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Bodies in Motion — Field Trip

To see, to experience spaces, places and people that you wouldn't find in Weimar is the idea of this field trip. We are planning to spend three days in Berlin and one in Halle. We will meet fashion designers, artists, art critics and theorists, visit museums and a crematorium, and do many things more to enrich our experience about the body in architecture and design.

Beforehand, we will draw an image about the people and topics that we will encounter and prepare short presentations for the field trip. Our observations and experiences will be documented in photographs, objets trouvé and texts to form a digital diagram of our knowledge when our Berlin memories will slowly fade out.

The project is accompanied by a Projekt and a Semianr. Both courses provide students with further knowledge, in terms of inputs from experts in specific fields and and intense examination of the body in design discourses. Also from a content-related point of view we therefore recommend to sign up for the three courses.

We kindly ask interested students to apply by email until October 10, 2022. Please send a short notice with the course’s name, your name, student number, field of study and a very short sentence why you are interested in the course to Louis Oehler and Ulrike Kuch (louis.oehler@uni-weimar.de and ulrike.kuch@uni-weimar.de). To ensure equal chances for all students only applications via email can be considered (not via Bison!).

 


Encasing Bodies — Critical Perspectives on the Body in Architecture

What and who is "the" body? And how does our design practice align with "this" body? Current discourses around gender, racialization, handicap or age allow the question: How can a design practice be justified that clings to a (!) normative body? Especially in architecture this is still frequently practiced and since the early 20th century scholars of history and theory of architecture include "the body" as a general reference in their theories (e.g. art historian Heinrich Wölfflin) – but don't we urgently need an update of this general reference?

The Projektmodul Encasing bodies – Critical Perspectives on the Body in Architecture gathers students from different fields to actively research those questions. We are aiming for an adapted design practice, that includes data bodies, choreographed and composed bodies, deals with the encased bodies of architecture.

The course combines different forms of teaching and learning (workshops, group teaching, individual consultations, presentations, talks, design classes), with scholars and artists from various disciplines (architecture, art, dance, design theory). This course is explicitly for students who want to build a broad knowledge in the discourse around the "body". As we think that the topic has great social relevance, we aim at a formative practice that is aware of and includes the diversity of bodies. In terms of self-reliance, we want to encourage participating students to play an active role in developing the courses' program and thus once more be able to think critically about existing structures.

The project is accompanied by a Seminar and a Übung (field trip). Both courses provide participating students with further knowledge, in terms of inputs from experts in specific fields and intense examination of the body in design discourses. Also from a content-related point of view we therefore recommend to sign up for the three courses.


Multiple Bodies — Concepts of Corporeality in Architecture

In 1964 Marshall McLuhan published Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, one of the most important books of media theory. The term “extension of man” directs immediately to the human body. Looking at a prosthesis: Where does the body end and where begins something else? If you use a wheelchair, what do you think about Spanish steps? If you are a transsexual person, how do you perceive public spaces in different cities? Is a data body a “real” body or just an extension that is not linked materially to a “living” body?

With the help of six talks by scholars, designers, artists the seminar will shed a light on different concepts of the body in architecture and its impact on design methodologies.

Our goal will be that each of you develops an attitude that allows you to argue profoundly and convincingly about the relationship between body and architecture. Through the self-reliant and yet common discussion of the topics, participating students will learn to follow different approaches while not losing track. On a meta-level, the ability to read and understand philosophical, sociological and architecture-and-design theoretical texts, to bring thoughts into a transferable form and to dive deep into a certain topic is provided in the course.

Finally, at the end of the course, the students will be taught to transfer the collected knowledge into a scientific paper.

The project is accompanied by a Projekt and a Übung (field trip). Both courses provide students with further knowledge, in terms of inputs from experts in specific fields and and intense examination of the body in design discourses. Also from a content-related point of view we therefore recommend to sign up for the three courses.