Category: nexxworks

A Scaffold for an Avant-Garde Business

Cobra Manifesto page-1

Cobra Manifesto – Image from Beinecke Digital Collections

As many of you know, I am a big fan of Cobra, the avant-garde art movement established in 1948. The movement only existed for three years, but forever changed the landscape of postwar European art. 

What would an avant-garde business movement look like? 

How could we scaffold that?

In my Sep 2022 update, I briefly introduced The Scaffold. 

Today, I would like to share some more details about The Scaffold

The Scaffold is a brand-new transdisciplinary learning studio for the never-normal. 

A Scaffold: a temporary structure to let emerge something new

Transdisciplinary: for each client project, we curate a transdisciplinary tribe of entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists, artists, and philosophers to reflect and speculate about your better futures

Learning: this is not learning by teaching, but learning through conversations, acting, and doing

Studio: the keyword here is critique: individual, group, and formal critique

The Never Normal: the ever faster changing environment we operate in. The best metaphor is that of the kayaker in wild water.

Older metaphors like the speedboat (brute force), tacking the sails to the wind (adapting with the destination in focus), and surfing the waves of change (staying before the tsunami of disruption) don’t serve us anymore. 

Today you are in the water. 

You have to sense faster and better what is, sense faster and better what can become, and take action – right there – in the middle of a system in full motion. 

I often hear that we need more data, data is the new oil, and we need powerful AI and Machine Learning to discover patterns in the data, so we can make better and faster decisions. 

But data will bring us only so far. 

Data tell us something about correlation. 

Correlation is not the same as causation.

And also rational cause-and-effect thinking and planning are only part of the story. 

The Scaffold is imagination in full play: not knowing all the dots, and having to keep multiple lines of inquiry open at the same time, without coming to a conclusion, ànd feeling comfortable with that.

Orchestrating and activating collective intelligence (both human and non-human intelligence)

WHAT DO WE HAVE?

WHERE ARE WE GOING?

WHY ARE WE GOING THERE?

HOW DO WE GET THERE?

WHAT RULES DO WE FOLLOW?

WHAT IS FORBIDDEN?

HOW DO WE SPEAK TO EACH OTHER?

WHAT WORLD ARE WE PLAYING IN?

WHAT DO WE REALLY WANT?

The Scaffold asks questions related to the narratives that motivate individuals and organizations from the inside. These motivations have nothing to do with marketing from the outside. These motivations share the desire for societal, moral, and aesthetic advancement. 

The experiences that we design can be in-person, and others are 100% online or virtual, or a combination thereof. Our experiences are high-touch and highly facilitated. We use world-class facilitators. We apply live scribing, live video editing, and live note-taking. We use technology in support of the content, not to impress nor to create a spectacle. We challenge each other through individual and group critique. We experiment, explore, tinker, and dare to change in flight. We use physical and virtual channels/containers of experimentation & distribution 

We believe in the long format. Transdisciplinary impact groups learn by working, doing, and acting together during an extended period of time. This approach increases trust, bonding, candor, the release of real or perceived vulnerabilities, and the discovery of unintended opportunities.

The Scaffold is your PEPA

Play – Experimentation – Participation – Activation

The Scaffold is about dreaming & imagining big with your eyes wide open for reality. 

More inspiring quotes are here. 

More details at https://petervanstudios.com/the-scaffold/ 

The Scaffold is made possible through strategic partnerships with https://www.nexxworks.com/ and https://collectivenext.com/

Powered by a coalition of exceptional individuals as advisors for The Scaffold. A unique mix of strategists, futurists, engineers, entrepreneurs, experts in classic and contemporary arts, masters in narrative environments, philosophers, and a licensed architect and VR developer.

We are very curious about how this resonates with you. 

Who could be interested in such an offering? 

What is great, mediocre, or missing? 

Let’s chat

Hope to welcome you soon!

Warmest,

Petervan Studios – Update Sep 2022 – Other news

© 2022 Petervan Artworks – Artist and Engineer – created with MidJourney

Here is the latest update on Petervan Studios. The previous update already goes back to February 2022

Professionalization of Petervan Studios Practice

Some days ago, I published a post about this and the launch of my new website and The Scaffold.

As I was very focused on professionalizing my art practice, I did not produce much artwork during that time. On the website, you can discover some of my existing work by selecting a method, dynamic, and outcome. You can of course also sort per container: canvas, video, audio, etc.

As part of the inventory work, I stumbled upon some older works and played around with DALL-E

© 2022 Petervan Artworks – made with DALL-E

© 2022 Petervan Artworks – Prison cell in ProCreate

IN OTHER NEWS…

Exhibitions

Since the last update, I visited the following art exhibitions:

Dhondt Dhaenens, Deurle, April 2022

Berlinde De Bruyckere, Studio visit, Ghent, April 2022

Castle of Laarne, Laarne, May 2022

Storycon, BOZAR Brussels, May 2022

Nick Ervinck, Skins, K.E.R.K., Middelkerke, July 2022

8th Biennial of Painting, Dhondt Dhaenens, Deurle, July 2022

8th Biennial of Painting, Mudel, Deinze, July 2022

8th Biennial of Painting, Raveem Museum, Zulte, July 2022

Jonas Gekhiere, MUSEE, Oostende, July 2022

Christian Dotremont, KMSKB, Brussels, August 2022

Tanya Goelen, KMSKB, Brussels, August 2022

(Un)Common Values, National Bank Belgium, Brussels, August 2022

Nick Ervinck, Studio Visit, Lichtervelde, August 2022

Wim Opbrouck Open Hart, Dr. Ghislain Museum, Ghent, August 2022

Splendid Isolation, S.M.A.K., Ghent, August 2022

Outdoors

We had a fantastic spring and summer. We basically had sunny weather from March till August. At least that is how I recall it. 

Spent quite some time outdoors: some gardening, some walking, some bicycling, some doing nothing. Got a nice tan, and people asked me where I spent my holidays. At home, but many don’t seem to believe me 😉

I have not traveled abroad since October 2019. Cannot say I miss it.

Books

Check out my GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3085594-peter-auwera

Some highlights:

Ways of Being: Beyond Human Intelligence by James Bridle

Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy by David Chalmers

De Avond is Ongemak by Marieke Lucas Reineveld

And for the artists in this community:

On Being an Artist by Michal Craig-Martin

Art/Work by Heather Darcy Bhandari and Jonathan Melber

Making It in the Art World: Strategies for Exhibitions and Funding

Petervan Rides

Since July 2019, I have published every month a Spotify List with new releases combined with some oldies from the 60ies, 70ies, and beyond. Search for “Petervan Ride” and select “playlists”. Selection is driven only by my personal taste (or lack thereof). 

In July 2022, we entered the fourth year of this experiment. Here is the latest Ride from September 2022

I suggest you play it in shuffle mode, it enhances the surprise experience.

Family

The most important news is that Astrid passed and is now starting her last year in high school! Where has the time gone? 

What else?

Horses

Astrid is still enjoying horse riding very much. And so do I!

I have three roles in the horse riding adventure: being her All Bundy, her taxi driver, and her photographer

Astrid with Cienta

So, in summary, what’s next?

The plan for the next mile is to work/play on:

Support Astrid in her last year at high school

Professionalizing my art practice

Pitch and realize my project “The Scaffold”

So, that’s it for this edition. 

If there is something worth reporting, the next update is for Feb 2023. 

Warmest, 

Petervan Studios – New Website – Launch The Scaffold

© 2022 Petervan Artworks – The Scaffold – created with Stable Diffusion

Since March 2022, I have focused on the professionalization of my art practice. As part of a grant for the innovation of cultural business models, I invited Kurt Vanbelleghem from Amy-Art and Present Future to be my coach in that endeavor.

Kurt is a curator, critic, and publisher specializing in the field of contemporary artistic practices. He received a MA in Psychological Sciences and a MA in Art History from the University of Ghent, Belgium, and a Master in Visual Arts Administration from The Royal College of Art, London, UK. 

Whereas we initially started looking at my artwork only, Kurt was great at pointing out that the output of my artwork was less important than the methods and dynamics applied. And that these methods were also underpinning my other work in the area of interventions, provocations, and interruptions. In other words, all my work was about similar forms of artistic and aesthetic expression and experience. Kurt set me on a path of better articulation of my ambitions and offerings. It also led to a new vocabulary and a new set of aesthetics to describe and share what I do and why I do it.   

I have now consolidated my creative undertakings into Petervan StudioS (plural). 

Petervan Studios is the melting pot of three studios: The Art Studio, The Interventions Studio, and The Scaffold Studio. The Studios have the following methods, dynamics, and outcomes in common:

Methods: Collisions – Layering – Activations – Speculations

Dynamics: Translating – Unsnapping – Reframing

Outcomes: Provocations – Experimentations – Collaborations

The three studios share the motivation and desire for societal, moral, and aesthetic advancement. 

I just launched a brand new website with all details about the three studios: www.petervanstudios.com . 

The Website is designed by WebIt. Thanks, Ruben, Joke, and team for your patience. Thanks also to Peter, Kurt, Janne, and Tijana from Amy-Art for help with the archiving and API integration.

Below is a quick summary of the three studios

Studio-1 Artworks

This studio is the home of Petervan’s art experiments: a mix of analog and digital artwork and productions, writings, poems, installations, video scapes, soundscapes, recordings, documentaries, and time capsules.

Studio-2 Interventions

These interventions build upon my experience and capability as a translator/interpreter of your specific challenges and designer/architect of intellectual collisions. Most of the interventions involve private or semi-private tailor-made provocations and include: Conversations, keynotes, performances, and curations

Studio-3 The Scaffold

The Scaffold is a brand-new transdisciplinary learning studio for the never normal. This unusual learning studio invites participants into a fresh break from the day-to-day. It allows participants to think, sense, learn, ànd act together with a brilliant, curated non-conformist tribe about a specific collective challenge. Not to solve the challenge, but to identify pivotal insights and a new way to position it.

The Scaffold is made possible through strategic partnerships with nexxworks and Collective Next

We also brought together a coalition of exceptional individuals as advisors for The Scaffold. A unique mix of strategists, futurists, engineers, entrepreneurs, experts in classic and contemporary arts, masters in narrative environments, philosophers, licensed architects, and VR developers.

Please let me know what resonates.

Warmest, 

Traveling without moving – Genres

This post is the last post of a series of essays bundled under “Traveling without moving”.

The intro of that series can be found here. In hindsight, this whole series was a slow reflection, maturation, and catalyst for something that will emerge in September as “The Scaffold”

The idea of a new “genre” has been hanging around since 2018, actually. But the COVID-related lockdowns have only amplified this dissatisfaction with replicating old analog formats into their digital copy-cats, without considering that the craving for something better has a deeper foundation.

In my Nov 2020 update, I already suggested:

“People are exhausted. Tired of online meetings. Tired of being locked up in their houses. Tired of all the negative news. People crave oxygen. People crave for small safe groups where they can share, critique, ideate, play.”

As John Hagel wrote some time ago: “We all are hungry for hope and excitement”

During and post-COVID, we have seen an acceleration in the use of online meetings and other forms of remote participation. We also witnessed the rise and hype of the metaverse, web3, AI-based image and text generators, and more. 

But we have not catered to the craving for oxygen. On the contrary, we seem to flee and lose ourselves in virtual realities, suffocating ourselves in the coolness of the latest technological gadgets and hypes. 

I feel we have hardly touched the surface of what is possible and more importantly what is desirable. What is our/my ambition in this space? I have written before about this in the “Ambition Cube”

I believe we need to start working on a new “genre” for collective learning and collaboration. 

Photography in Scaffold by Milo-Profi, Begijnhof, Mechelen, BE

Over the last couple of months, I have watched, suggested, and experimented with a number of concepts that go beyond a pimped-up Zoom meeting. The spectrum included proposals like Pirate TV (gracefully hijacked – and well executed – by Mykel Dixon and Co after I mentioned it during a catalyst meeting with Josie Gibson), Beyond TV, or Beyond Netflix.

I started reflecting: is “pirate” or “rebel” really what I want to be? That may sound like heroic and sympathetic, but is that behavior leading to the desired outcome of imagining and orchestrating new narratives? And why would I even use the word “TV” in what I do? TV as a format that leaves little room for imagination?

Maybe it should be something more Newsroom style like Ian Bremmers’ GZERO channel, Ray Wang’s “DisruptTV”, or Gerd Leonhard’s KeynoteTV. Gerd probably nailed it when it comes to repurposing keynotes for the virtual world (and also very well executed).

Somewhere in 2020, I got the wonderful opportunity to collaborate on nexxworks’ “Missions”, and more specifically on the curation of Mission NXT, with Peter Hinssen as the host.

Mission NXT episode with Peter Hinssen and John Hagel

That worked quite well, and the concept was integrated into nexxworks’s Memberships Program.

In all formats above I have witnessed discussions live or pre-recorded, with or without Q&As, edited or unedited, etc.

 But these are delivery-related questions only.  

In the end, these formats are still about passive consumption of knowledge, not about working-out-loud together, or better “learning-out-loud together”, and at best they reach the level of high-quality “teaching” of simple topics.

What we seem to be craving for are formats that are mentoring and/or inquiry-based, tackling complicated and complex subjects and projects. These use in-person and virtual facilitation and immersion technologies, helping us discover new unintended opportunities and new unintended behaviors and skills.

Courtesy Ann Pendleton-Jullian from FOUR (+1) Studios

What does that genre-ambition look like? What do we really want?

 We do NOT want yet another set of virtual equivalents of “meetings”, or “events”, “workshops”, TED Talks, TV shows, etc.

We want a genre with high participation and high connectedness; with a slow tempo, we take the time to digest existing knowledge and create new knowledge. Failing and learning together through “collisions”, provocations, and collaborative and highly participatory engagements. 

This new genre adheres to a different style: away from the spectacle, and breathing a mood of silence and introspection. Not trying to impress but to take care. Away from the quick bites, quick-wins, and snackable fast-food content, but surfing on the slow waves of the long quality content format. 

Witnessing, questioning, interrogating, inquiring, iterating, all beyond the cognitive knowledge consumption.

With tools like scaffolds, collages, visual and multi-sensory collisions, assemblages, narrative environments, multiple narratives, and plurality in points of view and participants. 

It should feel like a cesarean, assisting birth to something completely new. 

It is about scaffolding narrative immersive spaces for collective learning.

Detail “Mechanisms I” by © Tanya Goel – 2019 – Picture by Petervan

For a couple of months now, I have been working in stealth mode on a new project called “The Scaffold”, which is exactly doing that. 

The Scaffold will come out of stealth next month, together with a brand new website and offering for Petervan Studios

Hope you stay on board

With warm regards,

5 books to help you understand (and profit from) global trends

The time that we could organise our companies without acting too much on global evolutions lies long behind us. Leaders understand more than ever that tackling world challenges not only creates a better context for all of us to live in but also presents fantastic business opportunities. It’s why am thrilled to be one of the curators of nexxworks’ Mission NXT program, designed to help leaders turn global trends into opportunities.

For those who are truly passionate about fostering this type of outside in vision, here are five (zero bullshit) books that fundamentally changed and formed my thinking in the matter over the years.

Benjamin Bratton – The Revenge of the Real (2021)

The pandemic showed us that we are completely unprepared to cope with our current deeply entangled world. According to Bratton, we need a “positive biopolitics” and an AI-based instrumentation of the world. He offers a refreshing way of thinking about sensors which is quite different from the worn out song about the surveillance state.

Ann Pendleton Jullian and John Seely Brown – Design Unbound (2018)

Read this if you want to understand how you can design for emergence in the Never Normal. You’ll need your full attention (it’s not a ‘light reading’ project), but in return you’ll receive two volumes of unique and well researched insights to help you better see what is and what can become. This is truly one of the most important business books I ever read.

Bruno Latour – Down to Earth (2018)

Latour calls for a third way in climate politics which is left nor right: a path between libertarian globalism, and leftist localism. One that is anchored in planet earth. Read this if you want to get to know one of the most important philosophers of the 21st century.

Jenny E. Sabin and Peter Lloyd Jones – LabStudio (2017)

Sabin and Lloyd Jones tackle the concept of the research design laboratory in which funded research and trans-disciplinary participants achieve radical advances in science, design, and applied architectural practice. The book demonstrates new approaches to more traditional design studio and hypothesis-led research that are complementary, iterative, experimental, and reciprocal.

Christopher Alexander – The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth: A Struggle Between Two World-Systems (2012)

This real life story of American architect Christopher Alexander designing and building the Eishin university campus in Japan serves as an analogy for the battle between two fundamentally different ways of shaping our world. One system places emphasis beauty, on subtleties, on finesse, on the structure of adaptation that makes each tiny part fit into the larger context. The other system is concerned with efficiency, with money, power and control, stressing the more gross aspects of size, speed, and profit. This second, “business-as-usual” system is incapable of enabling the emotional, whole-making side of human life, according to Alexander, who then goes on to present a new architecture.

Warmest,

This post was originally posted on the nexxworks company blog, on the occasion of Mission NXT, which I help curate

Your nexx work at nexxworks?

From time to time, I do a freelance gig for nexxworks, the company co-founded by Peter Hinssen. I am always amazed with the positive, welcoming spirit of the team.

This is a fresh, ambitious company, specialised in inspiring and connecting their customers about the Day After Tomorrow. Inspiring with examples of exponential change, immersing people in front-seat experiences with top innovators around the world, all while guiding and facilitating the questions that can activate this ambition into action.

And now they have eight (8!) open positions with quite attractive packages, including flexibility to work from home, interesting fringe benefits such as an electric company car, a sharing mobility solution, (e-)bike, laptop,  budget for a smartphone, international phone subscription, insurance packages, meal vouchers, etc.

If you are looking for a great job at one of the coolest companies in Belgium, this may be your chance. They call the world their home. If I was not retired, I would not hesitate a minute.

The nexxworks’ office building is in the middle of the student district of Ghent (Overpoort/St Pietersplein), close to sport, shops, public transport, lunch spots, … The completely refurbished iconic building was designed in 1930 by architect Fernand Brunfaut (°1886-†1972) for the editorial HQ of the newspaper “Vooruit”. Cool office space, kitchenette, meeting places, there is even a video studio for A/V productions.

Have also a look inside:

Some great team values as well:

  • Witty
  • Go-getting
  • Open-minded
  • Challenging
  • Positive

Eight vacancies. Maybe one of them is your nexx work. At nexxworks.

All info here: https://work.nexxworks.com/