Munich Archive - global dis:connect

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In Blog, Blog 2023

‘Not only cast steel or chiselled stone; people can be monuments too’: an exploration of the Memory Person

cathrine bublatzky and franziska windolf

When we think of monuments, we think of statues, memories and events from the past. They are site-specific, solid, immobile. How can they represent cultural and collective memories that are remembered by many, often very differently, and that over time experience new readings? How can monuments installed by institutions, organisations and states speak to and for everybody?

What bodies can do the creative work of memory? How can the actual labour of memory be foregrounded, its training, sharing and transmission?[1]

These questions are relevant to agents in the fields of memory studies and memory production, such as artists, cultural practitioners, institutions, governments and, most importantly, for various communities and people in their everyday lives.

[It] … is on the ‘act’ of memory, … inquiring into the processes of making, constructing, enacting, transforming, expressing, transmitting cultural memory through art and popular culture. … The notion of ‘performing memory’ thus presupposes agency.[2]

The Memory Person (they/them), ongoing since June 2023, by artist Franziska Windolf offers a common form of memory production. The Memory Person performed memory as ‘an embodied and localised practice’[3] and was conceptualised in Munich during an artist residency at the Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect and in partnership with the ERC-funded METROMOD research project (Relocating Modernism: Global Metropolises, Modern Art and Exile at LMU Munich).

In their joint exploration, anthropologist Cathrine Bublatzky and artist Franziska Windolf explore how the Memory Person represented a striking tension between the concepts of memory, monument and performance.

: Fig. 1: Meeting and networking with artists and residents at Alpenplatz. (Image: Leonid Hrytsak)

: Fig. 2: Meeting coach Patrick and a group of mainly Iranian and Vietnamese table-tennis players at Rheinthalerstraße. They invited the Memory Person to a barbecue, to join their club and conversation. Unfortunately, the group disbanded for unknown reasons in July 2023. (Image: Leonid Hrytsak)

: Fig. 3: A memento by the Ping¬Pong group. According to coach Patrick, the round shape of the ball connects to the core of the human being. It can be damaged in life but remains recognisable to oneself and others if one listens to the soul. A match can have creative-¬therapeutic effects and dissolve aggression and emotional blockages. (Image: Leonid Hrytsak)

: Fig. 4a: Video stills. (Images: Mathias Reitz Zausinger)

: Fig. 4b: Video still. (Images: Mathias Reitz Zausinger)

: Fig. 4c: Video still. (Images: Mathias Reitz Zausinger)

: Fig. 4d: Video stills. (Images: Mathias Reitz Zausinger)

A performative monument

The Memory Person strolled through the Giesing quarter, a former workers’ district in southeast Munich. The performance was enacted by different persons who embodied a variety of identities, genders and agencies. They were strikingly dressed, carrying several commemorative objects and memorabilia on their body. Each object has its own history, creators and memories. At the heart of the public artwork were ongoing and dynamic encounters between the Memory Person and passers-by, their lively and personal interactions, their shared stories and memories. The Memory Person was dedicated to creative people who have migrated or are living in exile, and anyone could participate.

Not only cast steel or chiselled stone; people can be monuments too.[4]

The Memory Person challenges the idea of ‘performing memory’.[5] As a performative monument, they work with what anthropologists call the agency of humans ‘to create and construct their own reality’ and to ‘collectively … shape themselves in their behaviours and beliefs’.[6] Performing the Memory Person entailed an uninterrupted metamorphosis in which their ‘form’ kept changing. Their performances merged practices of collecting, storing and re-narrating, all resulting in a changing monument.

The public artwork becomes and operates as a performance based on the material interaction and dialogue with people in the streets.

Those who encountered the Memory Person are diverse. Some have long lived in Munich, some have moved from another country, others have migrated or even fled war and other crises in their home countries. All have memories, often not shared with wider publics, as they are intimate and personal, sometimes even traumatic and frightening.

The Memory Person is a living monument that does not represent a particular memory or hegemonic narrative. They produced a host of memories of differently shared pasts in cities like Munich, shaped by migration and mobility.

: Fig. 5: Close¬up of the changing monument. (Image: Leonid Hrytsak)

: Fig. 6: Encountering a resident of Weißenseestraße.(Image: Milena Wojhan)

: Fig. 7: Meeting Ksenia Bykovsky in front of her former flat in Wendelstein¬straße. Ksenia came to Munich from Saint Petersburg in 2007 to study art. Since then, she has lived and worked in various locations. (Image: Leonid Hrytsak)

: Fig. 8a: Memento by Ksenia Bykovsky. The axolotl symbolises lost bonds of friendship. For Ksenia, the invitation to participate in the monument means expressing parts of her identity from the past. The text on the memento reads: ‘Let everything happen to you: beauty and horror. You only have to go: No feeling is the most distant. Do not let yourself separate from me. Near is the land they call life. You will recognise it with seriousness. Give me your hand. Rainer Maria Rilke. 4.10.1899.’ (Translation: Franziska Windolf, image: Leonid Hrytsak)

: Fig. 8b: Memento by Ksenia Bykovsky. The axolotl symbolises lost bonds of friendship. For Ksenia, the invitation to participate in the monument means expressing parts of her identity from the past. The text on the memento reads: ‘Let everything happen to you: beauty and horror. You only have to go: No feeling is the most distant. Do not let yourself separate from me. Near is the land they call life. You will recognise it with seriousness. Give me your hand. Rainer Maria Rilke. 4.10.1899.’ (Translation: Franziska Windolf, image: Leonid Hrytsak)

: Fig. 9: Iriet Yusuf and her primary¬ school pupils from Giesing contributing their lion memento. According to the resilience coach, it symbolises inner strength and positive togetherness, consisting of thank¬-you letters and pictures from pupils and parents from different countries and cultures. (Image Leonid Hrytsak)

: Fig. 10: Encountering Iriet Yusuf at Alpenplatz. (Image: Leonid Hrytsak

: Fig. 11: A table-tennis match with Elvin Turgut at Rheinthalerstraße. (Image: Leonid Hrytsak)

A nomadic plinth celebrating diversity

The Memory Person is a practical invention. Due to the lack of publicly accessible knowledge about creative migrants, exiles and their work in greater Munich, memories and biographies must be actively sought out in order to become visible.

As a living monument, they stimulate an interplay of creative expressions and reflections. The collection of memories and memorabilia, and their endowment to people is open-ended.

The web of relationships between the memorabilia changed with each new contribution. The Memory Person decentralises and mediates whilst connecting shared memories with people. This flexible and responsive artistic form is open to renegotiation and emergent values. Their sharing and (re-)telling is on display, mediating memory culture as a lively, contested practice.

The Memory Person and their counterparts became ‘facilitators, knowledge producers, hosts and vision seekers’.[7]

The Memory Person as a performative monument is alive and constantly ‘becoming’.

But what is actually remembered in such unforeseen encounters?

: Fig. 12: The Green Apple memento by graphic artist Moss. (Image: Leonid Hrytsak)

: Fig. 13: With Manuel Friedrich, musician, tinkerer and electrical engineer, in front of his old Setra bus. (Image: Leonid Hrytsak)

: Fig. 14: Manuel Friedrich contributing his mementoes, which, according to him, deal with the abysses of humanity — how fanaticism, megalomania and belligerence drive people into exile — just like his song lyrics. (Image: Leonid Hrytsak)

: Fig. 15: Encountering a passer¬by at Weißenseestraße. (Image: Milena Wojhan)

: Fig. 16: A passer¬by contributes her memento. (Image: Milena Wojhan)

: Fig. 17: The artist Nicolas Wannenmacher contributes his mementoes. (Image: Milena Wojhan)

Encountering the Memory Person

Often, curiosity and eye contact sparked encounters with the Memory Person. Their colourful, unconventional appearance, which defies stereotypical assumptions about a carnival or the Oktoberfest, attracted attention and made people wonder what the Memory Person was all about. Once they grasped the goal of the performance, many started to talk about their connections to Giesing and other residents, artists and migrants. They referred to creative people and places. Upon a second, deeper encounter, they contributed personal commemorative objects as fragments of their memories.

The creativity of the monument is very broad and includes music, tinkering, crafting, knitting, cooking, graffiti, etc.

Thus, the Memory Person addressed as many people as possible. Their objective was to raise awareness of the lack of memorials for migrants and creative people in the neighbourhood. Everyone was invited to celebrate and honour the creativity and work of past and present exiles and migrants by participating.

The initial performances of the Memory Person in June and July 2023 were a curated city walk to sites of exile in Giesing, revealing their continued relevance with a pre-selected audience. The spectators accompanied the Memory Person and witnessed their encounters and interactions with passers-by. Participants were invited to carry the memorabilia with the Memory Person and to contribute a wish for a future monument, a memory or a memento of a creative migrant who once lived or moved to Giesing.

The performances in August and September 2023 were more frequent, focussing only on encounters with residents and passers-by. The route through the district was more improvised, with time and space to revisit people and businesses, play table tennis, etc. On these occasions, the Memory Person collected memorabilia and commemorative articles devoted to creative exiles and migrants from anyone who wanted to commemorate.

How the Memory Person embodies the monument and interactions with participants in the artwork is shaped by three elements:

The Memory Person opens encounters by approaching passers-by during a curated city-walk (June/July 2023) whilst strolling through the neighbourhood without a pre-selected audience (August/September 2023);
Alternating subject positions between the Memory Person and passers-by/audience;
Evolving artwork when the artwork is relationally produced with participants.

All three registers played out in each Memory Person performance. But the performances in June/July 2023 were less dynamic and open, as the Memory Person held a fixed position as the ‘guide’ to explain and share knowledge during the curated walk. The material contributions to the performative monument were largely predetermined (written notes on textile/foam rubber prepared by the artist).

The evolution of the artwork is produced more ‘by’ than only ‘with’ the participants.

By contrast, the performances in August/September 2023 provided more space for give and take, including returning moments and memorabilia. Due to the spontaneity of the encounters, the Memory Person and the passers-by had more freedom to participate and exchange objects.

: Fig. 18: The Blast from the Past memento by Nicolas Wannenmacher. The slide comes from a photo collection of a former housemate. He saved the collection from the rubbish tip and projects the slides onto the glass front of his studio at night. (Image: Milena Wojhan)

: Fig. 19: Close¬up. (Image: Leonid Hrytsak)

: Fig. 20: Video still. Giving an amanat to Nicolas Wannenmacher. (Image: Mathias Reitz Zausinger)

: Fig. 21: The Open Eye by Anick Messerschmitt is, according to the goldsmith, intended to accompany the Memory Person during their research and encounters with Giesinger residents to maintain a respectful, non-¬judgemental view and open-¬mindedness. (Image: Leonid Hrytsak)

: Fig. 22: Silver memento by Franziska Windolf with a Kurdish quote para¬phrasing Haydar Isik: ‘To those, whose longing grows stronger the older they get’. (Image: Leonid Hrytsak)

: Fig. 23a: Video still. (Images: Mathias Reitz Zausinger)

: Fig. 23b: Video still. (Images: Mathias Reitz Zausinger)

: Fig. 23c: Video still. (Images: Mathias Reitz Zausinger)

: Fig. 23d: Video still. (Images: Mathias Reitz Zausinger)

Ethics of dialogue/‘commoning’

‘Commoning’ refers to art that is produced by, not only with, the participants. The Memory Person is the formation and interplay of relationships and their material effects that shape social space and animate memory cultures.

‘The wider challenge here is that of finding new ways of understanding forms of being-in-common that refuse or exceed the logic of identity, state, and subject. In other words: how to be in common without creating a community?’[8]

If ‘commoning’ is when people in a community or neighbourhood become equal in sharing their diverse memories, how does the prescribed content balance with individual conceptions of the monument?

The more reciprocal insights, the more equitable the dialogue and the more shared reflections and relationships can emerge.

Individual identities and property rights don’t apply, as is evident in the ‘materiality’ and ‘objecthood’ of the performative monument. The focus lies on togetherness and the common production of a new monument, whilst the particularities of each person involved gain space to express themselves.

‘The more reciprocal insights, the more equitable the dialogue and the more shared reflections and relationships can emerge.’[9]

The monument belongs to no one, though the objects the monument comprises signify belonging, which inheres in ‘commoning’.

: Fig. 24: Close¬up. (Image: Milena Wojhan)

: Fig. 25: A memento by an anonymous artist who pays as much attention to the organisation of public space as he does to music and philosophy. (Image: Milena Wojhan)

: Fig. 26: The Scuba Santa ¬- For Peace’s Sake memento (in Ukrainian: Заради миру) by Leonid Hrytsak calls for peace, according to the artist, as it is essential for creative work. Santa stands for the creative spirits that are happy to accompany the Memory Person. (Image: Milena Wojhan)

: Fig. 27: Smadlmachts’s Dahoam memento. (Image: Milena Wojhan)

: Fig. 28: A close¬up of Tur Surhan’s memento (the card in the middle). Surhan is a writer from Turkey and based in Munich, with a writing studio in Edelweißstraße. (Image: Leonid Hrytsak)

Amanat

All memorabilia engender the dialogues. They resemble amanat, which is a Persian word meaning something that one gives to another person as a custodian. This requires awareness and trust – a sense of the reciprocal capacity and will to build a meaningful relationship.

The object becomes a signifier of a shared moment of remembrance and a common (emotional) value that represents other things such as the conversation, a memory, a loss or a personal or communal journey.

The amanat contributes and ‘transforms’ the world, memories, exile and identification.

The emerging performative monument becomes a common gift to creative exiles and society from all participants.

The different materialities of the performative monument speak for the coexistence of different voices and situations to which the artwork responds or is created within.

The silver brooches, for example, are given away, so they should be as durable as possible. The Memory Person provides a platform for (re)composing and (re)evaluating the objects. Objects converse with each other and provide a ‘language’ for often ineffable stories. There is no definite way of ‘reading’ them.

Diversity is the core of the performative monument, representing an anti-hierarchical, even decolonising understanding of what the Memory Person as a ‘living monument’ embodies.

The actual labour that needs to be done when underrepresented/invisible knowledge is sought out emerges. Contrasting the glorious surfaces of conventional monuments, the Memory Person allows for the contradictions, detours and failures that occur when people are building relationships. The Memory Person responds to recent decolonial debates and demands for monuments and statues of a contested, colonial past to fall.

The past is created by and about participants’ voices. The Memory Person performs it without repeating it.

: Fig. 29: Video still. (Image: Mathias Reitz Zausinger)

: Fig. 30: Video still. (Image: Mathias Reitz Zausinger)

[1] Liedeke Plate and Anneke Smelik, Performing Memory in Art and Popular Culture (London: Routledge, 2013), 2ff.

[2] Plate and Smelik, Performing Memory, 3.

[3] Plate and Smelik, Performing Memory, 5.

[4] Sebastian Adler, Spectator of the performance, 24 June 2023.

[5] Plate and Smelik, Performing Memory, 7.

[6] Plate and Smelik, Performing Memory, 7.

[7] Vera Hofmann et al., Commoning Art — Die transformativen Potenziale von Commons in der Kunst (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2022), 34. https://www.transcript-verlag.de/media/pdf/f2/e6/9e/oa9783839464045.pdf. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are by the authors.

[8] Harry Walker, ‘Equality without equivalence: an anthropology of the common’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 26, no. 1 (2020): 148, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.13183.

[9] Walker, ‘Equality without equivalence’, 147.

bibliography

Hofmann, Vera, Johannes Euler, Linus Zurmühlen and Silke Helfrich. Commoning Art — Die transformativen Potenziale von Commons in der Kunst. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2022. https://www.transcript-verlag.de/media/pdf/f2/e6/9e/oa9783839464045.pdf.

‘global dis:connect’. Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect, 2023, www.globaldisconnect.org.

Plate, Liedeke and Anneke Smelik. Performing Memory in Art and Popular Culture. London: Routledge, 2013.

‘Relocating Modernism: Global Metropolises, Modern Art and Exile (METROMOD)’. METROMOD, 2023, www.metromod.net.

Walker, Harry. ‘Equality without equivalence: an anthropology of the common’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 26, no. 1 (2020): 146-66. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.13183.

citation information:

Bublatzky, Cathrine and Franziska Windolf, ”Not only cast steel or chiselled stone; people can be monuments too’: an exploration of the Memory Person’, Ben Kamis ed. global dis:connect blog. Käte Hamburger Research Centre global disconnect, 12 December 2023, https://www.globaldisconnect.org/12/12/not-only-cast-steel-or-chiselled-stone-people-can-be-monuments-too-an-exploration-of-the-memory-person/.

12 December 2023

In Blog, Blog 2023, Uncategorized

Global Munich – a transfer project by global dis:connect

christian steinau

Making globalisation processes visible on the ground

Image courtesy of Adobe stock, adapted by the author.

Globalisation affects our world in diverse and complex ways. Based on the work at gd:c, the transfer project Global Munich shows how dis:connective globalisation processes shape the city of Munich, ranging from historical examples to astonishing contemporary references. From economic and cultural connections to more or less visible borders, Munich is linked to the world in many ways. But how do these links become manifest in the city itself? What makes Munich a global city? The gd:c TransferLab is the brains and motor behind Global Munich.[1] The mission of the TransferLab is to develop applications for our output and to draw on current developments in the field of transfer. Transfer refers to the ‘dialogical communication and transfer of scientific findings to society, culture, the economy and politics’ and vice versa.[2] Global Munich applies the concept of dis:connective globalisation to the city of Munich and relates it to concrete examples in the most local of contexts. It will create public documentation and provide opportunities for gd:c staff and fellows to get involved in the process. And Global Munich will engage stakeholders outside the university.

Munich as a global city? A first (dis:)connective look at the city

Due to its diverse connections to the world, Munich is a vivid example of how globalisation processes form a dense network. The city is a transport hub in the air and on land. People and goods move in all directions, as do data. This connectivity is the heart of Munich's globally connected economy. Munich is home to some of Germany's largest companies, and many international corporations do business here. Munich is a locus for culture and the arts, home to globally active and connected publishing houses, advertising agencies, film producers, art collections and museums. Tourism is a key economic factor, and the city receives millions of guests annually. Munich is also a magnet for international emigrants who contribute to a lively cultural exchange. Globalisation processes pervade the city and leave their visible and less visible traces all over the cityscape and in the lifeworlds of both visitors and inhabitants of Munich.

The Chinese Tower in the English Garden (Image: Adobe Stock)

Many of these links and connections have a long history and reach back to imperial times or even further. Think of the Orientalism mirrored in the Chinese Tower in the English Garden, the role of the Bavarian ‘Chinese warriors’ from the Max II barracks in quelling the Boxer Rebellion and the global branding success of the ‘world's largest folk festival’, the Oktoberfest. Small wonder that the first impulse to document and make visible the various manifestations of these links originally came from the field of history. Global Munich takes its cue from this historical approach and extends it into the contemporary realm.

The concept of transfer in Global Munich

A particular concept of transfer underlies the content and methods of the TransferLab. Every transfer project must confront the question of what transfer means. What is to be ‘transferred’, how and why? What is the added value of the concept? There is no single definition of transfer. A range of transfer activities can perform the underlying transfer (Latin trānsferre = ‘to carry from one place to another’) of findings and knowledge, for instance in fields such as relationship management, entrepreneurship, scientific consulting, science dialogue and research and development with society.[3] Alongside the existence of the necessary institutional prerequisites, the quality of transfer depends on ‘more or less comprehensive, forward-looking, longer-term and interactive or dialogical processes’.[4] Accordingly, ‘a simple linear model of transfer in the sense of transferring already acquired explicit and documented knowledge to other areas of society is unrealistic in most cases and falls short’.[5] The TransferLab at gd:c is guided by the purpose of developing persuasive and innovative transfer, and Global Munich is one of its best examples. The historical data and sources on global places in Munich that our colleagues at the history department have gathered provide the raw material for a long-term transfer process that does not presuppose an epistemic conclusion, but expands and creates new knowledge on the basis of dialogue. The process pursues five principal goals:

rooting the concept of dis:connective globalisation in the documentation of concrete local examples
illuminating Munich’s municipal history and present from a new globally dis:connected perspective
involving gd:c staff and fellows in a transfer project right at their doorstep
systematically planning and implementing transfer activities, ranging from (dialogue-oriented) research communication to participatory processes involving non-academic stakeholders
making the concept of dis:connectivity accessible to target groups outside the university

(Photo: Adobe Stock, adapted by the author)

Modules of Global Munich

Global Munich operates across these diverse transfer contexts with three modules, each of which relates to both content and methodology:

opening the historical perspective to (interdisciplinary) contemporary references
involving gd:c staff and fellows
involving stakeholders outside the university

Opening the historical perspective to (interdisciplinary) contemporary references

Global Munich is developing a collection of global historical sites in Munich. One component is expanding the range of sources to contemporary references and other, less historical perspectives. A transfer perspective recommends this because communication is successful precisely when it is relevant and current. So, where is dis:connection currently materialising in Munich? Integrating contemporary sources aims to highlight both the ubiquity as well as the complexity of globalisation processes and to infer new connections that define Munich as a global city. The project maintains the historical view of a rich urban history while seeking points of connection in the present. To extend the historical material, this historical knowledge is linked to new contexts from other disciplines and non-academic sources.

Involving staff and fellows

The core of global dis:connect are the research fellows. They enrich our academic exchange and add new perspectives to the discussion on dis:connectivity. Beyond broadening the question of where dis:connectivity appears historically and presently in Munich, Global Munich provides staff and fellows the opportunity to apply their art and research to the city of Munich. It offers a framework for exchanging ideas on our underlying research question through the location of Munich. Unlike colloquia or conferences, however, this exchange does not heed academic rules. There is no right or wrong, no obligation to participate in anything and no pressure to publish. The focus is on the curiosity about what constitutes dis:connectivity and where it appears in Munich. In addition to the TransferLab’s own research, the output of fellows and staff can feed into conclusive results. In this respect, Global Munich is based on cooperation and exchange that combines different bodies of knowledge in conversation about the city. This can include roundtables, walks, coffee talks and similar formats. The project is a space for dynamic, spontaneous exchange between fellows and staff. Transfer presupposes an open-ended exchange. Global Munich nudges staff and fellows to apply their knowledge in a new context, eliciting unusual insights and exciting discussions. Participation is voluntary, aiming to go beyond our research.

Involving stakeholders outside the university

The third module follows from the assumption that a project called Global Munich cannot be thought of solely from an academic point of view. Our circumstances are privileged. Public funding makes us independent of short-term economic vacillations. Without neglecting research, transfer adds a dimension of academic work. By reaching out beyond to diverse actors in Munich's urban society, new perspectives and sources for research emerge. Likewise, the diversity of urban society becomes methodologically visible. The focus is an open-ended exchange, without commitment to a final result, preferring a multi-layered image of Munich developed by project partners, stakeholders and communities. Global Munich is designed to be open-ended and to adapt through non-linear dialogue. Transfer aims to develop and explore of research perspectives with partners outside the university. The project attempts to go beyond typical academic work, to reflect on them and to complement them with practical, problem-solving research. By looking ‘outside’, scientific work changes. Global Munich proves that transfer can meaningfully complement research in the humanities and social sciences.

Formats of public documentation

This text could only provide a rough sketch of the possibilities for locating globalisation processes in Munich. Global Munich aims to explore where globalisation takes place in urban space as concretely and practically as possible and to make it accessible with texts, images and sources. Such documentation will form the conclusion of the project and will be compiled until spring 2025 as a test of global dis:connect’s hypotheses about dis:connectivity with reference to real-world examples. Various opportunities for communication emerge in the course of revising and expanding the non-academic source material on global places in Munich. Global Munich will continue to integrate narratives from our neighbours and cooperation partners. [1] For more on the Transfer Lab, consult our webpage: https://www.globaldisconnect.org/transferlab/. [2] Wissenschaftsrat, Perspektiven des deutschen Wissenschaftssystems (Cologne, Bielefeld, 2013), 2, https://www.wissenschaftsrat.de/download/archiv/3228-13.html. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are by the author. [3] Andrea Frank et al., Transferbarometer: Executive Summary, Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft (Essen, 2022), https://www.stifterverband.org/transferbarometer/executive-summary. [4] Wissenschaftsrat, Wissens- und Technologietransfer als Gegenstand institutioneller Strategien (Weimar, 2016), 11, https://www.wissenschaftsrat.de/download/archiv/5665-16.html. [5] Wissenschaftsrat, Wissens- und Technologietransfer.

Bibliography

Frank, Andrea, Cornels Lehmann-Brauns, Frauke Lohr, Arne Meyer-Haake, and Daniel Riesenberg. Transferbarometer: Executive Summary. Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft (Essen: 2022). https://www.stifterverband.org/transferbarometer/executive-summary. Wissenschaftsrat. Perspektiven Des Deutschen Wissenschaftssystems. (Cologne, Bielefeld: 2013). https://www.wissenschaftsrat.de/download/archiv/3228-13.html. ———. Wissens- Und Technologietransfer Als Gegenstand Institutioneller Strategien. (Weimar: 2016). https://www.wissenschaftsrat.de/download/archiv/5665-16.html.

citation information:

Steinau, Christian, 'Global Munich - a transfer project by global dis:connect', Ben Kamis ed. gd:c blog. Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect, 2 October, 2023, https://www.globaldisconnect.org/10/02/global-munich-a-transfer-project-by-global-disconnect/.

2 October 2023

In Blog, Blog 2023, Uncategorized

Looking back on global dis:connect’s first annual conference: Dis:connectivity in processes of globalisation: theories, methodologies, explorations

peter seeland

The global:disconnect annual conference took place from 20 to 21 October 2022, and it sought to clarify methodological and theoretical questions as well as to reflect on our research in general. By investigating global dis:connections, the Centre is inaugurating a new research programme. It emphasises the roles of delays and detours, of interruptions and resistances, of the active absence of connections in globalisation processes and investigates their social significance. One of the starting premises is that connectivity and disconnectivitity are not dichotomous; they are, rather, mutually constitutive in a relationship we call ‘dis:connectivity’. Fundamental methodological questions about how to research dis:connectivity remain to be answered. The central terms and how to apply them also demand attention. Multi-perspectival research on dis:connectivity fosters interdisciplinary dialogue on these questions. The conference also served as a space for just such a dialogue. Artists and scholars interacted, with each side gaining the benefit of exposure to the other. The conference comprised three thematic panels — absences, detours and interruptions —to structure and concretise the discourse.

Image: Ben Kamis

Richard M. Kabiito opened the event with the panel on absences. With a paper on Globalising Ugandan art: remixing the contest between tradition and modernity, Kabiito posed the question of absence and dis:connectivity in postcolonial Uganda and its culture. He described the estrangement and absence from African tradition left behind by colonialism. He construed the dis:connective relationship between tradition and modernity, between the indigenous and the foreign, as an identity crisis that a new African art of a ‘New Africa’ is facing. Moreover, Kabiito contributed artistic methods to the methodological discourse. Through art from Uganda, which is ‘a living modern art deeply rooted in tradition’, this absence and estrangement can be uncovered and overcome. Thus, artistic practice contributes to cultural decolonisation and functions as a method of dealing with absence and dis:connectivity. Kabiito connected art and research conclusively with a transdisciplinary method, one able to profoundly affect the culture of a ‘New Africa’. Gabriele Klein continued with a talk about The dancing body is absent/present. Methodological and theoretical aspects of digitalisation in dance. She described the approach to dance in dance studies as intrinsically dis:connected. Dance fades in its physicality after the performance. It seems simultaneously absent and present in the memories of the spectators, but it also appears transformed and present in other media. Questions about the absence of corporeality especially in relation to digital media pose epistemological problems for dance studies. Here, Klein focused on social media platforms such as TikTok, in which dance is represented in many forms and can be accessed globally. She proposed a praxeological method that respects the differences between dance and dance studies and includes the new, young generation of digitally influenced choreographers with a global reach. She concluded that digital media can partially overcome absences, but researchers need to reflect more than ever on their use of medium and methods. The ensuing discussion revealed changes in dance through digital and global social media. Contrary to the expectation that more possibilities for participation would flourish on digital media, Klein observed a standardisation of dance in the digital and thus a dwindling of diversity. Later, the artist Aleksandra Domanović spoke about cultural dislocation in her presentation From yu to me to turbo culture: presence and absence in internet technology and culture in the former Yugoslavia. The absence of a state that has dissolved with all its institutions but is present in the past of its former citizens results in a crisis of identity. They are simultaneously connected and disconnected to Yugoslavia and its culture. The identity crisis is especially apparent in the phenomenon of Turbo Culture, in which Yugoslavian architecture, public sculpture and cultural assets have been rapidly replaced by non-local structures. Thus, Turbo Culture erected monuments of Bill Clinton as well as Hollywood figures like Rocky Balboa in the former Yugoslavia. In her art, Domanović deals with these aspects of the disconnected and the absent. She sees her art as a means of pointing out this identity crisis marked by absence and dis:connectivity. Meha Priyadarshini then spoke about Fashion and its absent histories: the case of Madras fabric in the Caribbean. She notes aspects of absence in the history of Madras fabric, which colonial powers exported from India to Euro-American and African-diasporic markets. The importers never reflected on its foreign cultural heritage and traditional Indian origins. Madras fabric, with its specific colour and pattern, revolutionised the fashion industry but is dis:connected from its origins. To this day, the fashion industry is largely unaware of the origins of Madras textiles and profits uncritically from other cultures. The research of Madras fabric is complicated by this absence and dis:connectivity. No original Madras fabric has survived. Methodologically, Priyandarshini addressed this absence of historical consciousness through the open-access textile research project Subaltern Histories of Global Textiles: Connecting Collections. So, it is one aim to regrow historical connection of Madras textile to its origins, which could draw attention beyond academia to what patterns we wear our shirts and skirts. The first panel ended with the artist lecture by Parastou Forouhar and Cathrine Bublatzky. Bublatzky provided the theoretical framework and led the talk with her questions. Forouhar’s art deals with the absence and deracination of home. Her artwork Butterflies (2008) shows a butterfly collection, with each butterfly representing memories of her native Iran. The poetic encoding of memories of a changed homeland can thus be understood as an artistic method of facing absence and dis:connectivity. In her installation Written Rooms, Forouhar writes illegible Farsi texts with which Iranians are connected and disconnected at the same time; they are in familiar script but illegible nonetheless. The absences and dis:connectivity in relation to one's homeland thus become clear. Her art is a method of facing and experiencing absences and dis:connectivity. Sujit Sivasundaram opened the second panel on detours. He talked about Detours in the history of Islam in the Indian Ocean: Muslim Colombo. Originally a Muslim port city, Colombo has been a junction of cultural and economic connections for centuries. In such a globally connected city, the Muslim minority has been repressed, and their history has been erased since colonial occupation. Sivasundaram chose detours as a method of coming to terms with this marginalisation. Through the detour of material remains, such as architecture, clothes and artefacts, he explored the lives of minorities. The Colombo Grand Mosque served to demonstrate his method. Detour, as a methodological supplement, yields insights into dis:connectivity. Kerstin Schankweiler spoke about Global contexts of art in the GDR, in which detours played a decisive role. The German Democratic Republic (i.e. East Germany), where mobility was strongly controlled, opened up culturally to its so-called ‘brother nations’ via the detour of socialist internationalism. Bureaucracy and regulations extended this ideologically conditioned detour. Mail art, which overcame the Iron Curtain via the postal service, also dealt with dis:connectivity through postal diversions. The artistic relics of socialist internationalism and mail art depict detours as a way of dealing with dis: connectivity in the history of the GDR and in German-German history. Promona Sengupta talked about Time travel for all: decolonising the time-space continuum. She understands the idea of space that can be traversed and conquered as a colonial concept that shapes today's understanding. Similarly, Sengupta understands the linear concept of time as a colonial idea that supports capitalist productivity and is thus kept alive. These concepts lead to estrangement from the natural flow of space and time through colonialism and capitalism. New methods are needed to overcome them, methods that allow a non-capitalistic and non-colonial approach to space and time. Time travel, which reverses such understandings of time and space, is one example. In her conclusion, Sengupta recommended methods that question all-embracing concepts and open research to new perspectives. The lecture Rethinking urban materiality: time as a resource by Anupama Kundoo opened the third panel on the topic of interruptions. Her presentation revealed the interruptions in industrialisation, which replaced hitherto dominant local building traditions in local economies with local materials, with foreign experts and materials. Such changes actually reduce efficiency in many cases and uproot people from their buildings. Indeed, the building becomes a consumer in the global economy. She concluded by arguing for local industries and economies to create efficient architecture. Valeska Huber presented a paper entitled ´The Limits of my Language mean the Limits of my World´: language barriers and ideas of global communication in the 1920s, in which she reflected critically on English as a global lingua franca and thought about more inclusive alternatives to overcome linguistic barriers in global communication. Huber introduced the Vienna Circle of the 1920s, in which Maria and Otto Neurath, among others, developed Isotype, a pictorial language that is supposed to function across cultures and languages. Marie Neurath’s own projects were primarily responsible for Isotype’s global dissemination. Huber proposed that extending this idea could disrupt the Anglosphere and lead to more inclusive global communication and research. Thus, interruptions and dis:connectivity in global communication could be overcome. Peter W. Marx closed the panel by addressing The elephant in the room: (dis:)connecting encounters in the early modern period. Marx established dis:connectivity as the proverbial elephant in the room of global history studies. This was followed by a genealogy of the presence of elephants (and how it was documented by contemporary artists) in northern Europe from the Middle Ages to the early modern period. Marx’s genealogy showed historical interruptions and connections in the complex discourse around the elephants. From humanisation and fantasy to a symbol of power and violence, the discourse around elephants in Europe has also represented transcultural military and dialogical contact since Hannibal. Fabienne Liptay closed the conference with a screening of Atlantiques (2009, Mati Diop) and Atlantique (2019, Mati Diop). Across an interval of 10 years, the films deal with the topic of migration from Senegal across the Mediterranean to Europe. Characters meet their fates in transit. They are uprooted from their homeland and at the same time bound to it. Dis:connectivity is not just an abstract research topic, but it touches people's lives directly and concretely.

The global dis:connect team.

The speakers introduced new perspectives on dis:connective research on globalisation, including some methodological suggestions and approaches. Artistic practice uncovered dis:connectivity in several aspects, making it tangible and offering ways to deal with it. On a theoretical level, several participants emphasised the importance of critical reflection on one's own perspective and situatedness as a researcher. There were also proposals without a ripe, ready method, but set out demands, priorities and innovations for a methodology of global dis:connectivity. Indeed, this could be an initial step towards more developed methods. The ‘elephant in the room’ was certainly methodology. The dialogue and interplay between art and research invigorated the conference, resulting in a special climate of interdisciplinarity and multi-perspectivity. Minds open to novelty and awareness of the lack of a full-fledged methodology are a fine basis for further research. Facing this elephant in the room was perhaps one of the main achievements of the conference. Continue Reading

21 March 2023

‘Not only cast steel or chiselled stone; people can be monuments too’: an exploration of the Memory Person

cathrine bublatzky and franziska windolf

A performative monument

A nomadic plinth celebrating diversity

Encountering the Memory Person

The Memory Person opens encounters by approaching passers-by during a curated city-walk (June/July 2023) whilst strolling through the neighbourhood without a pre-selected audience (August/September 2023);

Alternating subject positions between the Memory Person and passers-by/audience;

Evolving artwork when the artwork is relationally produced with participants.

Ethics of dialogue/‘commoning’

Amanat

bibliography

citation information:

Global Munich – a transfer project by global dis:connect

christian steinau

Making globalisation processes visible on the ground

Munich as a global city? A first (dis:)connective look at the city

The concept of transfer in Global Munich

Modules of Global Munich

Opening the historical perspective to (interdisciplinary) contemporary references

Involving staff and fellows

Involving stakeholders outside the university

Formats of public documentation

Bibliography

citation information:

Steinau, Christian, 'Global Munich - a transfer project by global dis:connect', Ben Kamis ed. gd:c blog. Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect, 2 October, 2023, https://www.globaldisconnect.org/10/02/global-munich-a-transfer-project-by-global-disconnect/.

Looking back on global dis:connect’s first annual conference: Dis:connectivity in processes of globalisation: theories, methodologies, explorations

peter seeland