aus fanzine 2
Good Stuff
Interview with Annemiek Engbers & Peter Fengler / De Player
by Sylvia Szely
Rotterdam, October 16, 2005
I suggest we start conventionally: Let me ask you as the founders of DE PLAYER when and why and how you started with it? You came from Utrecht to Rotterdam. How did you come to Rotterdam actually?
ANNEMIEK: At that moment a lot of things came together. We had to leave our studio in Utrecht and meanwhile the city had changed its policy: it wouldn't provide atelier spaces to individual artists anymore, but only through an organisation in order to administer them. And there was a lot of discontent with this organisation ...
PETER: After that the climate in Utrecht wasn't interesting anymore. And I was already working with COOLHAVEN (1), so I had to go to the studio in Rotterdam quite often, because the other guys lived in Rotterdam.
ANNEMIEK: We knew someone who offered us a house in Rotterdam, a 3 storey-house ... That was the Hudson Straat, we lived there for two and a half years. And then we heard that there was an old club available and ready for re-renting as an artist-space. In Zuid. (2) So — for a week or so — we tried really hard to get the telephone number of the right person. Finally we met with a guy from the OBR. (3) He was quite ok, didn't really care so much what we had in mind with the space. He also didn't think that it could be possible to live in the house upstairs. Finally we got the whole building, because we said we could make something out of this. But using this space — which had been a nightclub and bar in the former red-light district of Rotterdam — as an atelier, where you work on your own, didn't seem interesting to us: The location was very much in the middle of public space. Right on a corner ...
PETER: ... close to a metro station, on a busy street.
ANNEMIEK: Also the infrastructure of the whole bar was still there — the idea to make a public space out of it again came quickly. We had some experience with organising things, together and also apart from each other. We had done some parties in our old location in Utrecht. With a lot of people. So this was something we already have been interested in: Not only doing our own things but also showing other people's things, on a "low" level. That was important to us: to find an easy way to show experimental stuff. To have this moment of presenting and receiving — and to bring both together. Seeing the space of this bar all these things, which were already in the back of our heads, came together.
PETER: It was the idea of having a huge living room with an infrastructure where it was easy to do little shows ... this was a very luxury feeling, you know: you invite someone — good stuff — and you enjoy it together.
And then you started with the club immediately?
PETER: We first went skiing.
ANNEMIEK: ... to think all this over! — No, it took a few months ...
PETER: We first soundproofed the place. It had big windows on two sides, but we didn't want to be really public, in the sense of being a place where people pass by and drop in. We wanted to have our own people which means people who had an invitation — by us or by someone else. People who were interested in what was happening. And not just interested in cheap beer ...
ANNEMIEK: When we started — after one or two events — the police and the Deelgemeente (4) contacted us. They said we have to stop because it is illegal what we do: organising events without having permissions and licenses ... blablabla. Then we found a structure which made it possible to organise shows once a month and get the necessary licenses for it. — Anyway: Because of these problems with the authorities we didn't want to show everything off to the street, that there was something happening on the inside. But we did our publicity, namely via our own television programme.
PETER: DE PLAYER'S NIGHTCLUB TV
ANNEMIEK: We started making a show for local TV. We had the — slightly theoretical — idea of having people in the club who could not really be located but somehow transmitting the experience of the inside of the bar: It didn't matter if it was here at Rijnhaven (5) or f.i. in Berlin, it could have been everywhere — and it had this secret feeling. At the same time we were broad-casting everything happening inside to everyone in Rotterdam.
PETER: But the location was never mentioned on TV, so nobody knew where this club was.
My first encounters with the club were just like that: it was very secretive, almost mysterious ... I heard about it through two friends, independently, around the same time. Then we passed it with the car. It was very abstract. Also because it was on this corner in this very part of town and the windows were closed. You had a television-test image in the window ...
PETER: ... yes, we put lights behind it and closed it off — because of the sound — so we had a kind of abstract light box.
Everyone knew: This once was a nightclub — but now something else is happening there. Still it was quite unclear what was actually really going on there ...
ANNEMIEK: We never did any PR. It would have been impossible anyways, we had a limitation of 50 people being allowed inside. And it was easy to get 50 people, we always had to work with reservation- and guest lists ...
PETER: We also didn't want to spend any money on conventional publicity. For us it was more interesting to slowly build up an audience which was really connected with the place. And if it is interesting enough people will come by themselves ... — And otherwise they just stay at home. Which is also really nice.
You programmed lots of different things, performances, film and video events, "interdisciplinary" shows using all kinds of media ... Was there a red line or was there a concept for the programming?
PETER: We didn't want to be just a gallery or a concert space. There are enough places for that kind of stuff. We were very aware of the tradition of the nightclub where you get to see "chicks on stage" — so we wanted to do "performative" stuff as well, but not with tits. Art related, but also work which wasn't anywhere near things happening in art — because there are enough places for that as well. So the programme became a mix of our backgrounds: We work in video and film or with bands ... Touring with COOLHAVEN I met a lot of bands and doing exhibitions I met a lot of other artists ...
ANNEMIEK: We didn't want to be the curators who are presenting things they think are good or bad, with the value label already on it. The evaluation of the performance — whether people like what they experience or not — should happen in that specific moment of the performance. We gave the opportunity to people to show themselves, or show their act — and we gave the audience the opportunity to come and see what's happening. But what they think of each other, is up to them. That's also a reason why we sometimes have invited people whose act we didn't know ourselves but who were recommended to us or — f.i. — this guy playing John Fruscianti songs (6) on his violin: Peter met him in a bar and he told Peter about his "hobby" and it sounded so intense ... that actually became one of our key interests ...
PETER: ... ultra-hobby-kind-of-things.
ANNEMIEK: People who were really busy with something, without being disturbed by rules.
PETER: The axioms of western art. These ideas of how western art should be ...
ANNEMIEK: Because of our programming our audience was always a mix of people from different backgrounds as well, there were also artists among them. So the whole setting was always quite open. That is a problem with a lot of spaces, that it is very set and predictable.
PETER: Yes, they have a certain style and you know if you go there you will encounter this kind of music or this kind of art. And: it has to have some kind of "stable" product. We like the "instable" product. The no-product-product ... Which in the course of time became a kind of brand: if you go to DE PLAYER you never know what's happening. Our audience is curious and open, rather active people ...
The people you invited to perform were always international ...
PETER: And also the audience did not only come from Rotterdam. It was never only about the acts but about a specific kind of energy.
I was once here when you had a film set built up, outside the club, on the street...
ANNEMIEK: That was one of DE PLAYER'S NACHTCLUB AVONDEN, it was part of a series of events we put together with organisations from other cities, like Breda, Amsterdam, Nijmegen, Arnhem but also Berlin and Edinburgh. We asked each of the organisations to invite their acts.
How did this work exactly?
PETER: We had a meeting with every organisation and said: Ok, what kind of evening do you want to have? Do you have suggestions? And then a kind of identity for each of these events started to develop by itself. On the night you were here the people involved wanted to do something with film. As we said before: in the club we were limited to 50 people. But we were making events where we already had 30 artists involved and then ourselves, from the organisation ... so: where to put the audience? We also did some things outside of the club, we had to. We made it our tactic towards the authorities to extend DE PLAYER. — The film set tied in with the idea of extending the space.
The street in front of the club was closed off and used for the set...
PETER: Yeah, we made a deal with a film producer to make it official. We said: Alright, Rotterdam wants to be film city nr. 1, so let's take the whole street! And then PHOXX — one of the companies here in Rotterdam who does location management — said, we can organise this for you ...
ANNEMIEK: ... and doors were suddenly opening where they had stayed closed when we had approached them before.
In terms of participation of the audience: You got there and you were walking around and there were various kind of "stations" where films were shot or people were made up & put into costumes and there was a catering area etc. ... And something was happening with you — even if you would not be very active. It was like you were taking part in a play ...
PETER: Yes, that was nice, because there was some kind of psychological field there.
I wonder what happened to those films that were actually made on this evening, have they been shown anywhere, have you seen them?
ANNEMIEK: A lot of individuals worked on different films. In the beginning the idea was to bring it all together, we had a scenario written especially for the occasion, a framework, into which all the different films should fit. But this was never completed, just the individual films ... and we have seen a few, but ...
PETER: ... it was not about the final product. It was more about the things going on that evening and about the feelings it would generate. It can help as guidance to focus on a certain point, which makes this moment possible in the first place. We always work with a concept — not a very clear, marked concept; more an energetic point which we like to build up. So the programming has very much to do with "Fingerspitzengefühl" — and also with: what's happening at that moment? Which artists are around? The NACHTCLUB AVOND was a combination of both as well. We also had 2 bands invited to play and to shoot a sort of video clip with them, so they fit into the whole setting. But it was very difficult to decide when to start with these bands, so they were waiting and waiting. But the fact they had to wait so long could also been seen as a part of the thing, you know ...
ANNEMIEK: It asks something from the artists as well, how we deal with acts and programming in our space. But luckily we never met rigid people who had very fixed ideas of how you should deal with a performance ...
PETER: And that doesn't mean that they don't have very strict ideas of how to do their thing the best way, in the best quality ... But they need to be flexible towards the situation and then make the best out of it.
Can you name examples of shows or evenings where something special happened or something that was in any way remarkable for you?
ANNEMIEK: Actually all the 5 PLAYER NACHTCLUB events were quite remarkable.
Which were the others?
ANNEMIEK: We started with a collective called JaDa from Breda and Eindhoven. The artists of this NACHTCLUB event had very strict ideas of how to decorate the club. They put plasterboard everywhere, so the whole club was a white cube and there was only black light.
PETER: Lots of black light.
ANNEMIEK: There was a weird, cold ambience. Also the bar was quite big, the volume of it was actually far too big for the space ...
PETER: A battle ship.
ANNEMIEK: They shut it off with plexiglass. We couldn't use the bar as a bar anymore, it was a performance area. And during the whole night — like for 5, 6 hours — a man, dressed in a pale blue costume with a mask and a hat, sat on the counter. Without moving, nothing happened. No reaction on the attempts of the audience to make him move either — he was frozen. The only action going on behind the plexiglass was a pan of boiling water on the stove ... and the steam which slowly covered the glass.
PETER: A vacuum space. A big, big object in the space which was a vacuum ...
ANNEMIEK: ... and it changed the way how the audience got involved with the space. Because the bar wasn't something to hang out anymore, it was an object which you had to stay away from. Bizarre. We had to re-design the infrastructure. We placed another bar — because we had to sell some drinks — into one of the toilets, made a tiny opening ... There were lots of cameras and television screens and we were also streaming. So there were a lot of connections to a lot of other places. The audience was inside and the artists sat upstairs — also to save space, because they were 15 artists ... A camera-crew filmed them and this was seen on one of the screens downstairs. Like on the film set- evening there were a lot of different reality levels, mediated levels ...
PETER: One guy was making radio all the time. He was interviewing the acts and the audience.
ANNEMIEK: Because this was quite early in our PLAYER life there were a lot of new people, people who had never been there before. They also reflected on the space, on the club and what they had and hadn't expected. The nice thing about cooperating with groups from other cities is they have their own networks ...
PETER: ... in a way we created a sort of a network, as well. That was one of our aims: to be a knitting- or cross- point. Where people could meet or things could happen.
ANNEMIEK: What also has become increasingly important in our club, is that there is always a host, so the club is not an anonymous place. Sometimes it's me or Peter — and Peter is more and more doing these ...
PETER: ... long speeches. In the beginning we said: Everybody who enters will be welcomed personally, like in a private club. However it is a way to relate people to the place. You speak to them on a personal level by presenting the acts. It's also meant to break the separation between audience and the stage ... We never have a backstage area. After the act the artist has to be in the club.
ANNEMIEK: For example this guy UM, who was programmed by WORM (7) in our space. It was such a "Wohnzimmer"— feeling and also his act was very fragile ... he was almost right in the middle of the people who were sitting around him. You can call this comfortable, but it is at the same time very confronting. For him it was a big experience, also because it worked. Like this you can present all kinds of things, because you also ask the responsibility of the audience.
PETER: You can programme things that in another context would maybe be ridiculous or to laugh about. We programmed quite some stuff which is vulnerable. You need to create a respectful situation. First people have to laugh because it is one of these acts you feel a bit ashamed of for looking at it ... but when you slowly discover that it is something serious for this person and that he stands right behind what he is doing ... you start to feel embarrassed about yourself for laughing at it. Then something comes in like: Fuck, I was laughing but this is the real hardcore thing! I am just a coward for not going as far as the person on stage is going right now. If such acts are not presented in the right way it would only be a freak show. — Just a freak show: that's not so interesting, there is still a distance, people can easily dismiss it. But when this distance disappears ... ok, he's still a freak but it enters your identity as well and then something is happening ... I think it is interesting to create a situation where things are open — and identities, positions start to shift. Not just audience — act, or observer — object. I like to try to disorientate people without just smacking them in the face. It has to be a subtle process.
ANNEMIEK: The difficult thing with disorientating and destabilizing is of course you destabilize so much that it's not working anymore. If you are presenting shocking events or confronting acts — then you have to realize that it will not work to present it in a shocking way. You have to work on a context all the time. You have to try to create the right attitude but also the right ambience for the receiver to take in heavy stuff. That is why we work on a cosy atmosphere, try to create a normal, nice, comfortable situation.
The word “normal" and cosy — seems like a very Dutch approach to me ...
ANNEMIEK: There are lot of interpretations of that word. "Normal" in this context doesn't mean the middle of the road or not extreme or flat ... it rather means easy to access, to enter. In Dutch there is also this word "laag drempelig" — but I don't want to bring art to the people. "Laag drempelig" means that the ordinary person from the street can enter as well. Yes, he can enter easily, there shouldn't be a border, but the things he will see: this is not "laag drempelig". It can be high art or it can be totally beyond his horizon. But there is a possibility for him to get this — and you shouldn't block this possibility ...
... you also don't want to be elitist ...
PETER: About that I am not sure. But it's definitely not an educational enterprise either. It is just a good ambience where everybody can feel free and comfortable, that's our starting point.
Coming back to the acts and performances: Sometimes you put together stunning combinations, like for the ORAL CINEMA event, which was a kind of "alternative" film festival during the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2004 ...
PETER: Obviously film was the central theme that night. But all the films presented needed some guidance, some text, an oral story. Live cinema, in the more literal sense, and in 3 different shapes: Wink van Kempen, an artist from Rotterdam, reacted spontaneously to a random selection of fragments we took from his own video collection. Through his words, films and videos seemingly without any connection came closer together. Dick Schrauwen had just returned from a jungle trip in Gambia, together with a friend, where they shot a lot of videomaterial. While experiencing all kind of adventures, they got trapped in terrible fights with each other. After a safe return home, Dick immediately started editing the home-documentary. Still in the heat of all the arguments they had, he cut his friend from every shot. The result was alienating, the protagonist's kicked out antagonist stayed present, very much like a phantom. During the show, Dick added another layer to the film, because while explaining and telling things, he got angry again and coloured the whole film again. The last act and performer was Matt Hulse, a filmmaker from Edinburgh. Accompanied by a classical string trio, he showed rushes from a film which had never made it to the final result. While showing them on 16mm, the musicians where interpreting the images. Triggered by this, Matt added dada-texts and sounds which resulted in an eclectic energetic film-dance, so to say.
That to me seems a good example for the multidisciplinary and marginal character of DE PLAYER events : You invite artists that are not really artists or artists who suddenly use another medium ...
ANNEMIEK: That's going on in the art scene itself more and more, you know, artists f.i. forming a band and doing a tour instead of having an exhibition. People are expressing themselves — sounds horrible! — on different levels and it's not so important whether the outcome is a sculpture or a song... this is definitely where the multidisciplinary character of the club is coming from.
Namely from the approach of people who perform ...
PETER: In the old club it was even more intense because everything happened in one space. For the project EINDELIJK IETS FUNCTIONEELS! (8) we invited people to do something on the infrastructure of the club which was a functional thing for the club as a club but at the same time could be an autonomous piece of art. Stuff like that also made the club a hybrid space. If you were entering the door you entered an intense situation. Now things are spread out in a few places ...
You have moved from Rijnhaven to the Deliplein where you have several former bars — and there are different things going on in different places. There is still one bar called DE PLAYER but there are also other places ...
PETER: ... even an exhibition space ...
ANNEMIEK: ... called the PLAIN BAR, there is a theatre place which is also ideal for bigger bands and a place where you can have food, the KANTINE. But it's all temporary. Which is crucial for how we deal with the concept of being exploiters of a club: It's a temporary thing ...
PETER: It could change again ... we spoke about it the other day: Is this underground? Or marginal? Or whatever? In a way it is not! Because it has become institutional ...
You now work within a Stichting (9), you have a semi-professional infrastructure ...
ANNEMIEK: Yes, but the big difference with other places which are also professionalizing is that there is no future plan. That's how we maintain the marginal character in our work: the biggest weight is on the moment. What is happening next year? — It's important to us to keep that open. And basically everyone can join us, participate in organizing things. Which creates a lot of flexibility — towards our own work, towards the things which are organised etc. We never fix ourselves to some kind of plan, that would restrict us ...
You got money from the Groeibriljanten project (10) — that's how you finance your activities ...
ANNEMIEK: This money is part of a total budget which has been given to a few organisations who have the plan to revitalize this neighbourhood. The bigger participants like the Woning-Corporaties (11) use the money for more infrastructural things, like redecorating the square or fixing up the houses. And our part in this whole project isn't quite unimportant — in our opinion: we fill in the real life. We take care of empty buildings and organize events there.
PETER: The remarkable thing is that we got this money which originally isn't meant for culture. We now run money from a plan from a right-wing party to make Rotterdam better. But they don't interfere at all, content-wise. Even less than when you would have a subsidy from a cultural foundation.
ANNEMIEK: In a way it is a quite comfortable, luxurious situation.
PETER: For now. And when it ends, ok, then we will see ...
When will the money end?
ANNEMIEK: Next year.
And how long will the spaces here on the Deliplein be available?
PETER: By the end of this year officially we will just keep 1 place. But if the renovation and the re-building hasn't started yet, we could stay a little longer. However it's an unclear situation. We are already collecting ideas regarding a new place. It is a good moment to re-orientate. It has started in the old club, then it went on here, it changed, extended, became bigger, also as an organisation ... Maybe now is the time to get smaller again. To compress it. We didn't start all this to have some kind of institute, where we finally have our jobs. Then you have to ask for money every year, you have to protect your position and if the money doesn't come, you complain. You know, it's really an embarrassing position you put yourself into ... No, we have better things to do than that.
ANNEMIEK: But it is also embarrassing that the government is diminishing funds, that art or culture is on such a low rank in the priority list. In a way it is also opportune from our side. We go with the flow. We work if there is money — and if there is no money, we stop.
PETER: But even then we could still go on. Because we don't have a big structure which needs so much money. Which would be the consequence of professionalizing. And then, if the money goes, your organisation goes. Our organisation in a way is just our energy.
So the money, the subsidy is not the problem? You could go on programming also without subsidies — in a reduced way, but still ...
PETER: We did one period of six months in such a situation without any guarantee of money. And we did quite a lot of programming. Ok, you can't pay the artists a lot. But you can at least offer a perfect situation to present the acts. It is possible with low budget or no budget to exist as well. I would like to keep it like that. That's why I don't want to grow and get bigger — which is just some stupid idea of capitalism ...
Notes
(1) COOLHAVEN is a culti-media chroup.
(2) In the South (of Rotterdam).
(3) OBR = Ontwikkelingsbedrijf Rotterdam = Rotterdam Development Corporation, "a local governmental organization responsible for stimulating the city's economic development and the development of industrial areas, office locations and housing" (www.rotterdam.com).
(4) Deelgemeente = Political & administrative authority of a district.
(5) The location/ address of DE PLAYER March 2003 – early summer 2004.
(6) Songs from Fruscianti's solo-albums, made in the period when he wasn't part of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers anymore. (Now he is again). Fruscianti was heavily addicted to drugs during that time.
(7) WORM is a self administered cultural centre in Rotterdam, organizing concerts, film programmes and more ... see: www.wormweb.nl.
(8) FINALLY SOMETHING FUNCTIONAL!
(9) Stichting = literally "foundation", rather has the character of an association.
(10) A maximum of 200.000 Euro are awarded (by a jury & an internet voting) to initiatives suggesting plans to revitalize neighbourhoods "with potential" in Rotterdam.
(11) Companies building & renting houses, originally just for lower income groups.
LinkList:
de player www.deplayer.nl / Stichting DSPS www.stdsps.nl / COOLHAVEN www.coolhaven.nl