With the project “Design of the In/Human,” Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, devoted itself to concepts of the human and the inhuman in the discourses of natural sciences, life sciences, philosophy and cultural studies, in economic theories, and particularly, in the arts. The focus of interest was as much the tensions between, as the interfaces with biological and technological reality, globalized economy, and philosophical reflections that raised once again the topic of humanism from a contemporary point of view. Theoretical and artistic approaches dealing with the opposition of the human and the inhuman, and also with their entanglement, have been concomitant with the history of mankind for time immemorial. How pervasive have concepts of the human and inhuman become?
Could all the questions about the human and the inhuman, posed independently by individual disciplines, point to each other and be regarded and treated as diverse facets of one and the same question? The two-year project “Design of the In/Human” considered these questions from the diverse perspectives made possible by an interdisciplinary and international cast of participants from the arts, humanities, sciences, and economics. By treating a theme of global scope in a multi-disciplinary manner and presenting the scholarly and artistic results to both a specialist and general public in events, and with this comprehensive online publication, the project aims at making the public more aware of the subject, stimulating a necessary social discourse on the question of the design and the territories of the human and the inhuman.
Symposium
During the three-day symposium
as
a starting point, from November
19 to 21, 2009, international scientists, scholars, artists, and representatives
of NGOs—amongst them jurors, fellows, and guests of the academy—discussed different aspects of the central topic “Design of the In/Human.”
Lectures
In the context of its focal theme, between January and July 2010 the academy organized two internal workshops with jurors, fellows, and guests, as well as, a lecture series that accompanied the exhibition in Württembergischer Kunstverein, which brought together artists and scholars on various topics.
Exhibition
The exhibition Territories of the In/Human ran for three months from April 30 to August 1, 2010 at Württembergischer Kunstverein in the framework of the academy’s “20 Years Akademie Schloss Solitude!/ Design of the In/Human,” including works from around 30 fellows that were created between the 1990s and today.
Film Program
The film program was shown on
four evenings in July 2010 as part of the exhibition Territories of the In/Human. It was organized around
the four themes “Specters of Postcommunisms,” “Empathy,” “Magical Constructions/ Constructions of the Magical,” and “Narratives of Migration.”
Performance Series
The performance series at Württem-bergischer Kunstverein from September 28 to October 21, 2010 completed the examination of “Design of the In/Human” and presented performances, staged exhibitions, performative readings, theater plays, and installations by international artists working across disciplines.
About
This online publication assembles the results of the multi-disciplinary project “Design of the In/Human,” undertaken by Akademie Schloss Solitude within the years 2009 and 2010, comprising the outcomes of various events and works created by the academy’s jurors, fellows, and guests.
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