Lena Pfäffli ~ A Cut. Cuts In The Air. Infrapolitical Scores and ProtoZones 2020–2025, Shedhalle

Thesis Supervisor: Dr.Ana Teixeira Pinto

Thesis: A Cut. Cuts In The Air. Infrapolitical Scores and ProtoZones 2020–2025, Shedhalle

July, 2024 

Abstract

Institutions are never neutral; they are deeply entangled in the political and social context in which they operate and contribute to hegemonic power relations, structures, interactions, fantasies, and desires. How do art institutions navigate this environment, and what are the implications for critical practices within the institutional framework?

A Cut. Cuts In The Air. delves into the curatorial concept ProtoZones 2020–2025 of the artist-run institution Shedhalle in Zurich to explore how institutions can be organized counter-hegemonic. In this thesis, Marina Vishmidt’s theory of infrastructural critique is a primary reference. Her theory expands beyond the traditions of institutional critique by highlighting the interconnected historical, socioeconomic, affective, and artistic aspects of institutions, thereby decentering them in the process. Infrastructures describe the organization of movement and relation, well-rehearsed, and repeated codes and processes.

A Cut. Cuts In The Air. takes infrastructural aspects as expanded choreographies that can be disrupted and repurposed to challenge institutional norms, bridging artistic and institutional work.

The analysis of the curatorial concept ProtoZone 2020–2025 shows an approach to how the conditions within an art institution can be negotiated at the level of organization and program. It examines infrapolitical scores—gestures that aim to intervene in the institution’s infrastructure, system, and organization, seeking to create alternative protocols, small cuts in the dense fabric of reality, as Vishmidt writes, opening up new perspectives and revealing mechanisms of power.

Author Lena Pfäffli