Retreat – Cybernetic Subjects

with Prof. Georg Trogemann and his Students, Prof. Lasse Scherffig and his Students & Ursula Damm with her Students

02.12.2024 – 06.12.2024 in Schieferpark

Program of the Retreat:

The environment of Schieferpark should be an opportunity to relate to natural processes and the flow of time (e.g. of plants, animals and machines). How does it come about that we recognize phenomena that we observe as a coherent entity (i.e. a system)? What kind of strategies do such “systems” use to maintain an inner balance under permanently changing external conditions? How do individual entities distinguish themselves from others and how do they connect with them, for example, to gain individual advantages, but also to show a completely different overall behavior in relation to their environment? How can we couple systems to create symbiotic and cooperative behavior on the one hand, but also antagonistic and defensive behavior on the other?. From these systemic couplings, ideas for artistic installations can then be developed. (…). We draw on the history of cybernetics and the beginnings of artificial intelligence to reflect on the relationship to our now precarious environment and its needs in these models of thinking. How can we develop technologies that bring us into balance with our natural environment? How can learning be understood in technology and living beings, based on the levels of learning defined by the cyberneticist Gregory Bateson? At the same time, the excursion should also be an opportunity to connect with students from other art schools and get to know their way of working. For students in final projects, the presentation and discussion of their work is in the foreground. For younger students and anyone interested, there are short workshops with simple tasks that can be developed, discussed and solved in group work.

The retreat is part of the Seminar Cybernetic Subjects at Bauhaus Universität Weimar, by Ursula Damm and Georg Trogemann

Credits Post-Img: Drawing by Ricardo Tapia Ch in the class of Tibor Weiner, Chile (Credit: Antonieta Hola)