sculpture unlimited II - Materiality in Times of Immateriality

Symposium
organised by
EVA GRUBINGER and JÖRG HEISER

Bildhauerei - Trandmedialer Raum
Kunstuniversität Linz

While the first symposium Sculpture Unlimited in 2010 dealt with the question of how the contemporary field of sculpture can be defined in a useful and stimulating manner against its long history, the second edition looks at the present and future. Organised and introduced by Professor and Head of Department Eva Grubinger and Visiting Professor Jörg Heiser, with contributions by internationally reputed artists and scholars, the symposium asks the following question: If we assume that computers and algorithms increasingly control our lives, that they not only regulate social and communicative traffic but also produce new materials and things, does this increase or decrease the space for artistic imagination and innovation? Where is the place of art in general and sculpture in particular, provided that we don’t want art to resort to merely maintaining aesthetic traditions? With sculpture as a leading reference, the contributions will address theory, aesthetics, and technology, asking: Do current philosophical movements such as new materialism and object-oriented ontology affect our notion of the art object? Does so-called post-Internet art have a future? And how does the Internet of Things relate to objects and things in art?

As with the first Sculpture Unlimited symposium, a reader featuring the contributions of all participants will be published with Sternberg Press Berlin in 2015.
www.sculpture-unlimited.info

Speakers:
Aleksanda Domanovic
Mark Fisher
Eva Grubinger
Nathalie Heinich
Jörg Heiser
Mark Leckey
Christiane Sauer
Timotheus Vermeulen