Laura writes

Meditation opens one’s own inner room and creates an awareness for oneself existing and thoughts and feelings also existing in this space. At some point one realizes thoughts and feelings are just like clouds – not permanent. One can sit and watch them pass by. When I started my bachelor’s degree, I was able to move out of my small suburban town after a year of studying. I had found a stable job at a museum in the marketing department and therefore could afford to pay my deposit and a monthly rent. From then on, I worked two to three days a week besides taking classes. I felt very strong, independent, productive and self-reliable. Also, I saw university as my second “job”. Though, I always found some lectures and other events, dealing with different topics than our curriculum, that I liked – I was still just thinking about passing exams and writing my essays in a way that I would get a good grade. After studying two years in this way, I went to Istanbul. Suddenly, I didn’t have to have...

Exercise 30   Attend a music or dance performance. Take notes as it takes place (beware of scratchy pens!). Do not use a digital recording; be present. Write a review of the event.   How does your note-taking affect your description? How does your experience reflect on the quality of the event and its ability to communicate?   Review On the 18th of July I visited the event “poetry meets soul” which took place at Haus der Kulturen der Welt as part of the series 21 Sunsets . The event took place at the roof terrace which actually lend the sunset it’s moment. With a mild breeze from the leaves in the trees to everybody’s ankles the evening was indeed about poetry. Poetry and power – Black Power.   Around eight artists, namely Wayne Snow, Jumoke Adeyanju, Baloji ,Ana Lucao and Melanelle, Anja Saleh and Amira Zarari recited their poems and played their music, Black Power shining through all of them. The event carried a sense of community, empowerment and speaking one’s tr...

Exercise 27 Choose a quotation from an author you admire. What do you like about the quotation? How do you situate the quotation in your broader interests? Write one paragraph that starts with the quotation and explains it. Now write a paragraph that starts with your discussion, then engages the quotation as supporting evidence. Where does the authority in each paragraph lie? Sometimes archival images arouse dreams, half-felt longings; they become “lures to feeling,” in Whitehead’s term, and to thought. The most interesting archival films release perceptibles from their past configurations in order to draw them out as singularities, link them to other things, invent series,8 and intensify them by connecting to present experience in the affective response of viewers. (I use the term perceptibles, an expansion of Michel Foucault’s term visibilities, to indicate all that can be perceived by the senses, including those other than sight and hearing.)   - Laura Marks Hanan al-cinema, S. ...

Approaches on doing art history   In order to be a “good” art historian I should be a good historian. I should be familiar with the history of a certain region or time period and wanting to work on a specific event for example. Then, I would look up archives of documents, photography, found footage etc. and try to analyze how this event was documented and portrayed at the time. Whereas so far, I am looking through artworks to write about certain topics. I already know the historical time and subject I want to write about, but I am looking for contemporary artworks who are dealing with this specific subject. Of course, these artworks then have the artists stance on the topic implicit.   For example, I am interested in Yto Barradas “Hand-Me-Downs” (2011) which is a video piece that is narrating a fictional family story. The video material consists of amateur footage by Barradas family when she was a child back in Morocco but also of found amateur footage by unknown families. Am...