| Beschreibung |
How can we learn from parasites—and parasite systems we cannot confront directly? This practice-theory class explores how to understand and irritate hegemonic structures that absorb or repress critique, from the cultural industry to neoliberal economies and the art world itself. Drawing on Michel Serres’ notion of the parasite as a figure that unsettles binaries, and María Lugones’ idea of tactical resistance within everyday life, the course examines parasiting as a self-reflexive practice. Rather than standing outside, we recognize our own entanglement in capitalism, institutions, and privilege. To parasite means to work from within: interrupting, complicating, and transforming systems, while refusing the binary of ”good” and ”bad”. Interdisciplinarity | The practice/theory class combines philosophical discussion with practical experimentation. Students will engage with political theory, aesthetics, and philosophy, while developing their own public interventions in Weimar. Approaches may stem from art, architecture, media, or sound practices, but also from theoretical inquiries into queering disciplinary paradigms. All participants are invited to critically reflect on their own position within systems—whether art, academia, culture, or economy—and their roles within them. The question of how to parasite the system becomes transversal, cutting across disciplines and perspectives. Interdisciplinary collaboration is central to the realization of interventions, since parasitic tactics—understanding, infiltrating, irritating—require multiple skills and viewpoints. Learning Objectives | Students will engage with contemporary concepts of resistance, including conflictual aesthetics (Marchart, Rancière, Ruangrupa), postcolonial and interventionist theory (Lugones, DeCerteau), and parasite theory (Serres). They will practice weaving discourses across disciplines, linking counter-hegemonic practice, queer theory, economy, and artivism. Through readings, exercises, and experimental works, students will learn to begin research-based artistic processes and conceive new parasitic tactics as artistic genres. They will gain familiarity with artists working on related themes, acquiring references and historical-political context for their own practice. Frequent exercises and collective discussions will ground theory in lived experience. The seminar culminates in a collaborative public intervention that reflects individual and group interests while testing parasitic notions in practice. This final project will be critiqued in the last session with invited guests from the field. Didactic Concept | The course follows the parasitic life cycle – understanding, infiltrating, irritating – each explored in two-day block seminars, with additional sessions at the start and a final public intervention. The method combines my five years of teaching theory-practice formats with instant performances in public space. Applied theory is central: readings are not abstract but embedded in exercises, discussions, and collective reading, linking concepts directly to practice. The seminar does not simply transfer a method but reflects on exchange, co-production, and friction within a diverse group. The classroom itself is treated as a ”host system” to be parasited from within, including the teacher’s position. Drawing on my PhD research and artistic practice around the parasite, we will develop interventions that test parasitic tactics in real contexts. The semester culminates in collaborative irritations in public space, followed by critique and feedback with invited scholars. |
| Literatur |
Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Ahmed, S. (2006). Queer phenomenology: Orientations, objects, others. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Boyd, Andrew. Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution. OR Books, 2012.
De certeau, Michel. Die Kunst des Handelns, 1981.
Dillet, Benoît, und Tara Puri. The political space of art: the Dardenne brothers, Ai Weiwei, Burial and Arundhati Roy. Book, Whole. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd, 2016.
Gielen, Pascal, Niels Van Tomme, Zoe Beloff, und Jane Bemont. Aesthetic justice: intersecting artistic and moral perspectives. Bd. no. 14;no. 14.; Book, Whole. Amsterdam: Valiz, 2015.
Groys, Boris. Going Public. e-flux Sternberg Press, 2010.
Lefebvre, Henri. The production of space. Malden, Mass.; Oxford [u.a.]: Blackwell, 2005.
Lugones, Maria. 2003. Tactical strategies of the streetwalker.
Marchart, Oliver. Conflictual aesthetics: artistic activism and the public sphere. Book, Whole. Berlin, Germany: Sternberg Press, 2019.
Mesch, Claudia. Art and politics: a small history of art for social change since 1945. Book, Whole. London;New York; I.B. Tauris, 2013.
Rancière, Jacques. Aisthesis : Scenes from the Aesthetic Regime of Art / Jacques Rancière. 1. Engl. ed. London, 2013.
Schröder, Tim. „Gene als Schmarotzer“. Max Planck Forschung, Parasiten, 2018.
Ruangrupa (eds.). Documenta Fifteen Handbook. Hatje Cantz, 2022.
Serafini, Paula. Performance action: the politics of art activism. Book, Whole. Abingdon, Oxon;New York, New York; Routledge, 2018.
Serres, Michel. Der Parasit. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1981.
Watkins-Fischer, Anna. 2022. The art of parasitical resistance. To play with the system. |
