ABOUT THIS SITE >>> This site is a blog as well as an archive. It gives visibility to the continues working of radical_hope, its current move to radical_house, the research project Distraction As Discipline (2016 - 2019) and the process of OTÇOE - works for passers-by, a working trajectory (2013 and 2014).
radical_house is a long term project and has a threefold nature: it presents a physical place, a framework and a logic. When in 2013 teaching and mentoring became an extension of Langsdorf's artistic practices now radical_house stems from her pedagogical experience where 'being in dialogue' with others is her main principle.
Distraction As Discipline is
an investigation into enactivist principles in art and education
(research trajectory at KASK School
of Arts Ghent 2016-19). It considers the potential of performance art and
pedagogy in general, in resisting the current and massive
desubjectivation, by critically reclaiming both, attention for the moment and participation in a process.
OTÇOE - works for passers-by was the development of radical_hope's artistic practice in the city and questioned how and by whom this practice (and its bodily, social and economical aspects) is perceived. The title refers to the public of a city and to how we encounter and register most things on our way through the city: Out of The Corner of Our Eyes. OTÇOE.
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SHOP SHOP Official Proposal
A few weeks after the first Shop Shop meeting and based on the input given by the group, Heike Langsdorf and Sébastien Hendrickx compose the first version of the Shop Shop proposal:
A shop is an environment where commercial activities take place. The etymological predecessor of the word ‘commerce’ is the Latin ‘commercium’, meaning: "trade, trafficking," from com- "together" (see com-) + merx (genitive mercis) "merchandise". In a shop the practice of producing and the practice of selling can be combined. Think of a bakery for example; that’s a shop where they make and sell bread. A shop is a place where buyers and producers/sellers relate to each other in an impersonal way. They come together, negotiate and then separate.
Rue Delaunoy is a street in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek with all kinds of shops: bakeries, grocery stores, butcheries, night shops, snack bars and so on. The house-owner of 109 rents the groundfloor as a commercial space.
Heike Langsdorf worked there recently with a group of art-students from a.pass in the frame of a workshop. Since then she has a good contact with the owner. We propose to run this shop with a group of artists in the course of one year, starting in October 2013.
Our Shop Shop will be an ‘as-if shop’, an artistic experiment which copies or rather translates the behavior of a ‘real’ shop. We will discuss every phase of opening and running a shop: investing, finding and installing the place, deciding what to sell and when, connecting to the existing local economy, producing the articles, defining the value and the price of these products, selling and making money, and so on. One of our aims is to redefine words like ‘product’, ‘value’, ‘profit’, ‘risk’, ‘consumption’, ‘competition’, ‘cooperation’,... But don’t get us wrong: we’ll be dealing with ‘real’ products and ‘real’ money!
We are ... up to now (in order of joining in): Heike Langsdorf, Carlotta Scioldo, Raquel Santana de Morais, Michiel Reynaert, Dolores Hulan, Ariane Loze, Einat Tuchman, Christoph Ragg, Nicolas Y Galeazzi, Christoph Ragg, Elke Van Campenhout, Lilia Mestre, Sébastien Hendrickx, Miriam Rohde, Varinia Canto Vila, Hadewych Cocquyt and Michel Yang.
The first problem we have to face is coming up with the monthly rent, an issue stimulating us to actually produce something that is of value there, where we are.
As a team we’ll engage in the decision-making process of how to run our shop.
We offer ... practices, products, services. Every artist joining in, will do so by being present with his or her existing artistic practices. Out of these, products and services can emerge which, in their turn, can be sold. A drawing practice of an architect produces drawings – so the shop can sell drawings. A performer can give classes, based on his or her body practice. A handicraft practice can lead to sellable objects or workshops in which certain skills are taught. During the year there will be an ongoing economical flow of exchange, a continuity in the producing and selling of things and services. The question is: what is of enough interest to be invested in, produced and sold?
A shopwindow constitutes a bridge between the outside and the inside, the street and the shop, the possible buyers and the producers/sellers. What does the presence of a shopwindow produce from an artistic point of view? How does it alter the relationship between the artist and his public? Firstly it reverses the logic of much of today’s ‘community art’ or ‘local art’, as it is not the artist who is scanning a specific neighbourhood – the local community is looking at him instead. Secondly it transforms the logic of the private art studio or atelier, as the artist and his practices are exposed to the gaze of the passer- by. How will this public of potential buyers affect the artistic production?
Sales will take place near the end of October 2014, when the shop will close down, the entire team will produce the ‘final products’ and co-organise the ‘sales’.
EVERYTHING MUST GO!