05. – 07.11.2007

WITH
FORCED ENTERTAINMENT (GB)
WERNER NEKES (DE)
OLAV WESTPHALEN (DE/US)

IMPACT07 is a transdisciplinary symposium that considers artistic strategies and methodologies in terms of practice, theoretical discourse and critical reflection.

This year’s invited guest artists/groups FORCED ENTERTAINMENT(GB), Werner Nekes (DE) and Olav Westphalen (DE/USA) all explore and challenge the tools and mechanisms of their ­specific genres to open up alternative modes of perception and representation beyond the bounds of received conventions. Their highly individual approaches freely make use of devices such as illusion, comedy, parody, quotation and provocation. Reality and fiction, original as well as existing and borrowed material, all find place in their works. Playing with multi-layered readings of meaning, strands of interpretation, the balance of powers, rules, regulations and expectations, are likewise characteristic of their practices. Creating distortions between different realities, they lead their viewers into a grey zone that defies clear definition or ­representation. Here the viewers become instrumental partners in the ­shaping and reading of meaning.

The former pithead shower building which is home to PACT Zollverein, as well as the surrounding Zollverein mine complex, offer a stimulating location for lectures, presentations, joint experiments, interventions, discussions and reflection. IMPACT07 is aimed at artists, students, academics and journalists working in the fields of dance, theatre, the fine arts and new media.

The working language at the symposium is English.

Before the symposium begins, FORCED ENTERTAINMENT will perform Quizoola at PACT Zollverein on Saturday, 03. November and on Sunday, 04. November there will be a reading of ›Desert Dreams‹ from OLAV WESTPHALEN as well as a screening of the film ›Uliisses‹ from WERNER NEKES.

IMPACT07 is sponsored by the Kunststiftung NRW

SYMPOSIUM EPISODE 1

MON, 05.11.07

FORCED ENTERTAINMENT (GB)
›SOME OF THE WAYS: A FORCED ENTERTAINMENT WORKSHOP‹

»Forced Entertainment sind furchtlose Vertreter des subversiven Theaters.« (The Guardian)

Widely regarded as one of the most important performance groups in Europe, Forced Enter­tainment makes consistently engaging, challenging and surprising work spanning theatre, durational performance, live art, gallery installation, video and digital media. Formed in 1984 and led by writer and director Tim Etchells, the themes the company return to are life in cities, identity and sexual politics, the relation­ship of lived experience to the images of media culture, the nature of language, the attractiveness of chaos and the desire for order, and the need to confess.

Drawing on such things as text, the possibilities of space and the creative limits of rules and game-structures, members of the company will take a practical trip into some of the process, concerns and approaches that they have pursued through the group‘s long history of work at the cutting edge of contemporary theatre and performance.

SYMPOSIUM EPISODE 2

TUE, 06.11.07

WERNER NEKES (DE)
›WIE EIN KLEINES LOCH DIE WAHRNEHMUNG DER WELT VERÄNDERT HAT.‹

»Denk daran, wenn Du tot bist, musst Du jeden Film, den du gedreht hast, jeden Tag zweimal anschauen, im Fegefeuer der Filmemacher.« (Werner Nekes)

Werner Nekes is an internationally recognised experimental filmmaker, media artist, researcher and collector of pre-cinematographic artefacts. Since the 1960s Nekes, the “revolutionary of film language”, has produced over 100 films. Rather than narrative content, the medium of film and its own intrinsic possibilities, are at the forefront of his work. His persistent interest in the make-up of moving images and quest for new forms of expression, led him to extensive research into the history of visual media, illusion techniques and pre-film animation techniques. Since the 1970s, Nekes has compiled one of the most important private collections of artefacts documenting 500 years of pre-cinematographic experiments as well as developments in the early history of film.

During IMPACT07, Nekes will draw on his unique media history documentary film series, ›Media Magica‹, to consider the principles and conditions of visual perception. The study of the history of visual media technologies lends us an understanding for what happens between the pictures that sparks ideas for developing new innovative visual worlds.

SYMPOSIUM EPISODE 3

WED, 07.11.07
OLAV WESTPHALEN (DE/US)
›WORLD POLITICS COSTUME CUDDLE PARTY‹

Olav Westphalen, in second life one half of the cartoonist duo Rattelschneck, is one of the most versatile artists of his generation. His art, which is located between the realms of art and daily life, is experimental and makes use of different genres. In performances, sculptures, installations and drawings, he reveals contradictions and blind spots in accepted methodologies and shakes up art‘s logic by over-fulfilling the standards employed by critics and the public to gauge and exploit a work of art. Often with a playful but sharp sense of humor, Westphalen’s work questions and exposes social and cultural patterns and how power, knowledge and morals are anchored in society.

Together with the IMPACT07 participants, Olav Westphalen will test the boundaries between performance and ›therapeutic‹ practice, between theatrical presentation and authentic experience, in a ›World Politics Costume Cuddle Party‹; a kind of laboratory experiment on performance versus authenticity.

PUBLIC PROGRAMME

SAT 03.11.07, 18:00

Theatre/Performance
FORCED ENTERTAINMENT (GB)
›QUIZOOLA!‹

SUN 04.11.07, 19:00

Reading
OLAV WESTPHALEN (DE/US)
›DESERT DREAMS (unpublished original screenplay)‹
Suitable only for persons of 18 years and older.

SUN 04.11.07, 20:30

Film & Talk
WERNER NEKES (DE)
›ULIISSES‹