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Jane Sverdrupsen

Frans Jacobi has been working at the Department of Fine Art since August 2012 on a six year contract.

Artistic Research focus

Frans Jacobi works with performance, text and images. His performances and installations are often large scale scenarios with multiple participants adressing a range of political and societal issues. Using a kind of urgent aesthetics the temporality and presence becomes a point in itself.

Jacobi has recently completed his doctoral research with the project 'Aesthetics of Resitance'. Here performance is used as an experimental stage, where various themes of revolt and collectivity are probed and reflected. These performances are structured like an intertwined play of the dual figures 'the artist/researcher' and the 'sense-event'.

Artistic Research project:

Aesthetics of Resistance

Doctorate Dissertation at Malmö Art Academy / Lund University, 5. December 2012

Abstract:'Aesthetics of Resistance' deals with contemporary demonstration culture and political activism, seen as performance through performance. It consists of both a practical and a theoretical part. These are intertwined on various levels of the project.

The claim of 'Aesthetics of Resistance' is that in recent examples of Direct Activism, politics are constituted by the aesthetic; as performance, form and style. This assumption is argued for by selecting 8 specific moments where this seems to be the case. These moments are chosen from 5 sequences of events, from a small incident in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2006 to the Egyptian uprising that gained global significance in 2011. The core part of the project is two sequences of confrontations between activists and authorities that both took place in Copenhagen, Denmark -The Youth House Movement 2007/08 and the large scale actions surrounding the UN Climate Summit COP15 in 2009 respectively.

Central to the project is an idea of 'thinking with the senses'. In order to facilitate this, an experimental set-up was created, where a sensorial reflection could be compared with an analytical interpretation of the topic in question. This experimental set-up was constituted by the two figures: The artist/researcher and the sense-event. These two figures intertwine and in various ways stage the gap between discursive and non-discursive thinking that lies at the core of this project.

The use of performance is three-fold:

A: The specific moments chosen are interpreted as performance.

B: The 'thinking with the senses' takes place as performance

C: As a kind of meta-reflection, the project is performing art-research by using an artistic medium as the research tool to investigate the chosen topics.

The eight research experiments were set up as performances. These 8 performances took place at various locations in Denmark, Sweden and China in the period 2009 to 2012. The aesthetic reflection at the core of this project evolved in these sense-events. It is important to understand that neither video documentation nor the texts can give a full account of the sense-events. These accounts will per definition only be approximations. It is in this gap - or drama - between two levels of understanding this project revolves.

www.aestheticsofresistance.net

Dissemination:

Seminars:

2012:October 22-24 2012: Artistic Research Forum Autumn 2012, Bergen Academy of Art and Design, & University of Bergen - The Grieg Academy, Bergen Norway

8 October 2012: Creating space for body and mind, RealFagsBygget, Bergen, Norway

8 September 2012: The Exception & The Rule, On Brecht and his influence on contemporary practices, SAK, Svendborg, Denmark (organiser)

23 February 2012: Artistic Research - expiriences, positions, visions,Overgaden Institut for Samtidskunst, Copenhagen, Denmark

2010:2.-4. December 2010: Manifesta 8: As the Academy Turns, EARN Conference, Cendeac (center for contemporary art), Murcia, Spain

2009:17 December 17, 2009: 'Art & Climate: How green is art?', KUNSTEN NU, Charlottenborg, Copenhagen

13 December 13, 2009:' Conversations: words and images in action', IMO projects, Copenhagen

4 May, 2009: 'Play and performance in public space', Møstings Hus, Moving Space performance Festival, Copenhagen.

2008:September 2008: Closed seminar on '69scenes', bendixen contempoary, Copenhagen.

Texts:'Phd Program, Malmö Art Acadamy ' in Texte Zur Kunst / 82 (juni 2011 "ARTISTIC RESEARCH")

'Aesthetics of Resistance', in Journal of Artistic Research / 10 (summer 2011.

"Det handler om at være bevidst om hvor man vil hen", interview BKF-bladet #1, 2005

"Edderkopper Fra Mars,Interview med F.Jacobi", Annette Finsdottir, kopenhagen.dk 2003

"Frans Jacobis nyiscenesættelse af Røde Mors Betonhjertet", Heino, kopenhagen.dk, 2002

"Sincerely yours", interview, "Stedet", Statens Kunstfond 1998

"The production of Space", Simon Sheikh in "Imagine: Frans Jacobi," Space Poetry, Kbh 1996

"Moveable scenes. Sky-blue sky. Sinking feelings", Peter Herbstreuth, SIKSI 4/95, 1995

"Set at Zero", Jorunn Veiteberg, SIKSI 1/90, 1990

Teaching:2012 -> Professor in Timebased Art at KHiB, The Art Aademy of Bergen Norway

2007 - 2012 PhD-candidate, Malmö Art Academy/ Lund University, Sweden.

2009 Guestprofessor, Art&Technology, Aalborg Universitetscenter, Denmark

Det Kgl. Danske Kunstakademi, Billedkunstskolerne

1994 - 97 Lektor, projektleder i skulptur

1997 - 2006 Afdelingsleder ved Grunduddannelsen

Kortere undervisning, workshops, kurser, forelæsninger ved:Det Jydske Kunstakademi, Kunstakademiet i Bergen, Kunstakademiet i Oslo, Kunstakademiet i Helsinki, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA, Kunsthøjskolerne i Holbæk og på Ærø, Institut for Kunsthistorie ved Århus Universitet, Institut for Kunsthistorie ved Københavns Universitet mv

Statens Kunstfonds 3-årige arbejdslegat / Danmark 2007.