Conversations under the Linden: On communicating art

Lecture Series in Cooperation with the Collège international de philosophie, Paris

The lecturers of the “Conversations Under the Linden” series deal with philosophical questions of art from various perspectives.

Catherine Perret and Bernard Stiegler: On communicating art
Like every social practice, art today is in danger of becoming a sterilized form of collective experience. While these forms of collective experience were once the foundation of art’s communicability, the risks of art’s elitist retreat from society – and of confusion between communication and art – becomes greater and greater.

Art must confront the question of its communication and transferability more than any other societal practice. Art as such establishes not only the possibility of collective identification within society, but also the communicability of forms in general; forms of taste and of specialist artistic knowledge. The healing function of images is nearing its end, something analogous to consumption’s generally visible overriding force. This concerns not only art as such, but also art as a medium and guarantee of possible identifications, which means art in its communicative function.

Catherine Perret, former program director of the Collège international de philosophie, is a private lecturer at the Institute for Philosophy at Paris University X-Nanterre, freelance curator and art critic. Perret has been a guest of the Akademie since November 2005.

Bernard Stiegler is the director of IRCAM, Centre Pompidou Paris, philosopher and lecturer at the Ecole des Haustes Etudes en Sciences Socials. He has held a variety of leadership functions at such institutions as the Collège international de philosophie, the Université de Compiègne and the Institut National de l’Audiovisuel.

Moderation: Jean-Baptiste Joly and Boyan Manchev, who initiated this lecture series. Manchev is a lecturer for philosophy at the University of Sofia and a program director at the Collège international de philosophie, Paris. He was a fellow at the Akademie in 2004/5.

The lecture will take place in French, with German interpretation.

A cooperation of the Akademie Schloss Solitude with the Collège international de philosophie, Paris