This course is a Place to Action!

Tutor(s)

Thalia Hoffman, PhDArts alumni and Research Platform participant

For whom?

For 2nd, 3rd an 4th year BA students of the KABK and University Leiden.

The course will be in English.

When?

6 meetings on Wednesday in Semester I (Sept. 22-Dec. 15 2021)

Study load

6 ECT (KABK students) 3ECTS (Leiden University students)

About this course

The course Place to Action - Art that Interferes is motivated and inspired by places. More specifically: the histories, contexts, narratives, situations, circumstances and people’s interactions and intra-actions and relationships with locations, which form places. Lingering in places with attention, listening to them and experimenting the possible ways of movement within them. These attentive gazes of places will initiate interdisciplinary artistic actions and interventions that aim to explore and reflect the possibilities of art to interfere.

This is an interdisciplinary artistic research course that considers artistic action in the widest sense. As for that students from all disciplines are welcome to join. This is an opportunity as well for students from the Faculty of Humanities to explore and research the complexity of places hands on with all their body and senses.

There are no admission requirements for this elective course.

For KABK students: Register in OSIRIS between Wednesday 8 September from 9:30 until Friday 10 September at 17:00.

For Leiden University students: register in uSis before August 20, 2021.

Max. 12 students can be admitted for the course.

Full attendance is obligatory in order to receive study points towards the Individual Study Trajectory (IST).

For questions Emily Huurdeman, coordinator of the lectorate, at lectoraatktp@kabk.nl.

Semester 1, Wednesdays online 10.00-15.30h (except for the first class):

1. (PD101) 22.9.21 10am-6pm

2. (online) 6.10.21 10am-3.30pm (option for the class to meet offline in PD.101)

3. (online) 27.10.21 10am-3.30pm

4. (online) 10.11.21 10am-3.30pm

5. (online) 24.11.21 10am-3.30pm

6. (online) 15.12.21 10am-3.30pm

The course will be divided into three main areas:

Places - Physical and conceptual exploration of places, in the course we will learn to define places and pay complex attention to them.

Artistic Actions - Art interventions in places, in the course we will study qualities of various art-actions from current and former artist in different places, and will work into developing our own.

Documentation - What is left from the action in the place. During the course we will learn of the many possibilities to document an art-action and learn how what is left is part of the action.

The outcomes of the course will be an online collection of the explorations from the various places. A website with their final projects, and a reflection paper on the process and outcome.

  • Student shows initiative and originality in the handling of assignments
  • Student gives expression to a distinctive (artistic/discursive) ambition or vision
  • Student develops and explores (offered) techniques and theories
  • Student demonstrates a critical and inquiring attitude toward the techniques and theories that are offered
  • Student effectively organizes the process (e.g. meets deadlines and assignment requirements, presence in class)
  • Student engages in dialogue about one’s writing and that of others
  • Student draws insights from discussions and implements feedback
  • Student productively collaborates with fellow students

THEMES AND LECTURES

List the topics to be covered, and possible class activities (e.g. lecturing,
guest talks, excursions, student presentations, group discussions) for each session.

Literature:

Perec, Georges, and John Sturrock (trans,). Species of Spaces and
Other Pieces. London, England: Penguin Books, 1997

Kwon, Miwon. “One Place after Another: Notes on Site Specificity.” October, vol. 80, 1997. 85–110.

Juelskjaer, Malou. “Intra-active entanglements: an interview with Karen
Barad”. Women, gender and research. 21. 2012. 10-23.

Arendt, Hannah, Margaret Canovan, and Danielle Allen. The Human
Condition. 2018

Course introduction and intentions. Lecture and examples of art-actions.

Attention to place exercise.

Group discussion.

Required preparation: Choose a place and prepare to present it

Student presentation of chosen places. Lecture and group discussion.

Required preparation: Attention exercises.

Student presentations of exercises, lecture and group discussion.

Required preparation: Action exercises.

Student presentations of exercises, lecture and groups discussion.

Required preparation: Documentation exercises.

Student presentations of exercises, lecture and groups discussion

Required preparation: Choose a place, Make and Artistic Action and Document it.

Final presentation and discussion.

BIOGRAPHY

Thalia Hoffman is a visual artist and researcher working in film, video,
performance and public interventions in the area she lives in, east of the
Mediterranean. In 2020 she graduated at ACPA, PhDArts, with the thesis
“Guava, a conceptual platform for art-actions”. The aim of the Guava
Platform is to research and create possible techniques of art-actions that are part of her quest to continue to live in the conflicted landscape, as an artist.

Alongside her artistic actions, Hoffman is a lecturer at the University of Haifa in fields of video, performance and artistic research for BA and MFA
programs of the school of arts. All her work strives to be involved in its
surroundings and engage people to look, listen and feel their socio-political landscape with attention. Hoffman’s films, video works and performances have been shown in exhibitions and festivals in Israel and around the world.

This course is part of the Art Research Programme of the Lectorate Art Theory & Practice.