Power of Material/Politics of Materiality

Publication Series of the cx centre for interdisciplinary studies at

the Academy of Fine Arts Munich

The publications in this series are the results of the study program
cx centre for interdisciplinary studies, which was inaugurated at the
Academy of Fine Arts Munich in 2011, of its teachings, its researches
and its practice projects. It takes up questions, which are currently
of central artistic, scientific and social relevance, to discuss them
within an interdisciplinary perspective. A major focus herein lies with
the dialogue between scientific and artistic approaches as well as in
the close interconnection of theory and praxis. The program of the
cx is facilitated by the BMBF within the frame of the joined Federal-
State Program for Better Studying Conditions and More Quality in
Teaching.­ Following Politics of Material/Politics of Materiality the
second volume on the topic of Fragile Identities will be published
in 2015.
Power of Material/Politics of Materiality
Susanne Witzgall and Kerstin Stakemeier (Eds.)

diaphanes
 Table of Contents

9 Editor’s Preface

13 Power of Material/Politics of Materiality – an Introduction

Susanne Witzgall

27 New Materialism: The Ontology and Politics of Materialisation
Diana Coole

43 “We need a much better appreciation of the material

structures...”
In Conversation with Diana Coole

48 Text and Texture: On the Materiality of West-Eastern Transfers

in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Marianne von Willemer
Cornelia Ortlieb

59 An Ecology of Materials
Tim Ingold

66 “I was literally sticking my hands into materials”

Max Lamb

75 “Materials are constantly astonishing”

In Conversation with Max Lamb and Tim Ingold

82 Project Class Lamb

88 The Promise of Intelligent Materials

Nicola Stattmann and Thomas Schröpfer in Conversation with
Karianne Fogelberg
100 Material Engagement as Human Creative Process and
Cognitive Life of Things
Colin Renfrew

115 Purpose Unknown

Sofia Hultén

121 “… insights about the afterlives of objects”

In Conversation with Sofia Hultén and Colin Renfrew

127 New Materialists in Contemporary Art

Susanne Witzgall

141 Kassetten, Cassettes
Manfred Pernice

146 Project Class Pernice

153 On Touching – The Inhuman That Therefore I Am (V.1.1)

Karen Barad

165 Actually 12 Times Alissa

Discoteca Flaming Star

172 Crisis and Materiality in Art: On the Becoming of Form and

Digitality
Kerstin Stakemeier

185 The (Im)Materiality of Economy
Costas Lapavitsas

192 Sell Everything, Buy Everything, Kill Everything

Anja Kirschner, David Panos

203 “We want to counter such simplifications by way of historicizing

their foundations …”
In Conversation with Anja Kirschner, David Panos and Costas
Lapavitsas

209 Is Marxism a Correlationism?
Diedrich Diederichsen

221 Project Class Baghramian

229 The Authors

235 Photo Credits

239 Colophon
Editor's Preface

An interdisciplinary course of study began at the Academy of Fine

Arts in Munich in 2012, which is sponsored by the German Federal
Ministry for Education and Research as a new teaching format within
the context of the Federal-State Program for Better Studying Condi-
tions and More Quality in Teaching. The program, located at the cx
centre for interdisciplinary studies, which was established for exactly
this purpose, orients itself around changing yearly themes and takes
up central artistic, scholarly, and social discourses of the present
moment. The teaching at cx consists of multi-disciplinary courses,
which include international guest professors from different art forms,
as well as a yearly series of talks and events with speakers and guest
lecturers from multiple disciplines. The program thereby focuses on
a very close connection between theory and practical, project-based
work. An overriding goal of cx is to provide students access to other
scholarly areas, research methods, and ways of thinking that comple-
ment existing artistic education through an expanded theoretical and
interdisciplinary teaching method, as well as to motivate students
towards an interdisciplinary exchange and a specialised, disciplinary-
framed confrontation with central questions of our time.

9
 The book at hand, Power of Material/Politics of Materiality, is the re-
sult of the first year of the cx’s program. It concerns itself with current,
transdisciplinary approaches to a New Materialism and the reconcep-
tion of matter and material associated with it. This publication gathers
the most important lectures and discussions of the eponymous public
program series at the cx, which were updated, further developed
and expanded for the book. It also documents central research find-
ings of the lecturers at cx, as well as the artistic work of the students
in the project classes. The publication brings together the current
reassessment of matter and material phenomenon in art, design and
architecture with cultural and social studies approaches of a New
Materialism for the first time, thus deepening the interdisciplinary
dialogue that began at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 2012
with intense talks, discussions and experimental praxis. In doing so,
the heterogeneity of the thought- and research movements operat-
ing under the mantle of New Materialism, which range from Karen
Barad’s “Agential Realism” to the philosophies of “Speculative Real-
ism” discussed by Diedrich Diederichsen, proved to be an especially
productive source of friction. Our publication therefore aims to trace
an arc that enables discussing these manifold approaches with and
against one another, instead of subordinating or matching one’s own
work to these ways of thinking.

At this point we want to sincerely thank all of the scholars and artists,
who participated in the first year of cx’s program with their lectures
and classes and who, without exception, also agreed to contribute
to this book. A special thanks goes to Karen Barad, who provided
a reworked version of one of her essays for this publication. We
would like to thank the directorship of the Academy of Fine Arts, in
particular Dieter Rehm, Urs Greutmann, Frank Hilger, Karin Kneffel
and Hermann Pitz for their confidence and support in the realisation
of this new interdisciplinary course of study, as well as our commit-
tee members Walter Grasskamp, Carmen und Urs Greutmann, Res
Ingold, Katrin Kinseher, Florian Matzner, Ole Müller, Olaf Nicolai,
Julian Rosefeldt and the respective representatives of the students and
the student council. A special thanks is due to our colleague and ally
at the cx Karianne Fogelberg, who co-organised and co-conceptual-
ised the lecture series Power of Material/Politics of Materiality, upon
which this publication based, as well as the student assistants for the
programme: Constanze Stumpf, Sarah Lehnerer and Johanna Klingler.
Here, we additionally want to thank all of the other people who, in
one way or another, worked on of the organisation of the first year’s
program of cx, among them Tanja Ferg, Thomas Köhler and Andrea
Schulz, as well as the students Alexander Eisfeld, Sally Kotter and
Markus Lutter, who stood by our side assisting during some of the
events. Last but not least, a heartfelt thanks goes out to a number of
heads of workshops of the academy, first of all Bruno Wank from the
bronze workshop, but also to Thierry Boissel, Martin Bosung, Frank
Hilger, Stephan George and Ole Müller for the cooperation with our

10
cx guest professors Max Lamb, Manfred Pernice and Nairy Baghra-
mian. Their work was of central importance to the student’s practical
grappling with the characteristics and momentum of the different
materials.

̌
We also want to thank our intern Katarina Cilić, who transcribed the
discussions, and in this way contributed valuable preparatory work
for the conversations printed in the book. Furthermore, we want to
thank Johanna Klingler for her help with image editing, Felix Kempf
for the first graphic conception of the visual identity of the cx and es-
pecially Yusuf Etiman for the successful graphic design of the publica-
tion at hand, whose different text and image formats posed complex
graphic problems. Nikolaus Schneider and Karl Hoffmann took over
the translations of the English contributions and Textual Bikini the
translations from German to English for the English online version
of this publication. We would like to thank them for their efforts and
diligence with the translation work, which was at times demanding.
Furthermore, we would like to thank Michael Heitz from diaphanes
publications, who quickly became enthusiastic about this publication
and spontaneously and unconventionally embarked on our very tight
schedule, as well as Sabine Schulz and Daniela Voss for the superb
editing and the smooth collaboration. Last but not least a special
thank you is due to the Federal Ministry of Education and Research,
who financed the program of the cx including this publication, as
well as the DLR (German Aerospace Center) as Project Management
Agency and the Bavarian State Ministry for Science, Research and the
Arts for their support during the application period of the project.

11
 1
Power of Material/Politics of Materiality – an Introduction Materialitäten. Herausforderungen
für die Sozial- und Kulturwissen-
Susanne Witzgall schaften, Johannes Gutenberg-Uni-
versity Mainz, 19.10.–20.10.2011;
Immaterial materialities: materiality
and interactivity in art and archi-
tecture, University of Technology
Sydney, 28.11.–30.11.2012; Mate-
rial Matters, University of Delaware,
13.04.–14.04.2012; Ästhetik der
Materialität, HfG Karlsruhe, April to
July 2012; Materialism and World
Politics, yearly conference for vol-
ume 41 of Millennium: Journal of In-
ternational Studies, London School
of Economics and Political Science,
21.10.–22.10. 2012; Intermaterial-
ität, symposium at Bern University
of the Arts, 16.02.–18.02.2012, the
research project of the same name
as well as the resulting publica-
tion Thomas Strässle, Christoph
Kleinschmidt, Johanne Mohs, Das
Zusammenspiel der Materialien in
den Künsten. Theorie – Praktiken –
Perspektiven (Bielefeld: Transcript
2013); Matter Matters. The Social
Sciences Beyond the Linguistic
Turn, Faculty of the Social Sciences,
Lund University, 15.10.–16.10.2012;
The current scientific, artistic, and design interest in the material 10th Triennial for Form and Content:
aspects of our reality is considerable. It is almost as if we have only Materials Revisited, 2011, Museum
recently discovered that we are matter and live amidst matter, materi- Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt;
Materie-Material-Materialität,
als, and materialities – and that these aren’t simply carriers of signs research project of the German-
and meanings, or first come into being through these signs and mean- istisches Institut, Westfälische
Wilhelms University Münster; Fluid
ings, but instead themselves play a role in the generation of meanings Materials, University of Applied Arts
and the constitution of reality. Conferences, research groups, and Vienna, 27.09.–28.09.2013; Material
Intelligence, Kettlers Yard.
exhibitions with titles like Materialities, Intermaterialities; immaterial
2
materialities; Materialism and World Politics, Matter-Material-Mate- Thomas Strässle, Caroline Torra-
Mattenklott, “Einleitung“ [introduc-
riality; Material Matters; Matter Matters; Material Revisited; Material tion], in: Poetiken der Materie. Stoffe
Intelligence or Fluid Materials1 have become increasingly frequent, to und ihre Qualitäten in Literatur,
Kunst und Philosophie (Freiburg
name only a few projects from the last three years. i.Br., Berlin: Rombach, 2005), p. 9.
  3
Sabine Runde, “Der Stoff aus
The new focus on the material that has surged over the last two dem die Werke sind,” in: Materials
decades cuts across vastly different disciplines. This encompasses ap- Revisited (10th Triennial for Form
and Content: Materials Revisited,
proaches that thematise “the appearance, presentation, and contem- Museum for Applied Arts Frankfurt
plation of the material,”2 rediscover the “qualities of materials,”3 or am Main, Klingspor-Museum Of-
describe the “hierarchies and semantics of the materialities,”4 which fenbach), p. 13.
4
includes Monika Wagner and Dietmar Rübel’s predominantly mate- See Sigrid G. Köhler, Martina
rial iconographic-directed art historical perspective.5 This new focus Wagner-Egelhaaf, “Einleitung: Prima
Materia,” in: Sigrid G. Köhler, Jan
on the material finds its expression in an explosion of approaches Christian Metzler, Martina Wagner-
that emerge out of different fields, ranging from the arts, literary Egelhaaf, eds., Prima Materia:
Beiträge zur transdisziplinären Mate-
studies, sociology, anthropology, feminist theory, and the political rialitätsdebatte (Königstein/Taunus:
sciences to human geography and the cognitive sciences. Beyond Ulrike Helmer Verlag, 2004), p. 8.
a simple thematisation of material(ity), these approaches demand a 5
See Monika Wagner, Dietmar
“new understanding of material,”6 a reformulation of matter or an Rübel, eds., Material in Kunst und
Alltag (Hamburger Forschungen
“other conception and use of material”7 which exists “outside of the zur Kunstgeschichte I) (Berlin:
dualism of form and matter, of idea and matter,” and brings among Akademie Verlag, 2002). See also:
Monika Wagner, Das Material der
other things, the momentum and “efficacy”8 of material phenomenon Kunst: Eine andere Geschichte
into account. der Moderne (Munich: C.H. Beck,

13
 2001), Thomas Raff, Die Sprache A New Ontology?
der Materialien: Anleitung zu einer
Ikonologie der Werkstoffe (Münster:
Waxmann, 2008), Barbara Nau- These approaches operate – albeit at the moment primarily in English
mann, Thomas Strässle, Caroline
Torra-Mattenklott, eds., Stoffe, Zur speaking fields – under the name “New Materialism” or “Neo-Mate-
Geschichte der Materialität in Kün- rialism,” a concept developed by the Mexican author, artist, and phi-
sten und Wissenschaften (Zurich:
Reihe Zürcher Hochschulforum, Bd.
losopher Manuel DeLanda and the Italian-Australian philosopher and
37, 2006). feminist theoretician Rosi Braidotti in the second half of the 1990s.9
6
Köhler, Wagner-Egelhaaf 2004
According to Dolphijn und van der Tuin, New Materialism is marked
(footnote 4), p. 8. through a “nomadic crossing of territories of nature and sciences,”10
7 which demonstrates the agential character of matter, and shouldn’t be
Franck Hofmann, “Materialver-
wandlungen: Prolegomena zu einer understood as an “add-on,” simply a further (material) facet that a spe-
Theorie ästhetischer Produktivität,” cialised discourse appends. New Materialism doesn’t just assemble
in: Andreas Haus, Franck Hofmann,
Änne Söll, Material im Prozess: an established disciplinary vision of the world, which appears to have
Strategien ästhetischer Produktivität lost traction, with new material weight, but is instead described much
(Berlin: Reimer 2000), p. 23.
more as a new metaphysics or ontology11 that should lead to a com-
8
For example, please see: Rainer pletely new view and conception of the world. The basis for this is
Kazig, Peter Wichart, “Die Neuthe-
matisierung der materiellen Welt in the aforementioned new understanding of matter, which is no longer
der Humangeographie,” in: Berichte considered as something solid and passive that waits for the intellect
zur deutschen Landeskunde, Bd.
83, H.2 (Leipzig 2009), p. 114. or spirit to provide an additional formative force or animating spark,
9
but rather possesses intrinsically self-transformative12 potentials and
See Rick Dolphijn, Iris van der
Tuin, New Materialism: Interviews
regularly finds itself in a state of ongoing metamorphosis and morpho-
& Cartographies (University of genesis.13 Influenced by chaos and complexity theories,14 quantum
Michigan Library, Ann Arbor: Open
Humanities Press, 2012), pp. 19,
theories, and current theories of elementary particle physics – and
38, and 48. referring back to Democritus, Epicurus, and Spinoza up to Deleuze's
10 philosophical concepts that emphasise matter's own productivity15 –
Ibid., p. 100–101.
New Materialists describe matter as self-organised and emergent,16 “as
11
See ibid., p. 13; Diana Coole’s an ongoing play of determinacies,”17 as active principle, or even as
essay “The New Materialism: the
Ontology and Politics of Materi- vibrant matter with “intrinsic vitality.”18 “Matter itself is not a substrate
alization” in this publication, p. 27 or a medium for the flow of desire. Materiality itself is always already
as well as Jane Bennett, Vibrant
Matter: A Political Ecology of Things a desiring dynamism, a reiterative reconfiguring, energised and ener-
(Durham, London: Duke University gizing, enlivened and enlivening,”19 states the American philosopher,
Press, 2010), p. XViii. Jane Ben-
nett speaks of “Vital Materialism” research scientist, and feminist theorist Karen Barad.
instead of “New Materialism” and  
calls her “Vital Materialism” also
“(meta)physics.” see p. XViii. This conception of matter and materiality doesn’t only place the dual-
12
ism of form and matter into question, but in New Materialism, it goes
See also Diana Coole, Samantha
Frost, “Introducing the New
along with the attempt to dissolve other long-standing dichotomies,
Materialism,” in: New Materialisms: such as between mind and the body or culture and nature. As
Ontology, Agency and Politics
(Durham, London: Duke University
DeLanda stressed again recently, it can’t simply be about an avoid-
Press, 2010), p. 9. ance of these dualities, but rather its “reified generalities” must be
13 replaced through “concrete assemblages.” “The duality emerges,”
See DeLanda: “So yes, neo-
materialism is based on the idea DeLanda claims, “when one ignores the zone of overlap and reifies
that matter has morphogenetic the averages.”20 With the help of Deleuze’s concept of assemblage,
capacities of its own and does
not need to be commanded into DeLanda alludes here to the process that Bruno Latour calls “the
generating form.” “Any materialist work of purification”21 and considers a characteristic of the modern.
philosophy must take as its point of
departure the existence of a mate- According to Latour, the modern work of purification divides the
rial world that is independent of world’s fabrics and networks into clearly separated fields of artefacts,
our minds.” Interview with Manuel
DeLanda, in: Dolphijn, van der Tuin people, signs, norms, organisations, texts, hybrids between nature
2012 (footnote 9), p. 43. and culture, and subjects and objects, thus producing sanitised
14
See also Manuel DeLanda, “Ma- entities that are not conceded any mixed forms and middle posi-
terial Complexity,” in: Neil Leach, tions. For New Materialists, on the other hand, the world consists of

14