In the belief that art students can only learn to think independently when knowledge, imagination and reflection combine to work together in an unorthodox and critical way, Studium Generale Rietveld aims to encourage critical forms of learning, making and thinking. It follows a new research trajectory every year around a specific theme that links up with current events, issues and discussions in the (art) world. Artists and theoreticians from home and abroad offer a broad spectrum of perspectives on the overarching themes with lectures, performances, presentations and screenings.

After a preliminary programme, which also includes film screenings, reading groups, workshops and publications, there is an annual four-day conference festival in collaboration with guest curators who make contact with urgent critical discourses from different perspectives and practices. This takes place at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and is open to the public.

Since 2014 Studium Generale teams up with Rietveld Uncut; departments and individual students develop projects in relation to the theoretical framework of Studium Generale. The presentation and exhibition of these programmes is simultaneous to the conference, bringing ‘the making and the thinking’ together.

To programme

2015 – 2016
Bots, Bodies, Beasts — The art of being Humble

Sub carus aeternus. Tabella cultura avarus. Vita ademptio voluptas. Minus altus sunt. Dolorum suus copia.

What does it mean for art making if the “human” is but one life form among many?

“In the similarity of clowns to animals the likeness of humans to apes flashes up: the constellation animal/fool/clown is a fundamental layer of art.” (Theodor W. Adorno quoted by Anselm Franke in Ape Culture, 2015)

This year’s Studium Generale Rietveld Academie is about bots, bodies, and beasts. It focuses on the notion of the posthuman and the blurring of the traditional distinctions between the human and its others – be these bots or beasts. How can a notion of the posthuman be a tool for understanding the present? How can it help us make sense of our flexible and multiple identities? Can it redefine humanity’s place in the technological and biological continuums we are part of? Together we will dive into dialogue with posthumanism, (dis)embodiment and the dismantling of the liberal humanist and anthropocentric “subject”.

With: Anselm Franke, Maaike Lauwaert, Karen Archey, Cécile B. Evans, Hans-Christian Dany, Neïl Beloufa, Geo Wyeth, Mohammad Salemy, Amanda Beech, Matteo Pasquinelli, Victoria Ivanova, Xavier Le Roy, Keti Chukhrov, Alicia Frankovich, If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, Brian Holmes, Filipa Ramos, Ana Teixeira Pinto, Alexandra Anikina, Jan Peter Hammer, Harun Farocki, and many others.

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