ProjectDescription

The project is a multidisciplinary project that allows for a variety of artists from different backgrounds to collaborate on a complex media piece based on quotes from 'Cat's Craddle' by Kurt Vonnegut (1963). The project allows for different media outputs like performances, installations, radio pieces, etc.... The book becomes a starting point to build up a collection of resources, existing and newly made ones, where people can build creative variations on.

As described, the basic material is a selection of quotes from the original book. In 'Cat's Craddle' Vonnegut is citing from the so-called 'Book of Bokonon', which describes in the words of Bokonon a forbidden religious practice on the fictitious Island of San Lorenzo. In reality Vonnegut sarcastically describes a social system in which state and religion are carefully intertwined in a mutual denial but with obvious dependent benefits.

Still in this era, the division state-religion remains an unresolved matter and a continuing source of conflict, not only between the stigmatized religious groups belonging to fundamentalist groups in islam, but also on the local level between confessional political parties discussing views on communal matters like abortion, intersexual marriages, educational discussions like the role of religion in the curriculum, antireligious statements by social groups and artists, etc... Maybe these issues are not directly addressed in this work but the general theme lies at the basis of the continuing discussion of specific issues over half a century already.

According to what a suite is - a composition from loosely jointed sets ? the production method will be based on new forms of sharing and collaborating, in which pieces and smaller units are circulated amongst the participants. As such a constant changing of the material through modificiation, combination and reprocessing is achieved. In a final stage, and according to the chosen output format, the participants work at a montage of the material within the form of a suite: The Kurt Vonnegut Suite!

The suite itself is in its production method an advanced exploration of diverse and new ways of working together across disciplines, skills, time and space. Our working method contains conceptually the flexibity for accomodating different ways of dealing with shared creativity. In a way, the suite changes within the project time from a collection of relevant resources to a collection of networked and independent productions. The associated artists are contributing in many different ways and on different levels on a common ground. Most of the work will be carried out in a networked way, while the output will be there ready for use at any time for whatever form of presentation is chosen.

The techniques for developing the project are derived from late 20th century innovations in computer science, and can be labelled as 'object oriented and distributed'. Every contribution is treated in an abstract way as an object. Of each object there are several possible versions each with its own parameter settings: different instances of the same citation in the original text. These objects are freely circulated among the participants who work with them and extend them into new objects, which are again added to the pool. Since we tend to work with a diversity of media and points of view, as well as with different ways of creating among the participants, the multiplicity is an important factor in the creation process, and to be found on all levels of the final suite: from fiction to documentary, from synthetic to instrumental, concrete or artificial... For content issues, the discussion is building on the dictum by Jean Rouche, famous documentary filmer and theoretician of cinéma vérité or cinéma directe, in which he considers the real and imagined world simply a matter of border crossings and inherent in all creative artefacts.

At this very moment we are contacting co-producers who want to come up with financing efforts for the final outputs at the end of the project. But however, the resources will remain available online, as a sustainable resource for individuals and groups to work with in culture, art, and education.

The project is currently being researched, and starts up production in the 2nd half of 2006 and it is particularly taking into account linguistic and gender issues.

   suite:  Multimovement work made up of a series of contrasting dance movements, generally all in the same key. Synonyms are partita

   and ordre.


   
   Suite f. per. fach. 'Zimmerflucht, Komposition aus nur lose gefügten Sätzen (< 17. Jhdt). Entlehnt aus frz. suite, eigentlich
  
   'Folge', dieses aus gallorom. sequita, zu 1.sequi 'folgen'.

   Suite female, peripheral vocabulary, technical language. Set of rooms, composition from loosely jointed sets (used since 17th
    
   century). Borrowed from french language, actually series, this from the gallic-romanic sequitea which connects to 

   1.sequi 'to follow'.

   KLUGE 'Ethymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache' . De Gruyter Vlg, 1995 Berlin

   Suite 1 Folge von langsamen und schnellen Sätzen gleicher Tonart; Sy Partitia; Tanz~

         2 militär. oder fürstl. Gefolge, Begleitung 

         3 (in Hotels) Zimmerflucht, [auch] zwei Einzelzimmer mit gemeinsamem Bad [frz. Folge, Reihenfolge, Gefolge; zu suivre 'folgen']

   Suite 1 Series of slow and fast sets of the same keys; Sy Partitia; dance~

         2 military or princely cortege, escort

         3 (in Hotels) set of rooms, [also] two single rooms which share on bathroom [french Series, sequence, cortege; according to
 
         suivre to 'follow']

         WAHRIG FREMDWÖRTERLEXIKON; Bertelsmann Vlg. 1999