The aim of the LV is to provide PhD candidates with knowledge of the field in terms of theoretical background as well as practices, in order to enable them in their respective work processes and careers. The PhD candidates will read and discuss papers (reading &viewing list), exhibitions, and artistic research projects, as well as put their own work in relation to the matters discussed in the LV, and exchange with invited guests.
Like all of their courses, the LV will be team-taught by Ruth Anderwald + Leonhard Grond.

This semester, we will welcome Amanda Beech and her theory and practice.

Preliminary Reading and Viewing:
http://amandabeech.com/writing/art-intolerable-knowledge/
http://amandabeech.com/writing/heroic-realism-violence-conservatism-and-the-fate-
of-culture/
Statecraft, 2008:
https://vimeo.com/179513398/7936580dbf?share=copy
Map of the Bomb, 2022 five channel video installation:
https://vimeo.com/691912545/e6c331c70d

Amanda Beech proposes:

A REALIST ART? AND THE QUESTION OF REAL FICTIONS

The question of art’s ability to speak to that which is unknowable, unspeakable and
alien has been a long tradition held in Romanticism and Realism, the former being
associated with the subjective physiologies of the individual and the latter being
associated with more objective and scientific aims. In the contemporary condition of
art’s critique, art terminated both cases in its realization of the impossibility to speak
to the question of “how everything hangs together.” This resulted in new paradigms of
tragedy, farce, parody, irony and the postmodern sublime. Here, art narrates its own
compulsion to mirror reality and produces an infinite and traumatic feedback loop of
artistic production.However, making a distinction between what is ‘out there’ and the
absolute notion of the impossible, this talk will speak to the question of how art as a
form of techno-cultural-scientific machinery might engage the question of what it is to
compute, render and manifest vectors of knowledge today beyond the structures of
capitalism. Here, focusing on some recent projects and ideas, we will deal with the
significant question of art’s capacity to be involved in the production of reality, the
importance of fiction: the crucial question of how art communicates what reality is and
should be.

Amanda Beech is an artist and writer. In video, painting, print and sculpture her work
proposes art as a form of intelligence and power beyond the ideals of capitalism and
the limits that art has set for itself by means of its critiques. Exhibiting internationally
shows include Delphic Future, Twelve Ten Gallery, Chicago and the Havana
Biennale 2021. Forthcoming work includes a book of philosophy, The Intolerable
Image, from MIT.

Attending (minimum requirement 2/3 of the course), and presenting at the colloquium, where the doctoral students provide insight on the current stage of their research work including open questions and goals, and engage in mutual exchange.