Seminar 1: Performing land and the non-human: Necrosonic Landscapes and The Return of the Wolf

Date/time:   Wednesday 5th March, 5-7pm

Guest speakers: Berkveldt Collective (Noëlle Ingeveldt and Juriaan van Berkel) | ASCA respondent: Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca with Agat Sharma | Location: DAS Graduate School, Studio 2.10, Overhoeksplein 2 (2nd floor)

Berkveldt is a Rotterdam-based audiovisual art studio founded by Noëlle Ingeveldt and Juriaan van Berkel. In this seminar, the artists will share insights from their research, focussing on two recents: Necrosonic Landscapes (2023) and The Return of the Wolf (2021). Necrosonic Landscapes is an immersive audiovisual installation that integrates the sounds of decomposing organisms with visually captivating landscapes, creating a sensory experience that explores the complex cycle of life and death in nature. The Return of the Wolf is a transformative journey, where Berkveldt becomes wolf (but to do so also ought to become sheep) in order to interrogate a cultivated and disconnected landscape of the Netherlands. The story is told as a contemporary fairy tale through film. Various costumes and props allow this transformative journey to take place. For the body to become other. As explored by scholars like Donna Haraway and Karen Barad, the project questions the centrality of the human subject and acknowledges the agency and importance of non-human entities and the role they play in shaping societies, cultures, and their architectures. With this work, Berkveldt re-evaluates spatial design methodologies, emphasizing a collaboration with the natural material world. They put forward a more holistic and ecological approach by going far in exploring the entanglement of matter and meaning and indeed engage with the ethical responsibilities that arise from this entanglement.