We propose a day of thinking together through the exciting possibilities as well as the problems and challenges in both the terminology around as well as the practical aspects of dealing with ecologies in the Arts. We will trace a very old question and figure of thought which asks what it is that humans do, exclusively, opposed to other entities and forms of life and existence. Inevitably, we will follow a certain dethroning of thinking as predicated in the human. Even though this endeavor can be found in various strands of thought both new and old, there has been a rising interest and debate of the term ecology, often appearing in discourses around the Anthropocene and driven by a strong rhetoric of urgency in times of finite ressources on this planet. What we will do is focus on what in an ecology is or isn’t accounted for as thought and also, what is perceived as aesthetic experience and/or practice. We will be discussing a number of questions that will be introduced in the morning, such as the reliance on science/scientism in thinking and the framing of things in human-predicated terms. We will also find it important to ask how perpetuating the same mistakes of hegemony in discussions around ecology and Anthropocene can be avoided, such as in examples of operationalizing “indigenous” thinking systems and reinforcing a binary as nature/culture, in other words: How a debate of the Anthropocene can be decolonized. Who are “we” to say, the “planet”?
A set of somatic practices dealing with mutation and an experience of time as intensity will be held in a number of practical sessions throughout the day. This will be referring to the discussion of the text students will read and prepare before the workshop.
Workshop by Lucie Tuma and Yu Mi
Mi You 由宓
is a curator, researcher, and academic staff at Academy of Media Arts Cologne, where she lectures on arts and media theory with a social-political, transhistorical and transcultural perspective. Her long-term research and curatorial project takes the Silk Road as a figuration for deep-time, deep-space, de-centralized and nomadic imageries. Under this rubric she has curated a series of performative programs at Asian Culture Center Theater in Gwangju, South Korea and the inaugural Ulaanbaatar International Media Art Festival, Mongolia (2016).Her academic interests are in performance philosophy, science and technology studies, as well as philosophy of immanence in Eastern and Western traditions.She co-initiated (in 2011) and is committee member of EU-funded project “Transnational Dialogues”, an exchange platform between China, Europe and Brazil. She is fellow of Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany), Zentrum Paul Klee (Switzerland) and Independent Curators International (New York). Since 2017, she serves as director of Arthub and advisor to Institute for Provocation.
Lucie Tuma
is an artist working mainly with dance and choreography who has also been engaged in the making of books, music albums and objects. Her time-based sculptures spring from a material-driven approach and generate often monolithic works with an interest in the production of other forms of sociability. Her works have been shown in theater venues, art spaces and at festivals in Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Sweden and Switzerland. Together with Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt, she founded the duo Chuck Morris (2008-2058), a twin figure and long term relationship invested in the dissolvement of artistic identity. In 2014, she won the prize for choreography and performance from the city of Zurich. In 2015-2017, she was assigned Young Associated Artists by ProHelvetia and Tanzhaus Zürich, where she curated PRIMA MATERIA – a series of invitations to related artistic positions around the development of producing and making work in non-standardised structures under the sail of magic and occult practices. She has been pursuing extended activities both in research as well as in teaching both inside as well as outside of institutions and currently holds a post as staff – research associate at the ZHdK University of Arts in Zurich.