sarma

Tracing B-Visible

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On 5-7 November 2002 in arts centre Vooruit in Gent (Belgium), B-Visible takes place, a queer laboratory between art theory and practice. In the space of 3 x 24 hours, the curators Kattrin Deufert, Jeroen Peeters and Thomas Plischke (Frankfurter Kueche & al) examine a variety of strategies for visibility based on the notion of 'queer'. The laboratory includes performances, lectures, discussions, installations and workshops in a range of disciplines. By way of avant-premiëre, Sarma is launched and makes its first large-scale documentation project

The documentation includes transcriptions of lectures and discussions. Sarma furthermore invited Martin Hargreaves as writer in residence to introduce his ideas in a lecture, to write observations during the event, and to reflect on the whole in a concluding essay.

B-Visible: A 72-hour queer laboratory

5-7 November 2002, Vooruit Arts Centre A project curated by Kattrin Deufert, Jeroen Peeters and Thomas Plischke (Frankfurter Küche & al)

Queer? The word refers to a mixture of activism and the formation of theories concerning sexuality and gender that arose in the United States in the late eighties, when the AIDS issue brought the oppression of sexual minorities to a head. Queer can best be approached as a series of strategies that oppose the conventional hetero-normative pattern that defines and marks sex, sexuality and gender, rather than as a delineated theory or attitude. What queer theory and queer practice actually deconstruct is all naturalist or essentialist claims that are based on this pattern and lead to exclusion. Queer questions and transgresses this oppositional thinking by constantly reformulating itself as an unstable and indefinable identity construction in its various social, cultural and political contexts.

Performativity and visibility. So queer is not so much a category, a definition or an object of study, but an approach or strategy that is 'performative'. It executes something, opens up a range of possibilities, a critical potential. Acting queer in a particular socio-cultural setting means tinkering with the patterns of expectation associated with it and with the visibility it allows. B-Visible is intended to operate on this boundary of the visible, of act and potency, of appearance and disappearance. B-Visible means 'to come out and show them', restlessly and repeatedly, and thereby examines the process of 'coming out' and 'showing' what becomes visible and what does not. Or where visibility is marked as a political item and where this marking is itself political.

Performance. B-Visible links the issue outlined back to performance as an area of interest, but not conceived purely as an artistic discipline, rather in the broad sense of the word. In addition to the performing arts, art, video, photography, literature and so forth also appear, all of them art forms concerned with 'performance'. In this way, B-Visible is a multi-disciplinary project that occupies a position between artistic practice and theory: an examination of various queer strategies of visibility. In accordance with the performative dynamic of queer, the intention does not end with the content: is it possible to have something like a queer approach to the highly institutionalised world of the performing arts and arts centres? This is an important question. And conversely, despite its theoretical principles, the event is emphatically not taking place in an academic context, because that too is queer: finding a different setting and a broader audience to tell this story, because only there can its political aspect be meaningful.

Laboratory. The concrete form we propose as an answer to these rather complex questions is the laboratory, as an inversion of or counterpart to the usual programming of performances at eight o'clock in the evening. B-Visible will carry on for 72 hours, three full days and nights, from midnight to midnight. As a laboratory, where no 'finished' performances will be shown, only workshops, talks, discussions, laboratories, try-outs, acts, observations, installations, parties and a little eating and sleeping in between. It is not the product but the process we shall foster, with study and work, with space for collaboration, space to come face to face with one's own and each other's working methods. Diverse queer acts may encounter each other, not only by their simultaneity, but more by affecting, infecting and questioning each other, at the risk of restlessness. The arts centre and also art itself are made visible in a different way.

Public. B-Visible is not just a workspace for an enclosed colony of artists and theorists. Reflections on visibility only become meaningful when they can be shared with a public and an outside world. In order to make this different type of visibility of art communicative, the event will be widely open to participation, and not only for spectators. There are for instance several workshops, presentations and discussions linked with the research projects, etc. The admission charge is also being kept markedly low so as not to generate any false expectations - after all, the last thing being offered is a spectacle.

Programme. A 72-hour programme of at least 25 projects has been meticulously compiled so that B-Visible as a whole can provide insights and the distinct parts be accessible. Two formal principles were maintained during its compilation: nine 'production assignments' were given to artists and theorists to develop a project on well-defined themes connected to queer, visibility and performance. In addition, a 'call for studies' was sent out as it often is for symposia and periodicals, to make the project known to a broader circle and also to open it up to artists and theorists who might otherwise only with difficulty become involved in such a project. About fifteen projects were selected from the many reactions, and they have been developed in consultation with the curators.

Programme

Lectures, discussions and observations available so far are hyperlinked.

5-7 November 2002 - Permanent programme

00:00>72:00 > Bernard Sissan, Polyamid Dreams > performance installation
00:00>72:00 > Nicola Nord, Sascha Sulimma & Pierre Van Kerckvoorde, B-Audible > sound-installation
00:00>72:00 > Sabine Nessel, Birgit Kohler & Winfried Pauleit, Nach dem Film - Viewing films publicly > film and discussion
00:00>72:00 > (FK) & al, Endless talk > performance installation
00:00>72:00 > Kattrin Deufert & Thomas Plischke, Gender Studies > slide installation
00:00>72:00 > Ole Kloss & Jochen Stechman, Erotheque > installation
00:00>72:00 > Davis Freeman, Offering > installation
00:00>72:00 > Yasuo Akai, (2)/(trans)late > installation

5 November 2002

00:00>00:30 > Pieter De Buysser & Benjamin Verdonck, Artaud, Joyce and the woodworm > performance essay
00:00>02:00 > Katarzyna Chmielewska & Magdalena Reiter, Queer training > training
00:00>01:00 > Marie-Hélène Bourcier, Frédéric de Carlo, Frédéric Gies & Beatriz Preciado, Godotopia > performance
01:00>02:00 > Stefanie Wenner, Horizon as a machine to produce visibility > lecture
01:00>72:00 > Nadia Schnock, The performative object > workshop
02:00>03:00 > Marie-Hélène Bourcier, Frédéric de Carlo, Frédéric Gies & Beatriz Preciado, In bed with Rebecca > performance
02:00>72:00 > Gerburg Treusch-Dieter, Coitus and kitchen > workshop
03:00>72:00 > Stefanie Wenner, Horizon as a machine to produce visibility: an expedition into the politics of B-Visible > workshop
04:00>72:00 > Claude Wampler, Strategies for stagefright > workshop and performance
11:00>12:00 > Alice Chauchat & Ugo Dehaes, Study > open work session
12:00>13:00 > Katleen Van Langendonck, En être et ne pas être > lecture
14:00>15:00 > Martin Hargreaves, Queering B - B-ing Queer > lecture Queer Expression, Context and Performativity: Not Talking and Saying Too Much
15:00>19:00 > Steven De Belder, Christel Stalpaert & Katleen Van Langendonck, Queer Camping - everything you always wanted to know about queer but never dared to ask > nomadic seminar
16:00>18:00 > Pierre Rubio & Jochen Stechmann, D.H.L. Le langage du corps et le corps du langage > laboratory demonstration
16:00>72:00 > Katarzyna Chmielewska & Magdalena Reiter, Queer training > workshop
17:00>23:00 > Heine R. Avdal & Petra Roggel, Camouflage > performance
19:00>20:00 > Dieter Lesage & Herman Asselberghs, Homo Politicus. Pim Fortuyn: A Case Study > lecture
20:00>21:30 > Sabine Nessel, Birgit Kohler & Winfried Pauleit, Viewing films publicly > discussion
22:00>06:00 > Sinisa Illic & Bojan Djordjev, Visibility itself. B-ing in the desert of PICTURE > performance

6 November 2002

03:00>04:00 > Jeroen Peeters & Thomas Plischke, Post-It Performance
11:00>12:00 > Alice Chauchat & Thomas Plischke, Study > open work session
12:00>17:00 > Heine Avdal & Petra Roggel, Camouflage > performance
12:00>13:00 > Eva-Meyer-Keller, Death is certain > performance
13:00>15:00 > Pierre Rubio & Ugo Dehaes, D.H.L. Le langage du corps et le corps du langage > laboratory demonstration
15:00>19:00 > Steven De Belder, Christel Stalpaert & Katleen Van Langendonck, Queer Camping - everything you always wanted to know about queer but never dared to ask > nomadic seminar
17:00>17:30 > Alice Chauchat & Vera Knolle, Perform "performance" > performance
19:00>19:30 > Claude Wampler & workshop participants, Strategies for stagefright > video
19:00>20:00 > Jeff Van der Aa & Paul Boakey, Black gay history and literature > lecture
20:00>21:30 > Sabine Nessel, Birgit Kohler & Winfried Pauleit, Viewing films publicly > discussion
22:00>23:00 > Vera Knolle, alienation... it's written in the stars... > lecture demonstration
22:00>23:00 > Unfriendly Takeover, Gesloten Samenleving 1: Piet Joostens reads Nieuwe Opruimingstechnieken > lecture
23:00>24:00 > Eva-Meyer-Keller, Death is certain > performance

7 November 2002

01:00>02:00 > Unfriendly Takeover, Gesloten Samenleving 3: B-Movie > filmnacht
08:00>09:00 > Gerald Siegmund, Haunting voices and ladies who vanish > lecture
10:00>11:00 > Christel Stalpaert, Donnez-moi donc un corps > lecture
11:00>12:00 > Alice Chauchat & Yasuo Akai, Study > open work session
11:00>15:00 > Steven De Belder, Christel Stalpaert & Katleen Van Langendonck, Queer Camping - everything you always wanted to know about queer but never dared to ask > nomadic seminar
15:00>15:30 > Alice Chauchat & Vera Knolle, Perform "performance" > performance
15:00>16:30 > Unfriendly Takeover, Gesloten Samenleving 2: B-Jeugd Gent vs. Vooruit > voetbalmatch
17.00>23:00 > Heine R. Avdal & Petra Roggel, Camouflage > performance
20:00>21:30 > Sabine Nessel, Birgit Kohler & Winfried Pauleit, Viewing films publicly > discussion
22:00>24:00 > Pierre Rubio & Guillaume Dustan, D.H.L. Le langage du corps et ! le corps du langage > laboratory demonstration
22:00>24:00 > Unfriendly Takeover, Gesloten Samenleving 5: B-arty > Private party

The nomadic seminar Queer Camping is featured on www.urbanmag.be