“Spectral Encounters” is a 3 credits course course offered by Art and Communication Practices at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

The course incorporates with The Octopus Programme that is a guided research-based educational programme that encourages artistic research and production-based collaborations across academies and art institutions; students and professionals; diverse presentation modes; and processes of research and documentation in different geographies. The main objective of both the programme and the course is to accumulate experience-based collective and creative output by taking geopolitical, social, ecological, and educational urgencies and diversities into consideration.

Correspondingly, the course intends to develop and point out new critical perspectives and standing points to process artistic research and practices. The course includes peer to peer educational secessions, online and class discussions, research fieldtrips and workgroups both in Europe, the Mediterranean, and Africa, collaborative production-based workshops, and lectures. This semester the course also includes guest lecturers and curated presentations of the students/artists in both cities. The project’s website is documenting the project.

The programme was initiated with a pilot phase in 2019/2020 by University of Applied Arts Vienna and Kamel Lazaar Foundation which linked Vienna and Tunis. The main phase is taking place in 2021/2022 and the partners of the programme are University of Applied Arts Vienna; Kamel Lazaar Foundation, Tunis; Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts, and Design, Stockholm; Index - The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation; The University of Pretoria; The Centre for The Less Good Idea, Johannesburg; the Palestinian Museum, Birzeit; SAHA Association, Istanbul; Publics and Saastamoinen Foundation, Helsinki. The partner curators and representatives of the programme are Barbara Putz-Plecko and Basak Senova (curator) in Vienna; Maria Lantz, Magnus Bärtås, Marti Manen and Anne Klontz (curator) in Stockholm; Lina Lazaar, Moez Brabet in Tunis; William Kentridge, Phala Ookeditse Phala, and Bronwyn Lace (curator) in Johannesburg; Inass Yassin (curator) in Birzeit; Çelenk Bafra (curator) in Istanbul; Johan Thom in Pretoria and Saastamoinen Foundation and Paul O’Neill (curator) in Helsinki.

The course is only open to the selected participants of the Octopus Programme.  The language of the course is English. 

Presentations

Participating to the discussions

Project Development

Project Presentation

The course is only open to the selected participants of the Octopus Programme.  The language of the course is English.