The Bijlmer Spinoza-Festival

“The Bijlmer Spinoza-Festival” a temporary performance and interactive sculpture, was conducted by Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn during the two months of May and June in 2009 as part of the Open Source/Straat van Sculpturen project. The festival took place close to the Kraaiennest metro station.

Hirschhorn stated: “I am a fan of Spinoza. His book ‘Ethics’ still remains sharp and necessary to fight philosophical obscurantism and idealism. To read Spinoza means: to accept, to insist on receptivity and sensuality, without giving up the idea of a certain infinity.” The artist relates this philosophy to the French deconstructionism of Deleuze, which in turn is one of the foundations of his own artistic program, socially interactive, chaotic assemblages of cheap, disposable materials, saturated with philosophical and political references in order to reveal correlations.

The program of the “The Bijlmer Spinoza-Festival” consisted of 16 elements: a Daily-Newspaper, a “Bijlmer Documentation-Centre”, the “Spinoza-Car”, a snack-bar, a library, running events, an internet-café, children’s play, a webcam-website, a “Spinoza-Exhibition”, lectures and seminars, theatre, workshops, an “Ambassador”, a TV/radio-connection, and a “Tank TV”. All these were conceived in collaboration with the local residents.