Libraries are essential to learning and concentration – this is nothing new. And still: the user’s impression may suggest that even in times of digital libraries and interconnected communication cultures, built environments continue to be of importance. Why is that? The university library at the LMU supports a project that seeks to support contributions made by students to develop future sustainable learning spaces that will demand both, silence, and noise – individual and group learning. If you feel interested in this, just contact me (for more information).
Archiv des Autors: Adrian Franco
Sustainability on Campuses
In times of the upcoming great conference on Climate Change in Paris a lot of articles, books, films and reports are being published on behalf of the global necessities of our present. The blog Environment across Boundaries has only recently featured a controversial report on the state of sustainability as a matter of university politics (see article).
The Sounding World and the contest of hard Policies
I want to take up a recent post written by Ecomusicologist Jeff Todd Titton on the development of growing interdisciplinary interest in the sounding and hearing world in the face of Climate Change and the urgent need to agree upon a joint action policy by human societies (see post). Weiterlesen
A Festival in the North – a blueprint for the South?
A recent travel report published in the German newspaper Die Zeit (20th August 2015) by journalist Julius Schophoff portrays the Norwegian touring art festival Salt at Sandhornøy (see site). What the article says and what the website shows is a beautifully arranged festival site amidst an arctic landscape – impressive wooden architecture nearby the sea; sauna and strange northern sunlight that brings the author into a mood to defend the natural beauty of that place against all possible intruders and exploiters. Weiterlesen
German City Sounds
I want to share a post from wordpress.com with you:
https://orpheusinthemud.wordpress.com/2015/08/25/german-city-sounds/
From Auerworld 2015: dancing where Bonaparte fought
Though it has been a rather spontaneous short trip to Auerstedt, I really enjoyed being at the festival site and taking part in that huge dynamic of people. What fascinates me still back in Munich is the region’s complex memory landscape: it is there where Napoleon fought. It is there where the GDR finally collapsed some 25 years ago. Weiterlesen
Art as a Tool in Times of the Anthropocene?
The debate about “Ecological Art” has gained a new momentum. Only recently, Daniela Hahn and Erika Fischer-Lichte have edited a stimulating book on the subject (see book). Weiterlesen
A Festival in a Cage – A credible Testimony?
How to present what I had in mind about my research project? A week ago, our course at the Rachel Carson Center organized a joint exposition of final research projects. The outcome was a really stimulating show of different art pieces and media: my fellow students produced films, elaborated detailed presentation sheets, and put up photographs. I chose to build a small “show case” (a sort of “diorama”) which sought to give a shape to the complex relationships between festival management schemes and the air of unleashed freedoms and unrestricted forms of life. My impression is that the resonance among my colleagues was widely positive; and yet: I should have brought with me some impressions from a real festival site. Though this was not the aim of my project due to different formal restrictions, I still feel the urgency to participate in a festival by myself and record what I experience on the backdrop of the discourses I had written about previously.
Fortunately, I may express at this point my many thanks to the Auerworld Festival nearby Jena that had invited me to come (see site). I hope I can manage it in time to organize a transport and be there already this weekend.
Mindfulness and Information Overload
What if people began to reject their smartphones from one day to another? A challenging article by Jürgen von Rutenberg published in the German Zeit Magazin (16th July 2015, “Zurück in die Gegenwart“) explores alternative voices that try to overcome the alleged information overload by forms of life always connected to the internet. Weiterlesen
Orpheus in the mud
Ich untersuche die Verknüpfung von Musikfestivals mit Fragen der Ökologie und Nachhaltigkeitsbewegung. Ziel ist es, die Bedingungen künstlerischen Arbeitens auf Musikfestivals in Deutschlands näher zu beleuchten und eine Arbeitshypothese für die zukünftige Entwicklung ästhetischer Fragen im Rahmen der Umweltbewegung zu eröffnen.
Für eine aktualisierte englischsprachige Version dieses Blogprojektes, siehe auf wordpress.com. Weiterlesen