Power of Material / Politics of Materiality (2012/13)

The first annual topic of the cx centre for interdisciplinary studies at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste München (Academy of Fine Arts Munich) A re-evaluation of material is currently taking place in the visual arts, architecture, and design. Young artists are combining crude or unusual materials with a minimalist formal idiom and in doing so place the focus on their physis and aesthetic qualities. There is talk about "new alchemists", about interaction with and "being guided" by material.

In the same breath, the cultural and social sciences are proclaiming a "material turn", as there are reports of a "parallel refocusing of research" (Bachmann-Medick) on materiality in numerous scientific disciplines. The French sociologist and philosopher Bruno Latour points out that (natural) scientific facts are not only generated by social practices and linguistic discourses, but also by the resistant materiality of things. In the field of archaeology, Colin Renfrew speaks of a "material engagement approach", which highlights the material world's active role in the development of social structures, religious concepts, or social value systems. Thus, one is currently rediscovering the material aspects of the generation of knowledge and social practices as well as of processes of communication and aesthetic productions. In addition, material research has been coming up with a large number of new materials, in particular in the last two decades, that are believed to hold the potential for a fundamental transformation of the economy as well as society as a whole.

The interdisciplinary study programme at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste München is devoting its first annual topic to the current boom of material and materiality in the various artistic and scientific disciplines. The focus is on the rediscovered resistance and influence of material phenomena in the artists and sciences, on their active roles in social, artistic, and epistemic processes.

The programme takes this topic as the point of departure for the material basis of all artistic and design work, as the material conditions for creative and developmental processes. It analyzes the contemporary treatment of material in the fine arts, architecture, and design in theory and practice and relates it to a redefinition and re-evaluation of material in the natural and social sciences. One of the central questions will be whether the latter also hold the potential for social and geopolitical change or ethically motivated behaviour modification, as the representatives of "New Materialism" suggest.    

Annual theme "Power of Material/Politics of Materiality" 

Interdisciplinary Lecture Series (2012/13)

05.02.2013

From Historical Materialism to Speculative Realism

with Diedrich Diederichsen

Diedrich Diederichsen (*1957 in Hamburg) has been working as an editor and publisher of music magazines in the 1980 and as a profes- sor a.o. in Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Pasadena, Weimar, Vienna, St. Louis, Cologne, Los Angeles and Gainesville in the 1990s. Since 2006 he is Professor for Theory, Praxis and Mediation of Contemporary Art at the Institut für Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften of the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. Among his latest publications are the books Über Pop-Musik (2014), The Whole Earth – Kalifornien oder das Verschwinden des Außen (with Anselm Franke, 2013), The Sopranos (2012), Utopia of Sound (with Constanze Ruhm, 2010), On (Surplus) Value in Art (2008), Kritik des Auges – Texte zur Kunst (2008) and Eigenblutdoping – Selbstverwertung, Künstlerromantik, Partizipation (2008).

Annual theme "Power of Material/Politics of Materiality" 

Interdisciplinary Lecture Series (2012/13)

22.01.2013

The Promise of Smart Materials
with Thomas Schröpfer and Nicola Stattmann

Thomas Schröpfer is Professor and Associate Head of Pillar of Architecture and Sustainable Design at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) that was founded in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As a practicing architect he was also awarded a PhD from Harvard University in 2004 and conducts research on a.o. the role of material innovation in the process of architectural design and on sustainable architectonical urban development. His publications include Material Design: Materialität in der Architektur (Birkhäuser 2011) and Ecological Urban Architecture: Qualitative Approaches to Sustainability (Birkhäuser 2012). Architecture as a material practice is reflected in his own scientific research as well as in the projects of Schröpfer + Hee, a Cambridge, Massachusetts and Singapore-based architectural office of which he is a co-founder.

Nicola Stattmann has been working with her own design studio in Frankfurt am Main since 2002. The main focus of her work as a designer and materials-expert lies on the application of new materials and technologies in the realm of product design. Among her customers are Adidas, Fissler, Samsung and Volkswagen. In 2011 she and her brother founded the company Stattmann Neue Möbel, which is based in the Wesphalian Ascheberg, producing a selected program of furniture produced from sustainable materials. Stattmann holds a diploma in product design and since 2004 has been a guest professor a.o. at the Bauhaus University Weimar, the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach and the Kunsthochschule Kassel. In publications like Ultra Light – Super Strong (Birkhäuser 2003) and Unfolded (with Petra Schmidt, Birkhäuser 2009) she discusses the potentialities of new materials in product design and with the material paper respectively.

Annual theme "Power of Material/Politics of Materiality" 

Interdisciplinary Lecture Series (2012/13)

15.01.2013

Material Translations
with Cornelia Ortlieb

Cornelia Ortlieb

Cornelia Ortlieb studied contemporary German Philology, Comparative Literature and Philosophy and since 2011 is a professor for Comparative Literature at the LMU in Munich. She has discussed issues related to questions of materials and materialities in the arts in several projects, most prominently in relation to the involvement of materials in the process of writing and several forms of paper work. Her latest publications on the material side of writing and on the theory of materiality include Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi und die Philosophie als Schreibart (2010), Jean Pauls Punktiermanier (2011), Schöpfen und Schreiben: Weimarer Papierarbeiten (2012), Papierflügel und Federpfau. Materialien des Liebeswerbens bei Stéphane Mallarmé (2013).

Annual theme "Power of Material/Politics of Materiality" 

Interdisciplinary Lecture Series (2012/13)

10.01.2013

The (Im)materiality of Economy

with Costas Lapavitsas and Anja Kirschner/David Panos

Costas Lapavitsas

Anja Kirschner und David Panos

Costas Lapavitsas is Professor of Economy at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He works on the political economy of money and finance, on the Japanese economy, the history of economy and economic thought and on the contemporary world economy. He published several books and countless articles, amongst them Beyond Market-Driven Development (with M. Noguchi, Routledge, 2005), Financialisation in Crisis (Brill 2012), Crisis in the Eurozone (Verso, 2012). His latest book Profiting without Producing (Verso, 2013), discusses the financialisation of capitalism.

Anja Kirschner and David Panos (Athens, London) in their joint films and installations combine moments of the present with historical researches and literary sources. In their video installation Ultimate Substance (2012), which was filmed and realized in Greece, the artists engage in the relationship between economic and cultural logic. Here, the silver mining and the coinage in ancient Greece become the starting point of a filmic reflection of the current financial crisis. Anja Kirschner and David Panos were awarded the 2011 Jarman Award (UK) and realized solo exhibitions at a.o. secession, Vienna, Extra City, Antwerp and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein. Furthermore their works have been shown in group exhibitions at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Lisson Gallery, London (2013) as well as the Liverpool Biennale (2012) and the British Art Show 7 (2010/11).

Annual theme "Power of Material/Politics of Materiality" 

Interdisciplinary Lecture Series (2012/13)

11.12.2012

Material Reevaluations

with Manfred Pernice

Manfred Pernice (*1963 in Hildesheim) lives and works in Berlin where from winter 2012 he has been appointed as professor of sculpture at the Universität der Künste Berlin. He studied at the HBK in Braunschweig (1984–86) and the UdK in Berlin (1988–94). His works are internationally represented in museums and collections worldwide. 2011/2012 they were exhibited u.a. in solo exhibitions at Anton Kern Gallery, New York, DCA Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein and tutti at the Haus der Kunst, Munich, was realized.

Annual theme "Power of Material/Politics of Materiality" 

Interdisciplinary Lecture Series (2012/13)

27.11.2012

The Ecology of Materials

with Tim Ingold and Max Lamb

Max Lamb

Tim Ingold

Tim Ingold is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen since 1999. He has carried out ethnographic fieldwork in Lapland, and has written on environment, technology and social organization in the circumpolar North, on evolutionary theory, human-animal relations, language and tool use, environmental perception and skilled practice. He is currently exploring issues on the interface between anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture and pleads for a reunification of theory and praxis. Among his latest publications is Making (Routledge 2013).

Max Lamb explores materials in unconventional ways. The British designer questions the customary perception of materialities and their processing. Lamb studied three-dimensional design at the University of Northumbria and Product Design at the Royal College of Art, London. He is running a design studio in the North of London. Amongst his works are pieces of furniture and objects for labels such as Deadgood and Makers and Brothers, as well as individual pieces for the design gallery Libby Sellers in London and Johnson Trading Gallery in New York. Since 2012 he is teaching at the department of Product Design at the Royal College of Art.

Annual theme "Power of Material/Politics of Materiality" 

Interdisciplinary Lecture Series (2012/13)

13.11.2012

Material Engagement

with Sofia Hultén and Colin Renfrew

Colin Renfrew

Sofia Hultén (*1972, Stockholm) lives and works in Berlin and has been a guest professor at the Weißensee Kunsthochschule in 2012. The works of the Swedish artist have been presented in numerous international group exhibitions, amongst them, Kunstverein Frankfurt, the National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik, the Guangdong Museum in Guangzhou, the Skulpturenpark Köln, the Moderna Museet Stockholm, Kunsthalle Glarus, Today Art Museum Beijing and the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen. Her solo shows include Künstlerhaus Bremen, Ikon Gallery Birmingham, Konrad Fischer Galerie Düsseldorf and Berlin, Langen Foundation in Neuss and the Kunstverein Braunschweig. Hultén took part in the IASPIS Residency Program (2007) is a scholarship holder of Stiftung Kunstfonds (2009) and was awarded the 2011 Moderna Museets Vänners Skulpturpris.

Colin Renfrew, Prof. Dr. em., was Disney Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge from 1987 to 2004 and later became the director of the McDonald Institute for Archeological Research, where he still researches as a Senior Fellow. One of his two major focuses of research lies on early European cultural development and is based on a number of crucial archeological excavations on the culture of the early Bronze Age in Aegean. The other one is dedicated to the development of the Material Engagement Theory, which considers the cognitive as well as physical aspects of human involvement in the material world. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, won a number of international prices and in 1991 was made a Life Peer as Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn.

Annual theme "Power of Material/Politics of Materiality" 

Interdisciplinary Lecture Series (2012/13)

06.11.2012

New Concepts of Matter

with Harald Lesch

Harald Lesch is Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics at the Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University Observatory of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) since 1995 and he teaches natural philosophy at the Munich University of Philosophy. His main areas of research are cosmic plasma physics, black holes and neutron stars. Amongst other things, he is the expert on astrophysics in the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (German Research Society), science journalist and TV presenter and he has been awarded many prizes for his teaching and journalism.

Annual theme "Power of Material/Politics of Materiality" 

Interdisciplinary Lecture Series (2012/13)

25.10.2012

New Materialisms

with Diana Coole

Diana Coole

Diana Coole is Professor for Political Theory and Social Theory at Birkbeck College, University of London. She is currently writing a book on the politics and ethics of the population question, based on a Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship (2010–13). She is an associate editor of the eight-volume Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political Thought (2014). Amongst her latest book publications are Merleau-Ponty and Modern Politics after Anti-Humanism (2007) and The New Materialisms. Ontology, Agency, and Politics (2010) (co-edited with Samantha Frost).