Vilnius Academy of Arts (VAA) and Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture (Aalto University) are starting a partnership by establishing Nida Doctoral School. It is a non-degree doctoral program at Nida Art Colony, Neringa, Lithuania.
The first session will commence on the 19th and continue until the 25th of October, 2015. It will be an intensive course themed “Smoke and Mirrors – Staged Arguments and the Legitimation of Artistic Research.”
If science is a fairytale that is hard to disbelieve (Latour), then scientific research is nothing but scripting fiction. What’s more, the latter is the domain of art. Be it truthful deceit, legitimate hocus-pocus, or real fiction, such a story requires a great deal of creativity and knowledge in carrying out such a persuasion. The persuasion, co-curated by Julijonas Urbonas and Justė Kostikovaitė, will be carried out at the inaugural courses of the Nida Doctoral School.
Nida Doctoral School has selected the following doctoral students to participate in the courses: Cibelle Bastos (Royal College of Art), Federica Bueti (Royal College of Art), Rafael Dernbach (University of Cambridge, Department of German & Dutch), Joanna Fiduccia (University of California, Department of Art History), Marina Noronha (Aaalto University), Liene Jakobsone (Art Academy of Latvia, Department of Design), Annelie Nederberg (University of Surrey, Department of Musical Composition), Soren Rosenbak (The Swedish Faculty for Design Research and Research Education, and Umeå Institute of Design – Umeå University), Dovilė Tumpytė (Vilnius Academy of Arts, Doctoral Studies), Darius Žiūra (Vilnius Academy of Arts, Doctoral Studies).
Monday, October 19
“Methodological Abundance: Staging Methods in front of a Committee”
by Vytautas Michelkevičius
Synopsis
During his lecture Michelkevičius will trigger self-reflection about methods and methodologies used by artists. Artistic research is still treated as “smoke and mirrors” in many disciplines and it is only up to us to show our stance on the field and its relation to other domains of inquiry and art practice.
About the author
Dr.Vytautas Michelkevičius is an associate professor in Vilnius Academy of Arts (methodologies for postgraduate studies and photography and media art) as well as curator and researcher. His new book on artistic research is forthcoming in 2016. He defended PhD in critical media studies in 2010 at Vilnius University but since 2005 he is teaching mainly art students.
10 – 10:45 Lecture
10:45 – 12:00 Discussion
12:00 – 12:45 pm Presentation of individual task
2.30-5.30 pm Workshop / Individual tutorials
6-7 pm Presentation, discussion and feedback on the results of the workshop
Tuesday, October 20
“Autofiktion” by Ingo Niermann
Synopsis
Lecture deals with the subject matter called “autofiktion”. As soon as we write about our own future, we invariably make a bet: Which of these things can we achieve, which can we prevent? Fiction does not imitate life, but life imitates fiction. Some stories are too good not to be true.
About the author
Ingo Niermann is a writer and the editor of the speculative book series Solution and The Future of Art. Recent books include Concentration (ed., 2015), David Lieske: I Tried to Make This Work (2015), Solution 247-261: Love (ed., 2013), Choose Drill (2011), The Future of Art: A Manual (2011, with Erik Niedling), Solution 186–195: Dubai Democracy (2010), among others. His work has been featured at dOCUMENTA(13), La Biennale di Venezia, MACBA, MoMA, mumok, and ZKM.
10:00 – 10:45 Lecture
10:45- 12:00 Discussion
1:30 – 2:30 pm Discussion and methodology presentation
3-5 pm Workshop
6-7 pm Presentation, discussion and feedback on the results of the workshop
Wednesday, October 21
“Materialised philosophy: staged arguments, transtextuality and material hermeneutics in art and design” by Julijonas Urbonas
Synopsis
What would happen to philosophy if it’s turn to things hypertrophied, and philosophical thought models turned to things?How would a philosopher-engineer, philosopher-cook, or philosopher-artist look like? What effect it would have on human condition and material environment? By discussing these questions, we will speculate upon the idea of thingly philosophy, namely, its methodology. The latter will involve various methods, thought models, and approaches borrowed from science fiction, speculative design, futurology and Julijonas Urbonas’s own practice. Special attention will be devoted to non-linguistic approaches and their artistic manifestations.
About the author
Julijonas Urbonas is an artist, designer, researcher, engineer, writer, Vice-Rector for Art at the Vilnius Academy of Arts in Vilnius, and PhD student in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art, London.
10:00 – 10:45 Lecture
10:45- 12:00 Discussion
1:30 – 2:30 pm Discussion and methodology presentation
3-5 pm Workshop
6-8 pm Presentation, discussion and feedback on the results of the workshop
Thursday, October 22
“Users and Usership of Art: Challenging Expert Culture” by Stephen Wright
Synopsis
Usership has emerged over the past two decades as an increasingly central category of political and cultural subjectivity. Though by no means new — we have been making use of tools and words and things odd and sundry since time immemorial — this usological turn has given usership renewed significance in an era of user-generated knowledge, content and value, often unbeknownst to the community of users themselves, challenging at least three conceptual institutions of contemporary ideology: spectatorship, expert culture and ownership. From the perspective of expert culture, users are not only opportunistic (opportunivores, as it were) but invariably misusers. This begs the question as to an emancipated mode of opportunity-determined action and a certain epistemic “privilege” based on use. And what about art’s use value at a time when an increasing number of practitioners are gearing their practices less toward spectatorship than toward genuine usership?
About the author
Stephen Wright is a Paris-based art writer and teaches the practice of theory at the European School of Visual Arts. His current research seeks to understand the ongoing usological turn in art and society in terms of contemporary escapological theory and practice.
10:30 – 11:30 am Workshop #1. Usership: challenging the epistemocracy
1- 2:30 pm Workshop #2. “Usership: Intercerebral Collaboration”
3-4:30 pm Workshop #3. “Usership: deactivating art’s aesthetic function, activating its heuristic function”
4:30-6 Break with an optional skype session with Timothy Ingold about the the text “Dreaming of dragons: on the imagination of real life”
6-7 pm Presentation, discussion and feedback on the results of the workshop with Stephen Wright
Friday, October 23
“The Ceremony of the Voice” by Piersandra di Matteo
Synopsis
This lecture focuses on the topology of speech, a spacing of resonance and a renvoi between bodies, beginning with the notion of curatorial activities as imaginative systems based on human interactions and the physical possibilities of bodies.
About the author
Piersandra Di Matteo is a performing arts theorist, dramaturge, curator and a researcher based at the Department of Visual, Performing, and Media Arts of the University of Bologna. Since 2008, she has been working as dramaturge with Romeo Castellucci. Recently, she has won the UBU Prize for “Best curatorial-organisational project 2014” for the multi-format project “e la volpe disse al corvo”.
10:00 – 10:45 Lecture
10:45- 12:00 Discussion
1:30- 2:30 pm Workshop #1. The workshop series exploring the nature of voice and its ineradicable materiality, echoing in relational space.
3-4:30 pm Workshop #2.
4:30-6 Break
“Warming up” programme on the occasion of the opening the second building of the Nida Art Colony
6-6:30 pm Olivia Erlanger performance – lecture.
6:30-7 pm Linda Stupart performance – lecture.
7-7:30 pm Joanna Fiduccia performance – lecture.
7-8 pm Performative dinner “What’s in the Box?”.
8-11 pm Drinks
Saturday and Sunday, October 24-25
Departures and farewells
For more information about the speakers, see at nidacolony.lt
The project is funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture and Goethe-Institut Vilnius.
Lectures (but not workshops and discussions) are public and everyone is invited to attend. In order to attend the lectures please register by sending your name to juste@nidacolony.lt
About Nida Doctoral School
Along with the new building that is now growing next to the older part of the Colony, Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts and Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture are starting a joint academic unit – Nida Doctoral School (provisional title), which shall develop and run a non-degree doctoral program. The program will start in September 2015.
The program will offer international doctoral courses and residencies for art, art history, design, media and architecture doctoral and post-doctoral students from Aalto ARTS, VAA and other universities which will join the initiative. Nida Art Colony and Aalto Arts hope to develop a small and inspiring guild of European postgraduate institutions which will contribute to and benefit from the program.
Nida Doctoral School courses will have a form of intensive 5-10 day-long seminars. They will be conducted by the academic staff of Aalto ARTS, Vilnius Academy of Arts and other universities as well as outstanding invited guest speakers.
Nida Doctoral School residencies will be conducted by Nida Art Colony and constitute a part of the international Nida Artist-in-residence program. The duration of a residency will be from one to six months.
