Archive in Fine Arts and Literature

Knowing the theory of archive art, institutional critique and new media art; knowledge of the theory of literary realism as a version of the theory of archive, based on pragmaticism of C. S. Peirce; an overview of the fundamental concepts of the theory of discourse.

The undergraduate students of informatics must complete the compulsory-elective course Humanities.

The course combines theories of archive in the arts and humanities as well as the concept of a new media object as a unity of a plurality of interfaces to a database of multimedia material.

Communication artifact as an archive
1. Meaning of the word "archive" in art
1.1 The concept of the archive in the work of Michel Foucault and Mikhail Bakhtin and the production of archive art
1.2 Digital Archives - the database as a material medium and a cultural form
(Lev Manovich)
1.3 Aesthetics of archive in historical avant-gardas and neoavantgards (Benjamin H. D. Buchloh)
1.3.1 "Institutional critique"
1.4 Different approaches to archive art
1.5 Reality as archive - nanotechnology and algorithmic revolution
2.1 The photographic realism of the 19th century in the tension between "realism" and "nominalism"
2.2 Synthetic realism (Lev Manovich)
3 "The allegorical gaze" of Walter Benjamin
3.1 Adorno's rejection of Benjamin
3.2 György Lukács and Benjamin
3.3 "The idea" of tragic drama (Trauerspiel)
3.4 Srečko Dragan: Rotas Axis Mundi (1995/96)
3.5 Computer data processing, semiosis and language (David Link)
4 Philosophical pragmaticism and realist discourse - Hans Vilmar Geppert: Der realistische Weg
4.1 The concept of crisis and (literary) realism of the 19th century
4.2 Pragmaticism of Charles Sanders Peirce

Students will learn the basic concepts of archival discourse, as it occurs in the field of literature, contemporary fine arts, and in conceptual art. The notion of the archive in the frameworks of the theory of a new media object.

They will be able to autonomously design a transformation between an archive and a digital database, which is suitable for algorithmic processing with computers. Students will be qualified for critical reflection of the semiosis in computer media.

Aarseth, Espen J. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
Aesthetics and Politics: Ernst Bloch, Georg Lukács, Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno. London: NLB/Verso, 11977.
(The) Archive. Merewether, Charles, ed. London & Cambridge, Mass.: Whitechapel & The MIT Press, 2006.
Benjamin, Walter. Izbrani spisi. Ljubljana: SH - Zavod za založniško dejavnost, 1998.
Benjamin, Walter. The Origin of German Tragic Drama. London, Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2009.
Benjamin, Walter. “Über den Begriff der Geschichte.” 1940. 20 Aug 2009 http://www.mxks.de/files/phil/Benjamin.GeschichtsThesen.html.
Brin, Sergey, and Lawrence Page. “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine.” 1998. 21 Aug 2009 http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html.
Buchloh, Benjamin H. D. "Warburgs Vorbild? Das Ende der Collage/Fotomontage im Nachkriegseuropa." Deep Storage. Arsenale der Erinnerung. Sammeln, Speichern, Archivieren in der Kunst. Schaffner, Ingrid et al. (Hg.). München, New York: Prestel, 1997. 50-60. Prevod "Warburg's Paragon? The End of Collage and Photomontage in Postwar Europe." Deep Storage. Collecting, Storing and Archiving in Art. Schaffner, Ingrid et al. (Hg.). München: 1998.
Enzensberger, Hans Magnus. Einladung zu einem Poesie-Automaten. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2000. 1.5.2007 http://jacketmagazine.com/17/enz-robot.html.
Foucault, Michel. L'Archéologie du savoir. Gallimard, 11969. Angleški prevod: The Archaeology of Knowledge. Tavistock, 1972. Slovenski prevod: Arheologija vednosti. Ljubljana: SH – Zavod za založniško dejavnost, 2001.
Geppert, Hans Vilmar. Literatur im Mediendialog: Semiotik, Rhetorik, Narrativik: Roman, Film, Hörspiel, Lyrik und Werbung. 1st ed. Vögel, 2006.
Geppert, Hans Vilmar. Der realistische Weg: Formen pragmatischen Erzählens bei Balzac, Dickens, Hardy, Keller, Raabe und anderen Autoren des 19. Jahrhunderts. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1994.
Groys, Boris. Teorija sodobne umetnosti: Izbrani eseji. Ljubljana: Študentska založba, 2002.
Im Buchstabenfeld: Die Zukunft der Literatur. Ur. Peter Weibel. Graz: Literaturverlag Droschl, 2001.
Link, David. Poesiemaschinen/Maschinenpoesie: Zur Frühgeschichtecomputerisierter Texterzeugung und generativer Systeme. 1st ed. Fink (Wilhelm), 2007. 26. 8. 2009 http://www.alpha60.de/research/pm.
Manovich, Lev. Software Takes Command. 2008. 18 Jun 2009 http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2008/11/softbook.html.
Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. MIT Press, 2001.
Mills, Sara. Discourse. Routledge, 1997.
(The) New Media Reader. Wardrip-Fruin, Noah & Montfort, Nick (ur.). Cambridge, Mass & London: The MIT Press, 2003.
Peirce, Charles Sanders. Izbrani spisi o teoriji znaka in pomena ter pragmaticizmu. Ljubljana: Krtina, 2004.
Vaupotič, Aleš. »Literarno-estetski doživljaj in novi mediji – prihodnost literature?« Primerjalna književnost 30.1 (2007): 203-16. 2. 2. 2010 http://eurolit.net/?q=bib/literarno-estetski-dozivljaj-novi-medijiprihodnost-literature-literary-esthetic-experience-and
Vaupotič, Aleš. “Who Chooses, What the Reader Reads? (The Cybertextual Perspective).” 7. Mednarodni komparativistični kolokvij Vilenica 2009. "Kdo izbere?": Literatura in literarno posredništvo/"Who Chooses?": Literature and Literary Mediation, Lipica, 3.-4. september 2009. 25 Oct 2009 http://reelc.net/files/whochooses17_predstavil_images.pdf.
Virilio, Paul. Hitrost osvoboditve. Ljubljana: Študentska založba, 1996.
Weibel, Peter. »Die Algorithmische Revolution. Zur Geschichte der interaktiven Kunst.« 23. 2. 2007 http://www01.zkm.de/algorithmische-revolution/.

Oral exam (50%), project or seminar work (50%).

Assist. Prof. Dr. Aleš Vaupotič is a lecturer in literature at the School of humanities and the head of the Research centre for humanities, University of Nova Gorica. His research areas include literary realism, theory of new media art, and theory of discourse. He is also a video and new media artist.

Selected articles:

VAUPOTIČ, Aleš. Teorija tehno-slike Viléma Flusserja. V: ZORMAN, Barbara (ur.), VAUPOTIČ, Aleš (ur.). Literatura in gibljive slike : tematski sklop = Literature and moving images : thematic section, (Primerjalna književnost, ISSN 0351-1189, letn. 37, št. 2). Ljubljana: Slovensko društvo za primerjalno književnost, 2014, str. 151-163. [COBISS.SI-ID 55122274]
BOVCON, Narvika, VAUPOTIČ, Aleš, KLEMENC, Bojan, SOLINA, Franc. "Atlas 2012" augmented reality : a case study in the domain of fine arts. V: First International Conference, SouthCHI 2013, Maribor, Slovenia, July 1-3, 2013. HOLZINGER, Andreas (ur.), et al. Human factors in computing and informatics : proceedings, (Lecture notes in computer science, ISSN 0302-9743, 7946). Heidelberg [etc.]: Springer, cop. 2013, str. 477-496, ilustr. http://eprints.fri.uni-lj.si/2098/. [COBISS.SI-ID 2782459]
VAUPOTIČ, Aleš. The book and the World Wide Web. Primer. književ., jun. 2012, letn. 35, št. 1, str. 201-211, ilustr. [COBISS.SI-ID 49282658]
VAUPOTIČ, Aleš. Peirceova teorija raziskave kot poetološki model : primer literarnega realizma = Peirce's theory of inquiry as a poetological model : the case of literary realism. V: ŠKULJ, Jola (ur.), HABJAN, Jernej (ur.). Živo branje : literatura, znanost in humanistika : literature, science and the humanities, (Primerjalna književnost, letn. 35, št. 2). Ljubljana: Slovensko društvo za primerjalno književnost, 2012, avg. 2012, letn. 35, št. 2, str. 83-93, 225-236. [COBISS.SI-ID 49711970]
VAUPOTIČ, Aleš. Kdo izbere, kaj bralec bere? Kibertekstualna perspektiva = Who chooses what the reader reads? The cybertextual perspective. V: DOVIĆ, Marijan (ur.), HABJAN, Jernej (ur.), VAUPOTIČ, Aleš (ur.). "Kdo izbere?" : Literatura in literarno posredništvo : Literature and literary mediation, (Primerjalna književnost, letn. 33, št. 2). Ljubljana: Slovensko društvo za primerjalno književnost, avg. 2010, str. 151-161, 321-331. [COBISS.SI-ID 43258466]
VAUPOTIČ, Aleš. Realism revisited : Dicken's Hard Times as a narrativized archive. V: MONTANDON, Alain (ur.). Fortunes et infortunes des genres littéraires, (Caietele Echinox, vol. 16). Cluj-Napoca: Université "Babeş-Bolyai", Le Centre de Recherches sur l'Imaginaire: University Phantasma, The Center for Imagination Studies, 2009, str. 175-185. [COBISS.SI-ID 2190075]
VAUPOTIČ, Aleš. Literarno-estetski doživljaj in novi mediji - prihodnost literature?. Primer. književ., 2007, letn. 30, št. 1, str. 203-216. [COBISS.SI-ID 34809186]