Performance — Sep 8, 2013

Time
Sep 8, 2013, 2 pm

Location: Teijin Auditorium, Stedelijk Museum
Time: Sept 8, 4 pm
Language:English
Entrance: Entrance price to the museum + additional charge € 2,50
Reservations: It is necessary to make a reservation. Send an e-mail to reservations@stedelijk.nl, stating your full name, e-mail address, telephone number, and the date of the program you want to attend.

In conjunction with the masterclass of Rabih Mroué, organized in collaboration with RONGWRONG art space (Amsterdam), the Stedelijk proudly presents the world premiere of the lecture performance Probable Title: zero probability II, by Mroué and Hito Steyerl. The performance, previously presented in a different form at the Tate Modern, has been adapted and further developed specifically for the Stedelijk’s acclaimed performance program.

Probable title: zero probability II is a lecture-performance about an event that is absolutely not possible. It starts with a simple question about ‘probability’ that turns quickly into uneasy matters, and put Steyerl and Mroué in confrontation with the space of the zero probability where everything is possible but can’t be accounted for.

Trying to enter into this space, Steyerl and Mroué develop a narrative about probability in art, mathematics, physics, and death. They try to calculate such a space where it is possible to be 100% alive and 100% dead. But can one explain how 200% percent probability fits into 100%? 

Steyerl finds herself entangled within quantum superposition, while Mroué goes to his father asking him for private lessons in mathematics. They both get lost within a cut in a cinematic edit.

Probable title: zero probability II follows the previous editions of the performance, yet the mise-en-scene is changed drastically. Mroué and Steyerl complicate the question of probability further by adding physical absence and on-screen presence to the equation. Can the artists be 100% absent, yet 100% present in their previously calculated space of 200% probability?

Biography  of the artist:

Rabih Mroué 

Rabih Mroué is an actor, director, and playwright, and a Contributing Editor in the Lebanese quarterly Kalamon and TDR (New York). He is one of the founders and Executive Board members of Beirut Art Center association (BAC). He is a fellow at the International Research Center “Interweaving Performance Cultures”, in 2013. His works include: 33 tours et quelques seconds (2012), Photo-Romance (2009), How Nancy Wished That Everything Was an April Fool’s Joke (2007), Make Me Stop Smoking (2006), Who’s Afraid of Representation (2005), among others.

Hito Steyerl

Hito Steyerl is a filmmaker and writer who, often through documentary photography and video, thinks through media circulation. A collection of her essays was recently published in The Wretched of the Screen (2012). Recent solo exhibitions include: Hito Steyerl, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2012−2013 and Hito Steyerl, e-flux, New York, 2012. In 2014, the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven will present a major retrospective of her work. Steyerl lives and works in Berlin.

This afternoon is organized in collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, in the context of the multi-year project Global Collaborations