Lecture SeriesTerritories of the In/Human

On each evening in this lecture series, an artist in the exhibition Territories of the In/Human will be in conversation with a guest speaker. In presentations and discussions, both will pick up and elaborate on different aspects of the topic. The lecture series is organized by the art, science & business program of Akademie Schloss Solitude.

– Thursday, July 8, 2010, 7 pm (in English)
On this day, the exhibition is open during the event.

Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas (artists, Vilnius/Cambridge)
Druzba
The multimedia installation Druzba (meaning “friendship” in English) by Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas thematically takes up the homonymous oil pipeline stretching from the Urals into Eastern Germany and its resulting political entanglements. The currently privatized pipeline previously served the entire “Eastern Bloc” in the past and was a symbol, both of solidarity among the socialist states and of their independence vis-à-vis Western markets.

Michel Verlaine (economist, Nancy)
Rationality and Finance
In his lecture, Michel Verlaine analyzes the rational assumptions behind capitalist finance models of Western markets and describes how the strong belief in the objective knowledge of the decision maker presumably caused the current financial crisis. The role of the subject in decision processes, often being determined by uncertain elements in the financial system, is a known parameter in finance. At the same time, the subject remains the unknown entity.