CURRICULUM
Anti-discrimination in Theory & Practice
The primary focus of this module area is to explore the political dimensions of art and design, and to help students locate themselves as political subjects in each of their own (and their shared) contexts. It offers theoretical-practial tools for initiating career paths, particularly in the face of conflict and risk of exploitation in creative industries.
The pedagogical methodology is discussion-based, with an emphasis on the relevance of subjectivity, positionality and personal experience. As part of the theory-practice approach, the theoretical input is drawn from pluralistic epistomologies. The content allows for oral histories, pop culture and critical theory to be explored as key knowledge sources. In terms of media the primary literature includes module-specific videos, texts and audio material (often in multiple languages), with a focus on accessibility.
Another key approach is to integrate personal and local discourses from the margins. Wherever possible, guest lecturers in the form of activists, creatives and political thinkers should be invited to give an input. These local artistic researchers are rarely, if ever, referenced in mainstream art education, and yet are often the basis of art historical innovations and bring diverse expertise to the class discussions.
CURRICULUM
Art As Politics: A Berlin Guest Lecture Series
What has art got to do with activism? Where can design become direct action? If at all, how do designers and artists living in Berlin approach political realities in their work? These will be some of the questions we will consider in this online theory and history seminar.
This course is a special guest lecture series on the topic as art as a political tool for action. The students will have the exciting opportunity to listen to artists, designers and community organisers based in Berlin, who have all engaged with politics in their work (or indeed have been forced to). The experts invited work in a variety of creative realms — from graphic design, to artistic research, to performance art —and, knowing their approaches, will bring contrasting and challenging political commentaries to our class discussions.
CURRICULUM
Basic Course of Digital Media 1
Inclusive spaces are opened up to acquire digital literacy and fluency by overcoming stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination: digital reading, digital writing, digital design. This includes binary coding, e.g. text, images and video and own experiments. Coding is introduced as a central competence in the field of digital media for art and design and students are given the opportunity to conduct their first experiments based on trigonometry with basic programming concepts. An introduction to generative design and physical computing complements this.
The design of inclusive spaces includes the deconstruction of social norms and attributions, inclusive representation and a critically diverse history of technology, which also contains milestones beyond the eurocentric view and “white male gaze”.
Digital-analog transformations (CNC milling machine, knitting machine or 3D robot arm) are presented as starting points for a wide range of media and techniques.
A self-observation experiment accompanying the first week of the course invites students to reflect on their own use of digital media.
CURRICULUM
Advanced Course of Digital Media 2
Following on from Digital Media 1, the technological concepts of digital media and systems are deepened as well as technology-related critical knowledge.
The introduction to coding is extended to parametric design and generative design. As starting points for a wide range of media and techniques, digital-analog transformations (e.g. CNC milling machine, knitting machine or 3D robot arm) can be experimentally examined and transferred into creative and artistic designs. Physical computing is taught in theory and practice in an application-oriented way in order to realize prototypical installations with physical interactions.
The specialization course offers artistic and creative, experimental and research-based approaches to a dynamically developing field in the context of social developments. Critical historical classifications are to be researched specifically for the students’ own designs.
CURRICULUM
Basic Course of Performative Spaces 1
Introductions to basic spatial and body-related design techniques and their media forms of representation: Based on experimental body and spatial perceptions and embodiment techniques, exercises on perspective, space, position, body and medial, e.g. filmic representation and performativity are taught, which create an initiating power-critical perspective and tie in with a wide range of artistic, creative and design-related issues and fields of activity.
Initial exercises on a critical reading of power and dominance relations in spatial and body-related art histories as well as film and popular media, which includes also a critique of male, western and white dominance relations. First cinematic and embodiment exercises to describe the relationships between space, body, time and media representation including an power critical examination of architecture and social space. Initial introduction to public space as a site of creative interventions in the social field. First steps in the creation of a critical legibility of mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion in public space through urban research exercises and architecture-related explorations.
CURRICULUM
Advanced Course of Performative Spaces 2
The second semester offers the opportunity to deepen and further reflect on body and space- related design techniques, including those mediated by media, through experiments and individual or group-based research projects.
Investigations into experiences of the body, time and space are placed in relation to audio-visual representation possibilities and analysed critically in terms of their significance for social, powerful mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion.
Discourses of performativity as well as audio-visual representation methods offer an opportunity to deepen, develop and appropriate topics in individual or group-based research fields in a power-critical manner, as well as to transfer them to one’s own areas of interest and study specialisations.
CURRICULUM
“How can we talk about anti-discrimination in Art and Design?” (Basic Course)
Power structures in the fields of art and design are addressed in this course, aiming to foster a more critical awareness of how they function in practice.
Positioning within the university context will be practiced, considering why this is a crucial act to confront the many layers of elitism and exclusivity. With a focus on accessibility, selected works on critical whiteness in Germany, various forms of institutional critique, and queerfeminist activism that stretch beyond the frameworks of academic text-based learning will be examined.
CURRICULUM
Why am I really here? Navigating the Politics of ‘Representation’ in Art and Design (Basic Course)
Explorating the politics of ‘Representation’ particularly for marginalised artists in Art and Design worlds.
By ‘representation politics’ we want to ask (not only) ‘whether’ you are represented, but also ‘how’, ‘why’ and ‘by whom’.
This theoretical seminar will analyse the conditions that foreground ‘representation’. We will take into account the power of empathy in ‘being seen’, but also problematise the outcome ‘visibility’ can have on our practice.
Incorporation of few guest lecturers, preferably living locally to enrich the critical discussions with personal and expert perspectives.
CURRICULUM
Strategies of Resistance and Empowerment: What is ‘Transformative Art’? (Basic Course)
This program explores the concept of transformation in art through diverse mediums, including music videos, contemporary dance, and food or community projects, with a focus on artists often excluded from the traditional art historical canon.
It combines theoretical discourse with practical artistic reflection, featuring discussions on current Berlin-based artists and encouraging participants to share personal experiences with transformative art.