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RESIDENT TECHNICIAN’S NOTES Back when the world was flat it was infinitely expansive. Now in its finite spherical state (the state of globalism), we are running out of space/time. Where are you? On the train to the airport, on your way to work, to bed. Constantly en route, we try to situate ourselves locally, layering smells, roadmaps and cloud patterns - another day another dérive. We explore the foreign keyboard looking for landmarks like apostrophes and brackets from which we can write home. We whisper into our lover's ear on the phone, "What time is it there?" You are here and the same sun shines on you as on Canada, the Netherlands, the Himalayas, or Mars. In a small backyard of central Rotterdam, I constructed a situation/space called This Neck of the Woods. In agreement with the landlord, I built a rustic cabin on what was temporarily declared Canadian soil, this project ran on 110 volt energy (Canadian standard) collected via solar-panels, and featured two transplanted Canadian trees from A Week in the Woods in Montreal. The agreement between resident technician and landlord stipulated that the cabin could be used for two years as an site for artist residencies, after which time it would revert to his funky garden house on his property, officially located in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In the Canadian wilderness of Rotterdam guest artists could feel both the local and the exotic. Domestic artists did not suffer jet-lag or airport taxes, while Canadians did not need to use voltage transformer or suffer homesickness. All residents were able to look out of the window at the Canadian pine and maple trees as they slowly drifted into a time-zone-free sleep. At the end of 2006, the land reverted to Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and the cabin reverted to the landlord's garden-house. For me the project was both a retreat for others and my own work-in-progress. It was a temporary situation offering itself for fictional and functional exploration from both sides. In this intersection between my work and theirs, collaborations could spring up or sometimes simply exchanged ideas or physically assisted in one anothers projects. I allowed myself to be influenced by their presence and activities, collecting video footage, scattered musings or remnants of their stays, which I later freely re-interpreted in videos, a website and live talks about my perspective of the Dwelling for Intervals. In 2007, I invited Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands to a ceremony in which I would officially give the land of This Neck of the Woods back. |
LIST OF RESIDENT ARTISTS (in no particular order)
Heidi Blais, Kevin Kelly, Sam Ollmann Chan, Hannah Jickling, Shie Kasai, Adrienne Spier, Steve Badgett, Marjolijn v.d.Meijden, Annu Wilenius, Adriana Sa, Yvette Poorter, Steve Brown, Christine Brault, Arnold Schalks, Bethany Bristow, Johannes Spaans, Michael McCormack, Day, kg Guttman, Ana Rewakowicz, Diane Borsato, Tom Jonsson, Taien Ng-Chan, Hester Keijser, Alexandra Engelfriet, Julie Therond, Joe Ollmann, Dac Chartrand, Carol Larsen, Norman Beierle. Residencies lasted between four hours and two weeks.
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SLIDE SHOW (click image to left to activate slide show) This slideshow presents some of the documentation and other contents of the shoebox-under-the-bed. Things are shown in no particular order and a caption at the bottom tells who left it. (please note that there are several links to residency videos and/or websites of resident artists) |
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