Symposium Episode 1

FRI 12.11.10
Philippe Quesne (FR)

Scenic Writing by Philippe Quesne

After studying fine and graphic arts, Philippe Quesne worked mainly as a set designer and in 2003 founded the group Vivarium Studio. Together with actors, visual artists, musicians and regular ensemble member Hermès the dog, Quesne builds pieces in the manner of experiments with a few select constants: the last minute of the previous piece is always the first minute of the new one. Hermès is always in the piece. The smoke machine has to be used. But put simply, the stage is actually just a green room for the bodies of the performers, as well as studio, lab and wonderland under glass – a vivarium. Thus it forms a microcosm in which the issues of modern society are negotiated: the role of art, social interaction, environmental problems.

The highly acclaimed productions have been shown at the Wiener Festwochen, the Festival d’Avignon, at the Centre Pompidou and other important venues worldwide.

Philipp Quesne’s laboratory theater does it’s utmost to modify the conventions of the genre and succeeds in creating a world with blurred outlines, swinging between loneliness and group dynamics, dream and matter, sounds and language. The starting point for the workshop during IMPACT10 will be a title that gives occasion to discover and experiment with the creative process.

Symposium Episode 2

SAT 13.11.10
Tino Sehgal (GB/DE)

Tino Sehgal studied dance and political economy, his works are constructed situations presented at galleries and museums during their entire opening hours. Sehgal’s works can take a different course depending on the visitor’s behaviour, thus integrating an aspect of participation into the structure of the work itself. In 2005 he represented Germany at the Venice Biennale, in 2010 he had a solo show at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, and his works are included in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, Tate and MoMA.

IMPACT10 and Tino Sehgal invite you to a workshop on points of departure, sources of motivation and artistic strategies.

Symposium Episode 3

SUN 14.11.10
Jim Trainor (US)
ECCENTRIC ANIMATION

At the age of 13, filmmaker Jim Trainor began making animated films and his medium has changed little since then: black magic marker on white paper, filmed on 16 mm. His films have been shown internationally at important festivals and biennales, as well as in well-known museums and other contexts: Whitney Biennale, Museum of Modern Art (New York), Sundance Film Festival, New York Animation Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen. He has received awards from the San Francisco International Festival, Black Maria Film Festival, and the New York Underground Film Festival. In 2000, Jim Trainor accepted a teaching position at the prestigious School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Although Trainor’s films are devoted to the fictional, they always take as their starting point a clump of curious facts that are nourished by his deep interest in diverse topics. This has spawned a film biography about the serial killer William Heirens and produced a story about Moschops – a prehistoric mammal-like reptile that lived in the Permian age and which scientists believe was capable of tenderness, which it expressed through incessant fighting. In his newest project ›The Pink Egg‹, he lets human actors re-enact the life cycles of insects in order to tell the story of the evolution of insect societies.

How are animated worlds created? Which decisions are made, what aesthetic chosen, what stories told? Based on individualistic and groundbreaking approaches from the past history and present reality of animation, the workshop during IMPACT10 will explore these and other questions hands-on in more than just theory.