until 10 December 2022
The Hauntologists
The Hauntologists is a project emerging through experimentation and collective research within the 2021/2022 BAK Fellowship for Situated Practice. Engaging spectrality as a tactic to investigate and redress the conditions of brokenness of the world.
It took place in Istanbul, Jakarta, and Utrecht from 10 September until 10 December 2022 as a continuously evolving and geographically distributed discursive, performative, publishing, and exhibitionary composition.
Participants include: Özge Açıkkol, Merve Bedir, Kerem Ozan Bayraktar, Cell for Digital Discomfort (Cristina Cochior, Karl Moubarak, and Jara Rocha), Dika+Lija, Philippa Driest, freethought collective, Ilgın Hancıoğlu, Alexandra Karyn, Gayatri Kodikal, Gatari Kusuma, Yen Noh, Rifandi Nugroho, İlyas Odman, Marina Papazyan, Anitha Silvia, and Zone Collective (Megan Hoetger and Kirila Cvetkovska), among others.
Participants include: Özge Açıkkol, Merve Bedir, Kerem Ozan Bayraktar, Cell for Digital Discomfort (Cristina Cochior, Karl Moubarak, and Jara Rocha), Dika+Lija, Philippa Driest, freethought collective, Ilgın Hancıoğlu, Alexandra Karyn, Gayatri Kodikal, Gatari Kusuma, Yen Noh, Rifandi Nugroho, İlyas Odman, Marina Papazyan, Anitha Silvia, and Zone Collective (Megan Hoetger and Kirila Cvetkovska), among others.
The Hauntologists
The Hauntologists is a project emerging through experimentation and collective research within the 2021/2022 BAK Fellowship for Situated Practice. Engaging spectrality as a tactic to investigate and redress the conditions of brokenness of the world, it takes place in Istanbul, Jakarta, and Utrecht from 10 September until 10 December 2022 as a continuously evolving and geographically distributed discursive, performative, publishing, and exhibitionary composition.
At present, many find themselves haunted by the persisting brokenness of the world—inequality, war, racial and gendered violence, precarity, techno-colonialism, and other perpetual crises. Can one haunt back to intervene and redress this ongoing sense of dread? Could spectrality be embraced as an embodied cultural and political sensibility to experiment with? Can research be practiced as a haunting to overcome the limits of traditional categories of knowledge, knowledge production, and so-called artistic research?
At present, many find themselves haunted by the persisting brokenness of the world—inequality, war, racial and gendered violence, precarity, techno-colonialism, and other perpetual crises. Can one haunt back to intervene and redress this ongoing sense of dread? Could spectrality be embraced as an embodied cultural and political sensibility to experiment with? Can research be practiced as a haunting to overcome the limits of traditional categories of knowledge, knowledge production, and so-called artistic research?
Search for vocabularies
Based on these questions, The Hauntologists emerges from the collaborative work of the 2021/2022 BAK Fellows to test how various notions of spectrality and spectral tactics could engage with or fathom possible burgeoning futurities, the contested strategies for living a liveable life, and the unresolved tensions in troubled archives and languages, among others. Dwelling between gatherings, seminars, subcultures, and everyday moments, the BAK Fellows and their guests—“the hauntologists”—search for vocabularies that undo the abstract social forms that stand in the way of political imagination and agency. They are furthermore committed to proposing aesthetico-political positions that open spaces of possibility and collectivity through the rehearsal of new models of reading, interpretation, and sociality. Offering a framework for a plurality of artistic practices, The Hauntologists are not merely haunted—they haunt.
Different locations
The Hauntologists takes place throughout the different locations in which the BAK Fellowship for Situated Practice operates: in Utrecht at BAK from 10 September–13 November 2022; in Istanbul as a three-day-long gathering from 18–20 November 2022; and in Jakarta at Gudskul from 26 November–10 December 2022. Conceived as an unfolding score, the components of the program are presented in a staggered, situated way throughout the different geographical contexts, as well as on BAK’s digital forum Prospections.
Curator
The Hauntologists is curated by Julia Morandeira, curator of the post-academic program BAK Fellowship for Situated Practice and convener of the Utrecht cell, in dialogue with the local conveners: Zeyno Pekünlü, Istanbul cell hosted by the Istanbul Biennial Production and Research Programme, İKSV (Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts); Gesyada Siregar and Angga Wiyaga, GUDsel hosted by GUDSKUL in Jakarta; and the 2021/2022 BAK Fellows. It includes a variety of collaborators, including freethought collective and Le Guess Who? festival in Utrecht.
Program
Full program of gatherings at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst:
I. Alexandra Karyn
latitude in longitude
2022, site, situational, sonic performance
Taking place in different locations across the Jakarta coastline—check tinyurl.com/latitudeinlongitude for exact locations—during sunset on 12 August 2022 at 17.54 hrs, sunrise on 27 August 2022 at 5.55 hrs, sunset on 10 September 2022 at 17.51 hrs, and sunrise on 26 September 2022 at 5.40 hrs.
II. Yen Noh
In Between Seances
2022, study group
The study group sessions take place on Thursdays, 15–18 hrs at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht on the following dates: 15, 22, and 29 September; 6, 13, 20, and 27 October; and 3 and 10 November 2022.
III. Dika and Lija
packyourBAK
2022, telegram
Week-long telegram chat accessible from Wednesday 28 September 2022 at 11.30 hrs to Tuesday 4 October 2022 at 17.30 hrs.
IV. Gayatri Kodikal
Mangroves Growing through the Detention Floor at Bucharest International Airport
2022, performance
30 September 2022, 18–19 hrs, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
V. Özge Acikkol, Gatari Surya Kusuma, Yen Noh, and Rifandi Nugroho, together with Massimiliano Molona and Nora Sternfeld
Troubling Archive
A day-long assembly with presentations, working groups, and discussions as part of an ongoing research project
1 October 2022, 11–17 hrs, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
VI. Ilyas Odman
Gazelhan
2022, lecture performance followed by conversation between the performer and fellow artist and writer Marina Papazyan
1 October 2022, 18–20 hrs, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
VII. Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger) with Biljana Radinoska and design by Karoline Świeżyński
Zoning Play Complex
2022, three theatre workshops (closed sessions)
4–6 November 2022, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
VII. freethought collective
Spectral Infrastructure symposium
11–13 November 2022, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
Prospections contributions:
A. “Bedtime Story for the Non-aligned” Dubravka Sekulić in conversation with Merve Bedir, 26 September 2022
B. “Notes from the table. A Not Yet Manifesto” by the Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger), 14 October 2022
C. On Digital Discomfort focus by Cell for Digital Discomfort (Cristina Cochior, Karl Moubarak, and Jara Rocha), soft launch 20 October 2022
D. Beyond Value focus by Denise Ferreira da Silva and Massimiliano (Mao) Mollona, November 2022
E. “Barren Cave Mute” by Yen Noh, December 2022
I. Alexandra Karyn
latitude in longitude
2022, site, situational, sonic performance
Taking place in different locations across the Jakarta coastline—check tinyurl.com/latitudeinlongitude for exact locations—during sunset on 12 August 2022 at 17.54 hrs, sunrise on 27 August 2022 at 5.55 hrs, sunset on 10 September 2022 at 17.51 hrs, and sunrise on 26 September 2022 at 5.40 hrs.
II. Yen Noh
In Between Seances
2022, study group
The study group sessions take place on Thursdays, 15–18 hrs at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht on the following dates: 15, 22, and 29 September; 6, 13, 20, and 27 October; and 3 and 10 November 2022.
III. Dika and Lija
packyourBAK
2022, telegram
Week-long telegram chat accessible from Wednesday 28 September 2022 at 11.30 hrs to Tuesday 4 October 2022 at 17.30 hrs.
IV. Gayatri Kodikal
Mangroves Growing through the Detention Floor at Bucharest International Airport
2022, performance
30 September 2022, 18–19 hrs, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
V. Özge Acikkol, Gatari Surya Kusuma, Yen Noh, and Rifandi Nugroho, together with Massimiliano Molona and Nora Sternfeld
Troubling Archive
A day-long assembly with presentations, working groups, and discussions as part of an ongoing research project
1 October 2022, 11–17 hrs, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
VI. Ilyas Odman
Gazelhan
2022, lecture performance followed by conversation between the performer and fellow artist and writer Marina Papazyan
1 October 2022, 18–20 hrs, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
VII. Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger) with Biljana Radinoska and design by Karoline Świeżyński
Zoning Play Complex
2022, three theatre workshops (closed sessions)
4–6 November 2022, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
VII. freethought collective
Spectral Infrastructure symposium
11–13 November 2022, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
Prospections contributions:
A. “Bedtime Story for the Non-aligned” Dubravka Sekulić in conversation with Merve Bedir, 26 September 2022
B. “Notes from the table. A Not Yet Manifesto” by the Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger), 14 October 2022
C. On Digital Discomfort focus by Cell for Digital Discomfort (Cristina Cochior, Karl Moubarak, and Jara Rocha), soft launch 20 October 2022
D. Beyond Value focus by Denise Ferreira da Silva and Massimiliano (Mao) Mollona, November 2022
E. “Barren Cave Mute” by Yen Noh, December 2022
The 2021/2022 BAK Fellowship for Situated Practice has been realized through federated collaboration among research cells at BAK (Utrecht), GUDSKUL (Jakarta), the Istanbul Biennial Production and Research Programme at IKSV (Istanbul), and online. The conceptual framework was developed in conjunction with the “spectral infrastructure” research trajectory developed by freethought collective.
