Manoa Free University, "W...WirWissen" and others | Omniscient Garbage Dumps

In April and May 2005 Kunsthalle Exnergasse in Vienna was the site of "W...WirWissen. kennenlernen emanzipatorischer selbstinstitutionen, socialised research und verlernen lernen" ("W...WeKnow. Getting to know emancipatory self-institutions, socialised research and learning to unlearn"). The event went on for six weeks and was conceived and organised in the context of Manoa Free University (Vienna) in cooperation with APA (Hamburg), Copenhagen Free University , Free Floating Faculty (Copenhagen), Freie Klasse (Berlin), Informelle Universität in Gründung (Berlin), University of Openness (London) and numerous individuals. Deliberately, the concept of knowledge was deployed as a somewhat blurry centre. Knowledge was considered by the participants as a cluster created by post-Fordist economy, strategies of education, and artistic practice, and it was to be approached by the project in circular movements. These movements were statements and stutterings at the same time. "Time and again we met and discussed the public representability of informal processes of knowledge. The current commodification of informal knowledge in a post-Fordist environment, the economisation of education and the role of artistic research will be the focus of the experiment. The participating groups work on a wide array of different aspects of knowledge production. Some of them bear 'university' in their name, their practices and forms of organisations, however, are as diverse as the contexts in which they have been originating. Founding a university is a speech act." (from "opening speeches", W...WirWissen, 2005).

Since October 2009, a protest movement has emerged in opposition to the economisation of the educational sector in Vienna as well as in many other places in Europe. Among other things it calls for free and unrestricted access to education and knowledge and claims self-organised spaces of student activity. Similar discussions were constitutive of the self-understanding of projects such as "W...WirWissen", Manoa Free University and other groups that took part in the 2005 Exnergasse event.

As part of the Frames of Reference, Sites of Research series participants will speak about "W...WirWissen", presenting documentations, texts, websites and images, in order to start a discussion on projects of artistic knowledge production in the context of the current protests and the ongoing institutionalisation of artistic research.

Frames of Reference, Sites of Research
A Series of Talks on Institutional and Self-Organized Knowledge Production in the Arts

The intention behind this series of talks is to initiate dialogues with individuals, collectives, organizations and spaces which partake in networks of non-aligned knowledge production and self-determined pedagogies. In the course of the recent debates around artistic research, the history and present of the various brands of 'self-organization' and 'new institutionalism' and their epistemic politics have been somewhat absent. Hence, Frames of Reference, Sites of Research - very much in sync with a conception of research pursued by the Center for Art/Knowledge (CAK) - is conceived as an attempt to contest and change the current conditions of institutionalized academic research (and teaching) in the arts. The talks are motivated by an interest to learn about and from the practical experiences and conceptual strategies engendered by those frames of reference and sites of research that render a potential outside of the Academy. Likewise it is considered crucial to foster a critical stance in regard to any clear-cut topology of 'inside' and 'outside' of the institution.

Previous Lectures:

26.11. Anton Vidokle | Exhibition as school ...

Anton Vidokle is an artist, based in New York and Berlin. As founding director of e-flux (video rental, mailing list, journal etc.), he has produced projects such as Next Documenta Should Be Curated By An Artist, Do it, Utopia Station poster project, and organized An Image Bank for Everyday Revolutionary Life and Martha Rosler Library . Vidokle initiated research into education as site for artistic practice as co-curator for Manifesta 6, which was canceled. In response to the cancellation, Vidokle set up Unitednationsplaza -a twelve-month independent project in Berlin, involving more than a hundred artists, writers, philosophers, and diverse audiences. In 2008-2009 Vidokle organized, at the New Museum in New York, Night School as an artist commission in the form of a temporary school.

17.12. Maria Hlavajova

Maria Hlavajova speaks about the art institution as a space for thinking from, about, and through art through the example of BAK, basis voor actuele kunst in Utrecht [ http://www.bak-utrecht.nl/ ], which she founded in 2003 and runs as its artistic director. Invested in the exploration and empowerment of two vital relationships--the link between art and the public sphere, and the alliance between artistic practice and theory--BAK initiates research on diverse subjects of urgency in both art and society, and together with artists and other cultural practitioners realizes projects ranging from exhibitions to lectures to education to  publications to production, oscillating flexibly between art, academia, and advocacy.

Maria Hlavajova (born 1971) is founding artistic director of BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht since 2000. She is also currently leading the project Former West (2008-2013), which she initiated and developed as a research, education, publication, and exhibition undertaking, realized through an international collaborative effort involving a dense network of researchers and art institutions. In 2008 Hlavajova co-curated Once is Nothing (with Charles Esche), the joint contribution of BAK and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven to the Brussels Biennale 1, Brussels, 2008. She curated the three-part project Citizens and Subjects, the Dutch contribution to the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007, which included a new video installation by Aernout Mik in the Dutch Pavilion, a critical reader (Citizens and Subjects: The Netherlands, for example, co-edited with Rosi Braidotti and Charles Esche), and a series of lectures, workshops, residencies, and master classes (Citizens and Subjects: Practices and Debates). Hlavajova has organized numerous exhibitions and projects at BAK including: Lawrence Weiner: Dicht Bij, 2010; Sanja Iveković: Urgent Matters, 2009 (a two-part exhibition at BAK and the Van Abbemuseum); The Return of Religion and Other Myths, 2008-2009; Arthur Zmijewski: Social Studio, 2008; Roman Ondák: The Day After Yesterday, 2007; Kutluğ Ataman: Küba/Paradise, 2007; Concerning "Knowledge Production": Practices in Contemporary Art, 2006; Aernout Mik: Raw Footage/Scapegoats, 2006; Adrian Paci, 2006; Concerning War, 2005; Gerrit Dekker: About no below, no above, no sides, 2005; Cordially Invited, episode 3, Who if not we...?, 2004, and Now What? Dreaming a better world in six parts, 2003. She also regularly edits and contributes to numerous critical readers and catalogs internationally. In 2004, Hlavajova curated Who if not we should at least try to imagine the future of all this?, an international collaborative project across Europe. She is a founding board member of the Július Koller Society, and founding director of the tranzit network (together with Kathrin Rhomberg), a foundation that supports exchange and contemporary art practices in Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia. Hlavajova also is a fellow of the Centre for the Humanities, Utrecht University, and teaches at Utrecht University and Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam. Previously she was a faculty member at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York (1998-2002), co-curator of Manifesta 3, Ljubljana (2000), and director of the Soros Center for Contemporary Arts in Bratislava (1994-1999). Hlavajova lives and works in Amsterdam and Utrecht.