Crisis of Reality

Crisis of reality have often been proclaimed - by the avant-gardes of modernity, by the existentialists, by postmodernism and its radical constructivisms and deconstructions. Yet these were crises proclaimed by the respective movement itself, in most cases even desired: They were crises that testified more to the power and dominance of the realisms of their time. At present, however, the theoretical debates ranging from New Realism to Speculative Realism refer more to the desire to preserve the concept of reality as such. That this is necessary has to do with another crisis, this time not proclaimed but found.

So the current reality crisis seems to be different from the previous ones - but what exactly is the difference? This question can only be answered in an interdisciplinary way, because the current crisis does not stem only from a 'zeitgeist' but from changes in the cultural, economic, socio-political and psychological structure. And since the arts have maintained a special relationship to reality since the emergence of the concept of reality, they are particularly suited to making crises of reality observable, perceptible and describable.The artsprogram and the chairs of cultural theory and art theory at Zeppelin University initiated a series of interdisciplinary scientific and artistic events that dealt with the current crises of reality. During the conference, representatives from economics, cultural studies, media studies, philosophy and the arts exchanged their views on the crises of reality. Through the inclusion of examples from literature and the fine arts, light was shed on questions of how: To what extent is our information society no longer a reality society? Which media put reality at risk or out of action? What do they put in their place? Have the concepts of simulation and virtuality perhaps been described too early to do justice to contemporary figurations? Did these theories perhaps contribute to the current crisis of reality? What role do the various artificial intelligences play? What are the political consequences of the current crisis of reality? Is it possible to dispense with reality, or at least its concept? And if so, what takes its place?

The symposium was accompanied by two art and exhibition projects with an accompanying programme. Since 2016, the artist Christopher Kulendran Thomas has been working with an interdisciplinary team on the model project "New Eelam", which seeks to develop identity beyond citizenship or permanent residence. In the White Box, New Eelam set up a temporary artistic project office, in which a team of technology and real estate specialists, designers and students worked on a speculative project for radical flexibilisation of life and reflected and developed questions about global nomadic life forms. In the exhibition "Archaeology of the Present - Memory, Media, Matter", the London collective Forensic Architecture (FA) around the Israeli architect Eyal Weizman showed a presentation of three recent works specially developed for Zeppelin University.

The symposium was accompanied by two art and exhibition projects with an accompanying program. Since 2016, the artist Christopher Kulendran Thomas has been working with an interdisciplinary team on the model project "New Eelam", which seeks to develop identity beyond citizenship or permanent residence. In the White Box, New Eelam set up a temporary artistic project office. In the exhibition "Archaeology of the Present - Memory, Media, Matter", the London collective Forensic Architecture (FA) around the Israeli architect Eyal Weizman subsequently showed a presentation of three recent works specially developed for Zeppelin University.

Crises of Reality was sponsored by the GLS-Bank and the Chamber of Architects Baden-Württemberg, Chamber Group Bodenseekreis.