The Great Indecision Council

The Great Indecision Council has billions of members.

The Great Indecision Council has the honor of sharing some pieces of human knowledge with non-humans.

The Great Indecision Council does not make any decisions.

What do we say that interests us? What are we really interested in? In the intimacy of our smartphone or computer, we secretly tell Google what we want to know. By retrieving the most searched words from Google search and Google news in real time and bringing them to NDSM's public space via image and sound, 'The Great Indecision Council' presents visitors with an involuntary self-portrait of our contemporary networked society and the invisible public digital domain. 'The Great Indecision Council' only works with data from the country where the session takes place - the Netherlands -, which is mixed with animations designed by the artist. The Great Indecision Council is a 20 meter long light and sound installation at the top of NDSM's Y-slope and invites the audience to glimpse computer-generated singing.

This artwork was part of the NDSM Light exhibition that was shown at NDSM in November and December of 2022.

First version was produced for Into the Great Wide Open in collaboration with MU, Eindhoven.

STARS is an installation of Cosimo Scotucci that wants to give (part of) the urban landscape of NDSM a new boost. A composition of luminescent spheres was hung in a broken crane that used to be used at the shipyard and on the trees around it. The bulbs lit up at night and gave extra energy to the surrounding landscape. From shades of red to blue, the bulbs mimic the sun's radiation spectrum, which is used by plants to grow and relax. A useful and important process, as light is required for their metabolic processes. During the day, STARS absorbs the sun's radiation, at night it gives it back and thus transforms the landscape into a dreamscape that is reminiscent of a shimmering sky at night.

STARS was part of the NDSM Light exhibition that was shown at NDSM in November and December 2022.

With “Barrier Tape”, SpY put an everyday urban utensil — usually used to control people's movement — into a different perspective and used it to create a surprising piece of art that invited visitors to interact with the installation. The emphasis was on the interaction between the work and the natural elements around it.

The installation formed an expansive, ever-changing surface that visitors could circle in and around. Hanging on parallel strings and moved by the wind, the ribbons swung together as one, generating a majestic sea-like sound and creating a wave-like movement throughout the composition.

From “Barrier Tape”, SpY continued to work on a collection of sculptural installations based on objects from real, everyday life, hypnotic patterns and immersive experiences. With his work, he questioned urban landscapes, explored cities as playgrounds of imagination, and created immersive experiences where he made visitors part of the work.

The works for NDSM come from a series of self-portraits entitled Somnyama Ngonyama. Here, visual activist and photographer Zanele “decided to focus the camera on themselves this time.” In contrast to their life project of documenting their black LGBTQ community in South Africa and beyond, these portraits portray them as well as image-makers.

About the series, Muholi said in a conversation with Renée Mussai that the series confirms those who doubt when they speak to themselves, when they look in the mirror, to say correctly: “You're worth it. You count. No one has the right to undermine you because of your being, because of your race, because of your gender expression, because of your sexuality, for everything you are.”

Zanele Muholi currently lives and works in Umbumbulu. In 2009, they founded Inkanyiso (www.inkanyiso.org), a forum for queer and visual (activist) media, and in 2002, they co-founded the Forum for Empowerment of Women (FEW).

Zanele Muholi's photos will be shown on the 'NDSM Billboards' from August 1 to September 14, with which the NDSM-werf Foundation offers space for artists on large building boards: “In addition to the building signs on the western part of the NDSM, where construction is underway, at NDSM-Oost, we give artists the opportunity to post their artistic statements on building boards. With its 10 hectares, the shipyard provides a beautiful background for large images in response to the context of the NDSM in order to make the work highly visible to Northerners and Amsterdammers. With this work by Zanele Muholi, we are addressing the question of who is represented in public space and which voices are heard and seen there in order to create a polyphonic public space, especially now with Pride Amsterdam,” says curator Petra Heck.

The work originally referred to the war in Syria, where a widespread media image showed civilians in Aleppo hiding behind three buses. The buses were set up as one of the many barricades in the city to protect civilians from snipers.

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With this art project, the NDSM-werf Foundation draws attention not only to the war in Syria, but also to Ukraine and does not want to lose sight of other conflict areas and civilians and victims. This is how you connect Halbounis 'Monument': the voices from Syria to the voices from Ukraine and those from other hotspots around the world. For Halbouni, the work represents hope, freedom and humanity.

Curator Petra Heck: “War situations, crises, refugee flows; attention disappears as soon as the news is taken over by other newsworthy events. At that time, Manaf's 2017 work referred to Syria and Syrians. And is still up to date when you think about childcare in the Netherlands, for example, about the unequal situations that arise with different refugee flows, who can go to work immediately and who cannot. And there have only been refugees, like now from Ukraine. The balancing buses stand proud, fragile and at the same time powerful with their noses up, not to mention war zones and casualties, as Ama van Dantzig called it: as a 'highway to heaven'.”

(Un) monument

Halbouni's project is presented in the programme series' (Un) monumenting'. The central question in the series is: What should or could a monument be or could be today and for whom? For this program, the foundation invites makers and artists to reflect on this question by creating or presenting (temporary) work at the shipyard.

The container arch is now an integral part of the NDSM shipyard for many festival visitors. Once placed as a set piece for DGTL, other festivals are now also using it. Due to the cancellation of the festivals in corona time, the NDSM-werf Foundation decided to periodically give the arch a different interpretation, to symbolize the dynamic feeling that the festival season gives. To do this, she invites artists to give substance to it. For this second edition, the NDSM-werf Foundation, festival DGTL and STRAAT Museum had joined forces to ask the artistic duo Karski & Beyond.

Karski (1974) and Beyond (1983) are an artist duo from the Netherlands. They have a background in graphic design and are very intensively involved in the graffiti scene.

As an experiment, they started working together in 2012. Because they liked the first mural made collectively, they decided to join forces. Their work is known for using original and vibrant color combinations. It contains realistic, graphic and abstract elements, often with surprising depth and dynamism. For Karski & Beyond, art is a way of expressing yourself, and making gigantic paintings, like this one on the container arch, makes them feel alive. “As a duo, we like to push the limits for as much contrast and depth as possible.”

Curious about all the different container bow jackets over the past few years? Check out the article in the online magazine.

This bench could be seen as a symbolic and poetic representation of the time, when we lived in a 1.5 meter long society as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. It opened up opportunities for sustainable meetings with friends and family, as well as with strangers who could sit on the couch at the same time. It ensured that we were still able to meet at this exceptional time — even if it was from a distance.

The sofa was 2.5 metres wide, with a centre — exactly 1.5 metres — made of polished stainless steel. The intermediate part was invisible due to the mirror effect. Only the left and right sides of the sofa were clearly visible as seats. The reflection created a physical distance, but at the same time made the distance invisible.

Tuindorp Oostzaan was built 100 years ago, mainly as a garden village for the employees of the Nederlandsche Dock- en Scheepsbouw Maatschappij (NDSM). Raimond Wouda has spent the past 30 years capturing this part of Noord, which is visible in a publication and an exhibition at the city archives, and is now also shown on three billboards at the NDSM shipyard, near the source.

His mother and grandmother grew up there and he lived there for the first years of his life. Raimond Wouda about Tuindorp Oostzaan: “As I got older, my relationship with Tuindorp became more complex and ambivalent. It was a place that was both strange and familiar to me. I started taking pictures of the neighborhood and its residents to better understand what it meant to me. Tuindorp has become my most personal work.”

Inspired by the ideals of the English garden cities, the garden villages in Amsterdam were built, with Tuindorp Oostzaan being the first. Just behind the NDSM so that people could walk or cycle to work. Compared to the buildings on the other side of the IJ, the garden villages were given more space, gardens, squares and (cultural) facilities to serve as meeting places and create a sense of community. The close-knit community changed over time, the area expanded after the war, after which migrant workers and young families came to North. The most drastic change was, of course, the bankruptcy of the NDSM. As a result, the industry and other public functions such as the library slowly disappeared to a large extent.

The building boards now show a selection of photos that provide a glimpse into the larger story that Raimond has captured. A history of living and living in a changing city, a perspective on the community and surroundings of Tuindorp Oostzaan. The old obvious connection between Tuindorp Oostzaan and NDSM as a former shipyard, as a beacon in the district, no longer exists. However, it has been replaced by a new public and a so-called “cultural wharf”. The building signs reconnect the garden village and its residents and NDSM.

Raimond Wouda's photos are shown on the 'NDSM Billboards', with which Stichting NDSM-werf offers space for artists on large building boards: “In addition to the building signs on the western part of the NDSM, where construction is underway, we at NDSM-Oost give artists the opportunity to post their artistic statements on building boards. With its 10 hectares, the shipyard provides a wonderful background for large images in response to the context of the NDSM to make the work highly visible to Northerners and Amsterdammers,” says curator Petra Heck.

Phase 1

The Tower of Babel project was a concept by artist Guido van der Werve. In his concept, Van der Werve took the Biblical story as a starting point. In this story, only one language was spoken on Earth and they collectively embraced the same idea: to build a city with a tower that would reach the sky. But God descended after this act of pride, made people all speak different languages, and spread everyone around the world. Because the people could no longer understand each other, construction was stopped.

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What a contemporary Tower of Babel would look like, with just as many people as possible with different backgrounds, languages and voices, was what Guido van der Werve asked with this project. Stichting NDSM-werf and TAAK shaped this question in an architectural installation that expressed a certain polyphony of the city. The emphasis was precisely on the difference, the diversity and the (cultural) richness that lay therein. Watch a portrait of Guido van der Werve talking (in English) about the Tower of Babel and his art practice in the video:

WORKSHOPS‍

The polyphony also took shape in various specially developed workshops in which Amsterdammers and communities with different cultural, political, social or religious backgrounds of different ages participated. The starting point was how they thought about their ideal city and what values were important to them in it. The workshops were given by artists Fouad Lakbir, Tina Lenz, Mick La Rock, Olfa Ben Ali, Bengin Dawod, Rianne van Duin, Brendan Jan Walsh and Perrine Philomeen, who all worked from their own practice and discipline with themes such as ownership, visibility and storytelling and sharing.

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The diverse “building blocks”, ideas and stories were translated into visual outcomes that were placed in the Tower between September 23, 2021 and storm Eunice in February 2022. There were banners, photos, a video, a sound system with stories, a Tower of Babel newspaper made by students at Klein Amsterdam primary school and a homemade brick wall that was incorporated into the tower. Brendan Jan Walsh rehearsed a libretto written by Guido van der Werve and performed on October 7 by the choir and the Promenade Orchestra, specially assembled for the tower. This is how the Tower of Babel became a metaphor for what the ideal polyphonic city could look like and what values and ideas were important to it.

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For background stories about the Tower of Babel, check out the NDSM Online Magazine depot.

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From May 5, 2022, Phase 2 of the Tower of Babel was visible: the tower was under construction, to indicate that it was still a work in progress. In addition to the videos and the libretto, there was a 3D sketch by Guido that illustrated how he wanted to see his ideal Tower of Babel finally realized: with a path where you could walk up and down endlessly. At that time, the path could be walked as a flat route.

Goldendean: BIG FAT TRANS LIGHT MERQUER

Location: Y-HELLING

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The South African Artist Goldendean (Dean Hutton) made inflatable soft sculptures that depicted the contours of their own bodies. Especially for the NDSM shipyard, they created the 'Big Fat Trans Light MerQueer', a hybrid between man and sea monster that seemed to have crawled out of the IJ water — with tentacles. They were inspired by folk tales about sea-lake people, such as the “Mermaid of Edam” and “Mamlambo”, a serpent-like river goddess from South African and Xhosa mythology, who was often depicted as a mermaid. When they were captured, they allegedly brought prosperity.

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Goldendean shared moments of gentle courage to affirm the right of all bodies to exist, be celebrated, and protected. They evoked tender feelings by deliberately pretending to be crazy and playful, sometimes a clown, sometimes a warrior, always vulnerable... Radically soft in an uncompromising world... A tenderqueer invested trust in an audience to respond kindly, to keep our bodies safe together, to give queer space, no matter how we sometimes failed each other.

Johannes Buttner: Free Energy II, Peak Panic

Location: waterfront near Pllek

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In his sculptures, installations and videos, Johannes Büttner (Germany, 1985) addresses socio-economic themes such as energy, work in the digital age and power. In addition, he worked with people with diverse backgrounds: from mindset and business coaches and bakers to people from the “digital working class”.

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Johannes Büttner showed sculptures that he made for Into Nature, an exhibition in Bargerveen, Drenthe, curated by Hans den Hartog Jager, where energy was key. Büttner's luminescent sculptures were battery-operated made of aluminum, magnesium and alum crystals. The story went that they recharged over and over again, so that these batteries would provide infinite energy. Büttner had the batteries designed by “free-energy engineers”, an online community that believed that environmentally friendly, sustainable and free energy sources had been around for a long time, but that they were hidden by large companies and governments out of self-interest. Somewhere between truth and fiction, (pseudo-) science and faith, and in response to the lack of opportunities to verify this, the work evoked alternative ways of imaging.

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In addition, Johannes showed lightboxes with advertising-like photos of “survival hacks” for a post-apocalyptic scenario. How did you make light in times of crisis? Faced with a pandemic and climate change awareness, 2016's work was now seen differently. DIY creations and creativity to deal with new catastrophes seemed inevitable.

Alice Wong & Crys Leung: COHESION

Location: LOAD OUT

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Alice Wong was a story designer. By showing how our perception of reality was constructed, she tried to turn complexity into understandable stories. For this project, she worked with Crys Leung, communication designer, who investigated the role of media and the relationship to identity in her work.

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Alice and Crys revealed 'COHESION', a large-scale installation that connected fragmented elements on the NDSM. The reflective circle stood for unity and collectivity; one could all come together and become more than the individual parts. Because the total circle could not be understood from a single position in space, the work created an infinite number of perspectives, depending on the point of view. The process of interacting from different angles, heights and distances made it clear how people collectively shaped a shared reality, where no perspective should stand above the other. Visible and invisible, seen and unseen were all equally valuable.

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Designer and Illustrator Luca Boscardin was one of the two winners of the Open Call launched in 2021 by Stichting NDSM-werf. His project Animal Factory consisted of minimalistic metal animals, such as a crocodile and a giraffe. The works invited you to sit on or climb up and thus played with the idea of the NDSM shipyard as an urban jungle.

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Animal Factory was a collection of animals designed in a simple and abstract way, each maintaining the exact size and proportions of the real animals. The objects — a giraffe, gorilla, crocodile and wolf — were characterized by a minimal shape, made of metal tubes and a minimal use of color: each one was painted in a single shade to encourage passers-by to open their minds and let their imagination run wild. Where, from a certain angle, the steel structure did not seem to have a specific shape, the contours of a gorilla were clearly visible from another location. This is how the animals were surprises in the industrial landscape.

With the objects, Luca Boscardin hoped to encourage creativity and multifunctional use of the shipyard. For example, the gorilla could also serve as a play object, the giraffe may have been an alternative workout tool, and the crocodile was a suitable place for visitors to sit down with a cup of coffee. As a toy designer, Luca drew space rockets, fantasy creatures, imaginary characters and super-fast cars every day. Using the life-size metal animals, he gave shipyard visitors the space to use their own imagination and invited young and old to play, hang out or exercise.

Animal Factory was created with the help of steel carpenter Iwan Snel, who was also based at the NDSM shipyard. The entire project was designed and produced in the immediate vicinity of NDSM. Nowadays, they can be found on the west-side of NDSM next to the Noord-Dok building in a park.

For this edition of ADE, Stichting NDSM-werf invited the art and activist group Tools for Action + Floor out to use their site as a public rehearsal space for RÆV REHEARSAL. They invited the audience to rehearse new forms of togetherness. With a Bluetooth speaker system, floating inflatable sculptures and a minimalist techno beat, they moved around the city like a radiant, dancing swarm. The streets became the club, the steps, roundabouts and benches acted as temporary stages.

RÆV REHEARSAL

RÆV REHEARSAL was initiated in Rotterdam in the summer of 2021 by visual artist Artúr van Balen, founder of Tools for Action, and choreographer Floor van Leeuwen. Every week, they rehearsed the dancing swarm in public space with a fixed group of twenty ravers, which in some editions grew to more than eighty people. After two massive editions of Unmute Us, the protest march for a more open event and night culture in Amsterdam, there was a strong need for people to come together, dance and have fun. By dancing, people were able to express their protest in a peaceful way.

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Artúr van Balen, founder and artist at Tools for Action, explained: “Actually, this was intended as a new form of manifestation with the potential to become a protest. We used the rehearsal as a format because, from a legal perspective, it gave us the opportunity to meet with more than a hundred people in the open air, regardless of the changing corona rules.” Floor van Leeuwen added: “I saw the rehearsal as a way to practice collective movement together, coordinate, meet new people and even dance with people remotely, even when they were on their balconies.”

Swarms

RÆV REHEARSAL was based on the movement principles of swarms. Like a flock of birds, there was no central point or hierarchically organized movement; the direction was determined by the group as it moved. During each rehearsal, people had to move and dance about three meters apart. Based on these principles, the audience was invited to participate on October 15, 16 and 17 and to rehearse this collective movement together.

Music

RÆV REHEARSAL worked with a different DJ each time. As the swarm moved through public spaces, from iconic places to residential areas, the goal was to find sounds that resonated with the local environment or aroused curiosity. During previous editions, DJs performed such as Sukubratz, a Chilean DJ who combined techno with reggaeton, Cheb Runner, a Moroccan DJ who mixed electronic dance music with chaabi (a style of Moroccan folklore), and DJ Dance Divine, a queer artist from Brussels.

ADE

On October 15, 16 and 17, a group of up to a hundred people gathered at the NDSM shipyard to dance through Amsterdam-Noord. Various collectives, DJs and communities joined this initiative. The line-up was announced later. These were three unforgettable nights where a dancing swarm moved through the city, letting its heartbeat ring during the pandemic and activating spaces with bodies, music and light.

As an echo of the transformations in club culture, RÆV REHEARSAL highlighted the need to explore new forms of sociality and interrelationships by reclaiming and reprogramming public space.