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OPEN HOUSE 2016

ART & SCIENCE OPEN HOUSE
// DEPARTMENT­WARMING // END OF SEMESTER //
 
7pm, Tuesday 26th January 2016, Hohenstaufengasse 9, 1010 Vienna
 
Care. Enactments of Heterogeneous Relationships
Interim research presentations
 
When hearing the term "care" we may think of bodies in the context of health care; or we think of citizens taken care of by social workers, educators, psychologists etc.. Maybe we think of the state and democratic models of governance thereby instantiating a consensualised form of civility. Sometimes (maybe not so frequently) we are reminded that "to care" shares its etymological root with "to curate", describing the role of
the curator as organiser of aesthetic experiences who must care for artists and their audiences.
 
We are familiar with the tendency of opposing care to technology: care then has to do with warmth and love while technology, by contrast, is cold and rational – a dichotomy that can be extended: care is nourishing, technology is instrumental; care is overflowing and impossible to calculate; technology is effective and efficient. However, we live in a heterogeneous world and the question is how to think of a (artistic) research agenda that refrains from purifying the poles of this dichotomy and that tries to analyse both together?
 
The annual topic "Caring" aims at exploring the logic of care within different domains. It investigates the role of the deterministic body known by modern science *and* a fragile body in it's intricate surroundings. It investigates the individual as autonomous being *and* as relational being. It investigates the enlightened citizen with a body that does not interfere with his or her plans, cognitive operations, impartial judgements,
 firm decisions *and* the citizen in a fleshy, fragile and mortal body situated within continuous inter-dependency. It investigates interactions within social and material situations where norms are negotiated and practised within these situations and where those norms do not exist as standards outside of them.
 
The topic will be organized into chapters. In the process of researching these chapters, the investigation should materialise in the form of small exhibits throughout the year. These will be archived and presented in their entirety in a public presentation at the end of the year.
 
Preliminary list of chapters:
Care for care ­ Between a logic of care and a logic of choice
 
Care for the Other ­ Pain and the question of "humour of truth"; medicine and the question of relation; cause & effect
Care for the immaterial ­ How we care for the dead
Care for material ­ Forging knowledge
Care for (technological) instruments ­ Tinkering ("doctoring") vs control
Care for the social ­ Statistical data and the crafting of a society
Care for the living ­ Lab animals, Model organisms, companions
Care for a future ­ Intricacies of Nuclear waste management; scenario building, how to become a speculator.

OPEN HOUSE 2016
January 26, 2016, 19:00h