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Research Area 1: Public Sphere(s) and Interventions (Concepts)
Researcher-in-charge: Anita Moser
This research area aims to explore artistic, medial and cultural productions and interventions in the context of their participatory possibilities and the formation of (counter-)public spheres. Here, medial and artistic discourses, which open up but also limit spaces of identity formation, play an important role. Processes of migration and social inequalities arising from the entanglement of such categories as gender, ethnicity, class and sexuality are equally crucial. Criticisms of power mechanisms, on the one hand, and hegemonic attributions of meaning, on the other, are situated and analyzed at the intersections between art, media and new social movements.
In the course of this project, the following fields are being examined:
Subproject 1.1. Media and artistic productions in migration contexts
Team: Elisabeth Klaus, Ricarda Drüeke, Anita Moser
In the subproject, media coverage and artistic productions dealing with migration and flight provide a basis for investigating how mainstream discourses are constructed and reproduced, but are also at times modified or rejected. Contemporary art, such as media, can be understood as forms of cultural production that enable identity formation. As constructions that are created in the cycle of medial and cultural meaning production, spaces and their boundaries always remain ambiguous. Therefore, especially at the moment of reception, art can open up spaces of in-between that can trigger productive uncertainties and undermine hegemonic meanings.
Publications, lectures and conference participations
Subproject 1.2. Artistic, cultural and medial interventions in the context of new social movements
Team: Elke Zobl, Ricarda Drüeke
Under this aspect, different forms and strategies for artistic, cultural and medial interventions are explored with regard to self-organized and collaborative feminist and antiracist practices. Considered "critical art", these kinds of interventions form counterpublics, which extend the concept of the political. With a focus on new forms of activism and protest, which are increasingly being expressed in the digital space (such as Twitter) and using various platforms, the possibilities for interventions and the production of alternative public spaces as well as Do-It-Yourself citizenship practices are investigated.
Publications, lectures and conference participation
Subproject 1.3. Borders, border spaces, border crossings: artistic-cultural projects and perspectives
Team: Anita Moser, Marcel Bleuler
In the context of the current migration and refugee movements, borders have become the central discursive figure, as both a geographical and an abstract concept, while their complexity and ambivalence often remain out of view. In this project, we are dealing with the (re-)questioning of borders. What are the impacts of artistic-cultural approaches in this context? What are its potentials for constructing, deconstructing and critically questioning borders and border concepts? These questions are discussed within the framework of a symposium and a series of lectures. In addition, a publication on the subject is being prepared.