Seminar in englischer Sprache
Poetics/Physics: Tightrope Walking on a Strip of Film
This project seminar explores the relationship between the universe, matter, and energy and their reflection of an embodied poetics. Working specifically with the moving image and its discourses, this seminar examines the relationship between physical forces and the visual sphere (writ large), politics, and affective relations, and revisits historical debates on corporeal knowledge. Scholars such as Donna Haraway have pointed out that the “demonstration that organisms must submit to the first law of thermodynamics” is what undercut, for example, vitalism and its expansive “energy theories” in early twentieth-century discourses in Europe. We will explore to what extent ideas of subjective time, or political agency and resistance in the physical sciences persist in the fields of art and film today.
A significant portion of our time will be focused on thinking critically about cinematic techniques, which have shifted over time. Course participants will be invited to consider the power relations between bodies and technologies that shape contemporary life and its mediation. In examining computer-generated film production practices, for example, we will discuss what it means for the human body to be deprived of physical agency while remaining a vehicle for the production of meaning within technologically mediated cinematic systems. How might we begin to think creatively about the energetic relationship between the body and the worlds of imagination we invent now? How do we denaturalize the knowledges captured in the cinematic image, and where might we find interdisciplinary points of contact between art, cinema, and the physical sciences?
Co-taught by instructors with differing methodologies and disciplines, we are interested in points of relation and discovery between these two milieus—art history and art production—focalizing on the physical sciences and cinematic forms in order to open up a shared space for theory. Close readings of texts by Stengers, Rovelli, Haraway, Steinbock, among others, as well as tutorials in film and video production, and collaboration in curatorial practice in media.
Experiential and experimental in nature, this seminar begins with an excursion to Basel, Switzerland (October 20-25, 2026, includes travel dates) after an introductory session on October 9th at Schillerplatz in Vienna for a series of in-person sessions at the Universität Basel and the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst (HGK) Basel of the Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz, where we will take part in a collaborative workshop on artistic research strategies, technology, and production with students from the HGK's Institute Art Gender Nature (Forum 2: Jeronimo Voss, Onome Ekeh, and Nadja Solari); and a multi-day symposium Energetic Transfers: Technics, Ethics and Production at eikones - Zentrum für die Theorie und Geschichte des Bildes with guest speakers. This excursion will include guided tours of the group exhibition Labouring Bodies at Museum Tinguely on the relationship between the body, labor, and technology from a feminist perspective; a curated visit to the Schaulager Museum to discuss immersive media installations, the labor of archival practice and the ‚material matters‘ of museological work; visit to the Kunsthalle Basel; as well as the opportunity for participants to develop independent research and exploration of the city.
Poetics/Physics: Tightrope Walking on a Strip of Film This project seminar explores the relationship between the universe, matter, and energy and their reflection of an embodied poetics. Working specifically with the moving image and its discourses, this seminar examines the relationship between physical forces and the visual sphere (writ large), politics, and affective relations, and revisits historical debates on corporeal knowledge. Scholars such as Donna Haraway have pointed out that the “demonstration that organisms must submit to the first law of thermodynamics” is what undercut, for example, vitalism and its expansive “energy theories” in early twentieth-century discourses in Europe. We will explore to what extent ideas of subjective time, or political agency and resistance in the physical sciences persist in the fields of art and film today. A significant portion of our time will be focused on thinking critically about cinematic techniques, which have shifted over time. Course participants will be invited to consider the power relations between bodies and technologies that shape contemporary life and its mediation. In examining computer-generated film production practices, for example, we will discuss what it means for the human body to be deprived of physical agency while remaining a vehicle for the production of meaning within technologically mediated cinematic systems. How might we begin to think creatively about the energetic relationship between the body and the worlds of imagination we invent now? How do we denaturalize the knowledges captured in the cinematic image, and where might we find interdisciplinary points of contact between art, cinema, and the physical sciences? Co-taught by instructors with differing methodologies and disciplines, we are interested in points of relation and discovery between these two milieus—art history and art production—focalizing on the physical sciences and cinematic forms in order to open up a shared space for theory. Close readings of texts by Stengers, Rovelli, Haraway, Steinbock, among others, as well as tutorials in film and video production, and collaboration in curatorial practice in media. Experiential and experimental in nature, this seminar begins with an excursion to Basel, Switzerland (October 20-25, 2026, includes travel dates) after an introductory session on October 9th at Schillerplatz in Vienna for a series of in-person sessions at the Universität Basel and the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst (HGK) Basel of the Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz, where we will take part in a collaborative workshop on artistic research strategies, technology, and production with students from the HGK's Institute Art Gender Nature (Forum 2: Jeronimo Voss, Onome Ekeh, and Nadja Solari); and a multi-day symposium Energetic Transfers: Technics, Ethics and Production at eikones - Zentrum für die Theorie und Geschichte des Bildes with guest speakers. This excursion will include guided tours of the group exhibition Labouring Bodies at Museum Tinguely on the relationship between the body, labor, and technology from a feminist perspective; a curated visit to the Schaulager Museum to discuss immersive media installations, the labor of archival practice and the ‚material matters‘ of museological work; visit to the Kunsthalle Basel; as well as the opportunity for participants to develop independent research and exploration of the city.
Poetics/Physics: Tightrope Walking on a Strip of Film This project seminar explores the relationship between the universe, matter, and energy and their reflection of an embodied poetics. Working specifically with the moving image and its discourses, this seminar examines the relationship between physical forces and the visual sphere (writ large), politics, and affective relations, and revisits historical debates on corporeal knowledge. Scholars such as Donna Haraway have pointed out that the “demonstration that organisms must submit to the first law of thermodynamics” is what undercut, for example, vitalism and its expansive “energy theories” in early twentieth-century discourses in Europe. We will explore to what extent ideas of subjective time, or political agency and resistance in the physical sciences persist in the fields of art and film today. A significant portion of our time will be focused on thinking critically about cinematic techniques, which have shifted over time. Course participants will be invited to consider the power relations between bodies and technologies that shape contemporary life and its mediation. In examining computer-generated film production practices, for example, we will discuss what it means for the human body to be deprived of physical agency while remaining a vehicle for the production of meaning within technologically mediated cinematic systems. How might we begin to think creatively about the energetic relationship between the body and the worlds of imagination we invent now? How do we denaturalize the knowledges captured in the cinematic image, and where might we find interdisciplinary points of contact between art, cinema, and the physical sciences? Co-taught by instructors with differing methodologies and disciplines, we are interested in points of relation and discovery between these two milieus—art history and art production—focalizing on the physical sciences and cinematic forms in order to open up a shared space for theory. Close readings of texts by Stengers, Rovelli, Haraway, Steinbock, among others, as well as tutorials in film and video production, and collaboration in curatorial practice in media. Experiential and experimental in nature, this seminar begins with an excursion to Basel, Switzerland (October 20-25, 2026, includes travel dates) after an introductory session on October 9th at Schillerplatz in Vienna for a series of in-person sessions at the Universität Basel and the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst (HGK) Basel of the Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz, where we will take part in a collaborative workshop on artistic research strategies, technology, and production with students from the HGK's Institute Art Gender Nature (Forum 2: Jeronimo Voss, Onome Ekeh, and Nadja Solari); and a multi-day symposium Energetic Transfers: Technics, Ethics and Production at eikones - Zentrum für die Theorie und Geschichte des Bildes with guest speakers. This excursion will include guided tours of the group exhibition Labouring Bodies at Museum Tinguely on the relationship between the body, labor, and technology from a feminist perspective; a curated visit to the Schaulager Museum to discuss immersive media installations, the labor of archival practice and the ‚material matters‘ of museological work; visit to the Kunsthalle Basel; as well as the opportunity for participants to develop independent research and exploration of the city.
- Teacher: Emily
- Teacher: Alena Williams