Publications (chronologically, since 2004)

2019

Sigrid Adorf, Kathrin Heinz (eds.): Signs/Moments. Re-Presentations in Art und Cultural Analysis. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2019

For Sigrid Schade

How must we look back to be able to see what and to consequently sharpen our view of the present and future?
The contributions of the volume published in honor of Sigrid Schade reference complex discourse histories at the intersections of art, cultural and media studies. They shed light on artistic, cultural and social practices and orders as sites of negotiating complex structures of meanings and relations.
With contributions by Mieke Bal, Kerstin Brandes, Vera Frenkel, Sabine Gebhardt Fink, Insa Härtel, Karin Harrasser, Kornelia Imesch, Carmen Mörsch, Irene Nierhaus, Griselda Pollock, Dorothee Richter, Steffen A. Schmidt, Philip Ursprung, and Silke Wenk.

Maike Christadler, Hildegard Frübis, Sigrid Schade (eds.): “TIMELESS: WRONG”: Selected Writings of Konrad Hoffmann on Research in Art and Cultural Studies. University of Basel: emono, Open Access doi: 10.21255/57.47, 2019

The online edition presents selected essays by the art historian Konrad Hoffmann (1938-2007) in five chapters. They encompass the fields he specialized in, medieval art and art of the Reformation, as well as methodically conceptual contributions to art history as cultural science that were characteristic of Hoffmann’s approach – and especially today prove their topicality.
Each chapter is preceded by an introduction giving reasons for the selection and contextualizing Konrad Hoffmann’s research. The chapters are supplemented by a list of writings compiled by Regine Prange and Thomas Packeiser (Chapter 6) that provides an overview of all of his publications and rounds off the online selection.
Available online

Yana Milev: Detached society – East Germany since 1989/90: Offences. Berlin: Peter Lang. 2019

Ever since the end of Communism was set at 1990 and the rogue state of the GDR was brought to justice, new institutions, foundations and authorities at federal level have been orchestrating the economic, cultural and moral success of the constitutional state. In the process, most of the new citizens have faced the shocks of intense social change and stigmatization by society. A neoliberal annexation of the East has taken place in the guise of concepts such as “transformation”, “modernization” and “democratization”. The investment project “Upturn in the East” is a textbook example of globalization. Above and beyond a reappraisal of the GDR from a totalitarianism and dictatorship perspective, a sociology of the land appropriation, remodelling of society and structural colonialism in East Germany is long overdue. In the thirtieth year of “unity”, the research programme “Detached society. Liberalization and resistance in East Germany since 1989/90. A sociological laboratory” aims to address this issue with a multi-volume publication.
With 13 case studies, the volume “Offences” constitutes the empirical foundation of the entire “Detached society” project. These are recent social research studies in which the offences of discarding, winding-up and abolition in all areas of East German society are revealed, and the resultant social, cultural and regional damage is diagnosed and analysed from the viewpoint of social theory.

2018

Yana Milev: Detached society – East Germany since 1989/90: Annexation. Berlin: Peter Lang. 2019

Ever since the end of Communism was set at 1990 and the rogue state of the GDR was brought to justice, new institutions, foundations and authorities at federal level have been orchestrating the economic, cultural and moral success of the constitutional state. In the process, most of the new citizens have faced the shocks of intense social change and stigmatization by society. A neoliberal annexation of the East has taken place in the guise of concepts such as “transformation”, “modernization” and “democratization”. The investment project “Upturn in the East” is a textbook example of globalization. Above and beyond a reappraisal of the GDR from a totalitarianism and dictatorship perspective, a sociology of the land appropriation, remodelling of society and structural colonialism in East Germany is long overdue. In the thirtieth year of “unity”, the research programme “Detached society. Liberalization and resistance in East Germany since 1989/90. A sociological laboratory” aims to address this issue with a multi-volume publication.
The volume “Annexation” refutes the myth of the “peaceful revolution” and of the “reunification” of that which belongs together, and pursues the theory that liberalization is a continuation of war by other means. It sets out the historical context for the coordinated annexation of the GDR into the FRG, and shows why the grassroots reform movement of 1990 was bound to fail.

Cover of the book "The Future is Unwritten" by Ines Kleesattel and Pablo Müller

Ines Kleesattel, Pablo Müller (eds.): The Future is Unwritten: Position and Politics of Art-Critical Practice. Zürich: Diaphanes. 2018

Will audiences be the art critics of the future? What role might criticism of the system play in art criticism? Will the decentralization and multiplication of journalistic formats lead to the radical democratization of discourse in art criticism? What forms of specific, pinpointable and context-sensitive art criticism are conceivable? What does a future-oriented form of art criticism have to do with a critical and emancipatory policy and to what extent?
The Future Is Unwritten is a collection of current approaches to engaged art criticism. The publication focuses on underestimated or overlooked areas of potential and sees a highly promising future for the practice of art criticism in new processes and formations. Contrary to fatalistic, absolutizing and bitter apocalyptic scenarios, the book thus demonstrates possible directions for an as-yet unwritten future.
With contributions from Claire Bishop, Sabeth Buchmann, Helmut Draxler, Jörg Heiser, Christian Höller, Jens Kastner, Grant H. Kester, Ines Kleesattel, Lucie Kolb, Pablo Müller, Peter J. Schneemann, Peter Spillmann, Nora Sternfeld and Julia Voss.

Cover: «Extraordinaire! Unbekannte Werke aus psychiatrischen Einrichtungen in der Schweiz um 1900»

Katrin Luchsinger, Helen Hirsch, Thomas Röske, (eds.): Extraordinaire! Unbekannte Werke aus psychiatrischen Einrichtungen in der Schweiz um 1900 / Extraordinary! Unknown Works from Swiss Psychiatric Institutions around 1900, Zurich: Scheidegger & Spiess. October 2018

The only project of its kind to date, this comprehensive study gives an overview of the artistic activities of patients in psychiatric institutions in Switzerland from 1870 to 1930. A selection of their mostly unknown works is presented here. The institutionalized men and women created their works with devotion and great technical skill. They understood them as a contribution to public life, as inventions or as a means of expressing their ideas, as critiques of the institutions in which they lived or as a way of enriching their monotonous everyday lives. Their works are a reflection of what was considered “abnormal” in their time, and of the experience of being excluded from public life. Through these works the artists find their voice, adding an entirely new facet to turn-of-the-century modern art.
Contributions by: Dr. phil Anna Lehninger; Dr. phil. Katrin Luchsinger; PD Dr. Thomas Röske, art historian; Prof. Dr. Sigrid Schade; Dr. phil. Elisabeth Telsnig, art historian and germanist, and Dr. sc. Martina Wernli.

2017

Carmen Mörsch, Sigrid Schade und Sophie Vögele (ed.): Representing Art Education. On the Representation of Pedagogical Work in the Art Field. Wien: Zaglossus, December 2017

The anthology presents the outcome of a research project that examined what is displayed and produced when art education is pictured. The volume includes an array of analyses from national and international perspectives that focus on representations of art education in public relations, considering learning in and through art in galleries and schools, and representations of art schools.
Contributions by: microsillons (Olivier Desvoignes and Marianne Guarino-Huet), Nanna Lüth, Aline Suillot, Carmen Mörsch, Stephan Fürstenberg, Nora Sternfeld, Büro trafo.k, Andrew Dewdney, Nicole Mehring, Johanna Schaffer, Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa.

Katrin Luchsinger, Jacqueline Fahrni (ed.): Heinrich Bachofner. Erfinder. (Heinrich Bachofner. Inventor.) Zurich: Scheidegger & Spiess, 2017

Heinrich Bachofner (1863–1926) was an SBB employee with vast technical knowledge and interest in the field. While he was detained at the Psychiatric Hospital in Rheinau, he worked extensively on inventions to do with transport, energy supply and hydropower. This catalogue of his work presents his phenomenal oeuvre of drawings, with contributions by Hans-Peter Bärtschi, Eduard J. Belser, Martin Bütikofer, Marcel Hänggi and Henry Wydler.

2016

Kornelia Imesch / Sigrid Schade / Samuel Sieber (eds.): Constructions of Cultural Identities in Newsreel Cinema and Television after 1945. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2016

Newsreel cinema and television not only served as an important tool in the shaping of political spheres and the construction of national and cultural identities up to the 1960s. Today’s potent televisual forms were furthermore developed in and strongly influenced by newsreels, and much of the archived newsreel footage is repeatedly used to both illustrate and re-stage past events and their significance. This book addresses newsreel cinema and television as a medium serving the formation of cultural identities in a variety of national contexts after 1945.

Schlittler, Anna-Brigitte / Tietze, Katharina (eds.): Über Schuhe. Zur Geschichte und Theorie der Fußbekleidung (Shoes – On the History and Theory of Footwear). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2016

Shoes are much more than a functional and fashionable covering of the foot. As an integral part of material culture, they also highlight historical, social and cultural changes and schisms. Based on a research project on the shoes of the Swiss company Firma Bally from the 1930s and 1940s, the volume deals with men and women's shoes, high fashion accessories and functional footwear. The volume adresses themes such as the lack of shoes, as well as the variety of models, material innivations, shoe design, discourses on foot health as well as the economic history of the shoe industry.

Hediger, Irène / Scott, Jill (eds.): artists-in-labs: Recomposing Art and Science. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2016

This collected volume considers the theoretical and practical processes involved in pursuing collaborative projects between art and science. Contributions explore transdisciplinary issues within and across biology, philosophy, and anthropology, as well as environmental sciences, neurosciences, and media studies. New fields of inquiry and debate within and between existing disciplines are opened up. Eight artists report on their residencies in research laboratories.

Scott, Jill (Hrsg.): Transdiscourse 2: Turbulence and Reconstruction Cultural Studies: An anthology of viewpoints on society from the arts and the sciences. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2016

The authors in this book believe that the arts and the sciences are effective spaces to raise public awareness and to encourage us to think differently about outdated concepts of representation and categorization and reconstruct new potentials about how the designs of the future might benefit our environment and the survival of our bodies. Turbulence and reconstruction are processes that not only affect our representation and categorization, our designs for agriculture, urban nature and energy consumption, but also our relation to media and technology – the virtual, digital ideologies of interaction and substitution.

Luchsinger, Katrin: Die Vergessenskurve. Werke aus Psychiatrischen Kliniken in der Schweiz um 1900. Eine kulturanalytische Studie (The Forgetting Curve. Works from Swiss Psychiatric Clinics Around 1900. A Cultural Analytical Study). Zurich: Chronos Verlag, 2016

From around 1870, art and psychology became closely related. Collections of the so-called “art of the insane” emerged across Europe and psychiatric hospitals became the focal point of social and normative debates on mental health. Yet patients creating art were seldom attributed authorship or granted an audience. This study reconstructs the discourses in which such works were inscribed and how patients, as authors, aesthetically negotiated the production site of their work.

2015

Heinz, Kathrin: Heldische Konstruktionen. Von Wassily Kandinskys Reitern, Rittern und heiligem Georg (Heroic Contstructions. Wassily Kandinsky's riders, knights and St George). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2015

Knights and riders are among the favourite motifs of Wassily Kandinsky. In particular, he repeatedly depicted St George fighting the dragon in both figurative and abstract compositions, and the saint may be read as an engagement with a traditional artist’s identity figure. Heinz demonstrates the fundamental importance of this motif for the artistic programme of the “outrider” of abstraction, and shows how readings of Kandinsky’s understanding of himself as an artist can be generated from an image in the context of historical ideas of masculinity and artistic identity politics.

[Translate to English:] Buchcover: «Open Curating Studio: Gasthaus zum Baeren / Museum Baerengasse»

Richter, Dorothee (ed.): Open Curating Studio: Gasthaus zum Baeren / Museum Baerengasse. Postgraduate Programme in Curating. Zurich: ZHdK, 2015

Curating is undoubtedly a new discursive formation, as defined by Michel Foucault, which has rapidly developed since the 1970s. We are aware that we are also part of this instituting process, with the developing of an archive, with the Postgraduate Programme in Curating at the ZHdK, and with the PhD platform, a cooperation between the University of Reading and our publications. This formation is instituted in hierarchical formations and power relations. We therefore strive to open up processes, to question what instituting and de-instituting means, and to make our thoughts, struggles, and research accessible. Further Information

Hediger, Irène / Schaschl, Sabine (eds.): Quantum of Disorder. Basel: Christoph Merian Verlag, 2015

The “Quantum of Disorder” publication originated in the context of the partnership project of the same name between the artists-in-labs programme of ICS/ZHdK and the Haus Konstruktiv museum. Taking their cue from the title of the work, numerous artists and researches offer insights into their world. The essays deal with issues of humans and machines, the freedoms of art and the laws of the universe, while the artists participating in the “Quantum of Disorder” group exhibition talk about their work in a series of interviews. The publication also features images of the art works in the exhibition.

Luchsinger, Katrin / Salathé, André / Damman, Gerhard / Jagfeld, Monika (eds.): Auf der Seeseite der Kunst. Werke aus der Psychiatrischen Klinik Münsterlingen 1894–1960 (On the Lakeside of Art. Works from the Münsterlingen Psychiatric Clinic, 1894–1960). Zurich: Chronos Verlag, 2015

The Münsterlingen psychiatric clinic is one of the oldest in Switzerland. In the clinic’s patient records, there are 249 drawings by patients, spanning the years from 1894 to 1960. For the patients from these eras of psychiatry drawing appears to have been a strategy for survival – from the beginnings of the discipline to just before the time of the “anti-psychiatry” movement. This publication brings together a range of conceptual and research approaches, including psychiatric, history of medicine, historical and art studies perspectives. This publication originated in the context of the Conservation of Special Cultural Assets research project.

2014

Sieber, Samuel: Macht und Medien. Zur Diskursanalyse des Politischen (Power and Media. Discourse analysis of the political). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2014

New media and digital networks are playing a major part in defining the political challenges of the present day. “Media revolutions” promise an increase in the global availability of knowledge and democratic opinion formation – and, at the same time, we see the growth and flourishing of the data focus of a tightly governed, networked society, which is essentially a society of surveillance and control. Sieber painstakingly reconstructs the significance of Foucault’s analysis of discourse and power for a theory and analysis of systems of media-based communication that both restrict and expand the political latitude of the power structure.

Huber, Sandra: Assembling the Morrow. A Poetics of Sleep. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2014

Assembling the Morrow is a book written by the Swiss artist in residence Sandra Huber who spent nine months at a sleep laboratory of the CenterCentre for Integrative Genomics at the University of Lausanne. Even though people spend a third of their lives asleep, their behaviour remains largely a mystery. Huber assumes that any attempt to solve this mystery requires new modes of experimentation. Assembling the Morrow proposes that entering the mystery of sleep requires a radical reframing of our biases on what it means to be conscious.

Milev, Yana: Designsoziologie. Der erweiterte Designbegriff im Entwurfsfeld der Politischen Theorie und Soziologie (Design Sociology. The Extended Concept of Design in the Field of Political theory and Sociology). Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang Verlag, 2014

The concept of “design” is currently facing a crisis, calling into question the design regime of industrial production, computing and object and trademark culture that has held sway since the 1950s. This crisis also calls for a complementary form of design research and design studies, to re-evaluate and re-communicate the field. A “sociology of design” seeks to answer questions of design and representation from the viewpoints of power, identity, rituals, work, the mass media, technology, protest and resistance. This Habilitation (lecturer’s qualification) thesis publication originated in the context of the Anthropodesign research project.

Adorf, Sigrid / Christadler, Maike (eds.): New Politics of Looking? – Affekt und Repräsentation (New Politics of Looking? – Affect and representation). FKW // Zeitschrift für Geschlechterforschung und Visuelle Kultur, (No. 55), 2014

Are there new forms, new politics for looking at images, at art? If so, what makes them new? As opposed to what? What justifies the assumption that it is now necessary, or even possible, to redefine the relationship between art and looking? What political perspectives are related to these questions? What are the politics of affect? Is representation criticism still an important/meaningful instrument of analysis? This publication has been prompted by a never-ending series of questions. Further Information

Institute for Cultural Studies in the Arts / Museum of Design Zurich (eds.): Weingart Typografie. Ausstellungstexte und Forschungsbericht (The Weingart Typography. Exhibition texts and research report). Zurich: Zurich University of the Arts, 2014

Wolfgang Weingart is regarded as the enfant terrible of modern Swiss typography. He quickly broke away from the established rules, calling the hierarchical relationships between high and applied art into question. As a teacher of typography at the Basel School of Design, Weingart left his mark on several generations of designers from 1968. His experimental design approach and call for a combination of analogue and digital techniques are again relevant today. This is the first survey of his works to appear in Switzerland, showing them alongside the output from his teaching activities. The work originated as an accompanying text in the Wolfgang Weingart research project. Publication as PDF

2013

Gebhardt Fink, Sabine/Schade, Sigrid/Vogel, Matthias (eds.): Hermann Obrist. Im Netzwerk der Künste und Medien um 1900 (Hermann Obrist. In the network of the arts and media around 1900). Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos, 2013

Obrist, the Munich-based Jugendstil artist and pioneer of modernism, was a charismatic figure who exerted a strong fascination on many of his contemporaries. In the years around 1900, he was seen as a visionary by the “entire Schwabing Bohemian milieu”, from August Endell to Wassily Kandinsky. His passionate intensity and sense of vocation was at times perceived as dogmatism by his contemporaries and followers. They sought to break free by making no reference to him in their subsequent recollections. Original quotations and theoretical approaches are used to cast some brief illumination on the contradictory aspects of Obrist’s character and oeuvre, from a range of different perspectives. The publication originated from the Hermann Obrist research project.

Schade, Sigrid (ed.): Vera Frenkel (German/English). Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2013

This monograph provides the first comprehensive survey of the major works of the Canadian artist Vera Frenkel, born in 1938 in Bratislava. Her installations, videos, essays and websites address central issues in a time impacted as never before by migration, displacement and violence. Her themes include archiving policies, the transmission of cultural memory and forgetting in the media, and the interactions of institutional and individual narratives during fundamental historical transitions. The publication originated from the Vera Frenkel research project.

Luchsinger, Kathrin (ed.): Anna Z., Schneiderin: “Lebensbeschreibung einer (Unglücklichen!) sowie die Schilderung der Erlebnisse während zehn Jahren im Irrenhaus” (Anna Z., seamstress: “life story of a (poor unfortunate!) and an account of her experiences during ten years in a mental institution”) Zurich: Chronos Verlag, 2013

In 1916, at the Rheinau psychiatric clinic, where she was forced to spend more than ten years, the seamstress Anna Z. (1867–1938) wrote an enthralling biography of her life. It offers an insight into an unsettled existence, in which she tried to combine independence, work, marriage, sexuality and motherhood. Anna Z. was an outstanding observer, who was able to describe and reflect on her life in the context of her time. She creates a modern, doubting, rootless protagonist, and seeks to introduce her to the frequently addressed “dear reader”, and therefore to the public. This publication originated in the context of the Conservation of Special Cultural Assets research project.

Schmidt, Steffen A.: Musik der Schwerkraft. Komposition und Choreographie im 20. Jahrhundert (Music of Gravity. Composition and choreography in the twentieth century). Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos, 2013

The relationship between composition and choreography has become a topic of overarching importance in twentieth-century musical history. As well as writing works defining new musical paths for the future, composers such as Igor Stravinsky, John Cage and Hans Werner Henze also took a close interest in the forms of contemporary ballet at the conceptual level. This publication explores the relationship between music and dance in the context of historical trends in Germany after the Second World War up to 1968.

Milev, Yana: D.A. – A Transdisciplinary Handbook of Design Anthropology.
Frankfurt a. M./Berlin/Berne/Brussels/New York/Oxford/Vienna: Peter Lang Verlag, 2013

This cultural studies handbook of “design anthropology” offers an epistemology, phenomenology and anthropology of an expanded concept of design. Cultural studies-based design research is transdisciplinary, developed in the intermeshed analysis of areas such as visual culture, material culture, knowledge culture and aesthetic culture. When seen in this context, the complex dimension of a design culture that transcends conventional concepts of design becomes readily understandable. This publication originated in the context of the Anthropodesign research project.

Milev, Yana: DESIGN KULTUREN. Der erweiterte Designbegriff im Entwurfsfeld der Kulturwissenschaft (DESIGN CULTURES. The expanded concept of design in the field of cultural studies). Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2013

This volume represents an attempt, undertaken with the help of designers and architects, design, media art and image theorists, and culture theorists, sociologists, philosophers, ethnologists and curators, to situate the concept of “design” in the field of cultural studies, and to create a transdisciplinary design discourse. The initial premise is that a transition in perceptions of culture is currently taking place across all sectors of public, media and social life, which requires a revisiting of the concept of design from the cultural studies perspective. This publication originated in the context of the Anthropodesign research project.

Burkhalter, Thomas: Local Music Scenes and Globalization – Transnational Platforms in Beirut. New York: Routledge, 2013

This book offers the first in-depth study of experimental and popular music scenes in Beirut, looking at musicians working towards a new understanding of musical creativity and music culture in a country that is dominated by mass-mediated pop music and propaganda. Burkhalter studies the generation of musicians born in the Lebanese capital at the beginning of the civil war. These Lebanese rappers, rockers, death-metal, jazz, and electro-acoustic musicians and free improvisers choose local and transnational forms to express their connection to the broader musical, cultural, social, and political environment. The publication was created in the context of the Global Niches research project.

Burkhalter, Thomas / Dickinson, Kay / Benjamin, Harbert (eds.): The Arab Avant Garde: Musical Innovation in the Middle East. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2013

This publication reflects the diversity of the arabian music culture: its Jazz-trumpeters, who integrate the sounds of war in Beirut or some heavy-metal-musicians in Alexandria. The essays in this collection investigate the plethora of compositional and improvisational techniques, performance styles, political motivations, professional training sessions, and inter-continental collaborations that claim the mantle of “innovation” within Arab and Arab diaspora music. Engaging the “avant-garde” – a term with eurocentric resonances – this anthology disturbs that presumed exclusivity, drawing on and challenging a growing body of literature about alternative modernities. The publication has been produced in the context of the Global Niches research project.

Franinović, Karmen / Serafin, Stefania (eds.): Sonic Interaction Design. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2013

Sound is an integral part of every user experience but a neglected medium in design disciplines. The design of an artefact’s sonic qualities is often limited to the shaping of functional, representational, and signalling roles of sound. The interdisciplinary field of sonic interaction design (SID) challenges these prevalent approaches by considering sound as an active medium that can enable novel sensory and social experiences through interactive technologies.

2012

Richter, Dorothee: Fluxus. Kunst gleich Leben? Mythen um Autorschaft, Produktion, Geschlecht und Gemeinschaft (Fluxus. Art equals life? Myths of authorship, production, gender and community). Ludwigsburg, Zurich: On Curating Publishing, 2012

What/who is Fluxus, and when and where did it happen? Few art movements are as difficult to pin down as this one. “Fluxus” (whatever it is intended to mean) therefore provides the ideal substrate for the attachment of mythologemes and tortuous narrations – particularly since “actions” and ephemera, publications and newspapers complicate the object-based traces that traditional art activities used to leave behind for future art historians to interpret. Further Information

Thurmann-Jajes, Anne (ed.): Poesie – Konkret. Zur internationalen Verbreitung und Diversifizierung der Konkreten Poesie (Poetry – Concrete. On Concrete Poetry’s Worldwide Distribution and Diversification). Cologne: Salon-Verlag, 2012

Concrete Poetry may be described, on the one hand, as the first global literature based on aesthetic principles, and, on the other, as a specific artistic movement from the 1950s to the 1980s. “Concrete Poetry” is here understood as an overarching term that subsumes all forms of experimental, visual, auditory and radio poetry created from the 1950s up to the end of the Bielefeld Colloquium in 2002. The book discusses the mutual international influences between Concrete Poetry artists, the paths by which art is disseminated, and the media and techniques employed.

Grau, Pascale / Müller, Irene / von Büren, Margarit: archiv performativ: Zur Tradierung von Performancekunst (archiv performativ: the onward transmission of performance art). Zurich: ICS/ZHdK, 2012

In order to remain relevant as a medium for onward transmission, archives must be actively “owned”, as well as being able to provoke action. This applies to all archives, but particularly to the archiving and onward transmission of performance art, as addressed by the archiv performativ research project, between the conflicting demands of documentation and renewal. One of the project aims was therefore to develop a model for affording artistic practice higher priority in this context than is usually the case in traditional institutional archives.

Burkhalter, Thomas / Beyer, Theresa (eds.): Out of the Absurdity of Life – Globale Musik (Global music) – Norient 012. Solothurn: Traversion, 2012

This book is the result of a collaboration between Traversion and Norient, the online network for music and media culture. It features a compilation of the best articles at Norient.com, along with a large number of articles specifically written for this publication. This material, supplemented with photographs, interviews, song lyrics, posters and quotations, puts the spotlight on a range of current global music phenomena, forming a record of its time, to be updated with a new edition every year. This publication originated in the context of the Global Niches research project.

Gebhardt Fink, Sabine: Process – Embodiment – Site: Ambient in der Kunst der Gegenwart (Process – Embodiment – Site: The ambient in contemporary art). Vienna: Passagen Verlag, 2012

Originally developed in the musical context, the “ambient” concept is characterized by the construction of a transient process-based site, created through artistic production processes that intervene in and change existing architecture and landscape spaces. But “ambient” is also based on collective practices. In this work, Sabine Gebhardt Fink explains how the site-specific art of the 1960s has been further developed and subjected to a critical re-reading. The publication originated as part of the Art relationships research project.

Scott, Jill / Stoeckli, Esther (ed.): Neuromedia. Art and Neuroscience Research. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, 2012

Neuromedia is an innovative examination of shared territories in neurobiological anatomy, physiology and media art. It reveals how scientists investigate perception and behaviour at the molecular, cellular and systems levels. It demonstrates how interpretative forms of media art can help to demystify these complexities for diverse audiences and suggests an alternative approach to scientific communication.

2011

Schade, Sigrid / Wenk, Silke: Studien zur visuellen Kultur. Einführung in ein transdisziplinäres Forschungsfeld (Studies on Visual Culture. Introduction to a transdisciplinary research domain). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011

Studies of visual culture are inherently transdisciplinary, addressing issues of cultural, gender, queer and post-colonial studies, on the one hand, and media and art studies, on the other. This field of research is constructed from sites and modes of revealing and staging the (in)visible, and hence also the generation of meanings. In contrast to visual studies, in this case the “image” is understood merely as an element in a structure that is produced via spatial and visual order relations, in specific conjunctions of word and image and in the specific aesthetic and material attributes of its media.

Mareis, Claudia: Design als Wissenskultur. Interferenzen zwischen Design- und Wissensdiskursen seit 1960 (Design as knowledge culture. Interferences between design and knowledge discourses since 1960). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011

Design is increasingly seen as an autonomous knowledge culture. In this volume, the boundary demarcations between design, art and science are called into question, and renegotiated under the leitmotif of a “design turn”. Claudia Mareis traces interferences between design and knowledge discourses since the “design methods movement” in the 1960s, making a valuable contribution to research into the historical influences on the current epistemological debates in design theory and research. The publication originated as a thesis at the Institute for Cultural Studies in the Arts of the Zurich University of the Arts.

Gebhardt Fink, Sabine / Mathis, Muda / von Büren, Margarit (eds.): Floating Gaps – Performance Chronik Basel (1968–1986) (Floating Gaps – Performance Chronicle Basel (1968–1986). Berlin/Zurich: diaphanes, 2011

How can performance art be held in the collective memory? And how can it be appropriately communicated? With the “Floating Gaps” publication, Performance Chronik Basel documents previously unpublished photographs and an extensive selection of eyewitness interviews and video stills, to counter this emerging “floating gap” – the gap in the collective memory. Within this narrowly defined sample domain, information on performative practices from 1968 to the mid-1980s is compiled and subjected to critical reflection.

Bartl, Angelika / Hoenes, Josch / Mühr, Patricia / Wienand, Kea (eds.): Sehen-Macht-Wissen. ReSaVoir. Bilder im Spannungsfeld von Kultur, Politik und Erinnerung (Seeing-Power-Knowledge. ReSaVoir. Images in the field of tension between culture, politics and memory). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011

No image comes from nothingness, or merely depicts – every image is based on pre-images. As part of cultural and social orders, images also play a part in forming power and knowledge structures. The authors of this compilation volume analyse image policies with regard to recollection processes, heterosexism and racism: How do they legitimize or destabilize power? How are memories overlaid and countered in them? And how can new readings be generated?

2010

Hediger, Irène / Perelló, Josep (ed.): Think Art – Act Science. Swiss artists-in-labs. Barcelona / New York: ACTAR, Arts Santa Monica, 2010

The book showcases the results of a nine-month artist-in-residence programme in science research laboratories. During these residencies, the artists were exposed to discourses within the scientific community and gained in-depth insights into the methodologies and processes of scientific research in areas ranging from biology and biodiversity to cognitive neuroscience and psychology to nanotechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

Hediger, Irène (ed.): 山水 Shanshui – Both Ways. when art meets science. Zurich: ICS/ZHdK, 2010

This publication based on an exhibition presents works that are generated at the junction between art and science, and defined by culture-specific features. Aniu and Wenfeng Liao from China, and Alexandre Joly and Aline Veillat from Switzerland, engaged with research focused on the environment, water and biology at institutions in China and Switzerland. The artists’ individual processes are clearly documented. They provide an insight into the unique intercultural and interdisciplinary experiences, questions and challenges which the participating artists and researchers were confronted with. Publication as download

Scott, Jill (ed.): artists-in-labs. Networking in the Margins. Vienna: Springer Verlag, 2010

The second volume blurs the boundaries between art and science research. Embodied within the margins of both disciplines lies a responsible attitude, which values citizen science, fantasy, fact, unexpected results and immersive education. While artists have become more involved in ethical and social debates about scientific discovery, scientists have been exposed to the processes and contexts of art. Thus, networking tends to expand the borders of the exact sciences and achieves a more robust level of dialogue from the humanities and the arts.

Gleininger, Andrea / Hilbeck, Angelika / Scott, Jill (eds.): Transdiscourse 1: Mediated Environments. Vienna: Springer, 2010

Mediated Environments examines the concept that we may need to re-view our future from a transdisciplinary perspective. Currently we “see” our world through this very conditioned and constructed representation from mainstream media and our bodies, environments and urban constructions are also “mediated” or shifted by these translations and interpretations of social reality. Mediated Environments compares and cross-correlates viewpoints from different disciplines by sharing the portals of media criticism, sustainability and urban design.

Adorf, Sigrid / John, Jennifer (eds.): Das Private bleibt politisch. Symptomatische Subjektentwürfe der Gegenwart (The Private remains political. Symptomatic ideas of the subject of the present day). FKW // Zeitschrift für Geschlechterforschung und Visuelle Kultur, (No. 49), 2010

The feminists of the 1970s recognized that “the private is political”. They prompted a change of outlook that brought the constructed nature of the “private”, “own” and “subjective” into critical focus. Given the significance of this insight at the time, this edition considers whether this idea can be reformulated today, and if so, how? In the age of the blurring of work-leisure boundaries and the related debates on the precarity of the workforce, is there even any point in revisiting the “public versus private” dichotomy characteristic of the modern era? Further information

2009

Baumhoff, Anja / Droste, Magdalena in collaboration with the Institute for Cultural Studies in the Arts (ZHdK) (eds.): Mythos Bauhaus (The Bauhaus Myth). Berlin: Reimer, 2009

The Bauhaus is today seen as an integral part of “classical modernism”. It stands for progressiveness, rationality, gender equality, non-competitive cooperation, and also for resistance to National Socialism and an international reception. Recent research approaches qualify this supposed “knowledge”, viewed as part of the process of creating myths of modernism. Seventeen women authors examine the concealed myths of Bauhaus modernism.

Schade, Sigrid / Thurmann-Jajes, Anne (eds.): Artists’ publications. Ein Genre und seine Erschließung (Artists’ publications. A genre and its utilization). Cologne: Salon-Verlag, 2009

Volume 2 of the series deals with the diverse manifestations and media of artist’s publications since the 1960s: books, periodicals, gramophone records, multiples, posters and ephemera. This diversity places special demands on archive and museum practice and for the reappraisal of this material in art historical and cultural studies. As well as attempting to define and demarcate the genre and the problems involved in archiving and making available such heterogeneous collection holdings, this volume focuses on some specific characteristics of these published art works.

2008

John, Jennifer / Richter, Dorothee / Schade, Sigrid (eds.): Re-Visionen des Displays. Ausstellungs-Szenarien, ihre Lektüren und ihr Publikum (Re-vision of display. Exhibition scenarios, their readings and their audience) Zurich: JPR | Ringier, 2008

This anthology primarily sets out to examine exhibition display that is seen not only as a “surface” design, aimed at impressing the viewer, but also as one of the multiple sense-constituting elements at play, as part of a media complex in which all elements make a deliberate or unconscious contribution to the production of meanings. Exhibiting is analysed as a cultural practice conveying values and norms, and hence (implicitly) ideological concepts. Incorporating the display aspect in a critical “reading” of exhibitions allows making visible some relationships that were previously overlooked.

Adorf, Sigrid / Brandes, Kerstin (eds.): “Indem es sich weigert, eine feste Form anzunehmen” – Kunst, Sichtbarkeit, Queer Theory (“By refusing to adopt a fixed form” – art, visibility, queer theory). FKW // Zeitschrift für Geschlechterforschung und Visuelle Kultur, (No. 45), 2008

This themed issue presents articles revolving around the question of what queer theory, on the one hand, and (feminist) art, image and media studies on the other, have to offer each other. The aim is not only to address a mutually felt need, but also to discuss how such an encounter will change the respective research domains. Indeed, this volume is itself a result of such shifts and changes. The articles challenge the conditions that determine the relationship between the visible, that which is given as “to be seen”, and seeing. Further information

Adorf, Sigrid: Operation Video. Eine Technik des Nahsehens und ihr spezifisches Subjekt: die Videokünstlerin der 1970er Jahre (Operation Video. A Technique of Close Vision and Its Specific Subject: The Female Video Artist in the 1970s). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2008

This volume explores the video art of the early 1970s in terms of its interventions in the body and media discourses and subject discourses of the day. Drawing on the ideas of Walter Benjamin, the study develops an operative understanding of the image in this context, and formulates an “alert sense of the signature of the time” from video art practices and discourses. Analyses of video works by Eleanor Antin, Lynda Benglis, Lili Dujourie, Sanja Iveković, Martha Rosler, Lisa Steele, Hannah Wilke and other artists document a representational and critical use of the medium, making it possible to read work with and in images as a form of both aesthetic and political argumentation. The Operation Video research project is also the thesis project of Sigrid Adorf at the University of Bremen. Further information

John, Jennifer / Schade, Sigrid (eds.): Grenzgänge zwischen den Künsten. Interventionen in Gattungshierarchien und Geschlechterkonstruktionen (Frontier Crossings between the Arts. Interventions in genre hierarchies and gender constructions). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2008

What differentiates “free” from “applied” arts? This has been a topical issue from before the age of modernism, and continues to define conceptions of art to the present day. Analysis shows that genre hierarchies and implicit gender assignments continue to play a role in the interactions between the arts and the art and crafts sector. This problem is still raised by contemporary artists. Articles from international authors discuss the operation of traditional hierarchies. They lead to a revision of art history categories and classification. Further information

Röder, Kornelia: Topologie und Funktionsweise des Netzwerks der Mail Art. Seine spezifische Bedeutung für Osteuropa von 1960 bis 1989 (Topology and Operation of the Mail Art Network. Its specific significance for Eastern Europe from 1960 to 1990). Cologne: Salon-Verlag, 2008

Volume 5 of the series is devoted to the Mail Art network, which was actually the first World Wide Web, long before the internet came into being. This involved the use of the postal service as a worldwide communication system. It emerged from an art-historical context, and gave rise to a new kind of interlinkage between art, culture and society. The Mail Art network was associated with the development of specific forms of expression such as postcards, assemblings, rubber stamps, artist's stamps and magazines, which in turn promoted the network formation process.

Imesch, Kornelia / John, Jennifer / Mondini, Daniela / Schade, Sigrid / Schweizer, Nicole (eds.): Inscriptions / Transgressions. Kunstgeschichte und Gender Studies (Inscriptions / Transgressions. Art history and gender studies). Berne: Peter Lang Verlag, 2008

This as an anthology of 15 articles, exploring questions of the inscription and institutionalization of gender studies in the discipline of art history. One focus of the discussion is on the formation of the art-historical canon and the avenues available to artists seeking to gain entry into the art system. The volume also examines transgressive hybrid images of “femininity” and “masculinity”, from the early modern period to the present day. It introduces recent post-colonial and queer theories. Proceedings of the international conference held by ICS in partnership with the Swiss Association of Art Historians (VKKS) and the Swiss Institute for Art Studies (SIK), Zurich, on 14/15 October 2005 in Lausanne.

Schwarz, Isabelle: Archive für Künstlerpublikationen der 1960er bis 1980er Jahre (Archives of artists’ publications from the 1960s to the 1990s). Cologne: Salon-Verlag, 2008

Volume 4 of the series explores the history and significance of archives for artists’ publications in the international avant-garde art scene from the 1960s to the 1980s: the Archive for Small Press & Communication (ASPC, B), the Sohm Archive (D), the Art Information Centre (NL), the Exchange Gallery (P), Other Books and So (NL), Zona Archives (I) and Artpool Archive (H). Archives as such and their structure and materials are to be seen as an expression of their time. They represent (art-historical) source documents whose analysis can provide a wider view of the art scene, politics and culture.

2007

Eigenheer, Marianne / Drabble, Barnaby / Richter, Dorothee (ed.): Curating Critique. Frankfurt a. M.: Institute for Curatorship and Education (ICE) / Revolver, Archiv für aktuelle Kunst, 2007

The reader presents a cross-section of the voices that populate the ongoing debate about, on the one hand, how and in what terms curating functions as a critical cultural practice, and, on the other, what methodologies and histories exist with which we can critically analyse curatorial work today. The reader was quickly sold out, the English texts were reissued by on-curating.org to a broader public in 2011.

Caduff, Corina / Wälchli, Tan (eds.): High und Low. Hoch- und Alltagskultur in Musik, Kunst, Literatur, Tanz und Kino (High and low culture in music, art, literature, dance and cinema). Berlin: Kadmos, 2007

This volume discusses the linkages between “high and low”, elite and mass, tradition and popularization from a range of perspectives, and analyses the resulting hybrid forms. The point of departure is the observation that today, cultural products that would formerly have been classified as “low”, almost appear to be more important for Western societies’ understanding of themselves than traditional high art. This revaluation is also reflected in research and academic domain. The importance of everyday and popular cultures has been increased by the field of “cultural studies”. The book was produced as part of the Arts Relationships research project.

Caduff, Corina / Gebhardt Fink, Sabine / Keller, Florian / Schmidt, Steffen: Die Künste im Gespräch. Zum Verhältnis von Kunst, Musik, Literatur und Film (The Arts in Dialogue. The relationships between art, music, literature and film) Munich: Fink, 2007

In this volume, an interdisciplinary team of authors examines the relationships between art, music, literature and film. The crossing of traditional boundaries between disciplines and media has long been a common routine in the contemporary arts. The articles reflect on these trends in the space between high and low culture, by addressing a list of questions, sometimes from a historical perspective: How do certain themes and motifs – e.g. tears, ecstasy or sport – appear in the various arts, and where can aesthetic differences and similarities be discerned? How can we deal with historical discontinuities arising in the comparison between the arts? The book was produced as part of the Arts Relationships research project.

Schade, Sigrid: Ausstellungs-Displays. Innovative Entwürfe für das Ausstellen von Kunst, Medien und Design in kulturellen und kommerziellen Anwendungen. Dokumentation zum Forschungsprojekt (Exhibition displays. Innovative ideas for the exhibition of art, media and design for cultural and commercial applications. Documentation of the research project), 2005–2007. Zurich: University of Design and Art, 2007

The Exhibition Displays project explores exhibition processes from a threefold perspective: the creation process (design), the end product (display) and the form of display (typology). The analysis centres on innovative exhibition and presentation based not on individual exhibits, but on the dialogue and interplay between them. The research focuses on the innovation potential of the exhibition medium. It is examined with selected case examples and projects in the space between art, media and design.

Bianchi, Paolo (ed.): Das Neue Ausstellen. Ausstellungen als Kulturpraktiken des Zeigens (I) (A new way to exhibit: exhibitions as cultural practices of showing (I)). In: Kunstforum International, vol. 186, 2007

This publication is devoted to exhibitions as cultural practices of showing. It brings together articles exploring the implementation of new curating models in the exhibition domain. Conventional forms include the chamber of marvels, art gallery, overhead-lit room, white cube and archive. More recent models use the metaphor of a snowball, a monstrance or a cloud. The first part of the publication (second section in vol. 190, 2008) is a compilation of articles by various authors on theoretical aspects of the topic, such as “exhibition as cultural practice”, “what makes a (good) exhibition?” or “curator training paths”. The volume was produced in close cooperation with the Exhibition Displays research project.

Adorf, Sigrid / Gebhardt Fink, Sabine / Schade, Sigrid / Schmidt, Steffen (eds.): Is it now? – Gegenwart in den Künsten (Is it now? – The present in the arts). Zurich: University of Design and Art, Zürcher Jahrbuch der Künste (Zurich Arts Yearbook), 2007

What does it mean to be “contemporary” (literally “accompanying the time”) today? Since the age of modernism, artists have been expected to understand themselves as part of and witnesses to their own time. Describing the present has traditionally meant defining and demarcating it in contrast to a constructed part and an anticipated future. But today, there appears to be a rupture separating us from the past. Similarly, visions of the future now seem inappropriate, and accordingly, the present expands, as suggested already by Alexander Kluge in 1985 in “Der Angriff der Gegenwart auf die übrige Zeit” (The attack of the present on other categories of time). This volume reflects on the precarious position of contemporality and the question of how theorists and practitioners from the domains of the fine arts, music, performance and theatre address the need to give tangible form to phenomena of the present.

2006

Scott, Jill (ed.): artists-in-labs. Processes of Inquiry. Vienna: Springer Verlag, 2006

This book verifies the need for the arts and the sciences to work together in order to develop more creative and conceptual approaches to innovation and presentation. By blending ethnographical case studies, scientific viewpoints and critical essays, the focus of this research inquiry is the lab context. For scientists, the lab context is one of the most important educational experiences. For contemporary artists, laboratories are inspiring spaces to investigate, share know-how, transfer and search for new potential collaborations.

Thurmann-Jajes, Anne / Breitsameter, Sabine / Pauleit, Winfried (eds.): Sound Art. Zwischen Avantgarde und Popkultur (Sound Art. Between avant-garde and pop culture). Cologne: Salon-Verlag, 2006

Volume 3 of the series includes eleven articles by international music, art and media scholars, radio editors and composers, examining various approaches and historical movements in sound art. From a variety of angles, the authors reflect on the interdisciplinary aspects of sound art, as it reaches the audience in the form of gramophone records and sound recordings, scores, radio and television broadcasts and internet streams. They trace the development of sound art during the time of the Russian avant-garde, futurism and dadaism in the early twentieth century.

2005

Schade, Sigrid / Sieber, Thomas / Tholen, Georg Christoph (eds.): SchnittStellen (InterSections). Basel: Schwabe-Verlag, 2005

Schnittstellen (intersections) are dividing lines or junctions between digital and analogue media. But when broken down into its component parts, the word also means “cutting places”, denoting visible traces or wounds inscribed on the body, the mind and our cultural memory. In the media history context, the word refers to watershed moments, fundamental transitions in our apprehension of the world, in the areas of technology, perception and culture. The exploration of topic areas such as intermediality, network cultures, and digital archives and memory cultures reveals their impacts on economic, cultural and aesthetic processes. This volume includes selected presentations from the 1st Basel Congress for Media Studies, held from 20–23 June 2002 in Basel.

2004

Schade, Sigrid / Thurmann-Jajes, Anne (eds.): Buch / Medium / Fotografie. (Book / medium / photography.) Cologne: Salonverlag, 2004

The articles in volume 1 of the series examine the relationship between book and photography in the medium of artist’s publications. These discussions cover avant-garde and media discourses, the conceptuality of photographic material, and narrations and narrative strategies in a range of artist’s books. The “Schriftenreihe für Künstlerpublikationen” (Artist’s Publications series) was created as a platform for disseminating the latest research on historical contexts, concepts and interdisciplinary and transmedial forms of artist’s publications.