Radio Level Five in Conversation With: Recent Episodes
Radio Level Five
Level Five is an artist-run cooperative studio floor located in Brussels, hosting about 80 artists. Our radio platform hosts conversations, discussions, sound works, writings, soundscapes and other cool stuff related to our community.
Between soundtracks and audio descriptions, these tracks presume to reconstruct a hypothetical or infinitely typical contemporary art exhibition in its canonical exhibition space. Then presumably other audio tracks will be developed, which like laser scanning or like sound installation shots will describe the meta-artworks and their installation in a mental exhibition space.
Between soundtracks and audio descriptions, these tracks presume to reconstruct a hypothetical or infinitely typical contemporary art exhibition in its canonical exhibition space. Then presumably other audio tracks will be developed, which like laser scanning or like sound installation shots will describe the meta-artworks and their installation in a mental exhibition space.
Between soundtracks and audio descriptions, these tracks presume to reconstruct a hypothetical or infinitely typical contemporary art exhibition in its canonical exhibition space. Then presumably other audio tracks will be developed, which like laser scanning or like sound installation shots will describe the meta-artworks and their installation in a mental exhibition space.
Between soundtracks and audio descriptions, these tracks presume to reconstruct a hypothetical or infinitely typical contemporary art exhibition in its canonical exhibition space. Then presumably other audio tracks will be developed, which like laser scanning or like sound installation shots will describe the meta-artworks and their installation in a mental exhibition space.
The first episode of Before the Eyes is the last exhibition of Matt Copson @Clearing gallery Brussels titled Age of Coming.From September 8 to October 23 2021Age Of Coming, 2021 Laser animation with audio soundtrackPortal I, 2021 Laser animation Portal II, 2021 laser animation Artworks credits: Music - Caroline Polachek Sound design - felicita Soprano - Kiran Christopher Subramanian, National Children’s Chorus of the United States Lead Animator - Sara DrakeLaser programmer - Pieterjan Ruysch With thanks to Calvin Marcus, Geetha Subramanian and Luke McEndarfer Podcast credits:Concept, text and sound: Marco LampisVoice: Anneleen Lemmens Sound Design: Marco LampisTranslation: Marta Cadoni Please visit www.beforetheeyes.vision for the Dutch and Italian version. Enjoy!
Currently, Rachel Bacon is working on ‘drawings‘, which might be one way to enter the discussion: what this term, or rather, the act of drawing might actually include, in specific movements, in material production, in artistic choices. Moreover, these elements add up to questioning the process itself and the meaning of what it brings to the fore.
In conversation with the American-born, now Brussels-based artist, we approach these topics by exploring others. Among them: possible differences between the circumstances of art-making in the U.S., the Netherlands and London. How these differences reflect on the artistic work itself. Notions of working in public space and of leaving it behind. Aspects of the political, the non-political and the less political, of autonomy, responsibility, legibility, and about turning the pencil into something else, very slowly in time.
Interviewed by Batsheva Ross and Olaf Winkler.
This piece is part of a series of interviews, readings, and other sound pieces regularly published. More info on www.levelfive.brussels
What does it mean to bring street culture into the black box of a theatre hall? At what point does raving become contemporary dance? Where do the dance floor and stage merge? And how can we somehow hold on to the idea of social intimacy associated with nightclubs when social distancing sets the scene?
During the summer, we talked with Ula Sickle, a Canadian choreographer and dancer based in Brussels. Her practice runs across various disciplines and often incorporates alternative movement histories, typically excluded from the canon of contemporary dance. Her new piece Echoic Choir with vocalist Stine Janvin premiered during the Wiener Festwochen in Vienna, June 3rd. On October 5th, they will perform it at STUK in Leuven. The piece is a response of sorts to the lingering effects of the pandemic, turning the reality of physical distancing measures into artistic parameters. Using acoustic voices, spatial resonance, and specific lighting, they have sought to create a collective and immersive sensorial event, blurring the divide between performer and audience. But how to do so? How can you invite the audience into a shared space, when proximity is literally not an option? (More about Ula's work in: http://www.ulasickle.com/)
Interviewed by Bas Blaasse and Batsheva Ross.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
Radio Level Five is a podcast coming to you from Level Five, an artist run studio space in the heart of Brussels. Today we launch the new season with a special episode, the first in a series of talks about parenthood, child care taking, nurture trauma, and their entanglement with artistic practices.
Today we sit together: Kianoosh Motallebi, Helen Dowling, Florence Cheval, Sirah Foighel Brutmann and Eitan Efrat.
I hope you enjoy.
This track by Italian artist Marco Lampis started out as a text, became an almost hypnotizing sound piece – and remains an ongoing project. As Lampis says, the work started from the problem of using language to describe a musical experience: “Especially in Italian, we tend to use metaphors that refer to other metaphors, adjectives that describe other adjectives in a continuous and infinite circle without ever getting to the point. Maybe because it's impossible. Therefore I created a text starting from music reviews that tries to describe the experience of listening, but in the end it doesn't make any sense.” Not sure if we share this very last view, Radio Level Five is happy to present The Shaded Zone.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
In the broad range of Christiane Blattmann’s artistic work we encounter objects and pieces between two and three dimensions, carefully crafted materials as silicone, metal or jute, but most of all recurring references to human and other creatures’ physicality, architecture, clothing and images in a literal as well as metaphorical sense.
In a talk with her we explore these underlying notions and how her works refer to both: intrinsic topics of sculpture, of building, erecting and composing, as well as questions such as: Which spaces do we inhabit or get access to inhabit? How does a body relate to space relate to scale? How do fragments of narration enter a piece of art? And last not least, why is an almost abstract sculpture invaded by an almost naturalistic snail?
Interviewed by Batsheva Ross and Olaf Winkler.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
Eternal City by Office for Joint Administrative Intelligence is a sonic exploration of an imagined downtown area located between Bregenz, Austria and Dallas, Texas. The piece was created especially for "Sceneries not songs" on Radio Orsimanirana curated by Parasite 2.0 and Antropofago Productions.
Office for Joint Administrative Intelligence is the collaborative practice of artists Chris Dreier (DE) and Gary Farrelly (IRE/BE). The work is fueled by recurring obsessions with architecture, infrastructure, conspiracy theory and institutional power. Their monthly radio show is transmitted on Dublin Digital Radio and Cashmere Radio, Berlin. Their work has been presented at AAIR Antwerpen, Damien and the Love Guru, Laura Mars Gallery, Grölle Pass Projects, Gold and Beton and Marres House for Contemporary Culture (Maastricht).
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
Laszlo Umbreit and Eitan Eifrat are Rhh: a band that mixes live recordings, electronic instruments and acoustic drums. Rhh released an LP last month titled Seemingly Still. The album was made in collaboration with Sirah Foighel Brutmann and was released by audioMER and Argos, Brussels. The release concert took place in Kiosk Radio in Brussels. The duo gives an introduction to their practice and play the recording of their live concert. For more music from Rhh and information about the LP please visit rhhband.bandcamp.com
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
In his meticulous and dense paintings, Jannis Marwitz confronts us with scenes – or entries to narrations – packed with figures and details. What we see evokes echoes of traditional paintings and symbols as well as of contemporary visual gleams, such as referencing to objects of nowadays. In an intriguing way, these echoes occur in the painting gestures, in the choices of content and compositions, but also correspond within Marwitz’ own body of work: figures, objects, and sometimes entire sceneries reappear, with slight changes in detail or colour, recall our memory of what we have seen, what we might be able to comprehend out of the story of his practice as a whole. In the interview we talk with him about his path from abstract to figurative, about influences of the past and today, about visual assemblages, techniques, colour and light.
Jannis Marwitz’ exhibition „The Raid“ at Galerie Barbara Weiss in Berlin runs from April 30 to June 12, 2021.
Interviewed by Batsheva Ross and Olaf Winkler.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
Balancing on the ridge between craft and concept, between material research and figurative depiction, between function and autonomy, Veerle Melis explores the facets, methods and underlying systematics of art fuelled by textile resources and their characteristics. In her work, what started with knotting and weaving of tapestry has opened a broad range of techniques and expressions that have started to literally claim more space. In our conversation we talk with her about the relevance of the process, the meaning of making this process visible, the archeology of cultural traditions, and the openness of the (unfinished?) shape.
Interviewed by Bas van den Hout and Olaf Winkler.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
To mark the 73rd anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel that was celebrated in Israel this Thursday, we were invited by Israeli activist Eitan Bronstein to a special action in front of the Israeli Embassy in Brussels. In an interview, Bronstein spoke to us about his career as a post-Zionist activist whose organisation Zochrot brought the word "Nakba" — The Palestinian disaster of 1947/48 — into Israeli-Hebrew discourse and awareness, about the entanglement between the Nakba and the Israeli independence, about creating alliances, unlearning history and, by doing so, getting closer to where one comes from.
For more information turn to the website www.zochrot.org of Zochrot, the organisation Bronstein founded in 2001, and the website www.de-colonizer.org of De-colonizer, his current project in collaboration with his partner Feminist activist Eléonore Merza, including information on the book titled Nakba (in Hebrew and French, soon in English) https://www.de-colonizer.org/notre-livre-fr
Interviewed by Eitan Efrat.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
‘The 25th of January 2011 was the most special day of my life. It was a moment when life froze, and it was only about the present moment. An overwhelming moment of glory and excitement. A day that all my ideal concepts and abstract beliefs were represented in reality and had form, sound, texture, and smell.’
The 25th of January 2011 was the first of 18 days that changed power relations in Egypt. Omar Kashmiry, living in Cairo as an architecture student at the time, took part in the demonstrations around Tahrir Square that were a decisive step in what we now know as the Arab Spring. In a very personal conversation he talks about his experiences, perceptions and motivations, about how incidents become a chain of events, about home, media, and the notion of the collective.
Interviewed by Bas van den Hout and Olaf Winkler. Photo: Ezz Monem
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
Bas Blaasse tried to write the perfect cover letter to be done with it once and for all. But how do you maintain a balance between what you want and what you think others want from you?
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
Perri MacKenzie discusses her essay "The Stakes are a Thick Vision, Images of Women Gambling in Eliot and de la Tour" published in the first issue of Le Chauffage.
Le Chauffage (french for "The Heater") is an artist-run magazine based in Brussels. Conceived as a cross-continental community-oriented platform, Le Chauffage brings together the work and writing of artists / friends from different cities with the intent to spark discussions and fuel casual forms of critical discourse.
Le Chauffage is edited by Emile Rubino, Felix Rapp, Francesca Percival.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
La Galerie Louise An artist statement, a novella, a confession 2015-2020
Written by Batsheva Ross Read by Ella de Burca
Text editors: Perri Mackenzie Liz Allen
sound editor: Marco Lampis
The following recording is the 7th chapter and Epilogue of La Galerie Louise, an audiobook based on a novella written by Batsheva Ross between 2015 and 2020. The full novella includes seven chapters and an epilogue.
In a period in which she was agonising over writing artist applications, Ross felt she was facing an artistic crisis in her practice. She distracted herself by writing a memoir about her side job as an aggressive salesclerk for Dead Sea cosmetics. This side job wasn't something she was particularly proud of. Although it demanded her intellectual talents and skills, it also required applying some devious personality traits that, at times, felt morally questionable to her. Moreover, it gave her the feeling of getting off track from her own art practice by being too invested in something so detached from the art world. She felt the necessity of defending herself, and the memoir served simultaneously as a written confession. But in taking up this task, she came to see the complicated reality of her daily life as a compassionate marriage between two worlds—the art world and the merchandise world. An alliance that left her appeased with both. She began to see her side job as a crucial part of her artist trajectory, if not even her actual artistic practice.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
La Galerie Louise An artist statement, a novella, a confession 2015-2020
Written by Batsheva Ross Read by Ella de Burca
Text editors: Perri Mackenzie Liz Allen
sound editor: Marco Lampis
The following recording is the 6th chapter of La Galerie Louise, an audiobook based on a novella written by Batsheva Ross between 2015 and 2020. The full novella includes seven chapters and an epilogue.
In a period in which she was agonising over writing artist applications, Ross felt she was facing an artistic crisis in her practice. She distracted herself by writing a memoir about her side job as an aggressive salesclerk for Dead Sea cosmetics. This side job wasn't something she was particularly proud of. Although it demanded her intellectual talents and skills, it also required applying some devious personality traits that, at times, felt morally questionable to her. Moreover, it gave her the feeling of getting off track from her own art practice by being too invested in something so detached from the art world. She felt the necessity of defending herself, and the memoir served simultaneously as a written confession. But in taking up this task, she came to see the complicated reality of her daily life as a compassionate marriage between two worlds—the art world and the merchandise world. An alliance that left her appeased with both. She began to see her side job as a crucial part of her artist trajectory, if not even her actual artistic practice.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
La Galerie Louise An artist statement, a novella, a confession 2015-2020
Written by Batsheva Ross Read by Ella de Burca
Text editors: Perri Mackenzie Liz Allen
sound editor: Marco Lampis
The following recording is the 5th chapter of La Galerie Louise, an audiobook based on a novella written by Batsheva Ross between 2015 and 2020. The full novella includes seven chapters and an epilogue.
In a period in which she was agonising over writing artist applications, Ross felt she was facing an artistic crisis in her practice. She distracted herself by writing a memoir about her side job as an aggressive salesclerk for Dead Sea cosmetics. This side job wasn't something she was particularly proud of. Although it demanded her intellectual talents and skills, it also required applying some devious personality traits that, at times, felt morally questionable to her. Moreover, it gave her the feeling of getting off track from her own art practice by being too invested in something so detached from the art world. She felt the necessity of defending herself, and the memoir served simultaneously as a written confession. But in taking up this task, she came to see the complicated reality of her daily life as a compassionate marriage between two worlds—the art world and the merchandise world. An alliance that left her appeased with both. She began to see her side job as a crucial part of her artist trajectory, if not even her actual artistic practice.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
La Galerie Louise An artist statement, a novella, a confession 2015-2020
Written by Batsheva Ross Read by Ella de Burca
Text editors: Perri Mackenzie Liz Allen
sound editor: Marco Lampis
The following recording is the 4th chapter of La Galerie Louise, an audiobook based on a novella written by Batsheva Ross between 2015 and 2020. The full novella includes seven chapters and an epilogue.
In a period in which she was agonising over writing artist applications, Ross felt she was facing an artistic crisis in her practice. She distracted herself by writing a memoir about her side job as an aggressive salesclerk for Dead Sea cosmetics. This side job wasn't something she was particularly proud of. Although it demanded her intellectual talents and skills, it also required applying some devious personality traits that, at times, felt morally questionable to her. Moreover, it gave her the feeling of getting off track from her own art practice by being too invested in something so detached from the art world. She felt the necessity of defending herself, and the memoir served simultaneously as a written confession. But in taking up this task, she came to see the complicated reality of her daily life as a compassionate marriage between two worlds—the art world and the merchandise world. An alliance that left her appeased with both. She began to see her side job as a crucial part of her artist trajectory, if not even her actual artistic practice.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
La Galerie Louise An artist statement, a novella, a confession 2015-2020
Written by Batsheva Ross Read by Ella de Burca
Text editors: Perri Mackenzie Liz Allen
sound editor: Marco Lampis
The following recording is the 3rd chapter of La Galerie Louise, an audiobook based on a novella written by Batsheva Ross between 2015 and 2020. The full novella includes seven chapters and an epilogue.
In a period in which she was agonising over writing artist applications, Ross felt she was facing an artistic crisis in her practice. She distracted herself by writing a memoir about her side job as an aggressive salesclerk for Dead Sea cosmetics. This side job wasn't something she was particularly proud of. Although it demanded her intellectual talents and skills, it also required applying some devious personality traits that, at times, felt morally questionable to her. Moreover, it gave her the feeling of getting off track from her own art practice by being too invested in something so detached from the art world. She felt the necessity of defending herself, and the memoir served simultaneously as a written confession. But in taking up this task, she came to see the complicated reality of her daily life as a compassionate marriage between two worlds—the art world and the merchandise world. An alliance that left her appeased with both. She began to see her side job as a crucial part of her artist trajectory, if not even her actual artistic practice.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
La Galerie Louise An artist statement, a novella, a confession 2015-2020
Written by Batsheva Ross Read by Ella de Burca
Text editors: Perri Mackenzie Liz Allen
Sound editor: Marco Lampis
The following recording is the 2nd chapter of La Galerie Louise, an audiobook based on a novella written by Batsheva Ross between 2015 and 2020. The full novella includes seven chapters and an epilogue.
In a period in which she was agonising over writing artist applications, Ross felt she was facing an artistic crisis in her practice. She distracted herself by writing a memoir about her side job as an aggressive salesclerk for Dead Sea cosmetics. This side job wasn't something she was particularly proud of. Although it demanded her intellectual talents and skills, it also required applying some devious personality traits that, at times, felt morally questionable to her. Moreover, it gave her the feeling of getting off track from her own art practice by being too invested in something so detached from the art world. She felt the necessity of defending herself, and the memoir served simultaneously as a written confession. But in taking up this task, she came to see the complicated reality of her daily life as a compassionate marriage between two worlds—the art world and the merchandise world. An alliance that left her appeased with both. She began to see her side job as a crucial part of her artist trajectory, if not even her actual artistic practice.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
La Galerie Louise An artist statement, a novella, a confession 2015-2020
Written by Batsheva Ross Read by Ella de Burca
Text editors: Perri Mackenzie Liz Allen
Sound editor: Marco Lampis
The following recording is the 1st chapter of La Galerie Louise, an audiobook based on a novella written by Batsheva Ross between 2015 and 2020. The full novella includes seven chapters and an epilogue.
In a period in which she was agonising over writing artist applications, Ross felt she was facing an artistic crisis in her practice. She distracted herself by writing a memoir about her side job as an aggressive salesclerk for Dead Sea cosmetics. This side job wasn't something she was particularly proud of. Although it demanded her intellectual talents and skills, it also required applying some devious personality traits that, at times, felt morally questionable to her. Moreover, it gave her the feeling of getting off track from her own art practice by being too invested in something so detached from the art world. She felt the necessity of defending herself, and the memoir served simultaneously as a written confession. But in taking up this task, she came to see the complicated reality of her daily life as a compassionate marriage between two worlds—the art world and the merchandise world. An alliance that left her appeased with both. She began to see her side job as a crucial part of her artist trajectory, if not even her actual artistic practice.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
25 years of collaborating have brought Xavier Garcia Bardon and Emmanuel Gonay in an interesting and fruitful position somewhere between dedicated amateurism and professionalism. Their fascinating music pieces are fuelled by assembling noises and harmonies, the analogue and the digital, the input of changing ensembles they have worked with over the years. We listen to a - non-chronological - compilation from their beginnings to today's latest work and talk about how they started, what is guiding them, what it means to make a shift from improvising to composing and what we can expect from their new 7-inch-record soon to be launched. Info on the upcoming record via http://www.lexidisques.net and https://www.facebook.com/lexidisques
Interviewed by Eitan Efrat and Olaf Winkler.
Musica Mosaica, "Untitled", 2021 Buffle, "Dudes With a Vision", 2010 Buffle, "Cavernicole" (excerpt), Relax Produzioni, 2008 Buffle, "Dead City Holograms", 2008 Humus, "Paysage avec la chute d'Icare" (excerpt), Kraak, 2015 Waikiki Walhalla, "Oceanic Soukous Operation #8", 2010 (unreleased) Buffle, "Bumblebee #4", Ultra Eczema, 2005 Unspecified Duo, "Fraise", Minijack, 2004
Buffle: Benjamin Francart, Denis Duez, Xavier Garcia Bardon, Emmanuel Gonay Humus: Quentin Nicolaï, Xavier Garcia Bardon, Emmanuel Gonay Waikiki Walhalla: David Jarrin, Anne Spencer, Xavier Garcia Bardon, Emmanuel Gonay
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
How do we understand a work? How does it come into being and how do these two aspects interrelate? "For me, editing is really important," says artist Helen Dowling, mostly active with video and video installation: "It’s kind of where everything happens, where work gets formed." What sounds like a very factual statement is an invitation to an open approach. We follow her on an explorative path about how she combines visuals and where they come from, about how to construct a narrative that is not in a strict sense narrational, about the relation between image and sound, the (non-)use of language, intuition, seduction, and about the fact that recording always means: giving something away.
Helen Dowling’s video The Queen of Lemons can currently be viewed via vimeo.com/466171881
Interviewed by Batsheva Ross and Olaf Winkler.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings, and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
Kevin Gallagher is originally from Illinois in the US, but is based these days in Brussels. He works primarily in sculpture; the sculptures’ installation are often specific to their forms. He uses a variety of materials in his practice: they are sometimes perishable, and are of consumer, natural, or domestic origins. In the work there are motifs that recur such as carrots, flowers, corncobs and containers. His interest lies in states of preservation, in embodiment, in how we as humans persevere through self-preservation. The word 'Administration' is a focal point in the artists thinking process - how are materials, organisms or bodies administered or managed? How does a work inhabit a space and how does it make itself feel comfortable in one? For more insights you can turn to http://www.kevingallagher.info/
Interviewed by Batsheva Ross and Bas van den Hout.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings and other soundpieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
Working with film, assembling pieces, sometimes reflecting on others or the traces they leave: Their work, say artists Sirah Foighel Brutmann and Eitan Efrat, often starts with the idea of something that is missing, a person, a material, a story – not trying to fill that gap, but reflecting on it. We follow them and their process of filmmaking, talking about how they start and proceed together, about family, power relations, politics and poetics of the moving image, and the aggression within the cut. For more insights you can turn to www.messidorgroup.be/foighel-brutmann-efrat
Interviewed by Batsheva Ross and Olaf Winkler.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings and other soundpieces which are regularly published on this site. More info on Level Five via www.levelfive.brussels
With the second episode of The Notebook Readings, Marco Lampis takes us further into the delicate space opening up between what we find while wandering and what we make out of it or rather: with it, through it, instead of it, by it. Fitting to his work evolving around sound, object, body and (dis-)location, what appears becomes an almost hypnotic resonance chamber of thoughts thought and yet to be thought.
Notes by Marco Lampis, voice: Beth (voice-over generator)
Sound by Marco Lampis. Track title: "Before the eyes"
Included book quotes,:
Borges, There are more things Bergson, Matter and Memory Danto, The transfiguration of the common place Jankelevitch, La Musique et l'ineffable Viollet-le-Duc, Le Massif du Mont Blanc
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings and other soundpieces which are regularly published on this site.
How can today’s economic logic of speculation in cities be countered to support creative infrastructure and, at the same time, the agency of communities in precarious situations? As an interdisciplinary group and a practice-based research project, Permanent draws upon anti-speculative models to develop a cultural infrastructure in Brussels for permanently affordable artist studio’s, housing, educational and community spaces. Els Silvrants-Barclay and Rob Ritzen talk about how the group came into being, its tools, aims and further steps. More info on www.permanentbrussels.org
Interviewed by Olaf Winkler
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings and other soundpieces which are regularly published on this site.
Markus von Platen presents a soundpiece which he assembled from excerpts of recording sessions made during approximately the last year. Everything was sequenced from a modular system, using probabilistic rhythms, self-oscillation and feedback to produce a complex spectrum of timbres, reverberation and noise.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings and other soundpieces which are regularly published on this site.
Radio Level Five in conversation with Milena Desse
"The Sun and the Looking Glass – for one easily forgets but the tree remembers": the beautiful title gives a hint that Milena Desse’s latest film is both, poetic and political. Shot in a Palestinian village, it explores the meaning of place and history, reflecting on and working with the light of the sun. The talk with her follows these topics as well as their eminent relation to the technological means she chose as a filmmaker. For those who wish to dive deeper into the film and its language, you will find a trailer here: milenadesse.wixsite.com/works/the-sun-and-the-looking-glass
Interviewed by Eitan Efrat.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site.
The members of Peliskan met in film labs – and united to perform the magic of transferring celluloid to digital. In an interview with Jérôme Zahno, part of the collective, we talk about the machine that makes this possible, the technological shift connected to it and the pros and cons of the different media, about history, private archives and the fascination of film not just as a means but as a material.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site.
Talking about wandering, wandering in words: In a fascinating conversation architect Laura Muyldermans and Jolien Naeyaert, architect and artist, take us along on an explorative walk through real and thought landscapes, from a caravan and passing by a pylon-like panoramic tower into the open terrain of city, architecture, undefined places.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site.
Combining various artistic disciplines including sculpture, performance, painting, story-telling, David Bernstein circles around – or starts from – objects, their use and meanings to unfold an intriguing network of new narratives. Questions arise like: What does it mean to activate an object and where does it lead to? How does connecting two things change the way we think about both of them? Proceeding from there, we talk with him about the physical and the spiritual, about deconstructing meaning and the risks of doing so, about understanding and overstanding, word play, truth, and hidden buddhas.
Interviewed by Bas Blaasse and Olaf Winkler.
This piece is part of a series with interviews, readings and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site.
Thought experiments are used in analytic philosophy as intuition pumps. These five thought experiments, found in academic literature and re-adapted by Piero Bisello for Radio Level Five, are especially whacky. They are read by Kevin Gallagher.
This piece is part of a series with interviews – Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – as well as readings and other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site.
Notes we take are like a future sediment, fragments and traces of what we find or think while wandering in the broadest sense, and which may enter works to come, directly, transformed or in abstraction. In a remarkable layering of sound, music and voice, with "The notebook readings" Marco Lampis revisits some of the notes he took some while ago, preserving them and at the same time translating them into a work of their own.
All sounds by Marco Lampis except:
01:46 African Head Charge – the Race (part one)
08:06 Asian Dub Foundation – PKNB
14:36 Burial – Truant
This piece is part of a series with interviews – Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – as well as other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site.
In this show we collected audio pieces, sound bites, confessions and songs from Level five members and friends, all dedicated to their beloved pets, to animals that serve as muses and ones that populate their art-pieces.
- Karolien Chromiak 1:26-6:09
- Batsheva Ross (with Eitan Efrat) 6:10-8:22
- Francesca Grilli 8:23-16:27
- Anouchka Oler 16:28-29:00
- Che Vuoi 29:01-33:35
- Lucie Barton 33:36-37:00
- Che Vuoi 37:01-44:21
Inspired by "An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris" written by Georges Perec, Bas van den Hout forced himself to look down on the Bourse, Brussels, for one hour and write down everything that got his attention. Writing and literature have always been part of his practice - but what happens if you force yourself to write down what occurs in front of your eyes within an hour?
Text read by Olaf Winkler.
This piece is part of a series with interviews – Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – as well as other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site.
Door jou verzonden: Vandaag om 12:20 Level Five Radio presents a conversation about Judaism and art. David Bernstein and Batsheva Ross, who are two Jewish artists, discuss questions such as - How does it feel to be a Jewish artist In Europe? Is there a particular Jewish sense for aesthetics and what makes an object Jewish? Can art making be religious? Can the traditional Jewish structure of community be duplicated into the art world, and do we want it?
This piece is part of a series with interviews – Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – as well as other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site.
As part of a language-focused project, Olaf Winkler took the Brother Grimm‘s fairy tale The Death of the Little Hen and repeatedly fed it to computerized translation algorithms. Through a process somewhere between Chinese Whisper and Lost (or Gained?) in Translation, the text gets reduced to a strange poetic essence.
This piece is part of a series with interviews – Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – as well as other sound pieces which are regularly published on this site.
Bas Blaasse was worried that he'd lose himself, so wrote himself a letter. Read especially for Radio Level Five.
This talk is part of a series with interviews – Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – as well as other sound pieces. The series was started also as a kind of prologue to our Open Studios which were originally scheduled for Nov 2020. Due to the current situation, the physical Open Studios have been postponed. More info to come.
Radek Szlaga is a tirelessly driven worker who seems to be more in his studio than he is at home. Covered with paint, the studio itself appears as one big painting; you enter the universe of an artist who seems to sweat paint. Even he himself is covered the way the studio is. Guided often by loud music on the background he paints like the world is about to end.
Interviewed by Bas van den Hout and Batsheva Ross.
This talk is part of a series with interviews – Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – as well as other sound pieces. The series was started also as a kind of prologue to our Open Studios which were originally scheduled for Nov 2020. Due to the current situation, the physical Open Studios have been postponed. More info to come.
What does a side job of an artist have to do with his/her artistic practice and how much influence does this have on the artist and the artistic practice? Do they exist in two separate worlds or do they have more in common than expected? Starting from a literary text written by Batsheva Ross we try to explore what is the common sense of the side job, something many artists are dealing with. How do we differentiate these two worlds and what is overlapping between them? Going from selling products to health and spirituality – where does the side job end, where does the artistic practice start?
Interviewed by Olaf Winkler and Bas van den Hout.
This talk is part of a series with interviews – Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – as well as other sound pieces. The series was started also as a kind of prologue to our Open Studios which were originally scheduled for Nov 2020. Due to the current situation, the physical Open Studios have been postponed. More info to come.
They’re a band, each playing different instruments of design, typography, visualisation. Their collaborative projects run from magazines to poster campaigns and as members of level five, they have created our new website. Time to have a chat with the members of D-E-A-L about their practice.
Interviewed by Bas Blaasse and Batsheva Ross.
This talk is part of a series with interviews – Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – as well as other sound pieces. The series was started also as a kind of prologue to our Open Studios which were originally scheduled for Nov 2020. Due to the current situation, the physical Open Studios have been postponed. More info to come.
In Karolien Chromiak‘s work, the layering of (so-called) artificial and natural elements and media are joined to create something new yet familiar, the meaning and sensation of which is one focus in the current interview. Lately, this way of working added up to a spatial installation involving all senses. From there our talk moves on to touch notions of landscape, capitalism, witch circles, digital glitching, and finally: home.
Interviewed by Bas Blaasse and Olaf Winkler.
This talk is part of a series with interviews – Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – as well as other sound pieces. The series was started also as a kind of prologue to our Open Studios which were originally scheduled for Nov 2020. Due to the current situation, the physical Open Studios have been postponed. More info to come.
In 2017, Sirah Foighel Brutmann and Eitan Efrat made a film called Miroir Séb Fragile ! The film is a work, a gesture, a questioning of and around absence, the absence of a friend. In a special edition of Radio Level Five, they present the soundtrack of their film: after some introducing words, a music piece of 22 minutes where, for once, the film images are absent.
This piece is part of a series with mainly interviews – Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – as well as other sound pieces. The series was started also as a kind of prologue to our Open Studios which were originally scheduled for Nov 2020. Due to the current situation, the physical Open Studios have been postponed. More info to come.
From growing mushrooms to our financial system and how we value things and meanings: Within a wide range of means, Philip Janssens creates works that literally or metaphorically grow in his studio. The studio becomes a place of experimentation, like a laboratory, in which creation emerges from a framed structure. As soon as a work enters the world, nature, site and viewer take over. It is not up to the artist to maintain ultimate control.
Interviewed by Olaf Winkler and Bas van den Hout.
Francesca Grilli wavers between video art, performances, installations and theatre. For her new piece Sparks, an adaptation of a 2018 performance-installation, children read the palms of adults, though embracing the social distance imposed upon us by the decree of 2020. Without touch or physical contact, the children interpret the future of the adult participants, thereby installing a reversal of power. To whom belongs the future?
Interviewed by Bas Blaasse and Olaf Winkler. This talk is part of our series of Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – approaching our Open Studios on 6 and 7 Nov 2020.
Attention: more info for Open Studio visitors' registration and Corona-safe procedure still to be announced.
Working with magazines, collages and a variety of other materials, from paper to pencil, all of these have their own meaning in the work of Olaf Winkler. Through the memory and his past growing up in the Ruhr area, Germany, an industrial landscape, we investigate how much this influenced his practice. From the pipelines that could once be seen in this landscape, we move to the drawing of the line, his background in architecture, the possible overlapping of these two disciplines, and how the body might relate to that.
Interviewed by Bas van den Hout and Eitan Efrat.
This talk is part of our series of Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – approaching our Open Studios on 6 and 7 Nov 2020.
Attention: more info for Open Studio visitors' registration and Corona-safe procedure still to be announced.
Can something threedimensional be considered photography? Do photographs admit materiality? Dries Segers answers these questions affirmatively. If he works at the intersection of various media and artistic disciplines, he positively considers himself a photographer. The outcome of his work is always photography to a larger extend. His new show 'No road to Hotel Bellevue' runs from 15 October until 21 November 2020 in DMW Gallery in Antwerp, which takes the concept of 'border trees' as an evocative point of departure.
Interviewed by Bas Blaasse and Olaf Winkler. This talk is part of our series of Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – approaching our Open Studios on 6 and 7 Nov 2020.
Attention: more info for Open Studio visitors' registration and Corona-safe procedure still to be announced.
Not just an interview, also a music piece… With the soundscape of her film “Mall of Europe” by Maxime Rouquart as a starting point, videaste Emma van der Put leads us to past, current and future city images and their translation into slowly moving visuals. Trying to grasp these places, the eye is critical but remains a witness, not a judge.
Interviewed by Olaf Winkler and Bas van den Hout.
This talk is part of our series of Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – approaching our Open Studios on 6 and 7 Nov 2020.
Attention: more info for Open Studio visitors' registration and Corona-safe procedure still to be announced.
An intriguing question to start: Is there a difference between a filmmaker and an artist who works with film? Chloé Malcotti, considering herself as the latter, is just about to finish a work about an industrial site on the Italian coast. We talk with her about color, capitalism, a beach which is beautiful but dead, and, yes, about what it means to work with film.
Interviewed by Olaf Winkler and Eitan Efrat.
This talk is part of our series of Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – approaching our Open Studios on 6 and 7 Nov 2020.
Attention: more info for Open Studio visitors' registration and Corona-safe procedure still to be announced.
For Ingo Brosch, the pandemic brought both: as an actor for theater, film and TV he encountered the sudden stop of routines and projects – and he broadened the range of his artistic work. Experiences between disciplines touch notions like the challenge of the white canvas; the various means of storytelling; repetition, authenticity and the singularity of the moment.
Interviewed by Olaf Winkler and Bas van den Hout.
This talk is part of our series of Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – approaching our Open Studios on 6 and 7 Nov 2020. Attention: more info for Open Studio visitors' registration and Corona-safe procedure still to be announced.
Maybe Bas van den Hout is, most of all, a collector. Of found objects, literature, images. From there, the Dutch artist works with them, carefully with material and time: “If you come across an object day after day it becomes part of you. It is in the back of your mind. And from there, things can grow, because it is part of your history, part of your memory.” In the end, it is not about appropriation, rather the opposite.
Interviewed by Olaf Winkler and Batsheva Ross.
This talk is part of our series of Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – approaching our Open Studios on 6 and 7 Nov 2020.
Attention: more info for Open Studio visitors' registration and Corona-safe procedure still to be announced.
As a visual artist Maud Gourdon works with means such as drawing, sculpture and installations – and thereby leads us into a world of possible codes and languages. Marks and connections arise rather than being created. Linked together, they can be read as the origin of a fictional story. More info about the main project we talk about with Maud via: https://therolinguistictale.hotglue.me/
Interviewed by Olaf Winkler and Batsheva Ross.
This talk is part of our series of Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – approaching our Open Studios on 6 and 7 Nov 2020.
Attention: more info for Open Studio visitors' registration and Corona-safe procedure still to be announced.
Our first guest is Sophia Holst. She is fascinated by how tiny urban details relate to urban changes in general. In her research-based practice, Sophia Holst navigates between art and architecture. Currently, she is working on a project on social housing in Brussels. Now is the time for politics to rethink the idea of social housing.
Interviewed by Olaf Winkler and Batsheva Ross.
This talk is part of our series of Level Five artists being interviewed by Level Five artists – approaching our Open Studios on 6 and 7 Nov 2020.
Attention: more info for Open Studio visitors' registration and Corona-safe procedure still to be announced.