Invitation to defense and final presentation of Micha Payer, Artistic Research PhD Programme (PhD in Art)

Presentation of the work series and the artist book A±Z:
Sept. 27–28, 2–5 pm
Sept. 29, 1–4 pm

Defense:
Sept. 29, 5 pm

Supervisor: Paul Petritsch
Examination committee members: Ruth Anderwald, Amaranth Borsuk, Vít Havránek, Martin Krenn, Paul Petritsch

Venue
Zentrum Fokus Forschung
Rustenschacheralle 2–4
1020 Vienna
Austria

Re-Enacting Tableaus, by Micha Payer

The research project Re-Enacting Tableaus focuses on the tableau as a visual and epistemological concept in the context of knowledge production. The tableau is considered as a visual strategy for transmitting knowledge but is also expanded into a philosophical concept. It is used as an operative term in order to understand the process of knowledge production from an artistic perspective. Re-Enacting Tableaus unites the practice of drawing with theoretical approaches from philosophy, visual epistemology, and critical posthuman thinking. The centerpiece of this endeavor is the artist book A±Z, which is a defamiliarized version of the common understanding of an established Western European knowledge ordering system—the encyclopedia. Turned into an art form, this encyclopedia works as a circular reference system concerning visual and text-based epistemics. The encyclopedia entry is the basic structure and individual component that is treated in various ways in A±Z. Encyclopedia entries that shed light on visual epistemology, epistemes, knowledge, difference, and the idiot from a theoretical perspective accompany artworks by Payer Gabriel from the last decade as well as drawings made specifically for A±Z. Further work series that were developed within the scope of this PhD project and will be presented at Zentrum Fokus Forschung include the drawing series On Inscriptions, Trees of Knowledge, order order order, and In Defense of the Accidental.

Picture credits:

left: Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, Denis Diderot, “Planche VII,” in Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, ed. Denis Diderot, Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, 1763. Public Domain.
right: Payer Gabriel, On Inscriptions, 2023, pastels on paper, 100 x 70 cm.