Science to the rescue of art?
An online panel discussion by Elisabeth Bakambamba with Lucie Strecker, Marie-Luce Nadal, Laurent Derobert, Cleo Duplan, Bisi Lalemi, Alexander Nikolic, Silvia Bulgheresi, Cedrik Fermont, Marino Formenti and Jean Muabantu. Moderation: Elena Agudio
Contemporary artistic creation seems to be increasingly nourished by aesthetics and scientific methods. The duty of permanence and irrefutability of science makes it a new Eldorado for artistic creation, which seems to find something greater than itself, a new god marked with the seal of truth as a search engine. Art, known as a unique expression of our biological specificity, draws by its phenomenon a primary function of this strange animal that we are, physiologically constituted to imagine, to tell, but also, to believe.
Focused on a relationship between fiction and reality, these two fields, art and science, propose hypotheses of understanding and manipulation of the world that it is legitimate to question. When Art is inspired and shaped by contact with the so-called “hard” sciences in the same way as society, it is legitimate to ask what power is thus attributed to science? Are we at the level of sorcerer’s apprentices, and can a counter-power be opposed to it? against terror and its untiring weapon, in spite of their personal tears, all men who, not being able to be saints and refusing to admit the “ideals”, nevertheless decide to become doctors.
Salon Souterrain
is a format created by Elisabeth Bakambamba Tambwe in 2018 as a response to the unbridled accentuation of the exclusionary dynamics, which have become the prerogative of our societies in Europe.
In 2019, Lena Fankhauser, founder of music (CH)AMBER became cooperation partner and is curating the orchestral music program (trio, quartet ,ensemble).
Cléo Duplan, cooperation partner since 2019, is funder of Les Lunes Bergers, a publishing house of books-objects that offers a stage space to take away. The totem object in limited series represents in a device of reading-manipulation the heart of each problematic dealt by Salon Souterrain.
This platform of debate is a dive into knowledge or different understandings of and approaches towards knowledge. It is a place of hospitality, a melting pot of people, styles, ideas and a modest path engaged in the systematic practice of dialogue. At the same time by looking at works of all forms of artistic expression, but also with the voice and presence of contemporary thinkers: writers, philosophers, ethnologists, activists, scientists…
Concert
The Schoenberg Trio was born when three musicians, Johannes Fleischmann, Lena Fankhauser and Philipp Comploi were brought together as a string trio to open the Lower Austrian’s 2019 Haydn Festival. This gave rise to a regular musical partnership that encompasses music from Haydn to their namesake Schoenberg and well beyond.
Pieces jouées:
Joseph Haydn————-Opus 53 Nr. 1
Zoltan Kodaly—————Intermezzo
Jean Sibelius—————Suite in A major
2nd movement: Andante con Moto
Elisabeth Bakambamba Tambwe
is a choreographer, performer and visual artist based in Vienna, Austria. Born in Kinshasa (DRC) she grew up in France where she studies Fine Arts. In 1998 she obtains her Master degree in Plastic Arts with honors for her work of sculpture at the Tourcoing School of the Arts (FR). Her reflection in Fine Arts is based on organic architecture and her choreographic work is essentially oriented towards the sensitive and fragile dimension of the body. At the center of her work lies the critique of the concept of normality that she considers tyrannical and degrading. As a performer she was collaborating among others with Robyn Orlin, Serge-Aymé Coulibaly, Oleg Solimenko, Esther Socker and Monika Gintersdorfer / La Fleur. Her latest works have been shown among other at brut Wien, Künstlerhaus Wien, Tanzquartier Wien, donaufestival Krems, Wiener Festwochen, Afro_Vibes Festival, Julidans festival Amsterdam …
www.elitambwe.com
The online panel discussion was part of the AIL.alternate program – Angewandte Innovation Lab in online mode.
Coproduction: AIL – Angewandte Innovation Lab, Kulturen in Bewegung, Dig Up Productions. In collaboration with W&K Wienerroither Kohlbacher. Thanks to Benoit Jouan for the theoretical research and to Jakob Gasteiger for his exhibition visible during the concert.