Eco
Eco The Artist as Ecologist

Station Heimat


INTRO SCHEDULE KEYNOTES IMPULSES INFOS

International symposium:

The Artist as Ecologist

Liveable environments in the age of media

Stadtverordneten-Saal at the Rathaus (Town Hall) Dieburg, Marktplatz 8
Nov 14 (14.00 –18.00h) – Nov 15 (10.00 –18.00h) 

Hochschule Darmstadt/Faculty of Media: International symposium in collaboration with the Museum Schloss Fechenbach, supported by the network of Hessian Film and Media Academy hFMA
The notion that media are merely machines to transmit information from A to B ist now obsolete. Media are no longer to be frontally "read" and understood as "pipelines" for forwarding messages: They have become environments which coin and configure their players, users, makers. In this way, such a media environment "structures what we can see and say and, therefore, do. It assigns roles to us and insists on our playing them. It specifies what we are permitted to do and what we are not." (Neil Postman, 1980) Today, in the age of mobile telephones, Facebook, the" Internet of Things" and numerous other media phenomena, this supposition has gained a special topicality.

Actually, the creators of media find themselves positioned within a complex tension between technological development, social desiderata, economic utilisation, aesthetic innovation and political role attributions. McLuhan initiated focus upon the interrelation between these and other factors thus allowing for the emergence of the term "media ecology". In connection, the dictum of the film scientist and media activist Gene Youngblood became popular: “The artist as ecologist”. (Youngblood, 1970)

Based on this idea, this symposium aims to explore an ecological approach to media in its diversity, by dialogue and discussion, involving international experts: scholars, scientists, artists, practitioners. All are active within the field of media, culture, societey, technology as they offer and exchange varied perspectives on the ecology of media.

The symposium is held in English.

Four international keynotes by
Derrick de Kerckhove (Canada)
Helmi Järviluoma (Finland)
Antoine Schmitt (France)
Raitis Smits (Latvia)

Impulses by
Kai Buchholz (Darmstadt/Germany)
Bettina Oppermann (Hannover/Germany)
Hannes Raffaseder (St. Pölten/Austria)
Birte Frommer (Darmstadt/Germany)
Klaus Schüller (Groß Umstadt/Germany)
Michelle Bunn (USA)
Sabine Breitsameter (Darmstadt/Germany)
Hans-Ulrich Werner (Offenburg/Germany)
Michael Iber (St. Pölten/Austria)

The public is invited to the following two lectures. These lectures are held in English with an option for translation into German.

Friday, November 14. 2014 at 17.00h:
Prof. Dr. Helmi Järviluoma (Finland), Soundscape Ethnography, Culture and Sustainability. Explorations to senses and culture (Klanglandschafts-Ethnographie, Kultur und Nachhaltigkeit. Untersuchungen zum Verhältnis der Sinne zur Kultur)

Saturday, November 15, 2014 at 11.45 h
Antoine Schmitt (France), An Ecology of Being. Dynamic interactions between human nature and the nature of reality (Eine Ökologie des Seins. Dynamische Interaktionen zwischen der menschlichen Natur und der Natur der Realität)

For interested listeners who like to experience the entire symposium, there are still a limited number of places available. A timely registration is strongly recommended. Please register at info@museum-schloss-fechenbach.de

In cooperation with the Hessian Film and Media Academy hFMA.