m.e.t.r.o.n.o.m.

MON | JAN 30, 2012 | Paul F. Lazarsfeld and the Territories of Social Research |

carmen — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:13:54 +0000

DATE: January 30, 2012

TIME: 18:00

LOCATION: IFG, Reichsratsstraße 17, 1010 Vienna

LECTURE: Eric Hounshell: Paul F. Lazarsfeld and the Territories of Social Research

Today, Paul Lazarsfeld (1901–1976) belongs to the pantheon of Austria’s most celebrated scientists and intellectuals as a pioneer of empirical social research. His emigration to America in 1933, first for professional and later for political reasons, testifies to the “Vertreibung der Vernunft” under Austrofascism and National Socialism, and his phenomenal success in the United States at Columbia University and later influence on social research in Europe earned him an important place in the “transatlantic history of the social sciences.” Many Austrians recall his classic study of a village devastated by economic depression, “Die Arbeitslosen von Marienthal” (1933), or recognize him as a representative of positivism in a famous clash with T.W. Adorno. What is less appreciated is the extent to which his work reflected and shaped mid-century society on both sides of the Atlantic. His lifelong commitment to both applied research and the development and proselityzation of empirical approaches led him to respond to contemporary demands for “substantive research” while constantly refining and disseminating social science methods.This combination made Lazarsfeld especially symptomatic and constitutive of his historical context, as evident in some of the key sociological, journalistic, and literary reflections on the early post-WWII decades in both the United States and Europe.

By taking a wide-angle panning shot of Lazarsfeld’s career, this lecture brings the peculiarity of his biography and the scale of the development of the social sciences that he contributed to into view. From his first, hand-tabulated radio listening preferences study in Vienna to massive IBM computer-aided surveys in New York; from socialist-inspired social surveys in and around “Red Vienna” to seminars on management science and market research in France; from pedagogical vacation colonies in Upper Austria to summer seminars at a military think-tank on the California coast: these are only a few examples of the dramatic transformations encompassed by Lazarsfeld’s biography.

-Press release

Filed under: LECTURE Tagged: lecture, research, sociology

MON | JAN 23, 2012 | A Cultural History of Olympia |

carmen — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:03:24 +0000

DATE: January 23, 2012

TIME: 18:00

LOCATION: IFK, Reichsratsstraße 17, 1010 Vienna

LECTURE: Judith M. Barringer: A Cultural History of Olympia

Olympia was one of the most important sites in the ancient world. While it was famed for its prestigious and important Panhellenic athletic games, Olympia also was a chief sanctuary in antiquity, a sacred space where politics and prestige were played out. To hold political and military power in the ancient world meant making a mark at Olympia. Cities and rulers gravitated to the site and used the placement of their monuments and imagery to vie with, and outdo, one another again and again. Cities victorious in battle erected lavish monuments to trumpet their successes. The Olympic games were not purely sport, but were part of a religious ritual honoring Zeus. An Olympic athletic victory was the most prestigious athletic achievement one could attain: successful Olympic victors were entitled to erect statues of themselves at the site. And this victory on the racing track prepared young men for triumph on the battlefield. These various patrons, as well as the Olympic officials, recruited monuments—buildings and sculpture—to foster and propagate ideas about religion and politics, about themselves, their accomplishments, and Olympia itself to the thousands of visitors to the site.

Filed under: LECTURE Tagged: culture, history, olympia

JAN-MAY | EXHIBITION: Utopie Gesamtkunstwerk

carmen — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 08:18:05 +0000

DATE: January 20, 2012 – May 20, 2012

TIME: see website

LOCATION: 21er Haus, Arsenalstraße 1, 1030 Vienna

EXHIBITION: Utopie Gesamtkunstwerk

Die Ausstellung Utopie GESAMTKUNSTWERK präsentiert einen zeitgenössischen Blick auf die historische Idee des Gesamtkunstwerks. Mit gebotener Skepsis greifen Künstler diese historische Denkfigur heute wieder auf und hinterfragen damit auch die Geschichte der Moderne kritisch: Mit dem Umbruch der Avantgarde nach 1918 und den Werktheorien von Schwitters, Duchamp oder Artaud trat in der Kunst ein ganzheitliches und gesellschaftskritisches Denken in Kraft.

Die ursprünglich rein ästhetische Idee des Gesamtkunstwerks erfuhr dadurch eine Neudefinition, die über sozial- und institutionskritische Kunst auf eine Erneuerung der Gesellschaft abzielte.

Gesellschaftliche Entwicklungen wie Neoliberalisierung, Standardisierung und Funktionalisierung, aber auch die politische Neuordnung nach dem Fall des Eisernen Vorhangs oder die Ereignisse des 11. September wirken sich heute auf soziale Dynamiken aus und sorgen für Verunsicherung. Der Wunsch, diese Gesellschaft wieder lebenswerter zu machen, und die Frage, welche Lebensmodelle noch oder wieder möglich sind, stehen deshalb auch zunehmend im Brennpunkt künstlerischen Interesses.

Anhand von 54 nationalen und internationalen Positionen wird in Utopie GESAMTKUNSTWERK die Kunst nach 1960 zu den Möglich- oder Unmöglichkeiten befragt, die übrig gebliebenen Fragmente der Idee des Gesamtkunstwerks neu zu lesen.

In einem übergreifenden Display hat die Künstlerin Esther Stocker für Utopie GESAMTKUNSTWERK eine Bühne für Arbeiten von Künstlern wie Walter Pichler, Constanze Ruhm, Hans Hollein, Joseph Beuys, VALIE EXPORT, Liam Gillick, Una Szeemann, Jason Rhoades, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Thomas Hirschhorn oder Christoph Schlingensief geschaffen.

-Press release

Filed under: EXHIBITION Tagged: exhibition

FRI | JAN 20, 2012 | Azra Akšamija – National purification through religious architecture

carmen — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 08:03:17 +0000

photo: Ahmet ef. Rahmanovi

DATE: 20.01.2012

TIME: 19:00

LOCATION: IG-Architektur, Gumpendorfer Straße 63b, 1060 Vienna

LECTURE: Azra Akšamija – National purification through religious architecture
Vortrag im Rahmen des Schwerpunktthemas Solidarität - Wie entstehen demokratische Räume?

Mosques in Bosnia-Herzegovina 1992–2010

Forgetting and violence, as French philosopher Ernest Renan has argued, are integral factors of national formations. This lecture explores the spatial aspects of forgetting and violence within the process of nationalist division of Bosnia-Herzegovina through the lens of religious architecture. More specifically Akšamija investigates how the nationalist extremists seized on cultural heritage and religious monuments during the war of 1992–1995 in order to facilitate the realization of their expansionist projects. While all ethno-national groups in Bosnia experienced significant war losses, Bosnian Muslims suffered the greatest human and architectural casualties. The lecture will show how the extent and the genocidal nature of war violence against Bosnian Muslims has transformed the meaning of the mosque from a place of worship and religious-ethnic identity to a place of the ethnic body of the Bosniak nation. The lecture highlights the significance of ethnic symbols, long-term cultural factors and global cultural flows in the formation of nations. (Text: Azra Akšamija, http://www.azraaksamija.net/)

Azra Akšamija is a Sarajevo-born Austrian artist and architectural historian. She received her doctorate in History of Islamic Art and Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is currently Assistant Professor at the “MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology”. She also holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in architecture from Graz University of Technology (Austria) and Princeton University (USA). Akšamija’s Ph.D. dissertation explores how Bosnian Muslims construct their identity through the lens of rebuilt or newly built mosques following the systematic destruction of religious architecture during the Bosnian War 1992–1995. In her interdisciplinary practice, Akšamija works with different media, such as sculpture, video and textile. Her work investigates identity politics in art and architecture, with focus on representations of ‘Islam in the West’ and the transformative conflict-mediation through cultural education and pedagogy. Her work has been shown internationally.

-Press release

Filed under: LECTURE Tagged: architecture, demokratische Räume, lecture, religious, vienna

Althanggrund – Studienprojekte zur Entwicklung

carmen — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:16:59 +0000

LOCATION: Aula der Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, 9., Augasse 2-6

DATE: January 19, 2012 – February 1, 2012

TIME: Mon – Fri from 8:00 -18:00

EXHIBITION: Ausstellung “Althangrund – Studienprojekte zur Entwicklung”

Von StudentInnen der Technischen Universität Wien, der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien und der Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-La Villette (FRA) wurden im Rahmen von Lehrveranstaltungen Studienprojekte zur Entwicklung Althangrund erstellt. Diese werden im Rahmen einer Ausstellung vom 19. Jänner 2012 bis zum 1. Februar 2012 in der Aula der Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien ausgestellt.

-Press release

LINK: http://althangrund.at/

Filed under: EXHIBITION Tagged: althanggrund, exhibition, urban planning, vienna

m.e.t.r.o.n.o.m.

MON | JAN 30, 2012 | Paul F. Lazarsfeld and the Territories of Social Research |

DATE: January 30, 2012

TIME: 18:00

LOCATION: IFG, Reichsratsstraße 17, 1010 Vienna

LECTURE: Eric Hounshell: Paul F. Lazarsfeld and the Territories of Social Research

MON | JAN 23, 2012 | A Cultural History of Olympia |

DATE: January 23, 2012

TIME: 18:00 LOCATION: IFK, Reichsratsstraße 17, 1010 Vienna

LECTURE: Judith M. Barringer: A Cultural History of Olympia

JAN-MAY | EXHIBITION: Utopie Gesamtkunstwerk

FRI | JAN 20, 2012 | Azra Akšamija – National purification through religious architecture

DATE: 20.01.2012

Althanggrund – Studienprojekte zur Entwicklung

TIME: 18:00

LOCATION: IFK, Reichsratsstraße 17, 1010 Vienna