To the extent that artistic practices are increasingly converging with social practices such as research or activism, there is also a need for greater interdisciplinary collaboration in aesthetic theory. The concept of action, which forms the interface between the participating academic disciplines, is to be increased in its density and explanatory power in connection with current aesthetic and sociological issues in the course of the project. To this end, the project will ask how artists work, research and intervene in political debates today.
Since antiquity, the history of aesthetic theorising has provided various ways of philosophically explaining the actions of craftspeople, designers and artists. From concepts of poiesis, praxis and techne, concepts of rhetoric and poetics, to questions about the creative in the Middle Ages, to the inner movements of the artistically active subject and questions of collective intentionality, there is a variety of proposals and definitions of artistic action.
However, in the 20th century these have increasingly become marginalised figures of thought due to the prominence of reception and work aesthetics theories. Reception aesthetics directed the question of the "doing" of art primarily towards perception, judgements and aesthetic experiences. Object-aesthetic questions, on the other hand, focused on the result and material artefact produced by doing.
In contrast, action-theoretical and prax(e)ological perspectives today promise new and more holistic ways of describing the arts. These have the advantage that they not only include the actions carried out by artists in the sense of a new production aesthetic, but also do not exclude the previously theoretically centred experiences and artefacts, but also consider them as material conditions for artistic action.
Such integrative, prax(e)ological approaches also appear necessary because they focus on artists in a more contemporary way: as actors who neither produce mere objects nor aesthetic experiences, but also essentially want to shape the social contexts in which they operate.
To the extent that artistic practices are increasingly converging with social practices such as research or activism, there is also a need for greater interdisciplinary collaboration in aesthetic theory. This project aims to initiate such co-operation. In the course of the project, the concept of action, which forms the interface between the participating academic disciplines, is to be increased in its density and explanatory power in connection with current aesthetic and sociological issues (for example, ethical and activist impulses in the arts). To this end, questions will be asked from an art theoretical and sociological perspective about how artists work, research and intervene in political debates today.
The research project systematizes action-theoretical and prax(e)ological art theories, expands them, and brings international researchers together on the topic as part of the "Artistic Action Study Group" research group. In April 2024, the group held a two-day workshop at ZHdK. An anthology is currently being prepared that brings together perspectives on artistic action from philosophical aesthetics, art theory, and sociology. It will be published Open Access by Transcript in May 2025. The goal is to enrich the concept of action, to increase its density and explanatory power in connection with current aesthetic and sociological questions (for example, ethical and activist impulses in the arts). The volume also initiates the series "Practical Art Philosophy" at Transcript, edited by Prof. Judith Siegmund and Prof. Anke Haarmann.
The volume will also be discussed at the next workshop of the "Artistic Action Study Group" in May 2025. This time the conference will take place at Burg Giebichenstein Art Academy in Halle and it is organized by Prof. Marita Tatari (Burg Giebiechenstein) and Marie Rosenkranz (ZHdK).