Thursday, 5 December 2019
9.00
Parallax Discuss Breakfast
Location: ASP Cafeteria
10:00 – 17:00
Likes, Stories And Stereotypes/Workshops
#againststereotypes // #przeciwstereotypowi
Contributors:
Gloria Lopez-Cleries, MFA student
Kolbrun Inga Soring, MFA student
James Duffy, MFA student
Location: ASP Cafeteria
10.30
Introductory Discussion/ Histories and Futures
Led by:
Martin Newth, Fine Art Programme Director, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL
Dr hab. Pawel Mendrek, Head of the Intermedia and Scenography Department ASP Katowice
Participants:
Maddie Leach, Senior Lecturer, HDK-Valand. Academy of Art and Design
Laura Rosser, PhD student and associate lecturer in Fine Art, University of Plymouth
Dr Katrine Hjelde, Course Leader Graduate Diploma Fine Art, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL
Patricia Ellis, MA Fine Art Course Leader, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL
Dr hab. Leslaw Tetla, Dean of the Faculty of Art, ASP Katowice
Location: ASP Cinema
The Parallax Network has evolved from a desire to enact one of the central roles of the art school; to encourage critical dialogue. The annual forum has become a key moment, along with other events, exhibitions and publications, when space is created for the dialogue to develop. This year’s forum will therefore start with a discussion that invites participation from everyone attending the forum. The session will focus on the question: How does tradition and local culture inform the future of art in an increasingly global context?
Small groups will discuss this question, bringing perspectives of the different cultures and identities in the room. Participants will be invited to pose further questions which will open up the discussion more broadly and set the agenda for rest of the Forum.
12.00
Mediating the Nation State – Abba and the Commodification of ‚Swedishness’
Sarah Tuck, Head of Fine Art, HDK-Valand. Academy of Art and Design
Location: ASP Cinema
A consideration of how Abba imaged and communicated ‚Swedishness’ as a disengagement from the complexities of post war European history and politics.
12.45
lunch
13.45
Dominika Kowynia talks with Agata Slowak
Location: ASP Cinema
Dominika Kowynia will be speaking with Agata Slowak, a visual artist, author of oil pictures, spatial objects and textiles. Agata’s works feature autobiographical themes and anthropological, cultural and feminist topics. The artist reflects on the social role of the woman, the causes of exclusion and the history of madness. The recurrent motif in her art is the function of the ritual and magic as alternative forms of transferring knowledge and creating the community of women.
14.30
Art For Everyday
Led by:
Dr hab. Jolanta Jastrzab, Head of the Painting Department, ASP Katowice
Dr Joanna Zdzienicka, ASP Katowice
Participants:
Dominika Malska, MFA student
Katarzyna Borkowska, MFA student
Sara Kuzynin, MFA student
Location: ASP Cinema
Sara Kuzynin, Dominika Malska and Katarzyna Borkowska, authors of therapeutic projects have been invited to speak about their activities conducted as part of their Art therapy diploma works. They decided to focus on those spheres of everyday life which cause discomfort to the projects’ participants. The first issue concerns the integration within a multicultural group of children. The next – typical of adult participants – body pain and tension. The last – the broadly defined life quality of four elderly women, residents of a nursing home. Our intention is to examine the possibilities of acting within socially engaged projects. What we are interested in, however, are not definitions but the effectiveness and the manner and sense of presenting therapeutic projects at art galleries. The exhibition activities make up an important stage of such projects as they facilitate the dissemination of ideas. What status do therapeutic projects or documentations of such actions have in the art gallery?
15.30
From Walk And Talk, To Sit Down And Shut Up
Contributors:
Sally Charlesworth, MFA student
Eleanor Neason, MFA student
Gary Marshall-Stevens, MFA student
Location: ASP Cinema
Three differing approaches to artistic agency, which share common ground in tackling stereotypes, will question the role of art education in the context of a university. The presentation and discussion will explore how contemporary art practices tell their stories through performative, embodied transformations that expose stereotypesMediated through pencil, paintbrush, typewriter, the body; our immediate mode of being is replete. Processes of distortion, haptic filtering, overload, translation across media and format can retune our perception of archetypes found in the stories which underpin contemporary culture.
Screenings:
SC Translation of media via haptic filtering, Video 2019, 2 minutes
GMS Crudely Staying Sane, Moving Image Medley 2019, 3 minutes
EN And as our Bodies, so our Minds Cramp, Video 2019, 3 minutes
16.30
WRO 2019 on Tour
Stereo – Stories
Selection and presentation:
Krzysztof Dobrowolski, member of curatorial team, WRO Art Center
Location: ASP Cinema
The video program prepared for presentation during the third Parallax Forum refers to the topic of the Katowice meeting – Stereotypes & Storytelling. Research Strategies For Art Education. In the „post-technological” era of „post-truth”, the stories told by the works selected for the program balance between imagination and reality, potentiality and diagnosis of the facts, between myth and logos. Using a variety of strategies and means, the artists construct separate worlds and situations in individual projects, face threats and deeply rooted stereotypes. Stereo-Stories is a narrative pros and cons, a set of works in which clash of orders requires commitment and determination of one’s own perspective.
Screening program:
Andres Baron, Printed Sunset, CO, 2017, 06:21 The aesthetic tension between the simulated visual representation of the phases of a sunset, reproduced onto large-scale boards, is juxtaposed with the easy intimacy of the two female subjects who hold our gaze.
Daria Jelonek, Technological Nature, DE, 2017, 03:54What if your shower could cause a rainbow, you could encounter the wonder of the Northern Lights in your fridge or observe the sunset in your artificial panorama window? How would you view technology if you realized everything was controlled through an augmentation of nature’s wonders?
Magdalena Lazarczyk, Zuza Golinska, Nothing Twice (Nic dwa razy), PL,2017, 06:24
In the production there appears a figure of twins, imitating not only each other’s appearance, but also gestures, activities and expression. It is the result of common perceptions and previous incarnations, patterns from pop culture and the echo of the Doppelganger myth. Individual differences are blurred, not only by a unified appearance, but also by an attempt at mental union. Fictitiously created twins make a journey through a real marketplace – a place filled with an infinite number of identical, mass-produced objects – goods constituting the object of desire of a mass recipient who, by purchasing them, gives up their own separateness. The video confronts us again with the concept of identity in the context of the ever-shifting boundary between the copy and the original, reality and fiction, truth and simulation.
Winnie Soon, Unerasable Images, HK, 2018, 03:06
The artwork presents screenshots from Google Image Search results for the search term “六四” (“64”), a reference to the date of the student-led Tiananmen Square Protest in Beijing in 1989. The most iconic image of that day depicts an unknown protestor known as ‘Tank Man’ facing down a column of advancing tanks. This photograph is routinely censored by authorities and blocked from any search results in China. In 2013, a Lego reconstruction of the Tank Man image started circulating before it, too, was quickly erased. Nevertheless, the image was later found beyond China, and it occasionally prioritizes on the first few rows of Google image search.
With more than 300 screenshots were taken in 2017, the project aims to create a temporal and empty networked space where the thumbnail image(s) move within the hidden infrastructural grid and beyond the screenshot’s frame, examining the geopolitics of data circulation, internet censorship, the materiality of image (re)production through complex entanglement of human and nonhuman parameters.
Liliana Piskorska, Public Displays of Affection, PL, 2017, 06:40
The artist explores tensions between the notions of the public meeting and public space. She focuses on the physicality of limits circumscribing the temporary legality of a public meeting which form a dividing line between the participants and the police who protect the assembly. The synchronized police troops are in permanent, intimate, body-to-body contact, their integrity hinging on the endurance of connections which must be expressed in constant movement, shifts, and action.
Leonhard Mullner, Robin Klengel, Operation Jane Walk, AT, 2018, 16:14
An experimental short film based on the dystopian multiplayer shooter Tom Clancy’s: The Division (Ubisoft Entertainment 2016). The game’s digital war zone is appropriated with the help of an artistic operation: within the rules of the software, the militaristic environment is being re-used for a narrative city tour. The urban strollers avoid the combats whenever possible and become peaceful tourists of a digital world, which is a detailed replica of Midtown Manhattan. While walking through the post-apocalyptic city, issues such as architecture history, urbanism and the game developer’s interventions into the urban fabric are being discussed.
Chloe Galibert-Laine & Kevin B. Lee, Bottled Songs 3 & 4, FR/USA, 2018, 12:30
A series of video letters investigating desire, power and terrorism in online and social media. The videos, recorded from the researchers’ desktops, depict and interrogate their subjects’ compulsive engagement in the production of everyday myths and fictions about themselves and others. Here are presented Chapters 3 and 4. “The Spokesman” investigates the online traces of John Cantlie, a British news reporter who was kidnapped and appeared in several Islamic State propaganda videos. “My Crush was a Superstar” tracks a French ISIS fighter, Abu Abdallah Guitone, through a trail of messages, videos and postings to uncover his existence in both social media and reality.
Friday, 6 December 2019
11.00
Day 2 Introduction
Dr hab. Pawel Mendrek, Head of the Intermedia and Scenography Department ASP Katowice
Martin Newth, Fine Art Programme Director, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL
Location: ASP Cinema
11.10
Portland
Contributors:
Georgina Kapralou, MFA student
Veera Rustomji, MFA student
Rosie Dahlstrom, MFA student
Location: ASP Cinema
3 MA Fine Art Students from Chelsea will present their practices and discuss their collaborative publication Portland. The publication draws together the artist’s individual research as a platform for discussing shared concerns including sexual, social and cultural identity. The three artists’ cultural heritage is diverse (Greece, Pakistan and Scotland) reflecting both the diversity of the range of artists on the recently reimagined MA programme at Chelsea and the diversity of voices contributing to what art is and will be in the future.
12.00
The impact of unconscious bias in undergraduate Fine Art teaching
Contributors:
Laura Rosser, PhD student and associate lecturer in Fine Art, University of Plymouth
Karen Abadie, PhD student and associate lecturer in Fine Art, University of Plymouth
Location: ASP Cinema
In this performance lecture, Karen Abadie and Laura Rosser explore the experience of one Fine Art BA student as they approached their degree show. A practice tutor’s unconscious biases revealed themselves slowly over a series of weeks, requiring the student to reflect differently on their practice, on the potential power dynamics that emerge from these biases and, as time slowly ticked away towards their degree show, the student’s response was surprising and enlivening. In this presentation, we will track this student’s journey through various narrative voices that contributes to their story in the face of a prevailing wind of stereotype (albeit unconscious) leading to the production of a powerful and impactful response to these undercurrents.
12.45
lunch
13.45
Where do I end and you begin?
Maddie Leach, Senior Lecturer, HDK-Valand. Academy of Art and Design
Location: ASP Cinema
In 2017 Maddie Leach produced a 12” EP titled The Grief Prophesy for Gothenburg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA). The album contained two interpretations of an instrumental track by Swedish black metal band Dissection, and a cover image by extreme metal artist Necrolord. This presentation considers the idea of “doom aesthetics” and how The Grief Prophesy attempted a détournement of Dissection’s story.
14.30
Memories of the Future
Contributors:
Patricia Ellis, MA Fine Art Course Leader, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL
Dr Katrine Hjelde, Course Leader Graduate Diploma Fine Art, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL
Ben Fitton, Senior Lecturer, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL
Location: ASP Cinema
The panel sets up a fiction where the four participants have a discussion in the year 2039. They will discuss their recollection of art and art education from 2024.
Having left the EU, Chelsea College of Arts has come to terms with its position on the periphery. London’s previous history is as the centre of colonial power. But now, the UK has adjusted to its new context as a colonial outpost of the USA and estranged from the European mainland, the cultural centre having completed its relocation to Berlin. The participants will discuss the changes that the art school has instigated in response to its new context with particular focus on its relationship to society. The format of the session is for the panel discussion to open up into a workshop, where the audience are asked to contribute to ideas about what the art school of the future should be.
15.30
Coffee Break
16.00
Likes, Stories and Stereotypes/ workshops summary
#againststereotypes // #przeciwstereotypowi
Contributors:
Gloria Lopez-Cleries, MFA student
Kolbrun Inga Soring, MFA student
James Duffy, MFA student
Location: ASP Cinema
During the past year Gloria, James and Inga have been working with the concept of the construction of the self and identity in relation to power structures and micro-politics. In the light of ASP they would like to take the opportunity to problematize the idea of the stereotype in the form of an open laboratory, where students and conference attendees alike are invited to come around and explore with us the possibility of new imaginaries.
The workshop will take place in the form of an open, drop in – drop out Laboratory. We will look at three different categories which we have identified as influential in the forming of the stereotype; Brands and Advertising / pop-culture industry/ Tourism and Politics. These categories will then be discussed, through a mapping process which will function as a tool of accommodating different linguistic experiences by not prioritizing verbal communication.
During the workshop Fika* will be provided for participants, as it is an integral part of Swedish culture.
* Fika is a concept, a state of mind, an attitude and an important part of Swedish culture. Many Swedes consider that it is almost essential to make time for Fika every day. It means making time for friends and colleagues to share a cup of coffee (or tea) and a little something to eat.
19.00
Real is a Feeling: Fragments
Coordination:
Philippe Gerlach, photographer
Artists: Magda Lacek, Michael Adamek, Weronika Krupa, Aleksandra Rajnisz-Podlaska, Anhand Kolektiv, Magda Knapczyk, Kasia Rachuba, Jessica Ciupa, Jagoda Lukas, Zuza Wasiak, Janina Janicka-Grabowska
Location: ASP pop up gallery (ex Vena Shop)
For the 2019 edition of Parallax: “Storytelling and Stereotypes”, the students of this years Lensbased-Media Class “International Studio” stage the Work-in-Progress show: Real is a Feeling: Fragments. Throughout the winter-semester they focused on their immediate surrounding; peers, family members or formerly strangers that caught their interest. Implementing ready-to-use consumer electronics into their workflow and laying the main emphasis on direct interaction and situational awareness rather than composition and photographic tropes, they are able to tap into the psyche of the environment they inhabit.
Saturday, 7 December 2019
19.00
Sex, Suicides, Socialism, Spirit and Stereotypes
Exhibition opening curated by Agata Cukierska
Location: CSW Kronika, Rynek 26, Bytom
Artists: Sally Charlesworth, Rosie Dahlstrom, James Duffy, Mary Evans, Ben Fitton, Katrine Hjelde, Jolanta Jastrzab, Karolina Konopka, Travel Agency (Pawel Mendrek, Malgorzata Szandala, Ewa Zasada), Gloria Lopez-Cleries, Gary Marshall-Stevens, Reyhaneh Mirjahani, Eleanor Neason, Martin Newth, Johanna Oskarsson, Beate Persdotter Loken, Rasmus Richter, Laura Rosser, Secondeditions (Elizabeth Peebles and Marcus Eisenmann), Alexander Stevenson, Kolbrun Inga Soring, Veera Rustomji, Milosz Wnukowski.