On Saturday 12 November Viral Radio presents the first performance of austere electronic music duo Raime in Amsterdam. They will join reknowned French multi-instrumentalist – and friend of Non-fiction – Pierre Bastien at the Moving Buildings Festival. Moving Buildings is a festival on music and media art, organised by P60, the Schouwburg Amstelveen and Cobra Museum of Modern Art

Raime draw explicit inspiration from the marginal mavericks of early European goth, minimal dance and synth wave – artists largely omitted from the current master narrative of post-punk history, who strove to make music at once cerebral, visceral, and futuristic.

“London duo Raime made the most creative use of the space … the music hovered, like Herzog’s lens, on the threshold between alien beauty and human brutality.” Wire live review from Unsound Festival, Poland

Pierre Bastien is a French musician, composer, and instrument builder. He began building mechanical-based musical instruments at an early age, using items such as metronomes, cymbals, and pulleys.

He has collaborated with artists such as Robert Wyatt, Jac Berrocal, Jaki Liebezeit, Pierrick Sorin, and Issey Miyake. He has worked with us on numerous different projects, like Aura at Castrum Peregrini, Hear it! at Stedelijk Museum, and Nachtsalon at Museum Energetica.

The performances of Raime and Pierre Bastien start at 21.30. They will be supported by Viral Radio resident DJs. Tickets are available at the venue. More information at http://movingbuildings.nl and http://p60.nl.

Machinefabriek live at Aura in Castrum Peregrini (photo: Jelle Spanjaard)

On a Thursday night in September in 2006, multi-instrumentalist Rutger Zuydervelt performed under his moniker Machinefabriek on the 700th birthday at the Oude Kerk, the oldest building of Amsterdam that is located in the heart of the Red Light District. It was a night I organised when I was still working at the n8 foundation, the collaborative museum platform that works for the Amsterdam museums. This was the beginning of an ongoing love affair with one of the Netherlands’ most productive and imaginative young composers and musicians. Since this concert we have worked together numerous times at the Bimhuis, Lantaren/Venster, Castrum Peregrini, and once even in my appartment in Amsterdam, together with Danish sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard. Machinefabriek, a natural improviser who never performs the same work twice, and has an Olympic amount of releases and bootlegs swerving around. Even when I write, Michiel is listening to his music (and while you are peeking at his Last.fm account, have a look where Machinefabriek stands in my top artists list).

So it should not come as a surprise when we announce that the first artist we have asked to perform in 2010 is our dear friend Machinefabriek. We will celebrate the opening of the new year in De Verdieping with a special performance on Wednesday 6 January at 8 pm. We will also celebrate the proud fact that we have been granted a generous 2-year financial support from the Amsterdam Art Fund to upgrade the organisation and become a more professional cultural institution. The support enables us to notch up our activities and broaden our reach. We are delighted about this and look forward to inviting you to more adventurous programmes on the Wibautstraat in 2010.

We look forward to seeing you next Wednesday and toasting on the new decade. In the mean time, follow De Verdieping on Facebook and Twitter. Drive and shoot straight on New Year’s Eve.

Machinefabriek live at [F]luister from Renier Eclectro on Vimeo.

During this first edition of a series of two Aura-salons and a finissage, as part of the Aura-project, Castrum Peregrini will confront artists, poets, writers and creative thinkers with the concept of aura as set out by Walter Benjamin. He defined aura as the distance between a purveyor of the work of art and the work itself. With the advent of mechanical reproduction, he argues, the distance has been closed, aura diminished, and the work of art democratized.

Fast-forward 70 years later, we are confronted with the rich and ‘auratic’ heritage of Castrum Peregrini.
But what will remain of it when this treasure trove is further opened to the public and is reinterpreted and reproduced by artists and journalists through photos, moving images and other means of communication? What will happen to its aura? This first Aura-salon questions Walter Benjamin’s alarming prediction that:

“that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art.” (Walter Benjamin)

With contributions by (a.o.)
- Allerd van den Bremen & Renée van Marissing (theater-makers)
- Amie Dicke (artist)
- Erik Lindner (poet)
- Joachim Umlauf (Director Goethe-Institut Amsterdam)
- Ton Venhoeven (Architect Venhoeven CS)
- Michiel van Iersel (curator Aura-project and partner at Non-fiction)
- Lars Ebert (Castrum Peregrini)
- Machinefabriek (electro-acoustic musician)

Date: Thursday 28 May
Time: 20:00 – 23:00 hrs
Address: Herengracht 401, Amsterdam
Language: Dutch/German
Contact: 020 623 52 87 or mail@castrumperegrini.nl

The next Aura-salon will be on Thursday, 11 June, 20:00 – 23:00 hrs with contributions by (a.o.) Jan Baeke, Pierre Bastien, Theu Boermans, Amie Dicke, Dragan Klaic, Tracy Metz, Macha Roesink en Henk van der Waal.

The Aura project is being made possible through the generous support of the Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, VSB Fonds, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Lira Fonds, Goethe Institut Amsterdam and Genootschap Nederland Duitsland

www.castrumperegrini.org

Strangely enough, the article is (not yet) available online, so the following image is the best we can offer right now. (For our Dutch-speaking audience, notice the missing part in the title of the review: onderduikadres). And of course now we look forward to the next review.

On Thursday May 28 from 20:00 hrs, we will organize the first of a series of Aura salons with a guided tour, performances, statements and music with contributions by (a.o.) Allerd van den Bremen, Machinefabriek, Erik Lindner, Renée van Marissing, Joachim Umlauf, Ton Venhoeven. We hope to see you there.

Source: Parool, May 22, page 15

Last Thursday we celebrated the opening of the Aura project: an exhibition and a series of events in the historic premises of Castrum Peregrini Foundation, where in WWII young German Jews survived in hiding. The opening was very well attended and people responded enthusiastically.

The 96-year old Castrum founder Gisèle allowed us to show three of her works together with other remarkable pieces from the collection and seven newly made and site specific installations by contemporary artists, including Amie Dicke, Chris Kabel, John Kleckner, Susanne Kriemann, Jan Robert Leegte, Alexandra Leykauf, Renee van Marissing and Allerd van den Bremen.

The following photos by our dear friend Simon Bosch give an impression of the evening, in case you weren’t there (or want to relive it). The next few weeks we will organize a series of so-called Aura salons with guided tours, performances, statements and music by Machinefabriek (May 28) and Pierre Bastien (June 11).

See more photos and read more about the Aura-project on www.castrumperegrini.org
Non-fiction’s Michiel van Iersel (l) and Castrum Peregrini’s Lars Ebert (r) welcoming everybody in front of an installation consisting of recycled furniture by industrial designer Chris Kabel.
Artist and Castrum-founder Gisèle d’Ailly van Waterschoot van der Gracht (left, center) and handsigned book by Walter Benjamin with graphic designer Eric Wie (left) and artist Sarah van Sonsbeeck (center) standing in the background.
Among the visitors was Roger Willems (right) of Roma Publications who designed the super-stylish Aura booklets.
The American artist and Aura participant John Kleckner (seen from the back, with beard).
German artist and Aura participant Alexandra Leykauf (l) standing in front of photo installation by Susanne Kriemann.
Installation by Amie Dicke in the abandoned living room of Claus Victor Bock, one of the people who was kept in hiding at Castrum Peregrini during WWII and who passed away last year.
Dutch artist and Aura-participant Jan Robert Leegte (l) and his computerprojection in the archive of Castrum Peregrini (r), which is situated in the basement of the new project space.

What does a contemporary artist do with the vibrant past of a former hiding place on one of Amsterdam’s canals? Is it the aura, the uniqueness and authenticity of this place to be captured and can it be transformed into something new and relevant? Those questions live at the heart of the art projectAura: an exhibition and a series of events in the historic premises of Castrum Peregrini Foundation, where in WWII young German Jews survived in hiding. As a modern Noah’s Ark the hiding place at the Herengracht manoeuvred through the horrors of persecution, with a group of friends under deck to enshrine a sphere of freedom through art and human culture.

Since the war the time seems to stand still in this labyrinth of rooms and passages. A small part of the first generation lives there to date, in the middle of countless antique objects, books and pieces of art they produced and collected. This inner world is still covered by a monumental 17^thcentury façade. In the coming years the house will be partly opened to the public. To mark this transition nine artists from different disciplines were asked to choose a historic object, a story or a person as a point of departure and use it for a new artwork. The results of this ‘artistic recycling’ vary from installation art, ink drawings, photography and film to conceptual furniture, poems and a short contemporary radio play. The exhibition of works will start in the new project space of Castrum Peregrini, moving up the old staircase into the deserted apartment of a late inhabitant where the past is still perceptibly present.

Participating artists

Amie Dicke (beeldend kunstenaar, NL)
Chris Kabel (industrieel ontwerper, NL)
John Kleckner (beeldend kunstenaar, USA)
Susanne Kriemann (beeldend kunstenaar, D)
Jan Robert Leegte (beeldend kunstenaar, NL)
Alexandra Leykauf (beeldend kunstenaar, D)
Erik Lindner (dichter, NL)
Renée van Marissing en Allerd van den Bremen (theatermakers, NL)
Henk van der Waal (dichter, NL)

More at castrumperegrini.org and Facebook.

On 28 May Machinefabriek will perform on the first Aura Salon. On 11 June Pierre Bastien will do the same.