We are thrilled to present our 2016-2017 syllabus.

The DAI's two-year curriculum is a permaculture, a balanced, finely tuned blend of consistency and contingency that allows for a thoughtful integration of state-of-the-art research with the required competencies and learning objectives that come with our status as a fully accredited and top-rated MA program. 

During the introduction week in September our project-leaders (institutions and individuals) present and explain their respective research proposals and the corresponding method of 'working together' to the student body. DAI explicitly asks its tutors to work with a model based on reciprocity. Tutors fuel and underpin a ‘curated class’ with their research, and invite the students to contribute to it with their own artistic, practical and theoretical research. All those involved in the project are open to new insights and ideas – the tutor takes on the leading role, but can occasionally delegate this position. Tutors use their position with DAI to further their own research. DAI, as a research institute, considers this to be a crucial aspect of its assignment. In addition to collective sessions,  individual tutorials can be organized to help students to step in at the level of the tutor’s research.

Please find the descriptions to the curriculum components below. First and second year students will co-participate the 5 mandatory modules. The logistical ordering during the DAI-weeks can be found here.

Note: A student's workload is measured in ECTS credits. ECTS stands for European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System and is a standard across the European Union. One credit represents 28 hours of work and 60 credits represent one year of full-time study. DAI students must 'earn' 120 ECTS credits before obtaining their MA certificate.

Module 1 ~ ROAMING ACADEMY

is an itinerant program that complements vigorous praxis-led research 'here' with tailor-made projects 'elsewhere'. The Roaming Academy always includes 10-14 days of group travel.

Study Groups 2016 - 2017:

* South Wave is a space for radical pedagogy and a radio station, practicing the notion of “opening” as its calling, delving into the notion of “the South” as a political soil. Curated and tutored by Casco, Office for Art, Design and Theory.

* In Dialogue with Robotics - What can and what should we learn about and from robotics without ceding sound judgment to the tragic scenario of the rise of robots and the end of humanity? Curated and tutored by Bassam El Baroni. 

* On praxis an unstated theory. (Writing out loud) with the artist Jon Mikel Euba as its core tutor, proposes the creation of an experimental workshop comprising exercises on scores, notations, translation, literalness and equivalences as a means to explore the production of art as a filter. Curated by If I Can't Dance I Don't Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution. 

* Teaching as a Form of Art - this class will deal with the problem of how to develop a practice that is truthful to and serious about the formation of aesthetic experience without losing touch with everyday life. Curated and tutored by Ruth Noack. 

ECTS: 13 - one year

Module 2 ~ COOP ACADEMY

constitutes a productive interface between the 'academy' and the 'professional field' as a starting point for the exploration of new perspectives on co-creation and publicness. In 2016-2017, the module will be split into Curating Classes and Publishing Classes:

Curating Classes:

* Practicing Deviance: Methods for art and curating - curated and tutored by the Van Abbemuseum. 

* Curating Positions - curated and tutored by The Showroom. 

Publishing Classes:

* Are We Loosing our Brain ? Art and Life in Times of Cognitive Automation.

 - curated and tutored by Open! Platform for Art, Culture and the Public Domain. 

* I Left my pdf in Arnhem, curated and tutored by Sarah Pierce & Tirdad Zolghadr. This class unfolds in close collaboration with the Werkplaats Typografie and will also be attended by WT-students. 

ECTS: 13 - one year

Module 3 ~ HOW TO DO THINGS WITH THEORY

is oriented towards the writing of a master thesis. Students receive personal guidance from a tutor assigned to them for the duration of the two-year trajectory. While during the first year the focus is on developing reading and writing skills and a central question for the thesis, the second year focuses on further research and the actual writing of a text consisting of a minimum of 10.000 words, which presents an authentic argument and is carefully documented from primary and secondary sources. Apart from one-to-one tutorials HTDTWT consists of plenary seminar sessions thematically steered by the tutor. The students read and discuss a variety of carefully selected theoretical texts.

Lead-tutors and their reading groups/seminars in 2016-2017:

*Bassam El Baroni: Intervention ~ (How) can we develop a plausible concept of (artistic) intervention under the current state of affairs? 

*Sven Lütticken: Legalize Everything ~ The reach of the juridical keeps expanding, as do the ambitions of artistic or aesthetic practice. This reading group will examine multiple interferences between law and art, between the juridical and the aesthetic - ranging from issues of copyright to citizenship and illegality to animal rights and plant rights.

*Rachel O'Reilly: At the Limits of the Writerly: Which Dispositif ? The dispositif is a concept inherited from film and media philosophy and post-structuralist theories of governmentality that is able to gather together questions of comportment, movement and relation around non-suspended infrastructures. This seminar continues its focus on in/commensurability, postcolonial inquiries into the aesthetic, and performativity in language work, to attend to contemporary experimental and theoretical writing exemplarily attendant to subjects, qualities and stakes of de-naturalized, (re)productive/thanatic, and counter/infrastructural projects of the contemporary.

*Marina Vishmidt: Speculation as a Mode of Production ~ Taking on speculation as both a cultural logic and a method, this seminar will focus on the con/texts of theory, history, poetry and criticism to follow the materialities of (abstract) value as they summon the art and politics of the ongoing present.

ECTS: 14 (students first year) + 13 (students second year) 

Module 4 ~ THE KITCHEN / NOT THE RESTAURANT

offers an open setting, only limited by the constraints of time and space, where students present lecture-performances to their peers and to a variety of guest respondents. An annually changing team of personal coaches will provide pertinent feedback. Structured, convened and refereed by DAI-director Gabriëlle Schleijpen.

ECTS: 10 - one year

Module 5 ~ ROAMING ASSEMBLY

is a monthly recurring public symposium functioning as it were as the DAI-week's 'centerfold'. The speakers/performers are also invited to act as guest tutors for one-on-one tutorials or as guest respondents to the Kitchen / Not The Restaurant. Roaming Assembly sessions are curated by core tutors (optionally together with students), associate researchers or special guest curators. Framework by DAI-director Gabriëlle Schleijpen. See: Public Events

ECTS: 2 - one year

The remainder

of the 60 ECTS per academic year is to be obtained by attending (being present during) the full DAI-week trajectory and by the publication of a new or severely updated website related to the student's praxis (this is not a module but a requirement for graduation), as well as outside activities: 

Outside Academy ~ Free Space

honours extra curricular activities, initiated by DAI or by students themselves or by third parties.

In their studio's at home, at temporary residencies or wherever they travel, students are expected to continue developing their own independent (collaborative or individual) research while simultaneously engaging with the DAI's 'homework' and discursive input as provided during the monthly DAI-week.

A student may receive credits, up to a maximum of 5 points annually for activities in the public realm, outside of the DAI's syllabus. These points will be based on the professional effort needed for these activities.

Points can only be accredited when

* the DAI receives sufficient and verifiable information regarding the student's involvement in a public activity (which will be published on our Homepage World-section on our website). 

* DAI-director & staff consider this activity to be relevant to the (development of the) students praxis.

ECTS: optional, 5 max per year

Education and Examination Regulations

Education and Examination Regulations are part and parcel of the Student Statutes of the ArtEZ University of the Arts. A specific DAI-document 2016-2017 to be established by the ArtEZ Board of Governors has been made available to all DAI-students as well as to the tutorial team, at the beginning of the academic year. Questions about examination regulations, credit points and competencies per project or course should be directed to Rik Fernhout, the DAI's co-ordinator Study Trajectory and Student Affairs.