Key Publications

WORLD WIDE WIND Conference

«WORLD WIDE WIND Conference», nomadic, open air festival, in dialogue with the wind, with contributions by Olivier Chazot, Cathy van Eck, Michael Hagner, Karin Harrasser, Inge Hinterwaldner, Kaspar König, Isabel Mundry with Kevin Toksöz Fairbairn, Patrick Müller, Katja Naie, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Ellen Røed, Helene Romakin with Berit Seidel, Todd Sekuler, and the trio Michael Flury - Fabian Mösch - Martina Lussi, 3.-4.7.2026, at a crossroad in Sils Maria (N46° 25' 45" E9° 45' 28").

http://worldwidewind.org/conference/

The WWW Conference was the summarizing event of the SNSF-Research Project «Triple Instruments» (2022–2026, http://worldwidewind.org) discussing various dimensions, thoughts and articulations. It gathered experts with backgrounds in music, soundart, philosophy, art and cultural history, sonification, science theory, telematics, transdisciplinarity etc. The two day convention, conceived and curated by Florian Dombois, brought together sound kite flying, artistic performances and academic lectures under the open sky of the Engadin with the intention of resonance, exchange and publication.

Special thanks for the team, especially Ermanno Chiavi, Fabian Gutscher, Sascha Jösler, Nicolas Rolle and Mirjam Steiner.

Exhibition: Be 'n' Kite, Max-Frisch-Bad Letzigraben, Zurich

Dombois, Florian. Be 'n' Kite. Max-Frisch-Bad Letzigraben, Zurich, 22.6.2026–5.7.2026.

The exhibition Be’n’Kite presents a new type of musical instrument. The Triple Instrument connects a string instrument on the ground (C) with a kite in the air (A), linked by a string (B). From this connection emerges a sound that constantly changes depending on place, wind, and performer. Visitors are invited to spend time in the exhibition and listen to these evolving sounds.

Conceptualized as a touring exhibition Be’n’Kite explores the boundaries between art, play, and folklore. The Triple Instruments were developed as part of the artistic research project of the same name (2022–2026) at the Zurich University of the Arts and are funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Team: Florian Dombois (lead), Ermanno Chiavi, Fabian Gutscher, Sascha Jösler, as well as numerous artists, in close exchange with Eliana Burki, Cathy van Eck, Michael Flury, Donat Kaufmann, Kaspar König, Martina Lussi, Fabian Moesch, Isabel Mundry, and Fabienne Schmuki.

Website: http://worldwidewind.org
Instagram: @der_windtunnel #soundkiteensemble

Florian Dombois, Michael Günzburger, Esther Mathis, Tanja Schwarz, Nadine Städler: Formate des Forderns

In the second part of the trilogy on artistic research, Florian Dombois and his doctoral researchers present a range of forms and formats through which mutually critical engagement among artistic researchers—particularly doctoral candidates—can take place, and reflect on what such exchanges may require or call for.

The trilogy is based on Dombois's approach to defining artistic research not in terms of knowledge production, but through three qualities of research understood as a protocol of negotiation among peers: (i) research must be sharable, (ii) challengeable, and (iii) make a contribution to its respective artistic field.

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Georges Didi-Huberman, Laurent Mannoni, Florian Dombois (ed.), Christoph Oeschger (ed.): Movements of Air The Photographs from Étienne-Jules Marey’s Wind Tunnels

Based on the breathtaking photographs taken by Étienne-Jules Marey between 1899 and 1901 in a wind tunnel he developed, two essays by Georges Didi-Huberman and Laurent Mannoni reflect on their technical and art historical significance. In their epilogue, the two artists Florian Dombois and Christoph Oeschger follow the "graphic" vortices of the last 120 years from the perspective of image-making in the form of a collage of historical and contemporary material, which they interweave with their own image production.

Text: Englisch
Translated by Aubrey Birch und Lucy Wright
Softcover, 312 pages
Published by diaphanes, Berlin/Zürich, 2023
ISBN 978-3-0358-0512-3

Florian Dombois, Marlene Wenger: Wind Tunnel Deck

Speculations about the ambiguity of artworks and their potential to weave themselves into different horizons of meaning are varied and numerous. The «Wind Tunnel Deck» card game takes this observation seriously. It gives voice to the concepts, forces, actors, artifacts, and happenings that have been operating around the Wind Tunnel by Florian Dombois and his research group at the ZHdK since 2012, and focuses on their yet open potentials.

Florian Dombois und Marlene Wenger
Text: Englisch
Format: 7 x 12 cm
Published by art&fiction, Lausanne, 2022

Florian Dombois: Who, How, for Whom? Or: What are we doing here?

In his text Dombois outlines a fundamental concept of artistic research beyond knowledge production: if we think of research as a protocol for interaction between peers, it allows also non-scientists to enter the research-ecology. Based on a few assumptions for peer-to-(non)peer collaboration this paper provides a number of compasses for navigating the reality and discourse of artistic research.

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Florian Dombois (2021): «Who, How, for Whom? Or: What are we doing here?». In: Boomgaard, Jeroen & Butler, John (Hg.): The Creator Doctus Constellation. Exploring a new model for a doctorate in the arts. Amsterdam: Gerrit Rietveld Academie, 173–178.

In the first part of the trilogy on artistic research, Florian Dombois and his doctoral researchers present a range of forms and formats through which collaboration and exchange among artistic researchers—particularly doctoral candidates—can take place, and reflect on what such forms of engagement may require or call for.

The trilogy is based on Dombois's approach to defining artistic research not in terms of knowledge production, but through three qualities of research understood as a protocol of negotiation among peers: (i) research must be sharable, (ii) challengeable, and (iii) make a contribution to its respective artistic field.

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Florian Dombois: Art with some T?

In this essay, Dombois questions the now widespread concept of transdisciplinarity that is based on a problem-oriented approach. Using the arts as an example, he demonstrates how framing the coming together of disciplines as a process of problem-solving establishes a hierarchy among those involved, both within and beyond the sciences.

Structured as 35 one-minute statements, the text unfolds a variety of perspectives and reflections on the relationship between artistic and scientific research, and on where each may be expected to have its blind spots and points of vulnerability.

Where do we meet if we do not wish to share being defined by a problem? Perhaps transdisciplinarity means collaborating at mutual risk.

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Lecture, 25 November 2016

Dombois, Florian. «Art with some T? A 35-minute essay». In Between / Beyond / Hybrid – New Essays on Transdisciplinarity, hg. von Hartmut von Sass, 53–70. Berlin/Zürich: diaphanes, 2019. Link

Florian Dombois und Julie Harboe (Eds.): Too Big to Scale - On Scaling Space, Numbers, Time and Energy

What would the twenty-first century be like without a history of scaling beyond all measure? Technological progress thrives primarily on people’s intellectual ability to envision things as being bigger or smaller, to imagine processes as being faster or slower, or to envisage what effects might result from upscaling or downscaling energy. While this ability has accompanied humankind since the beginnings of art and its representation, it has taken on completely different dimensions since industrialization. This book is a collection of contributions on the theme of scaling by 14 representatives from the fields of art, art history, system design, cultural analysis and aerodynamics.

Edited by Florian Dombois and Julie Harboe
With contributions from Haseeb Ahmed, Olivier Chazot, Florian Dombois, Andrew Fisher, Simon Grand, Julie Harboe, Juliet Koss, Adrien Lucca, Frank Schweitzer, Mirjam Steiner, Helmut Völter, Sarine Waltenspül, Christoph Weckerle and Reinhard Wendler

Text: English
Softcover, 208 pages
14 x 20 cm
ISBN 978-3-85881-793-8
Published by Scheidegger & Spiess, 2017

Florian Dombois (Hg.): The Wind Tunnel Model / Transdisciplinary Encounters

Where is the wind when it isn’t blowing? The artist Florian Dombois proposes alternative forms of interaction between disciplines: instead of defining a problem or a topic to be tackled from different angles, Dombois created a wind tunnel laboratory that remains empty in the middle. An architecture that turns its back to us and shapes the wind – in other words, something invisible – and a model of a second order that we encounter in an unsettlingly concrete matter.

Edited by Florian Dombois
With contributions from Haseeb Ahmed, Jacqueline Burckhardt, Martin Burr, Florian Dombois, Julie Harboe, Christoph Hoffmann, Kaspar König, Dieter Mersch, Isabel Mundry, Mirjam Steiner, Jan Svenungsson, Sarine Waltenspül and Reinhard Wendler

Text: English
Hardcover, 208 pages
17 x 24 cm
ISBN 978-3-85881-792-1
Published by Scheidegger & Spiess

Florian Dombois, Mira Fliescher, Dieter Mersch, Julia Rintz (Eds.): Aesthetic Thinking - Non-Propositionality, Episteme, Art

Rather than addressing «aesthetic thinking», the debate on artistic research instead focuses mainly on institution-critical issues such as the role that art can play as a form of research (as discussed in the Bologna Process), or the subsumption of artistic praxis under an inadequate definition of scientific research. But what is the actual potential epistemic power of art? Would it not make sense to circumvent entrenched models of the «institution of art» and a concept of knowledge that limits itself to propositionality and truth in propositions in order to outline the contours of a method of aesthetic thinking? This book presents both artistic and philosophic positions on this issue. It also includes a «toolbox» that offers an alternative map of relevant fields of aesthetic thinking in order to inject new concepts into the debate.

With essays by Florian Dombois, Alexander García Düttmann, Mira Fliescher, Jochen Gerz, Dieter Mersch, Isabel Mundry, Michaela Ott, and Mirjam Steiner

Text: German
Softcover, 304 pages
ISBN 978-3-03734-667-9
Published by diaphanes, 2014

Florian Dombois: Angeschlagene Moderne / Struck Modernism

Struck Modernism is a project by the artist Florian Dombois, in which he strikes sculptures with a hammer and records their distinctive sounds with a contact microphone. These sounds are then combined to form a clock and re-used in a sound installation. The aural qualities of 23 sculptures from the collection of the Museum Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich are presented in the publication. It is supplemented with an essay by composer Isabel Mundry and an interview between Dombois and Sabine Schaschl, director of the museum, as well as a 7" vinyl record of the sound installation. Dombois focusses on models, landforms, labilities, seismic activity, tectonic activity, technical and scientific fictions. He works with their various representational and media formats – especially sound.

The sound installation is available online: Florian Dombois, Struck Modernism

Press:
Deutschlandfunk, 4 January 2015

Florian Dombois
Ed. by Museum Haus Konstruktiv (exh. cat.).
Struck Modernism / Angeschlagene Moderne
98 pages
190 x 230 mm
Hardcover linnen in slipcase, incl. 7'' vinyl record
German / English
Design: Viola Zimmermann & Andreas Moesch
The Green Box, Berlin, 2014
ISBN 978-3-941644-68-7

Limited edition available: Struck Modernism (Limited Edition)

Florian Dombois, Ute Meta Bauer, Claudia Mareis, Michael Schwab (eds.): Intellectual Birdhouse: Artistic Practice as Research

Artistic practices are manifold and highly diverse. In recent years, a claim towards research has become meaningful to many practitioners of art. Intellectual Birdhouse gives room to a number of acteurs to unfold their attitudes towards this claim. In this book, ‘artistic research’ is assumed as being independent of ‘discipline’, with the potential to occur in all contexts once epistemological expectations have shifted. This approach foregrounds questions concerning the type of models, terms and concepts that elucidate the processes and outcomes of epistemic-artistic practices while recalling theoretical debates steeped in tradition. Artistic research often involves productive and reflective work on and with material, and is frequently paired with testing of forms of representation other than texts that engage in open negotiations with knowledge. For this reason, artistic research may take an unexpected or even controversial course.

With contributions by: Gina Badger, Henk Borgdorff, Paul Carter, Bracha L. Ettinger, Sabine Flach, Renée Green, Penelope Haralambidou, Florian Hecker, Tom Holert, Sarat Maharaj, Sónia Matos, Jonathan Miles, Raqs Media Collective, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Hannes Rickli, Michael Schwab, Henk Slager, Marcus Steinweg, Hito Steyerl, Jan Svenungsson, Alise Upitis and Francisco Varela

Text: English
Softcover, 304 pages
15 x 22 cm
ISBN: 978-3-86335-118-2
Published by Koenig Books Ltd, 2012