The message sent out before the event:

“The days are getting longer, warmer & groovier. We all know what that means: 'tis the season for High Quality Information to start frollicking in YOUR area!!! This Thursday, the 11th of April 2024, 20h00-21h00, we will play an hour-long radio show in the Paviljoen next to KASK. This markt the beginning of our residency there, at the brand new HQI-headquarters. The radio show is called ”Jumping Fences, Counting Sheep". The second half of the title was generously donated by Céleste Buyle and Quinten Vermeulen. They will share the space with us for some days before their residency ends and we take over completely."

"Jumping Fences, Counting Sheep" was the name of the first event / radioshow / happening of HQI in Het Paviljoen. Starting from the 2 parts of the title, we researched sound and image based on those topics, diving into some corners of the YouTube, google images and a variety of webpages. All of the collected audio fragments (songs and snippets) were played through the outdoor speakers above the door that pointed towards the garden. A real-time archive of all the collected material was made during the radio show, projected onto a screen. The people had some drinks & enjoyed some tunes. 

With the help of our sweet interns:
Lukas Neven (photography)
Anne Smeets (journalism)
 

The Car Tunes project: 

We invite 10 (amateur) artists /  musicians to make a 1-minute soundtrack for a car. The soundtrack has to be able to loop for eternity. We provide 1 image from our extensive car-photo archive and let the artists work their magic.

List of participating musicians / bands / artists:

KAKAPUNK (Bruges, BE)
Smittness (Karlsruhe, DE)

Origin story:

It was the summer of 2022. We* were roaming the streets of Weimar. It was August and the small East-German city was hot and sweaty. The air was filled with friendship (/p) and promise. As we walked back to the apartment, the summer day was coming to an end and it felt like we were going to be young forever. We passed a side street of the Steuben Strasse. And suddenly, I remember it like it was yesterday, we saw her. She was a small, blue Volkswagen car, shimmering in the late-afternoon sun. It seemed like she had been waiting for us. We were in awe of her effortless beauty and undeniable charisma. ‘Let’s take a photo’ we said, ‘and let’s make this baby talk.’ 

Back at the apartment we spoke of her. We wondered what she would sound like if she could produce sound other than the purring of her oiled motor. We decided, there and then, to become her vocal chords and give her a soundtrack. We would capture her essence in a 1-minute tune that could be looped into eternity. Haron opened Ableton and we started clumsily building sounds for our new muse. 

Just like that the car tune project was born. 

That first tune we built for the blue Volkswagen was a funky beat with a simple melody on top. It was badly produced and overall poorly mad. But we made it with great purpose. The second tune was made a week later, on the train from Chemnitz to Weimar. We finalized the tune on the balcony. This time we made the soundtrack for an older model (I don´t remember the kind anymore, also don’t have the photo). The beat was raunchier this time, less innocent. It stank of cigars. We felt a bit filthy making it, and the fit was perfect. If that car could sing, it would be greasy as h€ll. 

Now, two years after the first car-tune was born, we want to continue lending our tunes to the cars we think need them during the residency at Het Paviljoen in Ghent. 

*We = Lore and Haron, better known as High Quality Information

What is HQI?

HQI or High Quality Information is the joint practice of Haron Barashed and Lore Janssens, both graphic designers (& so much more). 

We were selected to be part of the residency in Het Paviljoen at KASK Ghent during the spring of 2024. It is a small glass building next to the school. We decided to make it into a High Quality radio station. From this building, we are working on a bunch of audio and/or visual projects that you can more information about across this site. We are using the website as a growing archive for everything we research or organise. 

What is this residency?

The name of the residency is Jumping Fences. It’s essentially a group expo in the pavilion next to KASK in Ghent. Curatorial Studies invited 6 artists to take up the space and every artist can do whatever they want in that space for 6 weeks. Then they pass the pavilion on to the next artist. We are working together for 6 weeks in the pavilion, starting on the 8th of April 2024. You can find more info on Jumping Fences on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hetpaviljoen/?hl=nl.

Are we getting money for this residency?

Haron and I are getting a small amount of money from the curatorial team, which we plan on investing in building the radio station and some (audio) equipment. 

Why is High Quality Information SO iconic? 

It’s actually insane how often we are confronted with this question and honestly, we are just really living our truth and the rest comes naturally.

During the winter of 2024, while exploring the center of Brussels, we stumbled upon a big sale at the Muntpunt library. We bought a bunch of CD’s, since they were ultra cheap (10cents a piece, to be exact). Our requirements for selecting the CD’s were the following: 

♫ we could not know (too much) about the band / artists

♫ we had to select based on how cool or interesting the cover-art looked 

HIGH QUALITY JUKEBOX

Later, during our residency in het paviljoen in Ghent, we decided to finally do something with the collection of discs we acquired back in that library. 

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in April 2024, we put all the CD's on display in the pavillion. We invited people and random passer-by to pick a song from one of the CD's. We were lucky that it was also the Open Day at the school next-door, so those visitors heard the music coming from the small glass building and were lured in (just like we intended). Everyone could request one song from one of the CD's, and we would play it on our indoor radio and on the outdoor speakers, turning the building into a giant jukebox. During the event, we conducted research to the bands, designers of the artwork, music genres etc. The results of that research was printed out and hung all over the walls. 

The payment for a song request was not monetary. Instead, we asked a small drawing or collage (some people also contributed photos) that was inspired by the cover art of the CD they requested a song from, the song title or the music itself. 

We kept track of the list of all the requests. For every 15 requested songs, we made a new mixtape. These mixes were released during a High Quality Mixtape Moment, where the tracks were burned onto cd's and we listened to them one more time. For the design of the cover-art of these mixtapes, we used the drawings and collages the people made to request their songs. 

♫ This research / radio-show happened on the 21st of April 2024, in Het Paviljoen next to KASK.

♫ The Mixtape Moment happened on the 26th of April 2024, in Het Paviljoen next to KASK.
 

The Woman's Boat Research

♫ HIGH QUALITY MIXTAPE 1 ♫

01 (album) the woman's boat – (song) i just want affection - requested by britta

02 saturn clarinet concerto - saturn - lena

03 compassion - crash - leena

04 gore - the name of the rotten evil and gore (pt. 1) - aron

05 callings - magdalena - fien

06 amazonia - chamita candela - plt

07 Beanfield - to be alienated - julian 

08 escape - thinking of the time - iro

09 oklahoma - the farmer and the cowman - arno

10 monsters, inc. - enter the heroes - bieke

11 title of record - it's gonna kill me - sander

12 soul marrabenta - bula bula - tyler 

13 one world one future - the future - mimo

14 bel amour - show me love - hennie

15 bel amour - torn - louise

This mixtape was a result of the High Quality Jukebox happening on the 21st of April at Het Paviljoen at KASK, Ghent. 

As a result of the High Quality Jukebox, where we let people request songs from our selection of CD's, we released some mixtapes with a list of the requested songs. Those mixtapes were played one more time during a High Quality Mixtape Moment in het paviljoen. 

♫ HIGH QUALITY MIXTAPE 1 ♫

01 the woman's boat – i just want affection - britta

02 saturn clarinet concerto - saturn - lena

03 compassion - crash - leena

04 gore - the name of the rotten evil and gore (pt. 1) - aron

05 callings - magdalena - fien

06 amazonia - chamita candela - plt

07 compost 033-2 - to be alienated - julian 08 escape - thinking of the time - iro

09 oklahoma - the farmer and the cowman - arno

10 monsters, inc. - enter the heroes - bieke

11 title of record - it's gonna kill me - sander

12 soul marrabenta - bula bula - tyler 

13 one world one future - the future - mimo

14 bel amour - show me love - hennie

15 bel amour - torn - louise

And we showed the new artwork for the mixtape, made out of the drawings people made in return for requesting a song: ↓↓↓↓↓

Het Paviljoen is a small, glass building in Ghent. It's part of the Art School KASK, often used as a tiny exhibition space. During the first months of 2024, curatorial studies at KASK had the opportunity to use this building. They decided to look for a couple of artists that wanted to make and show work in Het Paviljoen by launching an open call. We, High Quality Information, decided to apply. You can read our full application on the bottom of this webpage. 

Our idea for the pavillion was to make it into our office, where we could build a radio station and make new work. 

OUR APPLICATION FOR THE JUMPING FENCES GROUP EXPO:

Present yourselves and your artistic practice:

(Lore & Haron) We are Lore Janssens and Haron Barashed, two (graphic) designers currently based in Brussels who frequently collaborate on various self-initiated and commissioned projects.

Haron recently graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Visual Communication from Bauhaus-University in Weimar while Lore holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Graphic Design from KASK School of Arts & Conservatorium Gent.

(Haron) My body of work is mainly situated in the realm of Graphic Design with a strong focus on an interdisciplinary and multifaceted approach to the design process. In my applied and commercial work I work across almost all disciplines of graphical production moving between the digital and the physical with a strong focus on play, interaction and a multitude of cultural references. Furthermore I am always interested in the specific characteristics and needs arising from different modes of production and output media. Within that I try to seek out new and interesting technological and procedural approaches to generate both formally and conceptually interesting outcomes.

In addition to my applied work I also frequently engage in self-initiated projects mainly as a means to pursue my theoretical, technical and contextual interest at the edges or outside to the disciplinary confines of Graphic Design all the while using acquired knowledge and methodologies from my practice as a designer in service of these extra-disciplinary explorations. The outcomes of these projects vary in scope and form but almost always revolve around themes of community & platform building, mutual learning and (creative) exchange.

(Lore) Always funky. I have working experience in the audiovisual field, for example music and film projects. I’m always rolling around in the socio-cultural sector, collaborating time and time again with other designers or creatives. I love typography and BOLD visuals and toying around, often with a typographical approach. If graphic design is appealing at first glance, I’m sold. If it’s also solid conceptually, I’m proposing. A big part of my work right now is being a part of Spreekhond, a film collective based in Ghent. The goal of Spreekhond is to provide a platform for underrepresented voices and bring them together in an approachable way. We always work around a specific theme that we define in advance. Each event starts with a workshop, formation or connecting moment, for which we invite an external person or organization. As a member of this collective, I am in charge of organization, coordination, communication, social media and graphic design. We perform these tasks with everyone in the collective, with a flexible focus for each event.

Describe your artistic or design practice and its evolution in response to cross-disciplinary influences. max 500 words

(Haron) Coming to design from a music / event / nightculture background, my early (graphic) design practice was just a means to communicate a message and to enrich an experience. In this sense I understood design mainly as a skill set to be employed in service of someone / something. At the same time this background was the source of a deep rooted interest in the connection between sound and the visual that keeps informing my practice to this day. With entering the new environment that my school (Bauhaus-University Weimar) provided I was exposed to a much wider variety of interdisciplinary approaches. In this context I gathered new influences from different design and art fields and saw others drawing inspiration, methodologies and material from different disciplines to inform their practice and inspire interesting outcomes, which led me to try to adopt a similar approach in practice.

Through that, the idea only of graphic design not only being a tool to be put in service of other causes but also as a technique to create starting points for work in other disciplines became a central part of my work. Understanding design not as an exclusively reactive practice that relies on outside input for a process of creative production to commence but also as a proactive tool to initiate extra- / cross disciplinary outcomes has been a main focus of mine in all of my recent self-initiated projects. 

(Lore) Graphic design forces you to hop disciplines, especially if you want to make autonomous work (because design for the sake of design is stupid and boring). If I make interdisciplinary work, I don’t want to look down on the thing we’re mingling with from within the graphic design tower. The tower needs to be gone.

Why are you interested in participating in the "Jumping Fences" project at Het Paviljoen? max 300 words

The space provided is interesting (both architecturally and location-wise). Being next to KASK, but also basically in public space, we hope to be able to meet and interact with people from all variety of backgrounds, increasing potential for creative exchange and participatory moments and events. We plan on using this interaction to inform our output and work. The idea of a temporary fixed locality as a headquarter, base and exhibition space for the exploration of various of our shared interests just seems like a nice opportunity to increase and focus our collaborative output, all the while having fun with it. Furthermore we need an office and funds and a printer and an espresso machine.

What do you hope to exhibit, explore, create, or achieve during your 6-week exhibition period within the 5-month project timeframe? Will you be creating new work or will you exhibit previously made work? Please explain as detailed as possible. max 300 words

Our aim is to only create new work during our time in the project. For this we will be establishing an (publishing / radio) office / working space at het Paviljoen and build onto existing platforms and toolsets that were made for previous projects. Our main aim is to explore the possibilities of radio (at different scales) as a format of artistic expression with a special focus on extending the medium through combining and enriching it with other forms of media (publications / bulletins / web experiences / video projections / interventions). Thematically we will look to investigate the interplay between audio and visual production and how these two very different fields can interact and serve as a basis for each other.

As a result of this investigation we hope to be able to produce a variety of outputs such as:

♡ A weekly radio show detailing our progress (in a non-narrated format)

♡ Printed matter (both communicating various potential events and interventions and as autonomous works as well)

♡ An on-site sound installation 

♡ Events (screenings, listening sessions)

♡ A weekly ULTRA-shortnotice on-demand graphic design office (based on nonmonetary transactions through which we hope to collect material / help for other formats and events)

We hope for the entire project to be an open process which will evolve as time passes and external participation influences our working. We will be continuously archiving everything we gather and do and make the content available on different platforms.

Are you available and willing to occupy the space for approximately 6 weeks? Please provide any scheduling constraints if you can anticipate them. max 300 words

We hereby PROMISE that we are able and willing to do all of the above. We are planning for there to be fixed moments for organizing things in the pavilion. This would happen on a weekly basis, but we have not yet decided on the specific days. Since we are planning on using it as an office we will be present very regularly. It would be ideal if our residency would take place before the end of May, but we can be flexible.

Do you have any specific requirements or considerations for using the space for your exhibition or residency (e.g., equipment, installation needs, technical specifications)? max 300 words

WE REQUEST

♡ espresso machine 

♡ printer

♡ desk(s)

♡ maybe some audio equipment (like speakers, microphone)

♡ projection tools (beamer and screen) would be cool and great too

♡ nice chairs

♡ maybe a rug

♡ an assistant (has to be un-/underpaid + at least 2nd yr masters)

In case of uncertainty about any of these points, please call: +XX XXX XXXXX (Number blocked out for possible perverts.)

Is there anything else you would like to share or any additional information you believe is relevant to your application? max 300 words

♡ we are also nice and sweet 

♡ haron is very sexy

♡ he’s gonna have more muscles in spring (promise)

High Quality Information would not exist without the help of some sweet unpaid labour. Big thanks to our interns x
 

Do YOU want to help us out? We need photographers, graphic designers, illustrators, writers, YOU NAME IT! send us an email x

HQI is expanding!

We are excited to announce that a new High Quality Branch is opening in The Netherlands. Our new office in Middelburg opens soon!

OPENING

Vleeshal nodigt je van harte uit voor de feestelijke opening van de groepstentoonstelling Jumping Fences van Haron Barashed & Lore Janssens, Sjoerd Beijers, Céleste Buyle & Quinten Vermeulen, Yawen Fu, Seppe-Hazel Laeremans, Paola Siri Renard en Jan Vandeplancke op vrijdag 3 mei 2024 van 19:00 tot 21:00 uur.

Na de opening kun je blijven voor de afterparty in de Vleeshal die begint om 21:00 uur.

VLEESHAL-BUS

De Vleeshal-bus rijdt van Gent naar Middelburg (en terug):

18:00 Vertrek Gent (Louis Pasteurlaan 2)
19:00 Aankomst Vleeshal, Middelburg

22:00 Vertrek Vleeshal, Middelburg
23:00 Aankomst Gent

Tickets voor de Vleeshal-bus (inclusief een vegan hotdog)
Enkele reis: € 10
Retourticket: € 15

Stuur een e-mail naar office@vleeshal.nl om je ticket(s) te reserveren.

Office-like behaviours, interns and corporate shenanigans

Our plan for het Paviljoen during our residency was to turn the tiny building into our personal office. From there, we would work on all of the projects we plan to realize for as long as we could use the space. 

We quickly understood that by setting up an office, you naturally flow into office-like behaviours. We inexplainably started looking up dress-shirts on the internet and had an insatiable hunger for unpaid labor by our not-yet collected army of overqualified interns. So we embraced these mannerisms. If we were to call ourselves a corporation, an office, we would act like it too. And proudly so.