Fernando Palacios Mateos
Art(ist)s on exploration. Materials, space and territory: a transdisciplinary approach
Block seminar, English, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
1st block, Hardenbergstr. 33, room 110: Friday, 2.6.2023, 14-20h & Saturday, 3.6., 10-17h
2nd block, Hardenbergstr. 33, room 101: Saturday, 10.6.2023, 10-17h & Sunday, 11.6., 10-17h

Registration on Moodle starts on the 17th of April / Anmeldung auf Moodle beginnt am 17.4.2023: https://moodle.udk-berlin.de/moodle/course/view.php?id=1859
Moodle Enrollment Key / Einschreibeschlüssel: relationships

This course aims to transit the relationships between materials, space and territory, as epistemological domains in arts, from exploration as a processual method. Paying attention to different interactive and transdisciplinary study cases that address both the phenomenon of art in the social environment and its creative possibilities as well as the social footprint of the art work process.

The course address a self-reflective character from the individual, the group and the community, attending elements of essential character in artistic practice that involves concrete effects on reality: the materials, both from the construction of a certain artistic language, as well as from the atomic elements that build up the environment. The space, as a container and platform for the display and development of these same materials, and the territory as the social, community and cultural construction of this same space and where the materials acquire a resignification from the perspective of the human being.

The course, in which exploration as a processual method becomes a central approach, is based on (self) reflection and group discussion as the basis for the creation of fundamental dialogical spaces. It also considers the study of the responses derived from the interaction established between art(ist)s and the social environment/community.

Departing from the students own work, and how these three aspects are immersed in them, the course consists of four block sessions, in which we work on groups from theoretical and practical conceptual bases, discussing case studies that shed knowledge from praxis, with excerpts presented by both the teacher and the students. Also field trips, previously defined, to spaces that address these three aspects as epistemological areas will be made.

Each group will develop, together with the teacher guidance, a self-reflective memory during the course that includes, in a creative way, how these aspects are present in their work and how these aspects could influence their work. Students can use different artistic languages and materials for the preparation as well as for the presentation.

Requirements for the ungraded Studium Generale credits: Active and regular attendance, self-reflective memory works in a group

I (Fernando Palacios Mateos) am an artist, musicologist and performer. Although my interests are mainly related to sound practices and audiovisual languages, I see transdisciplinarity as a core axis. Nature, materials, space and territory are references for my work. My experience is based on researching, teaching, performing, creating and on managing for cultural projects. PhD. in Musicology. Professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador. Associate researcher at the University of Hildesheim and Srh Heidelberg University. Visiting researcher at the University of Ghana, Roskilde University  and the University of Zürich. Currently a guest researcher at the Institute for Art in Context, Udk Berlin. Author of several books and articles resulting from research in various fields related to sound practices. I have  directed and made documentary films and created musical and audiovisual works and sound installations. Currently I am enrolled on a second PhD in Sound Art at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the University of Barcelona.