Art Studies

actual Research Projects

Homeless Dwelling: Devastating and Discrete Disaster.

Perspectives on societal domiciles and habitation in everyday life

Live+/-exhibit

Living - the supposed place of the private - is figured in the modern age as a social setting, on which the internally-oriented, modern subjectivity continually sells, exhibits and has to exhibit.

former Research Projects

Mattress / matrix: substance and reproduction in the home

International conference of the research field live +/- exhibit in cooperation of the Institute of Fine Arts - Film Studies - Art Education at the University of Bremen with the Mariann Steegmann Institute. Art & Gender

Foto

City and culture

As part of the research focus "City and Culture" Michael Müller analyzes in his recent publication "Culture of the City".

Homeless Dwelling: Devastating and Discrete Disaster.

International conference of the research program wohnen+/-ausstellen (dwelling+/-exhibiting), a collaboration between the Institute for Art History– Film Studies – Art Education at the University of Bremen and the Mariann Steegmann Institute – Art & Gender.

When we speak about dwelling (Wohnen) it is often in the doubly positive sense of existent and good: dwelling is there. It is built, it is equipped, it exists via houses, apartments, furniture. Its history is told through its existence, its materiality in scholarship and in personal memory. Dwelling appears as a positivistic given. And it is often described as positive, in the sense of good, as a protective and felicitous space of a self, of a family, status or territorial affiliation.

However, dwelling as existence and home is paralleled by homeless dwelling: destroyed dwelling, as found in armed conflicts, lost dwelling through migration, temporary dwelling in the case of homelessness and itinerancy, precarious dwelling in economic, emotional and physical deprivation, fearful dwelling in subjective crises: homeless dwelling from great cataclysms to secret and discrete horrors. Homeless dwelling incorporates the conflictual in the housed and at the same time attacks and demolishes it.

Homeless dwelling is a constant of the history and theory of dwelling. On the one hand, it is forgotten, not discussed, concealed or becomes the discourse of specialists on the social. On the other, it is also a part of dwelling that is made particularly visible, for instance, in art and theory. In the critical analysis of dwelling it becomes the counter-argument, the intentionally non-identical and unstable, the flight from a refuge experienced as disastrous. In this dissolving of the boundaries of the housed there often inheres a rhetoric of the promise of a shift into the liberated.

The conference will explore the unhoused/homeless on different levels from art and culture-historical, philosophical, ethnological, architecture-theoretical, psychiatric and artistic perspectives.

Time:

May 3 – 6, 2018

Venue:

Gästehaus der Universität Bremen

Teerhof 58

28199 Bremen

Direction and Concept:

Prof. Dr. Irene Nierhaus

Dr. Kathrin Heinz 


Mariann Steegmann Institut
Kunst & Gender
www.mariann-steegmann-institut.de

Organisation and Contact:

Johanna Hartmann
johaprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de

Anna-Katharina Riedel
anna.riedelprotect me ?!msi.uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de

Live+/-exhibit

Talking about living is often twice as positive as the living and the good: living is there. It is built, it is equipped, it exists through houses, apartments, furniture. Its story is told through its existence, its materiality in science to personal memory. Living appears given as positivistic. And living is often described as positive, in the sense of a secure and happy space of a self, a family, status or territorial affiliation.

Living as a livelihood and home / homeland, however, is also accompanied by unguarded living: destroyed homes, as in warlike conflicts, lost living in migrations, temporary living in homelessness, precarious living in economic, emotional and physical discomfort, anxious living in subject crises: homeless living from the great devastation to secret and discrete horrors. Homeless living includes the conflict in the house and attacks and demolishes it at the same time.

Homeless living is a steady part of the history and theory of living. On the one hand, it is forgotten, not discussed, hidden, or becomes a discourse of social specialists. On the other hand, as in art and theory, it is also a particularly visible part of living, for in the criticism of the living it becomes a counter-speech, a deliberate non-identical and unstable , to escape from a refuge deemed disastrous. In this demarcation of the housing often lives also a promise rhetoric on excerpt to the liberated.

The conference will address different levels of the homelessnes from the arts and cultural studies, philosophical, ethnological, architectural theory, psychiatric and artistic perspectives.

Time:
since December 2009

 

Head and Concept:

Prof. Dr. Irene Nierhaus
nierhausprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de

Dr. Kathrin Heinz
k.heinzprotect me ?!msi.uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de

Mariann Steegmann Institut
Kunst & Gender
www.mariann-steegmann-institut.de

Members:

  • Carina Bahmann
  • Silke Bangert
  • Dr. Angelika Bartl
  • Katharina Eck
  • Brigitte Härtel
  • Prof. Dr. Insa Härtel
  • Johanna Hartmann
  • Ninja Kaupa
  • PD. Dr. Christiane Keim
  • Astrid Schönhagen

Mattress/ Matrice

International conference of the research field live +/- exhibit in cooperation of the Institute of Art History - Film Studies - Art Education at the University of Bremen with the Mariann Steegmann Institute. Art & Gender.

Mattress / thrown thing on which we sleep, rest, love, laze, dream, torment, reproduce, which we tarnish, under which the repressed, eerie lurking, on which we heal and die ... Matrice which shapes, duplicates, stores, reproduces, copies, produces the printed material, transmits the knowledge, leaves the odors, records ...

Mattress and matrice are media and mediators. Mattress means intimacy, everyday life and body, while matrice means publicity, knowledge and writing. Thus, the difference between authenticity, substance and representation, reproduction is (re) formulated. However, the slash between mattress / matrix marks a ratio to be discussed. Thus, the mattress, at home in the supposedly most private place, is also an agent of normalization in subjectivation processes and the biopolitical. Configured by corporealities, it is the object of the sale, on which the foundation of society takes place in its individual relation. The matrix, which is oriented towards publication as a medium of multiplication and knowledge formation, is also a metonym for embossing processes and entries in material bodies. The matrice is ​​a theoretical figure, thinking of living in the span of substance and representation. The mattress has a double position, it is a theoretical figure and object area. Everyday life, knowledge, subjectification in body analog media of living and their pointer structures are set in relation. The intention is a transdisciplinary debate between art, architecture, visual culture and theory in the entanglement of objects, materials, aesthetic structures and contexts of meaning.

Publication:

Irene Nierhaus / Kathrin Heinz (Hg.): Matratze/Matrize. Möblierung von Subjekt und Gesellschaft. Konzepte in Kunst und Architektur. Bielefeld: transcript, 2016, Band 3, Schriftenreihe wohnen+/-ausstellen, transcript-verlag.de.

City and Culture

Foto

As part of the research focus "City and Culture" Michael Müller analyzes in his recent publication "Culture of the City. Essays for a policy of architecture "modern cultural and spatial models, aestheticization and museisation processes of urban space as well as strategies for a renewed politicization of architecture. Themes of the book are: City as a place of cultural production / street and integration / Three city models / Satisfaction sought by mere seeing / Image and space / Aesthetization, culture and economy / Museum and city / Museum and self-presentation / Avant-garde, subject and mass culture / The Dream of eternal order / criticism of links / Walter Benjamin: Architecture for the bad new / methodological change of perspective and economic cultural model.

Publication:

Michael Müller: „Culture of a city. Essays for politics of the architechture"  (transcript-editors), Bielefeld 2010. 240 pages with 13 images in colour and 8 b/w

Introduction (Download in German)