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Il palazzo dell dubbio. Art e Dossier. Number 390 (September 2021): 38–43.
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Anthropological fieldwork is a collaborative practice, based and reliant on interactions and relations of trust and exchange. Yet, it is limited and enabled by the openings and closings, the stability and instability of relations between... more
Anthropological fieldwork is a collaborative practice, based and reliant on interactions and relations of trust and exchange. Yet, it is limited and enabled by the openings and closings, the stability and instability of relations between interlocutors, fieldworkers, and the many things that matter in-between and around these relations. This article reflects on a series of public conversations called gallery reflections, which were instigated as a collabora-tive ethnographic practice with and within the gallery of the institute of international cultural relations (ifa) in Berlin-Mitte. The series addressed the legacies of German colonial heritage and the public role of anthropology against the backdrop of the construction of the Hum-boldt Forum and museum transformations. Investigating the notion of the anthropologist as sparring partner, this article probes into possible ways of conceiving curatorial-ethnographic collaborations as ›instigative public fieldwork‹.
Tinius, J. (2021): The Anthropologist as Sparring Partner: Instigative Public Fieldwork, Curatorial Collaboration, and German Colonial Heritage. Berliner Blätter 83, 65−85.
Tinius, J. (2021): The Anthropologist as Sparring Partner: Instigative Public Fieldwork, Curatorial Collaboration, and German Colonial Heritage. Berliner Blätter 83, 65−85.
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«Torniamo a casa». Con queste parole, l'attivista congolese e panafricano Mwazulu Dyabanza accompagna attraverso le gallerie del Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac di Parigi un palo funerario in legno del XIX secolo, espropriato dal Ciad... more
«Torniamo a casa». Con queste parole, l'attivista congolese e panafricano Mwazulu Dyabanza accompagna attraverso le gallerie del Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac di Parigi un palo funerario in legno del XIX secolo, espropriato dal Ciad durante il periodo coloniale francese. Diyabanza estrae il palo dalla struttura che lo sorregge, si fa filmare e proteggere da compagni vestiti con abiti che ricordano i guerrieri del film Black Panther. Live sui social media, mentre si aggrappa saldamente con le mani al ma-nufatto e ignora le grida delle guardie, guarda nella telecamera e ribadisce il senso della sua azione: «Sono venuto a recuperare questo manufatto in nome dell'unità e della dignità […]. Torniamo a casa, e non dobbiamo chiedere permesso a chi è ladro».
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Prompted by recurring nationalist appropriations of the term Heimat and its enduring colonial connotations in the German context, we felt the urge to reopen the notion, to trouble it collectively, to shift its meaning beyond singular... more
Prompted by recurring nationalist appropriations of the term Heimat and its enduring colonial connotations in the German context, we felt the urge to reopen the notion, to trouble it collectively, to shift its meaning beyond singular interpretations. Beyond Heimat, in this case: PostHeimat, does not mean abandoning the possibility of connecting to the term, but going through it, across it, and to find other and new meanings that signal a pluralistic re-appropriation of the notion. PostHeimat, then, is a departure point to reflect on concepts like identity-formation, nation, racism, and colonialism, and to move to an understanding of home that is non-discriminatory , does not equate nation with ethnicity or language, and deeply recognises a post-migrant social theory. PostHeimat becoming points towards an emergent and as of yet incomplete idea. It stands for a heterogeneous process that resists forming a new canon, a new Leitkultur. PostHeimat proposes itself more as a conversation, one that does not shy away from admitting less uttered experiences. In doing so, it seeks to form part of a critical social imagination, a new ethics for a diverse commons.
This statement was drafted by the research group of the PostHeimat network during and after Encounter #04 at the Maxim Gorki Theater in March 2020.
https://www.postheimat.com/research-en/
This statement was drafted by the research group of the PostHeimat network during and after Encounter #04 at the Maxim Gorki Theater in March 2020.
https://www.postheimat.com/research-en/
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Reflecting on two sets of analytical trajectories of the articles in this special issue — ‘institutions, histories, and spheres of valuation’ (Thomas Fillitz and Tamara Schild) and ‘immersion, correspondence, and form’ (Alex Flynn/Lucy... more
Reflecting on two sets of analytical trajectories of the articles in this special issue — ‘institutions, histories, and spheres of valuation’ (Thomas Fillitz and Tamara Schild) and ‘immersion, correspondence, and form’ (Alex Flynn/Lucy Bell and Paolo Favero) —, I argue for an attuned anthropology of the contemporary. This latter focuses on the tensions of art and aesthetics across scales of glocality, and might benefit from what I would like to call an anachronistic and anatopical positionality and approach. I thus consider us in a trans-anthropological phase, in which anthropology no longer documents, but constitutes these fields itself. This affords a greater reflexivity about the collaborative modalities and theoretical value generated through our scholarship as anthropologists; it also asks for a recalibrated ethnographic awareness of the co-articulation of art and anthropology at all scales of their encounter.
À partir des deux approches analytiques des articles ici présentés— « institutions, histories, et sphères de production de valeurs » (Thomas Fillitz and Tamara Schild), ainsi qu’ « immersion, correspondance, et forme » (Alex Flynn/Lucy Bell et Paolo Favero) —, j’argumente dans cet épilogue pour une anthropologie de la contemporanéité réceptive. Celle-ci se formerait sur la base des tensions entre art et esthétique à travers différentes échelles de glocalité, et bénéficierait d’une approche anachronique et « anatopical ». Je conçois donc une période trans- anthropologique, dans laquelle l’anthropologie ne s’achève plus dans la documentation, mais constitue elle-même ces champs. Ceci requiert une réflexivité avancée à propos des modalités collaboratives et de la valeur théorique qui sont produites dans au cours de la recherche anthropologique ; ceci demande aussi une conscience ethnographique qui est re-calibrée sur les articulations entre art et anthropologie à tous les niveaux de leur rencontre.
À partir des deux approches analytiques des articles ici présentés— « institutions, histories, et sphères de production de valeurs » (Thomas Fillitz and Tamara Schild), ainsi qu’ « immersion, correspondance, et forme » (Alex Flynn/Lucy Bell et Paolo Favero) —, j’argumente dans cet épilogue pour une anthropologie de la contemporanéité réceptive. Celle-ci se formerait sur la base des tensions entre art et esthétique à travers différentes échelles de glocalité, et bénéficierait d’une approche anachronique et « anatopical ». Je conçois donc une période trans- anthropologique, dans laquelle l’anthropologie ne s’achève plus dans la documentation, mais constitue elle-même ces champs. Ceci requiert une réflexivité avancée à propos des modalités collaboratives et de la valeur théorique qui sont produites dans au cours de la recherche anthropologique ; ceci demande aussi une conscience ethnographique qui est re-calibrée sur les articulations entre art et anthropologie à tous les niveaux de leur rencontre.
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The departure for this publication and the conversation on which it is based is a series of public encounters that I conceived and curated at the gallery of the institute for foreign cultural relations (ifa) in Berlin in 2017 and 2018.... more
The departure for this publication and the conversation on which it is based is a series of public encounters that I conceived and curated at the gallery of the institute for foreign cultural relations (ifa) in Berlin in 2017 and 2018. [1] Entitled ‘Gallery Reflections’, these encounters took place in between each of the four chapters, or exhibitions, that constituted curator and director Alya Sebti’s long-term programme ‘Untie to tie: On Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies’, which inaugurated the discursive and political reorientation of the institution under her guidance. The series was originally conceived as a form of critical collaboration between an anthropologist (Jonas Tinius) and a curator (Alya Sebti), which formed part of a bigger research project based at the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) and funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Seating the white anthropologist as a marked sparring partner amidst artists, curators, activists and scholars, we sought to think about ethnographic research as a form of instigation of situations; an interlocutor rather than an observer or audience member, and thus unable to withdraw from critique and debate. [2] The series soon served a broader interest, however, which, borrowing from the metaphor of a reflection, tried to refract, break and divert both our and a wider public’s perspective onto curatorial engagements with colonial legacies and contemporary art today.
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Capacity for character: fiction, ethics and the anthropology of conduct Method acting is one of the most popular theatrical rehearsal systems, according to which actors seek intense identification with characters. In this article, I draw... more
Capacity for character: fiction, ethics and the anthropology of conduct Method acting is one of the most popular theatrical rehearsal systems, according to which actors seek intense identification with characters. In this article, I draw on fieldwork with a professional contemporary German theatre to suggest an alternative view. Rather than training to merge with characters, actors understand characters as a 'repertoire of fiction' they freely draw upon to compose themselves. Training for characters thus facilitates the capacity to detach and appropriate traits of different, imagined and real, persons. It is thus an active and reflected stance that minds the gap between actor and character, rather than a passive and predominantly embodied taking on by actors of fictional characters and their traits. Informed by discussions on the notion of conduct in the anthropology of ethics, this article investigates how training the 'capacity for character' can inform anthropological understandings of detachment, reflexivity and personhood.
Research Interests: Anthropology, Ethics, Theatre Studies, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Anthropology of Performance, and 12 morePerformance, Michel Foucault, Sociology of Ethics and Morality, Bertolt Brecht, Defamiliarization (Distancing) Effect of Bertolt Brecht, Theatre, Anthropology of ethics and morality, Brecht, Method Acting, The Anthropology of Drama and Theatre, Anthropology of dance and performance, and Self cultivation
This article discusses a central tenet of anthropological approaches to ethics, namely the notion of conduct. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with contemporary German theatre professionals, this article highlights how actors and... more
This article discusses a central tenet of anthropological approaches to ethics, namely the notion of conduct. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with contemporary German theatre professionals, this article highlights how actors and directors within a public theatre institution cultivate artistic forms of conduct through the practice of the rehearsal. It analyses how rehearsals emerge as both spaces and practices of self-conduct, building on what actors refer to as Haltung – a term that simultaneously denotes attitude, posture, and conduct. Rehearsals facilitate a collective locus and modus of reflected action, suffused with the authority of the director, but ultimately aimed at training actors' capacity to make ethical and aesthetic choices. The aim of this discussion is to show how emic artistic concepts and practices may refine existing and open up new pathways for dialogue between the ethnographic study of art and the anthropology of ethics.
Research Interests: German Studies, Anthropology, Aesthetics, Ethics, Theatre Studies, and 13 moreTheatre History, Virtue Ethics, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Anthropology of Performance, Anthropology Of Art, Rehearsal studies, German Theatre, Theatre, Anthropology of ethics and morality, German/Austrian/Swiss Drama and Theatre, Anthropology of Ethics, Rehearsal, and The Anthropology of Drama and Theatre
Gallery reflections is a series of public discussions on art, institutions, and curatorial practices convened by anthropologist Jonas Tinius. The encounters take place in the ifa-gallery Berlin once per chapter, crisscrossing the overall... more
Gallery reflections is a series of public discussions on art, institutions, and curatorial practices convened by anthropologist Jonas Tinius. The encounters take place in the ifa-gallery Berlin once per chapter, crisscrossing the overall themes and decentring the focal points of the one year programme ‘Untie to tie: Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies’ (2017-2018) curated by the gallery’s director Alya Sebti. This second column in the series reflects on how traces, legacies, and futures - as concepts and as practices - allow us to think about the relation between anthropology, art, and temporality.
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Imagine yourself wrapped in darkness, losing your sense of orientation, while flickers of light refracted through an architecture of glass and the sound of disembodied voices guide you through a story of myth, archetype, and loss. The... more
Imagine yourself wrapped in darkness, losing your sense of orientation, while flickers of light refracted through an architecture of glass and the sound of disembodied voices guide you through a story of myth, archetype, and loss. The theatre of glowing darkness is one section of artist Kirstine Roepstorff’s project for the Danish Pavilion at the 57th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, but it extends further, into the deconstructed site of the neoclassical 1930s gallery and 1960s extensions by Peter Koch. Roepstorff has reconceived and reconstructed these spaces as loci of regeneration, replete with soil, plants, and woven tapestry. The pavilion itself is part of a broader project called influenza, for which the artist has assembled—in a manner mirroring the viral transmission of its subject—a learning network and consortium of creative practitioners, including curator Solvej Helweg Ovesen.
Research Interests: Anthropology, Architecture, Contemporary Art, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Anthropology Of Art, and 12 moreCurating, Sculpture, Biennales, Denmark, Darkness, Venice Biennale, Danish art, Curating contemporary art, Curating As Critical Practice, Venice Biennial, Museums and Curating, and anthropology of curating
Gallery reflections is a series of public discussions on art, institutions, and curatorial practices convened by anthropologist Jonas Tinius. The encounters take place in the ifa-gallery Berlin once per chapter, crisscrossing the overall... more
Gallery reflections is a series of public discussions on art, institutions, and curatorial practices convened by anthropologist Jonas Tinius. The encounters take place in the ifa-gallery Berlin once per chapter, crisscrossing the overall themes and decentring the focal points of the one year programme ‘Untie to tie: Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies’ (2017-2018) curated by the gallery’s director Alya Sebti. In this first column and introduction to the series, Jonas Tinius writes about the role of discourse and conversation, reflection and listening, in rethinking a possible dialogue between anthropology, curatorial practice, and contemporary artistic work with decolonial perspectives.
Research Interests: Anthropology, Social Research Methods and Methodology, Postcolonial Studies, Contemporary Art, Social and Cultural Anthropology, and 12 moreCollaboration, Anthropology Of Art, Curating, Postcolonial Theory, Curatorial Studies and Practice, Curatorial Practice (Art), Berlin, Decolonial Thought, Decolonization, Art History, Exhibition History, Museum and Curating Studies, Curating contemporary art, and Critical Museology
Introduction to the special issue "Micro-utopias: anthropological perspectives on art, relationality, and creativity". Published in Cadernos de Arte e Antropologia 5, issue 1. Open Access and Free to Download: https://cadernosaa.revues.org
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The editors began discussing this special issue in 2014 through a serendipitous encounter. Ruy and Maïté were interested in the possibility of promoting an anthropology of utopia, and simultaneously an anthropology as utopia. Alex and... more
The editors began discussing this special issue in 2014 through a serendipitous encounter. Ruy and Maïté were interested in the possibility of promoting an anthropology of utopia, and simultaneously an anthropology as utopia. Alex and Jonas, working on anthropological ap- proaches to contemporary artistic practices, were seeking to develop the theorising potential of relational art. e immanent space of connection was, precisely, the concept of “micro-utopia”. In our discussions, several questions, problems, and challenges emerged about the relevance of micro-utopias for an anthropology of art in particular, but also for an anthropological agenda concerned with core themes of the disciplines, among them agency, creativity, and relationality.
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Research Interests:
On Berlin’s Museum Island, a controversial architectural monument is in the process of completion: the reconstruction of the Berliner Stadtschloss (Berlin City Palace), now renamed the “Humboldt Forum”. The project, which encapsulates the... more
On Berlin’s Museum Island, a controversial architectural monument is in the process of completion: the reconstruction of the Berliner Stadtschloss (Berlin City Palace), now renamed the “Humboldt Forum”. The project, which encapsulates the city’s vexed relationship with its social, cultural and political heritage, also has much to tell us about the way Berlin — and Germany — sees itself in post-socialist Europe.
Research Interests: German Studies, Anthropology, Social Anthropology, Architecture, Museum Studies, and 24 moreSocial and Cultural Anthropology, Urban Anthropology, Utopian Studies, Urban Planning, Postsocialism, Cosmopolitanism, History of Museums, Architectural History, Urban Studies, Anthropology Of Art, Cosmopolitan Urbanism, Museums and Exhibition Design, Urban Sociology, Socialism, GDR History, Anthropology of Architecture, Berlin, History of architecture, Museum and Heritage Studies, East Germany, Anthropology of Socialism and Postsocialism, Humboldt-Forum, Palast der Republik, and Architecture and Public Spaces
This article responds to Nicolas Bourriaud's account of the poetic function of relational art, which for him " consists in reforming worlds of subjectivization " (2002 [1998]: 104). I challenge and complement his account of how such... more
This article responds to Nicolas Bourriaud's account of the poetic function of relational art, which for him " consists in reforming worlds of subjectivization " (2002 [1998]: 104). I challenge and complement his account of how such reforming takes place in relational art by providing an ethnographic description of what I term 'dialectical fiction'. This notion describes actors' cultivation of detachment and reappropriation of subjectivity during theatre rehearsals by building up fictional characters. The ethnographic source for this analysis is a long-term study of the rehearsal processes for a site-specific and participatory refugee theatre and art project in an abandoned post-industrial refugee camp in the German Ruhr valley. By inviting refugee actors to introduce abstract and fictitious characters into their reflections on acting and cultivation of an acting conduct, this project aspired to what its director called theatre's "impossible political utopia": a situation in which refugees are not framed as vulnerable victims "acting themselves", but as creative agents capable of playfully negotiating their political subjectivities.
Research Interests: German Studies, Anthropology, Theatre Studies, Refugee Studies, Social and Cultural Anthropology, and 12 moreAnthropology of Performance, Migration, Anthropology Of Art, Migration Studies, Rehearsal studies, Bertolt Brecht, Dialectic, Cultural Anthropology, German Theatre, Rehearsal, Theater and Performance Studies, and The Anthropology of Drama and Theatre
My review of Bernd Stegemann's latest book on realism, theatre, and capitalism has just appeared in the latest issue of Theatre Research International (Volume 41, Issue 1, pages 86-87). Stegemann takes ‘realism’ to be ‘the aesthetic... more
My review of Bernd Stegemann's latest book on realism, theatre, and capitalism has just appeared in the latest issue of Theatre Research International (Volume 41, Issue 1, pages 86-87).
Stegemann takes ‘realism’ to be ‘the aesthetic method through which we can cope with an increasingly contradictory world’ (p. 11). This builds on two assumptions arguably shared by all artistic realisms. First, ‘there is a reality and we can try to understand it’, and second, there exist forms of realistic portrayal which help ‘grasp the world as variable and modifiable’, thus freeing people from ‘painfully tolerating their lives as an incomprehensible string of chanceful events’ (p. 8).
Stegemann takes ‘realism’ to be ‘the aesthetic method through which we can cope with an increasingly contradictory world’ (p. 11). This builds on two assumptions arguably shared by all artistic realisms. First, ‘there is a reality and we can try to understand it’, and second, there exist forms of realistic portrayal which help ‘grasp the world as variable and modifiable’, thus freeing people from ‘painfully tolerating their lives as an incomprehensible string of chanceful events’ (p. 8).
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Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 22 (1): 215–216
Link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9655.12346/abstract?campaign=woletoc
Link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9655.12346/abstract?campaign=woletoc
Research Interests: Anthropology, Art History, Social Anthropology, Art, Social Sciences, and 15 moreArt Theory, Contemporary Art, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Modern Art, Surrealism, Gift Exchange, Anthropology Of Art, History of Art, Cultural Anthropology, Marilyn Strathern, Marcel Mauss, Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational aesthetics, Participatory and Relational Arts, and Anthropology of Arts
Definitions of ‘performance’ abound. Some of the principal reasons for anthropologists’ continued interest in the subject of performance are the reflexive, relational, and embodied dimensions of performance. Performance is a prism for... more
Definitions of ‘performance’ abound. Some of the principal reasons for anthropologists’ continued interest in the subject of performance are the reflexive, relational, and embodied dimensions of performance. Performance is a prism for studying human life.
This thematic thread offers to expand our perspective by providing a view into practices of rehearsing, probing, improvising, scores, scripts, choreographies, backstage, frontstage, emergences, entries and exits, frames and scenes. These new anthropological approaches to performance present more than a collection of accounts on one tradition of playful enactment or another.
http://allegralaboratory.net/new-anthropologies-of-political-performance-thematic-thread-on-performance-2/
This thematic thread offers to expand our perspective by providing a view into practices of rehearsing, probing, improvising, scores, scripts, choreographies, backstage, frontstage, emergences, entries and exits, frames and scenes. These new anthropological approaches to performance present more than a collection of accounts on one tradition of playful enactment or another.
http://allegralaboratory.net/new-anthropologies-of-political-performance-thematic-thread-on-performance-2/
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If institutions are "the more enduring features of social life" (Giddens, The Constitution of Society, 1984), then how do they come into being? What kinds of collective practices and intersubjective aspirations bring them about, and how... more
If institutions are "the more enduring features of social life" (Giddens, The Constitution of Society, 1984), then how do they come into being? What kinds of collective practices and intersubjective aspirations bring them about, and how do they maintain them? This article investigates these questions through the lens of instituting processes, that is, practices that structure and underpin institutional formations. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with the Theater an der Ruhr, a public theatre in the German post-industrial Ruhr valley, this article examines the role of rehearsals as a key instituting practice in theatres. In this case study, the ideals and actions associated with long-term rehearsals serve not merely a professional purpose as principal form of artistic labour; rather, rehearsals constitute the aesthetic, ethical, and political modus operandi of the institution. As the core work of art in the institution, rehearsals facilitate the long-term development of a collective aesthetic in an ensemble as well as the ethical cultivation of actors' artistic sensibilities. This article thereby also examines how the theatre conceptualises collective rehearsing as a political practice by distinguishing it from the project-based and flexible modalities propagated by post-Fordist policies in the arts. Artistic critique is articulated through and not against the formation of an institution. Based on this account, this article proposes to treat artistic institutions and instituting processes as significant subjects of anthropological research and as prisms for the study of aesthetic, ethical, and political practices.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13528165.2015.1071041
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13528165.2015.1071041
Research Interests: German Studies, Anthropology, Performing Arts, Theatre Studies, Social Anthropology, and 27 moreSociology of Work, Theatre History, German History, Performance Studies, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Performance Art, Institutional Theory, Institutional Change, Avant-Garde Theater, Anthropology Of Art, Sociology of Organizations, Performance, Sociology of Arts, Labour Studies, Work and Labour, Anthropology of Organizations, Cultural Anthropology, German Theatre, Theatre, Germany, Institutions, Fordism and Post-Fordism, Luc Boltanski, Theater and Performance Studies, The Anthropology of Drama and Theatre, Modern European Drama and Theatre, and Sociology of Performing Arts
In 2014, the Louvre and the Tate Modern between them received over 12 million visitors. In November of the same year, Christie’s contemporary art sale raised an astonishing $852.9m. Not only has the widely forecast ‘end of art’ (Belting... more
In 2014, the Louvre and the Tate Modern between them received over 12 million visitors. In November of the same year, Christie’s contemporary art sale raised an astonishing $852.9m. Not only has the widely forecast ‘end of art’ (Belting 1987, Danto 1986, 1995) failed to materialise, but art has increasingly spilled beyond the refined spaces of the Tuileries, the Southbank, and the auction houses for the super-rich. Whether it’s Banksy’s murals being torn off walls by ‘ignorant’ council officials in Clacton-on-Sea, the Occupy movement’s ‘bat signal’ being projected onto the Verizon building in New York, or the launch of Paul McCarthy’s ambiguously sexual Parisian ‘Tree’ sculpture, new forms and engagements with art generate fierce debate in all spheres of social, economic, and political life. Are these controversies still about ideas of beauty? Or has art succumbed to spectacle and money? And what, if any, is the relation of contemporary art to the political?
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Dieser Artikel erscheint in einer Serie von Konversationen mit Teilnehmern des Kunst- und Theaterprojektes RUHRORTER mit Flüchtlingen im Ruhrgebiet. Die Serie erscheint als wöchentliche Kolumne in der Tageszeitung WAZ. This article is... more
Dieser Artikel erscheint in einer Serie von Konversationen mit Teilnehmern des Kunst- und Theaterprojektes RUHRORTER mit Flüchtlingen im Ruhrgebiet. Die Serie erscheint als wöchentliche Kolumne in der Tageszeitung WAZ.
This article is part of a series of conversations with participants of the refugee theatre project RUHRORTER published as a weekly column in the German daily WAZ.
This article is part of a series of conversations with participants of the refugee theatre project RUHRORTER published as a weekly column in the German daily WAZ.
Research Interests:
Dieser Artikel erscheint in einer Serie von Konversationen mit Teilnehmern des Kunst- und Theaterprojektes RUHRORTER mit Flüchtlingen im Ruhrgebiet. Die Serie erscheint als wöchentliche Kolumne in der Tageszeitung WAZ. This article is... more
Dieser Artikel erscheint in einer Serie von Konversationen mit Teilnehmern des Kunst- und Theaterprojektes RUHRORTER mit Flüchtlingen im Ruhrgebiet. Die Serie erscheint als wöchentliche Kolumne in der Tageszeitung WAZ.
This article is part of a series of conversations with participants of the refugee theatre project RUHRORTER published as a weekly column in the German daily WAZ.
This article is part of a series of conversations with participants of the refugee theatre project RUHRORTER published as a weekly column in the German daily WAZ.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In 1998, Nicolas Bourriaud (2002 [1998]: 13) proposed the concept of “microtopias” (PT micro- -utopias, FR micro-utopies), a call to engage with art practices as collective, relational, contextualised endeavours, foregrounding the... more
In 1998, Nicolas Bourriaud (2002 [1998]: 13) proposed the concept of “microtopias” (PT micro- -utopias, FR micro-utopies), a call to engage with art practices as collective, relational, contextualised endeavours, foregrounding the concrete inter-relations among artists and agents that inform artistic production. This proposal was later subject to critique by Claire Bishop (2004), who noted the ab- sence of plurality and politicised context in her seminal discussion of what has become known as ‘relational aesthetics’. Bishop argued that these art practices did not produce democratic relations but instead built on mechanisms of exclusion that didn’t address the antagonism and inequality in the process of art production pertinent to “the divided and incomplete subject of today” (2004: 79). Re- cently, Roger Sansi-Roca has addressed this debate in his book Art, Anthropology and the Gift (2014), seeing the artist as an active bricoleur, producer of small-scale models as utopian projections of the world, prototypes, experiments that are as political as any other collective movement. Sansi-Roca’s connection of art and anthropology via utopia is an ideal pretext for the outline of this special issue that we advance here, within the wider framework of developing an “anthropology of utopia”, which we see ultimately as a theory of social creativity.
In this special issue we propose to discuss anthropological approaches - ethnographic or theoreti- cal - to human interactions and processes of imagination and creativity. Inspired by the proposals set forth by Bourriaud’s concept of the ‘microtopia’, we challenge colleagues to mobilise an understand- ing of diverse forms of social interactivity as artistic practice whereby processes of interaction are understood as generative, transformational, poïetic microtopias. We thus propose to move beyond the concrete sphere of artistic production, seeing microtopias as part of our morphogenetic élan vital (Bergson 1907), the creativity and improvisation of our unscripted everyday lives (Hallam and In- gold 2008) that is however and necessarily framed as political act produced within historical context (Geuss 2009). Our goal is thus to engage with microtopias as ‘concrete utopias’ (McGuire 2011): examples - from artistic collaborations to architectural configurations, political localisms, economic partnerships, religious community makings, etc. - of the collective elaboration of meaning, temporal redefinition, and new social interstices.
We therefore welcome submissions that explicitly address the concept of microtopia through em- pirical case studies emphasising art, relationality, and/or creativity, such as social movement mobili- sations, spiritual/ethical projects of the self, contemporary art practice, creative processes of labour, instances of community performance, state sponsored cultural politics, architectural projects, urban- ist understandings of revitalisation, etc.
Guest editors:
Ruy Blanes (University of Bergen), Alex Flynn (University of Durham), Maïté Maskens (Université Libre de Bruxelles), Jonas Tinius (University of Cambridge)
Submission guidelines see: http://cadernosaa.revues.org/
Accepted languages: English, Portuguese, Spanish, French
In this special issue we propose to discuss anthropological approaches - ethnographic or theoreti- cal - to human interactions and processes of imagination and creativity. Inspired by the proposals set forth by Bourriaud’s concept of the ‘microtopia’, we challenge colleagues to mobilise an understand- ing of diverse forms of social interactivity as artistic practice whereby processes of interaction are understood as generative, transformational, poïetic microtopias. We thus propose to move beyond the concrete sphere of artistic production, seeing microtopias as part of our morphogenetic élan vital (Bergson 1907), the creativity and improvisation of our unscripted everyday lives (Hallam and In- gold 2008) that is however and necessarily framed as political act produced within historical context (Geuss 2009). Our goal is thus to engage with microtopias as ‘concrete utopias’ (McGuire 2011): examples - from artistic collaborations to architectural configurations, political localisms, economic partnerships, religious community makings, etc. - of the collective elaboration of meaning, temporal redefinition, and new social interstices.
We therefore welcome submissions that explicitly address the concept of microtopia through em- pirical case studies emphasising art, relationality, and/or creativity, such as social movement mobili- sations, spiritual/ethical projects of the self, contemporary art practice, creative processes of labour, instances of community performance, state sponsored cultural politics, architectural projects, urban- ist understandings of revitalisation, etc.
Guest editors:
Ruy Blanes (University of Bergen), Alex Flynn (University of Durham), Maïté Maskens (Université Libre de Bruxelles), Jonas Tinius (University of Cambridge)
Submission guidelines see: http://cadernosaa.revues.org/
Accepted languages: English, Portuguese, Spanish, French
Research Interests:
This report from the recent EASA 2014 conference in Tallinn on ‘Collaboration, intimacy and revolution’ takes a look at one particular of its manifold threads: anthropology and art. Key questions such as how many anthro- pologies of art... more
This report from the recent EASA 2014 conference in Tallinn on ‘Collaboration, intimacy and revolution’ takes a look at one particular of its manifold threads: anthropology and
art. Key questions such as how many anthro- pologies of art there actually are, sparked heated debate in panels and on Twitter
alike (re-read some of the happenings via #EASA2014ART).
In this brief report, I review three substantial strands that appeared to unite debates across the nine panels, two films, and one plenary directly addressing art and anthropology: 1. new collaborative practices, 2. contemporary art patronage, and 3. common conceptual paradigms.
art. Key questions such as how many anthro- pologies of art there actually are, sparked heated debate in panels and on Twitter
alike (re-read some of the happenings via #EASA2014ART).
In this brief report, I review three substantial strands that appeared to unite debates across the nine panels, two films, and one plenary directly addressing art and anthropology: 1. new collaborative practices, 2. contemporary art patronage, and 3. common conceptual paradigms.
Research Interests:
Seit einigen Jahren sprechen nicht mehr nur Kulturanthropolog_innen von ihren Informant_innen als Expert_innen des Alltags. Vielmehr ist dieser Begriff zu einem der zentralen Konzepte des Performance-Kollektivs Rimini Protokoll geworden.... more
Seit einigen Jahren sprechen nicht mehr nur Kulturanthropolog_innen von ihren Informant_innen als Expert_innen des Alltags. Vielmehr ist dieser Begriff zu einem der zentralen Konzepte des Performance-Kollektivs Rimini Protokoll geworden. Die Gruppe spielt etwa in ihrer Installation Situation Rooms mit der Spannung zwischen einer Form von Rollenspiel und dokumentarischem Hyperrealismus, der an teilnehmende Beobachtung erinnert. Auf ähnliche Art und Weise, allerdings von einer kulturanthropologischen Perspektive ausgehend, versteht die anglo-russische Bewegung ethnographic conceptualism Konzeptkunst als eine Form der Ethnografie.
Beide Gruppen, so lautet die These dieses Artikels, beschreiben und entwickeln Methoden und Praktiken, die die epistemologischen und methodologischen Grenzen zwischen Kunst und Anthropologie bewusst verwischen. Sie bearbeiten und erforschen das Spielfeld zwischen ethnografischer Praxis und performativer Kunst. In diesem Prozess entstehen neue Fragestellungen, die das Selbstverständnis beider Praktiken an ihren bewegten Rändern untersuchen. Auf welche tradierten disziplinären Grenzziehungen reagieren diese Gruppen? Welche produktiven und komplexen Dilemmata entstehen bei der Erforschung künstlerischer Forschung? Wie stellen wir als Künstler_innen oder als Anthropolog_innen erworbenes ästhetisches, ethisches oder künstlerisches Wissen dar, beziehungsweise wie versinnlichen wir das Schriftliche, wie verschriftlichen wir das Sinnliche?
Im Dialog mit Chris Rutten u.a. (2013) und Fiona Siegenthaler (2013) diskutiert dieser Artikel die Beziehung zwischen ethnografischer Kunst und Kunst-als-Ethnografie anhand der performativen Kunstinstallation Situation Room des Performance-Kollektivs Rimini Protokoll und der theoretischen Überlegungen der Bewegung ethnographic conceptualism. Ziel dieses Beitrags ist es, den Blick auf die Problematiken und Denkanstöße des ethnografischen Forschens in der Kunst und des performativen Reflektierens in der Anthropologie zu schärfen.
Beide Gruppen, so lautet die These dieses Artikels, beschreiben und entwickeln Methoden und Praktiken, die die epistemologischen und methodologischen Grenzen zwischen Kunst und Anthropologie bewusst verwischen. Sie bearbeiten und erforschen das Spielfeld zwischen ethnografischer Praxis und performativer Kunst. In diesem Prozess entstehen neue Fragestellungen, die das Selbstverständnis beider Praktiken an ihren bewegten Rändern untersuchen. Auf welche tradierten disziplinären Grenzziehungen reagieren diese Gruppen? Welche produktiven und komplexen Dilemmata entstehen bei der Erforschung künstlerischer Forschung? Wie stellen wir als Künstler_innen oder als Anthropolog_innen erworbenes ästhetisches, ethisches oder künstlerisches Wissen dar, beziehungsweise wie versinnlichen wir das Schriftliche, wie verschriftlichen wir das Sinnliche?
Im Dialog mit Chris Rutten u.a. (2013) und Fiona Siegenthaler (2013) diskutiert dieser Artikel die Beziehung zwischen ethnografischer Kunst und Kunst-als-Ethnografie anhand der performativen Kunstinstallation Situation Room des Performance-Kollektivs Rimini Protokoll und der theoretischen Überlegungen der Bewegung ethnographic conceptualism. Ziel dieses Beitrags ist es, den Blick auf die Problematiken und Denkanstöße des ethnografischen Forschens in der Kunst und des performativen Reflektierens in der Anthropologie zu schärfen.
Research Interests: German Studies, Anthropology, Art History, Theatre Studies, Ethnography, and 14 morePerformance Studies, Contemporary Art, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Theory, Avant-Garde Theater, Anthropology Of Art, Conceptual Art, Cultural Anthropology, German Theatre, Ethnographic Methods, Theatre, Germany, Relational aesthetics, and Theater and Performance Studies
Dieser Artikel erscheint in einer Serie von Konversationen mit Teilnehmern des Kunst- und Theaterprojektes RUHRORTER mit Flüchtlingen im Ruhrgebiet. Die Serie erscheint als wöchentliche Kolumne in der Tageszeitung WAZ. This article is... more
Dieser Artikel erscheint in einer Serie von Konversationen mit Teilnehmern des Kunst- und Theaterprojektes RUHRORTER mit Flüchtlingen im Ruhrgebiet. Die Serie erscheint als wöchentliche Kolumne in der Tageszeitung WAZ.
This article is part of a series of conversations with participants of the refugee theatre project RUHRORTER published as a weekly column in the German daily WAZ.
This article is part of a series of conversations with participants of the refugee theatre project RUHRORTER published as a weekly column in the German daily WAZ.
Research Interests:
Dieser Artikel erscheint in einer Serie von Konversationen mit Teilnehmern des Kunst- und Theaterprojektes RUHRORTER mit Flüchtlingen im Ruhrgebiet. Die Serie erscheint als wöchentliche Kolumne in der Tageszeitung WAZ. This article... more
Dieser Artikel erscheint in einer Serie von Konversationen mit Teilnehmern des Kunst- und Theaterprojektes RUHRORTER mit Flüchtlingen im Ruhrgebiet. Die Serie erscheint als wöchentliche Kolumne in der Tageszeitung WAZ.
This article is part of a series of conversations with participants of the refugee theatre project RUHRORTER published as a weekly column in the German daily WAZ.
This article is part of a series of conversations with participants of the refugee theatre project RUHRORTER published as a weekly column in the German daily WAZ.
Research Interests:
Jonas Tinius and Johannes Lenhard interview anthropologist Matthew Engelke from the London School of Economics in this first piece for the new strand on the ‘Good Life’. Building on earlier research on what it means to be good for a... more
Jonas Tinius and Johannes Lenhard interview anthropologist Matthew Engelke from the London School of Economics in this first piece for the new strand on the ‘Good Life’. Building on earlier research on what it means to be good for a Christian, Engelke talks about achieving a good life and happiness as a secular humanist in Britain today. In short, such a good life emerges through debate, contemplation, reason and argument – always in relation and conversation with others – and it comes now, in this world, as part of this life’s happiness. Engelke provides us with starting points to explore important questions about wellbeing, ethics, and a good life – without god.
Research Interests: Religion, Christianity, Comparative Religion, Sociology of Religion, Anthropology, and 13 moreEthics, Social Anthropology, Secular Humanism, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Anthropology of Christianity, Secularization, Politics of Secularism, Humanism, Secularisms and Secularities, Anthropology of ethics and morality, Religious Studies, Secularism, and Anthropology of Religion
Das Projekt RUHRORTER verband Theater, Installation und Intervention im öffentlichen Raum zugleich. Das Ziel von RUHRORTER war die Suche nach neuen ästhetischen Formen, um mit den Mitteln der Kunst und der forschenden Dokumentation ein... more
Das Projekt RUHRORTER verband Theater, Installation und Intervention im öffentlichen Raum zugleich. Das Ziel von RUHRORTER war die Suche nach neuen ästhetischen Formen, um mit den Mitteln der Kunst und der forschenden Dokumentation ein öffentlich sichtbares und erfahrbares Korrektiv gegen die stereotype Kategorisierung und Ausgrenzung von Flüchtlingen - sowohl in der Bürgergesellschaft, als auch in den Medien und der dokumentarischen Kunst - zu entwerfen.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Whether we are studying artists in illicit urban settings in Spain, popular democratic practices in rural provinces in India, or the privatisation of public housing and public spaces in London, our field sites are permeated by practices... more
Whether we are studying artists in illicit urban settings in Spain, popular democratic practices in rural provinces in India, or the privatisation of public housing and public spaces in London, our field sites are permeated by practices of framing and staging. While the practices implied by the concepts ‘framing’ and ‘staging’ can thus serve as powerful metaphor to describe both, the most intimate presentation of self and the categorisation of a large groups of people, they also raise further questions: In what ways does the theatrical imagery of a stage or the visual image of a frame help us overcome misleading dichotomies such as performance and reality, presentation and essence, rhetoric and communication? How can we conceptualise framing and staging both as political instruments for influencing, say, public opinion and as the very essential practice for constituting sociality or subjectivity?
Research Interests: Sociology, Anthropology, Art History, Visual Anthropology, Social Anthropology, and 18 morePerformance Studies, Contemporary Art, Shakespeare, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Jurgen Habermas, Performance Art, Urban Studies, Performance, Public Sphere, Urban Sociology, Street Art, Cultural Anthropology, Interdisciplinary Studies, Interdisciplinary research (Social Sciences), Spain, India, Hamlet, and Architecture and Public Spaces
Gespräch im Vorfeld des Arbeitstreffens 1 organisiert vom Cobratheater Netzwerk, Fundus Theater, Hamburg
Research Interests: Organizational Behavior, German Studies, Anthropology, Art History, Theatre Studies, and 12 moreCultural Sociology, German History, Performance Studies, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Politics, Anthropology Of Art, Sociology of Arts, Sociology of Art, Work and Labour, Postfordism, Soziologie, and Arbeitssoziologie
Theatre, it could be argued, involves three major concerns: warning (criticism), representation (mimesis), and collective aesthetic imagination (aisthesis/poïesis). While the first instrumentalises theatre, and the second underestimates... more
Theatre, it could be argued, involves three major concerns: warning (criticism), representation (mimesis), and collective aesthetic imagination (aisthesis/poïesis). While the first instrumentalises theatre, and the second underestimates its possibilities, it is primarily the third that sets it apart from ‘Science’ and ‘Politics’. Or is it?
Research Interests: Environmental Science, Anthropology, Philosophy of Science, Theatre Studies, Climate Change, and 11 moreActor Network Theory, Climate Change Adaptation, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Social Representations, Anthropology of Performance, Climate change policy, History of Science, Environmental Sustainability, Bruno Latour, Actor-Network-Theory, and Theatre
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Angekündigt wurde er beim dritten Branchentreff des Berliner Performing Arts Programm (PAP) im Oktober als ‚Nachwuchsstar der Anthropologie‘: Jonas Tinius, Jahrgang 1989, studierte Sozialanthropologie, Anglistik und Amerikanis- tik in... more
Angekündigt wurde er beim dritten Branchentreff des Berliner Performing Arts Programm (PAP) im Oktober als ‚Nachwuchsstar der Anthropologie‘: Jonas Tinius, Jahrgang 1989, studierte Sozialanthropologie, Anglistik und Amerikanis- tik in Münster und Cambridge und promoviert in Cambridge darüber, wie sich in einer Theaterinstitution die Felder Kunst, Politik und Ethik überschneiden. Für seine Dissertation begleite- te Tinius am Theater an der Ruhr über 15 Mona- te lang ein Theaterprojekt mit Geflüchteten, die Ruhrorter. Darüber hinaus widmet er sich for- schend der freien Szene, der post-fordistischen (künstlerischen) Arbeit sowie der Frage, wie Theater im deutschen Bildungszusammenhang seit dem 19. Jahrhundert auf die Selbstkultivierung wirkt. Gemeinsam mit seinem Kollegen Alex Flynn gründete Jonas Tinius das Anthropologies of Art Network [A/A]. Sein Arbeitsort ist nicht der Elfenbeinturm: Er bezeichnet anthropolo- gische Forschung mit Clifford Geertz als “deep hanging out”; die Premierenfeier und das Kol- legengespräch gehören ebenso dazu wie wis- senschaftliche Dokumentation, Artikel oder Konferenzbeiträge. Tinius ist aktiv auf Twitter, Facebook und umtriebig in der Szene – Julian Kamphausen, der ihn zum PAP-Branchentreff eingeladen hat, nennt ihn einen „hyperrezeptiven Multimenschen“. In einem unstrukturier- ten Gespräch am Rande des Geschehens im Auf- bauhaus befragten wir den Kulturanthropologen erwartungsvoll zu neuen Erkenntnissen aus sei- ner wissenschaftlichen Arbeit.
Research Interests: German Studies, Anthropology, Social Sciences, Dance Studies, Research Methodology, and 11 morePerformance Studies, Refugee Studies, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Anthropology of Performance, Migration, Theater and film, Avant-Garde Theater, Refugees, Germany, Theater and Performance Studies, and The Anthropology of Drama and Theatre
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Adorno’s reflexions on aesthetics have become a source of much inspiration across the human sciences and art in the 20th century. Yet, despite the mark his work has left on many practitioners in the field of theatre studies, no work until... more
Adorno’s reflexions on aesthetics have become a source of much inspiration across the human sciences and art in the 20th century. Yet, despite the mark his work has left on many practitioners in the field of theatre studies, no work until this point has dedicated a thorough analysis to the ways in which Adorno’s writings on aesthetics pertain specifically to theatre or the theatrical. Anja Nowak has provided a convincingly meticulous and yet brief and accessible remedy for this lacuna. She sets out to investigate what elements of an aesthetic of the theatrical can be found in Adorno’s writings, taking his unfinished Aesthetic Theory (AT) as a starting point but venturing far beyond. Nowak stresses that references to theatre or the theatrical in these writings do not amount to an explicit theory, but that they constitute fragments, elements, Bruchstücke, much like the philosophy propounded in AT. This work sets out to show in what ways these are relevant for theatre studies, artists, and scholars interested in a social and processual aesthetics of theatre and art.
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‚Erscheinung’ und ‚Ereignis’ gehören zu jenen Begriffen, die Anthropologie, Kunstgeschichte und Philosophie in intensiven Diskussionen vereint haben, aber auch polarisieren. Sie beschreiben Phänomene, die kaum greifbar scheinen und doch... more
‚Erscheinung’ und ‚Ereignis’ gehören zu jenen Begriffen, die Anthropologie, Kunstgeschichte und Philosophie in intensiven Diskussionen vereint haben, aber auch polarisieren. Sie beschreiben Phänomene, die kaum greifbar scheinen und doch nicht besser die Rupturen und Veränderungen von ethisch-ästhetischer Wahrnehmung beschreiben könnten, die wichtige Aspekte dieser Disziplinen tangieren. Auch die Geschichts- und Theaterwissenschaften haben diesen Begriffen aus verständlichen Gründen nicht erst in der letzten Dekade besondere Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt (vgl. Fischer-Lichte et al. 2003, Yurchak 2005).
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Driven by my observations about how the project’s participants dealt with several other Romani participants’ deportations during production phases, this post explores how the art project reflected on the actors’ ‘precarious... more
Driven by my observations about how the project’s participants dealt with several other Romani participants’ deportations during production phases, this post explores how the art project reflected on the actors’ ‘precarious temporalities’. What I mean by that is the following: I would like to suggest that for the refugees I worked with during the theatre project, ‘the end of emergency’ was nowhere in sight as long as their official legal status kept them in a state of ‘toleration’ or Duldung in German, a legal term denoting the ‘temporary suspension of deportation’. Many actors in the group subjected to the legal status of Duldung were traumatised by two kinds of extreme events that interlock. One was the usually singular but often life-threatening escape from their home-countries. The second traumatising event, less spectacular yet more continually disconcerting, was the continued unrest created by the constant possibility of being deported. In this way, this post continues a concern raised by Heike Drotbohm and Ines Hasselberg in their earlier post. They write: "Deportation, the forced removal of foreign nationals from a given national territory, is not a singular event. It is a process that begins long before, and carries on long after, the removal from one country to another takes place."
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‘Gurlitt’ has already become a scenario word for one of the most notorious cases of art history after World War II. It concerns the inherited collection of 1,406 art works stored for over thirty years in an apartment in the district of... more
‘Gurlitt’ has already become a scenario word for one of the most notorious cases of art history after World War II. It concerns the inherited collection of 1,406 art works stored for over thirty years in an apartment in the district of Schwabing, formerly student, now wealthy university and museum quarter in Munich. The ‘Gurlitt case’, as Anna Blair traces in her article in this magazine, is a prism for a nexus of hitherto not unrelated but rarely ever so intertwined (art) historical, moral, political, and economic conundrums. Throughout this commentary, I wish to attend to the interlocking of these aspects, casting an anthropological glance at the German cultural historical background to and implications of this case. Key to my discussion is the relation between aesthetic experience and ethic judgement.
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With subsidised arts plunged into crisis, what is at stake for cultural institutions and political actors comes to the fore of debates. This paper explores a range of ways in which the relation between German cultural politics, the notion... more
With subsidised arts plunged into crisis, what is at stake for cultural institutions and political actors comes to the fore of debates. This paper explores a range of ways in which the relation between German cultural politics, the notion of the 'Kulturstaat', art patronage, and the city theatre structures has been problematised. A central recurring question is the moral responsibility of the state to safeguard the arts, feudal heritage, and institutional theatre traditions.
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The poetry of Bertolt Brecht has often been belittled as “the second string on his bow”. For a poet who has published more than a thousand pages of poetry, this is an unsatisfactory description of a poetic corpus and a life story, both of... more
The poetry of Bertolt Brecht has often been belittled as “the second string on his bow”. For a poet who has published more than a thousand pages of poetry, this is an unsatisfactory description of a poetic corpus and a life story, both of which underwent dramatic changes in their engagement with the contemporary political world and its revolutions. Forced into political exile in 1933, first to Scandinavia and then to the USA, Brecht made the decision to return to East Berlin in 1949. Brecht assumed his role as a ‘state poet’ (Staatsdichter) of the German Democratic Republic and its Marxist-Leninist stance with mixed feelings that persisted throughout the 1950s. The two poems ‘In Smolny During the Summer of 1917 the Bolsheviks Discovered Where the People were Represented – in the Kitchen’, and ‘The Carpet Weavers of Kuyan-Bulak Honour Lenin’, published collectively as Stories from the Revolution are insightful, idiosyncratic and profound pieces of political poetry, which challenge romanticised ideas about political revolutions and provide a unique, literary point of view on the Realpolitik of the set of revolutions that occurred in Russia in 1917. His view on the subtle subversion of politics as a space for imaginative resistance, as well as on the failure of revolutions to bring about proper, holistic change can inform our view on what revolution and politics can mean in many of the contexts in which it is evoked. The concept of revolution, much like those of crisis, change, or transformation, is ambiguous, full of imaginary aspirations, and often misleading.
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In this brief essay, I refer to Adorno's perspective on ethical life as proposed in his lectures on moral philosophy and Minima Moralia. I argue closely in line with Geuss' analysis in Outside Ethics that in these and other works, Adorno... more
In this brief essay, I refer to Adorno's perspective on ethical life as proposed in his lectures on moral philosophy and Minima Moralia. I argue closely in line with Geuss' analysis in Outside Ethics that in these and other works, Adorno outlines not merely a 'melancholy science' that points to the damaged from within the damaged life. More so, by inciting an epistemological analysis of what is wrong, cannot be known, and what cannot be done, he constructs a possibility to live and act differently, to think about the unthinkable. One aspect of our lifes, which enables such fugitive moments of thinking the seemingly impossible and living beyond and outside a damaged ethics, are radical forms of art. It is the study of the experience and the creation of (modern) art, which, I suggest, merits methodological and epistemological potential beyond philosphical contemplation by directing us towards innovative critical research into the transformative potential of contemporary art.
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How to conceptualise the field that anthropology encounters in the study of theatre. An essayistic exploration.
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For the Theater an der Ruhr, a 'theatrelandscape' is more than mere recognition of difference; it has brought to the attention of the German and international public the theatre landscapes of a whole nexus of regions, such as Yugoslavia,... more
For the Theater an der Ruhr, a 'theatrelandscape' is more than mere recognition of difference; it has brought to the attention of the German and international public the theatre landscapes of a whole nexus of regions, such as Yugoslavia, the Silk Road, Arabia and North Africa and thereby initiated a dialogue not just between theatrical visions, but different ‘styles of life’, projects of artistic self-formation and social engagement. Their vision of theatrescapes is not only an expansion of the German hermeneutic philosopher H.G. Gadamer’s notion of the fusion of horizons (‘Horizontverschmelzung’, 1960), but also an anthropological quest for the appreciation of difference whilst recognising the commonalities of humankind. Doing so, I seek to point to the enriching implications of theatre for anthropological studies of the way people transform the cultural landscapes they inhabit.