Presenting Performance / Performing Presentation / 2010-2011
Seminar leaders: David Weber-Krebs and Jan-Philipp Possmann
A four part seminar on presenting ones own artistic work, with a specific focus on the format of lecture performance and on the role of the artist as performer and speaker.
The situation in which we encounter an art work determines its potential to attract, repell, touch or inspire. While art works can be reproduced, represented or talked about, the aesthetics change drastically in this process. But this transformation does not necessarily weaken or destroy the impact of the work. Instead, we believe that speaking or performing about art – being its author or its beholder – can enhance and enrich our and our encounter with this very art. Every act of transformation from one medium or form into another is an act of (re-)construction and produces a new work, a new situation of encounter and a new aesthetic experience. In an age of mechanical reproduction it is impossible for artists to control the conditions of encounter people make with their work or its reproductions. Hence we believe that it is essential to understand the mechanics of transformation and reproduction and to develop ways to speak about and represent our own work.
Background
Since 2008 we have been engaged as artists and theoreticians in a research project on aesthetics of reception, entitled CATALOG OF SITUATIONS. We have been investigating and creating different aesthetic situations and we have been developing strategies to communicate our experiences in the format of lecture performances or installations. We also have been engaged in an intense correspondence in the form of our Internet platform. Through these activities we aim to not only communicate experiences but to create new deep spaces of encounter and reflexivity.
Approach
In the seminar we will ask you to present your body of work and your artistic program to us and the group. Together we will develop ways to do so as effectively as possible. We will give some examples of representations and transformations out of our own practice and from the history of art and talk about the mechanisms and effects at play. As the seminar progresses, we will increasingly work in smaller groups to focus on your personal form of presentation. The seminar will put a specific focus on the format of lecture performance and on the role of the artist as performer and speaker.