Akademie zur Verarbeitung von Enttäuschungen der Vernunft (Academy for processing disappointments of reason)

once a month, the neumarkt explores in musical, artistic settings the failure of the great questions of meaning, the processing of collective disappointments, rituals of mourning, coping, celebrating and trying — in short: philosophical questions about world(s), reality(ies), truth(s), desire(s).

episode 1: exploit it 

– with klitclique and robert pfaller (21.9.2019)

under the title “exploit it” the academy discusses with the artist duo klitclique ($chwanger and g‑udit, in the picture) and the philosopher robert pfaller how exhibition society, self-exploitation, star systems, racisms, terms and attitudes that become it-pieces, commons, whispers, prohibitions and commandments are connected and whose (un)reason actually intertwines there and how. “what was the world you thought you could have? what was it that we wanted to know?” (blumenberg).

artistic installation / facilitation: hayat erdoğan & tine milz

episode 2: futurize us 

– with hans-christian dany, philipp theisohn, seraina dür and jonas gillmann (19.10.2019)

this edition of the academy discusses with the author and artist hans-christian dany, the literary scholar philipp theisohn and the two chorgassen residents seraina dür and jonas gillmann how futures are calculated, fantasized and deconstructed, how the anthropocene, extraterrestrials, the imperatives of capitalism and the looming backdrop of climate change are connected. what can you know about the future? how is knowledge of the future generated? is knowledge always already related to the future? how do we define tomorrow’s world through spaces and coexistence? “what was it that we were allowed to hope for?” (blumenberg).

artistic installation / facilitation: hayat erdoğan & tine milz

episode 3: humanize us
– with kadiatou diallo, nele solf, and maría do mar castro varela (21.11.2019)

racist humanists, exploitative liberators, democratically elected despots, human rights courts and their stabilizing function in an unequal world order … the list can be continued endlessly. at the latest since horkheimer and adorno’s “dialektik der aufklärung” (dialectic of enlightenment) it has been obvious that the project of enlightenment is not only based on the growing “reason” but always also on domination. as the shadow side of civilization, «barbarism» is only an apparent contradiction. colonial history and the resulting world order exemplifies this. there is much to inherit, promise and trauma. humanism as the universal bringer of salvation has been disenchanted, and yet enlightened thinking cannot and will not go back behind its promises and ideals — freedom, equality, humanity. what to do? frantz fanon, mastermind of decolonization, went so far as to call for a “new man”.

maria do mar castro varela (professor, postcolonial thinker, author), nele solf (theater maker, graduate of zhdk, and co-author of “colonial greetings from samoa”), kadiatou diallo (scholar, curator and artist) and julia reichert (dramaturge and co-director neumarkt) will in this edition, inspired by the singing tradition “contrapunteo” that originated on cuban plantations, each retell and retell stories from different perspectives and with different means. taking the mission of the “academy for the processing of disappointments of reason” seriously, they jointly search for practices to irritate demarcations in order to bring, that would be the utopia, “the border between an ‘us and the others’ into a delicate wavering” (maria do mar castro varela). this time, the academy is meeting as part of the “lange nacht der philosophie” (long night of philosophy).

moderation: julia reichert

episode 4: egotize us
– with james massiah and jeremy nedd (21.12.2019)

with the london poet, dj and musician james massiah we move into the zone of sensibilities: altruism, compassion, empathy or rather “amoral egoism”, which the poet-philosopher james massiah declares to be the foundation of his thinking, artistic creation and being in the world. but we cringe at the word selfishness. the image of man associated with it appears to us to be too negative.
what has communality built on occidental notions of (religious) compassion and morality actually brought us? to seek and give comfort and, by extension, to have and demand empathy, is ultimately to realize “that nothing can be changed about reality, consequently to refrain from changing anything about it” (blumenberg). we are heartbroken, but: let’s change the reality & egotize us!

artistic installation / facilitation: hayat erdoğan & tine milz

episode 5: reinvent it

– with pantha du prince (18.1.2020)

this time, with sound artist pantha du prince, the academy discusses the disturbed relationship of man to his environment and embarks on a search for an ecological way of thinking that does without the dualistic conception of man/nature. on a journey that requires sturdy shoes and warm clothing, the academy discusses with the participants: what would a world look like in which nature was not an exploitable resource, not a frightening quantity? how if the environment were not the so-called other that we mourn because we have destroyed it, but something in which we are directly involved? the fact is: the great narratives of meaning of the old myths, of traditional metaphysics and religious-salvation-historical narratives have lost their plausibility. oscillating between theoretical and artistic practice, the academy ventures the possibility of founding a completely different cosmology for the anthropocene, a new philosophy and a new myth.

artistic installation / moderation: hayat erdoğan & nikolai prawdzic

episode 6: intoxicate us 

– with alireza bayram, hans-christian dany, dr. katrin preller and dr. magaly tornay (22.2.2020)

in this 6th edition, the “academy for processing disappointments of reason” ventures into the abysses and depths of intoxication with actor and ensemble member alireza bayram, with author and artist hans-christian dany, with neuropsychologist dr. katrin preller, and with psychopharmacologist dr. magaly tornay. consciousness-expanding substances and ritual, spiritual practices are celebrating a renaissance. silicon valley microdoses, switzerland celebrates fifty years of lsd, and ayahuasca ceremonies are held in berlin. we ask: does every drug have its time — or vice versa? what do we as “reasonable” individuals oppose to the fast pace and the pressure to perform of our capitalized world? what does our hunger for intoxication and rushed search for new gods say about us? 2020: a life on microdosing or a life in microdoses? a ritual integration of intoxication into our work-life balance? or does our reason fail again here when we say: intoxicate us?

artistic installation / moderation: tine milz

picture: philip frowein

period: september 2019 – februar 2020

location: neumarkt saal