ARTS WITHOUT BORDERS: Rethinking Methodologies of Art and Culture in the Global Context.
6-8 June 2013 Universität Bern

Ursula Biemann, artist / writer / video essayist, based in Zurich: "Videogeographies: Artistic practice in the field"

Prof. Dr. Arnd Schneider, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo: "For a New Hermeneutics in the Art - Anthropology Encounter"

Conference Summary:
In recent decades, global processes have had a profound impact on the humanities and social sciences. These processes are defined by an increasing migration and mobility of people, objects, and ideas across cultures and borders, a phenomenon that signals a need to address the contact zones of exchange and clash, and the energies or tensions produced in the process. While the impact of these phenomena on artistic production is acknowledged, the specific effects on our modes of analysis of those productions have yet to be addressed. Under the heading Arts With(out) Borders, this conference connects to theoretical and methodological challenges within the study of arts and culture. It furthermore asks whether borders — both physical and symbolic — have been built up or dissolved within the practice of research due to the increased mobility of culture and ideas and an expanding global interwovenness. Such issues have become relevant across disciplines, but they have not been satisfactorily recognized or addressed. This conference presents a diverse range of approaches to these questions and future directions for the study of arts in a global context. Spanning the fields of art production, art history, and anthropology, a platform will be opened to discuss the effects of global cultural processes on the analysis and study of artistic production, and the broader implications in political, social and cultural issues.

Program

Thursday June 6th

10:00-12:30 Registration

11:15 Opening Remarks

12:00 Coffee Break

12:30 Panel 1: Confronting the Contemporary
Chair: Katrin Nahidi
12:30 Elahe Helbig (Bonn) & Hannah Jacobi (Berlin): “Way(s) of Art: Challenges of Art Historical Research in Regard to Contemporary Art Production from Iran”
13:00 Szilvia Nagy (Budapest): “Organised Networks: Institutional Transformations, Inclusive Practices and the Field of Art”

13:30 Lunch Break

14:30 Panel 2: Negotiating Borders
Chair: Prof. Dr. Wendy Shaw
14:30 Raul Gschrey (Giessen): “Exhibiting the Border. The Production and Reception of Artworks on Movement and Migration between Africa and Europe”
15:00 Lauren Elizabeth Hanson (Austin/Cologne): “A Global Happening: Artistic Practice and Theories of Communication in the 1960s”
15:30 Stefanie Zobel (Cologne/Berlin): “Exhibitionscapes: Museum Shows of Global Art as Transcultural and Imaginary Spaces”

16:00 Coffee Break

16:15 Panel 3: Curatorial Representation
Chair: Erin Rice
16:15 Irene Campolmi (Aarhus): “Sustainable Development and Sustainability in 21st Century Museums. Rethinking the Modern Experience through the Narratives Making-Process”
16:45 Anja Dreschke & Martin Zillinger (Siegen): “Producing Images, Testing Representation. Trance/Media in Morocco and Europe”
17:15 Steffen Köhn (Mainz): “Organizing Complexities: The Potential of Multi-Screen-Video-Installations for Ethnographic Practice and Representation”

17:45 Coffee Break

18:15 Keynote Ursula Biemann (Zurich): “Videogeographies: Artistic Practice in the Field”
Introduction by Dr. Manuela Rossini (IASH)

19:15 Apéro

Friday June 7th

9:00 Panel 4: Between Reception and Mediation
Chair: Tanja Klankert
9:00 Martin Waldmeier (London): “Addressing Global Audiences: The Artist as Translator?”
9:30 Viola Marchi (Berne): “Radical Otherness and Global Readership: The Native American Author as Mediator”
10:00 John Paul Rangel (New Mexico): “Contemporary Native Art and Indigenous Aesthetics: Methodologies, Epistemologies and Representation”
10:30 Alice Buschmeier (Berlin): “Objection in Participatory Art”

11:00 Coffee Break

11:30 Panel 5: Global by Design
Chair: Katrin Sperry
11:30 Julia Mia Stirnemann (Berne): “Viewpoints – The World in Perspective”
12:00 Annemarie Bucher & Dominique Lämmli (Zurich): “THE GLOCAL-SET: Clustering Methods to Research the Functions of Art in Global Contexts”
12:30 “ART & SCIENCE: Visual Essays as a Way of Crossing Borders”

13:00 Lunch Break

14:00 Keynote Prof. Dr. Arnd Schneider (Oslo): “For a New Hermeneutics in the Art – Anthropology Encounter”
Introduction by Prof. Dr. Thomas Claviez (CCS)

15:30 Coffee Break

15:45 Panel 6: Bridging Practices
Chair: Louisa Piart
15:45 Vera Kaufmann (Berne): “Understanding by Looking and Listening in Layers. An Interactive-Reflexive Approach in Media-Based Anthropology”
16:15 Fiona Siegenthaler (Basel): “Towards an Ethnographic Turn in Contemporary Art Scholarship”
16:45 Rik Adriaans (Budapest): “The Fieldwork of Cultural Production: Montage as Method in the Ethnography of Image-Producing Industries”
17:15 Fiamma Montezemolo (Berkeley): “TRACES”

18:15 Barbecue at SUB House

Saturday June 8th

10:00 Panel 7: New Media
Chair: Benjamin Eugster
10:00 Anne van Dam (Leiden): “New Media and the Crossing of New Borders”
10:30 Linda Kröger (Berlin): “Facebook, Blogs, Local Space: Kinshasa’s Artist Collectives and their Medial Distribution Strategies”

11:00 Coffee Break

11:15 Panel 8: Public Display
Chair: Kate Whitebread
11:15 Heike Derwanz (Hamburg): “Researching Dying Artworks of Anonymous Artists in a Global Stream of Images. The Toolkit of Contemporary Global Art Research”
11:45 Olena Martynyuk (New Jersey): “Art and Statehood: Ukrainian Artists in Moscow in Late Soviet Union”
12:15 Nadine Siegert & Sam Hopkins (Bayreuth): “Mashing Up the Archive – Remix and Tumult at the Iwalewa House”

12:45 Lunch Break

13:45 Panel 9: Identity Politics
Chair: Corinne Geering
13:45 Lilia Mironov (Berne): “Identity and the Airport”
14:15 Marco Hompes (Karlsruhe): “Politics as Export Hit. The West European View on Russian Artists as Symbolic Demarcation”
14:45 Lucia Vodanovic (London): “Mediation and Agency in Art’s After-Life”

15:15 Closing Remarks

16:00 Official End of Conference

All events are free and open to the public, however we encourage an informal pre-registration via email at conferenceartswithoutborders.ch

For full program and event details visit: www.artswithoutborders.ch