Exhibition - Soundwalk - Symposium - Publication
April - December 2018, Institut für Kunst & Kunsttheorie | Universität zu Köln
Concept: Annemarie Hahn, Nada Schroer with the collaboration of Prof. Dr. Torsten Meyer
Assistance: Carla Ruthmann (all University of Cologne)
Cooperation: Monika Elias (Grimme Institute)
With contributions by Heidrun Allert (University of Kiel), Hans Bernhard (UBERMORGEN, Vienna/Cologne), Elke Krasny (Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna), Nina Möntmann (curator), Dorothee Richter (Zurich University of the Arts), Julia Schäfer (GfzK Leipzig), Konstanze Schütze (curator) and Mirjam Thomann (artist, University of Cologne)
The degree of individual involvement in the sphere of the digital can currently no longer be determined in relation to the actual use of technology. Rather, individual subjects are part of a culture of digitality (Stalder 2016), in which technologies have a constitutive effect on and through symbolic practices and subjectivation processes. The increasing networking and interpenetration of human and technical actors therefore requires a continuous critical questioning of traditional concepts of subject and education in theory and practice (cf. e.g. Jörissen/Meyer 2015).
Against this background, the curatorial learning spaces project is dedicated to the subjectivation and communication structures changed by digitalization and the associated demands on institutional educational spaces. However, the underlying question of this project is not so much how digital objects must be integrated into university spaces and teaching, but rather how areas of indeterminacy can be shaped as a constitutive moment of education (Marotzki 1991; Jörissen/Marotzki 2009). In order to explore the interferences between the culture of digitality and institutional knowledge transfer and to align the spatial conditions for negotiation- and process-oriented concepts of education, the project transfers the primarily cognitive-epistemic concept of indeterminacy to the physical space and makes this the starting point of the investigation. What functions can future educational spaces fulfill, what learning can be initiated through them, how is learning carried out in other places and what influence do the spaces in between, the third places (Oldenburg 1990, 2001), have on educational processes?
In order to explore this, approaches from spatial theory (Löw 2001), exhibition research (Muttenthaler/Wonisch 2006; Sternfeld 2017) and curatorial practice (Rogoff/von Bismarck 2012) will be examined for their potential for the design of university educational spaces. To this end, the project takes a look at the transformation of another traditional educational institution: the exhibition. Today, exhibitions are increasingly designed to facilitate processes and participation. This is due to a changed understanding of curating, which no longer sees exhibitions as unchangeable end products, but as contact zones (Jaschke/Sternfeld 2015) or as shared spaces in which productive friction is created through the associative constellation of unusual elements and through joint action and negotiation, which promotes performative, emergent production of knowledge and meaning and is understood as a trigger for transactional educational processes. In this context, the project examines how curatorial strategies can be made productive for the transformation of academic spaces.
Symposium, July 6 - 7, 2018
Against the backdrop of global networking and digitality, the symposium curatorial learning spaces - curating as a method? Potentials of curatorial practices and curated spaces from an educational theory perspective. The focus is on the question of how curating can become effective as a specific form of knowledge production, as a mode of action and spatial practice in institutional educational contexts. Both the concepts of mediation and curating as well as their relationship to each other will be critically examined.
With reference to the field of educational theory, art education and curating, we would first like to take stock of the current situation: What challenges does the cultural dimension of digitalization pose for educational spaces, teaching and learning concepts and what role can curatorial modes of action play in this context? How can a "curatorial turn in art education" (Meyer 2015) be classified in institutional locations such as universities and schools, also with regard to historical spatial and educational concepts of pedagogy? What connections do concepts and methods of emancipatory educational projects offer?
The project comprises artistic spatial interventions, a symposium on the relationship between mediating and curating, and a publication.