Starting next week I’m working in The Incident Room, an art project initiated and curated by Patrick Mangnus. This first edition takes place in R10, Zwolle. I’m teamed up with video/sound artist Sandrijn van der Horst. Together we have two weeks (January 11-28) to work on a new piece of art in the R10 residency. After that it will be open for exhibition on January 29-31 and February 5-7, 13.00-17.00 hrs. Other participants in this edition are Jeroen Diepenmaat and Sjoukje Gootjes.

Some time ago I went to R10 to check out the place, since I had never been there. It has plenty of facilities and workspace. I aim to use this workperiod mainly for research, since R10 oozes ‘laboratory’ out of every pore. Kind of reminds me of my art academy time. Sandrijn seems to be an interesting and challenging partner in this project. I don’t know him well, but am very familiar with his work, which I selected last year when curating the Ontbos exhibition in CBK Apeldoorn.

At this point I still have no idea what we are going to do next week, but I’m very anxious to find out where this collaboration leads me!

Update 1: I’m documenting our progress on Flickr.
Update 2: There’s going to be a festive finissage on February the 7th with an introduction by Patrick Mangnus and a live performance by Bedhelm and The Stewardess.

Some time ago I had decided not to go to this smashing New Year’s party in Havenkwartier. Instead I was really looking forward to be with my wife and two kids this year. But then it hit me. Since I live literally around the corner, I can do both. After celebrating the new year at home, there’s still plenty of party left to go to.

So I’m going to take a peek anyway. I’ll just be there a bit later.

Yesterday, when the partyhosts of Ticket to the Tropics got wind of this, they put in a last-minute request for one of my tropical dj-sets. I couldn’t resist this tempting offer and am whipping one up right now. Think Copacabana, Calypso, Speed Merengue, Tropicalectronica, Cumbia and Good Vibrations…

Pfaff reads, sings, speaks, plays and shouts. For this Pfaff utilizes a voice, a guitar, something to hit and his head. This usually happens quite loud, but intimate and cosy is also an option. Most of the planned living room tour this fall is cancelled, due to lack of time (because he opened his own shop for art and culture in September). Some intimate performances remain. This is one of them! Oh… and entrance is completely free, don’t miss it!

Some time ago, I was asked by Kunstenlab to give them advice for the final edition of their Landtonen project. They were looking for artists in the field of experimental and/or (modern) classical music and language/poetry. Artists who could respond to the rural environment of Okkenbroek in music. Either in a specially made composition or in improvisation.

I recommended (and booked) Paul de Jong (The Books), Bram van den Oever (Gluid) and MiaMia. Kunstenlab came up with Hans van Koolwijk (Bambuso Sonoro), Karel van der Eijk, De Flageolettes and Uutsprèken. All of the artists perform works specially written for this occasion. This makes for an excellent and unique line-up in my book! Really looking forward to the 15th of November now! More info in this invitation (pdf).

I’m exploring recording possibilities right now. It might be interesting to make an esc.rec. release out of this…

In addition to their request for advice, Kunstenlab also commissioned me in another area of expertise; the design and production of a special Landtonen leaflet dispenser and four outdoor benches. I’ve got some good ideas for this, but they (luckily) don’t have to be finished on the 15th, so more on this later.

Yesterday me and my Rockin’ Chair were guests at Blog-art in Theater aan het Spui,The Hague. A festival by and for bloggers. Although organizers Marco Raaphorts and Karin Ramaker obviously worked hard to pull this off and got plenty of well deserved media attention, it still wasn’t quite what I expected… First of all there were less people than I had imagined and secondly many of the lecturers sometimes didn’t seem to realize they were dealing with an internet savvy audience or just weren’t conveying there ideas all that well. Or maybe I’m spoiled, could be.

One other thing I should have realized beforehand (but didn’t), was the nerd factor. Blog-art sometimes felt like entering another world. Physical and virtual weren’t that far apart. Weird (but not unpleasant).

Having said that, especially for a first edition it had a good variety of things to offer. Like John Dear Mowing Club. Even in the late afternoon, in front of a blogging/twittering audience, they still managed to impress me. Even though Erwin Blom said basically nothing new, his enthousiasm and rhetouric is extremely infectious. After a pleasant talk with Miriam Reeders and Eva Meijer, I know I should have taken more time to work through their entire blog-wall. I didn’t. I’ll probably have to go see their next performance to make up for that.

And than there was Matt Harris playing my Rockin’ Chair. He did good. Although he himself concluded that his half hour rehearsal went better. But I guess that’s inherent to the unpredictable nature of the Rockin’ Chair’s effect bank. Matt suggested I should make a more mobile version of it, like a cajón. Could be a good idea.

I also met some online aquaintances in the flesh and was treated to a tasty Chinese take-out. I left before Blog-art was over (having to drive all the way back to Deventer), so I can’t say if more personal highlights would have emerged later on…

All the way during my long drive back I somehow got me an uncontrollable craving for this song (despite the abundance of other good music in my van). There’s something magical about this song… anyway, here it is.