First take a look at the press conference with Simon Pummell during the Venice Film Festival.

The Dutch/British cooperation 'Shock Head Soul' by film maker and Piet Zwart Institute (PZI) course director Simon Pummell has been selected for the 68th edition of the Venice Film Festival. Pummell's film will take part in the Orizzonti competition. The prestigious festival, part of the Biënnale, will take place from August 31 until September 10 2011.

The film paints a picture of succesful German lawyer Daniel Paul Schreber, who claimed in 1893 that he received messages from God through a 'type writer' that spanned the kosmos. Schreber then spent nine years in an institution, where he suffered from delusions of cosmic control and the idea that he was slowly changing into a woman. During his confinement, Schreber wrote his now famous  'Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken', in which he claims that his faith is a matter of religious freedom and that he was mentally able enough to return to society.

The film, which took five years to make, is a combination of documentary interviews, fictional reconstructions and animation. The story explores the boundaries between religious visions, misleading fanaticism and the intimate connection between family secrets, psychiatric diagnoses and our society's image of psychiatric diseases.

Pummell became known internationally when he received a British Academy Award (BAFTA ) for his transmedia project 'Bodysong' in 2003. He's not only a writer and director of documentary, animation and fiction, but also a researcher, tutor and course manager of Piet Zwart Institute's master in Media Design & Communication: Lens-Based.Barend Onneweer, head of WdKA’s bachelor course in Animation and tutor of the PZI master Lens-Based, was the visual effects supervisor on Shock Head Soul.

Shock Head Soul is produced by Submarine and Hot Property Films, in collaboration with Keith Griffiths Illuminations Films and in co-production with Serious Film. This production is supported by the Wellcome Trust, the Netherlands Film Fund and the Rotterdam Media Fund, with support from The Film Study Center at Harvard University. Besides a film, Shock Head Soul is also a research project affiliated to the lectorate of the Piet Zwart Institute Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam University.

images: stills from 'Shock Head Soul'

Exhibition 'If you say something, see something'

July 10 – August 22 2010Opening: July 9, 20hrsLocation: TENT.Rotterdam, Witte de Withstraat 50, Rotterdam

Ghislain Amar (FR), Derek Brunen (CA), Diana Duta (RO), Priscila Fernandes (PT), Bitsy Knox (CA), Tom Kok (NL), Sjoerd van Leeuwen (NL), Bat Sheva Ross (IL), Marnie Slater (NZ), Jay Tan (UK), Selina Taylor (UK), and Annie Wu (AU).

Curated by Mai Abu ElDahab

From 9 July to 22 August, TENT. presents 'If you say something, see something', the graduation show of the PZI Master Fine Art. Twelve artists from various countries present new installations, photographs, videos and performances. The exhibition is curated by Mai Abu ElDahab in collaboration with artist Guy Ben-Ner. The title of the exhibition, 'If you say something, see something', is taken from the title of a poem by Charles Bernstein. Like this word play, it skews the habitual hierarchy of form and content.

Mai Abu ElDahab is director of the art space Objectif Exhibitions (Antwerp, BE) and was invited as guest curator for the final presentation. For the past six months, she has been working together with the twelve participating artists on the basis of a brief informed by the students' interests and written by artist Ben-Ner on her request.

Presentation of Promotieprijs 2010

Before the opening, the Promotieprijs 2010 will be awarded to one of the graduates. The Promotieprijs is an initiative by Stichting Promotieprijs. The jury for the Promotieprijs 2010 consists of: chairman Hugo Bongers (secretary Rotterdamse Raad voor Kunst en Cultuur), David Baars (architect), Elizabeth Kleinveld (artist, director Artstart). Last year's Promotieprijs was awarded to Rachel Carey (US).

Publication

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication edited by Mai Abu ElDahab and the artists. Design: Kaisa Lassinaro. The publication is available from the reception desk at TENT. for € 4.

Willem de Kooning Academy and its affiliated Piet Zwart Institute are proud to announce that Keith Griffiths, external curriculum advisor at the Lens-Based Digital Media programme, has won a Palme d'Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival 2010.

'Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives', produced by Keith Griffiths and his colleague Simon Field (Illuminations), received the prestigious award during the famous French festival on May 23.

The Palme d'Or (Golden Palm; MA) is the highest prize awarded to competing films during the festival. It was introduced by the organising committee in 1955.

You can find more information the Piet Zwart Institute website.

image: still from ‘Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives'

Het lectoraat 'Communication in a Digital Age' van het Piet Zwart Instituut nodigt iedereen van harte uit om media en design projecten te presenteren tijdens het Second BarCamp Rotterdam. Of je nu een student bent, een ontwerper (freelance of bij een bedrijf, professioneel/niet-professioneel, commercieel of niet-commercieel), een kunstenaar, een software ontwikkelaar, iemand met een media, internet of ontwerp project; dit zal jouw ‘speaker's corner' zijn en geeft je de mogelijkheid om andere mensen uit hetzelfde vakgebied te ontmoeten.

Een bar camp is een open course/open deelname/'unconference' voor de presentatie van nieuwe media projecten, een collectieve speakers corner voor media mensen. Ontwerpers, kunstenaars en activisten zijn van harte welkom. Meld je aan en geef een presentatie.

Deze BarCamp zal worden gehost in de Doelen, en is een onofficieel, toch gratis toegankelijk, onderdeel van het European Design Festival 2010. Er zullen 2-3 presentatie schermen aanwezig zijn en gratis catering voor alle deelnemers.

Deelnemers kunnen zich aanmelden voor de presentaties tussen 17:30 en 18:00 uur.Locatie: De Doelen, Foyer Willem Burger Zaal, Schouwburgplein, Rotterdam

Piet Zwart Institute alumnus Navid Nuur (Fine Art, 2004) is is nominated for the Volkskrant Fine Art Prize 2010.

Last year, Eylem Aladogan (Fine Art, 1999) won this prestigious award and took away € 7,500. The jury, led by former minister of Culture Hedy d'Ancona, praised Aladogan (1975) for her 'extraordinary professionalism' and 'passion and perfectionism'.

The nominees for the fifth edition are: Sharon Houkema (Drachten, 1975), Navid Nuur (Teheran, 1976), Paulien Oltheten (Nijmegen, 1982) and Mounira Al Solh (Beiroet, 1978).

The winner receives €10,000. This prize is made available by the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (in Dutch: Fonds BKVB). The jury consists of: Ronald Plasterk (former minister of Education, Culture and Science), Wilma Sütö (curator modern art Stedelijk Museum Schiedam), Joep van Lieshout (fine artist) and Sacha Bronwasser (art critic).

The Stedelijk Museum Schiedam will hold a group exhibition with work by the five nominees. During a live television broadcast of the NPS programme Kunststof TV in Amsterdam's Studio Plantage on May 30, the winner of the Volkskrant Fine Art Prize 2010 will be announced.

source: de Volkskrant March 1 2010

Tiddo Roozendaal's graduation film Faith is nominated for the Designpreis Halle 2010. It will be shown in Halle (Germany) from June 19 until July 4 2010. If Roozendaal wins, he takes away € 5.000.

He finished his bachelor's degree in Audiovisual Design in 2009 and now studies at our Lens-Based Digital Media programme.

Out of a total of 166 entries, 18 pieces of work from Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Switzerland, France, Sweden, Austria, Italy, Czech Republic, Canada, China and the Netherlands were selected.

On June 19 2010 the winners will be announced. We'll keep you posted.

image: still from Tiddo Roozendaal's Faith

Important news: our student Gordan Saviciç (2nd year of the MA Media Design at WdKA's Piet Zwart Institute) won Third Prize at Transmediale.08, the famed 'International Festival for Art and Digital Culture' in Berlin. The festive Award Ceremony took place in Berlin's 'Haus der Kulturen der Welt' on Saturday February 2, 2008.

This is by no means a student's award (nor is it a students' festival), but an award for professional artists and media designers. The jury featured a number of international curators: Olga Goriunova (Rus), Nat Muller (NL), Wonil Rhee (SK) and Mihaela Vasile (Ro). Gordan Saviciç, from Vienna originally, was one of three PZI representatives at Transmediale.08.

Gordan Saviciç had been nominated for his project 'Constraint City � The pain of everyday life', a performance hardware design based on a modified Nintendo DS (with Linux) and a motorized straight jacket, controlled by Wi-Fi signals across the city � the stronger the signal, the tighter the jacket. The jury expressed great enthusiasm on this project: �Remixing activist and Nokia-style discussions, physical pain and a wondering engagement, the project evokes a wide range of emotional-intellectual answers.�

The complete version of the official jury report on the project can be found here. More information on the 'Constraint City' project can be found here.

Willem de Kooning Academy and the Piet Zwart Institute warmly congratulate Gordan Saviciç on this fine prize.