Functional / Non-Functional

(On Improvisation)

Course Topics

Proving of spontaneous working processes;

Experimental handling of every-day-objects and their installative transformation;

Site-specificity;

Perception of plastic /special situations; private/public space;  

Course Objective

The course is about improvisation in plastic art .

The participants will operate with all kinds of daily-live-objects and will transform them into

Installations.

It fosters sensitivity and understanding for artistic manners and strategies

Individual and group-Working process.

Narrative Course Description

In the beginning the course accrued out of a practice, to make oneself familiar with space and inventory, and to develop a common understanding for an art language.

All objects -like furniture, tools, equipment of all kind-are temporarily becoming free

negotiable material for space related and installative artistic processes, sometimes for a period of several days.

The objects are set free, meaning beyond their original appropriation.

And are becoming part of an art-procedure, which, as a result is just temporarily of importance: in the end, all objects will be given back to their original purpose, entirely intact.

In addition to it ,for the period of the two weeks long workshop in Ohrid it is to consider to extend the practice onto outdoor space, to gain aspects, for example, also on architecture.

At this we would have to differentiate whether there is a protected area, such as from an institution, that allows independent use, or,

whether the interaction should occur in total public space.

This should be discussed on location.

With the students, the conversation will be in English language, but, considering earlier courses, there has never been a problem for essential understanding: because it is all visual.  

Functional / Non-functional happened to take place at following

Institutions or Projects:

Technical University / Berlin , Department for Architecture; 1999-2002

As part of my regular semester-courses for students of architecture,  

University for Applied Sciences and Art/ Hanover; since 2002

As part of my regular courses for visual art students and design students;  

Polytechnic University/ Valencia, Spain , Fine Arts Department; Spring 2003; (institutional exchange program)  

Art Academy of Tbilisi/ Georgia ;" Every Road leads to Georgia "; an Intervention in public space; summer 2004;

(Part of the international art project "the floating Laboratory"; organized from Apollonia / Strasbourg ;)

Hiroshima City University , Japan ; Visual Arts Program; spring 2005, (Institutional exchange program;)

University of Europe / Portugal ; Faculty of Visual Arts; Dez.2007; (Institutional exchange program;)