Alex Viteri & Shuntaro Yoshida
Artistic Practices at the End of the World
Block seminar, English, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
Workshop during the Kollisionswoche, 2.-6.1.2023, 10 - 16 h (Friday: 14-18 h within the presentation of Kollisionen)

“The practice involved in an artwork - we would like to speak of as delusional investigations - is a movement of the earth." (Silvio Lang)

For over a decade, philosophers, environmental and social activists, artists, and scientists have urged us about Earth's rapid deterioration. Andean philosophers affirm we are experiencing a Pachakuti. In Quechua, the word refers to a time of confusion leaking into the redressal of balance. How might artistic practices offer repair and relief to the massive extinction of species? This class embraces the concept by turning to artistic practices attuned to the ongoing transformations.

Through somatic eco practices, we'll nurture an embodied understanding of species interdependence and approach Earth's archives. We'll visit choreographic systems and structures for generating research, and experiment with transmaterial collaborations. Our goal will be to develop sensitive practices to imagine horizons and ethical possibilities for emancipated futures of collective living.

We'll begin by questioning the existing modes of production. Simultaneously, we'll discuss models of artistic practice that articulate the unsustainability of the current system while forging kinships with mountains, lakes, worms, and ash - among other vibrant subjects. For example, we'll analyze the work of the New York-based collective Eiko & Koma whose lengthened mourning practice addresses landscapes' trauma, and the Bogotá-based choreographer Zoitsa Noriega whose work builds upon attentive care for a compost pile. We'll assign, read out loud, highlight, cut, and juxtapose texts by theorists such as Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Rita Segato, and Marisol de la Cadena; and dive into manifestos by radical artists such as Pauline Oliveros, María Galindo, and Silvio Lang.

We welcome all disciplines and bodies. We hope throughout the course, fields will intersect and create aberrant alliances thus giving way to new practices and ways of doing.

Requirements for the ungraded Studium Generale credits: active and regular participation.

Alex Viteri (Colombia) and Shuntaro Yoshida (Japan) met in 2018 in New York. Since they work in the collective Mapped to the Closest Address with visual artist Maharu Maeno and sound/light designer Catalina Fernandez. Together, they take care of a garden, the time within informs and nourishes their practices. They’ve shared their work at CORDILLERA (Berlin), FLOATING e.V. (Berlin), Lake Studios (Berlin), PAF (Berlin), and PSi (Calgary). In 2020, they were selected for a two-year Saison Foundation Air Partnership. The collective will be part of Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, 2022 (Japan).

Alex Viteri is a choreographer, performer, and scholar. In 2017, she graduated with an MFA from Columbia University. Alex is the awardee of a Residenzpilotprojekt Stipendium (2019), and a DIS-TANZ-SOLO (2021). Currently, she writes her Ph.D. dissertation at the Graduate Center, CUNY.
Shuntaro Yoshida graduated with a Ph.D. from Tokyo University of the Arts. He is a postdoc research fellow at Waseda University and visiting scholar at UdK. Shuntaro participated in the Asian Performing Arts Lab and was awarded a Research Fellowship by JSPS. This year, he published the book Lichen Score with artist Yuni Hong Charpe.