The new materialist philosophies and social practices prompt us to revisit the transdisciplinary efforts of the early Soviet period, where a materialist shift was realized not only in scientific and philosophical thought but also in art and social production. This shift involved integration of production into systems of energy and information exchange, the dissolution of entrenched epistemological binaries and the development of new practices in form-building that focused on the exploration of earth resources, industrial technology, physiological processes. Also new modes of institutionalization emerged, characterized by horizontal principles of workshops and laboratories. Within this highly active intellectual landscape, transdisciplinary initiatives began to emerge, that go beyond the boundaries of the classical cogitatio universalis. Some of the artistic and theoretical challenges are only now becoming fully apparent, as new epistemologies emerge. As Pavel Florensky noted in a letter about his own project of "concrete metaphysics", some concerns take 100 years to gain academic validity. Soviet modernism received its first productive reception in Western Europe and the USA as early as the 1970s. More recent editions and research show the new round of attention, which seems to be symptomatic. Ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Caucasus and new dictatorships are once again sharpening the contrasts between light and dark in this new exploration of the past. What can we learn today from the debates and experiments of the 1920s?
Venue:
Seminarroom 1, Garnisongasse 13, Сampus Hof 9, 1090 Wien
