Each project installment of Moderation(s) –including three residencies, a series of performances, a conference and an exhibition– questioned or redefined the conditions of creating objects, situations, and stories. Allowing for chance encounters and improvisation to often take the lead, the program reveals itself through its participants more than anything else. Driven by the desire to return to the specific nature of creative processes of production, doing preceded defining.
The book begins with a poetic gesture by the writer Guy Mannes-Abbott, and continues with annotations throughout by Witness to Moderation(s) Christina Li, along with her essay “Speaking in Parentheses;” a narrative of encounters, drawing lines between the territories of intimacy and isolation by writer Oscar van den Boogaard; a text-reprint by curator and writer Chris Fitzpatrick, originally performed at the Moderation(s) conference Stories and Situations; the “Participation and Confidentiality Agreement” by artist duo A Constructed World, which lay at the base of their work The Social Contract; the essay “True Pleasure” by philosopher Aaron Schuster, where the writer playfully expands on what we think of as true pleasure with cues from Freud, Hegel, and Plato; a visual essay fromIncidents of Travel by curatorial office Latitudes; the short story “Boquerones en Vinagre” by artist Nadim Abbas, written during A Fictional Residency; and a lyrical text by Travis Jeppesen, telling the story of the exhibition The Part In The Story Where A Part Becomes A Part of Something Else.
Moderation(s) is steered by artist and writer Heman Chong, initiated by Witte de With’s Director Defne Ayas in collaboration with Spring Workshop Founder and Director Mimi Brown, and developed together with Samuel Saelemakers (Curator Witte de With)
COLOPHON
Concept
Heman Chong
Editors
Defne Ayas, Mimi Brown, Heman Chong, Amira Gad, Samuel Saelemakers
Contributors
A Constructed World, Nadim Abbas, Defne Ayas, Oscar van den Boogaard, Mimi Brown, Heman Chong, Chris Fitzpatrick, Amira Gad, Travis Jeppesen, Latitudes, Christina Li, Guy Mannes-Abbott, Samuel Saelemakers, Aaron Schuster
Copy Editors
Janine Armin, Marnie Slater
Production
Amira Gad, Samuel Saelemakers, Heman Chong
Design
Kristin Metho
Printer
Koninglijke Van Gorcum
ISBN 978-94-9143-529-4
Publisher
Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art Rotterdam, the Netherlands
All rights reserved. © the artists, authors, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, and Spring Workshop, 2014.
Printed and bound in the Netherlands.