This is a radio broadcast to think through what a learning environment is. This consideration has grown from a failed project to make a physical studio space inside a Dutch art and design school, the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. The ‘we’ of this polyvocal broadcast is many, but it has been collected and narrated here by Julie Boschat Thorez, Cristina Cochior and Amy Pickles.

We are using this sonic channel to introduce an online resource we made while waiting to make a studio space. 'author' is an online library that contains resources and documentation from roughly one year of experiments in art and education. Our library’s collection of digital matter is classified as debris resulting from moments of choreographed, collective working.

During this year we have been moving from on-site education to online education. The question of what a studio could be now feels all the more pertinent. When working in ever more immaterial and singular ways, how can we find space for the artist studio online? We invited three artists, Martin Gugger, Arvand Pourabbasi and Simnikiwe Buhlungu, to respond to this question and our library with a sound work.

This radio broadcast of ‘author’ is a moment of publishing as a Hybrid Publication for the Willem de Kooning Academy (WdKA) Rotterdam NL, further supported by CBK Rotterdam.

BROADCAST OVERVIEW

00:00 The afterschool club of Lumsden Primary School, during workshops made with the Scottish Sculpture Workshop. Introduction to broadcast and Thank you’s
02:18 sonic work made by students of WdKA who participated in the workshops Choreographies for Phantom Limbs
19:28 Introduction to 'author', an online library
20:44 sonic work made by participants of politics of transcription, hosted at HKS and BEK and Thank you’s
23:53 Introduction to the failed studio space of 'author', our three contributors and an email recital by Isabelle Sully
26:00 Superflies by Martin Gugger
34:15 sonic work made by students of WdKA who participated in the workshops Ecstatic Speech and Thank you’s
48:06 Hyper-desk by Arvand Pourabbasi
01:01:23 Introduction to the library index and Thank you’s to our gift givers, further contributors and hosts
01:03:58 Berlin 2 Berlin by Simnikiwe Buhlungu
An audio guide detailing the directions from Berlin (Not this one! That one!) to Berlin (Not that one! This one!) using Google Maps’ step-by step directions for -- ideally -- a vehicle.
While this form borrows from the structure of audible GPS directions, it is more of a mobile historical narrative[s], of how one site in the Northern Hemisphere and it’s colonial-namesake located in the Southern Hemisphere (Germany and South Africa, respectively) are cyclical points which chart the cultural and historical landscapes of various geographies.
01:30:02 Concluding words and Water No Get Enemy by Femi Kuti, D'Angelo and Macy Gray

THE ARTISTS

MARTIN GUGGER
is a French artist who likes to experiment with language(s) and the beauty that can result from misunderstandings and double entendres. When he doesn't sing cheerful lyrics on hardcore techno in festivals with his band Salut c'est cool, he likes to perform and plays with multimedia installations in which he is confronted with his own failures and difficulties to grasp certain simple situations. His clumsy body enters into a loop until it becomes absurd, but it's endearing and somehow comforting to see him try to succeed.

ARVAND POURABBASI
is an artist, architect, educator, and maker. He is a co-founder of WORKNOT! Arvand is a co-editor and facilitator in Sarmad, a platform dedicated to politics of image. He is also a co-founder and co-curator of Neverland Cinema, a weekly neighbourhood screening program focused on situated cinematography. His work has been presented in Venice Biennale of Architecture, Sharjah Architecture Triennial, Tehran Architecture Biennale, Showroom MAMA, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Architecture Banal, among more. Arvand holds a Masters degree in Interior Architecture (INSIDE) from Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunst in Den Haag; and he has been a recipient of Talent Development grant from Stimuleringsfonds (2019-2020). Arvand is currently teaching at Willem de Kooning Academie, Rotterdam, and formerly tutored at Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunst, Den Haag.

SIMNIKIWE BUHLUNGU
is an artist from Johannesburg, South Africa, and currently based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Recent projects include Bergen Assembly: Actually, The Dead Are Not Dead, Bergen, Norway, 2019, and Collective Intimacies - Notes to Self: Intimate 1, mural project, The Showroom, London, UK, 2019. She obtained her BA(FA) degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (2017) and currently based in Amsterdam, Netherlands at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten (2020 - 2022). Interested in knowledge production, how it is produced - and by whom – its dissemination and its nuances as an ecology, she uses her practices to wrestle between these questions and their inexhaustible potential answers. Lately, she enjoys listening to gospel music and has been thinking about combo organs.

HYBRID PUBLISHING

Hybrid Publishing is founded by the Willem de Kooning Academy as a means of profiling and disseminating outstanding research conducted by its students and teaching staff, whether independently or in collaboration with external partners. Researching and experimenting across a broad range of processes native to digital and analog media, WdKA Hybrid Publishing fosters novel approaches to design, authoring, reading and dissemination made possible through ongoing developments from the legacies of Gutenberg’s press to present-day technologies.