of cybernetics with sensibilities of contemporary society into a kind of visual discussion. On April 8th, Mark Pilkington will activate the Tarot Deck by Treister, conducting a group Tarot Reading to reconfigure history, and the possible futures of humankind in terms of technology and society. Please book your tickets for the Tarot Reading here.

HEXEN 2.0 TAROT READING BY MARK PILKINGTON

During fig–2’s presentation of Suzanne Treister’s HEXEN 2.0 project, Mark Pilkington will conduct a group tarot reading using the HEXEN 2.0 deck.

The HEXEN 2.0 Tarot features 78 alchemical drawings depicting interconnected histories of the computer and the internet, cybernetics and the counterculture, science-fiction and scientific projections of the future, government and military research programmes, social engineering and ideas of the control society, alongside diverse philosophical, literary and political responses to advances in technology, including the claims of anarcho-primitivism, technogaianism, and transhumanism.

SUZANNE TREISTER CV

Suzanne Treister (b.1958, London). Previous and forthcoming shows include: Extension du Domaine du Jeu, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2015); 16th WRO Media Art Biennale, Poland (2015); RARE EARTH, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna (2015); Social Factory: 10th Shanghai Biennale (2014-15); L’avenir, 8th Biennale de Montréal (2014-15); Systemics #2, Kunsthal Aarhus, Denmark (2013); The Whole Earth. California and the Disappearance of the Outside, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2013); HEXEN 2.0, P.P.O.W, New York (2013); In The Name of Art, Annely Juda Fine Art, London (2013); Mutatis Mutandis, Secession, Vienna (2012); Secret Societies, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt and CAPC, Musée d'art Contemporain de Bordeaux (2011).

14/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS SUZANNE TREISTER

THE WHITE REVIEW, WEEK 15/50

To coincide with the London Book Fair, fig-2 invites The White Review to transfer its activities from the printed page to the physical space of the ICA Studio. The White Review’s editorial practice is carried into the exhibition format: the form that each work proposes counterpoints another work, providing an associative experience of reading the magazine for the visitor. The editors in turn invite artists Patrick Goddard and Izzy McEvoy, alongside a collaboration between Patrick Langley, Stuart Middleton and Richard Sides, to present work that addresses the ways in which fiction, nonfiction and the visual arts can, when arranged together, inform one another. Further, the editors bring in a selection of multimedia and collage works by Linder Sterling to serve as a metonym for the show as a whole.

THE WHITE REVIEW CV

The White Review is a quarterly arts and literature journal, with print and online editions. It takes its name and a degree of inspiration from La Revue Blanche, a Parisian magazine that ran from 1889 to 1903. Launched in 2011 by Jacques Testard and Benjamin Eastham and designed by Ray O’Meara, The White Review publishes fiction, essays, interviews, poetry and visual art. Its thirteenth issue, out now, features among other things interviews with Ben Lerner and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, fiction by Helen Oyeyemi, and artwork by Luke Rudolf, Patricia Treib and Daisuke Yokota.

15/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS THE WHITE REVIEW

EVENT

Uttering the Spectacle: Exhibition as Score, Costume as Movement
23 Apr 7 – 8.30 pm

JACOPO MILIANI, WEEK 16/50

Jacopo Miliani creates a choreographic score as exhibition, responding to fig-2’s performative and time based structure. Miliani has been in London for the last two months and has been following the fig-2 programme closely. The choreography will be composed of seven states over seven days, manifested through the configuration of the mobile wall structures, plexiglass modules, photocopies alongside textile components. The indeterminate body of the score will be complemented by a number of accumulating vases of flowers, appearing daily. One element informing the other, the different configurations will emerge, where representation of a gesture will be read into a movement that surfaces as a still pose that the exhibition holds daily. Please book your tickets for the talk ‘Uttering the Spectacle: Exhibition as Score, Costume as Movement’ by Jacopo Miliani, Marketa Uhlirova and Fatos Üstek here.

fig-2 would like to thank the program MIP Move Improve Prove 2 for cooperation and support at the project.

UTTERING THE SPECTACLE: EXHIBITION AS SCORE,
COSTUME AS MOVEMENT

This talk will bring together fashion scholar Marketa Uhlirova, artist Jacopo Miliani and fig-2 curator Fatos Ustek. Staged on the occasion of Jacopo Miliani's solo exhibition at fig-2, the talk will expand on the dynamic relationship between movement, score and body bringing in influences from fashion, cinema and dance. The talk will respond to the choreographic score study of Miliani's, to the seven states of an exhibition displayed over seven days, manifested through the configuration of the mobile wall elements, plexiglass modules, photocopies with a textile component.

JACOPO MILIANI CV

Jacopo Miliani (b.1979, Florence, Italy). Lives and works in Milan, IT. Solo exhibitions and performances include: Odious Oasis, Studio Dabbeni, Lugano, Switzerland (2015); Easy as…Simple as…, Frutta, Rome, Italy (2014); Three Times, DOCVA ViaFarini, Milan, Italy (2014); Knowledge is good, Videoteca GAM, Turin, Italy (2013); MACRO, Rome, Italy (2013); Stage fright, Deutsche Bank Kunst Halle, Berlin, Germany (2013); If you can dance you will be my memory, David Roberts Art Foundation, London (2013); Ex3, Florence, Italy (2012); Untitled (1967); MADRE, Naples, Italy (2011); W_W, Galeria Verhmelo, São Paulo, Brazil (2010).

CHARLOTTE MOTH, WEEK 17/50

Coinciding with Charlotte Moth’s new commission at Tate Britain, fig-2 premiers a recent body of work in the UK. ‘The Story of a Different Thought’, 2014 is a trilogy on the construction of reality, building of environments and elucidation of cross-references. A condition of three possibilities that spring from three versions of a word, continues in three ways to tell a story about a bird with three eyes. Moth’s installation composed of a film, series of silk screen prints and two sculptures, denote a treatment for a film; a film about fluidity of concepts that influence a façade, a sculpture, a way of living, a city built around coal mines and early industrialisation, a building with ability to grow, a painter with a loss and a poet deciphering religious teachings. Amidst all lies a mapping that includes Max Ernst, Rathaus Marl, Donatello, Patricia Lake, Joshua Edwards, Rebecca Loewen among others.

CHARLOTTE MOTH CV

Charlotte Moth (b.1978, Carshalton, UK). Lives and works in Paris. Solo exhibitions and presentations include: Die Kunstproduzenten: Production Grant 1: The story of a different thought, Temporary Gallery Cologne, Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten, Marl, De Vleeshal, Middleburg (2014); ProspectifCinema/Centre Pompidou (2014);Centre d'art contemporain de Genèva (2012); Visual Speech. Project Sonae, Fondation Serralves, Porto, Portugal (2011); Proximity, a proposition at Lavomatic, St Ouen (2011), Bloomberg SPACE, London, Comma 18 (2010). Forthcoming: Archive Room – Tate Britain, London (May 2015); Esker Foundation, Calgary, CA (Sept 2015).

17/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS CHARLOTTE MOTH

PERFORMANCES:

Monday 4 May
7.00 – 7.22 pm
Sunday 10 May
3.00 – 3.22 pm

KATHRYN ELKIN, WEEK 18/50

Kathryn Elkin’s new commission ‘The Elephants in the Room’ merges modes of improvisation with immediacy of response in the form of a collaboration between the artist and the musician Okkyung Lee. As a conversation point and a reference for Lee’s improvisation they worked through the adagietto from Mahler’s 5th Symphony, which was famously used in Visconti’s masterpiece Death in Venice. Elkin worked with artist Lucy Parker shooting the film, with cellist Richard Thomas acting as a sound recordist. Parker and Thomas lend their own interpretations of Elkin’s intentions in documenting the sessions with Lee, each negotiating their own role in the studio set-up. Lee’s canny understanding of Elkin’s interest in the score and its associations as well as her understanding of the dualism of her role in the film at hand - as composer and as performer/subject - makes for a broad range of collaborative harmonies and dissonances. ‘The Elephants in The Room’, features two performances entitled Mud, a 22 minute vocal work that accompanies the video, on the opening evening and on Sunday 10th. Please book your tickets for the Sunday performance here.

Commissioned by fig-2 and CCA Glasgow. Generously supported by Outset Scotland.

KATHRYN ELKIN, 'MUD', 2015

KATHRYN ELKIN CV

Kathryn Elkin (b.1983, Belfast, UK). Lives and works in Glasgow. Recent exhibitions and performances include: ‘Speaking Art Writing’, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2015), ‘Mutatis Mutandis’, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh (2015) and ‘Til The Stars Turn Cold’ at Glasgow Sculpture Studios (2015). In 2015 Elkin was awarded a 6 month residency at BBC Scotland to produce the video work ‘Michael's Theme’ and her video ‘Mutatis Mutandis’ featured as part of the 2014 London Film Festival. Elkin is one of the 2015 Visual Art residents at Cove Park. She will make a duo presentation with Seamus Harahan at CCA Derry in late 2015 and a solo presentation at CCA Glasgow.

18/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS KATHRYN ELKIN

EVENTS

The acorn as a symbol of…
14 May 7 – 8 pm
Agencies of Real: Anticipation,
Elaboration and Participation
17 May 2 – 5 pm

RUTH BEALE, WEEK 19/50

Ruth Beale will activate a space of encounter by transforming fig-2 into a temporary library composed of books borrowed from various London public libraries. In the week following the UK general election, her makeshift collection will concentrate on utopian and distopian novels that attempt to predict the future of societies based on anxieties about the recent past and present. By bringing the books together with her new sculptures and prints, Beale urges us to explore modalities of democracy, education and civil society, as well as positions of knowledge, particularly that of the ‘common’. Notions of participation and interaction are highlighted through a series of events scheduled in the week. Thursday evening will host Beale’s performative lecture (book here), while the Sunday event (book here) will be of a speculative nature, using three different positions to address how we transform the real.

THE ACORN AS A SYMBOL OF…

Ruth Beale will give a presentation on Thursday 14th May, reflecting on the ideas and concepts and symbolism in her solo show, calling in immediate and long term responses. Between an artist’s talk and a performative lecture, the presentation will plot links and cross-references between subversive librarianship, Thomas More’s Utopian alphabet, the notion of the commons, knowledge production and futurology.

AUDIO 'THE ACORN AS A SYMBOL OF...'

AGENCIES OF REAL: ANTICIPATION, ELABORATION AND PARTICIPATION

On the occasion of Ruth Beale’s solo exhibition at fig-2, Beale gathers a group of speakers to reflect on the notions of agitation, participation and dissemination. Three different positions will expand on the context of the real concentrating on the individual as an active member of society. Nick Mahony will start the series of presentations with Attempts to reframe the real followed by Ian Clark’s Radical Librarianship which will respond to Ruth Beale’s makeshift library at fig-2. Charlie Tims’ presentation What does a radical democracy look like? will include film and video excerpts selected from the Doc Nex Media Collection. Each presentation will start on the hour, with refreshment breaks in between.

RUTH BEALE CV

Ruth Beale (b. 1981, Cambridge, UK). Lives and works in London. Recent solo exhibitions include: Bookbed at Peckham Platform, London, (2014), Bikes, Caves, Raves at Trade, Nottingham (2014), Lindgren & Langlois: The Archive Paradox at Grand Union, Birmingham (2013). She has performed at Turner Contemporary (2014), Basel Kunsthalle (2012), MoMA PS1 (2014), South London Gallery (2011), ICA (2011) and Modern Art Oxford (2014). She is a co-founder of Performance as Publishing and The Alternative School of Economics, which has recently been awarded a major new commission by Create London.

19/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS RUTH BEALE

EVENT

Does Darkness Matter?
A Blackboard Conversation
Monday 18 May
7 – 7.30 pm

DAVID CHEESEMAN, OLE HAGEN & ROBERTO TROTTA
WEEK 20/50

Artists David Cheeseman and Ole Hagen collaborate with astrophysicist Roberto Trotta for week 20 at fig-2. Their exhibition entitled ‘All There Was’ predicates a post-Newtonian orrery, concentrating on the depiction of all-there-is in its modelling. The exhibition builds its premises by looking into the amount of data gathered to explore the cosmos and elucidate our understanding of it within the given parameters known to us. Basing its subject-matter on the dichotomy of presentation and the real, ‘All There Was’ is an aesthetic and intellectual speculation of post-Euclidean Geometry basing its forms on hypothetical modelling of abstract concepts such as dark matter, dark energy. Cheeseman, Hagen and Trotta will highlight the transformation of fig-2 premises into a temporary laboratory of ideas, through their performative conversation on Monday evening that will speculate about the ‘Big Picture’, the grand scheme of the reality we reside in.

Please join us for the weekly Curatorial Tour on Wednesday and the Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday.
fig-2 would like to thank the Science and Technology Facilities Council for their generous support.

AUDIO 'DOES DARKNESS MATTER? A BLACKBOARD CONVERSATION'

DAVID CHEESEMAN CV

David Cheeseman is a practicing artist and senior lecturer in Fine Art at Birmingham City University. He is an interdisciplinary practitioner working within the disciplines of sculpture, installation and photography as part of the CFAR research group. He has been awarded the Gulbenkian Rome Scholarship in Sculpture and The Henry Moore Fellow in Sculpture at Coventry University. His current research interests are primarily concerned with exploring the relationship between truth and illusion with respect to the materiality and methodologies of science and (stage) magic. He recently completed a residency at The Lydney Park Estate in association with Matts Gallery London.

OLE HAGEN CV

Ole Hagen (b. 1967, Stavanger, Norway). Lives and works in London. Solo exhibitions/performances: I Got Life, performance, LUPA, London (2012), Holography for Beginners, The Horse Hospital, London (2010), That Is That, performance, The Barbican, London (2010). Exhibitions curated by the artist: Multiverse Expanded, Akershus Kunstsenter (2011), Multiverse, Danielle Arnaud (2009). Ole was awarded the BKH Art Photography Prize 2014, for moving image work at The Spring Exhibition, Fotogalleriet, Oslo (2014).

ROBERTO TROTTA CV

Roberto Trotta is a theoretical cosmologist at Imperial College London, where he studies dark matter, dark energy and the Big Bang, and is a STFC Public Engagement Fellow. Roberto is a passionate science communicator and the recipient of numerous awards for his research, outreach and art and science collaborations, including the Lord Kelvin Award of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Michelson Prize of Case Western Reserve University. Trotta’s award-winning first book, ‘The Edge of the Sky: All you need to know about the All-There-Is’, endeavours to explain the Universe using only the most common 1,000 words in English. Roberto was named as one of the 100 Global Thinkers 2014 by Foreign Policy, for ‘junking astronomy jargon’.

20/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS DAVID CHEESEMAN, OLE HAGEN AND ROBERTO TROTTA

PERFORMANCES

Monday 6.45 – 7.05 pm
Tuesday – Saturday 1 – 1.20 pm
with Thursday 7 – 7.20 pm

THE ROT OF THE STARS, WEEK 21/50

The Rot of the Stars (ROTS) initiates communications with the isolated unicellular microbes that inhabit the plastisphere, an ecosystem inhabited by more than 1,000 species of bacteria and algae that have evolved to live on microplastic debris. ROTS, composed of visual and performance artist Jo Fisher Roberts and experimental musician and writer Mark O Pilkington, will construct a sympathetic environment charged with images, sounds, smells and light in order to open up a channel between our world and that of the microbial plastisphere. The mise-en-scène is amplified and the visual presentation complemented by daily live performances occurring at lunch time throughout the week. Please book your tickets for the daily live performances here.

Please join us for the weekly Curatorial Tour on Wednesday and the Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday.
fig-2 would like to thank Gorilla Perfumes for their generous support in providing the Mycelium Fragrance by Simon Constantine.

ABOUT THE ROT OF THE STARS

“The Starres eat… Those falling Starres, which are found on the earth in the form of a trembling jelly, are their excrement.” (Henry More, 1656). Pwrdre Ser, or the Rot of the Stars is a pale, foul-smelling jelly traditionally associated with meteorite falls.

Formed in November 2014, ROTS is a collaboration between Jo Fisher Roberts and Mark O Pilkington. Jo is an artist with an interest in natural history and the Grotesque, currently working primarily in live art and installation. Trained at the Slade School of Fine Art, Jo exhibits internationally and teaches Natural History Illustration. Mark is a writer and experimental musician; he also founded and runs Strange Attractor Press.

21/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS THE ROT OF THE STARS

MARJOLIJN DIJKMAN, WEEK 22/50

A three century old ritual is reimagined by artist Marjolijn Dijkman in the form of a week long presentation of ideas and discussions called ‘LUNÄ Talks: Uncertainty Scenarios’. The LUNÄ Talks take place around a table, a reproduction of the original table which accommodated The Lunar Society of Birmingham, where pioneers of the Industrial Revolution debated Philosophy, Arts, Sciences and Commerce, every month on the night before full moon. Three centuries later, this table, becomes a platform to develop and expand the knowledge production of our times. The programme includes conversations about the notion of Time, recent developments in Neuroscience and explorations in Big Data, amongst others. The programme of invited speakers posits seeds of thought planted to flourish in a close future. Tickets for the LÜNA Talks will be available from Thursday 28th of May. To arrange a free booking to host a conversation or talk of your own, please contact info@fig2.co.uk.

Marjolijn Dijkman’s ‘LUNÄ Talks: Uncertainty Scenarios’, has been generously supported by Outset Netherlands.
Please join us for the weekly Curatorial Tour on Wednesday and the Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday.

LÜNA TALKS: UNCERTAINTY SCENARIOS

Time and Progress
Monday 1 June
6 - 8 pm

With Stephen Boyd Davis (RCA), Marjolijn Dijkman (Artist), Jay Griffiths (Author) and Cathy Haynes (Artist and Curator).

On Monday we will introduce LUNÄ and the project Uncertainty Scenarios. We will focus on the origins of ideas around progress in relation to the timeline ‘A New Chart of History’ of Lunar Man Joseph Priestley and alternative ideas in relation to this concept of time from the past as the present as from different cultural perspectives.

Outset Production Fund Partners Briefing:
Past and Future Projects
Tuesday 2 June
11 am – 2 pm

With Outset Contemporary Art Fund.
Outset assists a wide range of organisations from the grassroots level through to internationally established institutions, enabling the production of new works, acquisitions for public collections, capital campaigns, publications and educational programmes. Founded in 2003, Outset is an independent international philanthropic organisation that supports new art within the public arena through private funding.

Concepts of Time: Future
(Platform for Climate Affairs)
Tuesday 2 June
3 – 6 pm

With Ifor Duncan (Goldsmiths) and Tom Trevatt (Goldsmiths).
For those on the political left, May 2015 will mark the moment when a viable and popular alternative to the prevailing conditions must be forcefully constructed. This sedimentation process begins with the production of new forms of living that are both legitimate and desirable to the general public, not to mention sustainable and scalable. This consultation meeting is the first opportunity to discuss how we can construct the type of society we want to live in, and what tactics and strategies must be used in this ongoing project. Invited speakers will engage with normative questions of the future, offering possible solutions, but the important work must be done collectively through consultation and discussion. This is an open forum for discussion, with the aim to contribute to the ideological aims of the Platform for Climate Affairs. We will discuss the conceptual tools required for such a project and at the same time practical proposals.
Please book your tickets here
Recommended reading:
Nick Srnicek, Navigating Neoliberalism: Political Aesthetics in an Age of Crisis
Roberto Mangabeira Unger,Deep freedom: Why the left should abandon equality.

Reflections on FOMO
Wednesday 3 June
11.15 am - 1 pm

With Steven Cairns (ICA) and Rosalie Doubal (ICA)
Co-curators Rosalie Doubal and Steven Cairns will reflect on the ICA’s recent three-day event, Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), which brought together leading international theorists, academics, social thinkers and artists to discuss postdigital anxieties and the social condition. Examining the progression and trajectory of technological, ecological and cultural advances, they will highlights some of the key themes to emerge from the event.
Please book your tickets here

Mining the Mind
Wednesday 3 June
2 - 6 pm

With Magda Osman (Dynamic Learning & Decision Making Laboratory), Maarten Speekenbrink (UCL) and Jamie Ward (University of Sussex).
On Wednesday we will explore current brain research in relation to the experience of time and relating to the future, and the applications of this research into new marketing strategies to influence peoples thinking and or behaviour.
Please book your tickets here

Anticipating Behaviour
Thursday 4 June
6 - 9 pm

With Ramon Amaro (Big Data and Society), Emily Penn (EXXpedition / Pangea Explorations) and Philip Sheldrake (Euler Partners).
On Thursday we will explore different techniques and attitudes towards anticipations used in ecology, politics and management from big data (digital and physical) to scenario planning and the effects of this on our behaviour and thinking.
Please book your tickets here

Pre-enactment between reality and fiction
Saturday 6 June
11.15 am - 1.30 pm

With Francesca Laura Cavallo (curator) Helene Kazan (artist) and Caroline Thomas (Casualties Union).
From fire drills and mock-disaster-response exercises, to the risk assessment processes accompanying so many events, structures and even ‘high-risk’ people, a pre-enactment is the anticipation of future disasters through performance, a coping mechanism of society increasingly concerned with the predictable future. The panel will explore the cogency of reality and fiction in risk management strategies. Please book your tickets here

Changing Prospects
Saturday 6 June
2 - 6 pm

With Caroline Edwards (Birkbeck University of London) and Mark Fisher (Goldsmiths), Ken Hollings (author) and Mary Margaret Rinebold.
Saturday’s session will concentrate on the notion of change in relation to the locus of collective imagination of the future. We will explore different approaches, which are utilised to motivate and trigger seismic shifts relating to the world around us.
Please book your tickets here

Firstsite Associate Artists
Sunday 7 June
11 am - 1.30 pm

With Savinder Bual, Lawrence Epps, Georgie Grace, Jessica Mendham, Jane Morror and Ilona Sagar.
The Firstsite Associate Artist scheme is a professional development programme for artists based in the East of England. It is a self-directed programme which enables artists to identify individual and shared interests in current practice across a theoretical and practical spectrum. The artists selected for 2014/15 are: Savinder Bual, Briony Clarke, Lawrence Epps, George Grace, Jessica Mendham, Ilona Sagar and James Torble. The group will be discussing a range of subjects including predictions, divination, design fiction and rhetoric.
Please book your tickets here

Existential Questions
Sunday 7 June
2 - 6 pm

With Rebecca Bligh (Living in the Future), Owen Cotton-Barrat (Future of Humanity Institute) and Murray Shanahan (Imperial College London).
On Sunday we will explore different existential questions for the future of humanity in a long term future and imagine possible scenarios developed by scientists as well as fiction writers and artists.
Please book your tickets here

ABOUT LUNÄ TALKS: UNCERTAINTY SCENARIOS

LUNÄ is based on the Lunar Society of Birmingham, which was formed from a group of amateur experimenters, tradesmen and artisans who met and made friends in the Midlands in the 1760s. The original Lunar men gathered together for lively dinner conversations, the journey back from their Birmingham meeting place lit by the full moon. Members included the flamboyant entrepreneur Matthew Boulton, the brilliantly perceptive engineer James Watt whose inventions harnessed the power of steam, the radical polymath Joseph Priestley who, among his wide-ranging achievements discovered oxygen, and the innovative potter and social reformer Josiah Wedgwood. Their debates brought together philosophy, arts, science and commerce, and as well as debating and discovering, the ‘Lunarticks’ also built canals and factories, launched balloons, named plants, gases and minerals, managed world-class businesses — and changed the face of England.

MARJOLIJN DIJKMAN CV

Marjolijn Dijkman (b. 1978, Groningen, The Netherlands). Lives and works in Brussels. Solo exhibitions include: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, West Space, Melbourne, AU (2015); History Rising, Wisbech Museum, Wisbech / Norwich Castle Museum & Outpost, Norwich, UK (2013-2014); Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, IKON Gallery, Birmingham, UK & Spike Island, Bristol, UK (2011); Matrix 234, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, US (2010); Comma 02, Bloomberg SPACE, London, UK (2009).

PERFORMANCES:

Thu 11 Jun, 6 – 9 pm
Fri 12 Jun, 12 – 6 pm
Sat 13 Jun, 12 – 6 pm

BLOCK UNIVERSE WITH EVA ROTHSCHILD & JOE MORAN, WEEK 23/50

fig-2 collaborates with Block Universe, the first performance festival in London that brings together a new wave of cutting edge performance art at the cross-section of visual art, dance and music, activating major institutions and venues throughout London between 8 and 14 June. Together they join forces in a new commission by sculptor Eva Rothschild and choreographer Joe Moran. Navigating the meeting points and tensions between their sculptural and choreographic concerns, Rothschild and Moran explore the shared and conflicting materiality of the body and the sculptural object. ‘A Setup’ merges two practices by bringing existing film and performance works into relationship with new sculpture taking place at ICA Studio and ICA Theatre: while Rothschild’s film ‘Boys and Sculpture’ (2012) and Moran’s ‘In Land’ (2008) are shown in the ICA Studio with benches by Rothschild, Moran’s durational performance installation, ‘Singular’ (2011) will be performed in the ICA Theatre with sculptures made for the space by Rothschild that visitors can attend during the aforementioned times. Please book your tickets here.

A Setup is commissioned and co-produced by Block Universe and fig-2, in partnership with Dance Art Foundation and Eva Rothschild Studio and supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Please join us for the weekly Curatorial Tour on Wednesday and the Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday.

EVA ROTHSCHILD CV

Eva Rothschild (b. 1971, Dublin, Ireland). Lives and works in London. Recent solo exhibitions and public commissions include: Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, 2014; large-scale sculpture Why Don't You? The Nasher Sculpture Centre, Dallas, Texas, 2012; the film Boys and Sculpture, The Whitechapel Gallery Children’s Art Commission, 2012; Hot Touch, the inaugural exhibition at The Hepworth, Wakefield, 2011 (toured to Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover); Empire, Public Art Fund Commission for Central Park, New York, 2011; and Cold Corners, Tate Britain’s Duveen Gallery commission, 2009.

JOE MORAN CV

Joe Moran (b.1977, Devon, UK). Lives and works in London. Moran is a choreographer, dancer and Artistic Director of Dance Art Foundation. Recent commissions and touring include David Roberts Art Foundation (Frieze, 2014), Nottingham Contemporary (2014), Assembly (UK tour, 2014), The Modulated Body (2013) commissioned by Ordovas for Movement & Gravity, Bacon and Rodin exhibition; and The Place Prize (2013). Affiliate Artist with C-DaRE (Centre for Dance Research at Coventry University) and Dance4 Associate Artist, Joe works extensively in the visual arts and is a guest artist at a number of institutions, currently at The Place and the Royal Opera House.

ABOUT BLOCK UNIVERSE

Block Universe is a new performance art festival for London taking place this 8-14 June. Bringing together a new wave of cutting edge performance art at the cross-section of visual art, dance and music, Block Universe will activate major institutions and venues throughout London over the course of a week. Venue partners include fig-2, the ICA, the Royal Academy of Arts, Somerset House and unique off-site historic venues such as Stationers Hall and the Art Workers Guild amongst others.

For further details on Block Universe’s programme, please click here.

23/50 FATOS ÜSTEK AND LOUISE O'KELLY INTERVIEW EVA ROTHSCHILD, JOE MORAN

PERFORMANCES

Monday and Thursday
6.15 – 7.00 pm
7.30 – 8.15 pm

BEN JUDD, WEEK 24/50

Ben Judd’s new work ‘Apart, We are Together’ concentrates on the boundaries between dramatic performance and liturgical drama, through staging a set of live encounters followed by an immersive three-channel video installation. The work references the performative ‘pose slide’ genre of magic lantern projections, developed in the late 19th century. The performers activate surfaces of projection and reflection, suggesting a fluctuating state of perpetual becoming in which participants are suspended between points of departure and arrival. The video installation becomes another surface of encounter; both works suggest a unifying experience but also question the relationship between immersion and a more self-conscious, knowing state, as performed by both actors and participants of ritual. The doors will be closed during the performances, please arrive in good time to be seated. Due to our limited capacity booking is recommended. The Monday performances are un-ticketed, but please book your tickets herefor Thursday performances.

With magic lanternists Mervyn Heard and Jeremy Brooker.
fig-2 would like to thank the Nottingham Trent University and the Arts Council England for their generous support.
Please join us for the weekly Curatorial Tour on Wednesday and the Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday.

BEN JUDD CV

Ben Judd (b. 1970, London, UK). Lives and works in London. Recent exhibitions and performances include: Whitstable Biennale, UK (2014); James Taylor Gallery, London (2011); KINOKINO, Norway (2011); Center of Contemporary Art of Tbilisi, Georgia (2011); Swedenborg Society, London (2010); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2010); David Roberts Art Foundation (2009); Dorsky Gallery, New York (2009); Barbican Art Gallery, London (2009); Kunstbunker, Nuremberg (2008); Zendai MoMA, Shanghai (2008); The Photographers’ Gallery, London (2008); Kunstvlaai, Amsterdam (2008).

24/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS BEN JUDD

PERFORMANCES

Monday 22 Jun
Thursday 25 Jun
7.00 – 7.20 pm

CECILIA BENGOLEA, CELIA HEMPTON AND PREM SAHIB, WEEK 25/50

Marking the halfway point of the fig-2 programme, choreographer and dancer Cecilia Bengolea and artists Celia Hempton and Prem Sahib are invited to collaborate for a new commission. Drawing influences from construction sites and the potential for gendered and material conflicts within them, Hempton, Sahib and Bengolea compose a setting and soundscape that is accelerated by Bengolea’s activation of Bydlo Moussorgski’s post industrial choreography from 1945. Charged by their interest in modes of sexuality and trespass, the exhibition reflects upon the role of the individual within a semi-constructed built environment. The exhibition will hold two dance performances, on Monday evening at the opening and on Thursday evening. Please book your ticket for the Thursday performance here.

Collaborators: Erika Miyauchi and Fernanda Munoz-Newsome.
fig-2 would like to thank Southard Reid for their generous support.

Cecilia Bengolea’s performance has been generously supported by Institut Français.

Please join us for the weekly Curatorial Tour on Wednesday and the Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday.

PERFORMANCE BY CECILIA BENGOLEA

CECILIA BENGOLEA CV

Cecilia Bengolea (b. 1979, Buenos Aires, Argentina). Lives and works in Paris. Anthropological dancer and choreographer. Her work is currently presented in Centre Pompidou, Paris, Tate Modern Tank, London, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, The Kitchen, New York, Bienale de Lyon, Vienna Impulstanz, Festival d Avignon, Festival d Automne, Spiral Hall Tokyo, Kyoto Expérimental, Kochi Museum, etc. Bengolea and Chaignaud created the performance and dance ensemble Vlovajob Pru, they recieved Paris critic award in 2009 for their pieces Paquerette and Sylphides. Gwangju Bienale in Korea in 2014 awarded them as Young artist for their pieces Sylphides and Dublove. They prepare a show for Pina Bausch company for sept 2015.

CELIA HEMPTON CV

Celia Hempton (b. 1981, Stroud, UK) Lives and works in London. Recent solo exhibitions include: Lupa, Sultana Gallery, Paris (2015), Chat Random, Southard Reid London (2014); Galleria Lorcan O’Neill Rome, performance and presentation of work made in Stromboli as part of Forget Amnesia, Fiorucci Trust, Italy (2014); Cur, Southard Reid, London (2013) and Vug, Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, Germany (2013). Selected group exhibitions include: La Femme de Trente Ans, Art Concept Gallery, Paris (2015), Burning Down The House, Gwangju Biennale, Korea (2014) and Pontoon Lip with Katie Cuddon, Cell Project Space, London (2014). She will be participating in a British Council touring group exhibition in 2016-17.

PREM SAHIB CV

Prem Sahib (b. 1982, London, UK). Lives and works in London. Recent solo exhibitions include: Forget Amnesia, Fiorucci Trust, Italy (2014); Tongues, Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai (2014); Night Flies, Southard Reid, London (2013); Back Chat, Lorcan O'Neill Gallery, Rome (2013); Home From Home, Arts & Jobs, London (2012); He Looked Me Up, Marian Cramer Projects, Amsterdam (2012); FEEL UP in collaboration with Eddie Peake, Southard Reid, London (2012). Group exhibitions include: Burning Down The House, Gwangju Biennale, Korea (2014); Abstract Cabinet, David Roberts Foundation London (2013); Days In Lieu, David Zwirner, London (2013). Upcoming solo exhibitions include: ICA, London (September 2015); Southard Reid (October 2015).

25/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS CECILIA BENGOLEA, CELIA HEMPTON AND PREM SAHIB

25/50 AUDIO RECORDING COMPOSED BY CELIA HEMPTON AND PREM SAHIB
PRODUCED BY SEBASTIAN KELLIG

ANNE HARDY, WEEK 26/50

For week 26 at fig-2 Anne Hardy stages a landscape of free associations triggered by the sonic and sculptural components of the setting. Through transforming the premises into an environment of acousmatic sounds, Hardy brings forward an imagination driven encounter. The recordings, she has collected, cut and layered are results of physical and material processes that she engages with while producing work in her studio or installing work. Through merging accidental sounds such as the sound of wet cement being poured into a mould, wood being split, or metal reinforcing bar bouncing on the hard road as she carries it back from the builders yard to her studio with sounds with discarded parts of sculptural processes, Hardy instigates feelings of familiarity and unusualness, igniting illusory and at times descriptive images.

fig-2 would like to thank Flare Audio for their generous support.

Anne Hardy would like to thank Tom Sedgwick, Angus Mill, Yuki Yamamoto The Common Guild and Marianne Burlew.

Please join us for the weekly Curatorial Tour on Wednesday and the Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday.

ANNE HARDY CV

Anne Hardy (b. 1970, St Albans, UK). Lives and works in London. Hardy is an artist whose practice spans sculptural installation, audio and photography. She currently has a solo exhibition, TWIN FIELDS, at The Common Guild, Glasgow, and will have a solo show at Modern Art Oxford in November 2015. Other recent solo exhibitions include ‘Fieldworks’, Kunstverein Freiburg 2014; “Two Joined Fields”, Maureen Paley, London 2013; Vienna Secession 2012 and Yorkshire Sculpture Park Longside Gallery 2011. Group exhibitions include Kunstverein Hamburg 2015; ‘Mirrorcity’, Hayward Gallery, London 2014; St Louis Art Museum 2012, V&A Museum (2011) ; Gallery of South Australia (2011); The New Art Gallery Walsall (2010); Zabludowicz Collection (2010) ; Barbican Art Gallery (2008)

26/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS ANNE HARDY

26/50 ANNE HARDY, 'RRMMMPH, HUOOGHG , OP, MMMUUOOW, IP'(EXCERPT)

EVENTS

Kundalini Yoga and Gong
Thursday 9 – 11 am
Workshop for Ideas
Sunday 4 – 6 pm

KAREN MIRZA, WEEK 27/50

‘The Ectoplasm of Neoliberalism’ is the first solo exhibition of Karen Mirza after two decades. Taking a step further to experiment with her ongoing exploration of positions that concentrate on women, bodies and sites of resistance, Mirza brings forth a confluence of occult and radical politics. Her large scale collages are drawn from her research in radical and psychic archives, her set of photo-prints are outcomes of studies of dissonance. Alongside the recent video piece ‘Everything for Everyone and Nothing for Us’, made with her long-standing collaborative partner Brad Butler, Mirza invites co-investigators to delve into private and public conversations on the theory of Ectoplasm of Neoliberalism from their angles of Astrology, Radical Politics, Kundalini Yoga among others. Conversations with Alice Knowles, Zach Blas, China Miéville, Siri Sadana Kaur, Darby Costello, Sim Elif Kaplan, will charge the space with intention, meditation and process. The week will cultivate a setting for elaboration and a zone for unleashing the potential of progressive thinking and provocation around the possibility of evoking a new stance, and will conclude with a workshop for ideas that pulls together fragments from the discoursive and semantic production.

fig-2 would like to thank Forest for their generous support.

As part of Karen Mirza’s solo exhibition at fig-2 entitled 'The Ectoplazm of Neoliberalism’, Siri Sadhana Kaur will hold a Kundalini yoga and gong sitting. According to Kaur, through music, mantra, gong and meditation, the body and mind begin to calm and rejuvenate, taking the listener into a deeply healing place. Through listening and participating one experiences kinesthetic sensation, vibrating sound washes over and penetrates thought structure dissolving it. It gives the power to move through blocks. Integrative sound stimulates energy centres, releasing and clearing old patterns and moving vital energy Through Kundalini yoga we will warm our bodies to prepare for deep relaxation as the participant goes on a sound current journey.

Due to limited capacity of this sitting, please book your places in advance. We will appreciate if you can inform us ahead in case you will not be able to attend, after booking. Please wear loose clothing. Yoga mats will be provided.
Siri Sadhana Kaur encourages others to experience themselves as joyful instruments of expression and transformation. She is a PGCE/Cert Ed teacher qualified Tai Chi Chuan and Nia blue belt instructor. Siri produces music mantra Cds, teaches yoga + singing, gives concerts and is a Kundalini Yoga associate trainer with the Karam Kriya school in London
Please book your tickets here

Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterised by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade.

Karen Mirza’s solo exhibition at fig-2 entitled ‘The Ectoplasm of Neoliberalism’ occupy the premises as a site of manifestation, in order to bring together and to bring about communal knowledge on the thought form of political ectoplasm, drawing on soft and hard sciences, literature, philosophy, politics and body practices. The exhibition cultivates a series of non-visible and public conversations, charged by intention, mediation and process. On Sunday afternoon, artist Karen Mirza will put forward collection of ideas that have emerged through her conversations with co-investigators Alice Knowles, Zach Blas, China Miéville, Siri Sadana Kaur, Darby Costello, Sim Elif Kaplan at the closing event of her solo exhibition. In dialogue with Fatos Üstek, the audience will be invited to evaluate the materials and think collectively whilst placing these fragments into discourse around the ectoplasm of Neoliberalism.
Please book your tickets here

KAREN MIRZA CV

Karen Mirza (b. 1969, Evesham, UK). Lives and works in London. Mirza works in collaboration with Brad Butler with a practice centred upon dialogue and the social, which includes The Museum of Non Participation since 2007. Recent solo exhibitions include: The Unreliable Narrator, Whitechapel Gallery (2015); The New Deal, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2013); and The Guest of Citation, Performa 13, New York (2013). Mirza and Butler have exhibited internationally, including FACT, Liverpool, Centro de Arte Dos De Mayo, Madrid, La Capella, Barcelona, Arnolfini, Bristol, and Serpentine Gallery, London. In 2014 they were nominated for the Artes Mundi 6 Award for artists engaging with a social practice.

27/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS KAREN MIRZA

PERFORMANCES

Monday 13 Jul
7 – 8 pm
Sunday 19 Jul
4 – 5 pm

PATRICK COYLE & FRANCESCO PEDRAGLIO, WEEK 28/50

Patrick Coyle and Francesco Pedraglio’s first collaborative exhibition takes the form of a conversation based on recent bodies of work. Both working with forms of visual and spoken language, investigating the dichotomies of meaning, narrative and thought forms, their exhibition forms the ground for a dialogue that manifests itself as text, images, objects and spoken word. The aesthetic articulations and conceptual approximations converge and diverge from one another, creating a breathing space for emergence of unprecedented meaning and associations. The opening and closing of the exhibition will host two performances by Coyle and Pedraglio influenced by a floating cedilla and based on an unauthorised translation of a poem by Edoardo Sanguineti, respectively.

Please join us for the weekly Curatorial Tour on Wednesday and the Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday.

PATRICK COYLE, 'LIQUID HYPNOTIC ELIXIR' WITH SOUNDTRACK FROM THE PERFORMANCE 'FOUND A CEDILLA FLOATING IN THE LIQUID HYPNOTIC ELIXIR AND AÇAÍPHABET SEEDS AT THE BOTTOM LAPPING THE SIDES AND LAST TIMES' (EXCERPT)

PATRICK COYLE, 'ATTEMPTED COAGULATION OF VARIOUS OBJECTS' (EXCERPTS)

PATRICK COYLE CV

Patrick Coyle (b. 1983, Hull, UK) is an artist and writer. Recent solo performances include: ‘Old Language’, Oxford Central Library; ‘It Said’, ANDOR Gallery, London; ‘Hullture, City of Cultrue’, Ferens Art Gallery and City Centre, Hull; ‘Battlesea Bottling Station’, Battersea Park and Pump House Gallery, London; ‘I couldn’t possibly… without…’, Whitechapel Gallery, London; ‘She Couldn’t Imagine What It Looked Like’, Kunsthal Aarhus, Denmark and Royal College of Art, London; ‘Walking Directions from Unknown Road’, Norwich Castle Museum and City Centre; and Only Reference, Saison Poetry Library, Royal Festival Hall, London.

FRANCESCO PEDRAGLIO CV

Francesco Pedraglio is an artist working with writing, performance, film and installation. Selected recent exhibitions: Norma Mangione Gallery, Turin (2015); Kunsthalle Wien (2015); DropCity, Newcastle (2015); Museo de Zapopan, Mexico (2014); CCA Glasgow (2014); Rowing, London (2013); Jeu de Paume (2013), Kunsthalle Basel (2012); Galerie Kamm, Berlin (2012). His novel A man in a room spray-painting a fly was published by Book Works in 2014. He co-edited the anthology of artists writings Cadavere Quotidiano (X-TRA, Los Angeles 2014). The novella The Object Lessons was published by Mousse (2012). Pedraglio is a founding member of London art-space FormContent.

28/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS PATRICK COYLE & FRANCESCO PEDRAGLIO

LIVE EVENT

Sunday 26th July
4 – 5 pm

POSTMATTER, WEEK 29/50

Online magazine POSTmatter is invited to produce an exhibition and a publication taking place in the physical premises at ICA Studio and on the digital platform activated by POSTmatter editor-in-chief Louise Benson. Through embracing the daily production of content on the dichotomy of nature and its digitalisation as artifice, and inviting a large set of contributors ranging from artists to writers, curators and theorists, Benson opens the ground for interrogation, evaluation and production. Evoking an aesthetic akin to Marcel Broodthaer’s seminal work ‘Jardin d’Hivers’ (1974), the exhibition set-up will be composed of artworks and pot plants that are placed in various configurations. The gesture of borrowing representations from a natural surrounding acts as a trigger to further the thematic investigation on environment and digital landscape. The setting for ideas include works by Emma Charles, Mark Dorf, John Gerrard, Jacob Kirkegaard and Clement Valla. Accumulating immediate and recently composed responses to the aforementioned theme, the week long project takes on a strong digital dimension. The project includes essays written within an hour limit by artists and writers, web-chats between contributing artists and selected writers and curators, artist contributions for the online publishing platform on the POSTmatter website and a live event at fig-2 that will generate a communal text composed by five writers, thinkers and curators on Thursday evening. Tickets will be available from Monday 20th of July at ICA website.

Emma Charles, ‘The Straightest Path Allowed by Law’, 2015. Mixed media installation: carousel slide projection w/72 c-type prints. Courtesy of South Kiosk Gallery.

Emma Charles is a London based artist. She presents her photo series ‘The Straightest Path Allowed by Law’, an exploration into the relationship between trading routes and the phenomenon of the American landscape. In 2010, the Allegheny mountain region of Pennsylvania was drilled through to make way for a private fibre-optic cable line, constructed to speed up high-frequency trading times between New York and Chicago by a matter of milliseconds. Tracing this route along small paved roads, bridges and railroads, Charles examines what it represents as a topographic survey of economics, uncovering the invisible presence of financial markets in a seemingly vernacular landscape.

Mark Dorf, //_PATH, 2012, Untitled72, 1min 16s, looped.

Mark Dorf, //_PATH, 2012, Untitled56, 1m 4s, looped.

New York based artist Mark Dorf presents two video works from //_PATH, in which he examines western society’s interactions with the digital world and its relationship to our natural origins. He is interested in how we encounter, translate, and understand our surroundings through the filter of science, maths and technology. Combining digital photography, collage and 3D scanning to create geometric and synthetic forms within the landscape, he seeks to understand our habitation of the 21st century world through the juxtaposition of nature and the digital domain.

John Gerrard, ‘Working Drawing for Infinite Freedom Exercise (near Abadan, Iran)’, 2011. Giglee print on hahnemuhle photo rag, Courtesy of Thomas Dane Gallery.

Dublin and Vienna based John Gerrard presents ‘Working Drawing for Infinite Freedom Exercise (near Abadan, Iran)’, a computer-generated version of a landscape found in southern Iran. A virtual camera circles a simulated figure standing in the road, dressed in non-nationalised army fatigues. The man performs a routine of gestures derived from contemporary military exercise, day and night – without ever leaving his post – for a full calendar year, during which the simulated sun, moon and stars traverse their actual paths in real-time. Created using 3D motion scanning, and in collaboration with choreographer Wayne McGregor, the performance is both repetitive and consistently developing.

Jacob Kierkegaard, ‘Stigma’, 2014. 33 min field recording and video footage, looped.

Jacob Kirkegaard is a Berlin based artist and composer. He presents ‘Stigma’, which was recorded and filmed in four places in the natural landscape around the disabled nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. The layered sound recording of each space reveals its resonant frequencies, exploring unheard sonic phenomena through digital tools. This composition is accompanied by layered video of the same space on a vertical screen, inspired by the Japanese hanging scrolls tradition with their evocations of nature and floating landscapes.

Clement Valla, ‘Postcards from Google Earth’, 2010. Inkjet print on hahnemuhle photo rag pearl. Courtesy of XPO Gallery.

Clement Valla is based in New York. He presents an image from ‘Postcards from Google Earth’, in which he exposes moments found on Google Earth where the illusion of a seamless representation of the Earth’s surface seems to break down. While these occurrences have the appearance of glitches, they are in fact the absolute logical result of the system. They reveal Google Earth to be an automated database disguised as a photographic representation. These uncanny images focus attention on that process itself, and the network of algorithms, computers, storage systems, automated cameras, pilots, engineers, surveyors and map-makers that generate them.

ABOUT POSTMATTER

POSTmatter is a digital magazine that focuses on the intersection of art, science and technology. Through editorial, film, interactive interviews and art commissions, it explores interdisciplinary work from around the globe. Launched in 2010 as a series of independently published editions for the iPad, POSTmatter is now published exclusively online. With this medium in mind, it examines the wider implications of the digital shift within the physical world, looking at how each influences the other. Edited by Louise Benson and designed by Yann Binet, it proposes new ways of engaging via the screen.

LOUISE BENSON CV

Graduated from Cambridge University in 2012 with a B.A. in English. While there, she edited the student newspaper Varsity, which has been running since 1947. After graduating, she worked in print magazine publishing at Monocle, Vice and Tank magazine, before joining POSTmatter as deputy editor in November 2013. She took over as editor-in-chief in December 2014.

29/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS POSTMATTER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF LOUISE BENSON

ANNA BARHAM, WEEK 30/50

Concentrating on text as the main material of her production, Anna Barham furthers her ongoing investigation into the dichotomy of meaning and its translation as various codes – alphabet, sound, and image. Barham’s project for fig-2 bases its structure on her previous live production reading groups in which malleable interpretations of a selected text are created and activated by the participants’ voices and speech to text software. For fig-2 the process is stretched across the duration of a week where the group exists as a series of encounters rather than a simultaneous presence: every day different interpretations generated the previous day will be provided to each visitor to choose from and to add a new translation of the text by voicing their selected piece. Barham addresses the unruly potential of meaning and the active role of the viewer / reader by setting up complex feedback loops between human and computer processes. Evoking century-old tendencies towards stepping out of meaning production in a language, her work embodies the intentions of Dadaists, and finds a paradoxical freedom in Wittgenstein’s demarcation of human thought within language.

Please join us for the weekly Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday at 5pm.

ANNA BARHAM CV

Anna Barham (b. 1974, UK) lives and works in London. Recent solo projects include: Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm (2015) Composite, Brussels (2015); Rotterdam Film Festival (2015); Hayward Gallery Project Space, London (2014); Arcade, London (2013); Site Gallery, Sheffield (2013) MK Gallery, Milton Keynes (2013); Art on the Underground, London (2012). Recent group exhibitions and screenings include Centre Pompidou, Paris (2015); Künstlerhaus KM–, Graz, Austria (2015); STUK, Leuven (2014); South London Gallery, London (2013); Turner Contemporary, Margate (2013). In September she will have a solo exhibition at Arcade, London.

30/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS ANNA BARHAM

ADAM BROOMBERG & OLIVER CHANARIN, WEEK 31/50

Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin’s site-specific work for fig-2 interrogates the landscape that surrounds the ICA Studio, incorporating the Mall, Downing Street, Horse Guards Parade and Buckingham Palace; an area characterised by daily military parades and other displays of state power. Broomberg & Chanarin have invited a bouffon or ‘Dark Clown’ to respond to this highly militarised environment. The figure of the bouffon, originated in medieval times and was used as a term to describe someone ostracised from society and relegated to the margins of the city – apart from one day of the year, when he or she was invited to the Royal Court with explicit permission to ridicule the authorities. For one week Broomberg & Chanarin will transform the fig-2 premises into a ‘green screen’ studio for the bouffon to inhabit. Her grotesque and vulgar presence suggests a counterpoint to the military codes of discipline and hierarchical order on display in the surrounding streets. The live performance, consisting of slapstick routines and gallows humour, will take place during the opening event and on Thursday evening, simultaneously merging with video footage of the changing of the guards and other military ceremonies. The bouffon will be played by Hannah Ringham, and the performance will be accompanied by a raucous soundtrack, composed by drummer Kid Millions. Please book your tickets for the Thursday performance here.

fig-2 would like to thank Pundersons Gardens for their expertise and generous support.
Please join us for the weekly Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday at 5pm.

BROOMBERG & CHANARIN, FILM EXCERPT

ADAM BROOMBERG & OLIVER CHANARIN CV

Adam Broomberg (b. 1970, Johannesburg, South Africa) and Oliver Chanarin (b. 1971, London, UK) live and work in London. Recent solo exhibitions include: Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2015); Jumex Foundation, Mexico City (2014); FotoMuseum, Antwerp (2014); Mostyn, Llandudno, UK (2014); Townhouse, Cairo (2010); Musée de l’Elysee, Lausanne (2009) and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2006). International group shows include: Conflict, Time, Photography at Tate Modern, London and Museum Folkwang, Essen (2015); Shanghai Biennale (2014); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2014); Tate Britain (2014), Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha (2013); Gwanju Biennale (2012) and the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2011). Their work is held in major public and private collections including Tate, MoMA, Stedelijk, the V&A, the International Center of Photography and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Major awards include the ICP’s Infinity Award (2014) and the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize (2013).

31/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS OLIVER CHANARIN

EVENTS

Opening Event:
Anoxide & New Noveta
10 Aug 6 – 8 pm
Casting Session:
13 and 14 Aug 12 – 6 pm
Film Screening:
13 Aug 7 – 9 pm

OREET ASHERY, WEEK 32/50

Oreet Ashery marks a moment in time for her project Revisiting Genesis at fig-2. Revisiting Genesis is a web series looking at the processes of dying, digital afterlife and legacy, outsider communities, friendships and reincarnations of women artists. Launching in Spring 2016, the series feature a nurse who creates biographical slideshows for those actively preparing for death, and Genesis, an artist in need of a slideshow.

At the fig-2 premises, Ashery embarks on a two staged exhibition, inviting the Death Metal band Anoxide and artist duo New Noveta to realise a colliding performance at the opening night, and an installation to follow. Instigating the embedded condition of death in the everyday and highlighting its presence, Ashery transforms the space into a place for contemplation and formation of a creative endeavour. Ashery’s all white environment includes two bronze busts by modernist sculptor Dora Gordine: a self-portrait and a rendition of one of her supporters, the art historian and museum director Sir John Pope-Hennessy, and a photograph depicting Amy Winehouse with her producer Mark Ronson. The installation is accompanied by an excerpt from Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In preparation for the web series, a two-day casting session will take place at fig-2 for Genesis’ friends and people actively preparing for death. To register for the auditions please visit the open call out. The weeklong programme will expand with a screening of Afterlife by Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda on Thursday evening.
fig-2 would like to thank Wellcome Trust, Stanley Picker Gallery, Dorich House Museum, Tyneside Cinema, Waterside Contemporary, Forest Furniture, and Arts Council England for their generous support.
Please join us for the weekly Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday at 5pm.

OREET ASHERY CV

Oreet Ashery is an artist living and working in London. Recent solo projects include: Party for Freedom, an Artangel commission, 2013; The space for Freedom is Getting smaller and less transparent, Overgaden, Copenhagen, 2014; The World is Flooding, a Tate Modern Turbine Hall performance, 2014; 21st Century Carpet Sale! A legendary collection, performance and auction, Swedenborg House, London 2014, Animal with a language, waterside contemporary, London 2014 and Campagne-Premiere, Berlin, 2015. Ashery is the 2013-15 Visiting Professor at the Painting Department, Royal College of Art and a Fine Art fellow at Stanley Picker gallery where she is currently developing her web series project Revisiting Genesis for the internet.

32/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS OREET ASHERY

Closing/Re-opening:
Sunday 23 Aug
4 – 5 pm

EL ULTIMO GRITO, WEEK 33/50

El Ultimo Grito, composed of Rosario Hurtado and Roberto Feo transform the fig-2 premises into a testing ground of ideas and postulates. Combining their on going investigation into the intersection of progressive outlines of future cities speculated by Italian radical architecture group Superstudio, with the inner logic of the digital interfaces -specifically of map applications, El Ultimo Grito brings forward elaborations of human reality today. Expanding on the prospections of democratic use of built-in environment from physical to its symbolic and metaphorical dimensions, the duo will further their production on site, transporting their ideas to manifest as part of their exhibition. Inverting the structure of the fig-2 week, El Ultimo Grito invite the audience to visit their show on the last day of their exhibition, starting the setting of their production on Monday evening, and making their processes visible for the public to see throughout the week.

EL ULTIMO GRITO, 'THE MAKING OF THE USER', 2015

EL ULTIMO GRITO CV

Roberto Feo (b. 1964, London) and Rosario Hurtado (b. 1966, Madrid) are El Ultimo Grito. El Ultimo Grito exhibited Burning Down the House at Gwangju Biennale of Art, Gwangju, South Korea (2014). Recent solo exhibitions include: Material Medley, Museo Pecci, Milan, Italy (2014) Garden object at Rice Gallery, Houston Texas, USA (2014), Public Installation, Abierto de Diseño, Mexico (2013), PILOTS investigating next models in design education, Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston, London (2013) and Exchanges Around Construction: El Ultimo Grito, Derwent London Gallery, London, UK (2012), Escape Into The Upper Air, Spring Projects, London (2012). They were awarded the London Design Festival Gold Medal (2012).

33/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS EL ULTIMO GRITO

LAUNCH

Nowiswere Published Issue #1
Wednesday 26 Aug
6.30 – 7.30 pm

VERONIKA HAUER, WEEK 34/50

Veronika Hauer’s work embodies the medium of performance expressed and elaborated through writing, speech, sculpture, video and prints. Hauer’s exhibition at fig-2 gathers existing and newly produced works relating to performance without immediate physical activation. Produced in steady dialogue between the artist’s intention and audience’s perception of a piece of performance, the exhibition will feature the video pieces ‘Semaphore Dance’, 2014 which premiered at the recent Glasgow International, and ‘speech is to be looked at’, 2015, a series of poster works and Hauer’s ‘Cuckoo’ series. These works depict performance as subject matter, inviting the audience to engage with the imaginary. Additionally, online contemporary art magazine Nowiswere plays a significant part in Hauer’s artistic practice. For the first time in its seven-year history, the magazine’s first printed issue is being launched on the occasion of the exhibition. Activating the idea of live publishing, contributors Andreas Heller and Barbara Kapusta will unveil their contributions live for the audience. Please book your tickets for the launch here

fig-2 would like to thank bmukk, Austrian Cultural Forum and Forum Stadtpark Graz for their generous support.
Please join us for the weekly Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday at 5pm.

VERONIKA HAUER CV

Veronika Hauer (b. 1981, Vienna) lives and works in Vienna. Recent exhibitions include: 34. Österreichischer Grafikwettbewerb, Galerie im Taxispalais Innsbruck, 2015; fox, MAERZ, Linz, 2015; Giorgio Moroder’s Pyramid, Ductac, Dubai, 2014; Temporary Autonomous Zone /3, Teatr Studio/Galeria Studio, Warsaw, 2014; Baldachini, Glasgow International Festival, 2014; S/HE IS THE ONE, Kunstraum Niederösterreich, Vienna, 2013; Hauer currently lectures at the Department of Art and Communication Practises at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She studied at Goldsmiths College London and the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Hauer is co-founder and editor of the online magazine on contemporary art Nowiswere.

34/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS VERONIKA HAUER

AMY STEPHENS, WEEK 35/50

Amy Stephens initiates relations between geological, architectonic and sculpted forms, exploring the dichotomy between the object/form and its representation. Using variety of media from drawing to sculpture and photography, Stephens investigates fluctuations between two and three-dimensional surfaces. Her drawings manifest themselves as physical lines in space, her sculptures replicate existing organic forms borrowed from natural settings, made in response to geographical features. Stephens employs traditional sculpting techniques, brings together the organic and the synthetic in her practice, intertwining the inversion principle and the translatability of form. At fig-2, Stephens shows a set of works that meld the existing with the new, where her wide spectrum of textures and materials, her investigation in the natural and inorganic are brought forward.

Please join us for the weekly Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday at 5pm.

AMY STEPHENS CV

Amy Stephens (b. 1981, London) lives and works in London. Selected solo exhibitions include ‘An oyster can't read this’, Oonagh Young Gallery, Dublin, Ireland (2015); ‘Patterns in the Chaos’, William Benington Gallery, London, UK (2014); ‘Catching the Big Fish’, Minibar Artist Space, Stockholm, Sweden (2013); ‘Collide’, Poppy Sebire Gallery, London, UK (2012); ‘This Urban Silence,’ Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland (2011). Stephens was recently awarded; AiR-Sandnes Artists’ Residency Programme, Sandnes, Norway (June 2015); Villa Lena Artists’ Residency, Tuscany, Italy (October 2015); Triangle Network Award and International Fellowship to Muscat, Oman in association with Gasworks Gallery, London, UK (2013); Artists’ Residency, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland (2011).

35/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS AMY STEPHENS

EVENT:

ArtReview Live
Wednesday 9 Sep
7 pm

EVA GRUBINGER, WEEK 36/50

Eva Grubinger concentrates on the medium of sculpture, and through processes of estranging and encoding, shifts of material, scale and context, she investigates spatial qualities in relation to currencies of socio-political, architectural contexts and visual arts language often referencing Minimalism and Conceptual Art. Her first solo exhibition in London entitled ‘Black Diamond Bay’, explores a cluster of abiding interests: the maritime as a metaphor, colonial adventuring, correspondence between the world of a century ago and that of today, and associations of darkness. The exhibition responds directly to its location, as does the title, which references an imaginary place in Joseph Conrad’s Victory (1915) and the 1976 song by Bob Dylan.

‘Black Diamond Bay’, is the third of four fig-2 projects that utilises two venues at the ICA; the Theatre and the Studio, and in both of these spaces explores the continuing appeal and risk of travelling to unknown territories. Triggering the idea of a psychological landscape and a physical or mental journey, the installation evokes ideas of escapism and the search for the self, adventure, testing limits, inner states of transgression, conquest, delimitation, drift and danger. On the occasion of the exhibition, Grubinger will be in conversation with Fatos Üstek at ArtReview Live on 9 September, please book your places at rsvp@artreview.com.
This exhibition is generously supported by the Austrian Chancellor’s office, L40 Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, and the Berlin Senate Cultural Affairs Department.
Special thanks to Austrian Cultural Forum, Delfina Foundation and Westbury Hotels.
Please join us for the weekly Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday at 5 pm.

EVA GRUBINGER CV

Eva Grubinger (b.1970, Salzburg, Austria) lives in Berlin. She has exhibited widely internationally, with institutional solo exhibitions at, among others, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle; Kiasma Museum, Helsinki; Berlinische Galerie, Berlin; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; and the Museum Belvedere, Vienna. She has also participated in many group exhibitions in Germany and abroad.

36/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS EVA GRUBINGER

MELANIE MANCHOT, WEEK 37/50

Melanie Manchot unveils a new body of work at fig-2 produced over the last seven years. Manchot’s ‘11/18’ is a nine-channel video installation, composed of edited footage collected from filming the same person every month for the duration of one minute, recording her countenance between the ages of eleven and eighteen. Employing the restricted palette of a studio portrait and filming on analogue Super8 film stock the work becomes an enquiry into time, duration and commitment.

Investigating the boundaries between documentary and fiction, ‘11/18’ comes forth as a study on the notion of subjectivity, where its constituting parts surface as gestures and mimicry. The portraits fade in and out, displaying the changes that Manchot’s subject has gone through, as her appearance and ways of relating to the camera alters. Manchot’s subject responds to the camera, as if she is responding to someone familiar and to something uncanny. ‘11/18’, thus emerges as a quest for identity and character, whilst pronouncing its inexplicable and ever-changing nature.
Please join us for the weekly Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday at 5pm.

MELANIE MANCHOT CV

Melanie Manchot (b. 1966, Witten, Germany) lives and works in London. Her work has been shown in exhibitions at Hayward Gallery, London; Baltic 39, Newcastle; The Whitechapel Gallery, London; MacVal, Musee d’Art Contemporain, Paris; The Photographers Gallery, London; The Brooklyn Museum, New York; The Australian Museum of Photography, Sydney. Manchot has participated in a number of biennales, including The Venice Biennale in 2007 and The Istanbul Biennial in 2009. Manchot’s video installation Twelve is currently touring nationally, opening at Castlefield Gallery, Manchester on 17th September and touring to Aspex, Portsmouth and Towner, Eastbourne. In October she will have a solo show, The Gift, at Bloomberg Space, London.

37/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS MELANIE MANCHOT

JOSH WRIGHT & GUILLAUME VANDAME, WEEK 38/50

Josh Wright & Guillaume Vandame join forces at fig-2, for their first solo exhibition, transforming the premises into an active gym with classes led by personal trainers, yoga teachers and invited artists. Coding a space for physical activity within a site for art in referencing Claes Oldenburg’s soft hard sculptures as well as Carl Andre’s minimal aesthetic and Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s collaborative, environmental and site specific approach, Wright & Vandame introduce a week of physical and mental stimuli. Much like Allan Kaprow’s happenings, the duo intertwines artistic input with physical engagement, and questions the body’s potential to transmit notions of identity, gender orientation and character. Inviting artists such as Karimah Ashadu, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd and Adham Faramawy to respond to the popular language and practice generated by gym culture, Wright & Vandame question our contemporary body image aesthetics and provoke conflating masculine and feminine archetypes and forms. The classes are of limited capacity, please book your classes following the respective links below.

Please join us for the Salon Session with Josh Wright & Guillaume Vandame, mediated by Fatos Üstek and Yves Blais on Sunday 27 September at 4 – 5.30 pm.

Ashtanga Yoga Class
Tuesday 22 September
11.15 am – 12 pm

This class will introduce you to the standing poses of the Primary Series to increase strength, flexibility and endurance.

Led by Nicolette Wilson
Please book your tickets here

Zumba
Tuesday 22 September
3 – 4 pm

Zumba® offers a heady combination of high energy and motivating music with unique moves and combinations so you can dance away your worries. A fusion of Latin and International music - classic dance themes that merge together for dynamic, exciting, effective fitness!

Led by Toma Janulyte
Please book your tickets here

Movement, Awareness and Meditation
Tuesday 22 September
5 – 6 pm
Wednesday 23 September
5 – 6 pm

A session that combines a gentle, meditative movement, breath awareness study and a short relaxation. All leading up to the practice of mindfulness meditation inspired by teachings of Himalayan Institute.

Led by Marta Swiezynska
Please book your tickets here

VOGA
Tuesday 22 September
7.15 – 8 pm
Sunday 27 September
2 – 3 pm

Voga is a dynamic fusion of Yoga and voguing, combining the expressive moves of a dance class with the breath-synchronised movement of yoga.
Join us for a fast paced high intensity workout, where lycra and leggings are a must!

Led by House of Voga Founder, Juliet Murrell
Please book your tickets here

Vinyasa Yoga Class
Wednesday 23 September
11.15 am – 12 pm

Vinyasa yoga is a series of poses that will move you through the power of inhaling and exhaling. Vinyasa movements are smoothly flowing and almost dance-like.

A Yoga class with a sense of spontaneous transformational play, this inner journey will help you rediscover your vibrancy, restore your flexibility and revitalise your mind, body and spirit.

Led by Celia Peachey.
Please book your tickets here

Pilates
Wednesday 23 September
1 – 2 pm

This class will introduce the principals of Pilates. Combining Pilates and ballet conditioning exercises throughout class to strengthen the core and elongate the muscles.

Led by Chloe Wilkinson
Please book your tickets here

Adham Faramawy’s Post Rave Sweat Fatigue Workout
Wednesday 23 September
7 – 8 pm

A sloppy aerobic dance session sound-tracked by Trance music. Titled, Post-Rave Sweat Fatigue Workout, this will be a fun hour starting with a dynamic stretch warm up, leading into a mix of very loose aerobic exercise and dance, taking cue from early morning rave workout sessions. The arrangement will be flowing and baggy, focusing on continual motion and pleasure rather than replicating forms and shapes. Breaks and hydration are encouraged.

Adham Faramawy (1981) is a Dubai born, London based artist of Egyptian origin. His work spans media including moving image, sculptural installation and print, engaging and using technology to discuss issues of embodiment and identity construction.
Led by Adham Faramawy

Please book your tickets here

Hatha Yoga Class
Thursday 24 September
11 am – 12 pm

Hatha yoga refers to a set of physical exercises (known as asanas) designed to align your skin, muscles, and bones.

This class will focus on breathing, held postures and meditation to still the mind.

Led by Nicolette Wilson.
Please book your tickets here

Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, This is Insanity!
Thursday 24 September
6.15 – 7 pm
7.30 – 8.15 pm

Marvin Gaye Chetwynd presents "This is Insanity!" featuring the contemporary beat boxer, Cull, and British artist, Adam Castle.

Let Chetwynd and her extraordinary friends take you to places you have never been before and join her on this journey to transform and transcend the body.

Led by Marvin Gaye Chetwynd
Please book your tickets here

Meditation Yoga Class
Friday 25 September
11.15 am – 12 pm

This class will encourage stillness in order to create mental space and focus either seated or laying down. This will result in clarity of mind and stress reduction.

Led by Nicolette Wilson.

Please book your tickets here

Pilates
Friday 25 September
1 – 2 pm

This class will introduce the principals of Pilates. A low impact muscle strengthening class designed to restore the body to balance.

Led by Angela Goodfellow.
Please book your tickets here

Chi Kung
Friday 25 September
3 – 4 pm

Chi Kung is an ancient Chinese form of movement exercise.
The class will harness your internal chi flow through movement, stillness, meditation, and breath.

Led by Angela Goodfellow.
Please book your tickets here

Yin Yoga Class
Saturday 26 September
11.15 am – 12 pm

This class is about finding stillness within the poses and calming the mind and body down. A great antidote to balance a vigorous exercise regime or an active life.
Led by Nicolette Wilson.

Please book your tickets here

Salon Session with Francesca Steele, mediated by Josh Wright & Guillaume Vandame
Saturday 26 September
12.30 – 1.30 pm

In the spirit of Wright & Vandame's investigation of the body, beauty, and the art-life debate, celebrated performance artist, Francesca Steele, has been invited for a lunchtime talk to discuss her practice and interest in the body.

For over twenty years, Steele has used her physical presence in numerous works including performance, video and photography. Between 2008 and 2012, Steele initiated a rigorous project involving the artist becoming a competitive bodybuilder. In this time, she won Miss West Britain (NABBA Trained Figure) and place in the top five at the UK Finals.

In this rare conversation with the artist, Steele will be discussing an overview of her practice from her earlier work to the present and explore some of the key issues defining her practice including extreme body modification, classical beauty and how gender and sexuality are represented and negotiated within society.
Please book your tickets here

Karimah Ashadu’s Everlasting Yoga
Saturday 26 September
2.15 – 3 pm
5 – 6 pm

Quite often, practitioners in the art of holistic wellbeing are subject to their own internal turmoil. What would it be to experience a yoga class where everything is out on the table?

Everlasting Yoga is shaped by ten asanas. The artist constructs a series of postures based on narratives pertaining to circumstances in her life. Participants are invited to partake in each of these states.
A problem shared is a problem halved.

Please book your tickets here

Dance Burn
Saturday 26 September
3.45 – 4.30 pm

Have fun whilst working out with this high-energy dance class, using moves from Salsa, Persian style and Aerobics. Dance and exercise at the same time to Latin-inspired beats as well as well known chart hits.
Led by Dalia Pozarauskaite

Please book your tickets here

Dru Yoga Class
Saturday 26 September
11.15 am – 12 pm

The alchemy of yoga, healing the body and training the mind, reigniting that imaginative spark.
A Yoga class with a sense of spontaneous transformational play, this inner journey will help you rediscover your vibrancy, restore your flexibility and revitalise your mind, body and spirit.
Led by Celia Peachey.

Please book your tickets here

Salon Session with Josh Wright & Guillaume Vandame, mediated by Fatos Üstek and Yves Blais
Sunday 27 September
4 – 5.30 pm

To conclude the ambitious week of activities and live events, Josh Wright & Guillaume Vandame will be speaking in conversation with Fatos Ustek and Yves Blais of fig-2.
The Salon Session will focus primarily on key themes of the exhibition including the body as a tool for making art, the objectification and commodification of the body, gender, sexuality and issues of representation. As well, the discussion will highlight more of the process and challenges of organizing the weeklong exhibition from its beginnings to fruition.

Following the Salon Session, please join the curators and artists for an exclusive, last chance tour of the exhibition.

Please book your tickets here

JOSH WRIGHT CV

Josh Wright (b.1993, High Wycombe) is a British visual artist and photographer living and working in London. His practice explores the body and its representations in new media. He is best known for his project, “A Portrait of the Artist by a Young Man” (2011-2014), comprising of one hundred photographs of one hundred of the most influential and significant emerging and established British artists of our time.

GUILLAUME VANDAME CV

Guillaume Vandame (b. 1991, New York) is a French-American conceptual artist, writer and curator living and working in London and New Jersey. His background is based in museum education and he has lectured on contemporary art in a variety of public institutions. His practice is primarily interested in subject-object-place relationships, revising the canon of modern art, and investigating issues of truth and reality in popular culture.

38/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS JOSH WRIGHT & GUILLAUME VANDAME

DARREN BADER, WEEK 39/50

Darren Bader’s approach to sculpture is often guided by language and happenstance. On the occasion of his solo exhibition at fig-2, he will show three music-themed works. ‘Candy Says, Lisa Says, Stephanie Says, Caroline Says’, an homage to the late Lou Reed, invites people with the four eponymous names to congregate and converse among themselves, over their smartphones/computers, and to fig-2 visitors. ‘Study for Eight Days a Week’, an offshoot of Bader’s work in the recently opened Lyon Biennale, merges numerous songs according to title. The exhibition’s third work invites various musicians to form temporary quartets/quintets. The musicians will be grouped unorthodoxly, combining instruments rarely heard together: 808s, aulochromes, baglamas, bagpipes, bawus and bells, on down to trombones, violas, voices and zithers. Each quartet/quintet will be invited to write a song they can then record and mix in the free studio provided by fig-2. If you’re a musician and interested in booking a session, please email info@fig2.co.uk.

fig-2 would like to thank Sadie Coles and Studio 7 for their generous support.

Are you a Stephanie, Lisa, Candy or Caroline? Would you like to be a part of an artwork?

Do you know any Stephanie(s), Caroline(s), Lisa(s) or Candy(s)? Would they like to be part of an artwork?
We’re inviting all Carolines, Candys, Lisas, and Stephanies to be part of Darren Bader’s piece, Candy Says, Lisa Says, Stephanie Says, Caroline Says. The more Lisas, Carolines, Stephanies and Candys the merrier. The piece will be one of three music-themed works exhibited on occasion of Bader’s week-39 project at fig-2.
fig-2 hosts 50 projects over 50 weeks, all taking place at ICA Studio.
Bader’s approach to sculpture is guided by language and happenstance. An homage to the late Lou Reed, as well as to basic rules of language Candy Says, Lisa Says, Stephanie Says, Caroline Says, invites persons having the four eponymous names to come together and say things: to each other, to themselves, to someone via telecommunication, to fig-2 visitors, etc. It should be a nice game of “she said, she said.”
Any Candy/Stephanie/Caroline/Lisa is welcome at any time during fig-2 opening hours (Mon 6 – 8pm, Tue-Sun 11 – 6 pm with Thursday open until 9 pm). Due to the nature, of the work, we will have to check ID for proof of name :)
Once you/Lisa/Caroline/Stephanie/Candy arrive, you/she should introduce your/herself to a fig-2 staff member. We’ll then introduce you to all present Lisas Stephanies Candys and Carolines. We will provide hot drinks and refreshments.
We look forward to meeting you.

Do you sing, play the alpine bell, aulochrome, baglama, bagpipes, bawu, steel drum, or any other instruments?

From Monday 28th September to Sunday 4th October, we are hosting a meeting of the rarely-played-together at fig-2 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.
Come write songs, modify genres, use a recording studio, and see what euphony might ensue.
The use of the recording studio is completely free. We will organise quartets or quintets to record twice a day (roughly 3-4 hours or rehearsal and recording time each). All writers/players will retain a copy of their recordings.
Please email info@fig2.co.uk to book a session. You can either book a session with your colleagues up to four people or to come along and improvise with fellow musicians.
Please see the timetable below:

RECORDED SESSIONS

DARREN BADER CV

Darren Bader (b. 1978, Bridgeport, CT) lives and works in New York. Recent solo exhibitions include: Reading Writing Arithmetic, Radio Athènes, Athens; The World as Will and Representation, Koelnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (all 2015). He has participated in the 13th Biennale de Lyon, La Vie Moderne, Lyon (2015) and the Whitney Biennial, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2014) among others. In 2013 he was the recipient of the Calder Prize. His book, 77 and/or 58 and/with 19, was recently published by Primary Information, New York.

39/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS DARREN BADER

UNA KNOX, WEEK 40/50

Una Knox marks the fortieth week of the fig-2 programme with her solo exhibition. Knox responds to the archival material of an artist that she is influenced by, as well as to the mobile display structures at fig-2. By binding these display units together Knox’s gesture references the surface tension that she intends will unfold both conceptually and physically. Surfaces become a field of study, proliferated through photography, video and drawing. She alters archival footage from the 1980s of her father, artist David Knox, working in his studio and performing to audiences and incorporates recent footage shot on an early video camera. In transmuting this material she generates a new series of trichromatic photographs, a video installation and a drawing-animation. David Knox’s surface studies introduced cuts on large sheets of paper. Una Knox furthers this by exposing her own series of cut-outs under photo filters, and explores the materiality of paper and the photographic image, as well as the dichotomy between the temporary and permanent. The exhibition becomes a site where ideas of parallel lives and possible histories are considered through the exploration of the glitches and failures in early video and photographic processes.

Please join us for the weekly Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday at 5pm.

UNA KNOX CV

Una Knox (b. 1980, Vancouver, Canada) lives and works in London. Selected solo and group exhibitions include: TENT, Rotterdam (2015); Whitstable Biennial (2014); Or Gallery, Vancouver (2014); Florence Trust/Fold Gallery (2014); Victoria and Albert Museum (2013); Transmission, Glasgow (2012); Wysing Art Centre, Cambridge (2012) and Museum voor Actuele Kunst, The Hague (2012). She recently took part in Performance as Publishing at Whitechapel Gallery (2015). Her films have screened at CCA, Glasgow; Whitechapel Gallery; Nottingham Contemporary; Khoj International Art, New Delhi, India (2014), Momoshima Art Base, Momoshima, Japan (2014) and the Marrakech Biennial (2014).

40/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS UNA KNOX

FOS, WEEK 41/50

For his week at fig-2, FOS brings together his two prolific practices within art and design. His solo show ‘Maggie Margaret lives’ is a juxtaposition of artworks and design objects, produced for his recent solo exhibition in Copenhagen and for fashion brand Céline. ‘Maggie Margaret lives’ emerges as a constructed interior that initiates dialogue between art and design, displaying their malleable yet distinctive natures. The premises is inhabited by a character performed by actress Joanna Bergin, who appears and disappears at random. Her script, written by the artist in collaboration with Deborah Birch, oscillates between the pragmatic and the abstract, which attempts to disseminate the public memories left against objects, in this specific case within art and design. The installation becomes a site where objects are activated through the relationship between them and their owner, the character, as well as through their relationship with the audience who act as witnesses.

fig-2 would like to thank The Embassy of Denmark in the United Kingdom, Forest Furniture and Hannah Martin for their kind support to the exhibition.

FOS, 'MAGGIE MARGARET LIVES', 2015
FILM BY WILLIAM SMITH

FOS CV

FOS or Thomas Poulsen (b. 1971, Copenhagen, DK) lives and works in Copenhagen. Recent solo projects include: Porthole, Charlottenborg Copenhagen (2015); Always happy new year, The Royal Theatre, Copenhagen (2015); Small White Man - Echo (LP) (2015); Still Waters Run Deep, Odense Kunsten, Brandt’s Odense (2014); Agora, Athens Biennale, Athens (2014); Declaration of Unsolid Memories, Camden Arts Centre, London (2012); Osloo ⋅ Danish Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Venice (2011); One Language Traveler, National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen (2011); Another Place Yet A Place ⋅ Andersen’s Contemporary, Berlin (2010).

41/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS FOS

41/50 FOS TALK & TOUR FOR FASHION RESEARCH NETWORK

BRUCE MCLEAN, WEEK 42/50

Bruce McLean inhabits the fig-2 premises, engaging in a continuous interview with himself throughout the 42nd week. Revisiting his keynote lecture at Frieze Art Fair last year, McLean will produce a film to document the dialogue, which will be perfected and re-shot through several takes and repetitions, assisted by his long-term friend and collaborator Eddie Farrell. Charged with humour and wit, the interview will be formed of questions that seek to elaborate his position as an artist, and his approach to modes of production. Employing satirical, yet engaging commentaries on the state of arts and its relations, McLean will bring forward references to his earlier works. In addition to the staging of McLean interviews McLean, the exhibition will include archival material from his previous exhibitions and artworks.

fig-2 would like to thank BOY/GIRL for their generous support.

BRUCE MCLEAN INTERVIEWS BRUCE MCLEAN - FIRST NIGHT
FILM BY EDDIE FARREL

BRUCE MCLEAN INTERVIEWS BRUCE MCLEAN - FIRST NIGHT
FILM BY EDDIE FARREL

BRUCE MCLEAN CV

Bruce McLean (b. 1944, Glasgow Scotland), lives and works in London. McLean has exhibited in groundbreaking international shows since the late Sixties including, ‘When Attitudes become form’, Kunsthalle, Bern; and ICA, London (1969), ‘Konception’, Museum Morsbroish, Leverkusen, Germany, (1969), ‘Art in the Mind’, Allen Memorial Museum, Oberlin Ohio (1969), ‘Information’, Museum Modern Art, New York, USA, (1970), ‘Road Show Biennale’, Biennale de Sao Paolo, Brazil (1970), ‘The British Avant Garde’ New York Cultural Centre, New York, USA (1971), ‘Documenta 6’ (1977) and ‘Documenta 7’ (1982), both in Kassel, Germany, ‘Process, Progress Project Archive’ Chelsea Space, London (1966-2006).

42/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS BRUCE MCLEAN

KIHLBERG & HENRY, WEEK 43/50

Karin Kihlberg & Reuben Henry’s new commission ‘This Building, This Breath’ amplifies their long-term engagement with filmic voiceovers, their investigation into the disembodied voice, the acousmatic sound and the possibility of pushing the art experience into situations of liveness. Their new work emerges as a hypnotic foray into presentness and the passing of time, as it speaks to the viewer as a witness to the content laid bare. Introducing sound and moving image as two distinct bodies under the same skin, the artist duo chooses to separate these sources, thus involving a speaker as part of the work who will deliver the script from behind a screen, voicing content that coincides with the choreography of projected images. In the script, Kihlberg & Henry make use of a varied series of references to cultural understandings of breathing, from biological meanings and principles in martial arts and yoga to deviations of the term such as those used in breathing materials and lens breathing. For the film, they combine found footage with exerts from other films and advertorials. Adopting mechanisms familiar to the spheres of hypnosis or meditation in the structure and delivery of the script, they drive towards an abstract proposition that the room itself is breathing.

Please join us for the weekly Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday at 5pm.
fig-2 would like to thank the Arts Council England for their generous support towards Karin Kihlberg & Reuben Henry’s new commission.
The exhibition will be touring to Plymouth Arts Centre and Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool in 2016.

KIHLBERG & HENRY CV

Karin Kihlberg (b.1978, Sweden) & Reuben Henry (b.1979, UK) live and work in London. Selected solo and group projects include: Res., London, The Welcome Collection, London, Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2015), Antimatter Film Festival, Canada, Short Film Festival Oberhausen (2014). Wysing Art Centre, Cambridge, Pilar and Joan Miró Foundation (2012). Kihlberg & Henry are the co-ordinators of The Disembodied Voice collaborative Research group and worked as researchers at the Jan van Eyck Academie between 2009-11.

43/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS KARIN KIHLBERG & REUBEN HENRY

EVENTS

Workshop for Ideas
Thursday 5 Nov
6 – 8 pm
Open Mime
Sunday 8 Nov
5 – 6 pm

DONUTS, WEEK 44/50

Anthea Hamilton responds to the invitation to realise an exhibition at fig-2 by bringing forward a newly formed artist initiative. Donuts, composed of artists Zsuzsa Benke, Beverley Chapman, Rosemary Cronin, Anthea Hamilton, Ngo Chun TSE, Linda Vigdorčika, and Adam J B Walker takes part in a research residency at fig-2 for one week concentrating on mime performance as their medium of production. In the pursuit of the potential for collaboration, the group has engaged in various outdoor activities together, looking into ways in which collaboration can provide an open ground for dialogue and formation of ideas. This will be the group’s first public project and draws influences from Mario Bellini’s communal temporary living space ‘Kar-a-sutra’. Donuts will explore utopian ideals of co-existence, investigate ways of being together and forms of relating to the world at large with responses in mime language. Furthermore, the group is inviting various speakers from different disciplines to introduce them their field of research, treating themselves as vessels for different formations of knowledge, opening towards multifarious experiences generated from morning meetings with a body language expert, a dancer/choreographer, a deep sea diver, a hairdresser, a timekeeper at the British Museum, a mathematician throughout the week. Visitors are welcome to join the group at any time to participate. The week will also host a Workshop for Ideas, where the group will open the ground for a conversation, alongside a selection of screening excerpts from films that influence their practice.

Please join us for the weekly Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday at 5pm.
fig-2 would like to thank Richard Knight for their generous support in leading the mime workshop.

Workshop for Ideas
Thursday 5 Nov
6 – 8 pm

The Donuts collective will discuss and shows a series of excerpts from films which have influenced their ideas including Louis Barraults ‘L’enfants du Paradis’, footage of the mime of Etienne Decroux and Yves Lebreton amongst others.
Evening Timetable:
6.00 – 6.30 pm Screening of The Corporeal Mime of Etienne Decroux
6.30 – 8 pm Open Mime
8 – 9 pm Q&A Session with mime performers

Talk:
Resonant Voices in
Contemporary Visual Culture
Wednesday 11 Nov
6.30 – 8.30 pm

LYNNE MARSH, WEEK 45/50

Lynne Marsh’s practice is situated on the threshold between documentary and staged events, and recently concentrates on the interrogations around sites of cultural spectacle such as the studio and the concert hall.

Her new work, co-produced with the Opera North in Leeds, brings forth an altered experience of the infamous opera La Traviata, presenting it in its entirety. Mimicking the framing device of a play within a play, the video installation produces a production of production. The music guides her camera as Marsh explores the fragility of the ‘live’ event. Throughout the piece, Marsh observes stage managers, technicians, costume dressers, props personnel and the performers, bringing an operatic tradition into context with present-day realities, pronouncing the mechanics that create an experience. Producing a new mise-en-scene for La Traviata, composed of its processes of routine labour around the stage, she reveals a choreography of support between the behind-the-scenes and the ‘grand narratives’. Please book your tickets for a talk by Fatos Üstek, with an introduction by artist Lynne Marsh here .
The film will be screened everyday at 12pm, 2pm and 4pm, with a late screening on Thursday at 7 pm.
Lynne Marsh’s film is co-produced with Opera North, Leeds and is generously supported by The Canada Council for the Arts and The University of Hertfordshire.
fig-2 would like to thank Micro Rave for their generous support.

LYNNE MARSH CV

Lynne Marsh (b. 1969, Vancouver, Canada) lives and works in London. Her video works have been exhibited and screened extensively including: The Montreal Biennale; Toronto International Film Festival; Kunsthalle Memmingen, Germany; Aurora, Dallas; The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal; PROGRAM, Berlin; European Media Art Festival, Osnabrueck, Germany; ICA, London; Centro Cultural Montehermoso, Spain; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; 10th Istanbul Biennial and Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels.

45/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS LYNNE MARSH

EVENT

Embodied Sound
a movement exploration session
Sunday 22 Nov
4 – 5 pm

VESNA PETRESIN, WEEK 46/50

Vesna Petresin’s practice merges film and sound, with performance, spatial fractions and immersive experiences. In her performances, Petresin explores embodiment, transition, the manipulation of time and movement, alongside the barriers between the intimate and the public sphere. For her new commission at fig-2, Petresin concentrates on the legacy of the concept of time and synaesthesia in syncretic art, as well as research from her performances which refer to the dynamic, transformative and evolving life-giving female principle. Using her voice and movement meditation, she constructes a trichotomy of structures: sound, image and light, exploring the concept of time in relation to body, movement, space and emotions. Petresin lays the ground for a musical and light-oriented landscape that moves around the bodies of the audience members as they engage with the filmic component. Drawing influences from Bergsonian ideation of time and Heideggerian conceptualisation of in-being (da sein), Petresin seeks to elucidate the ability of forming a meaningful relationship with the world. Her works bring together the three ecstasies and epiphanies of temporality; voice, movement and the subconscious.

An artist-led guided movement session will take place at the end of the week, and takes its structure from elements of martial arts, Fluxus, Butoh, sonic topology and body consciousness techniques. Please book your tickets here.
Please join us for the weekly Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday at 5pm.

For her commission at Bicester Village, Vesna Petresin transforms one of Bicester Village’s telephone boxes into an immersive environment defined by light and sound with an intention to provide a moment for pause and contemplation.

VESNA PETRESIN CV

Vesna Petresin (b. 1971, Ljubljana, Slovenia) is a trans-disciplinary artist and thinker, and has a practice as a performer, time-architect, space-composer, writer and educator. She has exhibited and performed at Tate Modern, ArtBasel Miami, Royal Festival Hall, Royal Academy of Arts, Venice Biennale, Cannes International Film Festival, Institute of Contemporary Arts London, Sydney Opera House, Vienna Secession, World Architecture Festival and Beijing Architecture Biennale. She is a Visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths, works for the Topology Research Unit, is Artist in Residence at ZKM and was Director of the London-based art collective and think tank Rubedo.

46/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS VESNA PETRESIN

ALLISON KATZ, WEEK 47/50

Allison Katz has produced a new set of paintings in response to her commission for a solo exhibition at fig-2. Engaging with the parameters of the fig-2 studio, in combination with her most recent exhibition installation in Freiburg, Katz will present two specifically scaled paintings that comply with the mobile wall units. Shaped into stand alone monoliths, the fig-2 wall units support the paintings which appear to float in space. Katz’s response to the architecture is furthered in the subject of the paintings, where an interior is mirrored within itself, and where the memory of a lived experience is doubled in its image as a painting. Katz is interested in collating moments of transition and observation, from glimpse to contemplation, and voices these differing durational qualities. The variety and interplay of surfaces and techniques are echoed in the themes and motifs, where experience sublimates into content. The exhibition is complemented by take away posters that Katz produced for the occasion, to pronounce the movement encoded in the paintings and the premises.

Please join us for the weekly Last Chance Exhibition Tour on Sunday at 5pm.

ALLISON KATZ CV

Allison Katz (b. 1980, Montreal, Canada) is currently based in London. Recent solo exhibitions include All Is On, Kunstverein Freiburg, Rumours, Echoes, BFA Boatos, São Paulo, and Adele, Piper Keys, London. Group shows include Dredgers on the Rail (with DAS INSTITUT), Freedman Fitzpatrick, L.A., No Joke, Tanya Leighton, Berlin; Call and Response, Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York; The Violet Crab, David Roberts Art Foundation, London, and Puddle, pothole, portal, SculptureCentre, New York. She has designed the cover of CURA Magazine No. 20, and her upcoming exhibition with Gió Marconi in Milan will open in February 2016.

47/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS ALLISON KATZ

EVENTS

Performances:
On the Admissibility of Sound
Monday 30 Nov
ICA Theatre & ICA Studio
6.30 – 8 pm
On the Admissibility of Sound
Thursday 3 Dec
ICA Theatre
7.30 – 9 pm
Workshop by Lisa Skuret:
Messy and Material: Listening Laboratory
Saturday 5 Dec
ICA Studio
1.30 – 3 pm
Seminar:
Listening Through a Beam of Intense Darkness
Saturday 5 Dec
ICA Studio
4 – 5 pm

SETH AYYAZ, WEEK 48/50

Seth Ayyaz has been commissioned to create a new configuration of work, which marks the fourth and final expansion of fig-2 into the premises of the ICA Theatre alongside the ICA Studio. Ayyaz brings together three significant strands of his practice into a new formulation: an installation of his multi-channel AAdM Listening system, two electroacoustic concerts, and a specially commissioned publication, as well as supporting events.

For his first solo exhibition, Ayyaz connects two distinct spaces, unfolding two different experiences of listening. Transforming the ICA Theatre into a forest of sounds, he uses the AAdM system to carve paths for the audience to walk through and immerse themselves in the experiences of listening. In the Studio, Ayyaz provides an alternative experience of using the same self-regulating system, which responds to the change of architecture and acoustics. The installation will be active during the week, complemented by two performances of a triptych of electroacoustic works. These critically address both Islamic sonic culture and current Orientalist fantasies that construct it as an alterity.

The two concerts ‘On the Admissibility of Sound’ include ‘Makharej’ which emerges as a trajectory through the Arabic letters; ‘The Remainder’ as an investigation into medieval number theory and algorithm; and ‘the bird ghost at the zaouia’ as a conversation about religious debates and place (book here). Taking up an expanded notion of listening, artist Lisa Skuret will realise a listening laboratory on Saturday (book here). On the same day a discussion between Seth Ayyaz, Lisa Skuret, Joel Vacheron, Fatos Üstek and guests, will contextualise the topics raised through the week (book here ).

This project has been realised with the generous support of the Arts Council England.

fig-2 is proud to announce Ibraaz as our media partner for week 48/50.

fig-2 would like to thank The University of Kent for use of the MAAST sound system and Studio 7 for their generous support.

Seth’s performance ‘On the Admissibility of Sound’ was filmed and live streamed by Documentation Action Research Collective.

SETH AYYAZ, 'ON THE ADMISSIBILITY OF SOUND' (EXCERPT)
VIDEO DOCUMENTATION BY ANA GODINHO DE MATOS

SEMINAR: LISTENING THROUGH A BEAM OF INTENSE DARKNESS

A discussion between the composer Seth Ayyaz, musicologist and performer Zeynep Bulut, composer and theorist Erik Nyström, invited artist Lisa Skuret and fig-2 curator Fatos Ustek. The focus will turn around the sound works presented across the week, and will ranging across notions of cognitive opacity/translucency, and the theme of ‘listening without a listener’, to the problematics of an ‘Islamic sonic-social’, current constructions of alterity and experimental Middle-Eastern sonic practices. A specially commissioned publication will accompany the project.

This seminar has been generously supported by Arts Council England

AUDIO RECORDING OF THE SEMINAR

ADDITIONAL LINKS

Interview: The Islamic Sonic-Social. Seth Ayyaz in conversation with Sheyma Buali

Channel: Listening Through a Beam of Intense Darkness

Project: On the Admissibility of Sound

SETH AYYAZ CV

Seth Ayyaz (b. 1970, UK) is a London based composer-performer, writer and occasional curator. Ayyaz has presented his work internationally including: Cafe Oto, London; Kunsthalle Luzern, Switzerland; Irtijal Festival, Beirut; Maerz Music, Berlin; the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology, Finland; and the Haus Für Elektronische Künste in Basel, Switzerland. Ayyaz also writes on sound and has been published in The Wire, Organised Sound, and most recently in, On Listening. Live work includes the Usurp Chance Tour 2014 — Cage and Beyond. He also curated the MazaJ Festival of Experimental Middle-Eastern Music, London.

48/50 FATOS ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS SETH AYYAZ

MANUEL MATHIEU, WEEK 49/50

On its penultimate week, fig-2 realises the first solo exhibition by painter Manuel Mathieu, the successful applicant of the fig-2 open call for students. Mathieu was chosen from 235 applications from over 25 different Universities and Colleges around the UK from diverse fields including art, fashion, mathematics and science. Mathieu will show four new paintings that he completed over the past three months. His paintings oscillate between figurative and abstract, making use of various techniques against the canvas such as frottage and intervention. Mathieu concentrates on the isolation of the individual, amplifying the subject’s surrounding by depicting desolate yet intriguing voids. Influenced by seminal painters such as Alex Collville, Mathieu appropriates scenes and scenarios that reside in collective consciousness, drawing them into new windows of perception.

MANUEL MATHIEU CV

Manuel Mathieu (b. 1986, Haiti) lives and works in London. He is Currently doing his Master at Goldsmiths University of London. Recent projects include: Solo show 49/50, fig-2, London (2015); Group show at the Grand Palais, Paris(2014); Group show at the museum of Contemporary art in Montreal (2014); Group show at the POPOP Gallery, Montreal (2014); Group show at the Museum of Civilization, Quebec (2013); Solo show Les Territoires Gallery, Montreal (2013).

49/50 FATOŞ ÜSTEK INTERVIEWS MANUEL MATHIEU

LAURA ELDRET, WEEK 50/50

Laura Eldret bookends the fig-2 programme with ‘The Juicers’, a new video work that follows the people of a Zapotec community in Mexico famous for its rug-making traditions. fig-2’s programme started with Eldret’s work-in-progress exhibition, where she displayed a number of rugs made by the people she met, their respective designs reflecting on her experience and functioning as receipts of exchange.

Eldret’s two-channel video installation focuses on issues of communication, translation, and ways of being together. ‘The Juicers’ engages with the proliferation of colours in the town as an imaginary framework for these ideas – the fruit and vegetable juices (red, green, yellow) sold in the local market, and the dyes used in weaving (cochinilla, indigo, local yellow flowers). Eldret’s work suggests that these colours are consumed, transformed and presented in the town as an integral part of the physical actions and bodies of the community. It furthers her interest in ideas of transformation, making, sociability, (mis)translation, performance, fantasy, and the limits of ethnography.

Please join us for the last artist tour at 4 pm on Saturday 19 December.

With special thanks to the people of Teotitlán del Valle and in particular to the individuals who feature in ‘The Juicers’. Editing support kindly provided by Will Smith.

Research in Mexico was supported by British Council and Arts Council England’s Artists’ International Development Fund. ‘The Juicers’ is realised with support from the Government of Mexico, as part of the Year of Mexico in the UK 2015.

LAURA ELDRET CV

Laura Eldret (b.1982, Macclesfield) lives and works in London. Solo and group exhibitions include: Annka Kultys Gallery, London; fig-2, London; Ikon, Birmingham; Drawing Room, London; Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea; Crown Street Gallery, Darlington; Jerwood Project Space, London; Glasgow International; Tannery Arts, London; Camden Arts Centre, London; Musée des Beaux-arts de Nantes, France; BALTIC, Gateshead; and Five Hundred Dollars, London.