Output details

Die rote Blume: Ästhetische Praxis in Zeiten des Wandels

This book of texts and conversations deals primarily with the theory, evolution and practice of Sacks’ social sculpture research, and its relationship to engaged arts practice, activism, sustainability and the phenomenology of transformation. It also responds to the international interest in Sacks’ social sculpture theory and ‘creative strategies’ methodologies developed over the past four decades. Since 1997 this has been central to the Social Sculpture Research Unit’s work, evolving more recently in collaborations with Kurt, Zumdick and Arteaga – some of the many researchers and practitioners in dialogue with Sacks’ ‘connective aesthetics’. This book, like other writings in this portfolio, also reveals how Beuys’ core ideas concerning social sculpture have been developed by Sacks to the point where practitioners from many disciplines and sectors are now able to work with the principles and strategies embedded in Beuys’ proposals, and to appreciate the historical roots of social sculpture in Schiller’s ‘aesthetic education of the human being’ and Goethe’s phenomenology. This is evidenced by numerous doctoral researchers in Oxford Brookes and other universities whose interdisciplinary research builds on connections Sacks’ work uncovers between social sculpture and fields such as organisational change, environmental decision-making, eco-philosophy, connective practices in medicine, and archetypal psychology. Recent collaborations with Zumdick i.e. the 2013 translation of and introduction to his monograph on the foundations of Beuys’ thinking, as well as new essays on imagination and transformation in the English ‘Atlas of the Poetic Continent’ highlight Sacks’ approach to developing the field, which emphasizes the equal significance and interrelationship of both her text based and participatory practices. This book [Portfolio:1] shares with Sacks’ book chapters [Portfolio:2-6], conference contributions [Portfolio:7], research seminars, lecture-performances, workshop processes [Portfolio:8] and practices [e.g. Outputs 1, 2, 3], the same commitment to the role of interdisciplinarity, ‘inner technologies’ and connective practice in shaping a viable future.

German. This book of texts and conversations deals primarily with the theory, evolution and practice of Sacks’ social sculpture research, and its relationship to engaged arts practice, activism, sustainability and the phenomenology of transformation. It also responds to the international interest in Sacks’ social sculpture theory and ‘creative strategies’ methodologies developed over the past four decades. Since 1997 this has been central to the Social Sculpture Research Unit’s work, evolving more recently in collaborations with Kurt, Zumdick and Arteaga – some of the many researchers and practitioners in dialogue with Sacks’ ‘connective aesthetics’.