1. What is a question to you?
A pause, a prompt, exploring, sensing, a shifting of boundaries, but also an excuse, an escape, a provocation, or criticism. Above all, however, it is a way of interrupting the monologue of judgment.
2. From an artistic or a scientific perspective?
As a mode of criticism and thinking it connects both perspectives.
3. Can you conduct research artistically and create art through research?
Yes, even if this does not automatically lead to an answer or a piece of art.
4. In your dissertation, published in 2013, you analyzed hurtful speech and criticism interrogatively. Why did you do this?
Initially, I wanted to develop a scientific theory on the critical capacity to act with regard to language and violence. When reading the then-current papers on hurtful speech, however, new questions arose with every thesis, every term, and every answer.
5. For example?
Is silence a form of speaking? Is the voice part of the body? Are we able to think outside of categorizations? Can we perceive something within them? How long do contexts actually last and where do they begin?
6. What was the problem?
I realized that I am only able to ponder this range of topics interrogatively and that the question itself is a form of criticism. One question led to another, every categorization, naming, and argumentation seemed questionable to me – in terms of content, but also rhythmically and, above all, visually.
7. Which solutions did you find?
Among other things, I created a choreography of 943 questions. As monotype images, as oil drawings, hung next to and on top of each other in a room, they defy any linear legibility.
8. To what effect?
You have to approach it with your own body and determine the reading directions in the room yourself. You quickly become overwhelmed, but that is also the point: I no longer wanted to name and prove hurtful speech but focus on perception and encounter.
9. Your doctoral thesis has become a piece of art in this way. How and where is that possible?
I did my doctorate at the Bauhaus in Weimar, the first university in Germany to make this possible in the field of “liberal arts”. At that time, there were exciting discussions about what such a doctorate could look like, both in terms of content and form.
10. The title of your thesis is „Von WIR und IHR zum WIHR“ (From WE and YOU to WEYOU). What is this about?
I ask if and how there can be a WIHR, i.e., a WE which always already contains a YOU. I am still thinking about this WIHR today but would now extend it to non-human beings and perhaps also to non-beings. Perhaps to a GEO CUM, but that is still in progress.
11. When the artwork is exhibited, the 943 questions are visible and audible at the same time. Why?
When reading and hearing them, they are linked with each other and have a completely different effect than on a visual and spatial level. All levels come together in lecture performances.
12. You call asking questions an emancipatory act. In what sense is that the case?
Not everyone always finds it easy or possible to ask questions in such a way that they are heard. Questioning something at all, initially on your own, can be empowering, a form of critical capacity to act.
13. When you speak about “responsibility”, you emphasize that the “response” is linguistically contained. Why?
It is important for me to meet a response in a responsible way and to deal with it in an honest way. Continuing a conversation instead of ending it with an answer would be a good start.
14. What are you currently working on?
I am refining, theoretically and practically, various concepts, such as on art practice as a speculative reflection, a theory of “aesthetic disobedience” or understanding responsibility as an affect for which you can increase your awareness. But also on the connection between artistic research and emancipatory teaching, especially in light of the climate catastrophe.
15. Do you see yourself more as a scientist or an artist?
I pursue both fields, but they often merge or cannot be separated in advance. When it comes to art, I can certainly conduct more “undisciplined” research and combine topics and working methods that initially seem to have nothing in common to form new constellations.
16. How does your scientific thinking influence your artistic thinking?
In my opinion, thinking itself disregards disciplinary actions and boundaries. The painter Gerhard Richter once put it like this, “Painting is another form of thinking,” so another way of thinking, but a material one. But if I accept these divisions of genres, then the desire for completeness and verifiability as well as working with linear notations would be something “classically academic”.
17. And vice versa?
Following an intuition without knowing where it might lead. Taking associations seriously without a pre-formulated goal. I would turn Gerhard Richter’s sentence around: “Thinking is another form of painting.” In other words, engaging with existing elements, opening up the form, revealing the act of showing itself and thus arriving at a new surface, a new image that can be continued indefinitely.
18. What roles do intuition and perception play in that?
Losing control without giving up responsibility. Embracing new and unchartered ideas. Intuition and sensation are not exclusively reserved for “the arts”. I am interested in modes of working that do not prematurely reduce something worth thinking or asking to a research object but that treat questions thoroughly, that do not want to objectify the unavailable at any price and consider that content and thought are inseparable from their form and articulation.
19. As a Professor of Artistic Practice, you train teachers in the subject of art. What is your intention?
I want to convey art practice to students as a way of understanding and shaping the world and get them excited. Art has the ability to take a critical look at pressing social issues, to speculatively continue with a “what-if” and “what-else” and to try out alternatives. And if student teachers pass this on to children and adolescents, we can perhaps look to our future with more hope after all.
20. Why is it important for the teaching profession that students work artistically themselves?
Because in this way they experience the possibilities of art themselves and develop confidence in their own abilities to then pursue their own projects. To do this, they first try out how to deal with the unknown, connect with the world, and critically expand their perception.
21. How do you achieve this?
With even small changes in perspective: Try writing your signature in reverse on paper. Then you will feel how writing, image, and movement are connected and what role embodied knowledge and experience play in our thinking. Exercises like this expand your awareness of conditioning and conventions that need to be unlearned - even in “science”.
22. Do you include your students in your artistic research?
Yes, they develop their own approaches to the topics and working methods that I impart and which I then take up again in my teaching, for example in my course “Have it your own way!”
23. What happens there? Is it true to its title?
The students have to agree upon the topics, the artistic research-based working methods but also the seminar structure as a whole and my role in it. In doing this, we test together what art is and can do, how emancipatory teaching and artistic research are connected and what university and school could be like. This way, teaching itself becomes an artistic project that involves everyone.
24. How do you examine your students? Do you expect answers? Or counterquestions?
I really expect answers. And it is important to me to create an atmosphere that makes it possible to ask questions. There is no question not worth asking.
25. And how do you assess the performance?
Above all, I assess how involved the students are in their own artistic process. This is very individual and has to be treated as such.
26. You don’t get tired of emphasizing the great importance of aesthetic education. Where do you see the biggest need for action?
The art subject competes with other subjects for legitimacy and prestige. Instead, its potential for creating knowledge for all other subjects should finally be recognized, used, and valued more. Of course, the same applies to music.
27. What would need to change fundamentally?
The fact that the state of Brandenburg is once again offering a teaching degree in art after many years is an important step. But there must be more appreciation for it. This goes hand in hand with strengthening resources.
28. Also here, at the university?
Yes, also here. Artistic teaching, including music practice, is valued less than academic teaching, which is reflected in the threefold teaching obligation. In general, however, a lot has already happened: We have new studios, we have more equipment, and a rising number of students. We should not compete against each other.
29. What will be particularly important in the future?
To not separate art and science into two clearly defined categories. Recognition and validity should be equal while taking their specific characteristics into account. Everyone would benefit from a higher status – a society without art is diminished at all levels, not least politically.
30. How do you convey this to the students?
By allowing them to experience art as a place of discourse where we can form an idea of the world, question worldviews, and establish new visual worlds. I want to show that we generate knowledge here that radiates into all areas and that art practice can be understood as a speculative reflection and critical ability to act that concerns everyone.
31. How can this be communicated to the outside?
Our students will later have a fundamental impact on society in schools and shape future generations, which is why teacher training comes with an enormous responsibility. A lot is also happening in the field of art education, with which we are closely linked as an artistic practice. Our exhibitions also contribute to local social discourses, for example in the Potsdam Computer Center, where we have our own studio, in the event location “Waschhaus,” or in cooperation with the chamber Academy, but also with nationwide and international projects.
32. You recently organized your first art show on Golm Campus. Will there be more in the future?
I would like to open our practice rooms for exhibitions and extend our annual exhibition, the “Rundgang” (“Tour”), to the whole campus. We could also offer art projects for the general public during the semester break, but this is time-consuming and labor-intensive. Our team is great, but small.
33. Do you see resources, nonetheless?
There are many things that could be jointly used: workshops, media pools, project structures, and a lot of competences – also outside the university. We are only just beginning to exploit what already exists and to network. I hope that we will also be able to expand our human resources in the future.
Maja Linke has been Professor of Artistic Practice with a Focus on Painting/Graphics at the University of Potsdam since 2023.
This text (in german language) was published in the university magazine Portal - Zwei 2024 „Europa“ (PDF).