• SS 2022 “Backyard Economy” Seminar at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, co-teaching with Stefanie Kitzberger

economy (n.)
οἰκονόμος (i.e. “household management”)
οἶκος (“house; household; home”)
νέμω (“manage; distribute; to deal out; dispense”)
οἰκονομία (“household management”)

The title of this seminar – Backyard Economy – is borrowed from a video series by Martha Rosler (1974). Roslers work refers to the intrinsically economic determination of social reproduction. Associated with women*, children, pets, plants, care and regeneration, this domain is however usually regarded as ‘private’ and therefore unjoined from the political economy. Proceeding from Rosler’s work and its foundations in Feminist accounts of the 1970s that challenged this dichotomic conception, our course will explore contemporary artistic engagements with allegedly ‘subordinate’ aspects or ‘marginal’ actors of the economies of global capitalism. Accompanied by discussions of selected texts we will analyze art works that not only address economic inequalities and exclusion thematically, but also critically examine the aesthetic and material conditions of their own practices within the institution of art. Beyond a comprehension of notions such as (social) reproduction, (private) property and value as well as a discussion of their intersections with class, gender, race, (neo)colonial imprints and environmentalist perspectives, we will thus specifically be concerned with questions of representation as well as with art’s continued intricate relationship with political activism.

• WS 2021/2022: “Maintainers. Moved by Things” Seminar at the University of Applied Arts Vienna

“There is, in each epoch, a part of the technical world that is recognized by culture, while other parts of the technical world are rejected” (Gilbert Simondon) In the book „On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects“, the french philosopher examines the „disjunction of the conditions for the intellection of progress and for the experience of the internal rhythms of work”.
In engaging with theories as well as practices of art (Jeremy Wade, Nairy Baghramian, Puig De La Bellacasa, etc.), „Maintainers. Moved by Things“ wants to ask about the different forms and ways we engage and live with (technical) objects. The aim is to challenge these (mutually dependent) relationships in a broader post-human perspective and provide a framework for discussing recent approaches and how to engange with that topic in artistic practices. Special focus is on maintenance and care work in which the relation and interdependency of subjects and (technical-) objects are particularly relevant in order to think in a broader sense about support systems and different concepts/forms of living together.

• WS 2021/2022: Projektgebundenes Seminar – Private Matter co-teaching with Stefanie Kitzberger

“I liked to imagine the interfaces that would make the public private and make the private okay.” (Anne Boyer)
The feminist statement that the private is political has not lost any of its relevance in recent years – on the contrary, as current debates about domestic violence, the growing economization of the private sphere, or demands for better wages for care work demonstrate. In contemporary visual arts, film and literature, personal experiences or the artist’s own history increasingly become key aspects of critical/political practices. 
Against this background, this course is dedicated to the many-faceted meanings of the concept of the private and its complex relations to the “public” beyond a binary construction of both spheres. We will analyze artistic works from the beginning of Modernism to the present (Berthe Morisot, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Martha Rosler, Nairy Baghramian, Senga Nengudi etc.) and discuss texts that address historical and contemporary demarcations between the private and the public, the struggles associated with these and their intersectional implications regarding gender, race, and class. (Nancy Fraser, bell hooks, Griselda Pollock, Beatriz Colomina, Lauren Berlant etc.) Accompanied by research-based artistic practices, i.a. related to objects from the university’s collection, we will approach topics such as (1) Intimacy, (2) Domestic space and (3) Forms of Transitions, like models, rehearsals, sketches and diaries.

• SS 2021: “Open Letter. Über Kunst schreiben” Seminar at the University of Applied Arts Vienna

In dem Seminar „Open Letter. Über Kunst schreiben“ werden wir uns mit unterschiedlichen Textformaten befassen: der Rezension (Review), dem Pressetext und künstlerischen Textformaten, als auch verschiedene Methoden der Schreibpraxis kennenlernen, wie bspw. kollektives Schreiben. Unser innhaltlicher Ausgangspunkt wird die Frage nach der Bedeutung von Reflexivität als Teil der eigenen künstlerischen Praxis sein. Die Künstlerin Anni Albers setzt mit der Betitelung ihrer Webstücke „Open Letter“ (1958), „Haiku“ (1961) und „Code“ (1962) die Technik des Webens explizit mit jener des Schreibens in Beziehung: Text, Textur und Textil werden in ein diskursives Verhältnis zueinander gesetzt. Welche Rolle nimmt das Schreiben (als oder über die eigene künstlerische Arbeit) als diskursproduzierende Praxis ein?

• SS 2021: “Rahmen und Raum” Seminar at the University of Applied Arts Vienna

„The perception of space is not what space is but one of its representations; in this sense built space has no more authority than drawings, photographs, or descriptions.“ schreibt die Architekturtheoretikerin Beatriz Colomina in ihrem Text „The Split Wall: Domestic Voyeurism“ in „Sexuality and Space“. In unserem Seminar werden wir anhand von theoretischen Texten und künstlerichen Arbeiten den Aufteilungen, Konnotationen, Repräsentationen und Hierarchisierungen von (Bild-)Räumen kritisch nachgehen, die mittels Rahmen und Rahmungen hergestellt werden. Dabei fokussieren wir auf anti-koloniale, queer-feministische und von Care informierte Perspektiven.

• WS 2020/2021: “The Politics of Care” Seminar at the University of Applied Arts Vienna

As a result of the arrangements introduced to tackle Covid-19, some of us are or have been experiencing social distancing, distance learning, separation and isolation in a number of environments. At a time of drastic restrictions to individual freedom of movement in public spaces, the widely differing possibilites to deal with this exceptional situation are becoming especially clear.
On a fundamental level it demonstrates which work our societies rely on and how we have structured society to systematically disadvantage some while advantaging others. We are all dependent on the so-called system-relevant work and on care work in general: every single body and its environment needs to be nurtured, groomed, cleaned, fed, loved, held, attended to, healed, regenerated.
In the class we will investigate in what care means or involves. Joan Tronto (Professor for Political Science), has a more generic definition of care including everything that we do to mantain, continue and repair our world, so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, our selves, and our environment, „all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web“. (Tronto 1993) María Puig de la Bellacasa explores in her book „Matters of Care. Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds“ the significance of care as an ethical and political obligation for thinking in the more than human worlds of technosience and naturecultures.

• WS 2020/2021: “Sculpture in the Endangered Field. Surfaces and Transitions” Seminar at the University of Applied Arts Vienna

The Art Historian Rosalind Krauss analyzes in her essay the diverse transitions between the traditional appearance of a sculpture as a monument and a „Sculpture in the expanded field“. Taking her 1979 essay as our point of departure, we will explore artistic practices in Land Art, Installation, Sculpture, Performance Art and Activism by certain artists and discuss and challenge the relationship between sculpture and environment in the light of the anthropocene and the capitalocene today.
How much space does a sculpture occupy? Whose space is it? What does the material character of an artwork tell us about its environment on the one hand and its production process on the other hand? Departing from these analyses and interventions, the class will focus on political, theoretical and artistic perspectives in anti-colonialism, queer feminisms and the politics of care.

• SS 2020: After „Housework and Art Work“ Seminar at the University of Applied Arts Vienna

Reproductive labour is understood as the total of unrecognized and often uncompensated work in a capitalist system that, on a daily basis, cares for and maintains others. Reproductive labour or „care work“ is associated with the upbringing of children, the care for elders, for people who are not able to work, self-care, healthcare, housework and sex work. The division between productive and „unproductive work“ goes back to the economist Adam Smith and was criticized by the international feminist movement „Wages for Housework“ in the Seventies that demanded payment for the unwaged domestic work mostly performed by women in the family. While this is still an issue in contemporary feminism, nowadays the focus is shifting towards the low-waged labor performed by mostly female migrant workers and therefore draws the attention more to an intersectional discrimination of gender and race in the work field (Denise Silva de Ferreira, Evelyn Nakano Glenn).
In the seminar we will investigate „what it means to inscribe social practices which do not produce market commodities into the wage-form, more narrowly, and into the value-form more broadly“ as Marina Vishmidt put it. Alongside the controversy arising from reproductive labour, we will look into different artistic practices, such as Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Tina Girouard, Senga Nengudi and Jeremy Wade next to others.
During the class we will visit the art collection of the Angewandte and look for artworks associated with the field of social reproduction. The students will explore materials and artistic methods that are associated with the routines of daily life, such as repetition, self-care, care for others, interaction with objects, digital devices and robots.

• WS 2019/2020: „Sculpture in the Endangered Field“ Seminar at the University of Applied Arts Vienna

The Art Historian Rosalind Krauss explores in her essay how the traditional form of a sculpture as monument developed into a „Sculpture in the expanded field“.1 We will explore examples in Land Art, Performance Art and Art Activism that emerged in the 1960s that widened the boundaries of sculpture and the Ecofeminism that articulated a critique on the exploitation of women and nature. We will discuss and challenge the relationship between sculpture and environment in the light of anthropocene and capitalocene today. How much space does a sculpture occupy? Whose space is it? What does the material character of an artwork tells us about its observer? Reading works by eco- and xenofeminists, such as Donna Haraway, Vandana Shiva, Maria Mies, the Labria Cuboniks collective, Stacey Alaimo among others students will consider the contributions and limits of both ecofeminism and xenofeminism to an understanding of capitalism, modernity, and environmental politics.

1 Rosalind Krauss, Sculpture in the Expanded Field, in: October, Vol. 8. (Spring, 1979), pp. 30-44.
Language: English

• WS 2019/2020 – SS 2020: “Mach dich hübsch”. The Book as Artwork: on how to read an Artistic Practice. Seminar at the University of Applied Arts Vienna

Artists‘ Books often question the medium of the book in regards to linearity, structure, and the author/reader relationship. One such Artist Book is “Mach dich hübsch” by Isa Genzken. In using referential material like black and white copies, clippings from advertisements next to sketches and illustrations, postcards of historical paintings and handwritten notes, Genzken provides insight into her visual language. In this two semester class, we will be discussing the poetics of art books: their metaphor, their conceptual space, and their narrative and non-narrative sequencing. We will especially focus on feminist and queer artistic strategies unfolding in the books. The class will culminate with the production of your own artists‘ book.

• SS 2019: „It´s A Small World But Not if You Have to Clean It“. Seminar at the University of Applied Arts Vienna

„It´s A Small World But Not if You Have to Clean It“ ist auf der Plakatarbeit der amerikanischen Künstlerin Barbara Kruger, zu lesen. Das Banner lenkt die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Unsichtbarmachung von Reinigungsarbeiten und gleichzeitig auf die generellen Auswirkungen menschlicher Handlungen auf die Umwelt. Diesen beiden Strängen folgend wird es in dem Seminar um künstlerische Praxen gehen, die „Maintenance, Cleaning und Care“ thematisieren und auf Wiederholung und Sichtbarkeit von Arbeit, Feminismus, Ökofeminismus, Migration und Environmental Care referieren. Durch die zunehmende Digitalisierung und Robotisierung verändert sich nicht nur das Verhältnis zwischen Subjekt und Arbeit, sondern auch zwischen Subjekt und Umwelt. Fingerabdrücke auf Screens hinterlassen Spuren der Bedienung digitaler Welten, beim gleichzeitigen Ab- und Eintauchen physischer Präsenz in eine digitale Präsenz. Was bedeuten „Maintenance and Cleaning“ in diesem Zusammenhang in einer digitalen Welt? Folgende Lektüren von Silvia Federici, Donna Haraway, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Stacy Alaimo, Kerstin Stakemeier, Marina Vishmidt, Helen Hester etc. werden behandelt.

• SS 2019: „The Grid. Textiles, Pattern and Binary Code“. Seminar at the University of Applied Arts Vienna

Ausgehend von dem 1979 erschienen Text „Grids“ der Kunsttheoretikerin Rosalind Krauss, werden wir der Bedeutung des Grid als Mythos der Moderne anhand künstlerischer Arbeiten nachgehen. Laut Rosalind Krauss ist das Grid per se antinarrativ und ahistorisch, leistet darin aber folgendes: „by its very abstraction the grid conveyed one of the basic laws of knowledge – the separation of the perceptual screen from that of the „real“ world.“1 Dass es sich dabei nur um eine Lesrichtung des Grid handelt, zeigt die Geschichte und Bedeutung des Grid in Bezug auf Arbeit, Gender und aktueller Diskurse um Digitalität. Das Grid wird als Mythos der Moderne in Kunst und Architektur, als Rationalisierungs- und Ökonomisierungs Tool und als Utopie digital-virtueller Welten hin untersucht: Von der Entwicklung der Lochkarten durch die Mechanisierung der Webstühle, erster feministischer Gewerkschaftsgründungen und Streiks in der Textilindustrie hinzu einer systematischen Datenerfassung und normierenden Algorithmen: „Sexism, racism and other forms of discrimination are being built into the machine-learning algorithms that underlie the technology behind many “intelligent” systems (…)“2

1Rosalind Krauss, „Grids“, in: The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths, Cambridge, Mass. and London 1985
2 Kate Crawford ist leitende Wissenschaftlerin im Social Media Collective von Microsoft Research und hält eine Gastprofessur am MIT Center for Civic Media inne. Sie forscht zu den Themen gesellschaftlicher Wandel und Medientechnologien und schreibt derzeit an einem Buch über den Zusammenhang von Daten und Macht.

• SS 2019: „The Grid. Textiles, Pattern and Binary Code II“. Gender and Queer Studies. Seminar at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

• WS 2017/2018: “Grid im Spiegel von Digitalität und bildender Kunst” Akademie der bildenden Künste Nürnberg

• SS 2017: „The Grid. Textiles, Pattern and Binary Code I“. Gender and Queer Studies. Seminar at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna