Hagar Ophir
Art-Performance-Research &
Costume-props-styling
Fake Link
Research as Performance 2019
Toward an Academic evaluation committee of Department III directed by Dagmar
Schäfer at the Max-Plank Institution for the history of science, I created a play in
collaboration with and performed by 10 members of the department - senior researchers
and Postdoc fellows, titled: Artifacts, Action, Knowledge. The work consists of a
conceptual play based on their academic report and researchers presentations, using
their practical research actions and the artefacts histories. The performance took place
at the Harnack-house Berlin, January 2019
Parts of the prologue of Research as Performance:
Artefacts, Action, and Knowledge
Department III Director Dagmar Schäfer
Prologue <Slide # 1on>
The Director- Dagmar [reading the quote]:
Although different in color and kind, lead, when participating in vermillion making , can function as the colour vermillion. One has to grasp its “inner working” (shu?).
Therefore, that which can be said/known is not effectuated by intricate formula and elegant phrases.
Simply test the causes and that is that” Marianna: Huainanzi Writings of the Masters,
South of the Huai River, 2nd century BCE Dagmar: In the following 50 minutes.…
[Dept III stands up from their seats and moves to stage]
Dagmar:We follow how people through the centuries up until more recent times imagined such ways of working, people such as Robert Hommel who in the early twentieth century took photos of processes such as dyeing for his book China at Work, attributing such inner workings mainly to the domaines of craft, technology, and the everyday.
our aim is to develop a historical epistemology of action.
Dept I I I:[ repeat the sentence one after another in a canon]:
Wilko & Marianna: historical epistemology of action.
Tamar & Shehab: historical epistemology of action.
Alexis & Edna: historical epistemology of action.
Dagmar: Our research agenda has three entry points:
[reading without a pause]
Tamar: artifacts
Mariana: (things),
WIko: action
Lisa: (making),
Shih-Pei: knowledge
Alexis: (work).
Dagmar: Five senior researchers support the organization …
Shehab: What kind of work is it to make “knowledge”?
Edna: Knowledge-making is work for brain and brawn.
By emphasizing the physical side,
Lisa: beyond the written traces of practices and the material remnants of products, to grasp the “inner workings” (shu?) that the Huainanzi speaks about.
Alexis: our aim is to push the historical analysis of what and how people knew
Sonja: We look into the varying conceptual roles of “action” as “knowing”
Shih-Pei: What “knowledge” inhabits the Huainanzi’s myriads of things, such as plants, ghosts,
Marianna:...or stones?
Lisa: As historians of science, we study the artifacts of human action and thought.
Marianna: We study them as sources, as mediators, and as products of scientific and technological change.
Tamar: We search for human histories in their material components
Wilko: Hence, it is important to ask how people make things work.
Edna: how they organize processes, through management, infrastructures organizational forms,
Wilko: or systemic choices.
Alexis: by looking, for instance, at the judgments and decision-making when drawing relations, as those are
judgments and decisions that impact what counts as knowledge and how it counts.
<Slide #1 off>
<Black Slide on>
[Sound of the sea, Wilko walks in the center of the room slowly towards the front stage all DEPT
III speed around the room, some of them are standing, some walking and others are seating in the
crowd]
Fake Link
It Is Only Through Your That I Can Remember
Who I Am
An Exhibition in Three Acts
Theatre of Operations: Hakim Bishara & Hagar Ophir
It Is Only Through Your Thoughts that I Can Remember Who I Am reimagines the story of L’Art moderne au Liban into a theatrical exhibition in three acts. Madame M.S, a mysterious Lebanese painter who was one of the participating artists in the 1943 exhibition, is conjured up from the archive to recount the tale of her time through imagined and recreated environments that combine text, image, light and sound.
Bergen, Octobre-December 2017
ACT I: SEEKING MADAME M.S.
Link Link Link
EPILOGUE: SAINT GEORGES PREVAILS
Link Link Link
SOUND WORKS: Miriam Schickler
LIGHTING AND PROGRAMMING: Rachid Moro
SET DESIGN: Studio Martha Schwindling
RESEARCHER IN FRANCE Ellie Armon Azoulay RESEARCHER IN BEIRUT Stephanie d‘Arc Taylor
The exhibition was curated by Sissel Lillebostad and Trond Hugo Haugen in collaboration with Malin Barth. The exhibition is part of Vågestykke — a series of time-limited artworks 2016-2018 at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL) by KORO - Public Art Norway.
Debriefing Session II
I First performed Debriefing II: July 2015
Location: Artport, Tel Aviv. As part of Non Finito, Artport’s third year residency exhibition.
Training local agents (performers) and performing as Public Movement Agent at the opening section: June - October 2016: Guggenheim Museum, New York
As part of the exhibition But a Storm Is Blowing from Paradise: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa.
Curator: Sara Raza
Activating Public Movement Agents: Amir Farjoun, Ruth Patir
Head of research and performing as Public Movement Agent: October - December 2015: Tel Aviv Museum of Art. As part of Public Movement durational exhibition, National Collection.
Head of research and performing as Public Movement Agent: October 2015: Spielart Festival, Munich
Location: Villa Stuck Museum
Performing as Public Movement Agent October, November 2018: Debriefing Session Visetamarstudio, as part of Publice Movement solo exhibition Temporary Orders Vistamarstudio, Milan.
TelAviv Museum - Performing as public movement agent
SpielArt Munich - Performing as public movement agent
Guggenheim NYC - Performer conductor and performing the Agent for the prevue and opening action
Vaistamar Studio Milan - performing as Public Movement Agent
Santarcangelo festival - Action leader, performers conductor and performing as the English speaking public movement Agent
Debriefing Session II a one-on-one meeting in which I, as a public movement agent deliver an account of our research about modern art made in Palestine before 1948. The private session draws out the performative relationship between nation-states and their cultural institutions.was created by Alhena Katsof and Dana Yahalomi based on a research led by Hagar Ophir, and was presented as part of the exhibition National Collection at Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 2015.
Hyperallergic
Mousse magazine
Debriefing Session II Is a one on one performance as part of my work with public movement I was part of the creation of this work first by being the head of research for this and as the main conductor of other performers and performing myself as public movement agent.
Hagar Ophir
Art-Performance-Research &
Costume-props-styling
Fake Link
Research as Performance 2019
Toward an Academic evaluation committee of Department III directed by Dagmar
Schäfer at the Max-Plank Institution for the history of science, I created a play in
collaboration with and performed by 10 members of the department - senior researchers
and Postdoc fellows, titled: Artifacts, Action, Knowledge. The work consists of a
conceptual play based on their academic report and researchers presentations, using
their practical research actions and the artefacts histories. The performance took place
at the Harnack-house Berlin, January 2019
Parts of the prologue of Research as Performance:
Artefacts, Action, and Knowledge
Department III Director Dagmar Schäfer
Prologue <Slide # 1on>
The Director- Dagmar [reading the quote]:
Although different in color and kind, lead, when participating in vermillion making , can function as the colour vermillion. One has to grasp its “inner working” (shu?).
Therefore, that which can be said/known is not effectuated by intricate formula and elegant phrases.
Simply test the causes and that is that” Marianna: Huainanzi Writings of the Masters,
South of the Huai River, 2nd century BCE Dagmar: In the following 50 minutes.…
[Dept III stands up from their seats and moves to stage]
Dagmar:We follow how people through the centuries up until more recent times imagined such ways of working, people such as Robert Hommel who in the early twentieth century took photos of processes such as dyeing for his book China at Work, attributing such inner workings mainly to the domaines of craft, technology, and the everyday.
our aim is to develop a historical epistemology of action.
Dept I I I:[ repeat the sentence one after another in a canon]:
Wilko & Marianna: historical epistemology of action.
Tamar & Shehab: historical epistemology of action.
Alexis & Edna: historical epistemology of action.
Dagmar: Our research agenda has three entry points:
[reading without a pause]
Tamar: artifacts
Mariana: (things),
WIko: action
Lisa: (making),
Shih-Pei: knowledge
Alexis: (work).
Dagmar: Five senior researchers support the organization …
Shehab: What kind of work is it to make “knowledge”?
Edna: Knowledge-making is work for brain and brawn.
By emphasizing the physical side,
Lisa: beyond the written traces of practices and the material remnants of products, to grasp the “inner workings” (shu?) that the Huainanzi speaks about.
Alexis: our aim is to push the historical analysis of what and how people knew
Sonja: We look into the varying conceptual roles of “action” as “knowing”
Shih-Pei: What “knowledge” inhabits the Huainanzi’s myriads of things, such as plants, ghosts,
Marianna:...or stones?
Lisa: As historians of science, we study the artifacts of human action and thought.
Marianna: We study them as sources, as mediators, and as products of scientific and technological change.
Tamar: We search for human histories in their material components
Wilko: Hence, it is important to ask how people make things work.
Edna: how they organize processes, through management, infrastructures organizational forms,
Wilko: or systemic choices.
Alexis: by looking, for instance, at the judgments and decision-making when drawing relations, as those are
judgments and decisions that impact what counts as knowledge and how it counts.
<Slide #1 off>
<Black Slide on>
[Sound of the sea, Wilko walks in the center of the room slowly towards the front stage all DEPT
III speed around the room, some of them are standing, some walking and others are seating in the
crowd]
Fake Link
It Is Only Through Your That I Can Remember
Who I Am
An Exhibition in Three Acts
Theatre of Operations: Hakim Bishara & Hagar Ophir
It Is Only Through Your Thoughts that I Can Remember Who I Am reimagines the story of L’Art moderne au Liban into a theatrical exhibition in three acts. Madame M.S, a mysterious Lebanese painter who was one of the participating artists in the 1943 exhibition, is conjured up from the archive to recount the tale of her time through imagined and recreated environments that combine text, image, light and sound.
Bergen, Octobre-December 2017
ACT I: SEEKING MADAME M.S.
Link Link Link
EPILOGUE: SAINT GEORGES PREVAILS
Link Link Link
SOUND WORKS: Miriam Schickler
LIGHTING AND PROGRAMMING: Rachid Moro
SET DESIGN: Studio Martha Schwindling
RESEARCHER IN FRANCE Ellie Armon Azoulay RESEARCHER IN BEIRUT Stephanie d‘Arc Taylor