Portrait - Prof. Dr. David A. Koslav
 
   
Born: 29/02/1968

Universities
SS 2007: Professor for Media Studies, Potsdam
Spring 2005: Research Fellowship at Carnegie Mellon
Oct. 2001: PhD Philosophy of Media

Background
studied in London, Karlsruhe and Boston
Doctoral thesis on Postmodernism and Genetics (1999)

Major Publication
Ontological Problems in Concepts of Teleportation, MIT Press 2006

Research Interest
questions of matter in media studies

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Sorry for any crosspostings


Call for Papers

»Media art reconsidered« 11.-13.12. 2008

Institute for Media Arts, University of Potsdam

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The Context of Rubicon: A Neomodernist constructive approach to media art?

According to M. Bartholdy and C. Strasnoff, in contemporary media art a predominant concept seems to be the concept of material reality.* Thus, a new school of narratives concerning postcapitalist materialism may be found. If neomodernist constructive theory in media art holds, these works are not to be discussed in non-postmodern concepts/terms. Moreover, the main theme of their model of sub-patriarchial theory is a mythopoetical paradox: The primary theme of contemporary media art is not, in fact, discourse, but prediscourse like for instance shit. In a certain way, H. Muller suggests the use of modern Marxism, deconstructing and modifying sexual identity. Therefore, several discourses concerning predesublimation may be found.

“Art is part of the genre of non-language,” says M. Badiou. Thus, he suggests the use of structural subcultural theory to deconstruct sexist perceptions of media art. If constructive theory holds, we have to choose between postcapitalist materialism and materialistic deconstruction.

It could be said that media art is un-dead. On the other hand, the actual deterritorialisation of subversive postmodern cinema suggests a revival of what Bartholdy and Strasnoff called „the impact of digital identity“. If all this implies a growing epistomologic virtuality, how does this affect our understanding?

Lit.: Bartholdy and Strasnoff, Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Postcapitalist Materialism, Social Text, 12 (3) 2006, pp. 13-27.

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We hereby invite you to send exposés of your papers, not more tham 2000 characters long. Our conference will be taking place from the 11th until the 13th of December 2008 at the University of Potsdam, Institute for Media Arts. The deadline of submission is the 30th of April 2008.

Conference language: English

Submissions and further contact: Prof. Dr. David Koslav (david.koslav@web.de)