Image Entanglements is a PhD project in artistic research that looks at images as social agents and examines the agendas with which they operate. The project combines methods from the visual arts and art history to develop a way of speaking about images that makes their agency apparent.

Central to the project was the creation of an archive of digital images from different periods and contexts including art, journalism, politics and social media. With the help of this archive, three types of “image activities” were explored: the interaction between images that produces pseudomorphic similarities; the capacity of the image to function as a substitute by providing an artificial presence; and the ability of images to shape viewers’ empathic responses to certain events.

Across four lecture performances and four accompanying essays, the project investigates apparent entanglements between images from different genres, and seeks to demonstrate how viewers can become enmeshed in the images’ operations.

You are invited to attend the lecture performance programme on 21 October in full or to attend a selection of the four lectures. The detailed programme can be found below in Dutch, or here in Dutch and English.

The PhD defence will take place on 22 October and will be open to the public. The committee and jury members for the PhD project are Prof. Dr. Patrick Ceyssens, Prof Dr. Koenraad Jonckheere, Prof. Dr. Bert Willems, Dr. Katja Müller-Helle, Prof. Dr. Nadia Sels, Prof. Dr. Nele Wynants, Dr. Edit Kaldor and Dr. Florian Göttke.

Beeldverwikkelingen
— Image Entanglements

21 oktober 2025, 16:00–22:15
Cultuurcentrum Hasselt (CCHA)

Dit marathon-programma van vier lecture performances neemt u mee in een onderhoudende reflectie over de macht van beelden. Met een oog voor treffende vergelijkingen brengt kunstenaar Toon Leën verrassende verbanden aan het licht tussen beelden uit de meest uiteenlopende contexten en periodes. In vier hoofdstukken ontrafelt zich een kluwen van relaties en intriges waarin beelden met elkaar verwikkeld lijken alsof ze een eigen leven leiden, ongestoord door de verwachtingen van hun auteurs.

Beeldverwikkelingen plaatst het schijnbaar autonome handelingsvermogen van beelden centraal en ensceneert een speelse iconografische dialoog, die over de hoge en lage scheidingsmuren tussen kunst, religie, politiek en sociale media heen kijkt. Een schouwspel dat de vraag doet rijzen: heersen wij over beelden of zij over ons?

16:00—16:45
A Big Basket of Apples
Een grote mand met appels

Taal: Engels

Het programma begint met een duik in de kunstgeschiedenis: Paul Cézannes vaak als objectiverend omschreven manier van kijken is het uitgangspunt voor een reflectie over de notie van het “onschuldige oog,” waarin de kijker onder meer kennis maakt met de abstracte kleurstudies van de kleurenblinde schilder Sarah Bal.

17:00—18:00
Hommage aan een afwezige pony
Homage to an Absent Pony

Taal: Nederlands met Engelse boventitels

Wat betekent het om empathisch naar beelden te kijken? Aan de hand van voorbeelden uit beeldende kunst, religie en politiek vergelijkt deze lezing een aantal opvallende manieren waarop toeschouwers beeldend uiting geven aan de empathie die ze voor bepaalde beelden — en voor de “bewoners” van die beelden — ontwikkelen.

19:00—20:15
Homage to the Dash
Hommage aan de gedachtestreep

Taal: Engels met Nederlandse boventitels

In deze lecture performance staat de stijlfiguur van de onderbreking centraal. De lezing verbindt een hommage aan de gedachtestreep met een subjectieve iconografie van de staatsgreep — met als voorbeelden onder meer de mislukte putsch in de Sovjet-Unie in augustus 1991 en de bestorming van het Capitool in Washington in 2021.

20:45—22:15
The Irresistible Image and the Sceptical Gaze
Het onweerstaanbare beeld en de sceptische blik

Taal: Engels met Nederlandse boventitels

Steunend op een onderzoek naar de iconografie van de heilige Christophorus belicht deze lecture performance de notie van het “onweerstaanbare beeld.” De lezing gaat dieper in op een aantal visuele strategieën die door autocratische regimes gehanteerd worden. Ze plaatst anti-democratische pogingen om het vertrouwen van burgers in feitelijke informatie te ondermijnen naast artistieke methodes die onze waarneming van de realiteit in vraag stellen en ambiguïteit genereren.

Alles ist interessant
Lecture performance marathon

20 May, 2025, 6:00-10:00 pm
TA T — Tieranatomisches Theater
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Campus Nord, Philippstraße 13/Haus 3, 10115 Berlin

Speakers: Aljoscha Begrich (dramaturge and artistic director, Festival OSTEN) & Jo Preußler (artist and urban dermatologist), Anna-Lisa Dieter (curator, Humboldt Labor, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Ira A. Goryainova (filmmaker, Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema, and Sound (RITCS), Brussels), Hengame Hosseini (artist), Gertrud Koch (film scholar, em. Freie Universität Berlin), Toon Leën (artist, PXL-MAD, School of Arts & Hasselt University), Katja Müller-Helle (art historian, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Claus Pias (media theorist, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg), Nadia Sels (cultural philosopher, PXL-MAD, School of Arts & Hasselt University, and Ghent University), Bert Willems (psychologist, PXL-MAD, School of Arts & Hasselt University)
Music: Els Vandeweyer (vibraphonist)

Developed by Toon Leën and Katja Müller-Helle as a cooperation between the research unit “The Technical Image” at the Center for Cultural Technology/Department of Art and Visual History at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the FRAME research group at Hasselt University & PXL-MAD School of Arts, Hasselt, and the Tieranatomische Theater. With the kind support of the Representation of Flanders in Germany.

→ more information (PDF)

Alles is interessant #5
Lecture performance marathon

20 February 2025, 18:00–22:20
Late Lunch Lectures 24 @ PXL-MAD, School of Arts, Auditorium B345-B353, PXL Business (Gebouw B), Elfde-Liniestraat 26, 3500 Hasselt

The fifth edition of Everything is Interesting features short lecture performances by Patrick Ceyssens, Maria Gil Ulldemolins, Ira A. Goryainova, Tom Lambeens, Toon Leën, Jeroen Peeters, Remco Roes, Lieven Segers, Nadia Sels, Anneleen Swillen, and Bert Willems.

On Spectatorship and Empathy: Homage to an Absent Pony

Video lecture, published in Collateral, Online Journal for Cross-Cultural Close Reading — Cluster 41, December 2024

Carrying Images: Figures of Power between Support and Subversion
Lecture performance

28 June, 2024
Colloquium at the 2nd Lisbon Contemporary Jewellery Biennial
Royal Treasury Museum, Lisbon, Portugal

This lecture performance explores depictions of people carrying images of political and religious authorities. Taking as its starting point the iconography of Saint Christopher, the lecture reflects on the visualisation of three themes that are central to the staging of power: ascension, protection and circulation.

Language: English

→ more information and full conference program PDF

Irresistible Images and Sceptical Empathy
Lecture performance

15 December, 2023
Agents of Concern: Images and Empathy, doctoral symposium
PXL-MAD Gallery, Elfde-Liniestraat 25, 3500 Hasselt, Belgium

This lecture performance explores how certain images lure viewers into misguided and inaccurate types of empathy. Focusing on the digital infrastructures that shape our outlook on world events, this talk compares a series of puzzling images that exemplify the entanglement of two categories: the cute and the horrible. Seeking to develop a sceptical empathy, this lecture will present unreliable yet potentially irresistible evidence to help understand the motives and ambitions of these dubious images.

Language: English

→ more information and full conference program PDF

Homage to an Absent Pony
Lecture performance

23 March, 2023, 8:45pm
Conditions of Spectatorship
RITCS School of Arts, Antoine Dansaertstraat 70, 1000 Brussels

Looking at examples that range from religious iconography to images of war, this lecture-performance investigates how we empathise with or through images. Is it the reality represented in the image or the image itself that shapes the viewer’s empathic responses?

Language: English

→ more information and full conference program PDF

Homage to the x
Lecture performance

15 October, 2022, 2:30pm
Bildsituationen, conference organised by the University of Hamburg
Warburg-Haus, Heilwigstraße 116, 20249 Hamburg

→ more information and full conference program

Everything is Interesting #3
Two lecture performances

Saturday, June 25, 2022
In the context of 48 Stunden Neukölln
Kunstraum Ossastraße, Ossastraße 38, 12045 Berlin

3:00pm: Interruptions are Interesting (ca. 160 minutes)
6:00pm: Homage to the x (60 minutes)

Language: English

→ more information here.

Correspondances mystérieuses
Concert-lecture

23 May, 2022
Konzertsaal der UdK Berlin, Hardenbergstr. / Ecke Fasanenstraße, 10623 Berlin

Language: German (translated from Dutch by Bärbel Jänicke)

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Homage to the Dash
Lecture performance

19 May, 2022, 6:30pm
@MAD Music, Research Festival PXL-Music & PXL-MAD
Villa Basta, Vissersstraat 2, 3500 Hasselt, Belgium

—Sarah Bal—
Exhibition at Fred&Ferry Gallery in Antwerp, from 6 February until 12 March 2022

The exhibition —Sarah Bal— featured fourteen paintings and three video lectures that were linked by three elements: the fictional persona of Sarah Bal, an artist fascinated by colour, played by the actress Mathilde Irrmann; excerpts from music by C.P.E. Bach and Franz Liszt, played by pianist Lucas Blondeel; and the figure of the dash, here used to build bridges between politics and art, the serious and the playful, reality and fiction.

More information and images can be found here.

Zwischen den Bildern (2020)
Video, 13’57”

This short video was created for an anonymous exhibition, titled x, that took place at KIOSK in Ghent from 23 January until 28 March 2021. Rather than showing an artwork without revealing the artist’s identity, the video portrays an artist without revealing his work. Standing outside the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin, the artist talks about his fascination with art historian Aby Warburg. An exhibition had been put up by the HKW showing a reconstruction of Warburg’s Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, but it was closed due to the Corona lockdown in November 2020. The video goes on to show the artist in his study room, where he is seen drinking tea and studying the works of Warburg. Interviewed at his studio, the artist talks about his collection of found photographs, presented on his studio wall, which serve as a source of inspiration for his work.

The video was later shown (again, anonymously) at the exhibition “From the Collection. Gifted” at S.M.A.K., Ghent, from 26 June until 3 October 2021.

Correspondances mystérieuses (2019-2021)
Concert-lecture, 106 minutes

24 August 2022
Vita et Pax Kapelconcerten, Schoten

3 December 2021
Westrand, Cultuurcentrum Dilbeek

20 May, 2021
deSingel, Antwerp

9 March, 2019
AMUZ, Antwerp

Images and text: Toon Leën
Piano: Lucas Blondeel

Like none other, the French composer Claude Debussy managed to evoke images through music. Debussy was passionate about the sea and the sound of rustling leaves, but also extremely attached to the city. A resident of Paris his entire life, he immersed himself intensely in the visual art and literature of his time.

This concert-lecture, with Lucas Blondeel on piano, offers a meditation on the interaction between music and images in Debussy’s work. In short lectures, interspersed throughout the concert, Toon Leën presents an intriguing investigation into the visual universe that inspired Debussy, while Blondeel provides pithy insights into the composer’s musical innovations.

The concert-lecture was broadcast as a livestream by deSingel in Antwerp on 20 May, 2021.

Trailer:

The Case of the Ridiculous Curator (2018-2019)
Lecture performance by Toon Leën, 70 minutes

25 October, 2019
Museum der Kritik, fffriedrich, Frankfurt am Main

8 March, 2018
Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts

In 2015, curator Ludovik Vermeersch published the book Personally, I’m Most Interested in the Shapes and Colours. The publication claimed to investigate the “continued potential of abstract art as a disruptive practice”. It was accompanied by an eponymous lecture performance by Vermeersch himself, that combined a theoretical reflection on the concept of “transfigurative recontextualisation” with a personal account of his manipulative collaboration with six young abstract artists based in Berlin.  

Toon Leën takes Vermeersch’s lecture as the starting point for a lecture performance of his own that grapples with the destabilizing effects of deception as an artistic strategy. Leën explores the significance of authenticity for the attribution of agency to artworks and the dynamic between the self and the artist persona with regard to the establishment of authorship and authority – the most striking issues at stake in Vermeersch’s project.

Personally, I’m Most Interested in the Shapes and Colours (2015)
Lecture performance by Ludovik Vermeersch, 90 minutes

2 April 2017
me Collectors Room, Berlin

6 March 2016
deSingel, Antwerp

3 June 2015
Bar Babette, Berlin

21 May 2015
CIAP, Hasselt

22 May 2015
Croxhapox, Ghent

8 May 2015
Extra City, Antwerp

This lecture performance is a monologue by a curator called Ludovik Vermeersch. It presents a narrative that invites different levels of speculation and immerses the viewer in a multilayered world of abstractions.

The lecture presents both Vermeersch’s theoretical investigations into the origins of abstract art and his experimental collaboration with six promising young abstract artists. This collaboration, consisting of a series of exhibitions and presentations in Berlin between 2013 and 2014, revolved around one basic question: “What can abstract painting still achieve today?” In order to challenge the artists into radically questioning their own practices, Vermeersch confronted them with a number of provocative and increasingly deceptive interventions in the presentation of their works. After the lecture’s analytical first section, Vermeersch looks back at these interventions, framing them as part of a curatorial strategy he terms “transfigurative recontextualisation.” By drastically intervening in the contextual level, he suggests, the viewer’s attention can be diverted from the artwork itself toward the narratives that surround it, in order to provoke an experience of bewilderment, which ultimately brings forth the “transfiguration” of the abstract work in question.

As incongruities accumulate in the videos, and the absurdities in Vermeersch’s theory exacerbate, the audience starts to realise that it may be dealing with a parafictional setup, staged to lure them into the very state of bewilderment that is theorised by Vermeersch: the experience of “contextual abstraction.” No longer sure about what is real or fake, the spectator is left with the suspicion that, along with the six artists, the dubious persona of Ludovik Vermeersch could equally well be another fictional device in the narrative construction.

The Ego Trip and the Research Pill (2016)
Lecture performance by Ludovik Vermeersch, 35 minutes

Commissioned by Artesis Plantijn University College Antwerp as a keynote for Articulate, a festival on artistic research in 2016, this lecture performance reflects on the institutionalisation of artistic research. Curator Ludovik Vermeersch confronts two lines of thinking in the prevailing discourse. He sees the emergence of a new type of artist, the “artist-researcher” or the “expert in visual culture” who blends in effortlessly with the academic world without laying claim to the romantic notion of the artist’s singularity while a majority of authors still stress the importance of the idea of singularity and defend the preservation of a unique position of the arts within academia. Vermeersch himself takes an exaggeratedly enthusiastic stance for the latter position, that advocates the idiosyncratic and exceptional nature of artistic investigations.

By ironically embracing the “power of narcissism” and the artist’s “narcissistic libido” as a crucial driving force for artistic creation, the lecture ridicules the romanticised beliefs that pervade the debate about artistic research.

The title of this lecture is inspired by Daniil Kharms’ cruel absurdist dialogue from 1937 called ‘Investigation from all sides’:
YERMOLAYEV: Oh. Ooh! What a vile, disgusting taste! What did you give me?
DOCTOR: Nothing, nothing. Don’t worry. It’s a sure remedy.
YERMOLAYEV: I’m hot and everything is turning green.
DOCTOR: Yes, yes, yes, my dear friend, you’ll die straight away.
YERMOLAYEV: What are you saying? Doctor! Oh! I can’t! Doctor! What have you given me? Oh, doctor!
DOCTOR: You have swallowed the research pill.