Theme of the month May/June 2010: 
EDUCATIONAL TURNS, AND DISTRIBUTED SOCIAL SYSTEMS


Several books and events have recently converged in relation to issues
of "education" and curating: Graham and Cook's "Rethinking Curating"
includes a chapter on educational modes of working; O'Neill and Wilson's
"Curating and the Educational Turn" collects chapters by authors
including Esche and Raqs Media Collective; the iDC discussion list
develops ongoing expertise around distributed education
(https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc); the Artschool project
(http://www.artschooluk.org/) has explored issues of the representation
of teaching/learning or the exhibition as discursive device (attended by
CRUMB's Verina Gfader); and Art and the Social: Exhibitions of
Contemporary Art in the 1990s symposium includes Sabeth Buchmann and
Claire Bishop
(http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/eventseducation/symposia/20917.htm).

An obvious link is being made here between understandings of social
systems of participation or collaboration, and radical or
self-institutionalising educational projects ranging from the early
Black Mountain College, and Bauhaus, to more recent examples such as the
University of Openess [sic] or the Free Cinema School, The Centre for
Possible Studies.

However, how can former exceptional states of schools significantly
inform and shape our current understanding of
learning/teaching/contributing to the world? Are our understandings of
former models of 'alternative' art schools hopelessly romantic, and
based on 'cults of personality' rather than collaborative systems? Are
these models inherently short-term, and prone to burn-out, in which case
how is the accumulation of ‘knowledges’ made available to others in the
longer term? For new media, is the confusion between educational
technology, and new media art, a productive confusion whereby new media
art enters institutions through educational routes, or does it doom new
media to remain in education rather than curatorial contexts?



Invited respondents:

Dave Beech is an artist in the collective Freee, writes for Art Monthly
and teaches at Chelsea College of Art. http://www.dave.beech.clara.net/

Renée Padt is a curator and producer in art, design and craft and
currently programme director of CuratorLab at Konstfack, University
College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. 

Dorothee Richter is an art historian, author and curator. She is
Director of the Postgraduate Program in Curating, Institute Cultural
Studies, University of Fine Arts, Zürich. She was a member of the
research group Exhibition Display, between 1999 and 2003 and Artistic
Director of the Künstlerhaus in Bremen, Germany. She has collaborated
with Barnaby Drabble on projects under the title Curating Degree Zero.
http://www.curating.org, http://www.on-curating.org,
http://www.curatingdegreezero.org

Edgar Schmitz is an artist and currently working on a series of
soundtracks for the British Art Show 7 and a book on ambient attitudes
and escapist criticalities. He lectures at Goldsmiths and is co-director
of A Conversation in Many Parts.

Tom Holert is a Berlin-based art historian and cultural theorist who
teaches and conducts research at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

Maria X [aka Maria Chatzichristodoulou] works as curator, producer,
performer, and theorist. She acquired her PhD in Art and Computational
Technologies from Goldsmiths Digital Studios, and now lectures Theatre
and Performance at the School of Arts and New Media, University of Hull.
Maria X is co-editor of the volume Interfaces of Performance (Ashgate,
2009) and the forthcoming volume Intimacy: Across Digital and Visceral
Performance. 

Axel Stockburger is an artist and theorist who currently works at the
University of Fine Arts in Vienna.

Miki Fukuda is producer and art manager based in Tokyo. She was a
lecturer at IAMAS from 2004 to 2007, and has worked at YCAM InterLab
till 2009. http://www.go-lightly.org/

Marianne Eigenheer works and exhibits as an artist internationally. She
has worked as Professor, Art Academy Stuttgart, and Guest Professor
Curtin University Perth (WA). Since 2003 she is a Professor at ICE
(Institute for Curatorship and Education) eca Edinburgh (until 2009
Director ICE). She is an artist and researcher she is especially
interested in the “glocal” issues, Cross Cultural Research and New Media
and in the relationship curator/artist/public.

Ruth Höflich is a German artist based in London. Between 2002 and 2009
she worked as part of the artists' duo Guestroom. 

Habib Asal, is a visual artist, born in Amman (Jordan), and lives and
works in Zürich, Switzerland. Studies in Art at Zürich University of the
Arts (ZHdK), and Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (Prof. Monica Bonvicini),
and Economics at University of Zürich.    

Kate Southworth is an artist working collaboratively with Patrick Simons
as glorious ninth (http://www.gloriousninth.net) and a researcher at
University College Falmouth.

Charlotte Frost is an arts writer/academic focusing on the intersection
of art and technology, with a specialism in the impact of internet tools
on art history/criticism. She recently set up
http://www.phd2published.com/ in order to foster a clearer dialogue
between post-doctoral academics, academic publishing houses, and
technical developments in systems for distributing academic research.



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Verina Gfader
www.crumbweb.org