I have made some new work for the exhibition ‘Half werk’ at WILLIE (May 13 – 27). The work I made is text-based and as the title suggests it’s all about different ways to perceive halves of something. I haven’t photographed it yet, so I will add photo’s here later.

My work for this exhibition is also inspired by WILLIE itself, the best artists collective, concert venue, art space and club/bar in Deventer. I have grown to love WILLIE over the years and I have put a considerable amount of time and effort in making WILLIE what it is today, together with the other people that make WILLIE tick. Sometimes at the cost of my other work and my income (working for WILLIE doesn’t pay the bills… at all). But it’s time well spent! It still gives me a kick to amaze our audiences with music, art and the overall good experiences we offer them. The feedback we get as organizers of all this cultural splendor is overwhelming at times. Thank you for that!

The past few years WILLIE has operated from a fixed location in Havenkwartier Deventer. Today this whole area is under development. And although the city of Deventer apparently sees the value of what WILLIE brings to the table (on a voluntary basis no less!) and although a collective like WILLIE fits like a glove in the intended cultural profile of Havenkwartier Deventer (which is actively promoted by the municipality of Deventer), we find ourselves forced out of our current location due to a sizeable increase in costs, starting July 2012 (read WILLIE’s official statement here). Clearly we have upgraded the area’s value considerably while we were here ;)

It kind of pains me to type the above, because this has proven to be the inevitable conclusion after a tiresome period of extensive planning, writing, networking, lobbying, organizing, calculating and soulsearching. Not being able to ‘save’ our current location after putting in this much time and effort, together with all the support we got from enthousiastic volunteers and practically all the other cultural organisations in Deventer… does feel like a loss, a failure even.

On the other hand, it feels good to have described WILLIE in such rich detail and to have searched and tried all available options, so we can now honestly say that there is no other choice under the given circumstances. This process has also strengthened our will to keep the concept of WILLIE alive and kicking, with or without a fixed location to work from.

But not so fast… we still have some certified quality time left in our current location and aim to make the best of it! So please enjoy our vibrant program in the months May and June to the fullest, because the future plans of WILLIE are still somewhat shady at best… And for those of you who haven’t visited WILLIE’s super hot spot in Havenkwartier Deventer yet, don’t miss out, your chance is now!

I’m doing something new. ‘Muziek raken’ (Touching music) is an educational project about music I developed together with Marloes Bloemenkamp. She teaches three groups of gifted children in the ages 9-12 from different primary schools in Deventer. Read more here.

Yesterday we started with an introduction, researching the definitions of sound and music and thinking about how to make your own sounds and instruments. We did this with the help of Jan Schellink, an enthousiastic and experienced improvisor and instrument-builder.

Jan Schellink playing a wok(!) with strings. A bit later he’ll be playing a ski.

Children paying attention. More pictures here.

I have known Jan for some time now, but his performance at the first junior edition of ass-crack stage-hack last year convinced me that he was the right man for the job. Rightfully so, because in one hour he confronted the children with a broad range of concepts, from throat singing and instrument building, to sampling and playing from the heart. We are off to a good start here.

Afterwards they got this text to read at home. Next week it’s time for lesson two, where they bring stuff and we build our own instruments. I’ll try to keep posting about this project. It runs for seven weeks and ends in a performance at the second junior edition of ass-crack stage-hack on June 24 at WILLIE in Havenkwartier Deventer. More information about this coming up.

In retrospect the previous Diamond Exchange was a testcase for several new features in the format of The Diamond Exchange (read here to find out what that format is).

Because this edition took place in two locations we needed to provide a stream which was audible in both locations. Audio quality was excellent and there was a bonus: the participants now needed to chat with eachother to communicate, which made their conversation more accessible to the audience, a definite plus! On top of that, the chat provided a way to document The Diamond Exchange. Just read this pdf.

So. For following editions I’ll be looking to provide chat functionality no matter what. And being able to link two locations together through a Diamond Exchange may also prove te be a very usefull and interesting feature. I can see the possibilities. Can you?

It’s that time of the year again. Or in fact, it’s already past that time of the year… I’m kinda late this time. Everybody who’s into music is making and/or reading lists at the end of each year. I usually try to keep as far away of listmaking as possible (what’s the use), but for Studio Playlists by Ron van der Ende I gladly made an exception again.

My 2011 list is here (in random order). It’s twice as long as I usually make them, but I had a hard time choosing. No harm done I guess. Oh, and this beautiful release in wooden box topped the cake packaging-wise:

Please do check the other Studio Playlists too. Find out what music got played by some rather interesting artists out there. I just did so myself and made quite a few new discoveries.

Like said before, I am guest-curator for an exhibition about social media in Kunstenlab Deventer, entitled ‘#isthemessage’. This is a video of the opening on December 18 by De Bubbelebim:

You can still visit the exhibition, it ends on January 29. More information can be found here: www.hashtagisthemessage.net.