An Mertens and Peter Westenberg contribute to a symposium in Montevideo, Amsterdam, initiated by Linda Hilfling, on the topic of performative language, as part of the ’Speaking out Loud’-exhibition.

About the symposium:

Most works in the Speaking Out Loud exhibition suggest that language is a fluid, dynamic system which offers itself for individual expression and performance. On the other hand, language is a rational system not driven by instinct but whose strict rules and signs we must learn in a life long, enduring process. Looking at language from this other perspective, we are confronted with an authority, a rigid system of code that is preserved and governed even. Language shares this ambivalence with the Internet, a system that on the one hand develops dynamically through its users’ contributions, on the other hand, it is a highly regulated space, that is less and less public but where the transfer of copyrights and censorship affect the Internet’s appearance and use at its core.

In this session, the speakers will discuss the nature of both systems language and the Internet from their various perspectives, particularly looking at ways to artistically respond to, escape and circumvent their rigidness and constraints.

Speakers:

Florian Cramer, theoretician, Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam

Linda Hilfling, NIMk artist in residence

Jaromil, artist and researcher at NIMK

An Mertens, fiction writer and Peter Westenberg, artist, both members of Constant, Brussels

moderated by Susanne Jaschko