January 13 | Bots, Bodies, Beasts - The art of being Humble | Studium Generale Rietveld Academie

A Quite White Cloud

After 15 years Studium Generale Rietveld Academie Gabriëlle Schleijpen ties up some loose ends and hands down her duties to the new curator-in-chief: Jorinde Seijdel

How to Be Together Otherwise: Negotiating the Posthuman Condition in Art

In her talk, Maria Hlavajova will inquire into the condition of the posthuman by means of unpacking a number of notions such as the Anthropocene; the rights of nature; algorithmic cultures, etc. Taking the form of a speculative glossary, the talk considers how under the pressure of contemporary concerns (the neoliberal economics of global capitalism, forced migration, advanced technological developments, environmental destruction on a mass scale, the perpetual war on terror and extensive security systems, etc.) the concept of the human as we had previously known it has undergone dramatic transformations. The critical terms of the posthuman will be discussed on the basis of concrete works of art and artistic projects, thinking about an alternative of being together in the world otherwise in a constellation that is both social and ecological.

Maria Hlavajova

Maria Hlavajova is artistic director of BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht and of the international research project FORMER WEST (2008–2016). She has organized numerous projects at BAK and beyond, including the series Future Vocabularies (2014–ongoing) and New World Academy with artist Jonas Staal (2013–2016). In 2011, Hlavajova curated Call the Witness, the Roma Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale, Venice, and in 2007 the three-part project Citizens and Subjects, the Dutch contribution to the 52nd Venice Biennale. She regularly edits and contributes to publications, and lectures frequently on contemporary art. She lives and works in Amsterdam and Utrecht

Rietveld Uncut

Rietveld Uncut is an annual joint presentation by the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. Within the Rietveld the process of making, from concept to work, is an important element throughout the whole study. This process often stays invisible to the outside world; Rietveld Uncut aims to shed a light on this unique, dynamic and experimental part of the academy and reveals this process to the public. Departments and individual students contribute to Rietveld Uncut with projects evolving around a collective content, topic or title.

Studium Generale

Studium Generale Rietveld Academie is a rambling theory program that addresses students and faculty across all departments and disciplines at the academy, as well as the general public. It wants to understand how art and design are entangled with other domains (from the personal to the political, from the vernacular to the academic), how ‘now’ is linked with past and future, ‘here’ with ‘elsewhere’. Studium Generale invites you to join it’s annually settled, slightly unruly, but always relevant research trajectories where knowledge, imagination and reflection are put to work together in a critical and unorthodox way.