Dr. Baruch Gottlieb
Embodied Thinking II: Peripatetic
Online seminar, English/Deutsch, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
Thursdays, 14-18 h, app. bi-weekly, 8 (not only) video sessions: 5.11. (starts 12 h!), 12.11., 19.11., 26.11., 10.12., 17.12.2020, 14.1, 21.1.2021
ATTENTION: the seminar starts at 5.11.2020 at 12 h until 16 h!

We live in a world of automated processes, built through the triumph of reason. But reason was never the whole story. People used to imagine they could step back “ein Schritt zurück”, out of the “Sturm und Drang” of life to analyse, understand, and come to conclusions.

This power of abstraction informs modern science, which makes the stuff of nature into machines. Or almost. Spinoza was right all along, all knowledge is embodied, situated and material. Scientific truth is good for building machines but not for informing societies. We need new synthetic practices of thinking analytically while being bodily, both inside and out at the same time, an oscillating embodied thinking.

Our second C-19 semester of Embodied Thinking will mainly take place outside, peripatetic, thinking while walking, shifting from one foot to the other and discussing, feeling through the city for the ever emerging (dis-)unities of reason and substance. Thinking with our breathing, we will explore how our planetary condition informs our critique, our bodies and the restless body of the city, part machine, living being, part abyss. Each seminar will include some philosophical or literary input, many group discussions large and small, and a lot of moving, dress appropriately. “It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth.” – Nietzsche

Requirements for the ungraded Studium Generale credits: regular attendance and participation in discussions. Each participant will complete a single two-part assignment.

Baruch Gottlieb, trained as a filmmaker at Concordia University Montreal, has a doctorate in digital aesthetics from the University of Arts Berlin. From 2005-2008 he was professor of Media Art at Yonsei University Graduate School for Communication and Arts in Seoul, Korea. With a rich transdisciplinary practice informed by technical and live arts, performance, dance, music and computer-based methods, he is active member of the Telekommunisten, Arts & Economic Group and laboratoire de déberlinisation artist collectives. Author of "Gratitude for Technology" (ATROPOS 2009), "A Political Economy of the Smallest Things" (ATROPOS 2016), and Digital Materialism (Emerald 2018). He is cofounder and director of sound-art festival SFX Seoul, and initiator and curator of the touring exhibition series "FEEDBACK: Marshall McLuhan and the Arts” which is currently in its 5th edition at the Museum for Communication in Frankfurt. He is director of special projects at West Den Haag, producing numerous symposia, exhibitions, summer schools, publications and other events. More information on baruchgottlieb.com.