Maya Bamberger and Courtney Neal
Zollikon, 10.10.19
Realization Upload Form
Realizations
Residual Walk
Score Description
We kindly ask for sharing whatever speaks of an absence around you. It could be a written text (poems, memos, sentences) and/or visuals (photos, screenshots, diagrams) in the absence of …
Amidst the ongoing pandemic and social movements worldwide, what has become absent in your public domain—from the university to the thoroughfare, from the museum to the street corner?
What is no longer visible in our public spaces, which was there before the pandemic started or before the movements were temporarily interrupted? How do these spaces look today? An example could be a wall which once held slogans and stickers but has been continuously overpainted, or a space (re)made through absence. Traces that still communicate the once abundance of messages. Contents erased in a residue denoting a deprived communal conscience, not unlike a discarded sculptural mold where the empty space is leaving the mind to interpret and imagine what once was the object of discourse.
L. O’Neal
Boston, MA USA
Gallery outside of Boston, MA USA. Work is installed by there is no live audience. The task is to find a way to touch through distance – to make a movement score via imagination instead of physical engagement.
Mareike
Buenos Aires
Avenida del Libertador during March 2020, it is one of the principal thoroughfares in Buenos Aires, usually stuck with cars. A Corona warning now hangs in the street sign where advertising is usually placed. Absence of cars, people, responses, noises.
Jasmin
Absence of students in the Philosophical Faculty, Philipps University Marburg
June, 2021
susan
Singapore, Aug 2020 Firenze, Dec 2020
Singapore, Aug 2020
Firenze, Dec 2020
Shifting sites/places of life, of living. Both barren, yet the absence opens up new meanings.
Béné
24.06.2021
As I was looking for an image of absence, I realized I didn’t take any picture during the pandemic.
scene
scene
Basel
01.03.2021
Berlin
02.03.2021
This little shop is run by an older man from Palestine, on the side of the Jewish Museum. The rental prizes are exploding in Berlin right now, so all these little shops are on the verge of vanishing.
Severin V.
There was a Tatort
Fiona Rafferty
Januar 2021, Zürich
We share a memory and I will keep it alive
I am teaching a course titled Computational Poetry, in which the students and I try to connect the worlds of poetry and algorithms.We discuss the topic of collective poetry, where an idea is not devised by an individual but by a group. In addition, we explore the notion of unoriginality, in which a poem is not built from scratch, but uses existing materials or texts.
When discussing the French group Oulipo, we have a “Writing Activity”, where instead of behaving as a class, we hold a writing meeting in a cafe. The meeting starts with the activity leader giving an assignment, which consists of writing constraints. The members of the group should then write adhering to the limitations. We also have wine in order to break some rules, so it doesn’t get too technical.
During such an activity I led, the first constraint-based challenge was that each sentence should start with the words “I remember”. The second one was the one suggested by Perec, where “I remember” sentences must describe a collective memory, shared by all the participants. This always leads to interesting results and to an original analysis of the unoriginal way of thinking.
Finally, I added this new score as a challenge. The memories should be collective, but only of things we should cherish and strive to keep alive and going. The drawings by Keren Katz are an example of such an activity, depicting the abundance of memories we all share in hope for better futures, shared futures.
MJ WAMG
Taipei, Taiwan
27.11.2020
Nir Segal
Taken in Bloomsbury, London, 2017
On Memorial Day a bunch of flowers were broken and placed to fit the angles on the wall of a church. The action was responding to one flower left broken at the same place a month before. The activity was done collaboratively with Eloise Fornieles
Nir Segal
Taken in Bloomsbury, London, 2017
On Memorial Day a bunch of flowers were broken and placed to fit the angles on the wall of a church. The action was responding to one flower left broken at the same place a month before. The activity was done collaboratively with Eloise Fornieles
We share a memory and I will keep it alive
Images by Keren Katz @thekatzsisters, depicting collective memories, first published on Time Tunnel Collective.@timetunnelcollective
Memories of building Stonehenge, the discovery of water on Mars, paintings created at the request of Monarchs, and coining the phrase “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”
Yael
Tourist group at a historical spot.
Lorenzo
angry birds…
Chih-I Wu
Yangmingshan National Park
Chih-I Wu
In Düsseldorf Altstadt
18.01.2020
WEI LU
補蚊燈🦟
愛眉
Cat squad after work
Tseng Huachin
Only fur, no birds.
Chih-I Wu
Tainan,Taiwan
Hannah
15.11.2020
Anna
Foggy morning
Anna
Neighbor
Barbara
Lady beetles sharing their homes with us….
Chih-I Wu
Taipei, Taiwan
18.11.2020
In dance studio.
Tetiana Kartasheva
in the sky
(Zurich, November 2020)
Tetiana Kartasheva
on the leash
(Zurich, November 2020)
吳瑀俐
My place is occupied by plant
Anna
Happy Holidays animals on the High Street, Margate, UK.
Monika
Ireland, Kilbride, Co Wicklow
15.10.2020
Pretty moth
Monika
Berlin
02.08.2020
Berlin, August 2020, S9
Monika
Ireland, Kilbride, Co Wicklow
10.11.2020
Waiting for me
Monika
Ireland, Kilbride, Co Wicklow
15.08.2020
a new friend
Monika
Ireland, Kilbride, Co Wicklow
08.11.2020
Find the woodpecker
Monika
Ireland, Kilbride, Co Wicklow,
01.11.2020
Neighbours meeting
Monika
Ireland, Kilbride, Co Wicklow,
01.11.2020
Monika
Ireland, Kilbride, Co Wicklow
01.11.2020
Yael
Demonstration at a city square.
A.L. on zoom
Loveliest zoom companion.
20 Nov, 2020
d.r. in Kassel
Kassel: this was the Leopard (Tank) which we stumpled upon in Kassel: The Krauss-Maffei Wegmann GmbH & Co. KG (KMW) is a German defence company. The company Wegmann & Co. was founded in 1882 in Kassel as Casseler Waggonfabriken von Wegmann, Harkort & Co. by Peter Wegmann and Richard Harkort. In 1912 it was taken over by August Bode and Conrad Köhler. In the 1930s the company specialised in passenger coaches and military vehicles. During the National Socialist regime, the exploitation of forced labourers, prisoners of war and political prisoners was part of the corporate policy of August Bode, the later military economy leader. After rearmament, the company took over the development and construction of turret systems for equipment of the newly founded German Army in the 1960s, including the Leopard 1 and 2 main battle tanks. — Wikipedia also let’s know that one easily update an older version with new equipment.
OOO (Out Of Office)
Dornach 7AM
Anna
On a November beach walk in Margate, UK. One chalk message on the cliff wall reads “Affordable Housing Not Yoga Studios”. It references a growing absence of space for everyone, as more people are leaving London to move to the coastal town.
Barbara
22 March, 2020
Zurich during Lockdown. An area which is normally full of life has become an empty place.
Arianna Guidi
replacement
Jan
Berlin, Nov 2020
Absence of (the possibility of) upkeep in a gentrified neighborhood.
Tetiana Kartasheva
Zurich
November 2020
Tanya Abraham
Oct 2020, Kochi, India
Tanya Abraham
At home, in lockdown.
May 2020
Anna
Absence of normality & absence of other topics of small talk
Monika
Irish road signs.
Anna
Absence of face
Anna
24.11.2020
Absence of Joy
Zurich, 24 November
Kat Zagaria
What is absent in Wisconsin is what is curiously present elsewhere: stay-at-home mandates, and enforced mask mandates. The state’s legislature struck down the governor’s stay-at-home mandate in April as unconstitutional, and local police departments throughout the state have pledged not to enforce the governor’s mask mandate. Unsurprisingly, the state has one of the highest rates of COVID spread in the country. Businesses – including restaurants with indoor dining – are left to determine their own policies: open or closed, mask or no mask, without governmental guidance. On the main street here, about half the stores require masks. The presence of a sign like this draws attention to its absence elsewhere.
Anonymous
Zurich, Nov 2020. The absence of the sound of the music and the happy encounters that one would hear when walking through the square in the evening.
N.N.
The Stolpersteine (Stumbling Stones) is a project by the artist Gunter Demnig, which began in 1992. With small memorial plaques, so-called Stumbling Stones, laid in the ground, the aim is to commemorate the fate of people who were persecuted, murdered, deported, driven out or driven to suicide during the National Socialist (Nazi) era. Stolpersteine was laid in Germany as well as in 25 other European countries. They are considered the largest decentralised memorial in the world.
There were always discussions about the project. On the one hand, right-wingers were of course against it, but there were also concerns that the name would be trampled on. All in all, however, it is probably predominantly a strong wish of the population to remember the murdered, to oppose forgetting.
Berlin (Nov 3) and Zoom (Nov 20)
absence vs. presence
anonymous
screenshot of the Whitechapel Gallery during lockdown
A lady in red
Zurich, Switzerland
20.11.2020
Photographer: Miao He
Date: November 20th, 2020
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
Socially Distanced Birthday Picture and Twitter Screenshot
“The way social distancing works requires faith: we must begin to see the negative space as clearly as the positive, to know what we don’t do is also brilliant and full of love. We face such a strange task, here, to come together in spirit and keep a distance in body at the same time.”
from Anne Boyer “The Virus”, April 2020
Tony Maslic
An encounter with a creature of the night. Usually loudly producing its rhythms competing with the noise of the city but not often showing itself… Hong Kong.
scene 3 – Apartment building staircase
Dark Apartment building staircase
scene 2 – a park
a park at night
Small Projects for Coming Communities
Studio Bank, Tel Aviv - Yaffa
19.01.2020
no data is an island
Studio Bank, Tel Aviv - Yaffa
17.01.2020
n.n.
Hong Kong
15.01.2020
overpainting until the last memory is gone.
n.n.
the absence of a university.
Jade Vu Henry
18.11.2020
chair stacks
November 18, 2020
unclaimed
Watching “La Brousse” on Day 2
We arrived home to our 800 square foot flat after spending over 40 hours in airports and airplanes, and after a further 12 hours of waiting at the Asia World Expo for a negative result from our Covid-19 tests. We were relieved to be home, relieved to have a negative test results, and our three children were relieved to see their own toys again. We had left Hong Kong 4 months ago. Expecting to only be visiting my sister for 2 weeks, subsequent flight cancellations allowed us to experience the change of 3 seasons in rural North America.
Waking up on June 4th in our own beds. The heaviness of humidity at dawn fits my jet lagged state of mind. I am slightly lifted by the realization that this actually counts as Day 2 of our 14 day mandatory at home quarantine. The day spent at the testing facility counted as Day 1. In a grey-walled room without windows, lit by overhead fluorescent flood lamps, and dozing through the hushed echoes of clinicians at work in full hazmat suites, Day 1 ominously warned of what the government quarantine camps and makeshift hospitals hold in store for those who test positive.
June 4th mid-morning I join the children in living room where they play with Lego and listen to cartoons. I sip my coffee as I look out across the harbour to the city center. I read the headlines already. Over 3000 riot police have been deployed across the city. The annual June 4th peaceful vigil that has been held in Victoria Park since 1990 was denied a public assembly license. Despite official reasoning citing the government’s social gathering restrictions for controlling the virus and warnings of hefty fines and arrests for violating the 8-person gathering restriction, we know people will congregate. How many will be arrested?
My gaze falls away from the window and as I turn toward the hall, I glance this photograph. This photograph hangs above our couch. My husband chose this image. I remember at the time being somewhat indifferent to his choice. This image? There were similar ones to choose from on the photographer’s site. I admit that it can easily be overlooked, merely serving to “green up” our muted-toned, cement block flat in a room that is mostly beige and dotted with primary colored toys. One might label it as “Decorative Art”.
If you look at this photograph you can see vegetation, dirt and rocks, pieces of sky between leaves. You cannot see an animal, a person, a path. These nouns are absent. However, if you watch the image, subjects do indeed emerge. I know that it’s most likely that you, reading this entry, have had conversations about in/visibility before. What is in the frame vs. what is out of the frame. Representation and the curated “truth” of a photograph. Ariella Azoulay calls this the civil contract of photography. The contract is an encounter between the subject, the photographer, the viewer and the camera through time and space. “The photograph is out there, an object in the world, and anyone always (at least in principle), can pull at one of its threads and trace it in such a way as to reopen the image and renegotiate what it shows, possibly even completely over-turning what was seen it in before.”[1] This image indeed does have protagonists. A photographer was there, a plant was growing, an insect hiding, the trace of person sitting on that cushion who was just looking out her window and worrying about how many students would be arrested today. A subject is not absent. There is narration here.
Just by looking at this photograph, it’s hard to tell what time it is. It is day-time. But I do not know the location. I do not know how to read the light – is it morning? Is it spring? Was this moment captured ten years ago or yesterday? Time is elusive and easily warped in the dimensions of this image, just as my time has been in various states of government “lock down”, “stay at home” orders and “mandated home-quarantine”. I watch this photograph with a government issued wristband secured to my wrist. The type of wristband that used to flash VIP access to backstage at a concert. But now, indicates that I am surveilled. I am being watched while I watch this photograph in my living room. “Photos are always dangling between two modes – between what’s depicted on the photographic paper and the traces of the photographic act, between the two-dimensional image and the chaos of the reality out of which it was forged, between being a silent picture on a wall and being (the traces of) a scrap of the world teeming with life.”[2] Watching this photograph on day two of my fourteen days in quarantine, in the morning of June 4th, 2020 in Hong Kong. Time is not absent in this photograph. Time is not absent in the collection of the images in this score.
It’s difficult to say what emotion this image is meant to evoke, if a specific one at all. Like I said, it could be easily forgotten, merely taken in as geometry, along with the shelves of books and games, balancing the room by being placed opposite of the television screen. But watching this photograph with the now late morning sun and heat pouring through the windows, the intensity of its high contrast enabled by the high dynamic range setting of the camera makes me notice the sweat collecting on my brow and I feel uncomfortable. I know the greenery calls for a sense of tranquility, the abundance of life visible and invisible in the image should be reassuring, but I am unsettled. Affect is not absent in this photograph. I close the blinds half-way and shift to the other side of the room to turn on the air conditioner. The photograph is shaded now and there is the possibility of ease, a serenity that becomes present. “Her reorganization of the visible plane enables her to suspend the act of looking, putting distance between herself and the photographer’s viewpoint, which is frequently imposed on the spectator”.3 By addressing constraints and injury, she opens up other possibilities.
[1] Azoulay, Civil Contract of Photography, 13.
[2] Ibid 448
[3] Ibid 421
vanishing line
16.11.2020
Lisa Lehner | November 16, 2020 | night before lockdown no.2, gps in my car
thousands of cars paint in red the street lines that tansect Vienna on this night before the second lockdown as city-dwellers leave in congested droves for their homes beyond the city line (ones with a garden and expanse beyond a city’s space), their absence causing pause where once congestion was a sign of liveliness not absence-making
Somebody
15.01.2020
Student Residency in a certain university, Hong Kong
15.01.2020
Remains of a slogan at the stairs to high-level halls. It was painted in November 2019, cleaned by the university in December 2019.
你若放棄誰佑我城 (How will we protect our city if you give up?)
Possibly Anyone
Tin Shui Wai, public stairways, MTR station, Hong Kong.
Layers of paint to censor and abstract the original urban messages of revolt into a new visual expression. Left behind is a motif of small paper fragments and painted stains shaped intricately. It became something anew, something that reminds us of new scripts or an alien language, an echoing residue shifted into abstract visual poetry, where this renewed absence of explicit meaning turned into an even stronger signified message of oppression and power abuse. A work of art that denotes a strong political message as a reminder. The remains of what these walls were originally communicating are not allowed to exist anymore, but the message it utters now in place, signals an even stronger evidence of erasure of ideas, opinions and ultimately the destruction of public discourse in a tour the force by incompetence and fear in an attempt to eradicate dissent. The walls turned into meta-mirrors denoting consent, questioning the public to reflect on their own responsibilities of being complicit in condoning and whitewashing lies and suppression. These hastily enforced decisions will be pivotal for the coming generations in a future, which is now decided. The silence that is left is a marker for contemplation sparked by these new artworks of absence on the urban canvas of the new Hong Kong.
Tin Shui Wai, public stairways, MTR station, Hong Kong.
before the fires
01.11.2020
Nadine Tanio
morning view, November 2019
Anonymous
Voices have been numbed in an eerily silence. The residual remains of visual communication denoting resistance and communal opinions in free speech are still echoing as muted witnesses the turbulent moments that were so ubiquitous. A deceptive sense of peace and calm represented by the stillness and emptiness reverberates loud and clearly an ominous message of fear from a lobotomized society heading to an uncertain future.
Hong Kong’s Tai Po Market under passage.
Something was there
Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon, Hong Kong
08.06.2020
8 June 2020 in Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
It was a day before the one year anniversary of a million people took on the streets of Hong Kong on 9 June 2019. Some conversation was keep going on over those paints by covering or un-covering each other all the time since June 2019. This morning a new message was found there: 藍C清牆真給力，讓我發放新訊息 Blue ribbons (government supporters) cleans this wall so well, so that I could send some new information.
after death
01.07.2020
The first day after Hong Kong national security law came into effect, the July 1 march was banned by police for the first time. While still a lot of people took on the streets, people talked about the death of “One Country Two System” and also death of “Hong Kong” on the street… a lot of underground banknotes were left on the street at the end of the day.
A comrade said: Welcome to the hell, and let’s have some fun!
d.r.
Berlin
05.11.2020
Non mortem timemus, sed cogitationem mortis
Nicht den Tod fürchten wir, sondern die Vorstellung des Todes
It is not death we fear but the thought of it.- Seneca
Anonymous
Column. 721. Mismatched grey paint. 721. Another shade. 721. Another blotch. 721. Patched over. 721. Heightened. 721. Patch. Paint. Mismatch. Wiped. No need to write now. A blotch of grey is enough. Indelible.
Residual Walk
We kindly ask for sharing whatever speaks of an absence around you. It could be a written text (poems, memos, sentences) and/or visuals (photos, screenshots, diagrams) in the absence of …
Amidst the ongoing pandemic and social movements worldwide, what has become absent in your public domain—from the university to the thoroughfare, from the museum to the street corner?
What is no longer visible in our public spaces, which was there before the pandemic started or before the movements were temporarily interrupted? How do these spaces look today? An example could be a wall which once held slogans and stickers but has been continuously overpainted, or a space (re)made through absence. Traces that still communicate the once abundance of messages. Contents erased in a residue denoting a deprived communal conscience, not unlike a discarded sculptural mold where the empty space is leaving the mind to interpret and imagine what once was the object of discourse.
Alina
30.08.2020
Summer last picture
Rome, beach, August 2020
Sophie
Kassel
01.11.2020
Obelisk by Olu Oguibe
Ronald
Kassel
01.11.2020
Residue of the original place of oguibe’s obelisk
Victoria
Kassel
01.11.2020
Kassel Morning
maria elena garzoni
Kassel
01.11.2020
Feeling at home with ruangrupa.
Tetiana Kartasheva
Altstetten, Zurich
31.10.2020
Wild cats of Altstetten. Zurich
Dorothee
Kassel
31.10.2020
Kassel bird in grey sky
Maria Elena Garzoni
Kassel
31.10.2020
Victoria
Kassel
31.10.2020
Kassel sheep
Lenita
Kassel
31.10.2020
Sophie’s head
Sophie
Kassel
31.10.2020
Flying together
ME, ME, ME. (ego trip)
People prosternate before you, repeating your name like a mantra.
You are standing there, in the light, a fancy cape on your shoulders.
Depending on how boring you believe the crowd will be and on how high your expectations are you may want to implement a few of these :
– make it collective. not only you will be God. take turns.
– smoothly slide in action.
step 1 : You : “Hi, I’m {first and last name}.”
All : “Hi, {first and last name}”.
Continue like this for the whole group to introduce.
step 2 : First one goes to the middle.
Reminds his name.
All bow, face to the ground
All mantra his name for a minute, and stop somehow
Continue like this for the whole group to shine
– humour should be flying around before you start
– keep it short, disperse rapidly
Possible upgrades :
– good scheduling, ideally after a drink or two
– dark room with carpets
– lamp in the middle
– smoke machine
– shiny cape
– dolphin music or musician
This score calls for no discussion, no reflection.
Score
Dorothee Richter, Photos by Nils Kontz
Studio Banks, Tel Aviv, 25 Jan 2020
Dorothee Richter, Photos by Nils Kontz, featuring Abongile
Studio Bank, Tel Aviv, 25 Jan 2020
Studio Bank, Tel Aviv, 25 Jan 2020
Photo by Nils Kontz
Studio Bank, Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv Jaffa
25.01.2020
25 January – 16 February 2020
Small Project for Coming Communities in Tel Aviv
Exhibition at Studio Bank, Tel Aviv–Jaffa
71 Ben Yehuda st., Tel Aviv – Jaffa (corner of 16 Mapu st.)
Opening: Saturday, 25 January 2020, from 5.00pm
Opening Hours: Monday 11am–2pm, Thursday 2–5pm
Introduction by Professor Dorothee Richter, Head of the CAS/MAS in Curating and Director of PhD in Practice in Curating, Practice-Based Doctoral Programme, the University of Reading and the Zurich University of the Arts, ZHdK
Short presentations by young curators from Israel and Switzerland including: Hila Cohen Schneiderman, Bar Yerushalmi, Gili Zaidman, Eveline Mathis and Anastasia Chaguidouline.
Artistic interventions by local performers including Maya Dunitz, David Lemoine, Oz Malul and Anna Zakrevsky.
On display are scores of by Robert Blatt, Maya Bamberger & Ronny Koren, Ofri Cnaani, Maria Dis, David Lemoine, Christine Ellison, Dganit Elyakim, Eran Hadas, San Keller, Ronald Kolb, Michael Leung, Neue Dringlichkeit, Ceyda Oskay, Dorothee Richter, Anike Joyce Sadiq, Yael Sloma, Pongpan Suriyapat, Nir Segal, Anat Pick, Kacey Wong, Zoncy, and works by Anastasia Chaguidouline, Axel Crettenand and Kacey Wong.
Curatorial direction: Prof. Dr. Dorothee Richter, Ronald Kolb
Curation of local iteration: Hadas Kedar (director Studio Bank)
Project Management: Julia Yablonsky
Studio Bank is an art project housed in a seven-story building that was once the headquarters of one of the main banks of Israel. More than forty creative people from different areas of expertise, including: performance, sound, visual art, theater, film, poetry, design, choreography and illustration have been assigned studio spaces in the building. Two studio residencies have been put aside for overseas professionals.
Situated on the west bank of one of the commercial streets of the city – Ben Yehuda “Straße” -surrounded by Bauhaus architecture, galleries, boutiques and cafes, the location of “Studio Bank” highlights the street’s role in the ongoing effort made by the founders of Israel to assimilate into a European-like cultural center.
The project’s in-between stage (former bank / future hotel) – its temporality – is strengthened by its proximity to the beach. In the last two decades, with the rise of tourism to the area, the beach has developed into the main focus point of the city. It attracts residents and tourists for sport, culture and commercial activities. With its popularity comes a real concern about its future. The dynamic quality of the nearby shoreline, inscribing and erasing the escalating sea level, serves as a reminder of the fragility of our natural resources.
Hadas Kedar (Director of “Studio Bank”) is a researcher, lecturer and curator based in Tel Aviv-Yaffo and in the Naqab desert. She is the founder of the Tel Aviv-Yaffo municipal gallery “Nuzhaa” and the Arad municipal gallery and residency spaces “Art and Architecture Arad” and “Arad Contemporary Art Center”.
Kedar is a graduate of Bezalel Academy of Art and Design (Israel) and Middlesex University (UK) and is currently a PhD candidate in the Postgraduate Programme in Curating at Zurich.
Maya Bamberger and Courtney Neal
Zollikon
10.10.2019
Zollikon, 10.10.19
