Grok projects

A mural work-in-progress for the Doktor Faustus exhibition. I totally redid this painting later on.

I contributed an essay-work to PrintRoom's A-Z series. The text is a pastiche of the following texts: A philosophical inquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful (Edmund Burke, 1757), Sense and sensibility (Jane Austen, 1811), The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy (Douglas Adams, 1978), Beyond the Brillo Box: the visual arts in post-historical perspective (Arthur C. Danto, 1998), Beyond the pleasure principle (Sigmund Freud, 1920), Xeno-epistemics: makeshift kit for sounding visual art as knowledge production and the retinal regimes (Sarat Maharaj, 2002), The death of the author (Roland Barthes, 1967), What is an author? (Michel Foucault, 1969), The pleasure of the text (Roland Barthes, 1973), Zombies of immaterial labor: the modern monster and the death of death (Lars Bang Larsen, 2010).

Download the text in pdf.

Concept and realisation by Stefano Calligaro & Karin de Jong. Cover image by Ewoud van Rijn. With contributions by Ewoud van Rijn, Martijn in ‘t Veld, Stefano Calligaro, Ruth Höflich, Rachel Carey, Joris Lindhout, Mick Peter.

Trailer for the book 'Circle Square Star Triangle Cross', which was produced in the summer of 2012 by artists Bokyung Jung, Saem Lee, Narae Jin, Sangsup Jung, Gwangsig Yoo and myself during a residency at Space Beam, Incheon (South Korea).

The book is staged in 2097 and deals with a suitcase found during an excavation on a soon-to-be re-developed piece of land in South Korea. The suitcase contains all kinds of newspaper clippings, photo's, scribbles and notes which are pieced together in an effort to make a reconstruction of the downfall of the city which was previously located on that land.

The book is available through Expodium.

In the last few months me and curator Maaike Gouwenberg were invited by Impakt to introduce parts of the research we've conducted in Brazil:

What are the origins of Brazil’s contradictory image of exotic rituals and primitive violence? In Cannibalizing Cannibal Myth, Joris Lindhout and Maaike Gouwenberg introduce us to this complicated matter through film fragments, visual material and two films.

Focal point of this programme is the manner in which the myths created by Brazil’s first colonists, have found their way into these modern times. One example relates to the 16th century story of German Hans Staden who escaped a cannibal tribe and wrote in his diary how Tupi Indians ate their enemies to gain possession of their powers. His book later served as the blueprint for obscure cult cinema classics such as Cannibal Holocaust.

In the 20th century, Brazilian authors such as Mario de Andrade managed to use the myths created by outsiders in a strategic manner, in a quest for national identity. In Andrade’s book Macunaíma, cultural cannibalism or ‘antropofagia’ is a positive metaphor for the melting of cultures. In the footsteps of the man-eating Tupi Indians, the different cultures in Brazil had to digest each other in order to turn Brazil into a stronger nation.

The darker aspects of the nation are depicted in the Brazilian version of Frankenstein: Zé do Caixão. This mythological character, a violent Nietzschean funeral undertaker with a strong aversion against religion, was, among others, featured in the film Mojica by José Mojica Marins that will be screened.

How Brazilian cannibals captured Western thinking, devoured and digested it.

Brazil’s national identity is based on a mix of ethnicities, which makes Brazilians hard to recognise on the basis of just their appearance. Although Brazilian culture is also a mix, the resulting images and sounds are often unmistakably Brazilian. Clichéd examples include Rio de Janeiro’s carnival and Bossa Nova. Colonial history (Western perspectives and conceptualisation) is one of the ingredients in this mix. How did these typically Western ideas and concepts end up in Brazil, why were they retained and what did the Brazilians subsequently do with them? And; what can we, as Westerners, do with this? Joris Lindhout and Maaike Gouwenberg are attempting to find answers to these questions in Brazilian cinema, literature, theatre, art and other cultural expressions.

It has some issues with it's back.

In the São Paulo subway one can buy Nietzsche from a vending machine for R$ 5 (about € 2).