[Techniques of Imagination] New Perspectives in the Historiography of Art, Media Culture, and Theatre
[techniques of imagination] is the first installment of [sic!], the newly founded international program offering annual graduate-level workshops on topics in cultural history.
Imagination has a very long history and an array of applications in the domain of contemporary arts and the humanities. Philosophers have long described it as a faculty of mind, with Aristotle first asserting its centrality to experience and thought. Renaissance artists, writers, and musicians deployed the imagination as a means to create new, unknown entities. In the course of time, imagination has come to signify the free flow of thoughts and emotions; and the means by which artistic practices enable expression. Imagination is thus a process and a condition of appreciation: it creates things and enables individuals to be receptive to those products. At the same time, imagination requires certain skills and techniques. It is not merely a mental capacity but it roots also in material products and crafts. The history of imagination can be read in the light of these technical aspects.
Through a one-week international summer workshop, [sic!] proposes to inquire into imagination as a techne by exploring the contingency of imaginative techniques. Historiography in the disciplines of art history, digital culture/game studies, and theatre history turns again and again towards questions of presence, distance, reiteration, and repeatability in repertoires. These and other matters provide the framework for a necessary and promising discussion among representatives of a variety of fields, practices, and disciplines.
[sic!] offers small-scale seminars in Art History, Theatre Studies, and Game Studies as well as platforms for cross-disciplinary dialogues; evening lectures; and a forum to present and discuss projects. An international (post)graduate program for PhD students, [sic!] consists of seminars led in English by faculty from the Cologne University and Northwestern University (Chicago).