Filtering by Tag: Delfina Foundation

Block Universe kicked off 2020 with Doing sub Thinking at Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

Added on by Alex Mirutziu.
Alex-Mirutziu-Happenings-Block Universe combined-1.jpg

Block Universe was invited to curate a programme of performances at Quoz Arts Fest, Dubai, hosted by Alserkal, on January 24 and January 25. Presenting a series of works in the context of Dubai, the inaugural Middle Eastern programme for Block Universe reflects upon social and cultural histories; diasporic roots, migration and embodied or archival memory. Artists included Eglė Budvytytė (LT/NL), Alex Mirutziu (RO) and Himali Singh Soin (IN/UK). 

Press release below:

Block Universe at Quoz Arts Fest, Dubai— 


Friday, 24 January 2020, All day
Saturday, 25 January 2020, All day
Quoz Arts Fest, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

Following an international programme marking half a decade of curating and commissioning, spanning Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom in 2019, Block Universe announce that 2020’s programme will begin in the United Arab Emirates.

In Dubai, Block Universe have been invited to curate a programme of performances at Quoz Arts Fest, hosted by Alserkal, on January 24 and January 25. Presenting a series of works in the context of Dubai, the inaugural Middle Eastern programme for Block Universe reflects upon social and cultural histories; diasporic roots, migration and embodied or archival memory.

Artists include Eglė Budvytytė (LT/NL), Alex Mirutziu (RO) and Himali Singh Soin (IN/UK). For Quoz Arts Fest, each artist touches upon the themes oulined above, whether that be Himali Singh Soin’s narrative film and performance as an Indian exploring the Arctic as a means of questioning nationalistic fears of the ‘other’; Eglė Budvytytė’s choreographies for public space that question ritualised and normative behaviours; or Alex Mirutziu’s exploration of explores the fringes of what can be seen or represented within a complex system of ascriptions, presumptions and fictionalizations or within larger political structures such as the backdrop of Communism. The programme of live works will take in a number of presentation formats, such as lecture-performances, choreographic works and participatory action. It will take place in and around Concrete, the OMA-designed building shortlisted for the 2019 Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

Friday 24 January 2020
13:00 – 14:00
Performance by Eglė Budvytytė, Incantation Karaoke @ Concrete

14:00 – 15:00
Performance by Alex Mirutziu, Doing Sub Thinking @ The Yard

15:00 – 15:30
Talk with Eglė Budvytytė and Louise O’Kelly @ Concrete

18:30 – 19:00
Performance by Himali Singh Soin, we are opposite like that @ Concrete

Saturday 25 January 2020
13:00 – 14:00
Performance by Eglė Budvytytė, Incantation Karaoke @ Concrete

14:00 – 15:00
Performance by Alex Mirutziu, Doing Sub Thinking @ The Yard

15:00 – 15:30
Talk with Alex Mirutziu and Louise O’Kelly @ Concrete

16:00 – 16:30
Talk with Himali Singh Soin and Louise O’Kelly @ Concrete

18:30 – 19:00
Performance by Himali Singh Soin, we are opposite like that @ Concrete

‘The Unnerving Inches of Being’ - Alex Mirutziu's Solo Exhibition at SABOT Gallery, Cluj

Added on by Alex Mirutziu.
Photo: Alex Mirutziu

Photo: Alex Mirutziu

Photos: YAP Studio

THE UNNERVING INCHES OF BEING

May 31 - July 10, 2019

Opening hours: TUE – SAT, 4pm - 7pm

SABOT

Fabricii de Chibrituri 9A, Cluj-Napoca

‘The unnerving inches of being’ concludes few years of research on the work of novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch and the different methodologies she employed to create meaning. Preceded by Between Too Soon and Too Late, which took place at Delfina Foundation in 2018 (Mirutziu’s first solo exhibition in the UK), ‘The unnerving inches of being’ brings together a series of works informed by Murdoch’s writings and further reflects on the notion of time and space in relation to meaning.

Extending over a wide range of media and activities, including sculpture, drawing, poetry, and performance, as well as critical and curatorial projects, Mirutziu’s practice questions the way we create meaning to interpret the world around us. Highly intellectual, inspired by philosophy, literature and design, the artist explores the inadequate use of objects, language, and the body as tools of communication, confronting us with “dislocated modes of arrival at meaning.”

'Doing Sub Thinking' will premiere in June 2 at Royal Academy of Arts, as part of Block Universe 2018

Added on by Alex Mirutziu.
Alex Mirutziu, Doing sub thinking Block Universe presents Doing sub thinking, a new performance work by Alex Mirutziu, co-commissioned by Delfina Foundation and European ArtEast Foundation.Referencing philosophical thought, national displays of powe…

Alex Mirutziu, Doing sub thinking

 

Block Universe presents Doing sub thinking, a new performance work by Alex Mirutziu, co-commissioned by Delfina Foundation and European ArtEast Foundation.

Referencing philosophical thought, national displays of power and collective agency, this work seeks to illustrate the performative forces at play in society. Exploring the de-personalisation of an individual within a crowd, Mirutziu will bring the audience on a journey to make manifest the intangible gaps between thought and action within group dynamics.

Block Universe is London’s leading international performance art festival, taking place in collaboration with cultural institutions and organisations across the city, including the Royal Academy of Arts, Siobhan Davies Dance, The Store X, the British Museum, Somerset House, Studio Voltaire, Oval Space and the Brunel Museum.

From 26 May to 3 June 2018, the festival will present work by some of the most innovative UK-based and international artists working in performance today, alongside talks, workshops and special projects.

Following the performance there will be a reception at Delfina Foundation from 16:30, with the final chance to see Alex Mirutziu's exhibition, Between Too Soon and Too Late, on the show's final day.

Doing Sub Thinking

Performance

with: Jenn Vogtle, Rowdy_SS, Ekin Bernay

Saturday 2 June 2018

2pm-2:40pm / 3pm - 3:40pm

Annenberg Courtyard, Royal Accademy of Arts

Free, no booking required

The poem of too Soon and too Late at Delfina Foundation

Added on by Alex Mirutziu.

Between Too Soon and Too Late

26 April – 02 June 2018

Times: Mon - Fri, 10:00 – 18:00.
Sat, 12:00 – 18:00

Opening: Wednesday, 25 June 2018, 19:00 – 21:00

Delfina Foundation

29/31 Catherine Place, London

Alex Mirutziu - Gestalt me out

Alex Mirutziu - Gestalt me out

Delfina Foundation and European ArtEast Foundation collaborate to present Between Too Soon and Too Late, the first solo exhibition in the UK by Alex Mirutziu (b. 1981, Sibiu, Romania).

Mirutziu's practice interrogates the process of how we create meaning to interpret the world around us. Inspired by philosophy, literature and design, he explores the inadequate use of objects, language and the body as tools of communication.

For a few years, Mirutziu has been researching the work of novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch and the different methodologies she employed to create meaning, both spoken and unspoken. During a short residency at Delfina Foundation, Mirutziu visited Murdoch's archives at Kingston University. Instead of focusing on her most prolific writing period, he concentrated on unfinished writings from the latter stages of her career, which was marked by the onset of Alzheimer's Disease.

In Between Too Soon and Too Late, Mirutziu uses Murdoch's writings as a starting point to reflect on the notion of time and space in relation to meaning. The exhibition, which includes newly commissioned and existing works, explores the 'tiny space' - as identified by Murdoch - where meaning stays tacit, where being and not being are the same. According to Murdoch, this point is in between being 'too soon' and 'too late'. The works in the exhibition attempt to occupy this space and prolong the process of establishing meaning; they refuse to yield a sense of resolution and closure, entangling the viewer in a space that is indefinite and inconclusive.

For Between Too Soon and Too Late, Mirutziu transforms corrections to writing and comments made in Murdoch's hand writing into large sculptural forms that represent where meaning is simultaneously gained and lost. This is juxtaposed with an existing video work Where is the poem? (2013), that refers to the dynamics and politics of writing and reading, and to the dialectical understanding of their relationship, from production to reception. Working with Graham Foust's poem Politics, the artist's hand marks the distance created within and around the text, which Mirutziu claims is as integral as the sequence of words in terms of understanding the complexity and structure of a poem.

The space in between the hand and the writing surface is also fundamental in Gestalt me out (2018), a specially designed desk featuring impressions of the artist's elbow and wrist positioned alongside an image of Murdoch's tea-stained notebook. These two works attempt to give form to the construct of time as well as the conceptual space where meaning is created. Prepared Poem #3, written by the artist in response to Murdoch, is presented in a disjointed sculptural form.

The exhibition coincides with a new performance by Mirutziu for Block Universe Festival, co-commissioned with Delfina Foundation with European Arteast Foundation, entitled Doing Sub Thinking. Referencing philosophical thought, national displays of power and collective agency, the work seeks to illustrate the performative forces at play in society. Exploring the de-personalisation of an individual within a crowd, Mirutziu will bring the audience on a journey to make manifest the intangible gaps between thought and action within group dynamics.

Alex Mirutziu's practice extends over a wide range of media and activities, including sculpture, drawing, poetry and performances as well as lectures and curatorial projects. In his current work, he explores time and space in relation to 'the arrival of meaning'. His works attempt to dislocate modes of arrival through text, words and the body by expanding the concepts of approximation and proximity, as well as challenging the notion of 'thinking' versus 'doing'.

Mirutziu formed a collective - TAH 29 - which is involves collaborations with the artist himself at 29. The collective's modus operandi is retroactive irony.

Mirutziu has collaborated with artists, writers, musicians, designers, and philosophers including Grit Hachmeister (DE), Elias Merino (ES), Graham Foust (US), and Graham Harman (US), to name a few. Mirutziu has participated in solo or group exhibitions at Power Plant, Toronto; The Glass Factory Lab, Boda; Mucsarnok Kusthalle, Budapest; Center for Contemporary Art and National Museum, Warsaw; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest, to name a few.

”Stay[s] against confusion” mirrored in Sinteza Magazine

Added on by Alex Mirutziu.

Artistul radiografiaza momentul Delfina Foundation din Londra, unde s-a aflat in rezidenta vreme de 3 luni anul acesta, si taie colturile celui mai recent performance ‘Stay[s] against confusion’.

Delfina Foundation is an independent, non-profit foundation dedicated to facilitating artistic exchange and developing creative practice through residencies, partnerships and public programming. 

Fragments from interview:

interviu realizat de Ruxandra Hurezean

- Pentru cel mai recent performance ‘Stay[s] against confusion’ ai folosit un caracter tipografic creat de designerul britanic Margaret Calvert, dar si fragmente din poeziile lui Graham Foust. Pentru inceput te-as ruga sa vorbesti de motivele care te-au facut sa lucrezi cu caracterul tipografic ‘Transport’ si ‘New Transport’, omniprezent pe autostrazile din Marea Britanie si de ce crezi ca un caracter tipografic poate genera o coregrafie?

E vorba de o adaptare digitala a vechiului font ‘Transport’ creat de designerii britanici Jock Kinneir si Margaret Calvert in 1957. La acea vreme cei doi au standardizat indicatoarele rutiere de pe autostrazile Marii Britanii la invitatia guvernului, ca rezolvare a unui faune aglomerate, pestrite si confuze de semne si informatii de pe drumurile nationale. Fiecare panou lua forma unei harti orientate spre sofer. Apoi datorita testelor de vizibilitate la diferite distante, Kinneir si Calvert au ajuns la concluzia foarte indrazneata la acea vreme de a folosi litere mici in locul majusculelor care reprezentau norma la acea vreme. Sistemul acesta a fost un succes total in a oferi soferilor un climat de eficienta si a fost adoptat printre altele de Danemarca, Hong Kong sau Islanda.

In interviul pe care cu multa ingaduinta Margaret mi l-a acordat, imi spunea ca acest sistem a fost creat din punctul de vedere al soferului si nu al designerului. E foarte importanta aceasta distinctie pentru ca atunci cand te afli pe autostrada in viteza timpul de reactie la informatia de pe indicatoare nu poate fi prea lung. E nevoie deci ca acea informatie sa fie livrata cat mai eficient pentru a putea lua decizii imediate. Partea creierului care e responsabila de citire trebuie sa rezolve aceste caractere la o viteza de 10-20ms. Erorile in a descifra aceste indicatoare pot face diferenta intre viata si moarte.

- Inteleg ca operezi in cele doua registre, lingvistic / metaforic si cel pragmatic, al caracterului tipografic ‘New Transport’.

Ma intereseaza in ce masura notiunea ‘Etc.’ e rezolvata de public atata timp cat partitura acestui performance insista doar pana la un punct pe o cursiviate narativa. Notiunea ‘Etc.’ vine din scriere si limbaj, iar atunci cand e introdusa in dans, nu poate fi instrumentata decat fenomenologic. Semantica lui ‘Etc.’  nu poate fi despartita de binomurile vizibilitate/invizibilitate, de citire/privire, familiare sistemului pus in practica de cei doi designeri.

Sintetizand: vizibilitatea reprezinta o problema majora pentru designeri, dar si pentru artisti. Pana la urma lupta se da in primul rand pe hartie. Descifram semnificatia textului pe care il citim cu pretul ignorarii felului in care textul e tiparit, iar atunci cand privim fontul pierdem semnificatia textului. Nu putem face ambele operatii deodata. Insa niciuna nu poate exista fara cealalta.

Interviul complet in Sinteza nr. 31 / August 2016 (p.108-111) sau pe site-ul revistasinteza.ro