Blueprint and City of Progress
Performances by Justin Bennett with 4 musicians at Kunsthal Gent: live music by Otto Kint (bass), Joos Vandueren (saxophone), Chaeyeoni Lee (keyboard) and Lucia Pires (flute). In the framework of arts festival Openbare Werken
16/05/2025, 16-17:30h
During the arts festival Openbare Werken, Jubilee presents Blueprint (2015) by Justin Bennett. This performance features an animated film on multiple screens and live music. The performance will be preceded by an introduction and screening of Bennett’s related short animated film City of Progress (2008).
The video work Blueprint (2015) combines hand-drawn animated city-maps and stenciled texts with a live soundtrack. Each time Blueprint is screened, it is interpreted anew by the musicians. They follow rules and suggestions developed in close collaboration with a number of improvisers, including the MAZE ensemble from Amsterdam and the group Atolón from Barcelona. There are no restrictions on instrumentation or genre.
Blueprint asks questions about the links between social, urban and musical structures. It asks questions of the musicians and the audience about work, creativity and freedom. The drawings are based on maps of real cities and different types of urban growth from around the world.
Jubilee
“Blueprint came about through a collision of many different ideas. I was reading about the politics of musical improvisation, thinking about the social aspects of urban growth, toying with the idea of a sequel to my animation City of Progress (2008), and discovering the technique of making blueprints in my studio. Somehow all these ideas stuck together. I realised that this wasn’t a project I could do on my own so I enlisted the help of musicians with a long experience in improvising and using graphic scores. I interviewed them about their music and how it related to their everyday lives, made tests and let them perform with them. Blueprint is the result — an attempt to make a composition in the form of a hand-drawn animation, which can be played by an orchestra, a punk band, a jazz quartet or by children. It’s a film that is different every time.”
Justin Bennett about Blueprint
Before this performance, the walk Mother Vooruit and her children takes place: a walk through Ghent’s cooperative past by artists Vermeir & Heiremans and Katinka de Jonge takes place, ending at Kunsthal Gent in time for Justin’s performances.
This performance takes place in conjunction with Jubilee’s collective research project Archipelago of Artistic Practices, supported by Kunsthal Gent. It unravels questions around the online counter-mapping tool Eavatea being developed to approach ephemeral and situated artistic research from the perspective of sharing and tracing, dialogue and development, archive and activation.
Practical
Location: Kunsthal Gent
Lange Steenstraat 14
9000 Gent
Duration: 1,5h
Tickets at differentiated prices on a pay what you can basis, see the event page at Kunsthal Gent