Orpheus Institute Academy 2017 (10-12 May)
The contemporary points towards incommensurable definitions. Intensely debated in the fields of visual arts, art theory, and philosophy, it describes different practices, relating to disparate conceptual horizons. However, if distinguished from the contemporaneous of a given historical time, the contemporary becomes a selective concept: it promotes or excludes things and practices according to their ability of diagnosing previously unnoticed aspects of the present. In this sense, it gains a critical function, involving particular modes of relating to history and to one’s own time.
Following Roland Barthes’ claim, who—inspired by Nietzsche, and quoted by Agamben—said that “the contemporary is the untimely”, the contemporary might suggest artistic practices that run against their own time and epoch, implying specific forms of resistance.
Beyond historicising frameworks, the 14th International Orpheus Academy for Music and Theory—Futures of the Contemporary—will explore and discuss new modes of thinking the contemporary in the arts, particularly focussing on music and music performance.
Guest Faculty
Babette Babich, Fordham University, New York (USA)
Chaya Czernowin, Harvard University (USA/Israel)
Heiner Goebbels, professor to the Justus Liebig University, Gießen (D)
Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig (D)
Peter Osborne, Kingston University London (UK)
