1. Our Introduction:
   in relation to a Spectator: is an exhibition which will take place at Kestner Gesellschaft between 29 September, 2017 and 7 January, 2018. It was conceived by Studio for Propositional Cinema (founded in Düsseldorf on 2013), based on an essay they wrote as a part of their contribution to Produktion. Made in Germany Drei. For in relation to a Spectator: Studio for Propositional Cinema have invited 31 other artists and artist groups, many of whom have collaborated with and/or exhibited with Studio for Propositional Cinema in the past, such as Keren Cytter, Henning Fehr & Philipp Rühr, Gaylen Gerber, Sarah Kürten, and John Miller, as well as artists who have recently exhibited or will soon exhibit at the Kestner Gesellschaft, such as Monika Baer, Rita McBride, Jeff Wall, and Christopher Williams, outlining the social and institutional contexts of the exhibition.

2. Our Structure:
   in relation to a Spectator: is presented within an installation which highlights the primary forms of exhibition display. This includes three large, identically sized sculptural display structures, each 335 x 804 x 60 cm, whose function is altered by its orientation in the space: set on the ground parallel to the floor it is a stage; raised from the ground parallel to the floor it is a table; set on the ground perpendicularly to the floor it is a wall. As a stage it becomes a site for the presentation of performances, staging elements, and discursive activity. As a table it becomes a site for the presentation of objects and documents. As a wall it becomes a site for the presentation of objects, images and language. Additionally, a book will be published: a site for essays, poems, documents, and scripts. Each of these sites (the stage, the wall, the table, and the book) are rendered in ultra-gloss white, heightening the awareness of themselves as objects ready for engagement. in relation to a Spectator: will also present works which point to the contextual conditions of the exhibition itself: a »trailer« by Alex Wissel / Jan Bonny, a security system by Julia Scher, an »exhibition guide« by Ian Cheng, offerings by Monika Baer, a surrogate figure by Henning Fehr and Philipp Rühr, a sound piece by Carissa Rodriguez, and small sculpture by Jeff Wall, hiding and haunting the space.

3. Our Movements:
   in relation to a Spectator: will change and unfold over the duration of the exhibition. Works will come and go, performances will begin and end, pages will turn, the light changes with the seasons. These elements move based on a script, and return visits to the exhibition will be rewarded. Over the course of the duration of the exhibition:
   a) the wall will include a framing device by Rachel Harrison, a bench by Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff, a wall text by Lawrence Weiner, and a monochrome by Karin Schneider;
   b) the stage will include a re-enactment by Selina Grüter & Michèle Graf, a voice base by Irena Haiduk, an encounter with Sándor Krasna, a bench by Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff, a 14 hour reading by Paul Chan, a red carpet by John Miller, a performance by Luzie Meyer, a collaborative structure by Rita McBride, and a monochrome by Karin Schneider;
   c) the table will include instructions by Anna-Sophie Berger, a maquette by Marc Camille Chaimowicz, a notebook by Keren Cytter, painted prop scalps by Gaylen Gerber, a centerpiece by Nicolás Guagnini, court transcripts by Aaron Flint Jamison, a unique book-work by Sarah Kürten, rocks by Aura Rosenberg, and a monochrome by Karin Schneider;
   d) the book, published by Keren Cytter’s imprint A.P.E. Art Projects Era, will include essays by John Miller, Studio for Propositional Cinema, Irena Haiduk, Paul Chan, Jason Lord & Carissa Rodriguez und Rachel Rose, a script by Cally Spooner, a correspondence with Jeff Wall, a text by Sarah Kürten, a diagram by Nicolás Guagnini, a poem by Luzie Meyer, statement by Lawrence Weiner, illustrations by Madeline Hollander, and a monochrome by Karin Schneider.

4. Our Selves:
   Studio for Propositional Cinema (inaugurated in 2013 in Düsseldorf) works primarily with the language of exhibition production, often addressing the viewer through the architecture, context, and discursive formats of their host institutions, frequently working with or inviting other artists, in the tradition of affinity groups or DIY music scenes. Much like a band whose members expand and contract depending on the needs and natures of each project, their membership is ambiguous and porous, and their biographical identity is less important to them than the results of this time and production. in relation to a Spectator: represents the largest and most ambitious example of these impulses to date.

5. Our Traces:
   Studio for Propositional Cinema has recently presented:
   a) monographic exhibitions and exhibition projects at Swiss Institute, New York, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düssledorf, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, and Kunsthaus Bregenz;
   b) perfomances and events at Kunstsammlung NRW, Düsseldorf, Index, Stockholm, Kunsthal Bergen, Norway, and Kölnischer Kunstverein, Köln;
   c) group exhibitions at Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover, mumok, Vienna, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Istituto Svizzero di Roma, Rome, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen.
   In 2018 they will present solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle St. Gallen, Switzerland and Fondazione Morra Grecco, Naples.

6. Our Publication:
   in relation to a Spectator: a book will be published by Kestner Gesellschaft, A.P.E. Art Projects Era and Sternberg Press, distributed by Sternberg Press. The publication is designed with Ronnie Füglister and includes contributions by

7. Our Supporters:
   in relation to a Spectator: is supported by the Embassy of Canada; Berlin and the friends of the Kestner Gesellschaft.

8. Our Events:
   in relation to a Spectator: will include the following events and performances:
   a) Selina Grüter and Michèle Graf will re-enact a 1977 video work by John Miller during the opening reception on Thursday, 28 September, at 7pm;
   b) Irena Haiduk with address the bad feeling in the studio with Hungarian camera operator Sándor Krasna on Thursday, 12 October, at 7pm;
   c) Paul Chan’s book Phaedrus Pron will be performed over 14 hours by two actors beginning Friday, 3 November, at 11am;
   d) Luzie Meyer will present a new performance developed in relation to the exhibition on Thursday, 7 December, at 7pm.

9. Our Relations:
   in relation to a Spectator: will include works the following artists: Monika Baer (b. 1964, Freiburg im Breisgau, lives in Berlin), Anna-Sophie Berger (b. 1989, Vienna, lives in Vienna and New York), Marc Camille Chaimowicz (b. post-war, Paris, lives in London and Burgundy), Paul Chan (b. 1973, Hong Kong, lives in New York), Ian Cheng (b. 1984, Los Angeles, lives in New York), Keren Cytter (b. 1977, Tel Aviv, lives in New York), Henning Fehr and Philipp Rühr, Gaylen Gerber (b. 1955, McAllen, Texas, lives in Chicago), Selina Grüter & Michèle Graf (b. 1991, Zürich / b. 1987, Zürich, live in Berlin and Zürich), Nicolás Guagnini (b. 1966, Buenos Aires, lives in New York), Irena Haiduk (b. 1982, Belgrade, lives in Belgrade), Rachel Harrison (b. 1966, New York, lives in New York), Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff (b. 1988, Minneapolis, MN / b. 1987 in Buffalo, NY, live in Berlin), Madeline Hollander (b. 1986, Los Angeles, lives in New York), Aaron Flint Jamison (b. 1979, Billings, Montana, lives in Portland, OR), Sándor Krasna (b. 1932, Kolozsvar, Hungary), Sarah Kürten (b. 1983, Köln, lives in Düsseldorf), Rita McBride (b. 1960, Des Moines, Iowa, lives in Düsseldorf and New York), Luzie Meyer (b. 1990, Tübingen, lives in Berlin), John Miller (b. 1954, Cleveland, Ohio, lives in New York and Berlin), Carissa Rodriguez (b. 1970, New York, lives in New York), Rachel Rose (b. 1986, lives in New York), Aura Rosenberg (b. 1949, New York, lives in New York), Julia Scher (b. 1954, Hollywood, lives in Köln), Karin Schneider (b. 1970, Rio de Janeiro, lives in New York), Cally Spooner (b. 1983, Ascot, UK, lives in Athens), Josef Strau (b. 1957, Vienna, lives in Boston), Studio for Propositional Cinema (founded in 2013 in Düsseldorf), Jeff Wall (b. 1946, Vancouver, lives in Vancouver), Lawrence Weiner (b. 1942, Bronx, New York, lives in New York), Christopher Williams (b. 1956, Los Angeles, lives in Köln and Chicago), and Alex Wissel / Jan Bonny (b. 1983, Aschaffenburg, lives in Düsseldorf / b. 1979, Düsseldorf, lives in Köln).

10. Our Curators:
    in relation to a Spectator: is curated by Christina Végh and Elmas Senol.

1. The Function of a Script (in relation to a Spectator) 


Insofar as we understand them:

1. Scripts are hypothetical language formations produced within an intention to be extrapolated and re-formulated within given and/or constructed visual, spatial, and temporal conditions (by and/or for and/or in relation to a Spectator).
2. Scripts, being hypotheses, exist preliminarily; each potential formulation of a Script is simultaneously a resolved (correct) interpretation and an unresolved, uncertain (incorrect) iteration within a perpetual infinitude of potential formulations, each existing within unanticipatable linguistic, spatial, and temporal conditions (by and/or for and/or in relation to a Spectator).
3. Scripts entwine and are entwined by the world, in the sense(s) that: a) they desire Objecthood (they exist, however immaterial, in and for a material world), b) they have an Objective (they request to be activated (exploded) into various physicalized forms latent within them as possibilities), and c) they are Objective (they retain a position which remains static despite subjectivities inflecting their interpretations; once “released” they are incapable of steering or judging these interpretations). Being pro-Objective, they press themselves into the Object world, asking it to suck them into and disperse them through other dimensionalities (by and/or for and/or in relation to a Spectator).
4. Scripts are legible only within a quantities of Time, but are themselves atemporal. Temporalities may be injected into them; they may spill out through the temporal world, but, insofar as they are essentially amaterial (“a structure that wants to be another structure”) they have the qualities both of a statue and of air: if the atmosphere could be understood as A Monument to Breathing it might resemble how Scripts function and can be inhabited. As a seed may build itself into a massive and complex organism, or may decompose into dusts which help to form that of another, Scripts’ potential formnesses are unknowable until released into Time’s vacuum of incertitude, from which they may never return, or may return in unrecognizable forms, or may be formulated concretely (by and/or for and/or in relation to a Spectator).
   Which leads us to surmise that:
5. Scripts are not like Laws, decreed on signs or in concrete mutualized societal imperatives (i.e. schools), but are like questions, posed in malleable mutualized discursive forms (ie. conversations). They are not completed upon being received, but completed ad infinitum through successive layers of material and social engagements.
6. Once posted, a Law, as social form, is resolved only by reacting against actions against it. It is an algorithmic societal construction that seeks to control or mitigate Objects, Object-relations, and social-relations within the material world in a manner that discourages the unexpected. Once published, a Script, as a social form, is resolved only by reacting towards reactions toward it. It is an algorithmic social construction that seeks to shift or create Objects, Object-relations, and social-relations within the material world in a manner that necessitates the unexpected.
7. To embrace the unexpected is: a) to desire to see, despite knowing that there is brutality to see (realism); b) to desire to keep moving, despite knowing that pain is certain (optimism), and c) to desire a future, despite knowing it will get worse (hope).
8. Scripts are blueprints for unknowableness; hopeful gestures of realist optimism or optimistic realism. A Spectator engaged in Script-forming and/or Script-enacting engages with the present in order to suspend the future by imagining its alternatives. The Future is also not an Object.

We write these Scripts in order that they be (re-)interpreted and (re-)formulated as needed. Every Script is a proposal for what a Script can be, forwarding the Spectator to its potential Inscription within the (the grasping vices of the) Object world (which transforms information into forms in order to re-process it as new knowledge).

2. The Function of Inscriptions (in relation to a Spectator) 


Insofar as we understand them:

1. Inscriptions are physicalised extrapolations of Scripts that allow their content to become perceptible. They are informational fields or forms presented within an intention to be seen and received within given and/or constructed visual, spatial, and temporal conditions (by and/or for and/or in relation to a Spectator).
2. Inscriptions utilize perceptual forms to re-place the ideational contents of Scripts from the linguistically articulated (personal) spaces of reading and/or listening into the physically articulated (social) spaces of human/Object relations, setting them within networks of linguistic, spatial, and temporal conditions (by and/or for and/or in relation to a Spectator).
3. Inscriptions, being articulated as such, are one with the Object world, in the sense that: a) they are Objects (they have a perceptible form); b) they are constructed with and/or on Objects (they have and are one with a support structure), and c) they speak in the language of Objects (they speak to and for inhabitants of the Object world; they are only activatable upon being encountered). Inscribers push their Inscriptions toward a surface (pressing the linguistic world into paper, burning the visual world into films, scratching the aural world into plates) so that they can be bounced back as content into the Object word from which they are produced (by and/or for and/or in relation to a Spectator).
4. Inscriptions are legible only within quantities of Time, each of which has (or will have or has had) a Duration determined by: a) the material factors of their construction, and b) the physical conditions of their placement in-the-world, in relation to c) levels and incidents of (known and/or unknowable) external factors (levels of care, levels of use, levels of social value, levels of ideological conflict). These interwoven networks of material, climatic, and social conditions (which mark the Duration of (us) all) are the tenuous bed on which connections between them may be identified and articulated. Even as some Inscriptions may be tangible (in the present tense), others may be received (from the past tense) as memories or historical traditions, while others may be projected (into the future tense) as ostensible possibilities. Like a structure in a memory, a speculative structure “need not be built” in order to function as a relationally communicative Object by and/or for and/or in relation to a Spectator.
   Which leads us to surmise that:
5. Scripts are information, Inscriptions are Scripts in formation. Scripts reach to be articulated as Inscriptions (in order to be perceived).
6. The Object world consists primarily of Objects that communicate monologically (Instruments), alongside relatively few Objects, which communicate dialogically (Inscriptions). Inscriptions inform while Instruments (computational, mechanical, musical, monetary, etc.) dictate.
7. An Instrument, as a social tool, functions as a unit of control. It does not engage Spectators but employs Users. It does not pose questions but imposes answers. Users are the functionaries of Instruments, Inscriptions are the fantasies of Spectators. Societies which seek to control or mitigate Objects, Object-relations, and social-relations within the material world in a manner that discourages the unexpected produce and promote the use of Instruments and ban or mitigate the production of Inscriptions (which they do not and cannot produce).
8. Instruments may be used in the construction or development of Inscriptions. When an Instrument is misused or dispropriated by the enactors of Scripts it may contain or become an Inscription. When Inscriptions are Instrumentalised by the Users of Instruments, new (forms of) Inscriptions must be made (by producing new Scripts or by re-reading or mis-reading the original Scripts).

We produce Inscriptions in order that they may be (re-)connected and (re-)formulated as needed. Every Inscription is a proposal for how Inscriptions can be made, forwarding the Spectator to its potential placement within (the grasping relationalities of) Scenographies (which stage the Object world for humans in order to realise the unknowable).

3. The Function of Scenographies (in relation to a Spectator) 


Insofar as we understand them:

1. Scenographies are the given and/or constructed visual, spatial, and temporal conditions within which the forms of Inscriptions are situated for a Spectator and which determine the conditions of their perception (by and/or for and/or in relation to a Spectator).
2. Scenographic determinants may include the specific physical (vantage points, light levels, temperatures), social (performance conditions, economic barriers, labour relations), and/or temporal (opening hours, running times, structural permanences) realities and/or potentials of the given conditions. These determinants are determined by a Scenographer, who re-orders or responds with these elements in order to heighten or mitigate the potential for unexpected occurrences and/or reactions to and within such visual, spatial, and temporal conditions (by and/or for and/or in relation to a Spectator).
3. Scenography reorganizes elements within the Object world in order to enhance the legibility of Inscriptions; within such fields the content of the Inscription contacts the Scenographic elements, which add and inflect their own contents and temporalities. By placing Inscriptions within specific contextual determinants, the singular temporality of an Inscription is compounded into networks of Durations, compounding the possibilities for unanticipatable reactions and connections to and between each element (by and/or for and/or in relation to a Spectator).
4. Scenographies are legible only within quantities of Time, Time being one of the materials with which they are constructed. Traversed through movement, the dimensionalities of each of their components function like words in a text, with each element: a) having been placed in specific relations to one another (creating potential fields of meaning together); b) containing its own sets of connotations, roots, histories, and contradictions (vibrating together, tenuously, with potential meanings as infinite as there are subjectivities and etymologies); and c) subject to alterations (re-orderings, reformattings, edits, redactions, translations, shifts in laws of orthographies or laws of States). And like texts, they made be followed within the directions of its inherent logics, but may also be transgressed (by and/or for and/or in relation to a Spectator) by ignoring or misusing its directions; for every piece of paper there is a pair of scissors, for every mirror a hammer.
   Which leads us to surmise that:
5. Scenographies are like spheres. Structurally, spheres resist, even cannot accommodate binaries. They instead consist of X-Y axes in three dimensions. Alternately solid (like stones or planets) and hollow (like balloons or skulls), their contained materials swish around, coagulate, and push out (like gasses from balloons, ideas from brains, lavas from crevices). Scenographies allow and encourage their contained elements to rattle around, re-coordinate, so that their elements, too, may push out towards an outside (reaching for connections).
6. Scenographies are like switchboards. While telephone calls require both a sender and a receiver, their dialogical potential is mediated through a complex system of circuits that facilitate the connection between the caller and the called. While technological shifts have de-humanized the vocation of its operator, the switchboard requires a third-party communicational mediator through which engagement is possible. This mediator acts in service of a dialogue in which it cannot and must not intervene, a passive conductor of active relations that move back and forth in lines towards unknowns (reaching for connections). Without these two activators (caller and called) the switchboard is inanimate, the switchboard operator is functionless, they become meaningless; likewise a de-populated, de-communicational Scenography ceases to be one.
7. Scenographies are like waiting-rooms. Waiting visitors – often patients – occupy a space for a socially and temporally imposed period of Time, determined primarily by the needs and interests of their hosts. Each waiting-room-type has its own communicative codes (the waiting-room is where the corporation conveys power (show of strength), the University conveys prestige (historical lineage), the hospital conveys responsibility (sanitary restraint), the police station conveys authority (degrees of confinement) and utilizes Scenographic language to construct desired ambiences. But they are not Scenographies: waiting-rooms are functions of spaces (“function is the key”) where visitors ask the questions and hosts provide the answers; in Scenographies the hosts ask questions (reaching for connections) and the visitors provide answers (often in the form of new questions).
8. Scenographies are like octopi. They float and ebb, gently with the currents, then retreat or attack, fervidly, as required by their needs in relation to an ever-changing environment. Built structures, like our bodies, are skeletal frames that support and contain life-functions impossible without them. De-skeletontised, humans would mimic the octopus, our movements would become malleable, we would flow rather then plod through space. A Scenographic space is like an invertebraic building (buildings to Scenographies are like tanks to octopi): they expand and contract, amorphously, their tentacles feel, reach for connections, attach, strangle, penetrate; Scenographies inhabit lived space in order to relativize its components within the “skeletal” world of human-Object relations.

We produce Scenographies in order that they may be (re-)occupied and (re-)ordered as needed. Every Scenography is a proposal for how one can be situated in-the-world, forwarding the Spectator to its potential functioning within (the grasping vortexes of) Duration (which perpetually, violently, transform the present into the past in order to enact itself).

4. The Function of Durations (in relation to a Spectator) 


Insofar as we understand them:

1. Durations are quantifiable measures of Time within which perceptory experience takes (finds) place (by and/or for and/or in relation to a Spectator).
2. Durations may unfold within given passings, or they may embrace contractive and/or expansive tactics; content-Time relations may be spliced, or shredded, or blended, or stretched. Accelerating and delaying are just two (polemical) methods with which to throw content into Time (in order for it to be taken and/or found by and/or for and/or in relation to a Spectator).
3. Duration requires presence; it is what envelops all lived experience. Its form can be perceived in the tensions and changes in tensions that it enacts within the Object world (by and/or for and/or in relation to a Spectator).
4. Duration requires site (“structure and the puncture of space”). Outside of Durations, Objects are (atemporally) suspended, vacuum-like. Durations are the fluids that burst into these vacuums, buoying the Object world to allow it to be felt (experienced by and/or for and/or in relation to a Spectator).
   Which leads us to surmise that:
5. Scripts are hypotheses, constructed in Time, produced through sets of decisions (made by a Script-writer for and/or in relation to a Spectator) based on the potential of potential enactments of their information.
6. Inscriptions are enacted hypotheses produced through sets of decisions (made by an Inscriber for and/or in relation to a Spectator) based on the potential of potential situations for their forms.
7. Scenographies are situated enacted hypotheses produced through sets of decisions (made by a Scenographer for and/or in relation to a Spectator) based on the potential of potential engagements with the informed informative forms organised within them.
8. Durations are the perceptual perimeters within which enacted hypotheses may be engaged in situ, within an imperatively primary experience. (Engaging with documentation of Scenographies, outside primary experience (and the Durations intrinsic to them) introduces a secondary Durational form which effectively communicates neither the form of the Inscriptions, their Scenographic conditions, nor the content of the Scripts themselves. Such documents are not surrogates; they are Transcripts of Scenographically set Inscriptions of Scripts. These Transcripts may be re-purposed as new Scripts, to be themselves extrapolated into the push-pull of the world of Objects, Object-relations, and social-relations.
   As such:
9. Every text and every image has the potential to produce or become a Script (for an Inscription).
10. Every Object and Instrument has the potential to produce or become an Inscription (for a Scenography).
11. Every space has the potential to produce or become a Scenographic site (for a Duration).
12. Every moment has the potential to formulate and reformulate Durational engagements between potential discursive elements (including those which exist, those which have existed, and those which can and/or will be made to exist).

We engage Duration in order that our Scripts, our Inscriptions, and our Scenographies can be articulated and applied as needed. Every Durational construction is a proposal for what living can be (like), forwarding the Spectator into (the grasping abysses of) uncertainty (optimistically, in hope of potential futures better than those which we logically anticipate).

Time’s materials are the dialogical potentials of incidental overlaps in proximities accrued through its passings. Articulated; formed; placed; it makes legible (while making itself legible) the connections, incongruities, inadequacies, despairs, and desires innate to being human: by and/or for and/or in relation to a Spectator (you, them, us, any, all; as you like).