Villa Aurora Events Archive
August 2023
The Origin of Values - Presentation and Discussion
Villa Aurora (520 Paseo Miramar, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272)
Information
The Origin of Values is the result of explorative journeys which Sabine Scho, a poet-turned-photographer and Villa Aurora alumna, and photographer and biologist Matthias Holtmann have undertaken over the past six years: To the island of Vilm near Rügen, to Iceland, to the Pantanal in Brazil and the national parks of South Africa. In places of undisturbed nature they investigate how it is economized by what mankind considers to be of value: the soil becomes a resource, the wilderness a cultivation area, the animal body an article of exchange.
The prologue of this new work begins in the Pantanal in Brazil, one of the largest contiguous inland wetlands and most species-rich hotspots on earth, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There, the greediness of the human species is leading to unbridled land consumption for the cultivation of sugar cane and soy. Thus, the wetland now faces its disappearance - far from the benefited places of meat and ethanol consumption.
After the reading of Sabine's poem "The Origin of Values" and short presentations. We will hear about local projects and continue the discussion with our guests Bob Ramirez (Kuruvugna Springs) and Lauren Bon (Metabolic Studio).
The Great Vibration
Join Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio at Villa Aurora for an immersive construction noise listening event--"The Great Vibration," a premiere by Metabolic Sonics. This experience features field recordings captured during construction of the ambitious project, "Bending the River":
At our studio site, beside the iconic LA River in downtown Los Angeles, we are currently driving sixty-foot shoring panels deep into the ground. These panels play a vital role in holding the earth, allowing us to create a "mother well" at Metabolic Studio. Within this well, we will receive the water diverted from the flow of the LA River, before it is lifted into our native wetlands for treatment.
"The Great Vibration” will be a ten-minute listening session, we will share the vibrating of the shoring panels and some visual material, enhancing the overall sensory experience. Please be aware that this event may challenge some listeners, but we believe that pushing boundaries and exploring the realm of sound is an essential part of artistic expression.
Participants
Sabine Scho is a photographing author based in Rome and Berlin. Her texts oscillate between photography, drawing and image. Her projects live strongly from cooperation. Among them:
"The Origin of Senses" together with Andreas Töpfer (Museum for Natural History Berlin 2015), "House for a Boxer" together with Sebastian Felix Ernst and Golden Diskó Ship"(Hatje Cantz 2021), "Color Sequence" together with Matthias Holtmann (Spreepark Berlin 2022) and the ongoing project "The Origin of Values" (Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e. V., Berlin 2021).
She taught "Uncertain Formats" at the German Literature Institute Leipzig 2018/19. Scho has been awarded the German Prize for Nature Writing 2018 and Rome Prize winner of the German Academy Villa Massimo of the academic year 2019/2020.
Matthias Holtmann is a German Biologist, Photographer and School Director. He collaborated with Sabine Scho in several publications, projects and exhibitions such as "Animals in Architecture" (2013), the ongoing "The Origin of Values" as well as "All Birds Vanish" (Villa Massimo Rome 2021) and "Art and About" (Spreepark Berlin 2022).
His photographic work can be found in publications for literary festivals and newspapers such as Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Neue Zürcher Zeitung. After working in Hamburg, São Paulo and Berlin, he currently serves as the principal of the German International School in Rome.
Meet The Artists
Villa Aurora (520 Paseo Miramar, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272)
Information
Throughout the day
Sergey Khismatov
ROTONDA (2022, ca. 25’ / Loop)
The piece is based on hundreds of videos of squeaky doors, recorded by different people around the world. All the videos have been edited together without altering the original audio.
Projection in our garage studio
Anna Korsun
SIGNALS FOR 14 PERFORMERS WITH MEGAPHONES (2019, 20’ Loop)
Performed at Bergbau Technik Park in 2020
Audio piece in our garage studio
Nieves de la Fuente
ALVIRAH AND WILLY (2022)
Interactive browser experience for Chrome and Firefox, duration variable, color, sound, English and Spanish
The experience will be displayed on a computer in the second floor
Nieves de la Fuente
ODD//FOES (2023)
Augmented Reality experience for IOS and Android. Duration variable, color, sound.
The different “crashed” objects can be discovered inside and outside the Villa. Please bring you own cell phone, you will need mobile internet and a QR scanner
Monika Orpik
STEPPING OUT INTO THIS ALMOST EMPTY ROAD (2022)
Photobook; slideshow; choir recording (composed by Szymon Wójcik)
Display on a computer in the second floor
5:30 pm
ROUNDTABLE
with Sergey Khismatov, Anna Korsun, Nieves de la Fuente, Monika Orpik and Emre Dündar in our salon
6 pm
Emre Dündar
PRESENTATION
in our salon
Participants
Nieves de la Fuente was born in Madrid, Spain and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. From 2013 to 2016, she studied at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne where she completed her postgraduate studies. In 2018, she began working as an art research assistant at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne and later at the Academy of Fine Arts Burg Giebichenstein Halle (Saale).
Monika Orpik was born in 1997 in Poland. She’s currently pursuing her MA degree at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg. Orpik’s methodology involves working with specialists across various disciplines e.g. composers, anthropologists and linguists to allow for a space of interaction and exchange of knowledge. Her research focuses on unnamed things, moments undepicted in images, and the collapse of meaning caused by the use of inadequate language. Further she is interested in stories often omitted from mainstream historical records and the misuse of classification processes that impacts the narrative gaps. In her work she investigates methods used to describe experiences often named as those unspeakable or unspoken within the subject of war, violence and trauma. She incorporates photography, book making, text and sound in her work.
Emre Dündar is a composer, pianist, improviser, and academic scholar based in Berlin who is originally from Istanbul. Dündar composes his work in line with his ever-changing interests and curiosities which are all related to the concept of narrativity in its broadest sense. As a composer he decides on how to apply composition related techniques within an aesthetical-rhetorical context that he identifies with each individual creation. Depending on the context, he uses various compositional techniques, ranging from polystylism to serialism, extended modal material, spectralism, and even traditional tonality.
Sergey Khismatov was born in St. Petersburg. Khismatov did his post graduate education at the European University in St. Petersburg and in 2010 - 2012 he attended the composition seminars of Moritz Eggert in Munich. Today he works as a composer and a multimedia artist.
Anna Korsun was born in Ukraine and completed her compositional education at the Kyiv National Academy of Music, the University of Music, and the Theatre Munich. Today she works as composer, performer and teacher in Germany as well as around the globe. Korsun’s work focuses on a variety of different formations that vary from solo to orchestra and include acoustic instruments, voice, electronics, and sounding objects. Her work incorporates visual art, theater, dance and literature.