ten days of serious fun

From February 19th till February 28th Flatstation (Florijn 42) will be the base for the presentation of Mostly It Happens At Night. After two inspiring events and lots of talks together with nine great artists, we're ready to present 18 new projects that take place in the Bijlmer and on the internet.

Participating artists are Marcel van den Berg, Daniela Bershan & Jonas Ohlsson, Maurice Bogaert,Constant Dullaart, Quinsy Gario, Regina Kelaita, Anne Schiffer and Pilvi Takala. Our great designer is Timo Hofmeijer from Newfolder who collaborated with Jonathan Puckey.

Some of the artists will work at Flatstation and present their works on a certain day, and some of the group will present their work every day or only on the last day of Mostly It Happens At Night.

During the ten days there will be a dinner every night at 19:00, followed by a program of performances, films, music and more at 20:00.

Specialties by the artists:
Thursday February 19: Performance I by Quinsy Gario, at 20:00
Friday February 20: Presentation sculpture by Anne Schiffer. Leaving Flatstation around 16.30
Sunday February 22: Artists lunch! at 13:00
Wednesday February 25: 24hrs performance by Maurice Bogaert starting at 9:00
Thursday February 26: Performance II by Quinsy Gario, at 20:00
Friday February 27: Presentation of the very special work of Constant Dullaart, at 20:00
Saturday February 28: Performance III by Quinsy Gario, at 20:00

On the 28th of February we close the project with a funky party in Flatstation. There will be live performances, bijlmer musicians and the super DJ team DJ Lonely & Baba Electronica live from Brasil.

Come over and join us at Flatstation, Florijn 42 in the Bijlmer and on the internet at mihan.flatstation.nl


Designed by: Timo Hofmeijer and Jonathan Puckey

Mostly It Happens At Night is curated by Maaike Gouwenberg in collaboration with Sandra van Dongen.

Filtering the World Wide Web

Sunday afternoon 11 January the artists from Mostly It Happens At Night got together to talk a bit more about art on the internet. Maaike Gouwenberg invited artist Sander Veenhof and blogger Anne Helmond to present their work and talk about it with the public and moderator Lucas Evers.

Sander concentrated his presentation on his work and research on Physical Reality. He investigates the boundaries of new techniques and uses an experimental approach towards these techniques and towards art. During the presentation of his work he constantly explains the techniques and his unique approach. He mentions the great possibilities of the world wide web to reach a broad and big audience, but he underlines the difficulties to connect to larger networks with small art projects.

On the world wide web it's easy to interact for the public: easy interfaces are available. But, people should be aware of the ideas of the artists involved, believes Lucas. He wants to know how you can attribute more meaning to the presence of artists in this area, including interaction with the audience. Sander believes filtering of information is an important tool for clearing up this area for public and artists. Lucas mentions mapping as a means to create awareness and meaning.

Anne Helmond tells the audience a bit about the (short) history of blogging and her research at the University of Amsterdam on this subject. In the end the 'searchability' of a blog seems to be the most important element to get your message out there. Lucas Evers also observes the tendency of blog users creating content to be searchable by search engines. Blog users become aware of the searchability. Lucas wonders if the search engine is your new public? (Anne commends on this subject: 75% of your visits are bots.) Does a blog reach a broader audience? Does it reach the largest world wide possible public?

Quincy briefly mentioned the subject of authorship on the internet an the difficulty for artists to delete their work online. Loosing authorship after publishing artworks on Flickr or Facebook. Lucas agrees it’s difficult to determine who is the owner of the work after publishing on in internet. He advises to use a creative commons license to determine authorship.

Sander, Lucas and Anne agree on the importance of being connected to a network. This means you will have to be traced by ‘bots’, so blogs will write about it, such as We make money not art (curatorial blog). Sander emphasizes the involvement of people in your projects and trying to keep them connected to this on-line or off-line project.


Images: Performance by Lester

Public Event 1: "But...Let's get back to the problem neighbourhoods.."

Saturday 29 November 2008 was the kick off of the project at Florijn 42, Amsterdam Bijlmer! Mostly It Happens At Night invited the public to join in a public conversation on art in public space. One of the main interests in the framework of this project.

During the day artist Melle Smets and Maria Pask we’re invited to talk about their practices. The participating artists had the opportunity to share experiences and ask them questions and ofcourse get inspired by their work.

Melle Smets is an artist who works in public space. He believes it’s very important to be aware of your surroundings, of the context of your work. Create meaning!
More info: www.mellesmets.nl

Maria Pask believes collective creativity to be a very important aspect within her practice as an artist and as a human being. She creates live moments, by working with non-performers. More info on her project at Skulptur Münster: www.beautifulcity.de

The artists, guests and speakers we’re invited by Roosje Klap and Kaleb de Groot for a wonderful diner at their apartment at Florijn. Roosje and Kaleb are artists who live at the Florijn and are involved in Foundation Flat. The foundation which commissioned this project.

In the evening the public was invited to join in on a conversation with artist/curator Sabrina Lindemann and architect/theorist Matthias Pauwels. Moderated by Huib Haye van der Werf (curator NAi). Huib set the framework for this conversation by inviting the speakers to introduce their critical practice and discuss transformation as part of the idiom of discussing areas like the Bijlmer.