Ringvorlesung Übergänge, Transformationen, Zwischenräume: Netzwerke zwischen Wissenschaften und Künsten

The lecture series of the doctoral college “Art and Public Impact: Dynamics of Change” problematizes the ongoing transformation processes of our relationships with the world and raises questions about their aesthetic, political, ecological and sociocultural implications.

Contemporary societies are increasingly understood as crisis societies; the financial crisis, 9/11 and now the Corona crisis vividly demonstrate the extent to which (seemingly) disparate individual events condense into symbolic transitional forms. In this context, it becomes clear that we are currently living on the threshold of an epoch – which is particularly recognizable in the fact that the overall social mood suggests that there is a boundary dividing our understanding of time into before and after.

Initial assessments of these tendencies indicate a new age of humanity (Anthropocene), if not a “new geo-social age” (Bruno Latour) or the smirking proclamation of “compostmodernity” (Donna Haraway).

The lecture series considers this temporal turning point as a transitional form and discusses the discursively negotiated diagnoses of the present and images of the future in an interdisciplinary way. The focus is on opening up the debate at the interface of science and the arts, which will be presented through paradigmatic case studies and practical examples.