Ha Za Vu Zu is an artist collective established in Istanbul in 2005. Their works span on a multidisciplinary axis from performances, installations, videos to visual arrangements, design, voice and music.
Ha Za Vu Zu has no particular meaning; it is the embodiment of a sound, which is the fundamental element of their practice. Existing as a horizontal model, the collective operates without a leader. They enjoy the flexibility of a spineless body as they operate with an effective presence and energy. Ha Za Vu Zu leaves it to the audience to find unison throughout the scattered nature of their acts and improvisations, which sometimes have a political dimension that is not the basis of their formation. While the core of the collective remains the same, they often collaborate with other artists, musicians and anyone they find interesting.
Ha Za Vu Zu’s recent performances and exhibitions include Garip Bir Pandik No:2, Rumeli Han, Istanbul, 2012; What a Loop, NON-Stage, Istanbul, 2011; Between Stamp and Mars No:3, SALT, Istanbul, 2011; This Story Is Not Ready For Its Footnotes, Ex Elettro Fonica, Rome, 2010; For Whom Is It Too Late Today?, Frac des Pays de la Loire, 2009; X Baltic Triennial of International Art, Vilnius, 2009; 10th Lyon Biennial, Lyon, 2009; Kaserne, Basel, 2008; Mercy, Liverpool, 2008, Rotterdamse Schouwburg, Rotterdam, 2008; Triennale Bovisa, Milan, 2008; Lokaal01, Antwerp, 2008; 10th Istanbul Biennial, 2007.
NON – Stage presents Nimetiye Han with an improvisational performance by Gyda Valtýsdóttir on April 22, between 6 and 8 PM. Gyda will be performing improvisations on the cello during this singular event in a unique and temporary space in Karakoy.
The event is in part a response to the city of Istanbul’s current initiatives to reconstruct and gentrify certain neighborhoods. Most buildings on the shore of Karakoy will be torn down in order to make room for grand-scale, marketable constructions. The area with its longstanding hardware businesses and historic commercial buildings will be turned to rubble.
Nimetiye Han itself is a building consisting of a workshop producing lathes. It has undergone various incarnations as a tobacco factory and a hamam. In its current condition, it is falling to ruins, and those who work there can only wait for the government to purchase it. This indeterminacy makes the site perfect for an event of improvisation, which will echo its precarious state.
Gyda’s fascination with the beauty found in the unexpected will mark an opportunity to appreciate this space, and will act as a commemoration and acknowledgement of the importance of histories that are understated and often ignored by the machinery of commercialism.
Gyda Valtýsdóttir
Gyda has tipped her toes into various realms of performance. In her teens she was a member of the Icelandic dreampop group Múm and had already released two albums, composed music for theater and dance, and toured the world before leaving the band to focus on her classical music studies. She found her way through the labyrinth of higher education, graduating with a Classical Performance Diploma and Master of Improvisation at the Music Academy Basel in Switzerland. Alongside her studies, which took her to many places both geographically and otherwise, she has composed music for various performances of other arts, made guest performances on numerous albums, teaches cello and improvisation, and performs repertoire from baroque to instant compositions.
NON-Stage is a platform for performance art presenting a program of various multi-disciplinary performance practices, commissioning and inviting non-conventional pieces/events. By inviting artists and encouraging emerging critical practices, NON-Stage aspires to create a base for a discussion related to the discipline. Inspired by the resurfacing interest into the medium of performance in recent decades, NON-Stage is dedicated to the exploration of new tendencies vis-à-vis a new kind of audience.
Co-Directors: Filiz Avunduk & Derya Demir
With special thanks to: Volkan Aslan, Bektaş Ergün, Claire Monica Mirocha and Eda Tarak.
Supported by Art-Travel
Momus, Unreliable Tour Guide, 2006 Whitney Biennale
October 7 22:00 – 01:00
MOMUS CONCERT at MİNİMÜZİKHOL
Momus will take you on a time travel, where you may meet Serge Gainsbourg and Jacques Brel or enjoy a mix of brutally processed ballads and Japanese video games. Flirting with notorious synth-techs accompanied by a strong and playful use of language, Momus turns the dance floor into a dramatically changing, relativistic time-space. This might be a romantic trip, but it is also very formalist. Move slightly into this orbit of gentle means and don’t sue our one man band, if you have a crush on him!
October 9 15:00 – 16:00
MOMUS PERFORMANCE
UNRELIABLE TOUR GUIDE at NON
Limited capacity. RSVP required at info@galerinon.com
This Sunday, Momus -named after the Greek God of mockery- invites us to NON to be our Unreliable Tour Guide. By acting out a naïve optimism, his commentary will be challenging the viewers to navigate. This unique performance will be an unforgettable attempt to interpret the works of art. If you decide to join this suspicious crowd of artlovers, you may have difficulty comprehending Momus, but after joyful hours of misinformation, nothing will be the same again. Under the influence of works of art, who knows, he might start telling us some Woody Allen jokes! Take a chance on him!
ha za vu zu, What a Loop, performance, 10th Lyon Biennial, 2009
NON proudly presents its brand new platform for performance art, NON-Stage, which will present a program of various multi-disciplinary performance practices, commissioning and inviting non-conventional performance pieces/events. By hosting significant performance artists and encouraging emerging critical practices, NON-Stage aspires to create a base for an in-depth discussion related to the discipline in Istanbul. Inspired by the resurfacing interest into the medium of performance in recent decades, NON-Stage is dedicated to the exploration of new tendencies towards performativity vis-à-vis a new kind of audience.
This year, NON-Stage compiles a series of side events to Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial) with the contributions of: Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich, Annika Eriksson, Ha Za Vu Zu, La Stampa, Nova Huta, Unpublished Issue #2 (Contributors: Karen Mirza and Brad Butler (The Museum of Non Participation), Veronika Hauer, Peter Jaeger, Rudolf Steckholzer, Jan Verwoert) organized by nowiswere(edited by Veronika Hauer and Fatoş Üstek).
NON-Stage is also delighted to partner up for the exciting launch of Steam Society* on September 15 hosted by Aslı Çavuşoğlu and Defne Ayas for a thorough purification of all our guests prior to the opening of the Biennial.
VENUE: PASSOVER BAKERY
Şair Ziya Paşa Yokuşu, No: 13, Kuledibi, Galata, Beyoğlu
Bir Prova / A Rehearsal by Annika Eriksson
September 16 / 4pm–7pm
For A Rehearsal five actors will be introduced to an unfamiliar script written by the artist. From the moment of the performance’s opening on, the actors will have three hours to find a way of performing the play. No instructions will be given regarding the persona of the characters; they are sexless, ageless, blank; everything is up to the interpretation of the actors. The visitors will all along be able to see how the actors are trying to find coherence, how they are arguing, discussing and trying to attain a final product.
Photobody by Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich
September 16 / 5pm–8pm September 17 / 4pm–7pm September 18 / 4pm–7pm
“… (during the performance) something resembling a product is generated. This concept is quite rarely encountered in contemporary art. Viktor Shklovsky himself discusses this in his fundamental essay “Art as Technique”: “In art, it is our experience of the process of construction that counts, not the finished product.” -Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich
nowiswere Unpublished Issue #2
September 17 / 1pm–2.30pm
Limited capacity | RSVP required at info@galerinon.com
Nowiswere Contemporary Art Magazine (edited by Veronika Hauer and Fatoş Üstek) is a web-based publication that positions itself as an accumulation ground for socio-political, aesthetic realities of the present. Expanding Nowiswere’s publishing practices to outside The Internet, The Unpublished Issue is an undocumented live event that enables the editors and contributors of Nowiswere to meet and engage face-to-face with each other and members of the general public. With each issue adapting to the changing environments in which they are held, they feature material and formats of live presentation that cannot be published within the magazine or on the website itself. The Unpublished Issue is developed in conceptual proximity to Nowiswere’s editorial practice, inviting artists, writers and curators to articulate an immediate stance of their current notions of ‘the now’.
Unpublished Issue #2 features the following live contributions:
Rapid Eye Movement / The Persons by poet and writer Peter Jaeger;
Fringel / Franson, 2011 by Veronika Hauer (performance / text) and Rudolf Steckholzer (photographs);
Beyond The Secrets: Behold The Mysteries! by critic and writer Jan Verwoert;
The Museum of Non-Participation, a lecture intervention by Karen Mirza and Brad Butler that consists of narration, texts, slides and video from the museum’s collection.
What a Loop by ha za vu zu
September 18 / 3pm–4pm
What a Loop evolved from a game that ha za vu zu plays, that is filmed and fictionalized over and over again. The game begins by choosing scenes that are inspired by film clichés. Players sitting by a table re-enact these scenes by taking turns in such a way that it seems as if the scene “contaminates” each player one by one. While a player is re-enacting, the others use a 35mm handheld camera to shoot the scene. In contrast to this “insider” viewpoint, an “outsider” camera is simultaneously filming the backstage, showing the other players as a set-crew working on the props and other technicalities. Once a player’s scene is done, s/he works either as a camera operator or as a member of the stage crew for the next scene. The whole process is an interrupted loop of film clichés.
VENUE: GHETTO
Kamer Hatun Caddesi No:10 Beyoğlu
and
Mini Müzikhol Sıraselviler Cad. Soğancı Sok. No:7 D:1 Cihangir, Beyoğlu
NON-Stage celebrates:
September 16–17 / 11pm–1am
La Stampa Concert
Band members: Jörg Heiser, Thomas Hug, Günter Reznicek, Jan Verwoert, Jons Vukorep
Art critics Jan Verwoert, Jörg Heiser, sinus-wave-guru Günter Reznicek, ex-tennis pro Thomas Hug, Balkans-film-impresario Jons Vukorep…
Nova Huta
MC and DJ
September 17 /2 am–4am (right after the La Stampa concert)
VENUE: Historical Galatasaray Hammam
Turnacıbaşı Sokak, No: 24 Galatasaray, Beyoğlu
*Steam Society
by Defne Ayas and Aslı Çavuşoğlu
September 15 / 11.11am–16.16pm
Conceived and hosted by Defne Ayas and Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Steam Society is a banquette of all sorts at the Historical Galatasaray Hammam (b.1481), offering a purification hub to all Biennial guests with the participation of Ayla Algan, Julieta Aranda, Özgür Erkök, Juan Gaitán, Adam Kleinman, Darius Mikšys, Francesco Pedraglio, Güneş Terkol, Elif Uras, Bedwyr Williams, Pınar Yolaçan and many other exceptional guests.
Limited capacity | RSVP required at info@galerinon.com
NON would like to thank Tansa Mermerci, Jorg Mohaupt and Edwina Özyeğin for their support.