How can an artwork speak with more than one voice? Who speaks? Usually, polyphony refers to a musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of different melody. In relation to art, it implies an assembly of multiple points of views promoting the emergence of harmony or unison as well as cacophony or conflict. In this research-based pool seminar we undertook playful experiments to multiply the position of the author within the art work. Examining various facets of polyphonic art practices, we began the week with a close reading of key texts and a discussion of art works by Vincent Meessen, Zheng Mahler, Barbara Marcel, Video nas Aldeias, amongst others. In a practice-related part in the second half of the week we experimented in relation to the students’ own artistic practices. Key questions were: How to listen to the voices of others? What of kind of ‘others’? How is it (im-)possible to represent others? What allows for polyphonic encounters? And how are polyphonies to be translated into the exhibition space?
In the course if the week students became familiar with performative, ethnographic documentary, and other methods of artistic research. They gained experience in experimenting with various and polyphonic forms of authorship. And they increased their awareness of the problems that come with the aim to represent ‹others›.
Lectured by Barbara Preisig