Stereo is primitive. Cinema operators have known that for a while, and so has anyone with a 7:1 set to go with their TV. Two speakers, no matter how good and big or small, remain two speakers. Now, of course, we also only have two ears, but they can place 360-degree sound thanks to some clever ribbing and our own smart brains. So sound should be...
Slightly nauseated and with shaky legs, I leave the corridor in which I have just experienced Eight by Michel van der Aa. 'Did you follow the circuit in those high heels?' a Holland Festival staff member asks incredulously. Indeed I had better leave my pumps at the entrance. The mixed reality project Eight will have its world premiere on Tuesday 4 June at Muziekgebouw...
The dance film occupies a unique place among the film offerings. Not driven purely by psychologising or text, it offers every opportunity for experimentation in form and content. But that also means it is difficult to place. And therefore difficult to make. The second part on the growing pains of the dance film features 2 dancers and performance artist....
Art at a music festival often degenerates into decoration, but that certainly does not apply to Groningen's CLASH. 'We don't want art to be left out of the programming, but rather to be given full attention. We think it deserves that,' says organiser Milou de Boer. Fifty per cent of CLASH's programming budget goes to the arts, and that was too...
Some 400 virtual metres we go up with the dancers. Beforehand, we are warned to look straight ahead if we are afraid of heights. For me, this was unnecessary, I loved flying along in the huge circular space, knowing I was safely ensconced in a chair. Choreography, avatars, architecture and Blixa Bargeld. Those are a few...
According to those in the know, he is a master of glass creations: Dale Chihuly. Dynamic, colourful and fascinating. It is not just glass art, but installation art. The world-famous American artist's works are a feast for the eyes. Sensations of light and colour. Although the name may not ring a bell right away for most people, there is a good chance...
Slowly but surely, the very latest in virtual reality (VR) is finished and we can start thinking about what you want to show, rather than how. Whereas at the first VR festival I still got whooping headaches from bad glasses, now I can be mesmerised by the beauty of the Amazon or beautiful animations. Movie theatres like Eye...
DocLab 2018 is no longer about the latest technology, but about the human experience. What menu can artists serve us with digital media and artificial intelligence. Examination of reality, playful installations, the Humanoid Cookbook and collaboration with MIT
Voted best VR experience in Venice, Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang's Chalkroom is now available to experience at Eye. A flying dream in a beautifully designed labyrinth of worlds constructed out of language and characters. Anderson herself is coming too.
Usually when I speak to someone who calls themselves a playwright, they say they are 'only' a supplier of a 'half-product'. I never get that answer from a young actor, and certainly never from a director. It is they who make theatre out of the half-products supplied by writers. Actors and directors prefer to be addressed as 'theatre-makers'. Nothing wrong with that....
Occasionally it chafes at Playful Arts, an intimate festival that brings play and art together. It's all about interaction, doing it yourself, experiencing it. Some visitors have to cross a threshold. But then something does happen. Those dancers must be in really good shape," I hear someone behind me mutter reverently. On the other side of the street, a man points to...
Alejandro González Iñárritu's Oscar-winning virtual reality installation Carne y Arena is coming to the Netherlands. Share the experience of illegal migrants clashing with US border police.
Our Thea Derks sat watching a traffic light for a few hours on Thursday 7 June and observed that the music was better. It happened during the opening of the 2018 Holland Festival. In the tradition of Ruth Mackenzie, the opening was of mixed reception, and that is actually a good thing. Even at a time when the Amsterdam Arts Council is in a...
What a grandiose invention to think of breakdance as martial arts dance! In a sense, of course, it has been so from the beginning. Young people in New York's poor neighbourhoods developed their spectacular dance techniques in the 1980s. These were a means for them to express themselves in their own unique way. This was a necessity of life in a society that...
What lies on the ground, spread over a white sheet? Hard to determine. Shrapnel? Aircraft parts? Battered remains? Upon entering A Tale of a Tub, the impression is unsettling, and slightly overwhelming. A crime scene, but unclear who, what or where it is about. They appear to be plants, but magnified and cast in bronze. But that see...
If you went to Rome before the 17th century you were a pilgrim. If you went to Rome the century after that you were a searching artist. Did you go to Rome from the 19th century onwards then you were an honourable 'Tourist' on Grand Tour, seeking inspiration and moral uplift. Going to Rome anno 2018 you are a...
Is the prevailing flu wave raising the feverish temperature of contemporary art? From today, 8 February, you can come and take the temperature of the current state of contemporary art in person at a positively moody Art Rotterdam. From 8 to 11 February 2018 at the Van Nelle Fabriek in Rotterdam. It is a broad-based art fair where...
The 47th Rotterdam Film Festival opens with Jimmie, a flight story upside down. Director Jesper Ganslandt on filming with his infant son and the connections with his debut Falkenberg Farewell.
Classic joke about the attendant: "Proudly, the Rijksmuseum's new attendant reports to the museum management at the end of his first working day. 'Mr director, I think you will be pleased with me. I have already sold two Picassos and one Apple today!' " (Source: www.debestemoppen.nl) Thus illustrating the supposed relationship of the traditional attendant to the modern...
With a 500-million-year-old pebble, Jonathan Harris began his lecture. IDFA presents the first international retrospective of this artist. As IDFA's chief guest, Harris gave the 'Master Talk' on Friday, about his life and work. His remarkably analogue vision was also the common thread during Sunday's well-attended DocLab conference. Fundamentally analogue Harris, who once started out in computer science...
Jan Fabre is a bit like the Jan Cremer of Flanders but younger, five times more talented, multidisciplinary and eight times more social. 'It is quite an honour to succeed Jan Hoet,' says Jan Fabre. Together with art historian Joanna De Vos, he is the curator of HET VLOT. Art is (not) lonely. The exhibition is intended to highlight the Mu.ZEE and Belgian...
I actually experienced it once! In the middle of a theatre performance, an elderly lady, who had nothing to do with the story, walked onto the stage. She must have got lost in the interval and ended up behind the wings through a door that was accidentally open. While the actors were engaged in a deeply serious Hamlet, she came laconic
Conny Janssen Danst celebrates its 25th anniversary. To mark the occasion, the Kunsthal in Rotterdam will be stage and laboratory for Conny Janssen, her dancers and her team for three weeks. A video installation, performance, live rehearsals and an exhibition will portray the point at which the group has arrived on its development journey. Unorthodox "My start with the group 25 years ago was...
Industrial estates are weird. They lie souring on the outskirts of one city, only to seamlessly morph into the same site on the outskirts of another. Once they were A-locations, places of visibility and the incarnate dream of reconstruction. Now they are low-grade structures, halls with a front door, a visible office for the Dirk and a pathetic...
An Arts Festival has taken place in an insignificant corner of West Flanders every summer since 1980. It smells like hops and a growing number of visitors come from the Netherlands. What is Watou's secret? How on earth does a hole of 2,000 inhabitants, which barely appears on your car navigation, end up with an Kunstenfestival that rules the village for two whole summer months every year?....
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