Trees and CO2 in Tunisia

Curatorial Mutiny and Vision Forum are organising an 5 day workshop in Tunis and Bizerte in Tunisia April 9-13, 2025. During the workshop the team will develop the project “Do Trees Dream of CO2” with their Tunisian partners.

“In our working process we focus primarily on trees’ and their inner signalling. We use the PepiPIAF technology to measure changes in their inner. This non-invasive technology is attached to a branch of a tree. It measures the changes in pressure and temperature inside the actual tree, based on how sap moves. It shows how a tree adapts itself to changes of temperature, season, and daily rhythm. From these measurements we can derive information about how the tree grows and to a certain degree how it adapts to outside changes. You can find more info about the PepiPIAF here. (In French only.) We also record the sounds that the tree makes as it grows using specially designed microphones. These sounds are then modulated by the data from the tree and by human digital musical tools.”

During the workshop the Franco-Swedish team will work will artists Soufia Bensaid and Hela Lamine. A public presentation will be held outside Bizerte on April 12. The program starts at 14h. Please drop us an e-mail (info [at] visionforum.eu) if you want to join. Participation is free, but the number of places limited.

Do Trees Dream of CO2 is supported by Kulturbryggan.

Alpha Xiao in Helsinki

Alpha Xiao is an experimental musical group using a portable electroencephalograph (EEG) and microbial activity to modulate designed audio samples in real time as well as a traditional Chinese flute called a Xiao.

Alpha Xiao has been in residency at La Generale in Paris March 26 – April 1, 2025 to prepare for the concert at Vuotalo Culture Centre, Helsinki. Their concert forms a part of Akusmata Polyphonic. Other performers include Koray Tahiroğlu and The Loopers’ Orchestra.

AKUSMATA POLYPHONIC 2025. Friday, April 4, 2025. Time: 18-20h Vuotalo Culture Centre, Helsinki.

Entrance is free.

Alpha Xiao’s participation in Akusmata Polyphonic is supported by the Nordic Culture Fund.

Alpha Xiao in Residency in Paris

Alpha Xiao is an experimental musical group using a portable electroencephalograph (EEG) and microbial activity to modulate designed audio samples in real time as well as a traditional Chinese flute called a Xiao. The two person constellation focuses musically on connectivity through rough sketches of compositions, sounds and themes. As brain waves and non-human life expressions influence certain dynamics of the sound, and vice versa, a type of feedback loop is generated between the activities of the technology and sound produced ad infinitum.

Alpha Xiao has been active in its musical exploration of mental and musical space since 2020. They often collaborate with other musicians and artists in different constellations such as Sebastian Campbell of God Mother, Petri Kuljantausta and Olav Westphalen. They have played extensively in various Stockholm venues, in Paris and they are preparing for a concert i Helsinki. Alpha Xiao has also created music for Fabien Guillermont and Toan Van Che’s full-length documentary “Reality Check” in 2024.

Alpha Xiao will be in residency at La Generale in Paris March 26 – April 1, 2025. During the residency they focus on new technology to modulate the flute’s sound in real time and make the influence of the EEG and microbes’ activity more central to their sound.

Listen to Alpha Xiao on Soundcloud.

 

Energy in Balance in Copenhagen

 

Energy in Balance

Two international, artistic networks, the Association for the Palliative Turn (APT) and Vision Forum are creating a three-day event in and for Copenhagen in collaboration with Danish curator Laura Goldschmidt.

“Energy in Balance” looks for new perspectives on the human body by bringing together knowledge from the arts, philosophy, science and kinesiology. The working group aims to use the acquired knowledge to develop new and visionary works of art.

The working process will focus on the human body and how it hosts

knowledge outside of consciousness, the cerebral and the rational. Such knowledge is seen as an ideal in movements such as Zen Buddhism. Relevant questions for discussions in the project include:

- The human body knows perfectly well how to operate its immune system. How is this possible, although science knows only a fraction how it works?
- How can an unborn baby know how to create its own body?
- How can we access such knowledge and what traditions can help us in the process?
- When we speak of intuition, is that an intellectual of bodily process?
- How does the body’s knowledge, as discussed above, play a role in art-making and the creative process?

The goal of the event is for the organizers to learn together with artists, curators, health-workers and the general public in the Danish capital.

The goal  is not to find conclusive answers to such questions, but to reflect on how a slightly altered perspective on human (and non-human) knowledge can be of use in art-making and in healing. The organisers want to collectively understand how we can think differently about our bodies and how such a change in perspective might affect our lives.

The project is partially funded by Helge Ax:son Johnsons Stiftelse and Nordic Culture Fund

 

PROGRAM (Please not that only Wednesday February 26 is open to the public)

Monday, February 24, afternoon and evening:
Mid-day: Arrival at Q
Internal symposium to present our work/research and formulate shared questions.
Time to experiment.

Tuesday, February 25, 10:00 to 16:00:
(Program, open to students, faculty, guests at Q)
10:00: Carima Neusser and Per Hüttner
The Human Microbiome and Art – the work of Vision Forum and the project Governing Bodies (45 min)
11:00: Dafna Maimon
Utilizing Body-Mind-Centering for Creative Practice, workshop (90 min)
We will explore a medley of exercises inspired by Body-Mind-Centering focusing on our organs, cellular breathing, and sounding. Comfortable clothing and an open, playful presence are welcomed. Bo prior experience necessary.
Body-Mind Centering® (BMC®) is an integrated and embodied approach to movement, the body and consciousness. Developed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, it is an experiential study based on the embodiment and application of anatomical, physiological, psychophysical and developmental principles, utilizing movement, touch, voice and mind.

12:30: Lunch break

13 :30: Annemarie Goldschmidt, Kinesiology Workshop (90 min) This workshop will give you the knowledge to use kinesiology on the way you want to go, to move on.
15:00: Coffee break
15:30: Mia Damhus, How to eat artistically (60 min) Feeding the microbiota seems to be the most important factor in achieving bodymind balance. Mia’s lecture will look at our understanding of the body, from cells to organs, and how nutrition has been understood from the reductionist era until the present.
16:30: Olav Westphalen: Welcome to the Palliative Turn, Short lecture about the work of the APT (Association for the Palliative Turn) plus some games using sound or drawing (60 min)

Wednesday, February 26, 14:00 to late:
(open to public)

14:00: Laura Goldschmidt
Welcome address, a curator’s take on Bodymind (15 min)
14:30: Dafna Maimon: Video screening, new work, never seen before (45 min)
16:15 Annemarie Goldschmidt: The Behavioral Barometer, lecture (60 min)
17:30 Coffee/Snacks/socializing (time for set-up)
18:00: Olav Westphalen: Quintett,  gut songs (30 min)
18:45: Carima Neusser: Choreography and the Body (30 min)
19:30: Per Hüttner and Robert Oostenveld: Microbes’ Agency: Performance – Microbes influencing sound and images in real time (30 min)

Malmö Microbes Mayhem

 

The team working with “Microbes in The Desert of The Real – The Simple and The Complex” will show their work at Hallwylska museet in Stockholm in November 2025. Carima Neusser who is a member of the team is in residency at Dansstationen in Malmö November 19-24, 2024 to prepare for the presentation in Stockholm.

Microbes offer an interesting way into complexity. Their small size and the fact that they are everywhere connects them to other complex systems and their influence cannot be understated. Without microbes there would be no life on this planet, and small changes can have profound consequences for other interconnected complex systems.

French poet Paul Valéry wrote: “If it’s simple, it’s always false. If it’s not, it’s unusable.” It is important to be able to simplify ideas without losing the complexities underpinning them, but how do we do that?

The world is full of unknown unknowns and to help us sort all of this out and extend our knowledge increasingly complex computer programs are being used.  But there is a problem with this. As computer models or simulations become increasingly complex they also become harder to understand. This is referred to as Bonini’s paradox.

“Microbes in The Desert of The Real – The Simple and The Complex” is supported by Nordic Culture Fund (through Morgondagens konstpublik) and Kulturbryggan.

Zygote Workshop in Stockholm

- Zygote is preparing new proto-events that will be shown at Weld in Stockholm in spring 2025.

Zygote is project where performance artists, dancers, musicians and researchers in foetal development are working together. Zygote is a mobile laboratory that moves between different Swedish urban and natural locations. The work is a collective investigation, where the audience is actively involved in shaping the results.

The process does not result in a final performance, instead the working group conducts a series of ongoing investigations together with different audience groups. We call these proto-performances. This makes the work an ongoing and investigative process.

The Zygote team with members from Ireland and Åland will be in residence at Höjden in Stockholm November 9-16, 2024.

Zygote is supported by Kulturbryggan.

Do Trees Dream of Oasises

 

Curatorial MUtiny is organising an 8 day workshop in Tunis, Sousse and Gabes in Tunisia September 30 – October 7. During the workshop the team will investigate if the outcomes of the project “Do Trees Dream of CO2” can be applied to palm trees. Palm trees are technically not trees, but plants, so it will be interesting to see what can be done:

“In our working process we focus primarily on trees’ and their inner signalling. We use the PepiPIAF technology to measure changes in their inner. This non-invasive technology is attached to a branch of a tree. It measures the changes in pressure and temperature inside the actual tree, based on how sap moves. It shows how a tree adapts itself to changes of temperature, season, and daily rhythm. From these measurements we can derive information about how the tree grows and to a certain degree how it adapts to outside changes. You can find more info about the PepiPIAF here. (In French only.) We also record the sounds that the tree makes as it grows using specially designed microphones. These sounds are then modulated by the data from the tree and by human digital musical tools.”

During the workshop the Franco-Swedish team will work will artists Soufia Bensaid and Hela Lamine. Amonst other things, they will visit and work with Association De Sauvegarde De L’Oasis De Chenini Gabes – ASOC and make a public presentation at Institut Supérieur des Beaux Arts de Sousse on October 7.

Do Trees Dream of CO2 is supported by Kulturbryggan.