Helmi Vent – Lectures & Seminars
Overview
- On the Relation between Music and Dance after 1970
- From Dada to the Present. Process-Oriented Concepts in the Arts
(Current seminar at the University Mozarteum) - Project Work in the Intercultural Context
Focus: Western (Central European) and Southern Asian Culture (India) - Intercultural Projects in the Arts – Concepts and Models
- Spatial Dimensions in the Arts
- "Doing Culture" Part II
- "Doing Culture" Part I
Positions on the Relation between Culture and Social (Music and Dance) Practice - A Different "Café for Socrates"
- Concepts of Identity – Examined and Questioned in the Concept of Experimental Project Work in Art and Art Education
- Staging in the Context of Aesthetic Theory and Aesthetic Laboratories
- Performance as a Conceptual Design for Life and Society
- Dance and Complex Culturalism
- The "Expanded Work of Art"
Positions in Art and Education - "The Mystery Happens in the Main Railway Station" (Joseph Beuys)
On the Anthropological Dimension of Art - Art and its Function in the Education Process
- The Idea of the "Lebenskunstwerk"
Anthropological Aspects of Creative Work - On the "Unknown" in Education
Or: An Exercise in Socratic Teaching - On the Culture of "Proficiency"
Searching for Subject-Oriented Parameters - The Idea of Staging and Transforming Spaces
- The Idea of the "Gesamtkunstwerk" in the 20th Century
- Modern Trends in Central European Art
- Mauricio Kagel – Music, Movement, Theater, Film
On the Relation between Music and Dance after 1970
In exploring the multi-faceted relationship between music and dance – be it according to hierarchically ordered principles or the interpenetrating principles of dance and music gestures or in the form of autonomously enacted dialogues of both arts – our work, which will be supported by audiovisual documentations, will focus on:
- anthropological and cultural backgrounds and conditions of selected manifestations of the Central European music-and-dance landscape (mainly from 1950 on);
- aesthetic peculiarities that determine the interaction of the two arts in these selected manifestations;
- various functions of the individual forms of expression in reflecting sociopolitical concepts.
Our studies will be based on selected writings by music and dance artists, music and dance experts and art philosophers of the past decades.
Required reading
VENT, Helmi: Funktionen musikalischer Komposition im zeitgenössischen Tanztheater
In: Gesellschaft für Tanzforschung (publication) / KLEIN, Michael (ed.): Tanzforschung, vol. 2/1991
Nötzel Verlag, Wilhelmshaven 1992
REININGHAUS, Frieder/SCHNEIDER, Katja (ed.): Experimentelles Musik- und Tanztheater. Series: Handbuch der Musik im 20. Jahrhundert – Vol. 7.
Laaber, Laaber 2004
From Dada to the Present. Process-Oriented Concepts in the Arts
This course casts a few spotlights on various movements, works and key figures of the arts in the 20th century, including artistic crossover laboratories of our day. In the selected movements, we will focus on the art-making process, i.e. the process of the development and emergence of art: dada, Fluxus, happening, performance, site-specific art, occuring art, etc. In these fields, exploring the situational conditions of the art-making process and experimenting with materials and techniques, with forms of communication and interaction etc., themselves become a subject of art and, in the laboratories of the 21st century, frequently entail a search for new experimentation spaces that are appropriate for an integration of the arts into societal, political and social life.
The course orientation and discussion will be based on selected texts as well as on audio and film examples.
Required reading
DREHER, Thomas: Performance Art nach 1945. Aktionstheater und Intermedia.
Wilhelm Fink, Munich 2001
Project Work in the Intercultural Context
Focus: Western (Central European) and Southern Asian Culture (India)
The seminar in the context of "aesthetic theories" is a supplementary course to the intercultural project "ConCom", being carried out in cooperation between LIA – Lab Inter Arts (Mozarteum Salzburg), Boston University (USA) and Kala Academy/Goa (India). The seminar is being offered in the context of the "Schwerpunkt Wissenschaft und Kunst" (Focus on Science and Art) of the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg and the University Mozarteum Salzburg.
The seminar focuses on:
- philosophical and religious issues as well as social and societal issues, in relation to Indian culture and in relation to the planned performative laboratory work in India;
- aesthetic manifestations of selected Indian arts in the fields of sound, dance and performance;
- project conditions that will be oriented on contextual circumstances and resources;
- documentation forms of the initial project development phase and its planned evaluation in the SS 2010.
In its first phase, the ConCom-project, which has been planned for a period of several years, will go to Mumbai and Goa in December 2009. In January 2010, after the participants' return, the course will continue on a regular basis.
Required reading
MALL, Ram Adhar: Philosophie im Vergleich der Kulturen. Interkulturelle Philosophie – eine neue Orientierung
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1995
HAN, Byung-Chul: Hyperkulturalität. Kultur und Globalisierung
Merve, Berlin 2005
Intercultural Projects in the Arts – Concepts and Models
The course will begin by focusing on the interrelationship between art, culture and interculture. Against this background, with the help of film examples, concepts of artists who have integrated their designs into intercultural contexts will be presented and discussed. The discussion of these concepts will be supplement by live presentations by representatives from various fields of art and culture.
Cooperating partners for this course: Leopold Kohr Akademie, Salzburg; Kulturelle Sonderprojekte Salzburg; K. - initiative junge kultur salzburg
Required reading
VENT, Helmi: Intermediale künstlerische Bildung in der Projekt- und Kulturarbeit. Statement. In: PASUCHIN, Iwan (ed.) (2007): Intermediale künstlerische Bildung. Kunst-, Musik- und Medienpädagogik im Dialog
Kopaed, Munich, pp. 63–69
Spatial Dimensions in the Arts
The course is devoted to selected contemporary trends and ideas in the field of laboratory and staging work, in which spaces or places have inspired arts involving movement/action/sound/sculpture/etc. In order to be able to understand and classify the aesthetic, sociocultural and sociopolitical backgrounds of such trends in the present day, 20th-century predecessors of current concepts of the occupation and transformation of spaces will be presented. In connection with the concept of "Doing Culture", the theoretical studies pursued in this course will be complemented by practical artistic and cultural aspects in laboratory spaces on site and reflected upon from a didactic perspective.
The course is being offered in the context of the "Schwerpunkt Wissenschaft und Kunst" (Focus on Science and Art) / Paris Lodron University of Salzburg and Mozarteum University Salzburg".
Required reading
ANGERMANN, Klaus / BARTHELMES, Barbara: Die Idee des klingenden Raumes seit Satie. In: JOST, Ekkehard (ed.): Musik zwischen E und U
Schott, Mainz, London, New York, and Tokio 1984, pp. 107–126
SEITZ, Hanne: Räume im Dazwischen. Bewegung, Spiel und Inszenierung im Kontext ästhetischer Theorie und Praxis
Klartext, Essen 1996
SCHROER, Markus: Räume, Orte, Grenzen. Auf dem Weg zu einer Soziologie des Raums
Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 2006
"Doing Culture" Part II
As a continuation of the seminar "Doing Culture" in the WS 2006-2007, the course will be devoted to the discussion of various subjects related to the theme area "cultural philosophy – art – pedagogy", this time focusing particularly on process-oriented cultural work in the form of performative practice. The raw materials developed in the interdisciplinary project "SpaceSoundBodyTheater" in the WS 2006/2007 (see Course 12.0005) will be evaluated, discussed in connection with conceptual parameters for performance work and, finally, used to create concepts for scenic work.
The course is being offered in the context of the "Schwerpunkt Wissenschaft und Kunst" (Focus on Science and Art) of the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg (PLUS) and the Mozarteum University Salzburg (MOZ) and the course content is related to the interdisciplinary project taking place in the Catholic collegiate church (Kollegienkirche) in Salzburg.
Required reading
HÖRNING, Karl H. und REUTER, Julia (eds.): Doing Culture. Neue Positionen zum Verhältnis von Kultur
und sozialer Praxis
Transcript, Bielefeld 2004
Further Information (MozOnline)
"Doing Culture" Part I
Positions on the Relation between Culture and Social (Music and Dance) Practice
As a continuation of the "philosophical café" in the SS 2006, we will again engage in discussion of subjects related to the theme area "cultural philosophy – art – pedagogy", this time focusing particularly on process-oriented cultural work ("Doing Culture") as well as on its sociocultural relevance and its relevance for (music and dance) pedagogy.
The course is being offered in the context of the "Schwerpunkt Wissenschaft und Kunst" (Focus on Science and Art), a cooperation of the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg and the Mozarteum University Salzburg. The course content is related to an interdisciplinary project being carried out by the DanceMusicTheaterLaboratory of the Mozarteum University (see: "Interdiziplinäres Projekt").
The themes of the artistic performance work are in close dialogue with the text-oriented work in the "philosophical café". The focus is on concepts that challenge the arts of today, on the one hand in order to question their sociopolitical relevance and on the other hand, at the performative level, in order to experiment with sociocultural practice as a theatrical form.
Required reading
HÖRNING, Karl H. und REUTER, Julia (eds.): Doing Culture. Neue Positionen zum Verhältnis von Kultur
und sozialer Praxis
Transcript, Bielefeld 2004
A Different "Café for Socrates"
Following Marc Sautet's model of philosophical practice (his "Café for Socrates"), we will engage in discussion of a variety of subjects ranging from philosophical anthropology to art to pedagogy. The course participants will propose the topics and prepare them for workshop discussions, one for each topic (i.e. one class period each).
The "Café"-Lab is open to students from all fields of study as well as to guests from Salzburg and elsewhere. Tea and coffee will be served, at first at the course location, later perhaps at other places as well.
Required reading
SAUTET, Marc: Ein Café für Sokrates. Philosophie für jedermann.
Translated into German from the French by Eva Moldenhauer
Winkler, Düsseldorf 2001
Concepts of Identity – Examined and Questioned in the Context of Experimental Project Work
Identity – a construct? A legitimating formula for power interests? An "archetype of ideology" (T. W. Adorno)?
In the interplay between individualization and de-individualization, between self-determination and heteronomy, identity will be examined in connection with artistic and art pedagogy laboratory work (music and dance) from the perspective of temporary and dynamic conceptual designs for life, which have to be constantly reconstructed. The exploration of selected aspects of personal and interpersonal identity will be based, for example, on a consideration of the concepts of the “patchwork identity” (Heiner KEUPP), the "vagabond" identity (Zygmunt BAUMAN) and the "diversity of partial selves" ("Vielfalt der Teil-Selbste") (Helga BILDEN).
Required reading
BAUMANN, Zygmunt: Vom Pilger zum Touristen – Postmoderne Identitätsprojekte
In: KEUPP, Heiner: Lust an der Erkenntnis: Der Mensch als soziales Wesen.
Sozialpsychologisches Denken im 20. Jahrhundert
Piper, Munich 1995, pp. 295–302
BILDEN, Helga: Das Individuum - ein dynamisches System vielfältiger Selbste
http://www.fmi.uni-passau.de/~huebner/Studium/ws0001_pollack_aest-kom/Helga_Bilden_-_Das_Individuum.pdf, summarized by Chri. Hübner, pp. 1–7
KEUPP, Heiner et al.: Identitätstheorien. Das Patchwork der Identitäten in der Spätmoderne
Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1999
Staging in the Context of Aesthetic Theory and Aesthetic Laboratories
"Staging" has become a central concept of our societal reality. In this course, in addition to looking at various approaches to the processes of staging (Martin SEEL, Dieter MERSCH, Erika FISCHER-LICHTE), stagings created by the instructor with the DanceMusicTheaterLaboratory at the University Mozarteum will be discussed and their specific parameters – from interactive impulse dramaturgy to the staging of non-staging – will be investigated on the basis of years of documentation work. These investigations will be supplemented by reflections on philosophical, sociocultural and sociopolitical aspects in the context of other open stagings. If the participants wish to do so, selected examples of event impulses will be used as a point of departure for scenic work in the form of short joint projects.
Required reading
FISCHER-LICHTE, Erika: Ästhetik des Performativen. Ch. 7.1 Inszenierung
Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 2004, pp. 318–332
MERSCH, Dieter: Ereignis und Aura. Ch. III "Vom Werk zum Ereignis"
Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 2002, pp. 157–244
SEEL, Martin: Inszenieren als Erscheinenlassen. Über die Reichweite eines Begriffs
In: FRÜCHTL, Josef: Ästhetik der Inszenierung
Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 2001, pp. 48–62
Performance as a Conceptual Design for Life and Society
In the search for an understanding of an anthropologically oriented art, the course takes up concepts of a broadly interpreted definition of art, a basic formula of human existence in which conceptual designs for society and life as a whole are defined, in the sense of practical philosophy, as art.
With regard to the interplay between aesthetics and existence, between art and science, and between cultural and social practice, a special focus will be placed on the question of the extent to which selected performance concepts can be fruitfully used in artistically oriented education and in aesthetic fields of practice.
Required reading
VENT, Helmi: Performance – Facetten von Lebensentwürfen
In: BASTIAN, Hans Günther / KREUTZ, Gunter: Musik und Humanität
Schott, Mainz 2003, pp. 89–106
Dance and Complex Culturalism
The course will follow the theme of the conference of the Gesellschaft für Tanzforschung (society for dance research) entitled "Tanz Anders Wo – Tanz und komplexe Kulturalität" being held at the Tanzquartier Wien from November 6 to 9, 2003 (s. notice posted at the Mozarteum University). Due to the integration of selected topics being dealt with at the aforementioned conference in Vienna, only students who also attend the conference may register for this course.
(Total length of stay in Vienna: Nov. 5–10, 2003)
From the conference brochure:
"Our experiences of space and time are becoming increasingly disengaged from traditional geographic and cultural contexts. As a result of migration, electronic communication and international tourism, identity is no longer defined only by a birthplace, but also by the journey that it makes through the world and its cultures. Traditions are gathered along the way, taken along, rethought and transformed. Differences are experienced and remembered, constructed and deconstructed. Dance, as a physical memory of this process, is a privileged medium."
Required reading
KAROSS, Sabine / WELZIEN, Leonore (eds.): Tanz – Politik – Identität.
Jahrbuch Tanzforschung, vol. 11, published on behalf of the Gesellschaft für Tanzforschung
LIT Verlag Münster/Hamburg/London 2001
The "Expanded Work of Art"
Positions in Art and Education
This course continues the exploration of Joseph Beuys' "expanded concept of art" begun in the WS 2002/2003, this time in connection with the "Beuys-Symposion" being held from April 30 to May 4, 2003 in Achberg near Bodensee.
Oriented on the lectures of the symposium, the course will focus particularly on the following issues:
- Positions of aesthetic and political education against the background of the "expanded concept of art"
- Implications of Joseph Beuys' "theory of sculpture" for art education and, analogously, for music and dance education
Required reading
SCHNEEDE, Uwe M.: Joseph Beuys – Die Aktionen
Hatje Verlag, Ostfildern 1994
"The Mystery Happens in the Main Railway Station" (Joseph Beuys)
On the Anthropological Dimension of Art
In the search for an understanding of an anthropologically oriented art, this course follows up on the "expanded concept of art" (Joseph Beuys), a basic formula of existence in which conceptual designs for society and life as a whole are defined, in the sense of practical philosophy, as art.
Against this backdrop, the following central questions arise with respect to processes linking
- art and human beings
- art and science
- cultural and social practice as open performance
- art and art education.
With regard to the interplay between aesthetics and existence, a particular focus will be placed on sharpening awareness both of one’s own artistic practice and of the artistic practice (in music and dance) that is to be taught.
Required reading
HARLAN, Volker: Was ist Kunst?
Werkstattgespräch mit Joseph Beuys
Urachhaus, Stuttgart 1986
Art and its Function in the Education Process
If, in principle, art potentially exists in all of us – be it in the form of discovery, creation, interaction, interpretation, symbol production or lifestyle – the question arises as to how to prepare fields of encounter in which functions of art can be experienced and worked with. If, in addition, the numerous and varied functions of art can be brought into interplay in the context of education processes, there is a chance that a rich scope for new forms of creation and communication can be opened up.
In this connection, a pedagogy of the arts will ask about ways and means for constituting artistic education in processes and discourse.
Required reading
(Lecture) texts by developmental psychologists, education experts and music teachers who spoke on subjects related to the theme area "Art and its Function in the Education Process" at the convention "Musik und Mensch", March 7–9, 2002, at the Mozarteum University: Rolf Oerter, Horst Rumpf, Hans Günther Bastian, Wilfried Gruhn, Franz Niermann.
The Idea of the "Lebenskunstwerk"
Anthropological Aspects of Creative Work
After our exploration of the "Idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk in the 20th Century" in 1999/2000, this course follows up on last year’s concluding discussion and leads into the concept of the "Lebenskunstwerk" (life art work). While the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk ultimately has to do with the transformation and expansion of creative action into a social, anthropological sphere, the aesthetics of the Lebenskunstwerk explore life as a work of art itself. "When yellow flows into blue, it creates green. When art appears in life, you get life art... an art that grasps and permeates life, so that a new culture emerges" (Paolo Bianchi, 1999). A central issue to be explored in the course is the extent to which Lebenskunst (life art), as ethical and aesthetic culture, can create new realities in our cultural sphere – especially sound-integrative and body-integrative realities.
Required reading
BIANCHI, Paolo: Lebenskunst als Real Life. Kunstforum, vol. 143, Jan./Feb. 1999
On the "Unknown" in Education
Or: An Exercise in Socratic Teaching
There is nothing to be said against various and sundry teaching techniques, nor against a thorough discussion of objectives and content, nor against capably implemented methodical steps based on a well-thought-out lesson plan, nor against solid, specialized knowledge and skillfully mastered special techniques. Nevertheless... Didactic fitness constitutes only a part of the process of teaching and learning. This course deliberately focuses on the unknown and the unplanned as parameters of teaching processes. The "planned" (!) exercises of this course will be able to develop their full effectiveness if we allow a state of not-knowing, an emptiness in our heads, that makes it impossible for us to be on the receiving end of any routine balls that tell us which methodological card we could draw next in the respective simulated teaching situation. The lifebelts for our swimming exercises in unknown waters will be writings by various authors (above all Horst Rumpf) who encourage us to leave our emergency baggage on shore and endure the resultant supposed loss of assurance in order to encounter the unforeseen with both composure and attention. Our objective will be to let various parameters of "emptiness" lead us to fruitful reflection and critical discussion of topical education issues.
Required reading
RUMPF, Horst: Belebungsversuche. Ausgrabungen gegen die Verödung der Lernkultur
Weinheim and Munich 1987
On the Culture of "Proficiency"
Searching for Subject-Oriented Parameters
The course is being presented in partial cooperation with students of other fields of study at the University Mozarteum. The point of departure for our joint practical and theoretical work will be the vocal or instrumental proficiency of the individual participants on the basis of "learned" techniques of singing and playing. Through suggestions made by the instructor, the respective techniques will be applied in expanded communicative contexts and made artistically manageable in correspondingly expanded aesthetic contexts. The processes of redirection- from a solo-performance-oriented activity to a partner-oriented, communicative activity, and
- from a reproductive activity to a productive activity
will be documented in writing, taking selected factors into consideration, and reflected upon from a didactic perspective. To facilitate cooperation with students from a variety of fields of study (see above), the course will be offered in compact form on two weekends.
Required reading
MANTEL, Gerhard (ed.): Ungenutzte Potentiale. Wege zu konstruktivem Üben
Schott Verlag, Mainz 199
The Idea of Staging and Transforming Spaces
This course focuses on contemporary approaches to and central ideas about "space as a laboratory for occupation and transformation", the main areas of emphasis being "music and dance in the public space" and "the mediatized space" in their various social, economic and political aspects. In order to understand and classify the aesthetic backgrounds of the aforementioned approaches, several 20th-century predecessors of current manifestations of the occupation and transformation of spaces will be presented. The central questions dealt with in the course will be:
- What conception of art lies behind the ideas about occupying and transforming space?
- What functions are assumed by public and mediatized space in the context of music and dance or music and dance education?
- What didactic significance can these interdisciplinary concepts have for music and dance education, and with what specific approaches can teachers react to the developments that have been presented?
The orientation of the course as well as the aesthetic and didactic discussion will be based on selected texts and on audio and video examples (a list of reading and audiovisual material will be provided in class).
Required reading
FOUCAULT, Michel: Andere Räume
In: BARCK, Karlheinz et al. (eds.): Aisthesis. Wahrnehmung heute oder Perspektiven einer anderen Ästhetik
Reclam, Leipzig 1990, pp. 34–46
The Idea of the "Gesamtkunstwerk" in the 20th Century
The debate about the term Gesamtkunstwerk, accompanied by controversy over the purpose and self-conception of such an art form, has intensified since 1960. The viewpoints come from a variety of schools of thought and conceptions, ranging from "total theater" through "action art", "performance art", "audiovisual experiments" and "multimedia art" to the renewal of the societal organism in the sense of Josef Beuys' "social sculpture". Here the term Gesamtkunstwerk has very little to do with a "synthesis of the arts"; rather, it refers to a transformation and expansion of creative action into the social, anthropological sphere that undertakes to shape society as the Gesamtkunstwerk through artistic means. The extent to which the aforementioned manifestations in the context of broadly conceived art terms can be fruitfully used in artistically oriented education, including music and dance education, will be a central theme of this course.
Required reading
SZEEMANN, Harald and SCHEEL, Walter (eds.): Der Hang zum Gesamtkunstwerk.
Aarau and Frankfurt a.M. 1983
Modern Trends in Central European Art
Lecture (Postgraduate Study Course)
Teaching language: English
The lecture aims to point out:
- innovations and movements of the early twentieth century (especially "Dada" and Surrealism) as important sources of contemporary art in Europe
- art movements in Europe and their sociological, political and cultural contexts after the Second World War
- aesthetic ideas and paradigms in selected phenomena of contemporay art (settings, determinants, elements and materials, forms and structures; compositional techniques and practices; communicative components) selected works and concepts of artists (musicians, dancers, painters etc.)
- Relations between the arts; between art and science; between art, science and culture; between art and art education
Required reading
HUXLEY, Michael and WITTS, Noel (ed.): The Twentieth-Century Performance Reader
Routledge, 1996
Mauricio Kagel – Music, Movement, Theater, Film
Throughout his creative career, Mauricio Kagel composed, in his stage and film productions, heterogeneous mixtures of sound, movement, action, materials and light sources. This heterogeneity of the setting corresponds with Kagel’s aesthetic viewpoint, which sees "contradictions and misunderstandings as something tremendously creative". Such an aesthetic of contradiction tends to mistrust everything that is finished, unchanging or representative, and this will be a central didactic focus in this course.
With his concept of "decomposition", Kagel proposes a re-evaluation of the music of the past, not in order to negate historical music or art, but to reinterpret values and structures of the past, the ultimate goal being reflection (also from the didactic perspective). In this respect, Kagel’s works, particularly his writings and his film compositions about cultural, societal and psychological problems, reflect the rapprochements between scientific and artistic thinking that are characteristic of our time.
The orientation of the course as well as the aesthetic and didactic discussion will be based on selected original texts and films by Mauricio Kagel.
Required reading
KAGEL, Mauricio and KLÜPPELHOLZ, Werner: Kagel ... /1991. Ostfildern 1998
SCHNEBEL, Dieter: Mauricio Kagel. Musik Theater Film. Cologne 1970