The aesthetic is increasingly linked to promises of effects and demands for measurable impact. The performing arts have to position themselves in the economic sphere. The economic dimension of art is not strictly limited to financial resources and countable profits; monetary value is also inseparably bound up with immaterial goods like affect, care and responsibility. The engagement invested in artistic labour can thus be conceived as creative, innovative or perhaps even as a kind of considerate profit-seeking, and in this sense can even be understood as ‘enrichment’. The value attached to aesthetic objects assumes many forms: How can aesthetic labour that seeks to create a surplus be compensated? What does this labour produce, who profits from it and at whose expense? Are the critical ambitions of the contemporary arts at all compatible with the dominant material structures – and if yes, in what manner? The third annual conference of the ERC project ‘The Aesthetics of Applied Theatre’ aims to explore the eco-nomic aspects of the arts, aspects that cannot be reduced to strategies of commercialisation, nor to the monetary reward of artistic work. In general, it is about the ambivalence of ‘give-and-take’ in the realm of aesthetics.

 

The conference will be held on 21st and 22nd October 2016 in the Akademie der Künste (Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin).

Friday, October 21st 2016

 

14.00 … Introduction

14.30 … Prosumer Portfolio: Towards an Aesthetic of Affective Values (Doris Kolesch)

15.15 … Affektökonomien im Vergleich: Theater und Migration in Berlin und London
                          (Friederike Oberkrome, Hans Roth)

 

16.30 … Sich selbst professionalisieren – Die Arbeit des Performancekünstlers (Annemarie Matzke)

17.30 … Internationale Kulturförderung: Geben & Nehmen? – Panel discussion with:

Elke aus dem Moore (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)
Annette Bühler-Dietrich (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst)
Silvia Fehrmann (Haus der Kulturen der Welt)
Birgit Ostermeier (Cultural Manager)

 

Break

 

20:00 … Daniel Peltz

Performing a philosophy of labour
in three acts
over a short decade
with a light second attention
on the elongated changes of scenery

 

Saturday, October 22nd 2016

 

10.00 … Repetition as Ethos (Natascha Siouzouli)

10.45 … Performing that which exceeds us: Aesthetics, economics and ethics of ‘the refugee crisis’
                         (Marilena Zaroulia)

11.30 … Kinds of Inconsequence (Joe Kelleher)

 

Break

 

14.00 … Theatre and Its Beneficiary (Ana Vujanović)

14.45 … Data Bodies and Tracked Movements (Sven Lütticken)

 

16.00 … Am Wendepunkt: Vom Grenznutzen ästhetischer Praxis im Alltag (Matthias Warstat)

16.45 … Wie lässt sich die praktische Relevanz der Kunst (als kritische Praxis) begreifen? (Georg Bertram)

17.30 … Dunkle Entelechie (Joseph Vogl)

 

Break

 

20.00 … Alexander Karschnia

VITA ACTIVISTA – after the ‘end of protest’ or the (un)making of ANGIE O.

 

Admission free, no previous registration necessary. The conference will be held in German and English. Translation into English will be provided from 2pm - 6:30pm on Friday and 4pm - 6:30pm on Saturday.