An ideal of transparent identities – am I dreaming?

When in 1999 I did an IRC web performance called “I only have my name” I wrote : “In real life I have the feeling, that the only thing of me that will never change is my name.  In this project I shared this never-changing element with others, so maybe for the first time I was confronted with the abyss of self.” The project confronted me with some aspects of identity that  puzzled me, maybe even embarrassed me. I was aware and comfortable with my personality being multiple and continuously changing, but online, in this experiment, it became completely  fluid. Afterwards I couldn’t even recognize myself in the four texts written by four different Annies. So, indeed the only stable thing, my name, was something that I probably shared with some other persons somewhere in the world and that could be used by everyone in this online environment. I decided not to play with my name any more.
Nowadays besides my name, I also have a lot of information stocked and restocked in databases on servers all over the world.

“The process of image management on facebook is already less an outpouring of expression than it is an exercise in omission of information about one’s self” Brad Troemel in Why You Should Make Yourself Someone Else Online (page 98), essay no 11 in his book Peer Pressure (I recommend). This phrase from Brad’s essay  perfectly illustrates tendencies commented on by Sherry Turkle in the book Alone Together (I recommend) and made me think about my actual online identity practice.

Somehow I don’t feel misleading search engines and data mining practices by creating different identities or by becoming more opaque is an option for me – by doing so I would also lose a lot: energie, acces to vulnerabilities etc. I rather think the opposite might work. Opening up all kinds of information, becoming as transparent as possible seems a better tactic.
I don’t even understand myself, I hardly know before, when I will do what with whom, and even less what I might think in a few seconds – how could google or any algorithm know? If I don’t want “them” to make me a fixed identity I should give “them” as much information as possible and “they” will be as lost as I am.
For me there is one more argument for total transparence: If I make available enough data, not two computers in the world will show the same search results for my name and so I will have regained my multiple self.
Am I dreaming?

Filed under: Articles / Texts, Net art, Performance , Brad Troemel, I only have my name, sherry Turkle

Margarida Carvalho : On Duet – Satz, A letter to Annie.

…In fact I think that the series Duet – Satz as well as the first series MeetingS – ConversationS work on the idea of affect as perception of our existence in the world, our vitality and becoming, and so, too, of our ability to create and share other times and spaces. Affect implies bodies and, as it makes them porous, it also moves through the intercorporeal world. Maybe that’s why I find it so appropriate the coordination between breathing and the occupy movement that you weave in Duet – Satz 1, Breathing. “Occupy breath,” that is, “occupy one’s own body” is a principle of performative and political rupture with the spectacle of the manipulation of the affections, typical to the dominant neoliberalism, which leaves us precisely “breathless”, able to spend money but no time, immersed in permanent crisis and alertness…

Extract from On Duet – Satz, A letter to Annie by Margarida Carvalho. This text is a reaction on a series of Domestic Streaming Performances by Antye Greie (AGF Poemproducer) and Annie Abrahams (1010 – 1011).

Margarida Carvalho is lecturer at the School of Communication and Media Studies (Lisbon Polytechnic Institute)

Filed under: Articles / Texts , domestic streaming, Duet - Satz, Margarida Carvalho, webperformance

Annie Abrahams on Greek television

29 12 2011 Annie Abrahams on Greek television  4’26”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eE36dwhLgg

Reportage made for “Simeio Art” a daily program of the Greek public television  NET .
Interview : Evi Tsirigotaki
Camera, sound and mounting : Philippe Vu

Reportage made in the frame of  Training for a Better World my solo show in the CRAC LR.

Filed under: Interview , CRAC LR, Evi Tsirigotaki, NET, Philippe Vu, Simeio Art, Training for a Better World

Wie zaait zal oogsten.

Le 1 décembre 2011 Simon a planté des graines pendant la performance Huis Clos / No Exit – Training for a Better World au CRAC à Sète. Voilà ce qu’il en est le 1 janvier 2012.

Art Documentaries a fait un très beau compte rendu en photo et son de cette performance.
Complete photoset sur flickr.

Filed under: Performance , Art Documentaries, Huis Clos / No Exit, Training for a Better World

Training for a Better World – expo documentation

Le livret de l’exposition Training for a Better World en téléchargement. Edition CRAC.
Download as .pdf .

“Michael Szpakowski reviews Annie Abrahams’ exhibition with a photo essay combining photo documentation, self portraiture and simple lively drawings to capture the elements and atmospheres of networked interactions. V. enjoyable” Ruth Catlow.

“The show doesn’t consist of moving image work only. There are some prints, drawings and a minimalist installation consisting of a single photograph of a pair of married fire-fighters and a sound track of them reading (in an extraordinarily graceful and musical edit [and this is where in this piece any surface similarities to, say, Nauman find their limit. Grace. Grace and elegance throughout.]) a collaborative text on fear.“ Michael Szpakowski also wrote a review Training for A Better World for dvblog.

“Dans ses performances, Annie Abrahams prolonge et éclaire les pratiques sociales liées à internet. Dans cet univers que nous connaissons tous, nous sommes à la fois seuls face à une machine et en contact avec les autres. Comment nos relations se tissent-elles? Que dévoile-t-on de nous sur la toile?” Annie Abrahams Entretien  par Aleksandra Smilek sur  Parisart.com 13 déc. 2011.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bramorg/sets/72157628069758852 Photos CRAC.

Annie ABRAHAMS – Training for a better world -… par CRAC-LR. Entretien et vidéo Aloïs Aurelle.

Reportage made for “Simeio Art” a program on the Greek public television NET.
Interview: Evi Tsirigotaki. Camera, sound and mounting: Philippe Vu. English spoken.

Montage de la pièce On Collaboration avec une vingtaine de volontaires  le 17 10 2011.
Annie Abrahams – Project room : Training for a Better World par CRAC-LR. Entretien et vidéo Aloïs Aurelle.

Dans les coulisses un entretien plus léger, drôle peut être, par www.cest-a-sete.fr

Extrait en photo et son de la performance du 1 – 12 2011 Huis Clos / No Exit – Training for a Better World sur Art Documentaries.

Filed under: Exhibition , Aleksandra Smilek, Art Documentaries, CRAC, livret, Michael Szpakowski, parisart.com, photo, Sète, Training for a Better World, vidéo

SuPer Art Modern Museum

Annie Abrahams – Waiting – Before Angry Women Take 2 in SPAMM (SuPer Art Modern Museum), musée virtuel dédiées à l’art numérique / virtual museum dedicated to internet art. Curateurs/curators :  Systaime, Silicon maniacs et/and Thomas Cheneseau.

50 ARTISTS / 50 WORKS

Filed under: Net art , angry women, Silicon maniacs, SPAMM, SuPer Art Modern Museum, Systaime, Thomas Cheneseau

Duet – Satz 1, 2, 3 et 4

Conversations between Antye Greie (aka AGF) et Annie Abrahams II – une série de Domestic Streaming Performances.

Respiration / Breathing, Le Quotidien / Daily life, La Famille / Der Familie, Les Rêves / L’Utopie / Dreams
13, 14, 15 et 16 décembre 2011 de 19h00 à 19h30
Ici, here et en direct sur le site de L’espace Multimédia Gantner

Performances de 5 à 30 minutes – possibilité de échange tchat pendant et après.
Performances between 5 and 30 minutes long – possibility to chat during and after.

It would be perfect if we hadn’t technical problems.
Remember forever more
It will last untill we will meet in real life.
You’re still the one I kiss good night
Verse 2 of a song by Annie and songlyricsgenerator  for Antye – August 2010.

In August 2010 Annie and Antye did  A Meeting is a Meeting is a Meeting – a first series of 9 Domestic Streaming Performances.

“… we explicitly challenge one another. We push each other towards new terrains, and into unknown, unrehearsed actions. We did not aim to produce an intimate encounter for this work, but the fact that we enter unknown realms makes it intimate because we cannot control the image of ourselves that we broadcast to the public. For this performance we both accept a discomforting prerequisite: something that we don’t want others to know about us, something secret, will, no doubt, escape. The moment this condition of discomfort suddenly and unexpectedly occurs is maybe one of the most intimate moments one can share: when a secret escapes during a performance, the minute it reveals itself to us and to our observers, this secret cannot but be unstaged. It is a moment of nakedness within the performance.“
Annie Abrahams on “A Meeting is a Meeting is a Meeting” in “Allergic to Utopias“,
interview for Digimag 58, October 2010 by Maria Chatzichristodoulou.

Antye Greie
Digital songwriter, sound composer and poet – Born 1969 in East Germany lives and works in Hailuoto, Finland. Known also as AGF. Focus of work includes the relationship between language and sound, audiovisual live performance, digital communication, sound installations and commissions for movies and theater. Throughout her career, Greie has released 20 long player records and numerous collaborations under such aliases as AGF/Delay (with Vladislav Delay), Greie Gut Fraktion (with Gudrun Gut), and The Lappetites (with Kaffe Matthews and Eliane Radigue), many collaborations with the award-winning classical composer Craig Armstrong. Greie also runs her own production company, AGF Producktion, and has produced records for other artists, including Ellen Allien (SOOL, 2009, BPitch).

Compositeur Digital et poète – Né en 1969 en Allemagne de l’Est vit et travaille à Hailuoto, en Finlande. Connu aussi comme AGF. L’objet de son travail comprend la relation entre le langage et le son, audiovisuel live performance, la communication numérique, des installations sonores et des commissions pour les films et le théâtre. Tout au long de sa carrière, Greie a publié 20 disques et a participé à de nombreuses collaborations sous des pseudonymes tels que AGF / Delay (avec Vladislav Delay), Fraktion Gut Greie (avec Gudrun Gut), et The Lappetites (avec Kaffe Matthews et Eliane Radigue), et avec le compositeur classique Craig Armstrong. Greie dirige également sa propre société de production, AGF Producktion, et a produit des enregistrements pour d’autres artistes, notamment Ellen Allien (Sool, 2009, BPitch).

Annie Abrahams
Docteur en biologie (Université d’Utrecht 1978) et diplômée de l’école des Beaux-Arts d’Arnhem (1986). Son travail, qui utilise aussi bien la vidéo, la performance que l’Internet, questionne les possibilités et les limites de la communication, dont elle explore plus spécifiquement les modalités propres au réseau. Elle est internationalement reconnue en tant que pionnière de la performance en réseau.
Elle a fait beaucoup de performances et a largement exposé son travail en France, y compris au Centre Pompidou, à Paris et dans de nombreuses galeries internationales, dont le Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center à Asheville, North Carolina, US ; Espai d’Art Contemporani de Castelló, Espagne; le New Musem à New York; Furtherfield gallery (formerly HTTP), Londres; le NIMk à Amsterdam et dans des festivals internationaux comme le Moscow Film Festival, le Festival international du film de Rotterdam et Stuttgarter Filmwinter, et sur des plateformes en ligne comme Rhizome.org et Turbulence. Du 28 octobre 2011 au 1 janvier 2012 le Crac de Sète lui consacrera une exposition personnelle sous le titre Training for A Better World.

Vidéo archive of Satz 1 Respiration / Breathing  http://vimeo.com/33682705
Screengrabset of Satz 1 http://www.flickr.com/photos/bramorg/sets/72157628413956717/
Video archive of Satz 2 Le Quotidien / Daily life http://vimeo.com/33748106
Video archive of Satz 3 La Famille / Der Familie http://vimeo.com/33773503
Video archive of Satz 4 Les Rêves / L’Utopie / Dreams  http://vimeo.com/33907750

Reaction On Duet – Satz, A letter to Annie by Margarida Carvalho

Filed under: Performance , AGF, Antye Greie, conversations, domestic streaming, Duet - Satz, Gantner, Poemproducer

Angry Women take 3 & 4

04 12 2011 18:30 Brussels  and online

Capture d’écran de Take 3 en français. vimeo.com/33492100

Screencapture of Take 4 in English. vimeo.com/33498082

Performance: Angry Women take 3 & 4  with Anne Laforet, Annie Abrahams, Antye Greie, Bérénice Belpaire, Hedva Eltanani, Hortense Gauthier, Ienke Kastelein, Jule Chateauvert, Laurence Moletta, Laurie Bellanca, Lucille Calmel, Martina Ruhsam, Olga P Massanet, Pascale Barret and Simona Polvani

Prototypes for · pour · voor transmission

Verbindingen/Jonctions 13
30 November → 4 December 2011

Filed under: Performance , angry women, Anne Laforet, Antye Greie, Bérénice Belpaire, Hedva Eltanani, Hortense Gauthier, Ienke Kastelein, Jule Chateauvert, Laurence Moletta, Laurie Bellanca, Lucille Calmel, Martina Ruhsam, Olga P Massanet, Pascale Barret, Simona Polvani, VJ13

Performance Huis Clos / No Exit au CRAC à Sète

Photo 2010 performance Huis Clos / No Exit – On Translation, NIMk Amsterdam. Courtesy: Olga Westrate.

#

Huis Clos / No Exit – Training for a Better World

Le 01/12/2011
Performance avec David Lavaysse, Emilie Schalck, Marguérite Leudet, Simon Nicolas, Sophie Valero et Valérie Severac.

Nous aurons, un serre-joints, des clous, un marteau, du bois, un jeu de cartes, des livres, des plantes, des couvertures, des instruments de musique, un vélo d’appartement, un tshirt superman et de la terre pour nous entraîner.

1er décembre 2011, à 19h00
Tous publics – Entrée libre.
Centre Régional d’Art Contemporain Languedoc-Roussillon
26, Quai Aspirant Herber
34200 SÈTE – France
Tel : 33 (0) 4 67 74 94 37

Dans le cadre de l’exposition Training for a Better World au CRAC de Sète, Annie Abrahams présentera une performance “Huis Clos / No Exit“, où 6 artistes, via des ordinateurs et des webcams, tous dans des endroits isolés, dispersés dans l’espace, se partagent un espace d’expression et de responsabilité, un terrain de jeu, un laboratoire : la projection de leurs images et son dans une seule vidéo projection devant le public. En exécutant un protocole de performance écrit par l’artiste, ils créent en direct devant les yeux du public un récit contemporain sur la problématique de la communication à distance et la dynamique dans un groupe dispersé, sur l’être ensemble possible dans un monde connecté.

Performance réalisée avec l’aide à la Création de la Région Languedoc Roussillon.
Avec le soutien de Kawenga Montpellier et U-StructureNouvelle Montpellier.
Résidence préparatoire  le 27 et 28 novembre au Domaine d’O, domaine départemental d’art et de culture, Hérault, Montpellier.

Captures d’écran pendant la résidence au Domaine d’O.

Photos of the residency at Château d’O.

 

 

Filed under: Performance , CRAC, domaine D'O, Huis Clos / No Exit, Training for a Better World

Image essay on ‘Training for a Better World’

“Michael Szpakowski reviews Annie Abrahams’ exhibition with a photo essay combining photo documentation, self portraiture and simple lively drawings to capture the elements and atmospheres of networked interactions. V. enjoyable” Ruth Catlow on facebook.
http://www.furtherfield.org/features/reviews/image-essay-training-better-world

Michael Szpakowski also wrote a review on Training for A Better World, my solo exhibition in the CRAC Sète for dvblog. He especially pays attention to the video installation called Angry Women :
“There’s something both of portraiture and of the dance at work here, and a kind of found poetry too (which the moving image work has in common with the collaborative texts at the other end of the exhibition). The combination of iron control, planning, foresight (the grid, the protocols) with the letting go and trust evident elsewhere – the phased lengths, the blank space for the person who didn’t turn up, the open performative structure – makes for something of great richness.“ http://dvblog.org/?p=9025 (english & français)

Filed under: Articles / Texts , CRAC, DVblog, image essay, Michael Szpakowski, Training for a Better World