23-24 May 2023 Landing on Feathers (SPRING Performing Arts Festival) In this performance, three caregivers and artists – Jija Sohn, Aleksandra Lemm and Nica Roses – share their vision on body-oriented caregiving through dance. Care constitutes relations between individuals in society as a necessary element in building a community. Landing on Feathers is a performance for those who are in need of care, and those who are hired to care. It is a performance where the audience can also experience the first steps in making their approach to care more conscious and attentive, even to strangers. Utrecht Basis Utrecht Basis
27 May 2023 FULL PROGRAM: UPS For the months of April and May 2023, Ultradependent Public School (UPS) will transform BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, into a schoolhouse featuring many trainings and workshops. Here you can find an overview of all the upcoming events. Community Portal Community Portal
27 May 2023 ULTRADISTRO: THUNDER Closing of Ultradependent Public School Program and exhibition. ULTRADISTRO: THUNDER pays homage to the BAK building’s previous history as a music venue, acknowledging some (certainly not all) of the weight of that sonic legacy. Space for music becomes a flag to welcome other audiences who may not feel represented by the language of contemporary art but might be interested in the themes it circulates.
4 June 2023 CALL FOR PROPOSALS: BAK FELLOWSHIP FOR SITUATED PRACTICE 2023/2024 Deadline: 4 June 2023, 24:00 hrs CEST Public announcement of selected Fellows: 15 July 2023 Fellowship term: 11 October 2023-19 June 2024 You can apply to the BAK cell in Utrecht by filling out the form here. You can apply to the ÇAP cell in Istanbul by filling out the downloadable form here and forwarding it to […]
30/01/2023 Digital Discomfort Execution Critical Software Thing Originating with the twelfth-century French term l’exécuteur du testament (the executor of the will), the term “execution” today finds itself entangled in myriad systems, such as linguistic systems, judiciary systems, computational systems, and systems of memory—all of which are touched upon in this text (originally published as an entry in The Posthuman Glossary [2028]) by Critical Software Thing (CST)). Be it by guillotine or CPU, as a realization of a decreed sentence, CST suggest that “execution” always relates to the now, “to an actualization, a presence which is always already over.” Highlighting the micro-instructions, micro-operations, and micro-temporality of systems executions, CST point toward the liveness inherent in them. Without succumbing to the seeming seamlessness of computation—harkening to the Cell for Digital Discomfort’s suggestion to embrace a seamful approach to technology—and with an awareness for the executive power of code, CST propose that code itself to be regarded as but “a partial instruction within a wider, dynamic ecology of many executing systems.” Archive Essay Text
18/12/2022 Tactical Solidarities Jose Maria Sison (1939–2022) It is with great sadness to learn that on 16 December 2022 Professor Jose Maria Sison passed away. Having lived in exile in Utrecht, Professor Sison taught at the first New World Academy in 2013, Towards a People’s Culture, which we convened together with artist Jonas Staal in 2013. Professor Sison’s learnings on solidarity, friendship, resilience, and joy of the world in spite of its many hardships and struggles, will continue resonate strongly. Rest in power. Announcement
Toward the Not-Yet: Art as Public Practice By Jeanne van Heeswijk, Maria Hlavajova, Rachael Rakes, +42
Propositions for Non-Fascist Living: Tentative and Urgent By Maria Hlavajova, Wietske Maas, Rosi Braidotti, +13
Marion von Osten: Once We Were Artists (A BAK Critical Reader in Artists’ Practice) By Maria Hlavajova, Tom Holert, Hidde van Greuningen, +13
FORMER WEST: Art and the Contemporary After 1989 By Nancy Adajania, Edit András, Athena Athanasiou, +76
Future Publics (The Rest Can and Should Be Done by the People): A Critical Reader in Contemporary Art By Nancy Adajania, Ariella Azoulay, Amelia Barikin, +14
The Return of Religion and Other Myths (handbook) By Maria Hlavajova, Sven Lütticken, Marlies van Hak, +1