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It is not so much the content, but our signature beneath it, which obliges us. Since 1993 Jouke Kleerebezem’s interests focus on the world wide web and internet as independent venues and platform for art, design and critical practices. During the 1980s he experimented with the production and presentation of contemporary art, initiating and co-directing artist space De Zaak in Groningen, NL. De Zaak foundation ran a space for the presentation and discussion of multiple disciplines and published 42 issues of the Drukwerk De Zaak magazine, conceived as a medium in its own right for the production of printed artist work. De Zaak closed on the threshold of the 1990s, on New Years Eve 1989–90, because its concept, while being (too) successful, was considered tired and new alternative practices were on the horizon, some of which soon to be discovered ‘computer-enhanced’ and networked. His 1990 exhibition at the Van Abbemuseum, entitled The Irremediable Narrative, preceded the large curatorial project Allocations at the occasion of the Floriade World Horticultural Exhibition 1992. This project realized the installation on its festival grounds of new commissioned works by at the time well and lesser known, or even almost forgotten artists Vito Acconci, Dennis Adams, Ashley Bickerton, Marinus Boezem, Mel Chin, Fastwürms, Fortuyn/O’Brien, Peter Fend’s oecd, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Ludger Gerdes, Piero Gilardi, Jan van Grunsven, ifp, Arno van der Mark, Matt Mullican, David Nyzio, Paul Perry, Joke Robaard, Q.S. Serafijn, Merle Laderman Ukeles, Rob Scholte, Herman de Vries and Chen Zhen. Many of their works were informed by ecological and leisure/media industry issues, long before such topics caught artworld-at-large attention. Over the years 1993–1999 JK’s artistic organizational practice includes new media collaborations with Mediamatic and Doors of Perception conferences. Several individual web projects are started, most of them at some point to be discontinued, the first being Shadowplay, uploaded on 17 October 1995. From 22 March 1998 his then called ‘weblog’ (epithet dismissed in 2004, for its calendar compulsion) Notes, Quotes, Provocations and Other Fair Use bundles his attention by challenging it out loud right from the very first post: “Decide to delay the informatic license document. Instead built this one from scratch. Lots of activity over the past weeks. Email discussion outbursts on the future of cities with the Amsterdam 2.0 group; on the Doors 5 Play theme, with artist Michael Samyn and webmaster Kristi van Riet; and on the Info Design?-Café list, on ‘what is information design’. The latter discussion pops up ever once in a while. My Vision Plus? paper stretches the envelope on the topic, so I thought I’d give the discussion some attention. Reflecting on Goldhaber’s attention economy, I remember I once considered attention a gift. ‘Economy’ of course is the metaphor du jour… How can we potlatch attention? ‘’The main purpose of the potlatch is of course gift-giving. Every player should arrive with one or more gifts and leave with one or more different gifts. (…) Gifts need not be physical objects. (…) However, it should be recalled that in the Amerindian potlatches the gifts were supposed to be superb & even ruinous to the givers.’‘ — Hakim Bey Deplete your attention!” ‘Deplete your attention’… NQPaOFU activity is much competed since the start in February 2005 of a more intimate online project and very disciplined daily publication, a ‘narrowcast’ maintained between 3–6 friends, written in Dutch, illustrated and dedicated to his two sons and their friends, for their future read. Meanwhile other networked projects have been added. In 2004 he was invited by director Macha Roessink of Museum De Paviljoens Almere, to build a presentation around his current interests. The resulting Enclav’Exquise/ Exquisite Enclave is an exhibition cum printed publication cum internet domain. Being an Advising Researcher at the Design Department of the Jan van Eyck Academie from 2001–2006, on the basis of his essay ‘De vervreemding aan de macht’ (‘alienation rules’), in Items magazine (#4, 2000), he was invited to recast the department, without necessarily turning it into the next me too ‘new media’ course. A first project is the Design Recast symposium, followed by Ubiscribe. Other conceptual/curatorial projects on the edge of old and new media included Silicon Rally (2001) for Stroom Art and Architecture in The Hague; naming and contributing to the information design project Info Arcadia?, curated by Maarten de Reus and Ronald van Tienhoven for the same institution; co-organizing the Welcome to Fusedspace Database installation by Team Science Fiction, again at Stroom, under a new director, in collaboration with the Design Department at Jan van Eyck Academie. Essays appeare(d) in among others De Witte Raaf, Metropolis M, Items, Mute, Mediamatic. In retrospect all projects are driven by dynamics with a long history in the arts, relating everyday interests and daily routines to symbolic and social-informational practices. We are living the Early Information Age, an era which is only a couple of decades old, when all new material and routines are still hot and liquid and forming unfamiliar shapes which, if ever they might prove to have some sustainability, will be read as unfinished’ — this time and age after all is premature, by definiton. Since 1998 http://www.nqpaofu.com |
