Public Universal Television: Episode 1 :The New Karina Beumer
Tempel
Amsterdam, Netherlands
With Sophia Simensky, Karina Beumer, Karina Beumer, Karina Beumer, Karina Beumer, Karina Beumer & Karina Beumer

You are invited to join the congregation of 'Public Universal Television' to help choose who will become 'The New Karina Beumer'. For this piece of performance art you will become part of an esoteric church of video-making and sit behind the cameras during the live production of a television game show on the spectacular Tempel stage. Four contestants will complete a series of artistic tasks to convince you of their vision for the very soul of art and be crowned as the new Karina.

Directed by Leslie Lawrence and Sophia Simensky and hosted by Karina Beumer featuring Karina Beumer, Karina Beumer, Karina Beumer and Karina Beumer. The performance is presented in English or in Dutch with English subtitles.

Public Universal Television is a new art performance series by Leslie Lawrence & Sophia Simensky, developing their practice of performing the artistic production of popular media in co-operation with their audience. Residing in the former theosophical temple of Amsterdam, they have created an esoteric society of video makers looking at news ways to make co-operative media. For each performance they co-operate with a different artist, making them the guest host of a new tv show, the filming of which is then staged for the live audience as a piece of performance art. Public Universal Television is supported by the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts).

NOVELTELENOVELA
W139
Amsterdam, Netherlands
With Sophia Simensky and Andrea López Bernal

NOVELTELENOVELA is the spontaneous generation of a television soap opera at W139. Using a system designed by Leslie Lawrence, Sophia Simensky and Andrea Lopez Bernal, new, dramatic scenes of a soap opera are filmed so rapidly in this durational performance that the actors must receive their dialogue through a small earpiece and immediately repeat them, as they do not have time to learn lines or repeat a take. Scripts for the performance are written by a large language model in AI based on ideas provided by invited artists and the exhibition audience, raising questions of what it means to be possessed by ideological forces and non-human entities at the onset of the age of information pollution. The presence of both the tv screen and the working set within the exhibition complicates the position of the audience whose critical stance is undermined by the intimacy of witnessing production.

A common presumption is that artists exist to produce novel ideas, representations, and constructions in contrast with commercial popular media. While mechanical reproduction may strip away the aura of objects, the artist can retreat into their last bastion as a unique and esoteric thinker above all else. Even in the age of mass media they may point to the difference between challenging aestheticizations of philosophical values and entertaining slop that slips down consumer's gullets without any tension. However, there is the danger that in mistaking complexity for frustration, artists develop disdain for audiences outside their class horizon and so 'fine art' defines itself through its inability to entertain as a cultural schismogenesis against popular culture.

We now find ourselves caught in the tide of a new age of algorithmic knowledge production. Large language model artificial intelligences challenge the aura of authorship on the level of thought, suggesting the possibility of a mode of production focused purely on placating the audience as a consumer. In short, the goal is that in order for audiences to cope with an increasingly exploitative economic system and devastated natural environment, they receive media content rapidly written and personalised by an artificial intelligence that admits no intellectual anxiety when consumed.

The NOVELTELENOVELA is an experiment in subverting both these vectors of disdain through recklessly harnessing the disruption of combined mechanical and algorithmic production to art. The soap opera is chosen because its content is inherently class focused, telling national parables about social class to a mass audience through entertaining melodrama. In the right circumstances it could be both mass entertainment and a forum for revolutionary ideas. For the artists the work is about testing whether the rapid mechanical and algorithmic production is inherently antithetical to complexity, or if the entertaining melodrama of the soap opera is actually the perfect vessel to contain the conflict between big ideas.

Broth & Bouillon
Tempel
Amsterdam, Netherlands

For this exhibition, myself and Léo Ravy presented the outcome of our Stimuleringsfonds NL funded experimental research into how theories of group decision-making can help create new methods and aesthetics for collective poster design.

There was also a short demonstration of the method used for the poster made for the Hermitage Sykaminea Gathering prior to that poster's appearance in the 30th international poster competition at the French Graphic Design Biennale.

The two posters for the event, Broth & Bouillon were designed as part of the research with Tempel studio artists and returning participants from the first three workshop events. Also displayed were a video made from imagery generated during the research and a 'Vampire Cat' imagined as part of one poster, cast in Pewter.

Screen printed copies of the Broth poster made at AGA Lab were given away to visitors during the event and they contained a QR code linking to a more detailed explanation of the research processes.

El Hombre Que Era Jueves
Madrid, Spain

This special screening of 'The Man Who Was Thursday' with additional Spanish subtitles was given o the residents at the Centro de residencias artísticas de Matadero Madrid thanks to the support of resident Sara Santana Lopez

For the event, a special poster was created in the style of a mid-20th century European co-production, referncing influence on the film such as 'Danger Diabolik' or 'the 10th Victim'.

T-E-S-T-C-A-R-D
Nottingham, United Kingdom & Online

TESTCARD is a programme of artists moving-image that takes the format of a 24-hour TV variety show that includes a combination of live and pre-recorded material which draws on the history of radical and public broadcasting, open publishing and transmission.

The first TESTCARD event takes the model of mid-late 1990’s and early 2000s popular TV variety programmes like ‘MTV’, ‘Diggit’, ‘TV with Ray Cathode’ and ‘Live and Kicking’, to create a single event that counters the culture of on demand and steamed content and engage in the history of artists' DIY broadcasting and transmission projects including TVX/London Art Lab, Paper Tiger TV, Radio Anti and Convex TV. TESTCARD’s programme includes new and existing works and events that reflect, critique and disrupt standard forms forms news, chat show, nature films, game shows, ad-breaks, cooking and comedy shows to focus instead on collective viewing.

Hermitage Sykaminea Gathering
Athens, Greece

The Hermitage Sykaminea was founded as a place for retreat, and to rethink modes of life and production.

The Hermitage Sykaminea is situated in a terraced olive grove on a slope of Mount Lepetymnos, Lesvos. In 2020 the Hermitage was reconfigured to include an independent artist-run Summer Program as a space for untamed creative work away from metropoles. The Summer Program encourages individual and group-work, and initiates collaborations that continue beyond the summer. A continuing collaboration is the wool project which works on what can be done with discarded wool waste from sheep farming. The project produces new connections with the local area through recontextualising traditional techniques, and has started discussions on models for new employment and opportunities in the region.

In March 2022, Οnassis AiR collaborates with Hermitage Sykaminea, to host the Gathering in Αthens, that will unfold through a series of events put together by previous residency participants and newcomers. Emerging out of the Hermitage Sykaminea Summer Program, the Gathering collectively explores possibilities of how to live and work in supportive cοmmunities in non-urban areas of Lesvos and beyond. Through a practice of collective investigation, the Gathering gives space to share, gather and develop experiences and knowledges on how to live and work closer to nature, and the land. Focusing on themes of isolation, displacement, hospitality and planetary responsibility, it question forms of organisation, financing, how to work with commons and connect to neighbouring cοmmunities. The Gathering is seen as opportunity to build a supportive, nourishing and long-standing network which engages with the local surroundings of Lesvos and similar areas, whilst staying connected to urban-lives.

The Gathering will conclude with a two-day public program at ERGO Collective on March 21-22, 2022, that is open to all who wish to join in, exchange and add to this collective process.

The Hermitage Sykaminea Gathering is organized with the support of Goethe-Institut Athen, Οnassis AiR, Protoulis Master Olive Oil Makers, ERGO Collective and Dolce Publishing.

VIDEORANJERSEY
Jersey Arts Centre. St. Helier, Jersey

VIDEORANJERSEY is a screening of video work from exciting young artists practicing in the Netherlands featuring Veronika Babayan, Diana Al-Halabi, Alban Karsten, Kitty Maria, Baratto & Mouravas, Sophia Simensky, and Leslie Lawrence.

The screening is made possible by Stimuleringsfonds NL international co-operation support. The poster design with Léo Ravy is part of our experimental research into democratic poster design project.

This exhibition was made possible by the support of the Creative Industries Fund NL International co-operation fund

ORANJERSEY: Leslie Lawrence & Sophia Simensky
Jersey Arts Centre. St. Helier, Jersey

ORANJERSEY is a presentation of contemporary art and design from the Netherlands by Jersey-born artist and film maker Leslie Lawrence in collaboration with artist and designer Sophia Simensky. The ORANJERSEY programme aims to bring exciting young artists working in the Netherlands to present their work on the island with the support of the Jersey Arts Centre.

Leslie Lawrence's highly collaborative practice is displayed in video work made in collaboration with Sophia Simensky. The two films address the destabilisation of orthodox work practices and economic morals during the pandemic. Featuring ceramic busts that cry red hallucinogenic tears, office workers forced to do hydroponic farming, and contemporary witchcraft gone awry, these fantasy narratives see esoteric belief systems moving to fill the ideological gaps exposed by crisis.

Sophia Simensky is showing new work derived from research into the blue mountain region of Pennsylvania. Simensky's scenographic approach deploys creative writing, sculpture, and performance to examine how the ideological foundations of the 'Keystone State' rupture into present day America revealing an ideological legacy of colonialism. Objects in beaten metal and polished plaster form allegorical landscapes, which teem with early American mythologies, violence and faith.

This exhibition was made possible by the support of the Creative Industries Fund NL International co-operation fund

LANDESCAPE Residency
Sicily, Italy

During his residency, Leslie Lawrence has been working on the concept for a film with Leonardo Ruvolo based on the Alcamese historical figure Ludovico Corrao and the concept of the 'Hyperobject'. The film follows an investigation into the idea that objects persist in a greater capacity beyond their appearance and that uncovering this hidden reality will hold the key to overcoming the looming economic and ecological disasters of our age. Traversing the fog gates to the Hypersphere reveals that the Sicilian realm is permeated by Ludovico Corrao, who has transcended his personal history and ascended to the status of a Hyperobject that intrudes upon normal reality.

VIDEOFENSTER (2021)
Köln, Ehrenfeld

VIDEOFENSTER 2021 is an immersive urban video-art and film project that will take place in Cologne’s Ehrenfeld neighbourhood, from the 22nd to the 27th of June 2021. The Event will run in the daytime between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. and from 10 p.m. to midnight during the night. Ehrenfeld’s streets will come alive thanks to a trail of audio-visual pieces by international artists and filmmakers. The theme connecting all the pieces is lockdown and isolation during the Covid_19 pandemic. The landscape will be transformed, in ways that will surprise residents and visitors alike. We expect that VIDEOFENSTER 2021 will allow us all to reflect and communicate our experiences and feelings about the changed world we live in.

Life on Planet Orsimanirana (2021)
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg

A project of the Jerszy Seymour Design Workshop with Macao and Assemble,

“ Life on Planet Orsimanirana is an exhibition as a communal living system and a functioning cooperative physical and online radio station which invites you to immerse yourself in an every-color primordial mud of molecular consciousness, an archive of autonomous reflections, DIY futurist narratives and a pumping funk of organic processes. ”(Emanuele Braga, Amica Dall and Jerszy Seymour)

The internationally known artist and designer Jerszy Seymour, together with Amica Dall from the London architecture collective Assemble and Emanuele Braga, member of the artist and activist group Macao in Milan, create a fantastic and humorous world at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (MK&G) that oscillates between exhibition, radio station, workshop and performance space. Life on Planet Orsimanirana follows as a decentralized and dynamic world building project; the idea of the "non-total work of art". International and local collectives, activists, artists, designers and the visitors themselves are invited to immerse themselves in this world, make music, take part in workshops and discussions, develop ideas and share them on the radio, to tune in to a fight for the future and to challenge the world in which they want to live. With this project, the MK&G is continuing its efforts to open up to more participation and dialogue. The project is aimed at everyone who would like to be active in the museum and use the power of joint design to think about new ways and answers to the burning questions of the present.

Plokta TV SE/02 - The Hidden Life of Technology (2020)
Online

For the second season of PloktaTV, we dive deeper into the Hidden Life of Technology

Technology is good at hiding. We have always lived with technologies. Bricks. Postal codes. Horsepower. Microwaves. The moment they are part of our lives, they disappear from view. Now technology is better than ever at hiding: beneath friendly interfaces, behind high walls, between the lines of the terms and conditions… in the palm of your hand.

Film is good at showing. It can pierce the surface of technology, revealing its secret lives. Film shows what the naked eye can’t see: the near and the distant; the past and possible futures. It makes you think, or stops you thinking altogether, immersing you in a story to enchant your dreams – or keep you up at night. To look with new eyes, or to watch in pure awe.

PloktaTV PloktaTV unravels the relationship between people and technologies, in all their different forms. The films are not just about gears, valves and switches, but mostly about people and about how we are connected through technologies. About what part they play in our mental lives. In our surroundings. In our societies.

Plokta’s program approaches these questions across fiction, science fiction, documentary, computer code and video art. Not simply the domain of filmmakers, these works also allow designers and artists to provide unique insights into these elusive interactions: stories and images to unveil and to speculate.

See for yourself. Challenge your understanding of what technology is, what it does, and what to make of it. Find your fix, something to push your buttons, or to dazzle you with the ghost in the machine.

Filmhuiskamer - Galerie De Jaloezie (2020)
Rotterdam, Netherlands

Visit our cinema room every Friday, Saturday and Sunday in November and December. In the cinema room we show audiovisual artworks by young makers. In addition, we open the private cinema from Thursday to Sunday, which can be booked with your household at 7:00 PM or 9:00 PM

The Fire Sermon - Heesterveld 57 and Online (2020)
Amsterdam, Netherlands

Designed to work within the restrictions created due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This exhibition allowed visitors to book private screenings within the set of the film. Additionally, a web version of the viewing room was designed and made available to coincide with the exhbiition to create accessibility for those not able to visit in-person

Exhibition by Leslie Lawrence & Sophia Simensky.
Hosted by Lost Dad Publishing at Heesterveld 57.
Web + Design by Léo Ravy & Publicity by Sun Chang.
Cinema sound panels by Octave Rimbert-Rivière.

The Fire Sermon [2020]
Written & Directed by Leslie Lawrence.
Costume & Set Design by Sophia Simensky.
Featuring Janina Fritz & Constantin Dichtl.

The Dude [2019] Sculpted by Janina Fritz.

Making Love to the World: The peregrination of Doctor Design [2020]
Written and published by Janina Fritz.
Layout & Design by Alexander Pfeiffenberger.

This project is supported by the AFK [Amsterdam Fund for the Arts].

We Stop Everything, We Think, and We Watch Films (2019)
Bijlmerplein 698

For this special screening of Jacques Doillon's 'L'an 01' Kino Club Fallow curated a short series of accompanying anti-work films to run prior to the main feature

ABOUT KINOCLUB FALLOW: In agriculture, to put a field in fallow is to render it "unproductive" for a given time. Fallow is a process of regeneration of the soil where it is conscidered to be "resting" but demands intensive care. Imagine the soil takes a break and goes to the spa for a while.

This practice was very common before industrial farming came into place and was important for the fields to stay healthy. In addition to this, fallow fields were an essential part of the local commons as they could be used by the community, especially for seasonal grazing for example.

Inspired by this process, we organize fallow screenings in our studio to invite our space to rest and become a commons for its visitors. You. Us. The programmation is open to anyone interested in screening a film, a video of any kind or even in adding a performative element to the events in themselves.

PACTO Pool Party (2019)
Los Angeles, California

Public Pool is pleased to host the launch of PACTO's new publication, The Best Place at the Party is the Kitchen - Recipes for Collectivity . PACTO is an international alliance of artists, artistic researchers and writers, gathered to discuss and explore collectivity, and to support one another's individual endeavors. Rather than being led by form or structure, PACTO seeks to inquire how to work together and what that means through practice-led processes.

This Will Take Time
Point Arena, California

In Summer 2019 PACTO Collective convened in California and took part in the This Will Take Time Residency. As part of the residency we used the geological examinations of previous residents to locate a source of clay on the site to dig from. This clay was used for two purposes: first it was combined with natural material to form a cob mix that was used to build a combination kiln and oven; secondly it was refined so it could be used to make ceramics that would be fired in the kiln. The design of the kiln was such that as it was beginning or finishing firing the temperature would be appropriate for cooking, feeding the collective who worked to fire the kiln by chopping wood and tending to the coals

PACTO also published 'The Best Place at the Party is the Kitchen, Recipes for Collectivity' which included writing from other artist collectives, details of the residency kiln project, and recipes that could be made in a kiln oven

This Will Take Time is dedicated to longterm projects and experiments in land use, education, and the arts. This Will Take Time is a nonprofit organization located in Point Arena, California. It was founded in early 2015 by Tara Shi and Benjamin Lotan. It receives funding from Social Print Studio and is fiscally sponsored by Acorn Partners in Education, a local 501(3)(c) nonprofit.

The And of The World (2019)
Bijlmerplein 698, Amsterdam

The great thing about waiting for the apocalypse, is that it frees you from worrying about the future; you can embrace annihilation, and instead, set sail for the edge of the earth.

With ‘The And of the World’ the graduates of the Dirty Art Department embrace the possibility of moving forward from the promise of extinction—to chart a course through the abyss, toward a happy anding.

Demokratie Bauen (2019)
Schlesische27, Berlin  

DEMOKRATIE BAUEN (‚Build Democracy‘) is about creating visionary, purpose-built decision-making spaces in which groups and parties with opposing opinions can meet up: Left-wing, right-wing, religious, non-religious, original Berliners, new Berliners, and old Berliners who were once new Berliners. Different ideas and cultures are what make up a democracy – but which room concepts provide the best conditions for debates and working towards a consensus?

As of early 2018, young people from various different youth scenes, refugees from temporary accommodation, school pupils and trainees have all been coming to explore the curious nature of democracy, discuss its future, and share their opinions and experiences. With the help of artists and architects, they then design their utopian parliamentary architecture in various workshops. Impulse workshops, discussions and excursions are all part of the experimental construction process.

All World Assembly is a gathering of people, animals, and objects, with the task of creating a collective vision of a future world where all are granted freedom, equality and care for the souls of all things. Over 2 days, we will find our common languages, decide on ways to organize, and create the plot and setting of a film to share our vision. The confirmed participants include a refrigerator, a rock, a video camera, a bike, water, a scent, a tortoise, a tree, and a few humans of various ages and backgrounds.

All World Assembly was a workshop created by Jerszy Seymour Design Workshop for S27 Berlin. Video production by Leslie Lawrence

Bunker Warming (2019)
Vondelbunker, Amsterdam  

You are invited to our Bunker Warming party! We just found someone to join us in our bunker house and we want to celebrate! You can wear your pyjama, some nightcaps will be availbale. Enjoy your night!

The housing crisis in Amsterdam is more than just a story of spiralling rents. People are led into precarious situations, forced to choose between renouncing to have a place to sleep or accepting unstable living. Those who cannot register cannot work in the city, and so they struggle to match ever-increasing rent demands becomes even harder. They are trapped in a perverse circle. These people are students, families, migrants, the unemployed; all forced to tread lightly as the ground constantly shifts beneath their feet. You may be ‘aware’ of this situation but do you really understand what it is like to hide your craving for a comfortable bed at house viewing after house viewing? Where does the idea of ‘housing’ go from here?

Bunker Warming was an initiative of interdisciplinary artist and social designer Sara Daniel aimed at protesting the dire housing situation of Amsterdam. For the exhibition I performed as the literalist DJ character of 'DJ House DJ except he doesn’t play house music and is literally a house and also all of the songs are about houses'

The Vondelbunker is an autonomous cultural center run by volunteers who share the conviction that space is political. The bunker in its current form has been open since June 2011, hosting an unruly and dynamic cultural programme.

A Cold Open Show! (Live) (2018)
ISO Amsterdam  

A live broadcast of a television show featuring the artists of the dirty art department where they were simultaneously both the stars and production crew. Those viewing the performance could watch the broadcast on a TV set in front of the stage while also experiencing the chaos of the live production moving around them.

Natalia Jordanova and myself hosted 'P.R.O.P. (People's Revolutionary Organisation for Painting)' which imagined a panel discussion show where the hosts would decide on the features of a painting that would 'cause the socialist revolution' but never actually make anything. The segment is a lighthearted critique of the occassional overambitious claims of socially engaged practice.

In the production I provided the technical expertise to simultaneously perform and broadcast live, splitting the camera feeds so that they could be displayed individually in the performance as well as brought into live editing and streamed online

ISO Amsterdam is a collaborative working arena that combines a public programme with exhibitions, workshops, screenings, lectures, performance and music events. An ever-evolving stage for the (inter)national cultural community.

PACTO/:pillow residency at MACAO (2018)
MACAO, MIlan, Italy  

PACTO was originally meant to be a year-long project, consisting in three main group residencies bringing all of the members together, one in September, one in January and one in July, plus one individual research project/residency for each member.

This was the third and final group residency, held in Macao, Milan, from the the 16th to the 26th of July, and curated by :pillow (Alessandro Moroni & Giulia Ratti).

Macao is an independent center for art, culture and research. Avoiding the creative industry paradigm, and trying to innovate the old idea of cultural institutions, we started to consider art production as a viable process for rethinking social change, elaborating independent political critique, and as a space for innovative governance and production models. Our research concerns the labour conditions in the creative industry and cultural sector, the right to the city and new forms of organization and technological solutions for cultural production. Macao is currently based in a former slaughterhouse in the middle of a huge abandoned area not so far from the center of the city; it has a cross-sectorial program hosting performing arts, cinema, visual arts, design, photography, literature, new media, hacking and the meetings of citizens committees. It is coordinated by an open assembly of artists and activists.

Where Plato Taught - Academiae Biennal 2018
Franzenfeste Fortezza, Italy  

The Dirty Art Department was invited to take part in the Youth Biennale and showed Revolution or Bust! & Daddy Issues 2 to contexctualises our projects in Greece.

Contemporary visual art is one of the dominant major forms of expression that unites populations on a global scale through a universal form of communication that overcomes the barriers of language, culture and history. The artists are the architects of this revolution, they are the intellectual force that generates queries, thoughts, interpretations. This force proposes visions, albeit provocative, that are increasingly addressing the world as a whole.

Young artists naturally are at the forefront of exploring new unfamiliar pathways, whilst facing difficult challenges, and attempting to create a more advanced point of view. The event aims to give voice to young artists from all over the world, to unite their thoughts in an exceptionally evocative location and, with time, become an artistic platform of powerful cultural and social content. A project that gives life to an International Youth Event, building bridges between cultures and populations.

The curator of Academiae Biennial 2018, Christian Jankowski, has set the curatorial theme and has selected professors, from the best European Academies of Fine Arts, who are established on the contemporary Art scene. Together they will then choose the exhibiting students. A Consulting Committee composed by renowned individuals from the local cultural institutions will be supporting and supervising the project.

Introducing... at Stoa42 (2018)
Athens, Greece  

From May to June 2018, Stoa 42 hosted a series of events organized by members of Lost Dad Radio and by artists and designers from the Dirty Art Department, Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam. A rapid succession of short term exhibitions, performances and events, created especially for the space. 

In March 2018, the Dirty Art Department, Lost Dad Radio and friends walked two-hundred kilometres from Delphi to Athens and, having arrived, decided to stay. The encounter with the people in Greece at the time but also with Athens and the Stoa42 space was a moment to explore and reflect on the current local context

 Over a course of five weeks at Stoa 42 they were joined every Wednesday and Saturday by their new public to experience both the individual and communal adventures of this exciting group as they continued their journey in Athens.

 Stoa 42 is a non profit organization. An experimental cultural space with aim to support emergent artists. At the edge between private and public space, Stoa 42 invites each time one artist to show one work. A mini solo show which is open and accessibile to everyone who passes by.