Aesthetic matters: becoming an artist, a designer and an architect in the age of Bologna

The international conference Aesthetic Matters: becoming an artist, a designer and an architect in the age of Bologna aims to contextualise and further expand on the debate around aesthetic education and aesthetic practices in order to explore emerging epistemologies and their potential as political and social forces. Bridging positions from Science and Technology Studies (STS), aesthetic theory, praxeological approaches and artistic research, relevant topics will be unfolded by questions such as: How can inherited academic notions of “research” and “knowledge” be redefined for and by
the field of aesthetic practices? In what way will these practices be taught, performed and situated within academia and also beyond the institution? What are the current challenges related to the epistemology of aesthetic practices and education in the context of academisation, economization
and globalization? What can be the role of aesthetic practices in a wider socio-political context? The conference will be focussing on the following perspectives:

Aesthetic practices as epistemic cultures
Aesthetic practices, i.e., verbal and non-verbal competences of shaping, creating and experiencing the world, are being understood as core skills of practitioners in the fields of art, design and architecture.

Reassembling practice and research
On the way to an epistemological basis for aesthetic practices from the perspective of practice theory. Testing methods and novel approaches.

The cosmopolitics of aesthetic education
The production or creation of aesthetic knowledge and how it is being addressed, supported or marginalized in the context of academisation, economization and globalization
of higher education.

PROGRAMME

Wednesday, 1st June

18:00
Welcome words and general introduction
Dieter Mersch, Director of the Ith Institute for Theory, ZHdK

18:30
Keynote lecture (public lecture): How to train reflective Practitioners at the Time of the Anthropocene? A cosmopolitical proposal
Albena Yaneva, University of Manchester, Manchester Architecture Research Centre

20:00 End of the lecture

Thursday, 2nd June

8:30 Registration

9:00 Introduction to the conference

Session 1
9:30
Aesthetic practices as epistemic cultures
Monika Kurath, ETH Zurich, Department of Architecture (moderation)

Reports from the empirical studies: an aesthetic journey
Anna Flach, PhD student, ETH Zurich,Wohnforum – ETH CASE.
Monica Gaspar, Research associate, Institute for Theory, ZHdK, Zurich.
Aline Seyfang-Maas, scientific assistant at the Department of Design and Fine Arts, HKB, Bern
(Research team Aesthetic Practices after Bologna)

11:00
Coffee break

11:30
Studying (in and outside) the Knowledge Factory: a conversation
Tyna Fritschy, Gerald Raunig, ZHdK Zurich
Specialization in Theory
Discussion

12:00
Lunch break

Session 2
14:00
Reassembling practice and research: Novel approaches
Priska Gisler, head of the research unit Intermediality, HKB Bern (moderation)

Knowing in the arts: a praxeological perspective on artistic work
Christiane Schürkmann, Institut für Soziologie, Gutenberg University, Mainz

Ethnography through Design?
Nicolas Nova, HEAD – Geneva

The Near Future Laboratory

Discussion

15:30
Coffee break

16.30 Workshops

Friday, 3rd June

Session 3
9:30
The cosmopolitics of aesthetic education
Elke Bippus, deputy head ith/ZHdK (moderation)

In search of an institution’s history of emancipator educational structures/moments: a research report
Johanna Schaffer, Theory and Practice of Visual Communication, Kunsthochschule Kassel

The social conditions of aesthetic education – or how to address social inequalities in accessing art schools
Philippe Saner, ZHdK, Sophie Voegele, ZHdK and York University Toronto

Discussion

11:00
Coffee break

11:30
A Dimmer Switch on the Enlightenment. Problematizing the introduction of text as means for knowledge within the fields of art and design
Andreas Nobel, Beckmans College of Design, Stockholm.

Savor as Aesthetic Practice – Seduction, Distraction and Awareness
Anneli Käsmayr, dilettantin produktionsbüro & Institute Aesthetic Practice and Theory, Academy of Arts and Design HGK, Basel

Discussion
Monica Gaspar, Research associate, ith/ZHdK (moderation)

12:30
Lunch break

14:00
Really Useful Knowledge
Nataša Ilic´, Curatorial Collective WHW (What, How & For Whom) Zagreb

14:45
Coffee break

15:15
Wrap up and closing remarks

16:00
End of the conference

Aesthetic Matters is the closing event of the research project Aesthetic Practices after Bologna: Architecture, Art and Design as Epistemic Cultures in the Making, which has
been a three-year cooperation between the ETH Wohnforum (represented by Dr Monika Kurath and Anna Flach at the ETH Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich), the Intermediality Research cluster (represented by Prof. Dr. Priska Gisler and Aline Seyfang-Maas at the HKB University of the Arts in Bern) and the ith Institute of Theory (represented by Prof. Dr. Elke Bippus and Monica Gaspar at the Zurich University of the Arts).

Conference programme: https://www.zhdk.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/AestheticMatters_MailOK.pdf