reformpause
Ruhr-Universität.
Entwurfszeichung 1964, Dep. Staatl. Bauamt Bochum 50 Universitätsarchiv
Bochum
05/18 – 06/18/2006
Marion von Osten
in collaboration with students (Christiane Autsch, Kristina Geertz, Ludmila Gerasimov, Julia Hammer,
Rahel-Katharina Hermann, Katharina Looks, Jenny Nachtigall, Maria Petersen, Kathrin Roes, Stephanie Schneider,
Frauke Schnoor, Stephanie Seidel, Valentina Seidel, Nike Thurn, Anna Till) and
the Kunstraum of the University of Lueneburg
May 18, 2006 - Opening
May 19 - 20, 2006 - Making Worlds
Open workshop of the project group <reformpause>,
the Kunstraum of the University of Lueneburg and members of the Institute
of Cultural Theory with guests: Madeleine Bernstorff, Julia Franz, MeineAkademie
Berlin, Preclab Forschungsgruppe Hamburg, Katja Reichard und Axel John
Wieder.
The project <reformpause> in the frame of <Making worlds>
refers to the local Kunstraum of the University of Lueneburg which is
located on the campus. Its program implies inviting artists to develop
a project together with students. <reformpause> follows issues raised
by previous exhibitions, publications and debates on campus architecture
and educational topics (cf. Christian Philipp Mueller; Roger M. Buergel
/ Ruth Noack, Thomas Locher / Peter Zimmermann) of the Kunstraum of the
University of Lueneburg.
Against the background of the current university reform and the populist
debate on the so-called state of emergency in education, artist Marion
von Osten along with lecturers and students of art and visual studies
of the University of Lueneburg have conducted research on the history
of educational reforms from the 1960s until today, as well as on the tradition
of critique of university knowledge spaces and analysed them with regard
to their possible adaptation in present debates. With the analysis of
the papers of the Bologna Conference and the European reform process associated
with it, as well as the theses of ‘The New Spirit of Capitalism’
by Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, a multi-stage seminar began in the
winter semester of 2005/2006. It aimed at examining whether the reform
models of the 1960s and 70s could serve as a model (in particular, according
to the inspirational Cité and the projects-oriented Cité
in the sense of Boltanski / Chiapello) to legitimate the current restructuring
of educational institutions. Further the question was raised, whether
the changes are primarily based on economical considerations related to
principles of the market and of efficiency (according to the industrial
and market cités) resulting in a re-disciplining of students and
lecturers and a further bureaucratisation of structures? Also the hypothesis
was pursued, that interprets the recent changes as a partial return to
the hierarchical university of the 1960ies, heavily dominated by professors
and grounded in a neo-conservative world-view.
A new work was developed for the exhibition in the Kunstraum, which examines
the debates and strategies of a comprehensive mobilisation toward a society
of knowledge as early as the 1960s and 70s. Hence, the event and the exhibition
in May also refer to historical and current struggles for an alternative
production of knowledge, because the question accompanying the ongoing
reform process and the standardisation of studies is: Which practices
of ‘other spaces of knowledge’ are productive today for new subjectivities,
alliances and coalitions, and how, from this point of view, could an adequate
contemporary critique of educational concepts and reforms be established?
During the workshops on May 19 - 20, the invited guests report from their
fields of research and action. A subsequent publication of the contributions
is planned.
Due to the topicality of the debate, <reformpause> will intervene
in the campus during the course of the exhibition with a poster and wall
newspaper action and a film programme. The wall newspaper, which takes
up the format of the <plakat> newspaper of the student movement
in the 1970s, has a newspaper layout on the reverse side and a screen
print poster on the front. In the Lueneburg <plakat> edition, students
present their research work and texts focusing on the following topics:
equal opportunity / state of emergency in education, human capital / the
subject of the educational reform, new requirement profiles / the imperative
of mobility, student protests 1968 ff / The European dimension: the Bologna
process and its instrumental political use. The newspaper of the project
discusses how and with which vocabulary universities are to be reformed
at present and on which historical traditions this argumentation is based.
At various public places (lecture halls, Kunstraum, seminar rooms) a <pausenkino> will be programmed between courses in which the discussion on and the
critique of educational institutions and concepts is brought back to the
campus by means of historical and present-day films and video works. The
film selection is compiled by Marion von Osten in collaboration with Madeleine
Bernstorff. Films in the <pausenkino> by: Claudia Alemann, Lindsay
Anderson, Danielle Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub, MeineAkademie, Daniel
Schmid, Gus van Sant, Cecilia Wendt und Frederick Wiseman.
The project <Making worlds> is based on a cooperation of the Kunstraum
of the University of Lueneburg and Marion von Osten. It is embedded in
the project transform, coordinated by the eipcp in Vienna and
supported by the EU in its Culture 2000 program.
