Head of Department: Univ.-Prof. Mag. phil. Eva Maria Stadler
In the Department of
Art and Knowledge Transfer societal issues are discussed and investigated in theoretical and artistic contexts. Beyond the
all-too entrenched tradition of the new, we examine time periods in relation to contemporary and historical arguments and
their mutual contingency. This type of rhizomatic transfer generates a connective form of science, whereby the approaches
of genealogy – the analysis of development conditions – are always anchored processually in the here and now. The objective
of the Department of Art and Knowledge Transfer is to create productive interfaces between artistic disciplines and non-artistic
sciences on the basis of the respective thematic field under discussion. After the foundation of the department by Oswald
Oberhuber in 1987, the concepts of art and knowledge themselves have undergone multiple transformation processes. Since art
began to take an interest in the social sciences and humanities, which in the 1960s increasingly came to explore questions
of everyday life in order to determine the conditions under which cultural goods are produced, a form of knowledge production
arose under the term Cultural Studies, where science and scholarship in the field of art were no longer limited to just art
history and critique. Interdisciplinarity was a buzzword that took hold again in the 1980s, giving rise to great expectations
for the renewal of not only artistic production but also the structures of art schools and universities. Today the concept
of arts-based research is central in addressing questions of knowledge production. In the post-war era artists like Asger
Jorn vehemently confronted the institutionalised sciences with the demand for the arts to have an opportunity to conduct research.
In the spirit of Jorn, the Department of Art and Knowledge Transfer views itself as a platform for engaged post-media
production of knowledge across the broad spectrum of fields at the University of Applied Arts. Furthermore, cooperations with
universities, art academies, and museums should help open the university and make the knowledge acquired in different formats
of project development accessible and useful for the outside world. Teaching, project development, exhibitions, publications,
and editions represent the formats in which the Art and Knowledge Transfer programme is conveyed.
