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Video by Sara Tirelli

An interview with Roman Kirschner about "Roots".

View the interview

Video's can be viewed with the free RealPlayer, www.real.com.

Video by Sara Tirelli

Interview with Zachary Lieberman, about his installation 'drawn':

View interview with Zachary Lieberman

Video's can be viewed with the free RealPlayer, www.real.com.

Video by Sara Tirelli

Video of the opening speech of DEAF07, by V2_'s director Alex Adriaansens:

View opening speech

Photograph (c) 2007 Jan Sprij.

Video's can be viewed with the free RealPlayer, www.real.com.

Omar Muñoz-Cremers

After a helping of mustard-orange soup the morning started with a talk by the artist working in probably the most constraining circumstances – at least during last summer, when Beirut-born Mazen Kerbaj started his blog dealing with the direct experience of falling bombs. It is a blog full of drawings, spiked with rants, observations and dream thoughts. Kerbaj despite his pacifistic leanings talks about the blog as a counterattack, of becoming a soldier, just using a different kind of weapon. He positions himself, from the perspective of our cynical Western minds, as an almost old-school Internet idealist who sees his blog as a subjective medium and authentic alternative to corporate media. Overall it was a very touching talk about different levels of blogging, the will to cling to a subject and the necessity of art for psychic well-being during wartime. As Kerbaj wryly observed “artists are the lucky ones as they can keep working in a war.”

After that Chinese blogger Aaajiao tried to paint a picture of blogging in a more ambient or continuous mode of distrust. Probably the most fascinating aspect of his talk was his characterization of censorship as something that isn’t out in the open, something that is-and-isn’t there. He explained that it is suspected a mechanism exists, based on a list of terms which are frowned upon. A list, that Aaajiao, arguing from his own experience, thinks is actually getting smaller. Perhaps another surprising element, concerning censorship, is the role of the service provider who contacts the user, instead of a stern state official, with an actual request to change published content before it is blanked out.

The brunch ended with Ellen Pao who gave an impression of the activist culture in Hong Kong, a city whose shape and identity is in constant flux, yet where there is a prominent place for young artists and curators.

By Josephine Bosma

After the obligatory talks...

...it really begins. DEAF07 has started. The ground floor of the newly renovated Las Palmas building is crowded with people exploring the DEAF07 exhibition. The atmosphere is good. Upon entrance one is first drawn to the Exonomo piece 'Object B', even if it is standing quite far from the door. It stands out because of its loud colors and its clever use of ordinary appliances like power tools and kitchenalia as interface for a multi-user game. It remotely resembles some of Perry Hoberman's older works. Right next to it people duck under a circular black curtain. In it Yang Zhenzhong's 'Surrounded', a circular video projection, gives a nightmarish experience of being circled by hostile people one cannot escape. Behind Shenzhong's installation a narrow corridor leads into a room with Thomas McIntosh's 'Ondulation'. Water in a rectangular pond ripples to sound waves. It is a pity this work is in such a small space. Its minimal mix of natural and artificial phenomena reminds of artist-scientist Vincent Icke's work in a pond at the Vijversburg estate in Friesland, and it would be just as mesmerizing as that work is under a clear blue sky. As I wander past Graham Smith's lonely remote controlled robot 'Mobi' the opening performance has started. The Belgian group Code31 are a bit lost in this big space. Their music drifts between the far walls, the high ceiling and the muttering of the installations. Yet still they manage to give an interesting performance, also because of their installation of 20 old Macintosh SE computers from 1987, 'SE/30'. Yet, even if the subtleties of the musical performance gets lost in the exhibition space, Code31 firmly stands ground and captures a small but dedicated audience. Their sound at times almost bites through the air. When the performance is done, the clicking and buzzing of the exhibited art works gets its place at the foreground again. DEAF07 has only just begun...

Photographs Copyright (c) 2007 Jan Sprij