www.gbgk.ch | Images of History in Contemporary Art | University of Potsdam

The public lecture & screening is an event of the art historical research project Images of History in Contemporary Art funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation in Bern.

7:00–8:15pm Public Lecture
The Archival (Re-)Turn: On the Return of Archival Art as Archival Critique
by Knut Ebeling (Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin)

Introduction: Melanie Franke (project lead, Images of History in Contemporary Art; University of Potsdam)

This lecture by Knut Ebeling inquires into the situation of archival practices in the field of contemporary art. Since media-based techniques such as filing, storing, and transmitting data first appeared in artistic practices, a shift generally referred to and discussed under the term “archival turn”, the reflection on power-related theoretical implications and political effects has gained importance. Particularly against the backdrop of postcolonial theory and its medial a priori, the study of postcolonial archives, the question of counter- or even non-archives has become central. From the aesthetic point of view, a shift can be observed from the austere, data-focused and anti-narrative aesthetic of the “archival turn” towards narratological as well as poetic, speculative, and fabulatory strategies of “performing the archive«.

© Oraib Toukan, When Things Occur, 2017, single-channel video, color, sound, Arabic with English subtitles, 28’. Courtesy the artist.

8:15–8:45pm Film screening: Oraib Toukan, When Things Occur, 2017, single-channel video, color, sound, Arabic with English subtitles, 28’.

Oraib Toukan’s video installation entitled When Things Occur (2017) is based upon a series of Skype conversations between the artist and Gaza-based photographers, fixers, and drivers who were behind specific images that circulated in the summer of 2014. The video dwells on the space between flat-screen monitors and their affect, exploring what lays behind the pixels that come to embody violence and destruction. It examines how documentary footage operates in the face of cruelty, and what “viewing suffering at a distance” could possibly mean.

9:00pm Apéro

The public lecture & screening is organized by Paul Mellenthin and the Images of History in Contemporary Art art historical research group at the University of Potsdam. Led by Melanie Franke and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

The team members are: Christoph Balzar, Alex Bykov, Melanie Franke, Ulrike Gerhardt, Sophie-Marie Gruber, Verena Kittel, Oliver Krätschmer, Luisa Mann and Paul Mellenthin.

Registration: The event is free of charge. For participation in presence we kindly ask you to register before 5 October 2022. For registration, please write to: . Online participation is also possible without registration (via Zoom): https://uni-potsdam.zoom.us/j/64764741701, passcode: 14986451

Project website www.gbgk.ch

Short Bios

Prof. Dr. KNUT EBELING is Professor of Media Theory and Aesthetics at the Department of Theory and History at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin. Numerous publications on contemporary theory, art and aesthetics, including Archivologie. Theorien des Archivs in Philosophie, Medien und Künste (Kulturverlag Kadmos Berlin, 2009) and together with Georges Didi-Huberman Das Archiv brennt (Kulturverlag Kadmos Berlin, 2007).

ORAIB TOUKAN is an artist and scholar. She holds a PhD in Fine Arts from Oxford University, Ruskin School of Art. Until fall 2015, she was head of the Arts Division and Media Studies program at Bard College at Al-Quds University, Palestine, and visiting fellow at the International Academy of Fine Arts in Ramallah.

Thanks to
Sophie-Marie Gruber
Luisa Mann
Fritz Schlüter and ZeM
Lily Wittenburg

With kind support of