Practical Fridays was a workshop series, founded and coordinated by artist Philip Matesic from 2013 until 2019. The series expanded practically on Theory Tuesdays, a nonacademic platform for theoretical discussion. Instead of discussing a theoretical text, participants had a hands-on, collective experience of learning something practical from a non-professional. Each workshop was run by a different person at various locations in Zurich, Switzerland.
Thursday 1st January 1970, 12:00am
During this Practical Fridays session, Lubomira lead a workshop on abstract drawing. Those in attendance made spontaneous drawings without thinking, using a variety of conventional and unconventional drawing tools and materials. Each participant brought their own unique drawing tool to use in the drawing experiments.
Location: Counter Space (Röschibachstrasse 24, 8037 Zürich)
Thursday 1st January 1970, 12:00am
During this Practical Fridays workshop, Pei introduced Mandarin characters and pronunciation. During the workshop, participants began with one of the simplest Mandarin characters – 人 Rén (human, person). The goal was to familiarize the group with basic components of the Mandarin characters; from the strokes, to the units and finally, the assembly.
Location: Corner College (Kochstrasse 1, 8004 Zürich)
Thursday 1st January 1970, 12:00am
During this Practical Fridays workshop, Habib Ahmed Afsar lead a workshop focusing on making art while exploring the god metaphor from a personal perspective. The only skills required were a sharpened sensitivity to materials, objects and people. The planned outcome was to have fun.
Location: Corner College (Kochstrasse 1, 8004 Zürich)
Thursday 1st January 1970, 12:00am
During this Practical Fridays workshop, Lubomira demonstrated monotyping. The art of monotyping produces a unique print, or “monotype”. Stencils, watercolor, solvents, brushes, and other tools are often used to embellish a monotype print. Monotypes can be spontaneously executed, with no previous sketch necessary. This specific printmaking technique was easy to learn with no previous skills required.
Location: Corner College (Kochstrasse 1, 8004 Zürich)
Thursday 1st January 1970, 12:00am
During this Practical Fridays workshop, Annatina Caprez and Garrett Nelson demonstrated “How To Open And Close Doors”. Using two doors installed in Corner College as central models, participants examined methods of opening, closing and communicating with doors. The group explored door histories, different types of doors and their problematics, practiced door uses and cultural door etiquette.
Location: Corner College (Kochstrasse 1, 8004 Zürich)
Thursday 1st January 1970, 12:00am
During this Practical Fridays workshop, Philip demonstrated how to mix three unique drinks, along with a series of bartending tricks that one could use at home or in a party situation. After the demonstration everyone participated in bottle flipping, cucumber garnishing, orange flaming, cocktail mixing and tasting.
Location: Corner College (Kochstrasse 1, 8004 Zürich)
Thursday 1st January 1970, 12:00am
During this Practical Fridays workshop, Christina Zimmermann performed a collective experiment in “ambiguity perception”. Ambiguity presents a perfect test case for the investigation of the self-organizing processes in the brain.
Departing from experimental practices in Gestalt psychology and Cognitive Science, participants were asked to react to, create and manipulate Rorschach inkblot images, which are commonly used in personality tests: “Do something not to see anything”.
Location: Corner College (Kochstrasse 1, 8004 Zürich)
Thursday 1st January 1970, 12:00am
This Practical Fridays workshop took place in Dan Krusi’s attic, where he built and installed a fully featured two-seat cockpit and flight simulator. There was a short introduction to flight theory, followed by a practical landing attempt, flown by participants in the cockpit of his homemade simulator.
Thursday 1st January 1970, 12:00am
What goes into a compost, and what should not? How do you build a compost? What exactly happens inside it? And how many worms should you ideally find in a handful of compost? During this Practical Fridays session, which took place in Daniel Morgenthaler’s Schrebergarten, Daniel provided answers to these and other questions on compost, also known as the «gold of every biological garden».
Location: Daniel’s Schrebergarten (urban garden)
Thursday 1st January 1970, 12:00am
During this Practical Fridays workshop, Amélie Brisson-Darveau, Christoph Brunner and Jacqueline Poloni explored different kinds of diagrams, in artistic, performance and philosophical practices.
Diagrams are strange devices and techniques which attempt to make relations tangible and at the same time evade straight formats of representation. They are expression in physical as much as in immaterial ways.
This workshop familiarized the participants with diagrammatic practices as a means for tracing and enabling movement.
Location: Corner College (Kochstrasse 1, 8004 Zürich)