Script for a Synthetic Play
On (Un)grounding community and the generative power of fiction
Cabinet project
Cabinet project
Agenda
Script for a Synthetic play - an online radio theater performance/book launch event
Hosted by VHDG and co-hosted by Onomatopee Projects.
Tune in for an online radio theater performance/book launch event: an acoustic way of approaching the unique experience that was Unknown Grounds. So dust off your ears and prepare your mind for a short but sweet reading of some of the juiciest pages of Script for a Synthetic play, a book in which expertise meets experience in informal and accessible conversations turned into a comedy play with a hint of science fiction. Hybrid voices circulate, boundaries of disciplines blur, and new grounds are collectively explored.
Script for a Synthetic Play delves into human and land exhaustion, new world-making technologies, the need for refuge and infrastructures of care, and cultural and ecological challenges of today. Through the generative power of fiction a sense of identity and belonging emerges, but also of marginality and dispossession.
[Script for a Synthetic Play stems from the discussions that took place in the performative symposium “Unknown Grounds'' in Leeuwarden, 2019, organized by art initiative VHDG and Tresoar Frysk Histoarysk en Letterkundich Sintrum, and features a collection of texts written by Sissel Marie Tonn, Bert Looper, Andrej Radman, Theun Karelse, masharu, Bert Boekschoten and Flora Reznik.]
online: link to follow
online: link to follow
Publication
Script for a Synthetic Play
On (Un)grounding community and the generative power of fiction
€ 17
Ground, foundation, land, landscape, territory, earth, soil, dirt, dust.
Script for a Synthetic Play stems from a staged conversation between a historian, an anthropologist, three artists, an earth eater and an architecture theorist: they enter unknown grounds, it is dark, and a disembodied alien voice encourages them to move across uneven terrain. A temporary community of strangers is formed. A sense of agency and belonging emerges, but also of marginality and dispossession. Hybrid voices start to circulate and be heard, borders of disciplines are blurred and grounds for certainty are collectively explored anew. Each step leaves sources for a unique script.
Script for a Synthetic Play delves into new world-making technologies, the need for refuge and infrastructures of care, human and land exhaustion and cultural and ecological challenges of today. Expertise meets experience in informal and approachable discussions that, stylized for dramatic effect, create a conversation piece in the form of a play activated by the generative power of fiction.
- Type
- softcover
- Dimensions
- 165 x 210 mm / 6.49 x 8.26 inches (Portrait)
- Pages
- 172
- ISBN
- 978-94-93148-72-7
- Editor
- Flora Reznik
- Author
- Nathaniel Feldmann, Sissel Marie Tonn, Andrej Radman, Bert Looper, Theun Karelse, masharu, Bert Boekschoten, Flora Reznik
- Graphic
- Studio Bramesfeld
- Language
- English
- Release date
- 20220110
- Binding
- sewn-glued
- Paper
- Favini Crush Olive 350 gsm (cover) and HBook TRND 80gsm (inside)
- Edition
- 400
- Color
- 4/4
- Printer
- Kopa, Vilnius (LT)
- Font
- GT Haptic & Happy Times at the IKOB New Game Plus Edition
- Image specs
- no images
- Text editor
- Amy Gowen
- Made possible by
- VHDG, Tresor
Script for a Synthetic Play
The Public Building
€ 22
What moves between the walls of our public buildings? Who is it that truly inhabits these spaces? And what roles do we play within them? What if we are both the building blocks and the inhabitants, the creators and the created? What if we write the script as we go along?
This book stems from a two-day performative symposium, Unknown Grounds: The Public Building which brought together artists and thinkers to immerse in speculative scenarios.
By borrowing tools from the performance arts, we explored embodied collective thinking around the notion of "the public building." We became characters in an experimental play, exploring new ways to relate and engage. In the shelter of fiction, we were free from social habits, empowered to see ourselves not just as passive occupants, but as active architects, speculators, constructors, foundation inspectors, janitors and maintenance workers.
Script for a Synthetic Play: The Public Building features texts by Hamja Ahsan, Lila Athanasiadou, Nina Glockner, Ribal al-Khatib, Anna Moreno, Flora Reznik, Nishant Shah, and Eef Veldkamp. These contributions were shared before the event of the symposium, providing a virtual prelude to the conversations that unfolded and invited readers to co-create a communal space even before stepping into it. It also includes a fictionalized wrap-up discussion presented as a script, offering a fresh take on the ancient Greek comedy genre, drawing from its capacity to create a space for democratic, critical reflection on our political systems.
In the same spirit, we now invite readers to share the virtual space of thought that this book opens. It serves as both an archive and a prompt, encouraging us to navigate the unknown and imagine new ways of collectively inhabiting and reshaping the public realm.
- Type
- softcover
- Dimensions
- 16,5 x 21 cm
- Pages
- 118
- ISBN
- 978-94-93382-17-6
- Editor
- Flora Reznik
- Author
- Hamja Ahsan, Lila Athanasiadou, Nina Glockner, Ribal al-Khatib, Anna Moreno, Flora Reznik, Nishant Shah, Eef Veldkamp
- Graphic
- Wibke Bramesfeld
- Language
- English
- Release date
- 20241201
- Binding
- Perfect Bound
- Paper
- Holmen Book Cream 80g, Multi Art Silk UPM, 350g FSC
- Edition
- 500
- Printer
- BALTO
- Font
- GT Haptik, Grilli Type, Happy Times at the IKOB, Lucas Le Bihan
- Onomatopee project manager
- Jesse Muller, Natasha Rijkhoff
- Copy editor
- Jesse Muller
- Made possible by
- Kunstinitiatief VHDG, Stadsschouwburg de Harmonie, Arcadia, Stroom Den Haag
PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THIS PROJECT AND ALL THE ROLES THESE PEOPLE EVER HAD IN ONOMATOPEE PROJECTS
- Flora Reznik author, editor
- VHDG partner organisation
- Studio Bramesfeld graphic designer, curator
- Tresoar co-producer