theatercombinat | let's talk about work, honey! a transdisciplinary salon about working methods

language: deutsch, english

let's talk about work, honey! is a transdiciplinary salon about working methods by artists and other practitioners who live and work in vienna.

a lecture about a project from 2 or 5 years ago. ok. a presentation
about a completed project. yes, we know that! but where is it possible to talk about methods
concerning the own artistic practice, about works that are still in progress?
and first of all: how can they be published? or which formats are possible to
present artistic fragments, to talk and to
discuss about methods of work, where the outcome is still uncertain?

let's talk about work, honey! initiates a public salon about artistic working methods. artists of different genres are invited by claudia bosse to invite other practitioners every of the invitees is presenting his/her working method on the basis of one or more works he/her is actually dealing with. it's about outlining the interests and to sketch the blind spots of the own method.

the invitee invites the second guest. 2 different working methods are therefore presented in a self determined experimental format on one evening. objects, performative fragments, projections, sound etc. afterwards a direct dialogue should question the particular practice and open up an exchange with the present guests. the invited artist decides on the setting and becomes the curator of a salon.

first salon
on november 27th 2014 at 8.00pm
klaus schafler (artist),
inviting christian teckert (architect).
second salon
on december 11th 2014 at 8.00pm
guenther auer (sound artist)
inviting christoph eggner (pianist).
third salon
on december 18th 2014 at 8.00pm
philipp gehmacher (artist and choreographer)
inviting michikazu matsune (performance artist).
fourth salon:
on february 12th 2015 at 8.00pm
anne juren (choreographer)
inviting vladimir miller (artist and scenographer).
fifth salon:
on february 26th 2015 at 8.00pm:
with an ian kaler (choreographer)
inviting eva würdinger (photographer).
sixth salon
on may 5th 2015 at 8.00pm
baerbel mueller (architect)
inviting sabelo mlangeni (photographer).
seventh salon
on november 10th 2015 at 8.00pm
christine gaigg (choreographer)
inviting ed hauswirth (director).
eighth salon
on december 1st 2015 at 8.00pm
sabine bitter / helmut weber (visual artists)
inviting maren richter (curator).
ninth salon
on december 8th 2015 at 8.00pm
thomas hörl (visual artist)
inviting luise reitstätter (cultural scientist).
tenth salon
on march 15th 2016 at 8.00pm
versatorium (translation collective)
inviting jo schmeiser (artist).
eleventh salon
on march 22nd 2016 at 8.00pm
alice pechriggl (philosopher)
inviting ute liepold (theatre director).
twelfth salon
on june 17th and 18th 2016 at dance congress
with adania shibli (author), arkadi zaides (choreographer) and claudia bosse (choreographer) as well as kaya behkalam (film maker) and filippos tsitsopoulos (artist).

photo: claudia bosse

photo: claudia bosse

NEXT SALONS
coming soon!

LesSOUTERRAINs!
mommsengasse 23/1-2, left, 1040 vienna

infos
+43 1 522 25 09 or
buero@theatercombinat.com

theatercombinat
is supported by stadt wien and
the 4th district of the city of vienna.

fotos: anna etteldorf, click to view photo series

twelfth salon in the framework of the dance congress 2016:
for the salon at the dance congress claudia bosse invited guests from a different artistic discipline to engage in a talk. in altogether two slots the writer adania shibli met the choreographer arkadi zaides and claudia bosse and in the second public part the fim maker kaya behkalam met the artist filippos tsitsopoulos. in an installative setting they shared the experineces of their research in order to discuss similarities and differences between their specific working methods and the paradigms of contemporary art-making practice in various sociopolitical contexts based on current works. under what conditions is art produced today, or more specifically, how do the conditions of production in countries such as germany and austria differ from those in egypt and greece? which structures must be resisted on a transnational level? and is a political moment of contemporary choreography revealed in this potential resistance?

adania shibli
is born in 1974 in palestine and currently lives between jerusalem and berlin. widely recognized as an innovative writer who is breaking literary tradition in her native arabic she has written two novels, several plays, and many short stories and narrative essays, which were published in various anthologies, art books, and literary magazines worldwide in different languages. she has twice been awarded with the qattan young writer's award-palestine in 2001 on her novel ‚masaas' (translated into english as touch. northampton: clockroot, 2009), and in 2003 on her novel kulluna ba'id bethat al miqdar aan el-hub (translated into english as we are all equally far from love northampton: clockroot, 2012). her latest is dispositions (ramallah: qattan, 2012), an art book about contemporary palestinian artists. shibli is also engaged in academic research and teaching. since 2012 she is a visiting professor at birzeit university, palestine.

arkadi zaides
choreographer, born in 1979 in byelorussia, immigrated to israel in 1990. currently working in israel and in europe. zaides holds a degree from amsterdam master of choreography program at the theater school (nl). danced in a few israeli companies among them are batsheva dance company and in yasmeen godder dance group. at 2004, embarked on an independent career. through his work zaides addresses social and political issues, previously focusing on the israeli/palestinian context, and now on the european one. zaides' artistic practice aims to spark critical debate, concentrating on the body as the medium through which social and political issues are experienced most acutely.

claudia bosse
is a choreographer, artist and the artistic director of theatercombinat. after studying theatre directing at the hochschule für schauspielkunst ernst busch berlin, she worked in the field of experimental theatre between (spatial) choreography, (choral) theatre and urban intervention. she generates 'political hybrids' as site-specific settings and different media. claudia bosse develops international installations and works for museums, architectures, theatres, and urban spaces. she teaches, delivers lectures, publishes, initiates and participates in research projects and continuously collaborates with artists and theorists of different genres.

kaya behkalam
born in 1978 in berlin, lives and works in cairo, where he teaches as a visiting professor at the institute of visual cultures of the american university cairo. behkalam is co-founder of the artists' group reloading images, his works have been shown at, among others, the museum folkwang essen (2013), the heidelberger kunstverein (2012) and the house of world cultures, berlin (2010).

filippos tsitsopoulos
is a painter, installation, video theatre and performance media artist who has worked in the field of interactive theatre installation art exploring the limits of performance as well as in painting since 1990. his practice engages the spectator in a new theatre or rather a system of including theatre as a catalyst of our daily life concepts. he is applying these concepts to visual arts and observing the effects they can produce in the 'image' as plasticity behaviour. his video installations have been exhibited in a numerous exhibitions, art fairs and events.

fotos: claudia bosse

eleventh salon:
in the 11th salon the philosopher alice pechriggl and the author and director ute liepold are examining the theatricicality of philosophying and the philosophy of the theatrical: how does acting, dran / drama invade into the philosophy and where does the thinking listen to the requirements of bodily representation. do these "others", the logoi of the others, the words and reasons of the other, those "others" of each predominant rationality come out in theatre in a more appropriate way and more truthful than in philosophy?

alice pechriggl
is philosopher and professor at the institute for philosophy at the university klagenfurt since 2013. since 2011 she is psycho therapist (group psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic psycho therapy). experimental lecture performances in the framework of her current research project freiheit zu handeln, zwang zu agieren?. several publications in the field of gender studies, cultural philosophy and philosophy of politics.

ute liepold
is author and director. research projects and teaching assignments in the field of feminist theory and gender studies. nominated for the nestroy prize 2013 for her staging of wir verkaufen immer by robert woelfl. several theatre projects, e.g. at oldenburgischen staatstheater, at landesmuseum kärnten, mmkk. 2015 and others. together with bernd liepold-mosser lavant!, stadttheater klagenfurt; 2016 kafkas prozess, neue bühne villach.

photos: claudia bosse

tenth salon:
in the tenth salon the translator collective versatorium and artist jo schmeiser are facing the (im)possibilities of collective work. they talk about the textures and natures of collective work and about a radical questioning (of oneself) in order to develop dissident methods and anti-methods. they decide upon translation methods that are searching for alternatives and can't be determined to one single alternative but assume that every alternative wants to be supplemented by another.

jo schmeiser
works in between art, film, theory and politics. the focus of her work, which is often developed in collectives, is on political topics such as racism, sexism or antisemitism. thinking critically about the form and structure how these topics are negotiated is a central point of her work. recently published: conzepte. neue fassungen politischen denkens, zaglossus 2015.

versatorium - verein für gedichte und übersetzen
is a collective of interdisciplinary translators with a working space at souterrain/marani, gesuaugasse 39/2. recently published: charles bernstein. gedichte und übersetzen, bd. 1.1, edition korrespondenzen 2013. roberta dapunt. la terra più del paradiso/dies mehr als paradies, folio 2016.

fotos: claudia bosse

ninth salon:

in his work thomas hörl embarks on a search for old customs and traditions. luise reitstätter has been examining rites of exhibitions for a long time. the salon deals with their field studies, inquiries and researches in archives. meanings are extended through personal approriation, the transformation into different contexts and playing with interpretations. the collage represents the beginning as well as the concentrate of the work. it has the extent of archival and field studies and shows aesthetic desires. thomas hörl stages a setting like in an atetlier in order to inspect the field of possibilites with his guest luise reitstätter.

thomas hörl is visual artist. he works solo as well as in cooperations (kozek hörlonski, sir meisi, jakob lena knebl). he is looking for stimuli for his artistic work in regional myths and narrations and transforms existing aspects of these traditions, like disguise, masks and processions, in various medial ways. his artistic work includes performance, video works, installation, object, collage and staged photography.

luise reitstätter luise reitstätter is a cultural scientist working for years in the international art scene turning to the academic field in the last years. her main research interests are art and social matters, museology, exhibition studies and space sociology. recently she published the book die ausstellung verhandeln [negotiating the exhibition] on social interactions in museum space.

photos: claudia bosse

eigth salon:

together sabine bitter, helmut weber and maren richter consider what it means to live in a time of 'great transitions', to work in this time and, especially, to be stretched to one's limits that we are detaching finally from postmodernism as leftover-paradigm. this liminal condition of 'neither this nor that' is paved thorugh several planetary causal crises. it unravels the success story of linear growth at the moment where situation evolve that force us to present our contradictories. which temporality, which spaces and which processes of spatialization do we attribute to this moments? is it possible to develop curatorial and artistical methods out of this 'not yet knowing'? how do we (re-)act to declining intervalls of challenges - their realities, fictions, frictions and everday utopias? the evening is a manoeuvre through blind alleys and potentials of a critical visuality (research and image politics) of transition by reference to own and exemplary other works.

maren richter is freelance curator and, as soon as the time allows, art critic. she dedicates herself to present states of transition of society, politics, the planet, especially when it comes to ad-hoc strategies and vulnerabilites confronting with rhetorics of growth and logics of repairing of a resilience politics. amongst others she works on the research project "grammar of urgencies", an artistic-scientfic experimental arrangement dealing with radical experimenting in the "anexakt" of the anthropocene, a newly proclaimed era.

sabine bitter and helmut weber are artists based in vancouver and vienna who work on projects about urban geographies and politics of space and representation since 1994. in their contributions for longterm research projects such as global prayers or self made urbanism rome they work in photo and video on moments and logics of the global urban change appearing in the city, in architecture, in neighbourhoods and in daily life. in 2004 they founded the artistic research collective "urban subjects" together with jeff derksen, current project: the militant image. | www.lot.at

photos: sandra hartinger

seventh salon:

christine gaigg (choreographer) and ed hauswirth (director) swap ideas about processes of producing, about poking around in the uncertain, about lighting up the route, about stealing, lending, scrounging and transforming, about giving and passing along, about envy, admiration and virtuosity. about the moment of being stuck and toddling ahead, about the meeting of the desire for clarity and the tendency to chaos, about trust and control, confidence and doubts. and about everything else they will bring to each others mind. a dialogue?

ed. hauswirth works as director and artistic director of theater im bahnhof and in other contexts, sometimes he performs also on stage. his recent works are amogst others der diskrete charme der smarten menschen (tag), auch schauspielern gibt man den gnadenschuss with kug graz and mein leben im busch von sarajevo with theater im bahnof, du gingst fort mit den rabtaldirndln. currently, he is developing a project at theater an der gumpendorfer straße titled 13.

christine gaigg is striving for a documentary approach after fifteen years of structural choreography. her 'stage essays' deal with politically relevant questions: desacre! pussy riot meets vaslav nijinsky (2013), maybe the way you made love twenty years ago is the answer? (2014) and recently untitled (look, look, come closer) about war images.

photos: claudia bosse

sixth salon:

the 6th salon will be centred on the topic of "entering a space (which is not yours)". the architect baerbel mueller and the photographer sabelo mlangeni will start a conversation and reflect on this fascinating, challenging, sometimes limiting procedure that they are confronted with, or in turn provoke, within their respective works and projects, both on the african continent and in europe.

baerbel mueller is an architect and the founder of nav_s baerbel mueller [navigations in the field of architecture and urban research within diverse cultural contexts], focusing on projects in ghana and the dr congo since 2002. she teaches at the institute of architecture, university of applied arts vienna, where she is the head of the [applied] foreign affairs lab, which investigates spatial phenomena in rural and urban sub-saharan africa.

sabelo mlangeni is a photographer, who was born in the province of mpumalanga. in 2001 he moved to johannesburg where he joined the market photo workshop, graduating in 2004. as photographer he is less observer than participant. his first solo show was invisible women, at warren siebrits, johannesburg (2007). he won the tollman award for the visual arts in 2009. group exhibitions include public intimacy: art and social life in south africa, san francisco (2014); the lubumbashi biennale (2013); the liverpool biennial exhibition the unexpected guest (2012); the 9th rencontres de bamako african photography biennal (2011); the lagos photo festival (2011); figures and fictions: contemporary south african photography v&a museum, london (2011); and I am not afraid: the market photo workshop, johannesburg (2010).

photos: claudia bosse

fifth salon:

the salon will contextualize different collections of material in the dialogue of the two artists. the choreographer an ian kaler consecrates himself to questions concerning the multiple body - how body and corporeality are defined, what kind of expansions or abstractions could be possible. in the salon he will share his considerations how his recently premiered solo o.t. (the emotionality of the jaw) - the starting point of a new working series - could be further developed into a group piece. in three series of images his guest eva würdinger thematizes the inscribed structures of power in former spaces of control. her approach is not documentary, her images refer to emptiness, absence and dissolution. the salon will give an insight on the development of the images and a book project in preparation.

an ian kaler studied transmedial art the university of applied arts vienna and "contemporary dance, context, choreography" at hzt berlin. since 2010 he has been developing works in collaboration with different artists, which are conceptualized as long-term practical series and are accompanied by different (visual) media.

eva würdinger studied fine arts and cultural studies at the academy of fine arts vienna. her photographies show urban environments and architectures, spaces, which seem to be overlooked. her images thematize the constitution of these spaces through social processes and the ability of photography of memory and projection of a narrative, fictional level.

fotos: günther auer

fourth salon:

anne juren is looking her work for different approaches of how to use the body without reproducing preexisting forms and gestures. in her presentation she will share the interest in the monique wittig's text lesbian body in which wittig proposes a specific way to describe the body. by doing so anne juren will expose some of her strategies and body practices related to the research on the relation between writing and choreography.

vladimir miller is looking at the normative relationships between collectives and the architectural spaces as well as collective building processes. he is investigating the relationship between (temporary) communities and (temporary) architecture. given this intimate relationship between the political and the architectural, miller is looking for a playful, communal approach to building, hoping to regain some of the power in shaping the social which we have so readily left to architects and urban planers. 

anne juren founded the wiener tanz- und kunstbewegung association together with the visual artist roland rauschmeier in 2003. since then created several choreographies, installations and performances presented in national and international dance festivals, galleries and art venues. since 2011, anne juren is feldenkrais practitioner and more recently, she is also associate program curator, teacher and lecturer for the ma program at the doch university in stockholm.

vladimir miller is an artist, researcher and scenographer based in vienna. he has closely collaborated in creating a number of works with the choreographers philipp gehmacher and meg stuart. he is associated program curator at a.pass, brussels and lecturer at the ma performance studies  at the university of hamburg. vladimir miller is a phd in practice candidate and member of the research group "spaces of commoning" at the academy of fine arts, vienna.

photos: claudia bosse

third salon:

philipp gehmacher lives in vienna and works national and international. studies of the movements and actions which are inscribed in the body led him to the work with gesture, space and touch. collaborations with meg stuart and vladimir miller. since 2008 development of the lecture performance walk + talk and work with language (say something , 2013). since 2011 exhibitions, video works, usage of materials and the design of accessible spaces. since 2014 he is studying sculpture and space at the university for applied arts vienna.

michikazu matsune was born in kobe, japan, and is been living in vienna for more than ten years. matsune is a performance artist, who develops projects in different formats and contexts. he performs in public spaces, galleries, museums and theaters. in his artistic examinations a variety of cultural and social factors are involved.

photos: claudia bosse

second salon:
PRO AND RE AND R(D)EPRO duce!

for the lecture composing something new.
task: observing the act of composing amd taking notes of that observations - with words and images and sound,
and defining these notes as compositon and publish these observation on dezember 11th in a public performance.
the composition is the working method and the working method is to observe myself.

for this lecture
interpreting the working method from an interpreter by an interpreter.
whom is he interpreting when he speaks about his working methods as an interpret? is he observing himself when he is playing a composition?

guenther auer is since 2009 pricipally involved in voice- and sound-archtitectonical development in the private and public field, mostly with claudia bosse (thoughts meet space athens, catastrophic paradise, what about catastrophes?, thoughts meet space beirut, designed desires, dominant powers. was also tun?, vampires of the 21st century, dominant powers - landschaften des unbehagens, je veux un mot vide que je puisse remplir, 2481 desaster zone, rehe und raketen). 2012/2013 he was hired as senior artist at the university of applied arts vienna / digital art.

christoph eggner is pianist of the well known Eggner Trio. 2003 first price at the melbourne international chamber music competition australia and 2006 as part of the "rising stars"-series concerts at the carnegie hall, cité de la musique paris, kölner philharmonie, wiener musikverein etc. they went on tour in japan, argentina, uruguay, usa, australia and new zealand. christoph eggner also the pianist of the ensemble K+K Vienna, which is specialised for unknown and co ntemporary music.

photos: claudia bosse

first salon:
what are artistic strategies to spatialize research and phenomena of change? and why should that be an agenda of art? how can this entanglement of the curators work, artistic production and spatial strategies of representing and showing take place?

klaus schafler is an artist and focuses in his installaions and video works on ambivalent public phenomena and the spatialization of change. the works are about the future on the border of reality, of what is going to happen and maybe is going to be. born in graz, living in vienna.

christian teckert is an architect, curator and a professor for spatial strategies at muthesius kunsthochschule, kiel. founded office of cognitive urbanism in 1999 and in 2001 as-if berlinwien. he is the editor and author of many books and essays in the field of art, visual culture, urbanism and spatial theories.