This seminar will discuss exhibitions, with a specific focus on relationship of exhibitions to audience(s) and effects we can hope to obtain. Where last semester's seminar looked at the shop as a model for transforming exhibitions, this semester's class will look at games.

We will

- read and discuss texts and ideas

- explore sample exhibitions

- develop a taxonomy of exhibitions of different kinds

- look at operations that can be performed in relation to exhibitions

- look at the respective roles of

.choice of objects and actions

.objects and actions in space

.texts and audience reactions

- investigate how to measure "success/impact" of exhibitions

On a theoretical level, this seminar will investigate several fundamental questions and their implications, namely

• What kinds of exhibitions are there?
• What constitutes the identity of an exhibition (making it  this exhibition rather than a different one)?
• How can an exhibition further audience engagement and insights?
• What are (a)typical operations in the context of exhibitions?
• How can language (and speech acts) facilitate access and understanding for different audiences?
• (How) can we measure the impact of an exhibition? And, btw, should we do so?

Klaus Speidel here (and perhaps only here) defines exhibitions in the strong sense as

the public display of objects and performances of actions in a spatio-temporal constellation that is intended to be meaningful or effective, with an overarching narrative or discourse

The seminar will operate under the initial hypothesis that fragility, instability and multiperspectivity are qualities in exhibitions, where the opposites, namely solidity, stability and a unique perspective (which are still the default in most exhibitions) are potentially downsides, because of the respective politics they involve and the mindsets they convey and because they exclude personalization, i.e. radically taking into account the audience.

The latter seem to be prone to naturalizing ideas of one-sided power-relations, claims that truth is simple and unique, and generally to reduce the tolerance for ambiguity, thereby jeopardizing the possibility of radical engagement and dialogue with the Other. A radical consequence of this claim seems to be that a successful exhibition is a self-critical exhibition, offering the tools to criticize it.

Focusing on how exhibitions constitute meaning, we will explore strategies to question the authority of curatorial choices and look at ways to facilitate and further audience engagement. 

Aims: The students will learn to critically reflect existing exhibitions as audience members as well as self-consciously conceiving future projects.

Methods:

- reading and discussing texts

- analysing and discussing current and past exhibitions  with an acute sense for possible alternative interpretations than the ones offered by the curatorial narrative/discourse

- investigating audience engagement (and lack thereof)

- involving experts in related fields (museum studies, psychology, game theory)

- experimenting with spatial constellations, discourses and how they constitute meaning

Suggested Readings:

Thomas Bauer: Die Vereindeutigung der Welt. Über den Verlust an Mehrdeutigkeit und Vielfalt. Leipzig. 2018.

Mary Flanagan, Critical Play. Radical Game Design. Cambridge.  2009.

Jean-Paul Martinon (ed.): The Curatorial: A Philosophy of Curating. London. 2013.

Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein, Sabine Priglinger (eds.): The Curator As ... Wien. 2018.

Maura Reilly: Curatorial Activism. Towards an Ethics of Curating. London. 2018.

Arian George: Curator’s Handbook: Museums, Commercial Galleries, Independent Spaces. London. 2015.

Preparation of a session based on reading/exhibition/experiment.

Because of spatial limitations, there cannot be more than 15 students. If there are more inscriptions than spots, a selection will be made in accordance with the commissioning department (TransArts) and/or we will adopt a hybrid format with some students participating online each session.