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Preparatory Sessions (Online): April 4th, 11th 25th and May 9th 2025
Erasmus+ Blended Intensiv Program (BIP). A collaboration between Bauhaus University Weimar (Sound Ecologies and Media Environments), the Estonian Academy of Arts (Master of Craft Studies), Potsdam University of Applied Sciences (Department of Design) and the Unniversity of Applied Arts (Transformation Studies) Vienna,Austria.
<br>Field visit, Narva, Estonia (including travel days): 18.5. – 25.5.2025
<br>Follow up & Project Review (online): June 20th and July 5th 2025


Prof. Ursula Damm, Prof. Kerstin Ergenzinger, Mindaugas Gapševičius (Bauhaus University Weimar)
Prof. Ursula Damm, Prof. Kerstin Ergenzinger, Mindaugas Gapševičius (Bauhaus University Weimar)
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<br>Prof. Kärt Ojavee (Estonian Academy of Arts)
<br>Prof. Kärt Ojavee (Estonian Academy of Arts)


NUMBER OF ECTS AWARDED: 6 (4 SWS)
<big>'''SCHEDULE'''</big>


Topics addressed: energy transitions, extractivism, industrial waste as material witness and driver of (geo)political transformations and change.
'''Preparatory Sessions (Online):''' April 4th, 11th 25th and May 9th 2025
<br>'''Field visit, Narva, Estonia''' (including travel days): 18.5. – 25.5.2025
<br>'''Follow up & Project Review''' (online): June 20th and July 5th 2025


== Syllabus ==
'''<big>ECTS AWARDED: 6 (4 SWS)</big>'''
 
'''Topics addressed:''' energy transitions, extractivism, industrial waste as material witness and driver of (geo)political transformations and change.
 
=== SYLLABUS ===
* 04.04.2025 [[GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Welcome & Introduction|Welcome & Introduction]]
* 11.04.2025 [[GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Social & Political History of Oil Shale Production|Social & Political History of Oil Shale Production]]
* 11.04.2025 [[GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Social & Political History of Oil Shale Production|Social & Political History of Oil Shale Production]]
* 25.04.2025 [[GMU:Re-enchanting the field/The geo-history of oil shale in Estonia|The geo-history of oil shale in Estonia]]
* 25.04.2025 [[GMU:Re-enchanting the field/The geo-history of oil shale in Estonia|The geo-history of oil shale in Estonia]] + Methodological Briefing
* 09.05.2025 [[GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Preparation for Travel|Preparation for Travel]]


FIELDWEEK May 18th – 25


The Chairs of Acoustic Ecologies and Media Environments invite students from Media Art and Design program to apply for a week-long field experiment in Narva, Estonia, near the Russian border. In collaboration with colleagues from the University of Applied Arts Vienna (School for Transformation), the Estonian Academy of Arts (Master of Craft Studies), and Potsdam University of Applied Sciences (Department of Design) we investigate the material legacy of oil shale extraction in the Baltic region, focusing in particular on the historical entanglement of energy, substances, landscapes, and bodies, and their unintended proliferations and designs.
* 19.05.2025 [[GMU:Re-enchanting the field/EKA, Tallinn|EKA, Tallinn]]
* 20.05.2025 [[GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Travelling to Narva|Travelling to Narva]]
* 21.05.2025 [[GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Field visit auvre|Field visit auvre]]
* 22.05.2025 Independent work on projects / practical experiments
* 23.05.2025 Independent work on projects / practical experiments
* 24.05.2025 All-day group presentations & Feedback
* 25.05.2025 Travel Day
 
 
 
==== '''<big>PROGRAM DESCRIPTION</big>''' ====
This course offers an intensive training in elemental ethnography and ecological research. During a week long fieldvisit to Narva, Estonia, near the Russian border we will  investigate the material legacy of oil shale extraction in the Baltic region, focusing in particular on the historical entanglement of energy, substances, landscapes, and bodies, and their unintended proliferations and designs. The fieldvisit will be preceded by 4 online lectures to provide context and to introduce us to the main topcis and cpnceptual framing of our research.  


Our main aim is to engage with the emergent properties of bio/geo-chemical waste in their broader geopolitical context and to unpack how they hold landscapes and bodies in colonial relations, long after the mining activities have been shut down.
Our main aim is to engage with the emergent properties of bio/geo-chemical waste in their broader geopolitical context and to unpack how they hold landscapes and bodies in colonial relations, long after the mining activities have been shut down.


More specifically we want to explore the recurrent cycles of decomposition, death and renewal that are shaping the ambivalent landscapes of extractivism in Estonia, making their queer connections and affinities visible and apparent for critical inquiry and future research.
===METHODOLOGY & TASKS===
Together with local residents and field guides, we will visit ash mountains, ghost villages and abandoned manufacturing plants, built under Soviet Occupation (1941 – 1991), when oil shale production was at its historical height. Additional insights will be provided by scientific inputs from researchers in biology, geology, and environmental history in preparatory sessions online.
The outcome of this collaborative exercise will be documented in a shared workbook (digital/online publication) based on group projects conducted in the field. The workbook will be designed as a living index of liminal relations that sustain the shale oil ecosystem, mapping how they animate, de/recompose and transform social and natural landscapes, organisms and bodies at different speeds, durations and levels of intensity. Drawing on acoustic sensing, environmental mappings, and elemental ethnography / bio-geochemical analysis, we hope to reveal the less noticeable tensions, collaborations, and attunements that emerge from ‘non-consensual inhabitations’ (Masco) and forced transfers and unpack how they facilitate and/or disrupt land-body relations against a backdrop of shifting geopolitical borders and energy regimes.


Oil shales are marine fossils stored in rocks containing kerogen that can be converted into crude oil and gas. The northeast of Estonia is extremely rich in oil shale reserves that have attracted the interest of imperial powers and totalitarian regimes throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The unfettered violence of colonial and capitalist extraction has left behind vast mountains of industrial ash, and polluting materials, that are waiting to be remediated and disposed. The enduring legacy of toxic waste in open dumps next to forests, rivers, and unused agricultural lands has created its own queer ecologies that collectively remake environments in which received boundaries between waste, residue and resource, or regenerative materials are continuously renegotiated, reconfigured and redrawn.
===LEARNING OBJECTIVES===
Participants in this workshop will develop an understanding of bio-chemical processes and relations as critical infrastructures of geopolitical transformations and recognize how socio-ecological change is as much about (re)configuring life and responsibility beyond the individual body (Murphy, 2017, p. 479) as it is premised upon structures of violence and extraction that require land and bodies as sacrifice zones.


During this 5 day workshop, we want to explore the recurrent cycles of decomposition, death and renewal that are shaping the ambivalent landscapes of extractivism in Estonia, making their queer connections and affinities visible and apparent for critical inquiry and future research. “Queer” in this context does not necessarily describe something that already exists. Rather, queer inaugurates a certain kind of future of intelligibility for beings and collectives who are not yet available for explication. Hence, we consider the shale oil waste dumps as post-natural worlds, traversed by imperial and capitalist relations, whose historically specific modes of (chemo/techno)sociality and untapped potentials we seek to understand.
===COURSE MATERIALS===
'''Course Materials (all)'''


===METHODOLOGY & TASKS===
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HV75lDkZEHdtrAgx0-7SFfqAEqqGSGdL
 
'''Social and Cultural History of Oil Shale Production in Estonia (Text)'''
 
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rlz26-7diSfn2Mp-YVLSBt_TdLZdldKl?usp=drive_link
 
'''Environmental Studies (Text)'''


Toxicity is a specific genre of harm that describes the (re)ordering of living systems across timeframes and scales. Following Tironi and Liberoin, (p. 336;) it creates shared conditions for what thrives and what is altered, what ‘persist[s] and redistributes[s] ‘ and ‘what is destroyed, injured, and constrained’ both as a premise for other things to thrive (Murphy, 2017: 141–142).
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yM6MCDSTPJWmKqPqw7r_KL6FQKmc9tjP?usp=drive_link


During the one-week residency in Estonia, we trace this reordering of life across the entire life cycle of oil shales - from their site of extraction along the Estonian coastline, to fossil fuel processing plants, all the way to the open waste dumps and riverbeds, where the toxic sludge and the industrial ash are deposited and dumped.
'''Ecology (Text)'''


Together with local residents and field guides, we will visit ash mountains, ghost villages and abandoned manufacturing plants, built under Soviet Occupation (1941 – 1991), when oil shale production was at its historical height. Additional insights will be provided by scientific inputs from researchers in biology, geology, and environmental history in preparatory sessions online.
*"Ocean earth: 1980 bis heute: 1980 bis heute. Ausstellung Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum im Künstlerhaus Graz, Febr./März 1993"; Peter Weibel, Peter Fend, Thomas Donga Heike Rekampe ISBN 978-3927789722
* "Microhabitable"; Fernando Garcia Dory and Lucia Pietroiusti ISBN 978-3753303864
* "[https://www.diaphanes.net/titel/technologies-of-care-7046 Technologies of Care" by Yvonne Volkart]
 
'''Methodology'''


Our main task will be to create a living index of liminal relations that sustain the shale oil ecosystem, mapping how they animate, de/recompose and transform social and natural landscapes, organisms and bodies at different speeds, durations and levels of intensity. Drawing on acoustic sensing, environmental mappings, and elemental ethnography / bio-geochemical analysis, we hope to reveal the less noticeable tensions, collaborations, and attunements that emerge from ‘non-consensual inhabitations’ (Masco) and forced transfers and unpack how they facilitate and/or disrupt land-body relations against a backdrop of shifting geopolitical borders and energy regimes.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nHvoJGnypVfDTGesCPSrxdQw5lTeQ2i8?usp=drive_link


===Participants===
* Feral Atlas feralatlas.org
===EXPECTATIONS===
Participation in the trip to Estonia 18. -25. May 2025
<br>Interest in discourse, reading, research as well as hands-on material experiments around anthropocene & feral landscapes, relationality, more-than-human design, interdisciplinary, experimental and poetic approaches, team work
<br>Documentation and experimental storytelling (transferring findings and relations into visual, sonic, experimental narratives). These narratives will be published on a dedicated course website.
===PARTICIPANTS===
Bauhaus Universität Weimar
Bauhaus Universität Weimar
* [[/Cosmo Schüppel]]
* [[/Cosmo Schüppel]]
Line 73: Line 115:
* [[/Mariam Mestvirishvili]]
* [[/Mariam Mestvirishvili]]
* [[/Hannah Caroline Segerkrantz]]
* [[/Hannah Caroline Segerkrantz]]
===OUTCOMES===
The outcome of our material probes and observations will be documented in a shared workbook (digital/online publication) based on group projects conducted in the field.
Participants in this workshop will develop an understanding of bio-chemical processes and relations as critical infrastructures of geopolitical transformations and recognize how socio-ecological change is as much about (re)configuring life and responsibility beyond the individual body (Murphy, 2017, p. 479) as it is premised upon structures of violence and extraction that require land and bodies as sacrifice zones.


===BUDGET===
===BUDGET===


Participants receive stipends from the Erasmus programme to cover travel expenses.
Participants receive stipends from the Erasmus programme to cover travel expenses.
===ACCOMMODATION===
===ACCOMMODATION===


Line 93: Line 127:


https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DB6yc_PfR_PKR0QnDerWHTY-JDR-xenj?usp=drive_link
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DB6yc_PfR_PKR0QnDerWHTY-JDR-xenj?usp=drive_link
===EXPECTATIONS===
Participation in the trip to Estonia 18. -25. May 2025
<br>Interest in discourse, reading, research as well as hands-on material experiments around anthropocene & feral landscapes, relationality, more-than-human design, interdisciplinary, experimental and poetic approaches, team work
<br>Documentation and experimental storytelling (transferring findings and relations into visual, sonic, experimental narratives). These narratives will be published on a dedicated course website.
===MATERIALS===
'''Course Materials (all)'''
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HV75lDkZEHdtrAgx0-7SFfqAEqqGSGdL
'''Social and Cultural History of Oil Shale Production in Estonia (Text)'''
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rlz26-7diSfn2Mp-YVLSBt_TdLZdldKl?usp=drive_link
'''Environmental Studies (Text)'''
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yM6MCDSTPJWmKqPqw7r_KL6FQKmc9tjP?usp=drive_link
'''Ecology (Text)'''
*"Ocean earth: 1980 bis heute: 1980 bis heute. Ausstellung Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum im Künstlerhaus Graz, Febr./März 1993"; Peter Weibel, Peter Fend, Thomas Donga Heike Rekampe ISBN 978-3927789722
* "Microhabitable"; Fernando Garcia Dory and Lucia Pietroiusti ISBN 978-3753303864
* "[https://www.diaphanes.net/titel/technologies-of-care-7046 Technologies of Care" by Yvonne Volkart]
'''Methodology'''
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nHvoJGnypVfDTGesCPSrxdQw5lTeQ2i8?usp=drive_link
* Feral Atlas feralatlas.org

Revision as of 08:28, 25 April 2025

Erasmus+ Blended Intensiv Program (BIP). A collaboration between Bauhaus University Weimar (Sound Ecologies and Media Environments), the Estonian Academy of Arts (Master of Craft Studies), Potsdam University of Applied Sciences (Department of Design) and the Unniversity of Applied Arts (Transformation Studies) Vienna,Austria.

Prof. Ursula Damm, Prof. Kerstin Ergenzinger, Mindaugas Gapševičius (Bauhaus University Weimar)
Prof. Monika Halkort (University of Applied Arts Vienna)
Prof. Myriel Milicevic (Potsdam University of Applied Sciences)
Prof. Kärt Ojavee (Estonian Academy of Arts)

SCHEDULE

Preparatory Sessions (Online): April 4th, 11th 25th and May 9th 2025
Field visit, Narva, Estonia (including travel days): 18.5. – 25.5.2025
Follow up & Project Review (online): June 20th and July 5th 2025

ECTS AWARDED: 6 (4 SWS)

Topics addressed: energy transitions, extractivism, industrial waste as material witness and driver of (geo)political transformations and change.

SYLLABUS

FIELDWEEK May 18th – 25

  • 19.05.2025 EKA, Tallinn
  • 20.05.2025 Travelling to Narva
  • 21.05.2025 Field visit auvre
  • 22.05.2025 Independent work on projects / practical experiments
  • 23.05.2025 Independent work on projects / practical experiments
  • 24.05.2025 All-day group presentations & Feedback
  • 25.05.2025 Travel Day


PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

This course offers an intensive training in elemental ethnography and ecological research. During a week long fieldvisit to Narva, Estonia, near the Russian border we will investigate the material legacy of oil shale extraction in the Baltic region, focusing in particular on the historical entanglement of energy, substances, landscapes, and bodies, and their unintended proliferations and designs. The fieldvisit will be preceded by 4 online lectures to provide context and to introduce us to the main topcis and cpnceptual framing of our research.

Our main aim is to engage with the emergent properties of bio/geo-chemical waste in their broader geopolitical context and to unpack how they hold landscapes and bodies in colonial relations, long after the mining activities have been shut down.

More specifically we want to explore the recurrent cycles of decomposition, death and renewal that are shaping the ambivalent landscapes of extractivism in Estonia, making their queer connections and affinities visible and apparent for critical inquiry and future research.

METHODOLOGY & TASKS

Together with local residents and field guides, we will visit ash mountains, ghost villages and abandoned manufacturing plants, built under Soviet Occupation (1941 – 1991), when oil shale production was at its historical height. Additional insights will be provided by scientific inputs from researchers in biology, geology, and environmental history in preparatory sessions online.

The outcome of this collaborative exercise will be documented in a shared workbook (digital/online publication) based on group projects conducted in the field. The workbook will be designed as a living index of liminal relations that sustain the shale oil ecosystem, mapping how they animate, de/recompose and transform social and natural landscapes, organisms and bodies at different speeds, durations and levels of intensity. Drawing on acoustic sensing, environmental mappings, and elemental ethnography / bio-geochemical analysis, we hope to reveal the less noticeable tensions, collaborations, and attunements that emerge from ‘non-consensual inhabitations’ (Masco) and forced transfers and unpack how they facilitate and/or disrupt land-body relations against a backdrop of shifting geopolitical borders and energy regimes.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Participants in this workshop will develop an understanding of bio-chemical processes and relations as critical infrastructures of geopolitical transformations and recognize how socio-ecological change is as much about (re)configuring life and responsibility beyond the individual body (Murphy, 2017, p. 479) as it is premised upon structures of violence and extraction that require land and bodies as sacrifice zones.

COURSE MATERIALS

Course Materials (all)

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HV75lDkZEHdtrAgx0-7SFfqAEqqGSGdL

Social and Cultural History of Oil Shale Production in Estonia (Text)

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rlz26-7diSfn2Mp-YVLSBt_TdLZdldKl?usp=drive_link

Environmental Studies (Text)

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yM6MCDSTPJWmKqPqw7r_KL6FQKmc9tjP?usp=drive_link

Ecology (Text)

Methodology

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nHvoJGnypVfDTGesCPSrxdQw5lTeQ2i8?usp=drive_link

  • Feral Atlas feralatlas.org

EXPECTATIONS

Participation in the trip to Estonia 18. -25. May 2025
Interest in discourse, reading, research as well as hands-on material experiments around anthropocene & feral landscapes, relationality, more-than-human design, interdisciplinary, experimental and poetic approaches, team work
Documentation and experimental storytelling (transferring findings and relations into visual, sonic, experimental narratives). These narratives will be published on a dedicated course website.

PARTICIPANTS

Bauhaus Universität Weimar

Potsdam University of Applied Sciences

University of Applied Arts Vienna

Estonian Academy of Arts

BUDGET

Participants receive stipends from the Erasmus programme to cover travel expenses.

ACCOMMODATION

We will be staying at Narva Art Residency (NART)

Info Sheet Accomodation & Arrtival

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DB6yc_PfR_PKR0QnDerWHTY-JDR-xenj?usp=drive_link

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