The Summer School is aimed at research MA and PhD students and more advanced artists and scholars in the field of Arts, Performance, Media and Cultural History from the University of Antwerp and other universities in Belgium and abroad.
The Summer School will enable junior academic and artistic researchers to become acquainted with a variety of concepts, methods, and approaches in the fields of media archaeology, performance studies and the histories of science, knowledge and ideas and to enter into dialogue with a number of specialists in those respective fields. Sessions are meant to be informal in nature and will consist of lectures, artist talks, interactive hands-on experiments and historical re-enactments.
Through active engagement and critical analysis, our goal is to deepen participants' understanding of the profound influence of media and performance on our historical past and the ongoing impact they exert on our present. We encourage them to challenge the materiality and sensory aspects of media and recognize its significance as a historical source. Students are also invited to actively participate in the discussions based on a set of texts that will be made available to read beforehand, and to present research in progress in interactive poster sessions.
Our Summer School will offer participants:
An interdisciplinary framework for analyzing historical media and their performative and artistic uses.
Insights into the constructivist nature of media technology products as historical sources.
Awareness of the "tacit knowledge" embedded in the use of media technologies.
A sensory perspective on the cultural and social inscriptions within media technologies.