Mind Palaces. Return of the Repressed in Three Shots
is an interdisciplinary social-utopian laboratory, which explores complexities, paradoxes and conflicts of life in the contemporary society. It is an attempt to reactivate the values and utopias embedded in the Bauhaus idea – in times of global pandemic. In active exchanges with invited guests, moderated by Dr. Boris Buden, various innovative forms of knowledge production will be tested. The Bauhaus module MIND PALACES is open to master students of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (max. 20 participants)
1. Nature is back in town
A few weeks into the lockdown the global public started to rediscover nature—which had been banished long ago. Cleared from smog and dust our otherwise dark and gloomy landscapes have suddenly reemerged in their primal beauty; wildlife has occupied the cities emptied of traffic; while those sick fight for air or even suffocate, the lucky majority can finally take a deep breath. Is nature back thanks to Corona? Quite the contrary. French philosopher Bruno Latour understands the ongoing Corona crisis as a dress rehearsal for the next much worse crisis, the one induced by climate change. Are we prepared?
Zoom talk with Srecko Horvat,
Students talk with an ”art worker”
2. Recovered in Solitude
Words that most accurately describe the condition in which we live today, words like ”lockdown”, ”self-isolation”, ”quarantine” or ”social distancing”, suggest all a sort of compulsory abandonment of our social relations that is imposed on us by a vis maior, the greater force of a disease. It seems that we have no other choice than to accept it and hold up until so-called normality returns. But what if there is something positive in this condition? Reminding us of Rousseau’s own experience of quarantine, described in his Confessions, the philosopher Catherine Malabou reports on how she, in her own confinement, has discovered the socially formative power of solitude. The capacity to withdraw to oneself, which solitude enables, does not only make us productive but also protects us from isolation. What a paradox: it is precisely by going solitary and withdrawing to one’s self, that we can recover the society, which we had to forego.
Zoom talk with Teresa Forcades
Students talk with an ”art worker”
3. There is Nevertheless Such Thing as Society
No words have ever better defined the true spirit of neoliberal capitalism than Margaret Thatcher’s in 1987: ”There is no such thing as society.” She, together with the most powerful political leaders of the late twentieth century, from the USA to China, have meanwhile turned these words into reality—by dismantling the social welfare state and privatizing its most precious assets. The elites of all sort started to praise and worship a new almighty god – the market. Its ”invisible hand” was promised to lead us—all!—into a better future. But now in the midst of the global pandemic this promise has turned into a dangerous illusion. Society is turning back from the long suppression and with it its most defining quality, the class contradictions.
Zoom talk with Vijay Prashad
Students talk with an ”art worker”
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