The workshop What, of Art, Belongs to the Present? is organized by Sonic Acts in collaboration with Utrecht University and University of Amsterdam. It is an experimental research lab and close reading seminar about conceptualisations of ‘time’ in relation to art. The starting points are Jennifer Walshe’s large-scale work-in-progress Time: the Opera on which she is working with theorist Timothy Morton, and the recent work of Norwegian sound artist Signe Lidén. In the workshop participants explore key themes of this project with Walshe and Lidén. These themes coincide with the urgencies of contemporary culture: How can art intervene in the contemporary? Can art realize another form of time? How to give form to perpetual resistance? The workshop deepens and enhances the experience of art of the participants, engages them in the process of making art, and in doing so, stimulates them to critically examine and respond to current political, social and cultural challenges.

Photo Pieter Kers