Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi
Campo San Agnese - Dorsoduro 810
IT - 30123 Venice

25 to 31 July 2014
Opening hours: 9pm to midnight

Sunset at the Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi: Every evening, from 9:00 p.m., the Z Club will host a programme showcasing Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), one of Europe’s largest arts universities. Discourse meets performance, concerts meet actions. The themes running through this series of seven evenings are “money,” “space,” and “postindustrialisation.” The current crisis (in Europe) is not only economic and political but also spatial. Postindustrialisation offers only certain cities and regions a future, usually in the shape of business headquarters, creative industry hubs, or tourism.

Z Club will also celebrate a new monument of post-industrialisation: the former Toni dairy factory, which this summer will open its doors as the new ZHdK campus. Its history reflects the Venetian history of industrialisation, which took place on the island of Giudecca, within sight of the Z Club.
Good clubs, as Andy Warhol once aptly observed, have four hallmarks: the right music, the right drinks, a backroom with stuff worth talking about, and experts. Stuff and experts attract attention and allow venues dedicated to words and things to open up a wealth of insights and opportunities. Les mots et les choses: The Z Club is dedicated to both.
The first two evenings, hosted by Christoph Weckerle, Heinrich Lüber, and others, are dedicated to the theme of hospitality. Different actors with strange customs will use cunning methods to ensure visitors wish to return. The third evening, organised by Stephan Müller and Neue Dringlichkeit, harnesses theatrical and actionist means to transform the “Athenian Polis” into a “Venetian Occasion” and to “psycho-geographically” explore the city of canals and its relation to global capitalism. The fourth evening is devoted to the question “Design – A Social Machine?” Gerhard M. Buurman, Tanja Herdt, Claude Lichtenstein, Marc Rölli, and Peter Vetter will discuss the manifold relationships between product design, architecture, and money in a discursive performance featuring the work of Cedric Price and others. The fifth evening, directed by Jörg Scheller, will stage a concert performance at the nexus of heavy metal, death metal, and post-industrialisation. Concentrating on new music and its relationship with industry, the last two evenings will open with Luigi Nono’s emblematic work La Fabbrica Illuminata – a wonderful metaphor of the new ZHdK campus – followed by compositions by Iannis Xenakis, Horacio Vaggione, Zbigniew Karkovski, and works by ZHdK members. Z Club will peak in an audio-visual live performance by Michael Egger, Thomas Peter, and Jorge Sánchez-Chiong.
 
Organiser: Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK)
 
Curator: Stephan Trüby  
 
Management: Alexandra Carambellas
 
Participants: Daniel Bisig, Gerhard M. Buurman, Michael Egger, Karmen Franinovic, Tanja Herdt, Carlos Hidalgo, Philippe Kocher, Claude Lichtenstein, Heinrich Lüber, Thomas Meier, Kenn Mouritzen, Stephan Müller, Neue Dringlichkeit, Peter Richter, Marc Rölli, Peter Vetter, Christoph Weckerle, Jorge Sánchez-Chiong, Jörg Scheller, Martin Stricker, Sarah Maria Sun, Germán Toro Pérez, and others
 
Mise en Scène: ZHdK MAS Spatial Design students (Nina Bühlmann, Christine Cyris, Michele D’Ariano, Benjamin Gorzawski, Nina Heydorn, Olivier Ilegems, Sandra Keyssner, Rainer Müller, Aleksandra Pavlovic, Ann-Chantal Rufer, Vera Ryser)
 
Lighting: Florian Bachmann, Marcus Pericin (Color Light Centre, ZHdK)
 
Sound Design: Simon Könz
 
Media Partner: Baumeister
 
Supported by Pro Helvetia and Ernst Göhner Stiftung.

Press office contact: Prof. Dr. Stephan Trüby, Stephan.trueby@zhdk.ch