Bachelor Birthday

Thursday the 28th of July 2005, from 19 hours onwards Bachelor's Birthday I am 118 Without the past, the present is blind W139 celebrates Duchamps posthumous birthday on the 28th of July 2005 and in doing so wants to draw the attention to the legacy of the French artist-thinker.

Marcel Duchamp annex Marchand du Sel alias Rrose Selavy alias R.Mutt alias R.Klang alias Totor is generally considered to be a liberator from any traditional conception of art and known by and because of his 'invention' of the ready-made.

His research however reached into innumerable directions and fields (chance, the fourth dimension, non-Euclidian geometry, silent music and eroticism) and one of his main preoccupations was with the mechanisms and machinations of language - see his predeliction for puns and spoonerisms.

The 'festive' programme that Will Holder and Ann Demeester composed on occasion of Duchamp's 118th Birthday is an ill fitting burial suit comprised of diverse pieces and performances. The patchworkprogramme partly stems from Joseph Kosuth's analysis that Duchamp's readymades changed the form of language (in art) for good or, that conceptual art puts the emphasis on the content as opposed to the form of language.

Holder and Demeester would like to reverse this, or at least discourage the assumption that language only has one (sensible? justifying?) application.

Full Evening Programme: Thursday 28th of July 2005, from 19 hours onwards

19h : The Chess Tour, an ongoing film by Krist Gruijthuijsen (NL)

19h30 : Introductory Lecture by curator and critic Mark Kremer (NL)

20h30: A performance by poet and philosopher Anne-James Chaton (FR)

21h: Live concert by Alex Waterman and Chris Mann (NY) - compositions for cello and trumpet based on the intonation of human speech

22h: Dr Ross & DJ Readymade - 'Dialogue With Marcel Duchamp' - artist Ross Birrell and partner in audiovisual confrontation with Pierre Cabanne

22h30 : Set by DJ Will Holder

23h30 : Party. The fabulous Miss Bailey (Hype, Bitches Brew, 333. Blacktronica, Future Fusion) will spin in homage to Mr Duchamp an electic mix of electro and house to afrojazzlatin beats by way of disco classics and all those weird beats in between. Assisted by Rosa Barba.

No special timing: Contribution by Jean Baptiste Gganne.