will be made manifest at

ZKM | KARLSRUHE

February 29 - March 2, 2008

Accompanying Exhibition
February 29 - May 25, 2008

In its simplest form, we envision the initial conference at the ZKM as a “media pop opera,” or a “pedagogical concept album” -- a kind of artistic/academic gesamtkunstwerk (keeping the gesamtkunstwerk’s negative connotations very much in mind). During the conference/event, we expect fluid and/or jagged transitions among presentations, discussions, performances, and lectures. This temporary discursive laboratory will be designed as a space for imagining non-formulaic, experientially vibrant, and theoretically precise responses to the modes of distribution, consumption and circulation that currently dominate our neo-Wagnerian institutional atmosphere. In the end, the conference/event aims to present a microcosmic rendering of the contemporary artworld.