A.I.R extension#15 (The Good Life, lecture)

Artists Katleen Vermeir & Ronny Heiremans presented a lecture-performance that took the audience on a virtual guided tour through their home, further exploring their interest in representations of domestic architecture. For this event they invited Eric Jooris, a solicitor, who also gave legal advice on their project The Good Life.

excerpt from the correspondence between the artists and Eric Jooris in preparation of the lecture.

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We remember you explaining that the artist has rights on what he creates, on two specific conditions.

Condition 1:

THE WORK IS ORIGINAL; IT IS HAS TO BE FROM HIS HAND.

This seems to be the case in THE GOOD LIFE.

Our concept is original. The architects created something original, as did other participants, like the designer, the actress and the sound artist. Every contributor to THE GOOD LIFE can claim authorship of a specific part of the project. We, the artists who initiated this project, can claim authorship of some of the specific elements as well, mainly related to publication and video film, but that is a bit obvious. At the same time we would claim authorship of the shell, the contextualization, that encapsulates all these separate authorships; we would claim authorship of the in-between space, the space in between the operational value of the different tools that have been developed within the context mentioned. This in-between space we consider the prime artistic intervention in THE GOOD LIFE.

You drew a comparison to our house, which we also define as an artwork through a practice we have named A.I.R. Through it our house is hidden (remains private) and is unveiled (becomes public) in different ways. It exists in reality, as a proper house, yet considered as ‘art piece’ the house is not accessible. So how can we claim an art status for this house, other than by providing purely ‘circumstantial evidence’, elements of prove being: there has been a lecture on this house and the lecture was an art performance, or a book about it, there is a video work about it that has been shown in an art exhibition…

You referred to our house as an artwork, as to a black hole, a void…on which we occasionally shed some light from different angles. In this way the house as an art piece becomes illuminated, becomes visible. It becomes possible for other people to get an impression of the house as an artwork. This is the overall situation, and adding more light – being the series of extensions we develop within the context of this project – will not change or influence the overall situation.

In your opinion the same goes for THE GOOD LIFE, the Arnolfini project, but only just as long as the project has not been built.

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A.I.R extension#15(The Good Life, lecture), Lecture-performance K.vermeir/ R.Heiremans/ Eric Jooris at ARNOLFINI, Bristol (UK)