The latest yearbook of the Department of Art and Media at Zurich University explores how practices of experimentation are implemented within the department

At the Department of Art and Media at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), which comprises the undergraduate specializations of fine arts, photography, media arts, and theory along with a master's program anchored by two research institutes, experimentation lies at the heart of creative research and teaching. The fourth yearbook of the department explores how practices of experimentation are implemented in one of the most renowned arts departments worldwide and investigates how the various fields of teaching, research, theory, and practice interlace, inspire, and inform one another.

In seventeen essays by theorists and artists inside and outside the department, as well as through images, this work considers how practices of experimentation unfold and how they affect artistic creation, the relationship between art schools and society, the production of knowledge, and the particularities of inter- and trans-disciplinary teaching and research in the arts.

Autorentext

Giaco Schiesser read philosophy and German literature at the Freie Universitat Berlin. He conceived and established as its head the new department New Media at the School of Art and Design Zurich in 1997-2002. He is professor for the theory and history of media and culture and director of the Department of Art & Media at the Zurich University of the Arts. Christoph Brunner is artistic and research assistant to the head of the Department in Art & Media at Zurich University of the Arts and doing his PhD on research-creation at Concordia University in Montreal. He is also a member of SenseLab (www.senselab.ca), co-editor of Inflexions (www.inflexions.org) and researcher at the Institute for Critical Theory (www.ith-z.ch).

Klappentext

In den letzten Jahren hat sich das Departement Kunst & Medien (DKM) der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste ZHdK international einen Namen gemacht mit seiner Programmatik und seiner Praxis des Experimentierens in Lehre und Forschung. Das DKM umfasst einen BA-Studiengang Medien & Kunst - mit den Vertiefungen Bildende Kunst, Fotografie, Mediale Künste und Theorie -, einen Master of Fine Arts, in dem Künstler, Medienautoren und Theoretiker gemeinsam ausgebildet werden, sowie die beiden Forschungsinstitute für Gegenwartskünste und für Theorie. Dieses Dispositiv schafft einen einmalig dichten Raum zeitgenössischer Kunstausbildung und Kunstforschung in Europa. Das Jahrbuch 2012 des DKM stellt eines der avanciertesten Labore für künstlerische und theoretische Praktiken in Europa vor. Es gibt Einblick in heftig diskutierte Felder aktueller Lehre und Forschung in den Künsten. 'Praktiken des Experimentierens' enthält 18 Beiträge zu aktuellen Fragen der Forschung und Lehre, darunter drei Gastbeiträge der Kunsttheoretikerin Ute Meta Bauer (MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology), des Musikers und Theatermachers Heiner Goebbels (Justus Liebig Universität Giessen) und des Bildhauers Richard Wentworth (Royal College of Art, London).