Varia contributed by developing an archival web publication where the vernacular vocabulary of DE PLAYER creates the possibilities of text-based navigation across the entire collection of items. The material is embodied by a dynamic, accessible and therefore active archive, which creates new relations, new perspectives and, at its best, new concepts for the production and/or processes of making scores. Navigating within the data structure of the archive becomes an act of score notation. In order to test this, DE PLAYER and Varia invite several artists to work with the tool and use the result as a starting point for their own performances.

Julie Boschat Thorez and Cristina  Cochior will give a brief introduction to the tool, followed by the artists’ score interpretations. You are warmly invited to join us for this program on the 31st of May at Varia.

• Christine Cornwell is a composer and violinist working between the Netherlands and the United Kingdom with projects involving improvisation and collaborative work, often combined with visual artists, dancers, opera companies or experimental television. She is currently completing a Master of Music in Composition at Codarts with Hans Koolmees and René Uijlenhoet. Her freelance work includes presenting new works for violin, collaborative residencies, workshop leading and producing/curating events. From her first experiments, such as 2011’s interdisciplinary collaboration with visual artist Eddie Peake/LuckyPDF TV at London’s Barbican, to 2019’s experimental event ‘Invitation (x)’, collective creation practises always are a vital meeting point which can be traced through all of her creative work between performance, production and management.

• Niek Hilkmann is a Rotterdam based artist, musician and researcher with a background in art history, media design and musicology. He has a particular interest in the abstruse technological condition we are living in and the insufficient intellectual methodologies that seek to justify or explain it. During the presentation of Pushing Scores, he will utilise the spatial dimensions of Varia to recontextualize the scores created by the archive. Unexpected correlations between the items in the archive and the physical surroundings in which they are represented will be produced in an ongoing performance.

•Robert Kroos (aka Duckfood) is a Rotterdam based musician, sound-artist and DJ who is continuously working on all kinds of sound- and music related projects. For this special event he uses the guzheng, combined with various electronics, as his instruments of choice.