BAUHAUS.INSIGHTS: »Zwischen Magie und Handwerk«

For the BAUHAUS.INSIGHTS series, we asked Dr. Simon Frisch a few questions about his  »Zwischen Magie und Handwerk« podcast, which he will be launching on 8 April 2024.

Dr. Frisch, you’ve been involved with performative arts for a long time — how much does good teaching contribute to an interesting performance?

For me, each seminar is always in a small way like a stage performance. I’m always thinking about the space, use of media and dramatic composition: Where do I begin? How long will I speak for? When do I stand up and when do I sit down? What do I write on the board, what do I project as an image or show as a film, etc.? And when should I bring students’ voices into the room? This is always important, but especially in the first semester. It should actually begin right in the first session so that each individual is able to hear their own voice in the room. Each person at the university has a speaking role. This doesn’t mean that I’m staging a slaughter. I often search for the reduced, dry form of academic objectivity. Because I think a lot about how media is used, I sometimes don’t use it at all. Even if I don’t plan it out beforehand, I always think about the performance. Teaching takes place over time, in spaces. Each form of teaching has an effect, regardless of whether you consciously design it or not. And, yes, it’s a lot of fun if you play around with it and design it a bit like a play. In lectures, the performance is in front of an audience; in seminars, it’s best carried out as a symphony.

You have recorded more than 15 interviews so far for the »Zwischen Magie und Handwerk« podcast; have any of the interviews changed your perspective on teaching, and, if so, which ones?

Yes. I had an idea of and appreciation for teaching because I had had so many conversations about it — but never with this intensity and focus. Each conversation is the best, that’s how it feels, talking and listening. And that’s the magic of teaching: the awareness in the present moment. It’s the feeling that what’s happening right now is incredibly important. Across all of my talks, the one new thing I learned above all others is that instructors are particularly good at fully stepping into the present. In each conversation, there has been, how should I put it, a radical presence that extends to the very foundations of everything that is happening. Everything emerges from this. This is the power of the magic of teaching. And generating this is what instructors can do. They can do it simply because they have been doing it for a long time and they do it because they want to. Instructors probably enjoy teaching because they are always living fully in the present moments when they’re teaching. At least that’s how it is for me. But I’m also interested in the other side. I really want to talk to people who don’t like teaching. We’ll see if I can find anyone.

There are so many great instructors at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. How did you select the people you wanted to interview for the first season of your podcast?

More or less through association at first. I’d been compiling a list of names for a while in conversations with my colleagues and students. Naturally the first people I came up with were people I know. The criteria are: Variety of subjects and faculties, methods, personalities, status groups, age, etc. Since I’m planning to produce the podcast over several semesters, however, everyone still has a chance to »have their say« and I didn’t spend too long planning the first 14 episodes. Many of the conversations were the result of who had time. But it was especially important to me that students were also involved in the first season.

Knowledge is developing incredibly quickly. We’re going to need a large number of highly trained young people who can handle knowledge in an innovative and creative way. Why is the topic of teaching and learning still being overshadowed by research, for example?

I’m under no illusions — my thoughts are that it’s still because teaching doesn’t bring in money and ultimately can’t be represented in figures. Even headlines, key phrases and bold headlines can’t be made with or for teaching. Teaching costs money and requires resources; it doesn’t produce effects that can be immediately assessed. Teaching requires a space of trust and its process is slow and quiet. It’s not a dopamine producer. When I said earlier that instructors tend to be happy people, you have to understand that the happiness they feel isn’t one that comes with a feel-good kick. It’s another form of happiness. Teaching is not addictive or anything.

And: You can carry out and experience teaching, but it’s not something you can talk about very easily. So far, there hasn’t really been an aesthetic of teaching — there isn’t really a good way to present it to the outside world. Books, journals and essays on how to carry out good teaching are always a bit boring in the same way that how-to literature often is. And that’s not how good teaching should be. Perhaps this is the magic: something that can’t be translated into words or catalogues of guidelines and formulas. It sounds a bit cryptic and esoteric, but yes, magic. Which is why I called the podcast that But that doesn’t mean that this has to remain a secret forever. There is also the craft component. And the craft is something that can be learned. It’s again like acting.

But teaching isn’t a show for an audience. And it can’t become one either, that’s just how it is. You can’t transform everything into something else: Teaching demands commitment from everyone who makes teaching possible. In other words, the commitment to learning. Teaching requires the desire to learn. Teaching needs participation, not an audience. »Here we are now, entertain us« – that doesn’t work in teaching. It’s not entertainment, learning is work.

What key insights should those who are just starting to teach take away from your discussions? Or is teaching something that is always individual?

The central realisation when you start teaching is always that everything is too big and you don’t have the strength for it yet. You stumble your way through it because you don’t know the movements of teaching yet and, above all, you don’t have the strength or coordination. It’s not enough to know that if I wait, I can get a conversation going in a seminar. I have to endure this in the seminar and stay present at the same time. It happens sometimes that I think I'm waiting, but suddenly I realize that I'm actually disappearing through my silence. This causes the students to start occupying themselves with something else because I don't have the strength to maintain the momentum. Teaching is a relational activity. To a certain extent, it’s always individual.

Processes and procedures are things you’ve been interested in for a long time and »Zwischen Magie und Handwerk« is your first podcast. What have you learned in the process of producing a podcast in recent weeks?

That’s right. I made this podcast as a listener. And I didn’t make the podcast alone, we were a whole team. I didn’t really anticipate that such a big team would be needed. In the process, I learned what amazing people we have here at the university*. The Concept: I had a vague idea that I was constantly revising, sorting out what would work and what wouldn’t. One thing that was important to me from the very beginning was that the pauses, the stops, the breaths, things like that all stay in! Not so much because of the naturalness, but because I’m interested in sound objects. You might find it »raw« or »annoying« and, for all I care, »bad«. But for me and my intention, these passages are, in my opinion, not only more beautiful, but more importantly they correspond to something I’m interested in with this podcast: a kind of aesthetic of the recorded. This is the media-aesthetic concept of this podcast about teaching. And it also has a symbolic significance: Between magic and craft is where the unspeakable, the in-between spaces, the faltering, the breathing, the space, etc. belong, and these elements all also play an important role in teaching. Conversation is not simply a lesser form of a printed text; it’s its own form.

From the very beginning, I wanted to create a project that encourages us to do things and to not be afraid to publish, broadcast and show what we do and what we are like, even if we feel that we ourselves and our things are unfinished.  Inventing and creating things ourselves suits the Bauhaus-Universität; when the things we do look like us, we don't adapt them—or ourselves—to the expectations of others.

Working as part of a team has taught me one very important thing: everything is about trust. Everyone involved in this project had to have confidence in the idea and the process. Control is good, but trust is better. It’s a tremendous force and fuel for everything! And we manages to pull that off because we talked to each other about everything and at every stage. Even voicing our doubts, different demands and expectations. It all worked out really well. Amazing people!

I’ve already heard about other university members wanting to make podcasts. It’s a secret hope of mine that this will become a diverse format at our university. We have the technology, we know the process. Let’s get going!

You can find all further information on the podcast website: www.uni-weimar.de/lehre-podcast

The podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1CioJLbtO3itsLMXh0wSdw

The podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/zwischen-magie-und-handwerk/id1737978981

The BAUHAUS.INSIGHTS questions on the »Zwischen Magie und Handwerk« were asked by Claudia Weinreich.

* Steven Mehlhorn, Moritz Wehrmann and Zaryab Chaudhry are responsible for sound and technology, Jonas Rieger, Laura Khachab and Moritz Wehrmann are responsible for sound design and editing, Sebastian Lederle provided the wonderful music, the smart artwork was created by Andreas Wolter, Claudia Weinreich and Marit Haferkamp are responsible for marketing and social media, Laura Kister is our legal advisor, Christiane Hempel is responsible for digital accessibility, and Nicole Baron is the production coordinator with support from Salma Pethö-Zayed.