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Research Area No. 3: Participatory Space and Collaborative Production of Knowledge(s) (Resonance)
2015-2017, Siglinde Lang
This research area examines (inter-)spaces and their potential for the collaborative production of knowledge(s) in the context of aesthetic, cognitive and affective processes. In reference to earlier studies (Lang 2015; Lang 2015a) and the fact that artistic consolidation and participatory practices open a temporary space of what is and what might be, particularly in participatory arts projects, different modes of perception are enabled. Here, these projects - potentially - initiate processes of (self-)reflection, multi-perspective dialogue and possibly rethinking. The aim of the collaborative processes that thus emerge is to lead to cumulative adoptions of individual, yet common or shared - everyday as well aesthetic - experiences that might lead to processes of renegotiating conventional, entrenched perspectives and established narratives. Analyzing specific and concrete (inter-)spaces, the goal of this research area is to investigate the "power of aesthetic experiences" (after a 2012 online quote from Juliane Rebentisch) for processes of cultural (meaning) production: What do such participatory spaces look like? What is the significance of aesthetic participation for processes of alternative spatial experiences? What do these (inter-)spaces opened by artistic and cultural initiatives need in order to become participatory spaces? What kinds of knowledge are produced and how?
Based on an interdisciplinary and hermeneutic analysis, three fields of contemporary cultural practice are examined.
Research_Base: Participatory Spaces and Processes of Aesthetic Experiences in (the context of) Cultural Production of Meaning.
Current trends toward civic participation in, and co-shaping of, culture mean that various, also contradictory, perspectives are given space for articulation. These developments become especially virulent in participatory art projects, as such projects refer to the demand to shift social issues directly into the viewing field of artistic creation. Thus, they - potentially - evoke diverse and multi-vocal processes of negotiation and initiate controversial debates about cultural symbols and interpretations. By intervening into a cultural status quo and referring to what is visible in everyday practice as common cultural ascriptions of meaning, they intervene in what is currently understood and lived as culture; by "using" the power of the arts as a specific cultural form and practice (cf. Cassirer 1990; Bayer 2006), art allows us to see the forms of the world without explaining them. Whereas other cultural icons and practices - such as science or language - strive to explain reality structurally, "[a]rt's symbolism evokes aesthetic experiences in the beholder that are richer and more complex than the sense experiences of everyday life" (Paetzold, 2008: 92). Thus, artistic practices as (specific) cultural practices do not - primarily - make the claim of generating solutions, explanatory models, or models for negotiation. Instead, they open up spaces for sensual experience. Because of this, perspectives can open up beyond conventional and common structures of experience and perception. In interaction, or a back-and-forth with the imaginary-aesthetic, a type of in-between or counter space arises. This space is situated between "fact" and "fiction," between the worlds of what is and what is possible, and can be seen as initiator and motor of processes of cultural production.
Period: 2014 - 2017 // Siglinde Lang in collaboration with Sandra Chatterjee (to 2015)
Research Study: Artistic Collaborations as Collective Acts
In the 1970s, the sociologist Becker stated that art can be interpreted as an act of collective action. A number of participatory formats and collaborative organizational structures in art and culture have developed due in part to this expansion of the understanding of art, process-oriented working methods, increasing interdisciplinarity and new technologies, but also due to economic challenges, hegemonic exclusion and poor production conditions. The resulting contemporary critical art formations are, above all, a combination of the creation of the public(s) and an active, often activist, intervention in the circulation of cultural meaning production.
Three conceptions of collectivity describing different shared action plans - collaboration, complicity and coalition - form the reference points for an exploration of collective production processes, which are situated in the tension field between collectivity and critical approaches to subject/ivity and identity (see Jähnert, Aleksander and Kriszio 2013).
Period: 2015 - 2017 // Siglinde Lang in collaboration with Sandra Chatterjee
Research Study: Art in Rural Areas
The research study "Arts in Rural Areas" investigates contemporary art and culture initiatives in (small) villages, rural communities or in abandoned regions. Negotiating current thoughts on "space" and re-questioning simplistic dichotomies, such as urban-rural, center-periphery and avant-garde-provincial/small-minded, the project emphasizes the meaning of site-specificity as a "discursive operation" for establishing participatory spaces. Site-specific art as a collaborative process initiates local engagement, encourages critical and (self-)reflective debates and enables alternative spatial experiences. In these processes of re-negotiating cultural (self-) ascriptions, the (rural) self-image is ruptured, while alternative and diverse (re-)interpretations of collective and individual identities are encouraged.
Period: 2015-16 // Siglinde Lang in collaboration with students of the study area "Arts Management & Cultural Production"
Research Study: Urban Space as a Site of Cultural Negotiation Processes
The co-creation of a person's immediate urban environment and living space is not only a fundamental civil right but can also be seen as connecting civic concerns with the intersection of artistic, cultural and urban citizenship. In this context, citizens require both access to the arts and the processes of cultural production, as well as to the tools and incentives that enable them to contribute to artistic and cultural processes through their competencies and knowledges. Based on the 7hoch2 festival (www.7hoch2.net) and its intention of providing a public platform to explore the civic potential for urban processes of transformation, and with the aim of multiplying academic, civic and artistic expertise, the following questions will be examined: What could a multi-vocal stage for civic interests co-creating urban life look like, particularly in the context of artistic citizenship? How can art become a common resource as a medium of citizenship? How can new relationships between the arts and publics be initiated thereby? What does artistic co-creation in the context of cultural/urban and artistic citizenship mean and entail?
Period: 2015-2017 // Siglinde Lang and Sandra Chatterjee in collaboration with students of the study area "Arts Management & Cultural Production"