CONF: Re-Thinking Artistic Knowledge Production. Distributed Creativity – Global Media Cultures (Heidelberg, 23-24 May 13)

Symposium of the DFG-Network “Media of Collective Intelligence” in co-operation with the Cluster Professorship of Global Art History, Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context: The Dynamics of Transculturality”, Heidelberg University

DATE: May 23-24, 2013

VENUE: Karl Jaspers Centre, Voßstr. 2, Building 4400, D-69115 Heidelberg, Room 212

It is a public academic symposium free of charge. For organizational matters, we appreciate an informal registration; please address it to Jennifer Pochodzalla (pochodzallaasia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de). The conference will be conducted in English and German, see detailed program below.

SUMMARY: The production of knowledge in artistic or aesthetic practices has recently been discussed in relation to scientific research. While contemporary art takes over scientific methods and practices, it still leaves the question open whether or not aesthetic practices should be judged differently from scientific experimentation and what exactly the outcome of artistic knowledge is. The aim of the symposium is to re-think aesthetic knowledge production from a new vantage point, focusing on the importance of distributed creativity and globally entangled media cultures.
The production of artistic knowledge in shared or even collective creative processes is a phenomenon that is often associated with the latest “global turn”. This turn is described as the spectacular rise of economic, socio-political and technological entanglements around the world since the end of the 1980s. Emblematic for this process was the rise of the World Wide Web that began to dominate what used to be diverging and not necessarily related mediascapes. However, shared knowledge production also has a long tradition in the arts and literature and can be discussed in relation to the much earlier rise of mass media such as printed books, film making or television. Yet, while researchers have been quick to note the accelerated circulations of goods, agents, and concepts that seem to easily cross national, geographic and cultural borders, which had been firmly established and often seemed impermeable during the Cold War era, scholars of art history, media studies and visual anthropology have only recently begun to suggest theoretical approaches that respond to the increased complexity of processes involved.
The symposium will 1) address media based processes of distributed creativity 2) discuss how the global turn has transformed practices of professional artists and creative amateurs alike who engage in what can be called transcultural mediascapes. Some of the key questions of the symposium are:
Are there new ways of collectively producing and sharing artistic knowledge which would transcend earlier practices by which artist groups and artistic media were able to overcome the ideals of single authorship? Has the utopian potential of the web been realized (also in other creative media practices) with its promises of global interconnectivity, unbound participation and the idea that collectively produced knowledge results in more than the sum of individual contributions? Or do we see historical conflicts of (authentic) authorship, unequal power relations and cultural misunderstandings taking on a new look and becoming viral on a new, global scale?

SPEAKERS: Cora Bender, Elke Bippus, Nacim Ghanbari, Till Greite, Monica Juneja, Henry Keazor, Franziska Koch, Asko Lehmuskallio, Anette Mertens, Christian Ritter, Klaus Schönberger, Samantha Schramm, Kai van Eikels

PROGRAM:

THURSDAY, MAY 23, 2013
SECTION 1: Global Media Cultures
Moderation: Cathrine Bublatzky, Franziska Koch

2:30 pm:
Monica Juneja & Franziska Koch, Heidelberg University
Welcome & Introduction

3 pm:
Cora Bender, University of Siegen/LMU Munich
Indigenous Knowledge in the Production of Post-Frontier American Culture

4 pm: Coffee-Break

4:30 pm:
Franziska Koch, Heidelberg University
Creating a Collective Artist(ic) Genealogy with Photographs: From the First Exhibition of “The Stars” (1979) to “Ai Weiwei in New York – Fotografien 1983?1993” (2011)

5:30 pm:
Asko Lehmuskallio, University of California Berkeley/Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT)
Cameras and translocal practices: Embodied looking relations and medium-specific differences

6:30 pm: Snack-Break

7:00 pm:
Anette Mertens (Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg)
Einführung zu dem ethnologischen Filmprojekt „Abgedreht! China töpfert bodennah“. Bemerkungen zur Tradierung von verkörpertem Wissen in der chinesischen Töpferpraxis und ihrer arbeitsteiligen Prozesse

7:30 pm:
Screening of the documentary “Abgedreht! China töpfert bodennah” (ca. 30 min., language: German, 2009?2010), conceived by Anette Mertens in co-operation with filmmaker Christof Thurnherr (Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich)

8:30 pm: Dinner (for invited conference participants only)

FRIDAY, MAY 24, 2013
SECTION 2: Shared Knowledge and Distributed Creativity
Moderation: Isabell Otto, Samantha Schramm

9:30 am:
Samantha Schramm, University of Konstanz/Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design
Introduction: The Art of Shared Knowledge and Distributed Creativity

10 am:
Klaus Schönberger & Christian Ritter, Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK)
Vom Mainstream zum Störfall. Die Aneignungen popkultureller Motive als widerständige Medienpraxis

11 am:
Elke Bippus, Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK)
Wissen als ästhetisches Dispositiv. Reflexionen einer kritischen Wissensvermittlung

12 pm: Lunch-Break

2 pm:
Nacim Ghanbari, University of Siegen
Bürgers „Lenore“: Praktiken der Kollektivkritik

3 pm:
Till Greite, Humboldt University of Berlin
Governing the Group. Walter Höllerer’s Literary Colloquium and the Use of Cybernetics Around 1960

4 pm: Coffee-Break

4:30 pm:
Kai van Eikels, Freie Universität Berlin
To Whom it Concerned: Dispersed Collectives and the Art of Imagining Less

5:30 pm
Henry Keazor, Heidelberg University
ASI or ASO? Artistic Swarm Intelligence vs. Artistic Sell Out in the Era of the Web 2.0

7:30 pm: Dinner (for invited participants of the conference only)

The interdisciplinary symposium is hosted by the Chair of Global Art History, Monica Juneja, at the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context”, Heidelberg University. It has been conceptualized and organized by Franziska Koch (kochasia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de; Heidelberg University) and Samantha Schramm (samantha.schrammuni-konstanz.de; University of Konstanz/Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design) as representatives of the DFG-Network “Media of Collective Intelligence”. The publication of selected proceedings is considered for mid of 2014.