Articles with tag: emergency

05/30/2016 _Perspective

Design and Modeling as Processes of Creating Culture

In the framework of the investigation into “Research as Art” by research area ‘Visual and Material Culture,’ Prof. Claudia Mareis (Basel) and Dr. Reinhard Wendler (Florence) hosted a two-day workshop on “Designing Models, Modelling Design” (February 3–4, 2016). In the workshop, the concepts of ‘design’ and ‘model’ served as semantic vehicles for a discussion on the temporal and material character of meaning-making. As ideas, both can foster an interdisciplinary analysis of emerging cultural phenomena, transcending disciplinary boundaries in academia as well as those between different fields of cultural reflection, social planning, and material production (such as architecture or engineering). The workshop revolved around the central notion that the creation of objects and images during modeling and design processes can fulfill a multitude of different functions: as means of representation, ideation, planning, or communicating ideas, they shape historically specific emergences of cultural phenomena. …

05/30/2016 _Perspective

Reflections on Hunger in Burkina Faso

The fight against poverty and hunger has been going on for decades. Statistics from the United Nations show that there has been some success: from 1990 to 1992 over a billion people experienced undernourishment, while from 2014 to 2016 the number declined to 794 million. This is certainly a record of progress. Nevertheless, there is still a considerable amount of hunger and furthermore we do not fully understand this phenomenon. What feelings are connected to hunger and what strategies exist to mediate them? Who is still suffering from hunger today and why? How do social relationships affect hunger? How do people cope with the insecurities that are connected to it? At what point does hunger become an emergency? What consequences does it have? Are there different regional concepts of hunger? What is a useful way for us to think about hunger?

05/30/2016 _Perspective

Shake Those Methods!

The Art of Doing Research

In the winter term 2015/16, the GCSC research area ‘Visual and Material Culture’ held a number of meetings on the application of the research methodology while conducting research in the study of culture. As the immediacy of practical application of the research methods leaves a strong imprint on the ideas and knowledge that appear in academia, we wanted to report on our discussions in the light of the theoretical concept of ‘emergence.’ …

05/30/2016 _Perspective

Research Design

The explorative potential of research-planning processes in visual and material culture

The first session of the Creative Emergence of a Research Method series was dedicated to thinking about research processes and their design. The non-planned potential knowledge, emerging during those processes (also while reflecting on the research design process itself) became a central topic. It was a provocative session in which we took the abstract notion of ‘design’ as the ‘rituals of creativity’ and compared research design to object- or service-design processes. …

05/30/2016 _Perspective

Curating as Research

In recent years, curating seems to have become a flourishing practice; everything seems to be curated today: meals, music, marriage ceremonies. But beyond these inflationary uses, the professional curation of museums, exhibitions, or collections has also received increased attention — the arena where curating as research and means in the production of knowledge comes to the fore. University courses in traditional curating are booming, but there is little academic literature on the subject, and it often remains vague as to what the role of the curator and their methods and repertoire of tools might look like. For me as an artist, curator, and academic, but also for the research area ‘Visual and Material Culture,’ these questions, as well as how curatorial practice relates to academic work, are of central concern. …