GOODBYE WITTGENSTEIN PART 2

Tue Nov 1 — Fri Dec 9 2016 /// 
Linz ///

GOODBYE WITTGENSTEIN is an inter­na­tion­al exchange pro­gram between artists and aca­d­e­mics from qujOchÖ in Linz, Aus­tria and artists select­ed by A3 Project Space in part­ner­ship with BOM Birm­ing­ham Open Media and Ate­lier­haus Salzamt Linz.

Par­tic­i­pants in the pro­gram take the rela­tion­ship between the Aus­tri­an born philoso­pher Lud­wig Wittgen­stein (1889 — 1951) and David Hume Pin­sent from Birm­ing­ham (1891 — 1918) as a start­ing point for a series of projects that will hap­pen in Linz and Birm­ing­ham dur­ing 2016. The projects respond to Wittgenstein’s ear­ly text “Notes on Log­ic” which was dic­tat­ed by Wittgen­stein in 1913 dur­ing a vis­it to see David in Birm­ing­ham. “Notes in Log­ic” is notably the pre­de­ces­sor of what is con­sid­ered to be one of the most impor­tant philo­soph­i­cal texts of the 20th Cen­tu­ry, “Trac­ta­tus Logi­co Philosophicus”.

The first phase of the Good­bye Wittgen­stein pro­gram was a vis­it to Birm­ing­ham from qujOchÖ artists Ver­e­na Henet­mayr, Thomas Philipp and Andre Zogholy in Sum­mer 2016 who have been enact­ing and doc­u­ment­ing a series of pub­lic inter­ven­tions at places that are con­nect­ed to the life of Wittgen­stein and Pin­sent. In Novem­ber 2016 a group of four artists around A3 Project Space will come to Linz, where Wittgen­stein vis­it­ed the tech­ni­cal ori­en­tat­ed “K.u.k. Realschule” between 1903 and 1906. Emi­ly Warn­er, Trevor Pitt, Pete Ash­ton and Mike John­ston will use their res­i­dences at Ate­lier­haus Salzamt and quitch to go on the trail of the philosopher.

The res­i­den­cy includes a pub­lic talk at quitch on 4 Novem­ber 2016 and an exhi­bi­tion of the works at Ate­lier­haus Salzamt, run­ning from 24 Novem­ber to 9 Decem­ber 2016.

Dis­cobob­u­late­bang­bang: Good­bye Wittgenstein
Fri 4 Nov 2016 19:00
quitch, Untere Donaulände 10

On Fri­day 4 Novem­ber 2016 the four artists from Birm­ing­ham will talk about their work and the meth­ods they use for GOODBYE WITTGENSTEIN. This is fol­lowed by an alter­nat­ing DJ-Set called “Dis­cobob­u­late­bang­bang”.

Kristallin #38: Good­bye Wittgenstein
Tue 24 Nov — Fri 9 Dec 2016
Ate­lier­haus Salzamt, Obere Donaulände 15
Open­ing: Wed 23 Nov 2016 19:00

The works real­ized in Linz will be shown dur­ing the 38th edi­tion of the Kristallin series at Ate­lier­haus Salzamt. The exhi­bi­tion will be opened on Wednes­day 23 Novem­ber 2016 at 7 pm and runs until Fri­day 9 Decem­ber 2016.

Links:
http://a3projectspace.org
http://www.bom.org.uk
http://digbethfirstfriday.com
http://www.linz.at/kultur/salzamt.asp
http://mikeinmono.blogspot.co.at
http://emily-warner.com
http://www.podprojects.org
http://www.peteashton.com

Sup­port­ed by Aus­tri­an Cul­tur­al Forum Lon­don, BKA Kun­st, Land Oberöster­re­ich and Stadt Linz.

GOODBYE WITTGENSTEIN in LINZ | Works

Trevor Pitt: “David and Ludwig”

Artist state­ment: “I will use my time at Salzamt to devel­op the form and struc­ture for a 21st Cen­tu­ry Queer ℗opera; sketch­ing out the libret­to (based on Pinsent’s diaries), com­pos­ing music using Log­ic soft­ware and cre­at­ing maque­ttes for stag­ing, mise-en-scene. […] One of the out­comes of the res­i­den­cy will a live per­for­mance of extracts from the opera ‘David and Ludwig’.”

Trevor Pitt is an artist and cura­tor based in Birm­ing­ham who has been devis­ing projects in gal­leries and the pub­lic sphere for 15 years. His work emerges from the social and cul­tur­al con­text with­in which they are pro­duced and he adopts a spec­trum of col­lab­o­ra­tive strate­gies and meth­ods of enquiry. Although his prac­tice is fun­da­men­tal­ly that of an artist, he oper­ates as a cura­tor, com­mis­sion­er, researcher and facil­i­ta­tor depen­dent on the nature of the “role” he adopts with­in the dynam­ic of a project. In 2007 he set up POD Projects as a plat­form and a strat­e­gy for col­lab­o­ra­tive ven­tures with artists, orga­ni­za­tions and the pub­lic. In 2012 he set up A3 Project Space in Birm­ing­ham, UK as artist stu­dios and a gallery that pro­vides con­tem­po­rary artists with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op new work and new rela­tion­ships with their audiences.

Pete Ash­ton: “Wittgen­stein wan­delt wehmütig widriger Winde wegen Wienwärts”

Artist state­ment: “For Good­bye Wittgen­stein I plan to use the school­yard taunt ‘Wittgen­stein strolls wist­ful­ly Vien­na-wards due to adverse winds’ as a tem­plate to explore Linz from the per­spec­tive of the young philoso­pher. I plan to under­take reg­u­lar walks from the Realschule in the direc­tion of Vien­na both alone and accom­pa­nied by oth­ers. These walks will con­sti­tute part of the work. Pho­to­graph­ic and oth­er data cap­tured on these walks will then go towards a piece of visu­al art com­posed using algo­rith­mic process­es trained in part Wittgenstein’s work.”

Pete Ash­ton is an artist, most­ly work­ing with cam­eras and com­put­ers, based in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land. Most of his work is anchored by his fel­low­ship at Birm­ing­ham Open Media where he has been based since it opened in Novem­ber 2014. This work is cur­rent­ly being devel­oped on Github and will start tak­ing shape through 2017. Dur­ing 2016 his fel­low­ship work was most­ly a sab­bat­i­cal based around Spec­u­la­tive Cam­eras, rethink­ing the cam­era as an artis­tic tool. His lat­est works include “20/20 Visions” (for Knowle West Media Cen­tra), “Ikon Traces Walk­ing Tour” (for Ikon gallery and Still Walk­ing fes­ti­val), Sit­ting In Sta­gram (2015), Cross City Walks at the Flat­pack Film Fes­ti­val (2015) and Live Soni­fi­ca­tion of Pho­tog­ra­phy (2014).

Mike John­ston: “The Linz Chapter”

Artist state­ment: “The Linz Chap­ter will both be a stand­alone piece and a part of my ongo­ing writ­ten work inspired by Wittgenstein’s vis­its to Birm­ing­ham. These are scarce­ly men­tioned in the exist­ing nar­ra­tives of his life, but after much research an inter­est­ing sto­ry has begun to emerge. […] The Linz Chap­ter is pos­si­ble because it too is a post-indus­tri­al sec­ond city like Birm­ing­ham. Con­se­quent­ly the trans­fer of themes will pro­vide an inter­est­ing com­par­i­son. And as we know, Wittgenstein’s edu­ca­tion was in Linz which makes his ghost avail­able for com­ment. Two themes in par­tic­u­lar have emerged from research in Birm­ing­ham – noth­ing­ness and par­adise. Devel­op­ment of these in Linz will involve an explo­ration to find and doc­u­ment their local sig­ni­fiers. […] There will be a read­ing of The Linz Chap­ter dur­ing the final week of residency.”

Mike John­ston was born in Belfast, North­ern Ire­land and lives in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land, since 1990. He grad­u­at­ed from Uni­ver­si­ty of Wolver­hamp­ton in 1993 with a degree in Phi­los­o­phy and Pol­i­tics. In 1999 he formed the elec­tron­ic music group Plone and released for “Begin­ner Piano” on Warp records. Fur­ther musi­cal adven­tures includ­ed Mike in Mono, ZX Spec­trum Orches­tra and Mod­i­fied Toy Orches­tra, with releas­es on Half-Eat­en, Sta­t­ic Car­a­van, and Warm Cir­cuit. His art prac­tice sprang from involve­ment in the ZX Spec­trum Orches­tra: cre­at­ing ani­ma­tions using machine code, archa­ic print­ed works and graph paper illus­tra­tions. John­ston exhib­it­ed at Cit­ric, Bres­cia and LAB­o­ral, Gijon. Since 2008 he has been writ­ing about the his­to­ry of Birm­ing­ham in the first half of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, the phi­los­o­phy of Lud­wig Wittgen­stein and the unex­pect­ed con­nec­tions between the two.

Emi­ly Warn­er: “Num­ber 4, Austria”

Artist state­ment: “Retrac­ing the route cov­er­ing Wittgenstein’s time in Birm­ing­ham, I am com­pil­ing an inven­to­ry of research that will act as a score for per­for­ma­tive response upon arrival in Linz. This doc­u­men­ta­tion com­pris­es of visu­al records, script­ed text and move­ment based respons­es that cor­re­late direct­ly with the sites sig­nif­i­cant to the Good­bye Wittgen­stein nar­ra­tive. Focus­ing upon Wittgenstein’s obses­sion with the pro­duc­tion of an ide­al space for gen­er­at­ing philo­soph­i­cal mat­ter – the remote hut he built by hand. I will be con­struct­ing and inhab­it­ing both real and imag­ined spaces dur­ing my time in Linz. Bring­ing togeth­er mate­r­i­al gar­nered from sites in Birm­ing­ham and Linz, I will fab­ri­cate space as a method for impos­ing con­di­tions of work and productivity.”

Emi­ly Warn­er is an artist and researcher work­ing in a mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary way to explore art as an on-going process, some­thing that tem­porar­i­ly exists as a live expe­ri­ence, an action-based encounter or a con­ver­sa­tion­al sit­u­a­tion. Acti­vat­ing rela­tion­ships with peo­ple and place, she is inter­est­ed in the con­di­tion and con­struc­tion of rela­tion­ships in both phys­i­cal and dig­i­tal contexts.