Excursion: October 25th, 2018
Visiting the Weltmaschine
and Styrassic Park

1. Salty, Smoky, Oily: Mold making for gourmets and beginners
The class is an introduction to mold making and casting with diverse materials (silicone, plaster, alginate, acrylic resin, concrete etc) for building both lost and re-usable molds.

2. Moulage dynamique - project based mold making
The course takes place in a project-oriented way and with consideration of the interests of the participating students. The aim is to collectively find and realize casting solutions.

The "perspectives" of the photographers or the graphic designers do not always correspond to those of the artists. On the one hand the artist is required to articulate precisely his/her "point of view" or to bring the different components (image-text layout) into a form by themselves.

Künstlerische Herangehensweisen an das digitale Arbeiten #1:
Grundlagen

Künstlerische Herangehensweisen an das digitale Arbeiten #2:
Vertiefende Kenntnisse
 

Do you computer? And if yes, how and what? If this course was a Digital Arts Programme, #1 would be the Bachelor, #2 the Master.

The focus will be site specific strategies in terms of intervention into and disruption of the social use of public space. We will talk about the self-organisation of space and language in relation to: setting up autonomous spaces for meeting and exchange (Education); setting up autonomous channels of the audio-visual communication (Television), and setting up autonomous channels of oral and sonorous communication (Radio). The gallery will be used as a space to develop and experiment with diverse related strategies of self-organisation.

As a writer I'm interested in the translation of images into language, either in simple or complex descriptions, metaphors or new word creations. As artists, you often have to deal with the reverse problem: You have to find words for the images or ways how to integrate text into the artistic piece you're working on.

Excursion from July 3rd - 6th, 2018
Visiting the Manifesta12 in Palermo

200 years ago Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein“ was published – perhaps the first modern myth. Ever since, the story of Victor F. and his monster has haunted our imagination and informed discussions about artificial life and the relationships of nature, technology, and society. A key moment in the story describes the monster hiding in a small dark room, where it listens to voices and sounds, and observes human behaviour. The monster is recording.

We all need to get the balance right, between action and reflection ... With so many distractions, it is easy to forget to pause and take stock, be it through contemplation, prayer or even keeping a diary. Many have found the practice of quiet personal reflection surprisingly rewarding …
(extract from The Queen’s Christmas message. Queen Elizabeth. 2013) 

The course deals with the phenomenon of landscape and in particular with the forces behind the visual appearance of individual landscapes. What exactly is “landscape”? How do landscapes evolve? Why do certain cultural landscapes have certain characteristics - or in other words, why do they look like they look? What natural conditions are they based on and what economic, social and political circumstances and developments have shaped them? 

In the more recent Viennese architectural history, the Loos-House at the Michaelerplatz is of particular interest. Its determined renunciation from Historicism and Secessionism is an early example for radical reduction - no decor, no embellishments.
The architect Adolf Loos even wrote a polemic pamphlet in 1908 with the programmatic title 'Ornament und Verbrechen'. 

History.
Focus: histories.
Who constructs history?
Who problematizes history politics?
How does one imagine a historical museum to be?
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1. Salty, Smoky, Oily: Mold making for gourmets and beginners
The class is an introduction to mold making and casting with diverse materials (silicone, plaster, alginate, acrylic resin, concrete etc) for building both lost and re-usable molds.

2. Sticky, Tricky, Dodgy: Advanced mold making for the motivated and sophisticated
The course takes place in a project-oriented way and with consideration of the interests of the participating students. The aim is to collectively find and realize casting solutions. 

Künstlerische Herangehensweisen an das digitale Arbeiten
#3: Grundlagen
#4: Fortgeschritten
 

If this course was a Digital Arts Programme, #3 would be the Bachelor Part 2, #4 the Master 2.0, but since it is just a course within the curriculum of Ortsbezogene Kunst, the first hashtag covers the basics, the second explores the deeper layers of how to computer. kind of: Pflicht vs. Kür. 

After the closing of the hotly debated documenta14 at both its sites, let’s dicuss an exhibition that has been a singularly risky enterprise: with a highly subtle curatorial stance renouncing signature works that has questioned documenta’s role as a showcase for contemporary art, an anthropologisation of artistic practice that has been critizied as re-colonisation, and a somewhat elusive, but highly politicized romanticism asking for a reinstitution of the body in conceptual and post-conceptual art while often hovering under individual radars of perception. What can we learn from the failures and successes of documenta14?

1. Salty, Smoky, Oily: Mold making for gourmets and beginners
The class is an introduction to mold making and casting with diverse materials for building both lost and re-usable molds.

2. Sticky, Tricky, Dodgy: Advanced mold making for the motivated and sophisticated
The course takes place in a project-oriented way and with consideration of the interests of the participating students. For participating in the course, a basic knowledge of mold making and casting is advantageous.

The seminar discusses interventions, works, monuments, Percent-for-art programs and public exhibition situations in Vienna. Typologies of passage to central squares of monuments as well as their implicit requirements but also the concrete everyday life beyond protected art spaces will be analysed. 

Holzarbeiten für Fortgeschrittene

Die LV ist als Fortsetzung des Grundkurses, oder für Studierende mit handwerklicher Vorbildung gedacht. In der LV soll das Umsetzen von Projekten im Bereich Holz möglich sein. Die LV wird geblockt im Anschluss an den Grundkurs abgehalten.
Base Angewandte
 

Foto: Nikolaus Fuchs

If this course was a Digital Arts Programme, #1 would be the Bachelor, #2 the Master, but since it is just a course within the curriculum of Ortsbezogene Kunst, the first hashtag covers the basics, the second explores the deeper layers of how to computer. Kind of: Pflicht vs. Kür. 

Unsound ecologies - performative assemblages:

We will discuss current theories & positions on the relation of nature and technology, of ecologies beyond biological systems and post-humanism. Employing methods of performative research and auditive settings, the course will play and enact a sound studio environment to trigger, record and process Frankenstein’s monsters as radio pieces. 

Excursion from July 2nd - 7th, 2017
Visiting the documenta14 and
Skulptur Projekte 2017

Franz Xaver Baier
Manfred Bergauer
Gabriele Edlbauer
Alice Gorman
Nikolaus Fuchs
Philipp Haupt
Katrin Hornek
Krassimira Kruschkova
Paul Petritsch
Karin Raith
Claudia Slanar

Das Seminar bietet die Möglichkeit, ein hochaktuelles Verständnis von Raum kennenzulernen und experimentell anzuwenden. Im Unterschied zu vielen Arten des Räumlichen geht es beim existenziellen Raum um den Raum, der man selbst ist und mit dem man es permanent zu tun hat. Da alles eine räumliche Wirkung hat ist dieser Raum auf vielfache Weise beeinflussbar. Daraus ergeben sich für die Kunst viele Möglichkeiten.

This course will be a journey through the material culture of outer space, from the surface of the Earth to the limits of the solar system. Space age artefacts include components of massive technological systems, such as satellites in Earth orbit and the terrestrial antennas which receive their signals, blast-corroded surfaces at launch pads and on the moon, and disposable cable ties which are manufactured and discarded in their millions.

An Observation on CERN.

Researchers at CERN use the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to reproduce the primordial soup that made up the universe a few billionth of a seconds after the Big Bang. After our excursion last December to the socio-technical machine CERN, where more than 100.000 researchers from over 100 nations are trying to find the building blocks of our universe, we have become pixel-recorders by ourselves.

This field trip is having the focus/center „Vienna“. We are walking.

The course deals with the phenomenon landscape and, most importantly, with the forces behind the visual appearance of individual landscapes. What exactly is “landscape”? How do landscapes evolve? What are the reasons why cultural landscapes exhibit certain characteristics – or in other words – why do they look like they look? Which are the natural conditions they are based on? Which economic, social and political circumstances and developments have shaped them?

Die LV setzt sich mit Choreografie- und Performancekonzepten auseinander. Fokussiert werden zeitgenössische Arbeitsweisen, die kritische Denkräume entwerfen und mit aktuellen ästhetischen und politischen Diskussionen korrespondieren.

Mold making for gourmets and beginners

The class is an introduction to mold making and casting with diverse materials (silicone, plaster, alginate, acrylic resin, concrete etc) for building both lost and re-usable molds. 

The aim of this class is twofold as the library of site-specificity does not only contain books about the topic, but at the same time is a reflection of its own concept. Designed for a special purpose and a specific location, will it be destroyed when removed (paraphrasing Richard Serra’s statement about the removal of his site-specific sculpture "Tilted Arc"  in 1981)? Isn’t a library, "this universe" (Jorge Luis Borges), always site-specific?

Künstlerische Herangehensweisen an das digitale Arbeiten:

The course continues to mimic a Digital Arts Minor Programme in a nutshell. It tries to convey audio/video/computer competencies through practical training as well as knowledge of various analog-digital conversion processes. The noble goal of this undertaking is nothing less than „understanding media“. 

Students put up their projects for discussion, which they have developed at Praterstern, at Wurstelprater and at Prater-Park. Starting materials are field recordings, interviews and soundscapes.

What will happen if we let a group of budding artists roam the perimeters of the world’s most advanced particle physics research facility? After a 4-day-longtrip to CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, a clear-cut answer remains to be seen.

James Benning
Nikolaus Fuchs
Philipp Haupt
Krassimira Kruschkova
Gabriele Mackert
Ralo Mayer
Johanna Tinzl

A course on art as a project rooted in the seminal work of Group Material and Hollis Frampton’s Magellan Cycle and its influence on Benning's own project work: Two Cabins, 31 Friends, and Untitled Fragments.

Image: James Benning