Footnotes is a Summer School for academics, professionals, students and curious people organised by School of Commons. It took place from 29 August to 1 September 2022, on the campus of the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). Footnotes is conceived as a Live Action Role-Playing Game, which will unfurl from a speculative scenario. Assume a fictional character to interpret and design future realities. No prior experience needed.

Footnotes is split into three workshop days and two conference days. You can register for the workshops and the conference separately, but you are also welcome to attend both. Choose between seven groups, each exploring a specific theme: Digital Cultures of Education, Art and Society, Inter- and Transdisciplinarity, Knowledge Commons, Institutional Structures and Strategies, Ecological and Social Sustainability, the Institutional vs. the Non-Institutional.

A debrief dinner on the last night will return us back to our present time and allow us to reflect on the ‘lessons learned’ during play.

Footnotes is a place for trans-temporal exchange. It recalls various practices that have historically activated the place of the margin be it as a form of resistance found in feminist practices of critical pedagogy, the tradition of black radical thought, as an artistic gesture in the 19th century, and as a form of intervention and conversation between different readers as seen in medieval scriptures. The annotation is mostly used to subvert the Learning Platform and the knowledge body that was enlisted there.

It had found a way to bypass the gate-keeping enforced along the borders of the institutionally validated and canonized corpus. Are these places strictly separated? Of course not. There is a rich and mutual knowledge transfer that is entertained from both sides. Anyways, most people are stood with at least one foot inside the institution. This movement had often been called a dance as writers of Footnotes were swaying and tiptoeing to find exposure and still avoid capture.

The story so far ︎︎︎

WORKSHOPS
29 — 30 AUGUST9:30-17:00
31 AUGUST 9:30-13:00


Over the course of two and a half days, each group engages in concentrated, in-depth investigations of the respective theme, departing from an initial prompt. This prompt is released as a pre-recorded video-lecture before the start of the workshop. It serves as the main body of text, and undergo annotation, explication and extension in the form of footnotes. The workshops are designed to produce these footnotes, through which different scenarios for the future of arts education are fleshed out.

︎︎︎Footnotes Channel
︎︎︎ Video lectures from 2045

The workshop is divided into seven groups, based on the research themes of Footnotes:


DIS/CONTINUITIES [Digital Cultures of Education]

ORGANOLOGY [Art and Society]

CHAOS/MOSIS [Inter- and Transdisciplinarity]

COMMONALITIES [Knowledge Commons]

RE/PROGRAMMING [Institutional Structures and Strategies]

SYMBIOSIS [Ecological and Social Sustainability]

PLASTICITY [Institutional vs. Non-Institutional Education]

CONFERENCE
31 AUGUST 2022
16:00-20:00 01 SEPTEMBER 2022 9:30-19:00

The two-day conference will further unpack the proposed research themes, discursively collecting all the footnotes and annotating them anew as an appendix. The workshop groups are invited to share their footnotes (workshop proceedings) in conversation with invited speakers. Additionally, the speakers will respond based on their own practices and experiences.

Day One

16:00 - 16:30 Welcome Apéro

16:30 - 16:40 Welcome Note

16:40 - 17:10 Footnotes: The Prologue 7

17:10 - 18:10 ORGANOLOGY: Art School and Society with School of Intrusions
+ input by Edwin Ramirez, Criptonite

18:10 - 18:30 BREAK

18:30 - 19:30  DIS/CONTINUITIES: Digital Cultures of Education with Baruch Gottlieb
+ input by Clara Balaguer

19:30 - 20:00 Footnotes: Intermission, Outro

Day Two

09:30 - 10:00 Welcome Coffee

10:00 - 10:30 Footnotes: Intermission, Intro
+ input by Brett Neilson

10:30 - 11:30 PLASTICITY: Institutional vs.Non-Institutional Education with Will Furtado, Contemporary&
+ input by Omsk Social Club

11:30 - 12:30 CHAOS/MOSIS: Within and Beyond the Discipline with Thea Reifler & Philipp Bergman, Shedhalle
+ input by manuel arturo abreu

12:30 - 13:30 LUNCH BREAK

13:30 - 14:30 RE/PROGRAMMING: Institutional Structures and Strategies with Lina Dokuzović
+ input by Marta Malo de Molina

14:30 - 15:30 SYMBIOSIS: Ecological and Social Sustainability with Klasse Klima
+ input by Ama Josephine Budge

15:30 - 16:00 BREAK

16:00 - 17:00  COMMONALITIES: Learning from the Commons with Brandy Butler  
+ input by Silvia Federici and Jack Hogan

17:00 - 17:30 Footnotes: The Epilogue

17:30 - 19:00 BREAK

19:00 - 21:00 Debrief Dinner