At first glance, the exhibition consists of a large-scale configuration of several items of locally sourced G-Plan and modern European furniture, arranged as an assemblage on a series of adapted, self-assembly IKEA table units that act as a plinth. Here, this arrangement is primarily intended as a ventriloquistic act or as an evocation of an unseen ghost – the ghost of a pre-existing, yet undefined, avant-garde.

Through a production process that runs counter to efficient modes of image production, five stop-motion animations have been produced from wood-cut prints made from old table tops, projected as integrated objects within and between elements of the assemblage itself. Each animation depicts black and white abstract geometrical shapes in constant spatial movement; each undertakes an exploration of perceptual and actual space. As these wood-derived animations are projected onto the furniture’s surface, the latter becomes a sculptural token of ‘reality’. Allied to the world of things this serves as a re-iteration of the perceived ‘shorthand’ for modernism, bringing inert material to life.

In the same way a sentence is brought to life from a sequence of words to create effective communication. A similar logic could be applied to the process of animation, where each labour intensive frame takes its rightful place in the unfolding of time to produce a narrative. This is especially relevant as each animation contains a text that awkwardly, yet relentlessly, punctuates and disrupts. The text is cryptic and directly addresses the relationship between reading, seeing, and doing, embodying a darkly humorous form of invocation that appears almost hypnotic by the removal of words from the grammar of everyday use.

In light of mercurial advances within communication technology, the combined temporal displacement of recognisable images, objects, things and words appear to take on greater significance; the stability of assumed pre-existing relationships are questioned, and their language begins to fall apart. Yet paradoxically, in acknowledgment of their continued residual power reproduced here – the languages of modernism, abstraction, and conceptualism – their successes or failures, afford a space to take a speculative glance into the folding of past into present, art into life and vice versa.

The exhibition will subsequently be accompanied by a publication designed by Will Holder including a new chapter of his ongoing series The Middle of Nowhere.

David Osbaldeston is represented by Matt’s Gallery, London. He has recently taken part in exhibitions at venues in the UK and internationally, including The Modern Institute, Glasgow; CCA, Glasgow; Focal Point Gallery, Southend-On-Sea; Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten Open Ateliers, Amsterdam; ICA, London; International Project Space, Birmingham, and EAST International, Norwich.

Parallel Production: SPACES IN BETWEEN: making the invisible visible

Inspired by David Osbaldeston, students from the St. Joost art academy in ‘s-Hertogenbosch (NL) will work on a project called SPACES IN BETWEEN: making the invisible visible. They will interrogate the relationships between language, text and image, and their removal from grammatical contexts, enabling a re-representation of new unseen relationships. Students will initially develop their works towards a self-organised exhibition at the academy, which will also include works by Osbaldeston. Thereafter, these works will move to Onomatopee for further development to produce a publication launched for the openings on May 25th, 15:00.

Some exhibits do bear inherent poetry…. but this does not mean you should start contemplating. You are not here for this. You are more than a passive recipient of hegemonic knowledge produced by our current domination. You are a maker of knowledge, a cultural contributor just as much as anybody. And this is a transformative exhibition. So start making, unmaking and remaking the exhibition. Start this now.

We are hereby exhibiting our stories and objects related to the two week Occupy of the Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj, Romania (26.03-09.04 2013). The stories are told by us - the community that made the Occupy happen - and are focusing on the collective process of organizing public debates, workshops, formulating claims and negotiating. Alongside with our stories we are exhibiting objects we used during the Occupy. 

The opening set of exhibited objects serve only as your gateways to enter the story and be part of the Cluj Occupy. They are connectivity agents. Think about how these objects were extracted from their original habitat and lost some of their "mojo" in the process of exhibiting them here. This is why we need you to re-contextualize, or even better, to trans-contextualize them. Think that objects become productive only when they are being used, given, circulated. So feel free to rearrange objects. Take them home. Use them. Bring them back or don’t. Bring in other objects. And comment on the objects and stories using the available post-its, or any other way you feel like. No opinion is insignificant, no narrative too small.

Just as the exhibited stories reveal power relations, dependencies and solidarities among the Occupiers and beyond,  the way you use this exhibition (both stories and objects) should not be mere articulations of pre-coded meanings but hybrid forms of materiality and sociality. Think about how your actions relate you to the Occupy community. This way this exhibition becomes yours and an exhibition about you, too.

After a month we will pack whatever this exhibition has transformed into and exhibit it again in Cluj. In this mediation process the exhibition can develop a contact surface between Eidhoven and Cluj, where participation is becoming social technology and is producing - in the framework of our shared practice of the everyday - common knowledge and common history.