Art Practice and the Human Beyond our Species

About

In the past decade anthropologists have directed their studies of the human beyond our species, considering other lifeforms as selves in their own right. For example, Eduardo Kohn’s recent book asks questions like can forests think or do dogs dream. What strikes us in this way of reconsidering the human from an outside point of view is how this way challenges our ideas of intelligence, sensitivity or even consciousness and agency.

Far away from this approach of nature as a cohabitation of lifeforms as selves, the concept of nature, as it was assumed in the last century, still seems deeply embedded in our contemporary culture. Even if the subjects of our contemporary works seem to be very far from those of Klee for example, and deal with social, economic or political issues, our theories on the work process, on gestures and their justification, still seem to be based on an idea very close to that of modern artists. Is there not a contradiction between our concerns, the way we work in the studio and more generally how we evaluate and discuss artistic processes?

Course leader

Bernhard Rüdiger and Yann Annicchiarico. Rüdiger graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan and currently teaches in Lyon. The work of Yann Annicchiarico addresses our perceptions and confronts our human nature with worlds that are inaccessible.

Target group

Summer School as School is an interdisciplinary education and art collaboration model designed for BA, MA and PhD students, artists, architects and researchers of visual arts, humanities and social sciences, political theory, art history and curatorial studies, architecture and design, and anyone with a keen interest in the subject area.

Fee info