BADco

Institutions need to be constructed


Arna Industrihus, Entrance 4
Fabrikkvegen 1, Ytre Arna Map

With Espen Sommer Eide, Ingri Midgard Fiksdal, Signe Lidén and Grafters’ Quarterly

Over a period of 24 hours and on the location of a former factory, BADco. intends to stage the problems of relations between production, labour, watching and resting together with a group of invited artists and spectators. The situation and the space are a transformation of the set of the very first film ever made, Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory in Lyon (1895), into a performing space, but also a social, cultural and discussion centre, camp, dormitory, etc. This will create a space for a discussion of the topics of work, watching and the attention economy; of productivity in the arts, the ethics of work, the disappearance of production in favour of presentation, and the valorization of the arts by way of non-aesthetic spheres of social production. The camp is the first in the series of events that will conclude BADco.’s ten years of research on the parallel history of film, work and performance.

BADco

BADco. is a collaborative performance collective based in Zagreb, Croatia. The artistic core of the collective consists of Ivana Ivkovic, Ana Kreitmeyer, Tomislav Medak, Goran Sergej Pristaš, Nikolina Pristaš, Lovro Rumiha and Zrinka Užbinec. Since its beginning (2000) this combination of three choreographers/dancers, two dramaturges and one philosopher, plus the company production manager, has systematically focused on researching protocols of performing, presenting and observing by structuring its pro-jects around diverse formal and perceptual relations and contexts. BADco.’s working process is reflected in their performances, which are strongly interdisciplinary and take place at the intersection of theatre, performance, installation and architecture. Over the years BADco. has produced more than twenty evening-long stage performances as well as publications and seminars on the topic of performance. Recent projects include the performance The Drawer (2015); the publication Time and (In)Completion – Images and performances of time in late capitalism (2014); the performative installation Broken Performances (2013), Gallery Nova, Zagreb; TVolution will not be televised (2013), Skogen, Gothenburg; Responsibility for Things Seen: Tales in Negative Space, the Croatian exhibition at the 54th Venice Biennale, curated by the curators’ collective What, How & for Whom/WHW (2011).

http://www.badco.hr/


Espen Sommer Eide

Espen Sommer Eide is a musician and artist from Tromsø. With the musical projects Alog and Phonophani he has been among the most prominent representatives of experimental electronic music from Norway, with a string of releases on the label Rune Grammofon. He has also produced a series of site-specific pieces and artworks. These projects include a multichannel composition for the 50th anniversary of the completion of the chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, France; and a special ‘Building Instruments’ performance at the 2008 Manifesta Biennial. He recently had a solo exhibition, Dead Language Poetry, at Bergen Kunsthall/No.5 2013, and performed The Weed Archive at the 2013 Performa Festival in New York. Eide is also a member of the theatre/art collective Verdensteatret, with extensive international touring and exhibitions. Eide has been involved in a series of art and archival projects associated with topics relating to the Barents and Arctic regions of Northern Norway.

Ingri Midgard Fiksdal

Ingri Midgard Fiksdal is a choreographer and performer. She is currently a research fellow at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (the Norwegian Artistic Research Fellowship Program). Fiksdal’s work deals with perception and affectivity, and several of her pieces take shape as part performance and part live concert. The audience is always integral to the work, which aims to produce temporary collectives between performers and spectators. The notion of collectivity here refers to modes of attention and sensorial transference, rather than to interactivity. Her recent productions Hoods (2014), Night Tripper (2012) and The Orchard Ballads (2011) all created together with the artists Signe Becker and Ingvild Langgård, have been touring to venues such as brut Künstlerhaus in Vienna, Kampnagel in Hamburg, Inkonst in Malmö, The Armory Show in New York City, the LIMIT festival in Belgrade, as well as several venues around Norway. Hoods won the Norwegian Dance Critics’ Award from the Norwegian Critics’ Association in 2014.

Signe Lidén

Signe Lidén is an artist based in Bergen. Her installations and performances examine man-made landscapes and their resonance. She is interested in how places and their histories resonate; in memory, through narratives and various materials, as ideological manifestations and political territories. Her work ranges from sound installations, sculpture, video and performance to more documentary forms such as sound essays and archives. Lidén made the sound and video work krysning/conflux for the Dark Ecology project (2014); the installation series Writings for the European Sound Art Network Resonance (2013-14); and collaborated with Steve Rowell and Annesofie Norn on The Cold Coast Archive (2010-12), an exhibition series on the Global Seed Vault launched at the Centre for PostNatural History, Pittsburgh. She was commissioned to make works for Hordaland Art Center, Kunsthall Oslo and Ny Musikk, Touch Radio, and Interferenze New Arts Festival.

Grafters’ Quarterly

Grafters’ Quarterly is a free, English-language newspaper based in Bergen. The four issues each year present both new commissioned contributions and reprints from numerous fields within a topic specific to each issue. The first three issues of the newspaper were titled “Improvising Logics”, “Indexing Abstraction”, and “Social Thing Person”. The fourth issue will be launched in the summer of 2015 and takes its starting point in ideas relating to work ethics. Grafters’ Quarterly was founded and is edited by the artists Tora Endestad Bjørkheim and Johnny Herbert. The name of the newspaper alludes to ‘grafting’, denoting writing, the merging of one plant with another to facilitate continued growth, as well as a more colloquial expression for working.


With thanks to Arna Industrihus. The project is funded by the City of Bergen and with travel support from Republic of Croatia, Ministry of Culture. It is part of Imagining Commons – twelve days of exhibitions, performances, a camp, talks and lectures 5th – 17th June 2015 in Bergen. Imagining Commons is funded by Arts Council Norway, City of Bergen, Fritt Ord and Public Art Norway (URO).

Photo: Thor Brødreskift

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