Multimedia Performance

We will continue to develop KHM's first start-up access.wtf, a corporate spin-off of this seminar, dedicated to opening up personal approaches to art. The summer semester will conclude with the official product launch. For further information see access.wtf

The seminar practices reading contemporary phenomena through the lens of the term "access" and querying them for their potential as raw material for art. How do you provide access to your art? To yourself? Under which conditions? Who do you exclude? How is the work defined by the way it is being accessed by / the way it positions itself to the audience?

We'll discuss your concepts-in-progress in a free colloquium. New students from all backgrounds are welcome to join this ongoing process. The aim is to develop new methods and approaches, especially those that cross diverse media in a performative way.

Workshops:
CryptoParty @ Glasmoog, 3 May 2022

Mid Term Review @ Motel One Waidmarkt, 31 May – 1 June 2022

Guests:
Petra Tabeling, Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, talking about how to how to safely work with psychologically distressing imagery / stories / events, 14 June, 2022. Open to everyone at KHM.

Working language is English. To join please email Christian.

We'll continue to read contemporary phenomena through the lens of "access", and query them for their potential as raw material for art.

How do you provide access to your art? To yourself? Under which conditions? Who do you exclude? How is the work defined by the way it is being accessed by / the way it positions itself to the audience?

We'll discuss your concepts-in-progress in a free colloquium. New students from all backgrounds are welcome to join this ongoing process. The aim is to develop new methods and approaches, especially those that cross diverse media in a performative way.

Workshops:
Mid Term Review
CryptoParty / surveillance self-defence

Guests:

Stefanie Klingemann
Lauren Lee McCarthy (public lecture on January 6, 2022)
Andy Kassier

Working language is English. To join please email Christian

After working on the specifics of showing art in public space for three terms, this term we took a different approach to address an audience. Whereas previously we used commercial advertising infrastructure to show art to an idealised public "everybody", we researched the possibilities of using Facebook's and Instagram's notorious microtargeting advertising infrastructure to tailor art only to a highly select audience.

The seminar resulted in the founding of KHM's first commercial start-up spin-off, access.wtf. Below are some photo impressions from the office opening celebrations, coinciding with the February 2022 Rundgang, which gave visitors the exclusive opportunity to preview the start-up's services and register for early bird access.

Focusing on the term "access", we'll look at phenomena relating to the climate and corona crises, and query those for their potential as raw material for art. These include:

access control

gatekeeping policies and subversions

public, private and privileged space

open access and secret knowledge

security breaches

(networked) control technologies, and the associated jargon

We'll pay special attention towards different ways to facilitate interaction and exchange with people (the "audience"). This can be within as well as outside of established art contexts.

How do you provide access to your art? 

Should it be free-for-all?  Can you deny people access, or should it be linked to certain obligations/conditions? How would that change the art? How to include people with disabilities, with a different level of media access/proficiency/practice?

It (again) leads back to the question of the relationship to the audience that is articulated by the work.

We'll work towards a public demonstration of any resulting works towards the end of the summer term, regardless of whether the Rundgang will take place.

Artist and activist guests include Mischa Leinkauf, Joanie Lemercier and ꒝լuც Ꮥᕱꊰꂅ ᏕᎵᕱ꒝ꂅ.

On-site visit/workshop at Hambach/Garzweiler (if hygiene measures allow).

additionally feel invited to join us at

|￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣|

                     freies

                    Rumhängen

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                                (•ㅅ•) | |

                               / 　 づ

Freies Rumhängen is a virtual space which opens up the possibility - even in times of remote teaching - to have unexpected  encounters with one another.

Co-catalysed by Christian Sievers and Sam Hopkins.

https://wolke.khm.de/index.php/s/bSTi8tjseR45TLK

Since the beginning of the Corona crisis, the usage and understanding of space has changed radically. In this seminar we'll look at how our relationship to private and public, inside and outside space is continuing to be redefined. We'll query these "new normal" ideas of space for their potential for artistic intervention.

Of central interest will be the question of proximity vs. distance. We'll use it as subject matter and artistic strategy.

This is a praxis seminar to discuss and develop concepts and art works in a wide variety of media. It is ideally taking place as a meeting of bodies and minds in room 2, but can migrate to the net, if necessary.

Towards the end of the seminar resulting short works produced in the context of the seminar were shown on a large advertising screen in the main train station of Cologne: https://www.khm.de/termine/news.5077.public-space-video-im-hbf-koln/

This seminar took the then just unfolding Coronavirus crisis, and its consequences in form of extreme social/physical distancing and the restriction of our human rights, in order to query closed, isolated and intimate spaces for their potential for artistic intervention.

The question was: What happens to art in a situation in which the other, each and every other on the street, in the supermarket, or in the park, must be seen as a potential threat? Where and what are the raw materials now for: adventure, risk, unpredictability, proximity, intimacy and presence? We tried to use this rare moment of limitation to explore new ways of working, and treated the limited availability of tools, devices and labs as an advantage, in that it freed us from expectations, constraints, and all kinds of conventions and norms.

The seminar worked towards a presentation of works in a semi-public space. We used commercial video screens in the Cologne underground train platforms to display very short video works: https://www.khm.de/public_space_video/

Guest: Mike Cooter, London

The sky’s an unusual colour
The weather is doing unusual things
And our leaders aren’t even pretending not to be demons
So where is the good heart to go but inwards?
Why not lock all the doors and bolt all the windows?
All I am are my doubts and suspicions
I against you against we against them
(Kate Tempest, 2019)

Continuing from last semester's live situative set-ups, we'll look at space and its potentials for
> adventure, risk, unpredictability, proximity, intimacy and presence.

Taking into account the various understandings of the concept of distance that were brought about by worldwide realtime communication over the last 160 years, we'll foreground central issues like accessibility, safety and security, and how to (re-)establish room for trust, play and maneuver.

What are the possible ways to query space, taking the role of the observer or the associate, the insider?

The seminar will explore the unique potential of live situative set ups. We will open a way into the creation of real-time art work like live performance, intervention, installation and other real time experiences. Topics covered include adventure, risk, unpredictability, proximity, intimacy and presence.

Cryptoparty @ Glasmoog: 26 November 2019
Mid Term Review: 3/4 December 2019

Workshop: archival strategies

Guests:

Dominique Gonzales-Foerster

Building on the subject matter covered in Surveillance 101, we take Gilles Deleuze’s “Postscript on the Societies of Control” as a starting point to address contemporary modes of surveillance: algorithmic, fluid, social, multifocal, networked. We’ll look at the different forms that systematic observation takes today and how it can be used towards artistic ends.

Workshops:

Hands-on Surveillance & Counter-Surveillance techniques
Archival practices
Prison field trip (TBC - seems hard to get in)
Mid Term Review: 4. June 2019

More info and readings see our blog​​​​​​​