ART OF NOTICING

thematic session
Mon 28 Sep
10.00-15.45

The ways in which we think and engage with the world are influenced by the notion of progress, linear time and singular stories. Moving beyond this requires attention, curiosity, slowing down - the art of noticing. In this short introduction, Tamara de Groot analyzes how notions of progress and science produce our world, and how we can find alternatives by learning how to tell different stories. To do this, she draws together texts by anthropologist Anna Tsing writing about mushrooms, science fiction author Ursula Le Guin refusing the hero story and botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation Robin Wall Kimmerer.

General description
Transdisciplinary collaboration includes the acknowledgement and merging of other ways of being and knowing to create new practices and knowledges. Engaging with different people, worldviews and epistemologies requires careful and attentive listening, curiosity, and an open mind. One of the ways to conceptualize this approach is with the notion of "noticing". To notice means more than just glancing at an object or person. Instead, it denotes paying attention to, becoming aware of, truly registering something or someone. During this thematic session, we will explore and practice the art of noticing from different perspectives, by engaging with texts and ideas as well as in a range of exercises.

Learning aims
After following this thematic session, you will:
- understand the notion of 'art of noticing' from a range of academic and artistic perspectives;
- be able to consciously engage in acts of noticing;
- be able to position the notion of 'art of noticing' in the context of transdisciplinary collaboration;

- - Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (2015), Chapter 1: "Arts of Noticing" (pp. 17-25), from: 'Mushroom at the End of the World - On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins'.

- - Ursula K. Le Guin (1986), "The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction" (pp. 165-170) from: 'Dancing at the end of the world: Thoughts on words, women, places'.

- - Robin Wall Kimmerer (2017), "Asters and Goldenrod" (pp. 39-47), from: 'Braiding Sweetgrass - Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants'.

preparatory readings

Exercise 5 4 3 2 1. Observing, noticing, thinking, communicating in specific order.

Objects, environments, sounds surrounding us and filling our everyday lives are our constant companions. They hold the ability to ground us and make us aware.
Details can seem ordinary at first but can carry double meaning, clous to better understanding. Our direct surroundings holds similar clous on our state of being and the level of our interaction and actions. Our attention is projected on the background of inattention: we select and isolate, our mind navigates and chooses priorities.
It is a near impossible challenge to see the reality around us in full objectivity, our perception is connected to eg. memories, time, light, the weather or to (old) feelings of intimacy and affection, however this does present us with valuable insights into our personal life: the storm in our mind, eager to learn to be quiet, still.

The exercise 5 4 3 2 1 is a deceivingly simple one, a device bringing us literally back to our senses by actually putting us into our senses: to see, hear, feel, smell and taste. It is not a coping-trick for when the going gets tough (although it can be used for this purpose), but it can support returning to the present place in which we can again become aware: with an open mind , curious to what surrounds us as well as noticing our own ‘point zero’, our starting point, opening us up for positive transformation.

“We think very little of time present [….] we are so thoughtless, that we thus wander through the hours which are not here, regardless only of the moment that is actually our own.” Blaise Pascal.

The work of Frans van Lent is concept driven and minimal in approach. Through performative and sculptural methods, his practice focuses on human behaviour in the public realm and observing, processing and redefining the ordinary ways in which this is visible. He uses various methods, specifically chosen for each occasion: performance; photography, film and sound, descriptive texts.

Collaboration with others artists and the curating of events are important and consistent aspects of his artistic practice. In 2014 and 2016 he organised the Unnoticed Art Festival in the cities of Haarlem and Nijmegen. In 2015 he initiated TheConceptBank.org, a free online database for performance concepts. Frans van Lent is initiator and editor of the website UnnoticedArt.com, and co-initiator/curator of 222lodge.

He published two books, Unnoticed Art (2014) and TheParallelShow (2018), distributed by Jap Sam Books. His last publication, TPSGF (2019), published by UnnoticedArt, is available as an ebook and freely distributed.

Frans van Lent studied at the Academie voor Beeldende Vorming in Tilburg (1974-1979) and completed his MA in Fine Art at MaHKU in Utrecht in 2014. Since 2000 he has taught at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. He lives and works in Dordrecht, the Netherlands.

www.UnnoticedArtFestival.com
www.TheConceptBank.org
www.fransvanlent.nl

Introductory talk Tamara de Groot

Workshop
Josué Amador & Connie de Jongh

Workshop
Frans van Lent

Listen

Pauline Oliveros (1971)

Schedule
10.00-11.00 Introductory talk by Tamara de Groot

11.00-11.15 Short break

11.15-12.30 Workshops with Josué Amador & Connie de Jongh

12.30-13.30 Lunch break

13.30-15.30 Workshop with Frans van Lent

15.30-16.00 Reflection