Building on Floating University’s various international collaborations with more than twenty universities in 2018, we now invite teachers with students –or students with teachers– faculties and seminars again to shape and inseminate the Floating Learnscapes. In a concentrated timeframe at the end of the semester holidays or beginning of the winter semester 2021 in September and October.

Academic institutions and lecturers are invited to relocate with their groups to the site of the Floating Uni to stay and exercise their academic programme here. We would like to see students from all kinds of disciplines exchanging, researching and building sandcastles simultaneously in our inner city offshore campus. We would like to see them reflecting on subjects that matter in an urbanity of continuous transformation. With the seminars, courses and programmes, formats and topics brought along, we hope to expand our learnscapes’ horizon. They might range from critical research, questions of social, architectural, urban and environmental concerns and designs, to the making of a functioning of spaces for learning, communication, commoning and a self-organized civil society.

During these two intensive months we invite academic working-groups to come and stay as long as they want. We provide spaces and rituals of encounter, of sociability, of dialogue and exchange, an open, hybrid, reflective and practice driven cross-pollination atmosphere. Cooperation across disciplines, institutions and territories are encouraged and supported. This means we are happy if you aim to work with people who look at the world from a different professional angle or spirit. The idea of course is that you inhale the atmosphere here in the floating and keep breathing this spirit throughout your coming semester. We will also ask you for some feedback on this mechanism later.

The Floating Learnscapes will be prepared, hosted and moderated by Floating e.V., a self-organized association, with practitioners from a wide range of backgrounds. We meet to collaborate, co-create and work towards imaginative futures. We offer a lot in space, inspiration and infrastructure, but no money and no space to stay overnight. We expect academic groups to be very self-organised and independent; to cook for themselves and others, clean their dishes, remove their trash and stay open for collaborations and visitors from other planets.

MA Interior Architecture, first and second year students KABK

Island of Solitude and Encounter

Date: 28.08.– 05.09.

(Malte Sonnenschein and Caterina Tioli and Hans Venhuizen)

Dealing with the unknown – by trying to get to know the site, we try to get to know us.

http://enterinside.nl/

Dramaturgy, Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig

Stage Design, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf

Encounters (“Begegnung mit Arbeiten” und “Arbeiten als Begegnung”)

Date: 16. – 19.09.

(Prof. Dr. Annette Storr (HTM Leipzig) and Prof. Lena Newton (Kunstakademie Düsseldorf))

Floating University will enable dramaturgy students from Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig to collaborate with students of the stage design class at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.
After 18 months of developing ideas in solitude and sharing thoughts in online conferences, this collaboration will facilitate face to face discussion about the nature of inspiration and schemes for initiating projects. We want to explore the groundwork for creativity, and the sources of invention, investigating strategies for fostering ingenuity and innovation. Together we will investigate diverse strategies for coming to an idea, drawing on approaches from dramaturgy (research, reflection, and questioning) and theatre design (sketches, model-making and investigation of form).

https://www.kunstakademie-duesseldorf.de/fachbereiche/kunst/

https://www.hmt-leipzig.de/de/home/fachrichtungen/dramaturgie/studium-dramaturgie

Studio Experimentelles Design, Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg 

Part 1
Institutional Feelings 

Date: 16. – 19.09

(In the Meantime / Anna-Sophia Unterstab and Charlotte Perka with Marie-Theres Böhmker
Teilnehmer:innen: Anne Mayer, Ben Shepard, Destina Atasayar, Jule Eretier, Nauel Contarino, Sarah M., Qiaoli (Job) Zheng)

In the workshop, we will collectively create a parachute (ger.: Schwungtuch) and give vent to our (institutional) feelings. Building on previous In the Meantime events, we want to share our personal experiences within art and design schools. From our student perspective (and thus as part of the institution), we are looking for caring, interdependent, and accessible alternatives to the competitiveness and individualism we often experience in art school. With the parachute we will give form and visibility to our (shared and different) desires, needs and vulnerabilities.

https://www.instagram.com/_in_the_meantime/
http://www.in-the-meantime.net/projects

Part 2

(How) do we (want to) work (together)?

Date: 30.09– 02.10

Open Day: Thursday 30.09.

(Jesko Fezer)

The Studio Experimentelles Design will present, discuss and celebrate their new research publication: (How) do we (want to) work (together) (as (socially engaged) designers (students and neighbors)) (in neoliberal times)?, which questions the precarious work ethics in design and summarizes the second 5 years of the Public Design Support program in Hamburg St. Pauli and elsewhere. The Next day we want to extend this conversation into a small workshop that discusses the possibility of a temporary public design support program in Athens and tries to hold a rehearsal of this intervention.

www.gestaltungsberatung.org

howto.gestaltungsberatung.org

www.design.hfbk-hamburg.de

Experimentelle Raumkonzepte, Fachbereich Kunst, Leitung Prof. Heiner Blum, Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach am Main

UND (Lehrbereich übergreifendes Seminar), UND Berlin – Fermentation, Stabilität und Suche (Projekt Berlin)

Date: 20. – 26. 09.

(Jan Lotter (Lehrbeauftragter HfG Offenbach), Studierende: Pia Seifüßl, Sonja Herrmann, Marie-Céline Grosz, Jonny Bucka, Sam Woodhall, Jale Somer, Ilayda Dagli)

UND Berlin is setting up a research facility for classic conservation methods such as fermentation and extraction. We have prepared workshops with invited guests and participants, as we aim to make the fermentation processes tangible on a physical and mental level. Planned installations will be part of the process.

https://www.hfg-offenbach.de/de/pages/experimentelle-raumkonzepte#ueber

Institute for architecture related art, TU Braunschweig

Intervention (Freie Arbeit)

Date: 23. – 26.09.

(Prof. Folke Köbberling)

In September nine students from the University of Brunswick will intervene with their own projects at the Academic Beach. Hydroponic plants, animals in the city, are just two subjects the students which they are going to address during their time at the Floating University. 

http://www.iak-tu-bs.de

Institut für Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur und Stadt – GTAS, Technische Universität Braunschweig

Over walls and through undergrowth / Über Mauern und durch Gestrüpp

Date: 27.09. – 01.10.

Open Day: Thursday 30.09.

(Stella Flatten und Tatjana Schneider)

It’s an experiment. For 5 days we will explore the city on, under and over different paths. Driven, guided, along red lines across streets, over walls and through undergrowth. We want to try out methods and recombine them while we experimentally renegotiate existing city narratives. Sometimes we follow each other, sometimes we let ourselves be guided. We record, lose and share. We map and erase.

https://www.gtas-braunschweig.de

Institute for Theatre in Education at Hochschule Osnabrück

occasions of un/learning

Date: 01.10 – 03.10.

(Margarita Tsomou)

The Institute for Theatre in Education at Hochschule Osnabrück invites theoreticians and practitioners to offer a series of different “occasions of un/learning” circulating around the work of collaborative performance and body work in the “ecocide”: queer somatic practices, mobile interventionist theatre, community building through art and the search of mobilizing with earthothers.

01.10. – Workshop with Theater X

https://theater-x.com

02.10. – Seminar – Max Haas: Performing Arts in the ecocide

03.10. – Workshop with Skinship

https://www.instagram.com/skinship_berlin/?hl=de
https://skinshipberlin.bandcamp.com

Stage- and costume design department, Hochschule für bildende Künste Dresden

New cycles in theatredesign

Date: 04. – 10.10

(Barbara Ehnes, Susanne Wilk, Knut Klaßen)

We will research and explore sustainable construction systems and materials with the focus on possible adaptions for transformations in theatre (- design): the development of a standardized system that enables the modular construction of volumes and spaces and, due to its reusability, ends the throw-away cycle. On the other hand, it is about the research and dissemination of recyclable and sustainable materials.

https://www.hfbk-dresden.de/lehre-forschung/studiengaenge/buehnen-und-kostuembild/

Fakultät Gestaltung, Studiengang Gesellschaft- und Wirtschaftskommunikation, Universität der Künste Berlin

Lütten Klein, Reims & Co.: Soziale Klasse neu gedacht? // Lütten Klein, Reims & Co.: Social class revisited

Date: 04. – 07.10

(Maren Hartmann)

In this four-day block seminar, we will approach current debates around social class and related issues through the lens of autobiographical, semi-documentary writings (such as Didier Eribon’s ‘Returning to Reims’, Anna Mayr’s ‚Die Elenden‘ and others). We will use this open-air teaching space to re-think the traditional sociological notion of class in an attempt at revisiting the social through the lens of the cultural, while also trying out different formats in teaching. It will allow us a look at the question of intersectionality, of the long-term consequences of the pandemic, of scenarios of the future concerning the social.

https://www.udk-berlin.de/personen/detailansicht/person/show/maren-hartmann/

Muthesius Kunsthochschule Kiel, Fachbereich Raumstrategien

MA Auftaktworkshop für das Semesterprojekt

on islands  

Date: 12.10.-15.10.21

(Christian Teckert, Frauke Gerstenberg)

During the four days we will explore situational equilibria and particularities through movement practices, derives and detournements. First, we will start small-scale on site, in the Floating, and from there swarm into the urban space. Local knowledge and situational experiences will provide the impetus for transformational exercises and concepts.

https://en.muthesius-kunsthochschule.de/spatial-strategies/

DAF / Dynamische Akustische Forschung, Akademie der bildenden Künste Nürnberg, Akademie der bildenden Künste München

Sonic Synchronicity

Date: 13. – 24.10.

(Michael Akstaller (von DAF))

multiperspective exploration of sound, space and dynamics from the flood basin of “floating university” to the urban landscapes of berlin. we will set up a sound-based performance, moving several syncronized listeners through space to redefine our perception by the multiperspectivity of our acoustic environment.

https://daf.adbk-nuernberg.de/

Urban Design Master Program, HafenCity University Hamburg

Terrapolis – Modes of Inhabiting in the Anthropocene 

Date: 14.-15.10.

(Gözde Sarlak-Krämer & Bernd Kniess)

Urban Design Master Program commences the winter semester with a two-day excursion at the Floating. The program will start conversations around the annual theme: “Terrapolis – Modes of Inhabiting in the Anthropocene”, by attending to the dense processes, materialities, and temporalities of inhabiting at and around the Floating. During the two-day program, we will conduct site visits; observe, record, map places, actors, and actions; think towards pedagogies of cohabitation that might flourish and be maintained. The roundtable and workshop will be open to the other participants of Learnscape. 

http://ud.hcu-hamburg.de/home

Fakultät Gestaltung, Institut für Theorie und Praxis der Kommunikation, Bachelor Studiengang Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftskommunikation, Universität der Künste Berlin

“Rausch“ & Resistance. Flanerie as a subversive practice?

Date: Mondays 18.10 + 25.10

(Mirjana Mitrović)

What is the meaning of the concept „Rausch“ (trance, intoxication, …) for flanerie and how can this method be de- and re-constructed to use it as a practice of resistance? Let’s discuss these questions and try it out.

https://gwk.udk-berlin.de/dozierende/mirjana-mitrovic/

mirjana-mitrovic.de

Master’s programme Art in Context, Institut für Kunst im Kontext, Universität der Künste Berlin

Introduction for new students of the master’s programme Art in Context

Date: 19. – 21.10.

(Claudia Hummel, lecturer Art in Context)

The new students get to know each other on walks around the campus. All of them have already completed an artistic or design degree. The environment of the floating university will influence the first meeting of this group. How does the narrative of one’s own work sound when it is not exchanged via digital presentation but while walking together? A public lecture on the now 45-year history of the course, which has touched on a number of social and spatial contexts over this period, will conclude the three-day study kick-off.

http://www.kunstimkontext.udk-berlin.de/

Studio Raumproduktion, Fachgebiet Entwerfen und Gebäudeplanung, Institut für Architektur und Städtebau, Universität der Künste Berlin

Inclusive Urbanism

Date: 19. – 26.10.

(Markus Bader)

The design project is set in a berlin, where processes of capital / profit extraction undermine the inclusiveness and diversity of the city.  in „inclusive urbanism“ we work on complex understandings of the urban, examining 2 specific sites. „Lokalbau“ is our partner. The sites of examination come from their research of spaces for development towards the common good. within the semester we will develop an understanding of the actor landscape around the site, work with complex and sometimes conflicting needs of users and explore design strategies that can integrate a multitude of desires. we develop spatial designs and strategic scenarios, how the transformation of the sites can be envisioned. we design spaces, strategies and processes. 

the beginning of this exploration is set in floating as a place of a paradigmatic shift of perspective – away from the drawing table and into the situation of conflicting realities. we will make on site exercises as well as excursions to the remote sites, bringing back insights, snippets, impressions and start discussing the project. 

the workshop days in floating will include lecture-like input talks open to all learnscape students. 

https://www.udk-berlin.de/en/courses/architecture/departments-of-architecture/building-planning-and-design/

https://www.berlin.de/lokalbau-fk/

Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät, Bildungswissenschaften, Department Ästhetische Bildung Kunst, Universität Potsdam

Exploring specific area from an artistic research view

Date: 30. – 31.10.

(Ivette Widmann)

Initially with perception exercises art education instructions, questions for research-based learning are developed in relation to site- specific conditions and their sensually tangible phenomena. To raise awareness of the Education potential outside of the classroom and non-university locations.

https://www.uni-potsdam.de/de/kunst/studium
https://www.uni-potsdam.de/de/kunst/professur-fuer-kunstpaedagogik-und-didaktik

Habitat Unit, Chair of International Urbanism and Design, TU Berlin

Spaces of Solidarity – Transformative Practices and Makeshift Infrastructures for [a Post-Pandemic] Berlin

Date: 02.11.2021

(Dr. Moritz Ahlert & Dr. Anna Steigemann)

In times of crisis, many actors call for solidarity. However, ‘solidarity’ often only works as  an empty signifier. At the same time, the pandemic reveals the societal relevance of  solidarity, particularly in the face of social and political challenges, such as the precarization of work, racist discrimination, social exclusion processes, environmental pollution, and climate catastrophe. In our kick-off-workshop for our seminar at Floating University we want to discuss, which solidarity practices can be understood as possible catalysts of a larger societal transformation? What solidarity-based coping mechanisms emerge/have emerged in the pandemic?

The seminar is part of the research project ›Transforming Solidarities. Practices and Infrastructures in the Migration Society‹ (BUA/ DFG). Our seminar series ›Spaces of Solidarity‹ is funded by Hans-Sauer-Stiftung as part of their ›Sonderförderprogramm 2021: Die Krise als Chance?‹.

http://habitat-unit.de/en/teaching/ws-2021-spaces-of-solidarity/