#Club Night3: A Feeling Environment

The third Club Night of Team 2 was an example of what the AHK Culture Club is all about: multidisciplinary collaboration, and combining ideas and perspectives. In ‘A Feeling Environment’, the worlds of dance, sound art and painting converged.

“The starting point of the evening is feeling”, says Jacopo Grilli. He is organising the evening together with Kim Spierenburg. The two alumni – of the Academy of Architecture and Conservatorium van Amsterdam respectively – come from very different backgrounds, but during this evening they combine their love for painting, live electronics and violin in an eclectic performance. 

Feeling must be the basis
“With ‘A Feeling Environment’, we want to express that everything should resonate with each other”, says Jacopo. “Our feeling must resonate with our environment and vice versa. Feeling must be the basis.” They both had to step outside of their comfort zones, according to Kim. “Jacopo by making a painting for the audience and me by improvising everything with my voice, live electronics and my violin. We have never done this performance before and we could never do it again.” 

The result of this is that ‘A Feeling Environment’ is created entirely on the basis of feeling. Jacopo paints rhythmically on the canvas with audibly hard strokes, accompanied by the voice and live electronics of Kim. The permanent work of Jacopo is created in synergy with the transience of Kim’s sounds. A third element is added through a guest performance by Rebecca Wijnruit. The alumna of the Academy of Theatre and Dance expresses her feeling, in turn, through dance and movement to the sounds that Kim and Jacopo are producing. 

Abstract shapes are given hands and feet
The performance reaches a climax when the sound of Kim’s violin is synchronised with the brush strokes of Jacopo. With each stroke of the canvas, Kim bows the strings and with each sound from the violin, the painting on the canvas takes shape more and more. Laughter rises from the audience when the abstract shapes are suddenly given hands and feet, and appear to be human figures. The violin sounds for the last time and Kim looks into the room with a smile on her face. “I think we’re done.”

The sound has departed, but the canvas remains as a tangible expression of the feeling from that evening. The alumni are satisfied. “I had an idea about what I wanted beforehand, of course, but achieving that is another thing entirely”, said Kim. “It is very difficult to coordinate everything properly, but I would like to develop this further, because I thought it was really awesome!”

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