Producing knowledge in self-organized artistic settings through performative research and artistic intervention

The following article presents the Young Tenants, a project that gave young Berlin adults the opportunity to use vacant spaces for art and culture­related purposes. Through organizing and participating in activities in these spaces they discovered their artistic creativity and craftsmanship, practiced cultural participation and engaged with the community. In contrast to what they typically experienced in school or in out-of-school education, the project emphasized self­organization and an environmental approach towards learning. The accompanying research called for a different logic of enquiry than in the usual discursive mode of qualitative social research. The tenants were regarded as co­researchers, capable of finding creative solutions for the problems that arose while working towards the goals they had set for themselves. They produced knowledge through their art making, which was expanded, transformed and renewed through a practice-based action research process. At the same time, since understanding is not always reducible to language, we focused on their actions as expressions of embedded knowledge and considered the project to be a practice-led performative research. Additionally, we unlocked further potential though artistic interventions that served to enrich their activities, deepen reflection, and challenge the knowledge generated

Über Ästhetisches und Performatives – Scenario-Gespräch mit Hanne Seitz

Das Gespräch wurde am 22.7.2014 in Berlin von Manfred Schewe geführt und kann als mp3-Datei hier heruntergeladen werden

An Anthropological Perspective on Technical, Phonetic and Figurative Gestures

The essay describes a primal scene, imagining how it might have been in the very beginning. Undoubtedly, it was a “homo ludens” who started the project of becoming human by using hand, eye, and the ability to imagine. Technical, phonetic, and figurative gestures gave way to the so-called second nature – cultural expressions that lead to technology, supported understanding, created pictures, music, theatre, or artistic legacies like the labyrinth that serves as a format for this essay. The “line of thoughts” (somewhere between fiction and reality) performs its own truth while one walks through: The text is constructed along the path of a labyrinth, the production of speech interrupted by its seven turns – allowing the experience of linear and cyclical time and creating rhythm and a motion of progression. It was written to be performed – not only to be read, but also to be seen and heard. Readers may imagine it as speech whose sound, rhythm and gestural elements inscribe themselves on the body

Auf der Suche nach Zwischenräumen

Gebäude, Straßen, Normen und Richtlinien ordnen das Leben der Stadt. Gerade Jugendlichen fehlt es an unreglementierten Zwischenräumen, um die eigene Individualität kennenzulernen