Seven Times Two or Three

A one-week long series of events featuring works and research by over 30 artists, designers, musicians and writers in the form of live performances, lectures, dialogues and appropriations.

Cubitt is pleased to host Seven Times Two or Three/on and beneath communication, an intense series of installations, presentations, performances and dialogues, taking place over a period of one week for no more than two or three hours a day. Developed in association with Electric Palm Tree, Seven Times Two or Three aims at challenging the dominant shape of contemporary culture where communication has regressed into one-sided, 24-hour public noise.

According to social research, one "spends 3.5 years of his/her live answering irrelevant emails", while only 2 percent of all information raining down on us can be consciously processed. From this starting point, Seven Times Two or Three features presentations that explore today’s situation of overflowing public (private) information and its narrative of superficiality (with presentations by art critics and authors Jan Verwoert and Sven Lutticken), or, going a step further — Marcus Steinweg, Haegue Yang and Sung Hwan Kim — break through the ever-expanding verbal surface in order to generate a constructive state of miscommunication and dys-functional time. Together with artists such as Mariana Castello Deball and Wendelien van Oldenborgh, who approach the (neo-liberal) regime of time from an historical angle, Seven Times Two or Three aims to set out a playing field in which the transparency of communication is appropriated and subjected to alternatives.

Situating this week-long series of events at Cubitt, the gallery will feature a selection of historical and contemporary references, including works and retakes of works by artists Lawrence Weiner, Bernadette Corporation and Phillip Lai. The opening event will present a musical experiment by Amsterdam-based musicians Byungjun Kwon and Min Seok Kwon entitled Hypermetropia: a physical defect of vision causing an inability to focus on near objects. The seven day running series will complete with a screening of the film Tokyo Story (1953) by Yasujiro Ozu, which depicts post-war Japan's modern life in a leisurely tempo, and a performance by Pil and Galia Kollectiv entitled Better Future-quad-shaped.

Workshop with Manuel Raeder “In the Land of the Blind the One-eyed Man is King”

Monday 16 June, 4-6 pm

On Monday June 16, renowned graphic designer and conceptual thinker Manuel Raeder will host a public workshop on ‘folding narratives’. Known for his collaborations with the fashion label BLESS and for numerous institutional interventions and artist collaborations, Raeder will give the construction of narrative a physical shape. The outcomes of the workshop will join the other works in the gallery. In order to take part in the workshop, please contact info@cubittartists.org.uk.

Programme

Setting (a week-long installation)

• Retake Atsuko Tanaka’s Work(Bell) (2008)
• Evoke Tehching Hsieh’s One Year Performance (1980–81)
• Listen Lawrence Weiner’s Nothing to Lose (1976)
• Read Bernadette Corporation’s Wall Text (2005)
• Occupy Phillip Lai’s Untitled (2008)

Opening Sunday 15 June, 7–9pm

• Performance by Byungjun Kwon & Min Seok Kwon, Hypermetropia

Monday 16 June, 7–9pm

• Installation & Presentation after workshop led by Manuel Raeder (see the above)
• Screening of Eva Meyer/Eran Schaerf’s Flashforward (2004)
• Runway of BLESS’s N°35 Automatica Remote Services (2008)

Tuesday 17 June, 6–9pm

• Screening of Wendelien van Oldenborgh’s Maurits Script (2006) & No False Echoes (2008)
• Conversation with Wendelien van Oldenborgh and Emily Pethick
• Screening of Nobody was Tomorrow (2008)
• Book presentation These Ruins You See by Mariana Castillo Deball with surprise guest

Wednesday 18 June, 7–9pm

• Reading of Mladen Stilinovic’s The Praise of Laziness (1998)
• Lecture & Presentation by Jan Verwoert, Yes, No & Other Options
• YouTube Salon by Stuart Comer, There is No Cure for Curiosity

Thursday 19 June, 7–9pm

• Screening of Jon Mikel Euba’s One Minute of Silence (2003-2005)
• Video Installation of Joan Jonas’s Vertical Roll (1972)
• Lecture & Multiple Projections by Sven Lütticken, Shock and Suspense

Friday 20 June, 7–9pm

• Screening of Haegue Yang’s Holiday Story (2007)
• YouTube Screening of Danièle Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub’s En rachâchant (1982)
• Lecture by Marcus Steinweg, Marguerite Duras as a Philosopher

Saturday 21 June, 7–9pm

• Reading by Sara De Bondt, Beatrice Warde-First Lady of Typography by John Dreyfus
• Screening of Sung Hwan Kim’s Summer Days in Keijo—written in 1937 (2007)
• Performance by Michael Hiltbrunner, Singing over a Voice Study

Sunday 22 June, 6–9pm 

• Screening of Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953)
• Performance by Pil and Galia Kollectiv, Better Future-quad-shaped

Entrance: Free.
Every event starts sharp on time.
Light snack and drinks provided.
Feel free to visit the installed works during the day.

With kind support of Arts Council England.

Cubitt's exhibition programme (October 2007 - March 2009) is supported by: Outset Contemporary Art Fund, 176/Zabludowicz Collection and others.

Image Source: Hypermetropia.svg (SVG file, nominally 500 × 500 pixels, file size: 13 KB) Wikimedia Commons.