Defensio von Micha Payer, Doktoratsprogramm Künstlerische Forschung (PhD in Art)
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.
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
