BERGEN ASSEMBLY 2016
VALENTINA DESIDERI AND MYRIAM LEFKOWITZ: LA PISCINE

TAREK ATOUI & COUNCIL
WITHIN/INFINITE EAR
Sonic Therapy Sessions
13.-17.9.2016
Sentralbadet

Free entry
Sign language translation available

To book an appointment, please call Ingrid Røen +47 980 73 598
or email lapiscine@bergenassembly.no
Sessions start at 11:00, 13:00, 15:00 (duration 90 MIN.)

ABOUT LA PISCINE
Valentina Desideri and Myriam Lefkowitz will present an edition of the collective project La Piscine as part of WITHIN and Infinite Ear at Bergen Assembly 2016.

Bergen Assembly presents a new edition of La Piscine, a collective project that questions our usual patterns of attention. As a swimming pool contains and mixes water, La Piscine gathers different artistic practices, mixes them together and transforms them. Each encounter is a unique experience addressed to a single visitor.

Personal sessions take place at Sentralbadet, last for 90 minutes and are available every day from September 13 to September 17. Appointments can be booked in advance.

These sessions will be an opportunity to walk, lie down, talk, drink and listen. Desideri and Lefkowitz will take turns to welcome you, and engage you in a series of practices they have developed over the past few years: a walk with closed eyes; a conversation about a political problem; a nap accompanied by objects and sounds; an audio-visual guide through a series of questions; cocktails.

‘Together we will enter into an experience, the shape of which is still unknown.’

PRESS TEXT
Presented within the framework of WITHIN and Infinite Ear at Bergen Assembly 2016, La Piscine is a collective project which questions our usual modes of attention. As a swimming pool contains and mixes water, La Piscine gathers different artistic practices, mixes them together and transforms them. A series of sessions are offered, which draw on a number of practices developed by the artists. Each encounter is a unique experience addressed to a single visitor.

The first edition of La Piscine was presented at the municipal swimming pool in Pantin, Paris in October 2015 and organised by Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers. There, seven artists (Jean Philippe Derail, Valentina Desideri, Ben Evans, Géraldine Longueville Geffriaud, Alkis Hadjiandreou, Julie Laporte, Myriam Lefkowitz) learned certain practices from each other and experimented with mixing them.

Over five days, 100 encounters took place, combining the following practices:

Political Therapy addresses a political problem (brought by the visitor) through discussion, healing and mapping.
(Conceived by Valentina Desideri)

How Can One Know In Such Darkness is the experience of a motionless body plunged into darkness. The device relies on the sense of touch and on the sound-space that spreads out around and with the body.
(Conceived by Myriam Lefkowitz, Julie Laporte et Jean Philippe Derail)

The Ignorant Tour Guides is an audio guide made of a series of questions, accompanied by a visual guide made of a series of images. Participants experience The Ignorant Tour Guides while walking freely in the space.
(Conceived by Ben Evans and Alkis Hadjiandreou)

Walks, Hands, Eyes (A City) is a silent walk which weaves a specific relation between walking, seeing and touching.
(Conceived by Myriam Lefkowitz)

Cocktails offers diverse waters, opening a possible dialogue between taste and our other senses.
(Conceived by Géraldine Longueville)

Fake Therapy is a practice that allows anyone to heal anyone else without knowing how, through the use of a set of instruction cards.
(Conceived by Valentina Desideri)

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
Valentina Desideri is an artist based in Amsterdam. She trained in contemporary dance at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London (2003–06) and went on to do an MA in Fine Arts at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam (2011–13). She practices Fake Therapy and Political Therapy, she co-organises the Performing Arts Forum in France, she speculates in writing with Stefano Harney, she engages in Poethical Readings with Denise Ferreira da Silva, and she reads and writes.

Myriam Lefkowitz is a performance artist based in Paris. Since 2010, her research has focused on questions of attention and perception, developed through different immersive devices involving one spectator and one performer. She has presented work at the Venice Biennale, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Le Mouvement in Biel, Situations in Bristol, Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, MED15 in Medellin, Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers in Paris, among others. Teaching is an important part of her practice and she took part in the Master’s Programme of experimentation in Art and Politics (SPEAP) at Science Po Paris founded by Bruno Latour as a student and as a tutor.

For further Sonic Therapy sessions see:

DEEP LISTENING WITH PAULINE OLIVEROS AND IONE (3.-4.9.2016)
To sign up, please contact: deeplistening@bergenassembly.no

SOUND MASSAGE WITH THIERRY MADIOT AND GUESTS(2.9.-1.10.2016)
To sign up, please contact: soundmassage@bergenassembly.no

Photo: La Piscine, first edition at Leclerc swimming pool in Pantin, Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, October 2015