Podcast:
Lose Enden in Archiven.
Archival theory and archival practice
With Knut Ebeling
In German
Lose Enden in Archiven is a four-part podcast that explores some unanswered questions about archival practice, theory, exhibition- and institutional history, and ties them to the new archive at KUNST-WERKE BERLIN e. V.
The podcast is conceived and moderated by Jenny Dirksen and Lara Scherrieble.
Installation view of the exhibition History Will Repeat Itself—Strategies of Re-enactment in Contemporary Art at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, 2007; photo: Uwe Walter
That there is an overlap between the archival theories of, for example, Michel Foucault, Arlette Farge, and Jacques Derrida – or even the more recent theories of Achille Mbembe and Ann Laura Stoler – and practical archival work is often assumed, but hardly the case. In conversation with Knut Ebeling, we are looking for the reasons of this lack of exchange and examine aspects of archival theory in terms of how they can be made useful for practical archival work.
Knut Ebeling is Professor of Media Theory and Aesthetics in the Department of Theory and History at the weissensee school of art and design berlin. As a philosopher, media theorist, and art critic, his publications include “There Is No Now. An Archeology of Contemporaneity” (Berlin 2017) and “Wild Archeologies 2. Theories of the Materiality of Time from Archive to Destruction” (Berlin 2016, in German), and “Care. Autotheory of mourning.“ (Hamburg 2021, in German).
Production: Franz Schütte, Nadel Eins Studio Berlin
Sound recording: Large Dark Wind Chime by Klaus Weber, currently installed in KW’s courtyard
Speaker: Mareike Hein