Prof. Timothée Ingen-Housz
„EASY TO BE GREEN". ecoposting excursions beyond ecoporn & green stories
Block seminar (digital and excursions), English, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS, 10 places
Monday – Saturday, 12.-17.7.2021, daily 10:30 - 17 h. The seminar will weave online meet-ups with self-designed excursions in the wild, in a week long program; further information will reach you early may.
Registration via email to: t.ingen-housz_ @udk-berlin.de, CC an insa-ewen_ @web.de, with subject „EASY 2B GREEN“; registration deadline the 23.4, 18 h.
ACHTUNG: Für Studierende der GWK nicht als Studium-Generale-Leistung anrechenbar!

How easy is it to be green, really?
How should we text, shoot and post about “nature” when we struggle to engage productively with the climate crisis and its damning consequences on our future life expectancy? Should we go out and „greenporn” our feeds, or rather struggle to create new images and words (such as “ecocide”) to raise awareness, transform our institutions, laws, minds and deeds? If so, how should we go about it in a digital world reputedly perverted on the one hand, and dissociating us from natural experiences on the other? If we are to reconsider the interplay between human languages, perception and social agency, old debates regarding the relationships between thinking, speaking and doing are resurfacing in most urgent manner, - soon to collide with issues of digital immersion and platform sociality.

Starting from Austin´s performative premise, we will not only explore “how to do things with words” in the woods , but also how to create experiences, words and images  to renegotiate our position in the conflictual interplay between natural and cultural “orders” constantly shifted by media participatory affordances and HD visual orgies. Looking back at the confinement imperatives of the COVID crisis and the mass-rediscovery of „Spazierengehen“ as shared opportunity to breath, we´ll experiment with our need to evade the city and “reconnect with nature” with the help of its supposed nemesis: the (green)screen itself.

What can our everyday media engagements do about our societal commitment with the climate crisis? We shall further explore whether we can actually “make worlds with words (and gifs)”, - not only as a way to encounter the incantational and/or performative and satirical power of online languages, but to manifest the social, political and activist role that grassroots media  activity can play in the search for a more sustainable way of “living within planetary boundaries”.

Requirements for the ungraded Studium Generale credits: Participants will be invited to develop “green excursions and experiences”, produce images, words, micro narratives triggering  new dynamics, roles and agencies to weave human activities in their local and global environments, - and develop therewith digital ecopoetics for change.

Timothée Ingen-Housz, Animationskünstler, wurde im Oktober 2015 an die UdK Berlin berufen. Nach seinem Abschluss Ende der 90er Jahre zog er nach Köln und gründete „phosphen“, ein interdisziplinäres Kreativstudio für „Screen, Stage and Page“, das unter anderem Musikvideos, Internetcartoons, wissenschaftliche Animationen, interaktive Installationen, Videospielfiguren, Kinderbücher, narrative Benutzeroberfläche, Lounge-Konzepte und Bühnenvideos für verschiedene Kunden realisierte. Er begann das Lehren als Student und hielt Vorträge und Workshops für: Ensad, Harvard Filmfakultät, Goldsmiths Universität London, Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln und schließlich für die UdK Berlin, wo er jetzt „audiovisuelle Konzeption und Dramaturgie“ im Studiengang „Kommunikation in sozialen und ökonomischen Kontexten“ (GWK) unterrichtet.