We often think art’s all about money. Rather, it’s about energy. Immersing yourself in Lake Zurich, a hedge-fund office, a botanical garden, or a land-art piece built on ruins, is it possible to discern an energy particular to art? Art as a form of energy capable of encompassing the whole of life, more powerful than finance and its algorithms? Art as science or speculative fiction? We dwell in castles with Schrödinger’s cat until we give form to the formless: molecules and failed soldiers, art spaces previously owned by the mafia. We share tips about the tricks of the trade—only to intervene, emancipate, culminate, collapse, and (re)emerge. Let us look everywhere for ideas, and let us be gloriously out of touch: may we grow our capacity and courage to love. Catastrophism, miniskirt, particle.
This book arises from the 2019 activities of the MA Fine Arts program at the Zurich University of the Arts. It reflects the conviction that an arts school can be a pedagogical nexus dedicated to the transmission of knowledge, experimentation, and research as much as a locus for civic and critical debate and exhibition, involved in its community, locally and globally.
With texts and artistic contributions by Kevin Aeschbacher, Bene Andrist, Claudia Baena, Donatella Bernardi, Lisa Biedlingmaier, Johanna Bruckner, Martina Buzzi, Notta Caflisch, Graciela Carnevale, Mathieu Copeland, Gritli Faulhaber, Anne-Laure Franchette, Florian Graf, Nadia Graf, Michael Felix Grieder, Tobias Gutmann, Vemo Liwei Hang, Julius Hatt, Tim Hergersberg, Füsun Ipek, Hanieh Jahangiri, Ziqi Jiang, Nicola Kazimir, Pete Keller, Elise Lammer, Yani Li, Kathrin Maliszewski, Nico Sebastian Meyer, Clio Newton, Tabita Rezaire, Ana Roldán, Valentina Sansone, Esther Schena, Denise Schwab, Daniel Schwartz, Alexandra Siegrist, Elza Sile, Susan Steiger, Linda Strähl, Ilona Stutz, Milva Stutz, Salvatore Vitale, Bettina Wachter, Yamu Wang, Yvonne Wilhelm.
The artist as entrepreneur has become a common topic of discussion. Here, however, we put forward the notions of “self” and “system.” First, every artistic practice is self-reflexive and self-contextualizing. Second, each system an artist builds allows for innovation. Let’s construct a space where we inevitably find ourselves together with others, even if we feel lonely, like a witch lost in a library of artists’ books. Let’s invent our right to do so. Let’s enter the world of smell and write about a megalomaniac art school while documenting a generation of art students and their studios with analogue photography. How does anyone even manage—from making objects to performing one’s own existence? Device, organon, animal.
328 pages, Sternberg Press, 2019
ISBN 978-3-956794-88-9
Art & Crisis. A Polyphonic Research on the Contemporary | Donatella Bernardi (ed.)
CHF 28.00
Polyphonic research into contemporary, Art & Crisis” is the first volume of a new series aiming to explore the state of the world and cultural theories as seen through the lens of contemporary artistic practices and educational tools. Stemming from the Master Fine Arts at the Zurich University of the Arts, and edited by MFA director Donatella Bernardi, the series’ ambition is to replace the traditional “degree show” catalogue with a theoretical publication showing the path followed by the students-turned-artists over the course of the year, and to explore how an educational institution based in Zurich can locate itself within the global (art) world.
320 pages, jrp|Ringier, 2018
ISBN 978-3-03764-525-3
“Tender Digitality” beschreibt ein ästhetisch orientiertes Konzept, das ein binäres System in Schwingung versetzt und Menschen als Human Digitalus darstellt. Dabei reagiert es auf das Bedürfnis, Sinnlichkeit, Wahrnehmung, Intuition und Wohlbefinden in digitalen Umgebungen zu erleben, diese Erfahrung greifbar zu machen und dafür eine Sprache zu entwickeln.”Tender Digitality” operiert im Raum zwischen analog und digital, sozialen und technischen Phänomenen, welches es in sich ständig verändernde, niemals fixierte Muster einwebt.
Actor & Avatar | Dieter Mersch, Anton Rey, Thomas Grunwald et al. (eds.)
CHF 48.00
A Scientific and Artistic Catalog
What kind of relationship do we have with artificial beings (avatars, puppets, robots, etc.)? What does it mean to mirror ourselves in them, to perform them or to play trial identity games with them? Actor & Avatar addresses these questions from artistic and scholarly angles.
Praktiken des Experimentierens | Departement Kunst und Medien DKM (Hg.)
CHF 49.00
Forschung und Lehre in den Künsten heute
In den letzten Jahren hat sich das Departement Kunst & Medien (DKM) der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste ZHdK international einen Namen gemacht mit seiner Programmatik und seiner Praxis des Experimentierens in Lehre und Forschung. Das DKM umfasst einen BA-Studiengang Medien & Kunst – mit den Vertiefungen Bildende Kunst, Fotografie, Mediale Künste und Theorie -, einen Master of Fine Arts, in dem Künstler, Medienautoren und Theoretiker gemeinsam ausgebildet werden, sowie die beiden Forschungsinstitute für Gegenwartskünste und für Theorie. Dieses Dispositiv schafft einen einmalig dichten Raum zeitgenössischer Kunstausbildung und Kunstforschung in Europa. (dt./engl.)
Jahrbuch des Departements Kunst & Medien (DKM)
500 Seiten, Scheidegger & Spiess, 2012
ISBN 978-3-85881-259-9
