art, science & business/symposium: »Design of the (In-) Human«

This symposium kicks off the Akademie’s focus on »Design of the (In-)Human«, the new topic it dedicates itself to, as of fall 2009, on the initiative of the jury chairman Philip Ursprung of the University of Zurich. In addition to this symposium, the project includes an exhibition in the Württembergischer Kunstverein in 2010.

The »Design of the (In-)Human« project’s goal is to explore the various concepts of the human and the inhuman in natural and life sciences, philosophical and cultural scientific discourses, economic theories, and (especially) the arts. The focus is on both the tensions between and the intersections of biological reality, technological reality, a globalized economic world, and philosophical considerations that raise the question of humanism anew, from today’s point of view.

»What if human beings, in humanism’s sense, were in the process of, constrained into, becoming inhuman…what if what is ›proper‹ to humankind were to be inhabited by the inhuman«? During the three-day symposium, international scientists, artists, and theorists of the most varied disciplines will address this question by Jean-François Lyotard.

On Thursday, November 19, 2009, at 8pm, the artist, curator, and media theorist Peter Weibel (ZKM Karlsruhe) opens the symposium with a German-language lecture. On Friday night the Romanian author Mircea Cărtărescu reads from his work in Romanian with German translation. The symposium’s lectures on Friday and Saturday take place in English.

Speakers include Vadim Bolshakov, Harvard Medical School, Boston; Beatriz Colomina, Princeton University; Pedro Dolabela Chagas, Universidade Estadual do Sudoeste da Bahia; Lukas Einsele, artist, Darmstadt; Björn Franke, Royal College of Art, London; Evelyne Grossman, Collège international de philosophie, Paris; Catherine Labrusse-Riou, Université de Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne; Mauro Lanza, IRCAM, Paris; Sandra Richter, University of Stuttgart; Lucia Ronchetti, composer, Rome; Elke Schwager, Handicap International, Munich; Jia Lyng Tang, University of Valencia.

In cooperation with the Collège international de philosophie, Paris.
Free admission. Please register with Anne Vollenbröker, av@akademie-solitude.de, Tel. +49 (0) 711 99 61 91 34.
Thu 8 pm, Fri 9:30 am–21:30 pm, Sat 9:30 am–1 pm.