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    Completed Dissertations

    Belobrovaja, Marina: The uncomfortable feeling of being on the right side. Politically committed art from Switzerland. An artistic investigation

    Graduation Year: 2018
    Grading: With distinction
    Supervisors: Prof. Giaco Schiesser (Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland); Dr. Rachel Mader (University of Lucerne โ€“ Dept. Art & Design, Lucerne, Switzerland)
    Funding: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), project grant

    Contact: Email to Marina Belobrovaja

    Abstract:

    There is no conclusive answer to the question of what kind of content or strategies in artistic production are covered by the term political art โ€“ or rather, it can be answered in different ways, because of the many different interpretations of the term.
    In my PhD project, I look at a number of different Swiss artists producing performance/Actionist art which is perceived as political art by the general public, and I study them in relation to the concept of the political as a discursive category. The material for my thesis is largely derived from conversations I conducted with artists, and from the environment in which they work (interviews, press articles).
    To me, references from politics, cultural studies and philosophy as well as incorporation of artistic processes such as the narrative interview, oral history and literary montage are relevant factors in carrying out the project.  

    By combining these two different levels of analysis, I hope to devise new forms and methodologies for conducting art practice-based research. I refer here to the suggestion often expressed in relation to artistic research, namely that artistic processes should be understood not only as the subject of the analysis, but also as the working medium.  

    My attempt to address the question of how such intertwining can actually be accomplished in an artefact that oscillates between theoretical and artistic practice, and what kind of knowledge is generated as a result, is one of the central concerns of my project.

    Burger, Sarah: Zeiten โ€“ Orte โ€“ Sichtbarkeiten. Materialeigenschaften und Wertverschiebungen

    Graduation Year: 2017

    Supervisor: Prof. Giaco Schiesser, ZHdK (1st supervisor); Prof. Laurent Schmid (Haute รฉcole dโ€™art et de design, HEAD, Genf)

    Contact: Email Sarah Burger

    Abstract

    Der vorliegende PhD ยซZeiten โ€“ Orte โ€“ Sichtbarkeiten. Materialeigenschaften und Wertverschiebungenยป setzt sich mit der Verรคnderung unterschiedlicher Materialien auseinander, im Hinblick auf ihre Anwesenheit/Abwesenheit, ihre geschichtliche Dimension und die Verรคnderung ihres Wertes aufgrund zeitlich und รถrtlich unterschiedlicher Kontexte. Was geschieht mit einer kรผnstlerischen Arbeit, wenn sie verschwindet? Wie verรคndert sie sich, wie fรผgt sie sich ein in die Geschichte ihrer Materialien und die Orte ihres Verschwindens? Wie verรคndert sich ihre Gestalt, wenn die anfรคngliche Materialitรคt des Kunstwerks sich aufgelรถst hat oder, in einer Stadt ausgesetzt, den Krรคften dieser Stadt รผberlassen wurde? Was entsteht, wenn etwas vergeht?
    Diese Fragestellungen wurden in den zwei kรผnstlerischen Arbeiten/kรผnstlerischen Experimenten ยซ(un)earthedยป und ยซMODERN LEAVESยป, sowie der dreiteiligen reflexiven Erzรคhlung ยซZeiten โ€“ Orte โ€“ Sichtbarkeiten. Materialeigenschaften und Wertverschiebungenยป verhandelt, konkretisiert und materialisiert.
    Die reflexive Erzรคhlung besteht aus drei Teilen: ยซGedankenlandschaftยป, ยซ(un)earthedยป und ยซMODERN LEAVESยป. Die beiden letztgenannten Texte, reflexive Erzรคhlungen, sind zugleich auch Teil der beiden gleichnamigen kรผnstlerischen Arbeiten.
    Die erzรคhlerische Reflexion ยซGedankenlandschaftยป verbindet รœberlegungen zur Bewegung des รœbergangs der Epoche der Renaissance zu der Epoche der Romantik, den Begriffen des Umschlagens, der Sehnsucht und des Fragments, mit Beobachtungen zu steinernen Monumenten vergangener Kulturen, mit dem Begriff des sprachlichen Zeichens und des Wertes nach Ferdinand de Saussure und mit dem Begriff des Risses im Zeichenverstรคndnis von Graffiti nach Jean Baudrillard. Weiter werden diese Reflexionen in Verbindung gebracht mit Gedanken zu Kontext und zur Ortsloslรถsung von Kunstwerken in Form von fotografischen Abbildungen, wie sie in Walter Benjamins Text ยซDas Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeitยป und in Andrรฉ Malrauxs ยซLe musรฉe imaginaireยป dargelegt werden. Die Reflexionen zu diesen Begriffen und Konzepten wurden genรคhrt durch die Erfahrungen und Einsichten, die wรคhrend, mit und durch die Arbeit an ยซ(un)earthedยป und ยซMODERN LEAVESยป entstanden sind.
    Umgekehrt haben die genannten Begriffe und Konzepte die beiden kรผnstlerischen Arbeiten begleitet, differenziert und erweitert.
    ยซ(un)earthedยป ist eine Arbeit bestehend aus neun genรคhten Objekten hergestellt aus kompostierbarem  Stoff, die ich an neun unterschiedlichen Orten in der Schweiz und an einem Ort in Deutschland    vergraben und im Abstand von etwa drei Wochen wieder aufgesucht, ausgegraben, beobachtet und wieder eingegraben habe.
    ยซMODERN LEAVESยป habe ich in Brasรญlia, der Ende der 1950er-Jahre erbauten modernen Hauptstadt Brasiliens, erarbeitet. Die Arbeit besteht aus einer Gruppe von neun Betonskulpturen, fรผr die mir in den Strassen Brasรญlias gesammelte Palmblรคtter als Gussformen dienten. Die entstandenen Skulpturen habe ich zunรคchst in einem Ausstellungsraum in Brasรญlia gezeigt und sie dann an neun unterschiedlichen Orten dieser Stadt ausgesetzt und dort zurรผckgelassen.
    Dem PhD sind zudem zwei Materialproben der beiden Arbeiten beigefรผgt. Die eine Materialprobe ist ein vernรคhtes Stรผck Stoff, welches die Materialien und die Verarbeitungsweise der Objekte der Arbeit ยซ(un)earthedยป veranschaulicht. Die andere Materialprobe ist ein Zementabguss eines Palmblattes, hergestellt in derselben Weise wie die neun Skulpturen der Arbeit ยซMODERN LEAVESยป. Beide Materialproben vermitteln eine Vorstellung und einen haptischen Eindruck der Objekte und Skulpturen.
    Auf einem Datentrรคger (USB-Stick) befindet sich Bildmaterial (Fotografien, Video) der beiden Arbeiten ยซ(un)earthedยป und ยซMODERN LEAVESยป, welche ebenfalls Teil der Arbeiten sind, und die fรผr Ausstellungskontexte in unterschiedlicher Weise materialisiert wurden.

    de Brabandere, Helena Nicole: The Matter of Habit. Experimenting with the Affects of Emergent Media, Material and Movement Practices

    Graduation Year: 2017
    Grading: With Distinction
    Supervisors: Prof. Giaco Schiesser, ZHdK (1st supervisor); Prof. Erin Manning, Concordia University, Montreal/Canada
    Grants: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF): Project Grant
    Grants: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF): Early-Post-Doc-Mobility Grant
    Award: โ€žAward of Excellence 2018 โ€“ Staatspreis fรผr beste Dissertationenโ€œ des ร–sterreichischen Bundesministeriums fรผr Bildung, Wissenschaft und  Forschung

    Contact: Email Nicole de Brabandere

    Abstract

    The subjects of my PhD are habit, emergent corporeality, affect and media and material experimentation. Since the way we recognize and perceive form is inhabited as much as it is material and mediated this research considers the dynamic ways that emergent thought and feeling informs process and recognition. Central to this are the virtual affects associated with emergent abstraction, affects that modulate the material qualities, durations, dimensions and tensions of inhabited experience. In turn, this research develops with the pragmatic and conceptual themes of line, surface and tone.
    This research has the aim of generating new modes of practice to help identify and articulate how inhabited tendencies that often remain below the register of conscious attention are modulated in experimental media and material practice. What terms of practice and perceptibility emerge in an experimental media process where empirical modes become insufficient to account for the dynamics of felt thought? What kinds of transversal resonances can emerge between and across different media such that acoustic and durational qualities amplify the affects of material form, and viceโ€“versa?
    The results of the research process are series of diverse media inscriptions that constitute a consistency where one can analyze how emergent form informs tendencies of thought, feeling and perception. The analysis becomes increasingly differentiated and articulable as formal and affective continuities emerge across the series. Since this research process evolves as it co-composes with an emergent corporeal, it is not fixed to pre-designated subjects and objects or modes of objective recognition but evolves as a transversal and non-linear critical practice.
    The artefacts of the research results are: a PhD thesis that elaborates concepts associated with affect and habit and modes of writing that demonstrate the generative quality of writing with media and material experimentation and a proposition. The proposition consists of video, audio and photographic renderings of diverse movement and material inscriptions and invites readers of the PhD thesis to activate them with their own inhabited tendencies of movement and recognition. These propositions were developed based on my experience hosting workshops that activate these media inscriptions as openings for co-composition in diverse group settings.

    Kรถhle, Petra / Vermot-Petit-Outhenin, Nicolas: Transcriptions, Repetitions, Selections. Shifting Meanings

    Graduation Year: 2020
    Grading: With Distinction
    Supervisors: Prof. Giaco Schiesser (Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland), Mark Luyten (Sint Lucas School of Arts Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium)

    Abstract

    The PhD on Transcriptions, Repetitions, Selections โ€“ Shifting Meanings studies different kinds of โ€œrepetitionsโ€. We used methods such as transcription, improvisation and interpretation to explore, in three sets of artistic work โ€“ It depends entirely on the colour of the lighting, blue skies becoming almost black and
    [f : la rรฉpรจte] โ€“ the effect of repetition on creating a โ€œdifferenceโ€.
    For the PhD, we assembled an extensive collection of the above sets of work and made an inventory of the videos, musical compositions and photographs produced as well as the associated exhibition views, press articles and administrative documentation such as budgets and timetables. This inventory gives us a new insight into the hierarchies that exist among these different materials, and helps to define different settings for artistic work and research.
    For the research outcomes that were derived from the inventory and are relevant to the PhD, we use the term coined by Giaco Schiesser: โ€œarte-factโ€. According to Schiesser, โ€œan outcome is an 'arte-fact' of which the format is a moment in the artistic research process itself and in which it is first generatedโ€.  For us, the term proved to be useful, because it refers to a moment in the artistic research process and can be understood in English as having not only its literal meaning of โ€œan object that is created by a personโ€ but also the homophonous meaning of โ€œart effectโ€.  

    Our specific selection of โ€œarte-factsโ€ comprised the record blue skies becoming almost black, the publication [f: la rรฉpรจte] and a USB stick. The latter holds four of the five videos of It depends entirely on the colour of the lighting in French, Lithuanian, Latvian and English, a documentary video about the German filming of the staged reading at the Basel Art Museum, the German-language script and a datasheet with information about the various film versions.

    These โ€œarte-factsโ€ are activated and investigated in a text that we regard as a script. This script looks at the different kinds of โ€œrepetitionโ€ and the resulting โ€œdifferencesโ€ that we perceive as changes in time and place, in which the dominant opinion-forming formats and content are stripped of their โ€œparadigmsโ€ and in which new ways of speaking, acting and thinking can be created. We relate them to one another in order to question our methodologies above and beyond these sets of work and put them up for debate in the context of artistic research.

    von Niederhรคusern, Laura: FACE NO DIAL OF A CLOCK. Investigating asynchronic experiences of the present by means of art

    Supervisors: Prof. Giaco Schiesser (Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich/Switzerland), Prof. Marlis Roth (Filmuniversitรคt Konrad Wolf, Babelsberg/Germany)

    Abstract

    In todayโ€™s life and work conditions, the economic imperatives and technological ranges impose an acceleration, whereas complexity and self-responsibility, by contrast, enhance the need for more time in decision taking. The PhD project questions practices of orientation by investigating conceptual and physical frameworks of timing.
    How does one deal individually with the experience of todayโ€™s heterogeneous temporalities? How do institutions manage asynchronicity? What are the effects of the shift to less obvious and sizable time control of internalized and individualized chronopolitics in regard to a common cultural experience?
    The research unfolds through a narrative inquiry method combining analytical and artistic approaches in an essayist method of film practice and writing. On the one hand, through the loose leitmotif of โ€˜failing clock-timeโ€™ different aspects of โ€˜the flattening of timeโ€™ are explored in a series of โ€˜case studiesโ€™. Situated in the fields of particular interest for the recent economic development of โ€˜immaterial labourโ€™, these empirical investigations operate through the role of lifetime (age, biography) and time moods (imperatives, indicatives, subjunctives) in the age of digital technology. On the other hand, by means of fragmentation, montage, film and textual interventions and extractions, the research at hand develops specific artistic techniques of focusing โ€“ to develop filmic thinking and thought-images as an empowering sense of orientation within the current, fragmented human existence.

    Weber, Julia: โ€œHanging aroundโ€ as a daily social occurrence โ€“ โ€œhanging aroundโ€ as an artistic strategy

    Supervisors:
    since spring 2021: Prof. Marcel Bleuler (Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich/Switzerland) and Prof. Amala Barboza (Universitรคt fรผr kรผnstlerische und industrielle Gestaltung, Linz/Austria),
    2017-2021 Prof. Giaco Schiesser (Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland), Julian Klein

    Abstract

    In my PhD on ethnography and art, I intend to make the everyday cultural practice of โ€œhanging aroundโ€ โ€“ and the associated constructs of subject, time and place of various, still to be identified practitioners in this milieu or scene (such as the young, the homeless, those in need of social support, pensioners, writers) in Zurich, Graz and Berlin โ€“ visible, audible and the subject of debate in an abstract, compressed and fictionalized form through artefacts.  

    The focus here is on the following questions: How can we identify the practice of โ€œhanging aroundโ€? In what kind of places does the practice occur? What associations of meaning and relevance (experiences, wishes, fantasies, dreams) unite the practitioners in this milieu with their individual and collective everyday habits? In terms of methodology, I use โ€œhanging aroundโ€ as an artistic and ethnographic research strategy and experiment with different media methods of accessing everyday social realities (photography, text, audio, sketches).  
    Furthermore, I will not only point out urban social transformation processes, taking the example of the everyday practice of โ€œhanging aroundโ€, but will also execute artistic interventions in public spaces. I will use the experience gained from the analysis and the โ€œhanging aroundโ€ as an artistic and ethnographic strategy for artistic intervention work (such as performances, installations).

    Ziegner, Kai: Violent Pictures. On aestheticisation of violence in public space, its staging and economy of attention

    Graduation Year: 2021
    Grading: With Distinction
    Supervisors: Prof. Giaco Schiesser (Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich/Switzerland), Prof. Dr. Jan Kaila (University of the Arts Helsinki, Helsinki/Finland), Prof. Hannes Rickli (Zurich University oft he Arts, Zurich/Switzerland)

    Abstract

    Violence is what we all fear, but something that we are obviously unable to avoid. Although mankind has created enlightenment, laicism, democracy and a system of checks and balances, one can today get the impression that the world is regressing to barbarism. There are multiple reasons for the regression, but in the postmodern era I assume something must have gone terribly wrong in regard to societal developments.
    I investigate acts of violence in public and private spaces and trace back the roots of my own personal entanglement with violence. Therefore, I apply various methods of research that stem from sociology, archaeology, theatre, cinematography and photography. I conduct field studies and collect material (i.e. newspaper articles, press photography, surveillance videos or my own personal observations in form of short notes) and convert the footage into written scenarios, which I stage in collaboration with protagonists on camera as photographic re-enactments. Together with actors, dancers, amateurs or also people who were personally affected by violence, I thereby try to create a truthful reinterpretation of the original events. To trace back my own biographical experiences, I apply the technique (Verfahrensweise) of auto-ethnography, make use of narrative writing and also incorporate analogue medium format photography as a field research tool.
    The main goal of my PhD is to understand how violent acts unfold and how they correlate with the economy of attention, a theory developed by German architect and urbanist Georg Franck in the late 1990s. My research project is a transdisciplinary attempt to transform invisibility, which is the distinctive element of most violent acts, into an advanced mode of visibility and sensitivity for different causes of violent outbursts.