20 March, 2023, 18:00 Online

Page Not Found initiated in 2021 a collaboration with the staff and students of the Master Experimental Publishing (XPUB) of the Piet Zwart institute, Rotterdam, which resulted in the publication of a “Special Issue” – the format the Master adopted for presenting their trimestrial research –, and its launch at Page Not Found.In 2023, the third chapter in this joint investigation will summon the ghost in the (game) machine. Role play is a prevalent and natural form in video games to embrace their artificial worlds. Even in its most traditional form, playing a game entails accepting its rules and willfully stepping in the magical circle of their storytelling — where the Real is suspended and the Imaginary rules. Magic resides where rules and rituals apply, as noted by Dutch historian Johan Huizinga: ”just as there is no formal difference between play and ritual, so the ‘consecrated spot’ cannot be formally distinguished from the play-ground (…) All are temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart.”

However, this magic circle often lacks spirituality: most game worlds unimaginatively replicate the mechanisms of Capitalism — competitive materialism, capital accumulation and instrumentalisation of Nature, all justified by an overarching rationality. The same game worlds often mirror in their imagery the patriarchal exploitation of women. The XPUB students are thus invited with guest editor Lídia Pereira to explore games as gateways to alternative systems of belief and values. Central to this exploration are holistic relations to Nature, integrating care as an essential component of their practices, such as witchcraft and shamanism. Beyond the Nature/Technology duality, can games and machines contribute to re-enchanting the world?

To contextualise the publishing of this third Special Issue, Page Not Found invites guest speakers to contribute on this topic. Our first guest this year is artist Shana Moulton.

Through her performances, videos, and multidimensional installations, Shana Moulton creates worlds at the threshold of absurdity and truth, catharsis and cliché, the material and the spiritual. The artist positions herself in the role of an individual moving with worry and wonderment through environments designed from autobiographical experiences, subconscious associations, and fantasy. Ascribing healing properties to the banal trappings of everyday life, Moulton’s works elicit a potent empathy on the part of the viewer that allows for these narratives to continue beyond the immediate experience of an artwork. Shana Moulton’s video work has been screened and exhibited internationally, including at Art in General, New York, Migros Museum, Zurich; Contemporary Museum of Art, Uppsala; Rencontres internationales Paris/Berlin, Paris; Aurora, Edinburgh; Dark Light Festival, Dublin; Impakt Festival, Utrecht; Internationale Kurzfilmtage, Oberhausen; Broadway 1602, New York; and Gimpel Fils, London. Moulton’s performances have been presented at venues including The Kitchen, New York; PERFORMA 09, New York; Aurora Picture Show, Houston; Electronic Arts Intermix, New York; The Bluecoat, Liverpool; Socrates Sculpture Park, New York; among others.

Join us on Monday 20, starting at 18:00, here!

We kindly thank Stroom Den Haag for supporting this program!

Image credit: Shana Moulton, The Undiscovered Drawer, 2013, video.
© Shana Moulton/Collection Frac Normandie Caen

We are excited to announce the continuation of our Open Letters cycle in 2023! Page Not Found now welcomes submissions to Open Letters 2023: an open call for artists and writers in The Hague to occupy our large storefront with messages of urgency and vulnerability. Deadline for submissions: 16 April, 2023!
Please note that only artists and writers who live or work in The Hague are eligible to apply, as this project aims to support our local community.  

Open Letters gives artists room to publicly reflect on the current turbulent times.This project was inspired by Paul Maheke’s short essay ‘The year I stopped making art. Why the art world should assist artists beyond representation; in solidarity.’, published on the 18th of March 2020. In the essay Maheke channels voices of urgency from precarious figures who practice their art without structural support, ranging from the witch to the single parent to those struggling with mental health issues. “The Year I Stopped Making Art.” was the first letter published in our storefront and was followed by five selected proposals by the local artists in 2021.

Open Letters are published in the front window of Page Not Found’s project space using vinyl lettering, which can vary in size, color and font type. However, the execution does not need to stay limited to just that and we invite artists to share their message in additional ways that seem fitting to the cause.

The published work will be given the audience of passersby of the lively Boekhorststraat. Artists will receive a fee of €500 and production will be taken care of by the team of Page Not Found. The next presentation will be  unveiled in June 2023. Each presentation will last four weeks.

Your proposal has to be submitted no later than Sunday 16 April, 2023. Submissions will be reviewed by Page Not Found team and the selected artists/writers will be notified during the second week of May 2023.

Submission Form

This open call is made possible thanks to the generous support by Stroom Den Haag and Gemeente Den Haag.

16 March, 2023, 11:00 -16:00 Free entrance

1646 and Page Not Found invite you for an experimental writing workshop by writer, artist and artist-book publisher Anna M. Szaflarski!

Commingling, harmonic behaviour and immaculately slimy conception are themes drawn from Paul DD Smith’s current exhibition The Chiral Gate at 1646. They are also the jump-off point for this special edition of Anna M. Szaflarski’s writing workshop, titled Morphogenesis. Morphogenesis is the cellular process that creates and determines form. Participants of the workshop are invited to take part in, as well as shape a choreography of exercises inspired by a blend of somatic, surrealist and dada writing exercises, improvised theatre, and for this occasion, the growth, movement and communication patterns found in nature. A cognitive space will form untethered from inhibition and pretension, allowing for the generation of text individually and collaboratively.

All are welcome! The workshop will be held in English, but fluency in the language is not necessary. There’s space for 15 participants, so sign up by sending an email to register@page-not-found.nl. The workshop is free of charge.

That evening, 1646 will be open for Paul’s Background Evening. Paul will give a short introduction to the exhibition and later, Paul and Anna will talk about the workshop and about how Anna’s practice has informed Paul’s practice. Find more information on the Background Evening here!

The workshop takes place in our space on Thursday March 16th from 11:00 to 16:00.

Caption image: “The Hills” by Anna M. Szaflarski.

Kino Nights is a new program series at Page Not Found, tailored to present the works by the artists, whose practice encompasses film or video productions as well as publishing. Film, video and other moving images are screened alongside a carefully curated selection of publications and other printed matter by the artist. The diversity of practices ​​of the contributors often escapes disciplinary categorization, therefore makes this series particularly layered and immersive.

For the first Kino Night this year it is our honour to screen “Denim Sky” (2018-2022) by Rosalind Nashashibi alongside an enigmatic complilation of printed matter around the artist’s practice.

Made between 2018-2022 across different time scales in London, Lithuania and Scotland. Denim Sky is a feature film in three parts. Together this trilogy is a playful exploration of non-nuclear family and community structures, the theoretical effects of non-linear time travel on human relationships, and how this could aid or problematize communication. The narrative is based on a fiction about a spaceship crew brought together in order to develop a crew mentality, so that they can be used to test a new form of space travel that uses non-linear time. Throughout, the light humour and fraternal mood of the group are disrupted by unsettling and unexpected events. 

The screening will take place during Hoogtij#72, starting at the following time slots: 19:10, 20:30, 21:50.

Rosalind Nashashibi is a London-based filmmaker and painter of Palestinian and Northern Irish origin. Her films use a language that is both documentary and speculative, based on the observation of her own life and the world around her in dialogue with elements of fiction or science fiction, often proposing models of collective life. Her paintings also evoke real or more dreamlike spaces where people or animals may appear, often sharing the picture plane with signs and apparitions. Her films are shot at eye level, drawing an intimate space. They become a living material with an active surface made of pulsation and light. Bodies, objects, glances, landscapes share the same sensitive space. 

Nashashibi became the first artist in residence at the National Gallery in London (UK), after the program was re-established in 2020. She was a Turner Prize nominee in 2017, and represented Scotland in the 52nd Venice Biennale. Her work has been included in Documenta 14, Manifesta 7, the Nordic Triennial, and Sharjah 10. She was the first woman to win the Beck’s Futures prize in 2003. 

Image Caption: Still from Rosalind Nashashibi’s “Denim Sky”(2022), courtesy of the Artist.