Talk in Nürnberg: Sonic mapping. The political art of Black Quantum Futurism
30 May 2025: During the festival Musikinstallationen Nürnberg, Christoph Haffter will give a talk on Moormother entitled: Sonic mapping. The political art of Black Quantum Futurism. It is part of a one-day conference
Exhibiting Music
An interdisciplinary conference
Academy of Fine Arts Nürnberg, 29-30 May 2025
What happens to music when it leaves its traditional sites? How do such musical interventions change places not usually devoted to music? This concerns not so much concerts that take place in museums, which leave intact music’s disciplinary and medial codes, or museums explicitly dedicated to music, which are hardly connected to contemporary artistic practice, but those contemporary musical practices that have moved to the sites and institutions of visual art. Even though they cannot always be unambiguously distinguished from sound art, these musical practices in the gallery, these exhibitions of making music represent a tendency in contemporary art that has hardly been theorized.
We want to look at the transformations music undergoes when it switches sites but remains music. What happens when it is confronted with other regimes of space and time, others perceptual and discursive norms, other economies of attention? To what extent does it have to change, what does it gain and what are its possibilities of changing the dispositives it moves into? How can making music be exhibited?
Unlike in the case of dance, there haven’t been any large international exhibitions dedicated to contemporary music, and very little has been written about music in the gallery and the museum. The conference, which is part of the festival Musik Installationen Nürnberg, aims at initiating a theoretical discourse on these phenomena and exploring their political implications and possibilities. It will be held in English.
Thursday 29 May
7 pm
Exhibiting Music: Problems and Perspectives
Panel with Shannon Jackson, Lina Lapelyte, Çağla Ilk, and Christian Grüny
Friday 30 May
9:30-10 am
Introduction by Christian Grüny
10-11 am
Shannon Jackson | Sound and Sociality Across the Arts
11-12 am
Artist talk: Lina Lapelyte | moderated by Kalas Liebfried
12-1:30 pm
Lunch break
1:30-2:30 pm
Doug Barrett | Hear for the Time Being: Art, Music, and Global Crisis
2:30-3:30 pm
Artist talk: Ari Benjamin Meyers | moderated by Anna Schürmer
3:30-4:30 pm
Curator talk: Sarah Johanna Theurer | moderated by Joshua Weitzel
4:30-5 pm
Coffee break
5-6 pm
Christoph Haffter | Sonic mapping. The political art of Black Quantum Futurism
6-7:30 pm
Final discussion
https://musikinstallationen.com/de/projekte/konferenz-musik-machen-ausstellen
Musik Machen Ausstellen
Eine interdisziplinäre Konferenz
Was geschieht mit der Musik, wenn sie ihre traditionellen Aufführungsorte verlässt, und wie verändern sich die nicht-musikalischen Kunstorte durch solche musikalischen Interventionen? Gemeint sind nicht im Museum stattfindende Konzerte, die an der disziplinären und medialen Verfasstheit der Musik nichts ändern, noch der Musik gewidmete Museen, die in der Regel mit der zeitgenössischen Produktion wenig zu tun haben – sondern eben jene musikalischen Produktionen der Gegenwart, die sich teilweise oder ganz in die Orte und Institutionen der bildenden Kunst verlagert haben. Auch wenn die Abgrenzung zu Klangkunst oder Sound Art nicht immer eindeutig ist, bezeichnet dieses Musik-Machen im Ausstellungsraum, das Ausstellen von musikalischer Praxis, eine besondere Tendenz der Gegenwartskunst, die bisher theoretisch noch kaum beachtet wurde.
Untersucht werden soll, was für Transformationen Musik unterworfen ist, wenn sie auf diese Weise den Ort wechselt und doch – dem Anspruch nach oder tatsächlich – Musik bleibt. Was geschieht, wenn sie mit anderen Raum- und Zeitregimen, Rezeptionsnormen, Aufmerksamkeitsökonomien und diskursiven Formationen konfrontiert ist? Wie muss sie sich verändern, was sind ihre Spielräume und was ihre Möglichkeiten, dieses Dispositiv selbst zu verändern? Kurz: Wie kann man Musikmachen ausstellen?
Anders als beim Tanz gab es bisher keine großen, international wahrgenommenen Ausstellungen, die der zeitgenössischen Musik gewidmet waren, und auch die Literatur zu Musik in Museum und Galerie ist überschaubar. Die Tagung, die Teil des Festivals Musik Installationen Nürnberg ist, soll einen Anstoß geben, sich intensiver mit diesem Phänomen zu beschäftigen, es systematisch theoretisch und historisch aufzuarbeiten und seine politischen Implikationen und Möglichkeiten auszuloten. Sie findet in englischer Sprache statt.
Do 29. Mai
19 Uhr
Podium: Shannon Jackson, Lina Lapelyte, Çağla Ilk und Christian Grüny | „Exhibiting Music: Problems and Perspectives“
Fr 30. Mai
9:30-10 Uhr
Einleitung von Christian Grüny
10-11 Uhr
Vortrag von Shannon Jackson | „Sound and Sociality Across the Arts“
11-12 Uhr
Künstler:innengespräch: Lina Lapelyte | Moderation: Kalas Liebfried
12-13:30 Uhr
Pause
13:30-14:30 Uhr
Vortrag von Doug Barrett | „Hear for the Time Being: Art, Music, and Global Crisis“
14:30-15:30 Uhr
Künstler:innengespräch: Ari Benjamin Meyers | Moderation: Anna Schürmer
15:30-16:30 Uhr
Kurator:innengespräch: Sarah Johanna Theurer | Moderation: Joshua Weitzel
16:30-17 Uhr
Pause
17-18 Uhr
Vortrag von Christoph Haffter | „Sonic mapping. The political art of Black Quantum Futurism“
18-19:30 Uhr
Abschlussdiskussion
https://musikinstallationen.com/de/projekte/konferenz-musik-machen-ausstellen
Talk in Graz: Materialism as Critical Theory
Christoph Haffter will give a talk on Materialism as Critical Theory
Radikales Denken im Anthropozän
Theorien und Konzepte Kritischer Theorie
Internationale Konferenz, 26.-28. Juni 2025, Universität Graz
Critical theory is more than a scientific theory that criticizes social injustice. According to its historical definition in the Frankfurt School, it rather describes a peculiar, self-critical form of theory. This makes it compatible with a certain conception of philosophical materialism: a theory that scrutinizes theoretical claims in light of their material conditions. Such critical materialism does not denote a world view or a fundamental theory of reality, but a certain type of theoretical self-reflection.
In this light, I would like to look at theoretical currents that have been associated in recent decades under the umbrella term New Materialisms (Karen Barad, Jane Bennett, Donna Haraway) and have been particularly well received in art theory and environmental politics. Contrary to a widespread misunderstanding, these are not theories in the classical sense, but rather fusions of social criticism and theoretical self-reflection. At their center lies a critical account of the entanglement of theory with the domination of nature. Nor is the affinity to art a merely external feature of these theories but is based on methodological peculiarities that transcend the norms of the scientific community.
Despite these similarities, the New Materialisms appear have a naturalistic trait that runs counter to the Marxist core of Critical Theory. In this lecture, I would like to work out the main features of these theoretical endeavours in order to answer the question whether the New Materialisms can nevertheless be understood as a contemporary form of Critical Theory, or whether they can at least be integrated into such a theory. The decisive factor in this question will be how the vague expression of the "material conditions" on which Critical Theories reflect can be contoured.
Talk in Strasbourg: Music and Action
24.9.2025: Christoph Haffter will give a talk at the conference "Music and Action" in Strasbourg which is organised by Daniel Feige and Alessandro Bertinetto in collaboration with the festival Musica Strasbourg.