How Mobilities Matter

Organised by Torsten Jost and Friederike Schäfer, Reasearch Area 2: „Travelling Matters“. In cooperation with Ramona Mosse, Head of Theatre at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK).

The workshop “How Mobilities Matter” explores the production, reception and understanding of material mobilities in the arts. It focuses on how art practices and processes activate the mobilities afforded by different human and non-human materials, thus contributing to the emergence of material mobilities that operate in different dimensions: sensory, affective, temporal, spatial, ethical, epistemic and political.

The workshop seeks to explore material mobilities in the arts by focusing on the pressing challenges associated with the notion of the “Anthropocene”, which refers to the destructive effects of our current environmental state that are unevenly distributed across the globe. These challenges require significant changes in material practices and processes. They call for the activation of other possible material mobilities in the arts. In order to think about both the possible media and the possible effects of material mobilities, in their interrelatedness, the workshop proposes two specific focus areas: “Digital Materialisations” and “Mobilising Epistemologies”.

The first focus area, Digital Materializations, centres on the influence of digital technologies on materiality, mobility and art. It acknowledges the expanding scope of reality shaped by digital technologies and explores the impact of digital materialities on transforming and facilitating social encounters. In light of the challenges addressed with the term Anthropocene, this focus area prompts workshop participants to reflect on how digital matters travel and how they reshape social encounters and modes of knowledge acquisition. 

The second focus area, Mobilising Epistemologies, deals with the knowledge-related aspects and effects of material mobilities. On the one hand, it acknowledges the indispensable, active role of non-human materials and things in artistic practices and processes of (re)generating knowledge. On the other, the workshop brings into focus an important tendency in the arts today to frequently (re)activate and combine diverse ways of knowing in order to critically engage with the destructive effects of our environmental state today. In short, this focus asks workshop participants to reflect on how material mobilities activated and shaped in the arts might foster a diversification of ways of knowing, thus potentially contributing to the emergence of new models of action––not least in relation to the globally unequal challenges addressed with the term Anthropocene.

Programme

Thursday, 26 October 2023

Evening Get-together

Friday, 27 October 2023

10:00 | Roundtable: Configuring Mobilities in the Anthropocene

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12:30 | Lunch Break

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14:00 | Workshop: Digital Materilaziations

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16:00 | Break

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16:30 | Workshop: Mobilizing Epistemologies

18:30 | Closing

Saturday, 28 October 2023

10:00 – 12:00 | Final Discussion & Outlook

Freie Universität Berlin
EXC 2020 „Temporal Communities“
Raum 00.07
Otto-von-Simson-Straße 15
14195 Berlin

Further Information

For further information and registration please contact: Friederike Schäfer, f.schaefer@fu-berlin.de or Torsten Jost torsten.jost@fu-berlin.de.