Prof. Daniel Belasco Rogers
Walking the City Thinking the City
Analog block seminar, English/Deutsch, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS

Friday 5.11. introductory meeting in the evening online
Saturday/Sunday, 6./7.11. and 13./14.11.2021, 10-18 h, Hardenbergstr. 33, room 110 (6./7.11.) and room 101/102 (13./14.11.)

No enrolment possible, the seminar is overbooked.

“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. […] I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.”
Søren Kierkegaard, letter to Henriette Kierkegaard (Letters, No. 150, 1847)

In this peripatetic workshop, we will think on our feet. Using foraging, psychogeography and other artistic walking strategies, we will explore and think the city through a series of individual and group walks and reflections. We will explore the centre and the periphery, the all-too known and the obscure, the green and the concrete. We will touch on map-making, video and audio recording techniques as well as GPS, as starting points to capture these journeys. We will also briefly explore choreographic and performative interventions that produce movement in the spectator rather than attempting to capture it.

Exploring walking practices through the work of plan b and contemporary artists such as Simon Faithfull, Francis Alÿs, Janet Cardiff, the workshop will also feature the Berlin based British artist Lucy Powell, who will present her peripatetic lecture performance “Standing Up and Sitting Still: Becoming Arboreal” in Tiergarten.

The seminar is intended as an introduction to walking as art, as well as to the techniques and challenges of capturing and documenting walking experiences. In the end, students will produce individual or group work in a freely chosen medium such as audio guide, video, photography, daily practice and journal etc., presenting this to the group at the end.

Requirements for the ungraded Studium Generale credits: Students are expected to attend all excursions and sessions, produce a final sketch project, presenting it to the group, whilst taking part in feedback to fellow students.

The British artists Sophia New and Daniel Belasco Rogers have been based in Berlin since 2001 and working together under the name plan b since 2002. They start a guest professorship at the Studium Generale in Autumn 2020. “Our work crosses the boundaries between visual art, new media, performance, installation and socially engaged practice. It has been shown in festivals, exhibitions, theatres and on the streets of many different cities. We consider what we do to be site specific and relationship specific. Alongside participatory and performative projects we also have developed strategies to share our practice in educational contexts on a number of different courses in Germany and abroad.” More information about Daniel Belasco Rogers on https://www.udk-berlin.de/personen/detailansicht/person/show/daniel-belasco-rogers/.