The Dynamic Archive

Collaborative working and networking have become increasingly important practices in the arts and design in recent years. A university of the arts is predestined to be a driving force for testing and experimenting with these techniques. The iteratively developed web application “The Dynamic Archive” represents a first concrete result of this development: built on an open-source logic, the online platform brings together artistic principles, tools, methods and notations by artists and designers of the HfK (students, teaching staff and alumni) and invited guests, who make them available for use, copying and versioning. New versions are uploaded to the platform as well.

The research project “The Dynamic Archive” initiates a process of exchange and discussion around collaborative working on various levels. Alongside the online platform, the Dynamic Archive encompasses further exciting formats: the “Artist in Residence” programme, lecture series on different thematic focuses, workshops, publications and conferences. The archive also takes part in exhibitions and biennials. In the future, an incubator programme is planned in collaboration with designers and Bremen-based companies.

The Dynamic Archive is a member of the Arthistoricum Networks at Heidelberg University Library.

Von Andrea Sick und Dennis Paul.

The web application “The Dynamic Archive” offers an online platform on which artistic working methods and processes are made publicly available. Artistic methods and principles, instructions, notations and software are collected and offered for use, copying and versioning.

• Prof. Dr. Andrea Sick (Professor for Theory in Media and Culture, HfK)
• Prof. Dennis Paul (Professor for Interaction and Spaciality, HfK)

• Irena Kukric

• Jan Charzinski

• Guida Ribeiro
• Iulia Miruna Radu
• Farzad Golghasemi Sorkhabi

• Studio TheGreenEyl

A Portrait of Some-No-One

Change, draw, add, reflect, print, scan, make it move or make it what you want. Look for a portrait.

by Prof. Heike Kati Barath
Fine Arts

Figure 1: Detail from The Dynamic Archive. Figure 2: Further versions of the component (Julian Hespenheide – Stochastic Oracle, Lui Kohlmann – A Portrait of Some Quadropods)

The Architectural Perfection

Fundamental inventions for
innovative fashion thinking and generative fashion design practice
inspired by the work of Charles James.

by Prof. Dorothea Mink
Fashion Design

Figure 1: Detail from The Dynamic Archive. Figure 2: Further versions of the component ( Carmem Saito – Create a Digital Dress Form, Milena Kukrić – The Platitude Dress)

The Untied Body of History

A Museum Visit Proposal

by Lucas Odahara
Fine Arts

Figure 1: Detail from The Dynamic Archive (painting by Johann Georg Melchior Schmidtner, ca. 1700). Figure 2: Further component (Elbruz Buendia – Chains, Knots, Wounds)

“The Dynamic Archive” collects working methods, processes and notations from artists and designers, in order to make these resources available online for others to use and further develop. These working methods and processes are referred to as *components* which implies we are looking for a certain part of your work or process rather then a documentation of the work.

The Dynamic Archive team invites artists and designers on regular bases to create components and versions of components in the archive. Most of the components come form the students, professors, lecturers as well as alumni form The University of the Arts Bremen. To create Versions, we invite artist and designers outside of the University as well. 
In case you have a component you would like to share with us or in case you would like to create a version of the existing one in the archive, please contact us via email: thedynamicarchive@hfk-bremen.de

In order to create a component, after you contact us, we would invite you for an interview where we can discuss what this component can be related to your work and methods. After this, we would create your profile and you could add your component to the archive.

Please do let us know if you have been using the archive! Even if you are not intending to upload your version, we would love to know how it has been of use for you! Please contact us via email: thedynamicarchive@hfk-bremen.de

A component, in the context of TDA, is a working method, process or notation. It implies we are looking for a certain part of your work or process rather than a documentation of the work. Within our archive, components range from a theoretical texts to a technical instruction and at times are both. In order to create a component contributors are invited for an interview where we can discuss what this component can be related to your work and methods. After this, we would create your profile and you could add your component to the archive.

In case you would like to make a version of an existing component, please contact us via email: thedynamicarchive@hfk-bremen.de

Then we can create your profile and inform you about further steps.

The components in the archive are available only online. We do present, perform and exhibit them in the Version Room or The Dynamic Archive 2 which is a program that will take place on a monthly basis in the exhibition space Circa 106 where “The Dynamic Archive” will exhibit its components and versions.

Let us know! thedynamicarchive@hfk-bremen.de

Exhibitions at Version Room postponed, but responses*

* Responses react to the postponement of Version Room events at the Circa 106 exhibition space due to Covid-19

Watch Online!

A virtual take on physical Labor

20 March 2020, 7:00 p.m.

The (Un)Productive Adult
Guida Ribeiro
Der glückliche Kreativarbeiter
Leon Lothschuetz

Watch Online!

Digital cross-media Chat “Samples before Swine”

2 April 2020, 7:00 p.m.

Methodologies of SamplingThe Work on Objects as a Performative Act of Recontextualisation
Lena Heins
Sampling of a PearlHow an Evil Twin of a Benign Mollusc Tumour Poioned the Waters
Marijana Radović

Postponed!
15 May 2020, 7:00 p.m.

The Untied Body of History A Museum Visit Proposal
Lucas Odahara
Chains, Knots, WoundsThe Revenge of Others
Elburuz Buendia

Postponed!
11 June 2020, 7:00 p.m.

Conversing and other Spatial Practices
Ana Filipovic 
Inspecting Material Unconsciousness
Luiz Zanotello

Performance, theatre and media art are at the heart of The Dynamic Archive, as they call for various disciplines and methods and examine mechanisms of collaboration. The emphasis on methods rather than finished works, on different processes and varying approaches in performance, will be the central focus of Part 2 of the lecture series. Beginning with Eva Meyer-Keller’s performances within the framework of a laboratory, through Susanne Kennedy’s theatre productions, which respond to the new power relations between bodies, technical objects and machines, to multisensory experiential spaces between fashion, installation and performance by Harm Coordes, we will attempt to explore what performative work entails and what possibilities it offers.

Harm Coordes – the doors of auratic perception

Eva Meyer-Keller & Ilya Noé – „On the long lasting intimacy 
of strangers“

Susanne Kennedy – rethinking theatre

The Lecture Series is part of the research project The Dynamic Archive.

The “Lecture Series” in the summer semester of 2019 seeks to examine mechanisms of collaborative working beyond the boundaries of the University of the Arts.

The lectures discuss the potentials of collaboration on the basis of continuous exchange and reflection on the structures of sharing. What does collaboration actually mean when it refers, beyond the boundaries of individual institutions, to the development of joint projects of a more limited or broader nature? What conditions do we need to create for it?

Ho Tzu Nyen – Some Notes on the Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia

Crossover: Salon Digital & The Dynamic Archive

Sven Jonke (numen for use) – Oblique Strategies

Emma Hedditch – What Is Terrible About This?

In cooperation with the Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst in Oldenburg and the Schwankhalle Bremen

Each year, two artists/designers from the field of media art and performance are invited to produce, within two months, a work related to the Dynamic Archive, which also enters the digital archive as a component. The work developed, or the working process, is also presented publicly in a performance, a lecture or an exhibition.

In addition, the respective Artist in Residence offers a multi-day workshop for students and Friends within the HfK study programme (across all degree courses) on the topic of their project within the framework of the Dynamic Archive. The “Artists in Residence” are selected by invitation.

For questions: thedynamicarchive@hfk-bremen.de

G is for Gong
Exhibition at the Edith-Russ-Haus
11 July – 29 September 2019

the (Material) Arts
Workshop at the HfK in cooperation with Stefan Lütgert and Jan Gerber
31 October – 4 November 2019

Lecture performance at the Schwankhalle
12 December 2019

Workshop with Ilya Noé at the Schwankhalle and the University of the Arts
The best thinking starts with speechlessness
25 February – 2 March 2020

Sebastina Lütgert Berlin
In cooperation with the Edith Russ Haus für Medienkunst

Antonia Baehr
In cooperation with the Schwankhalle

Sinop Biennal: Sinopale
17 August 2019

Weserburg »Shared – Geteilt«
Lecture by Prof. Dr Andrea Sick
9 November 2019
The Archive as a Process and at Work

Circulating working processes in artistic, design and academic fields raise questions of concern and motivation, but also of authorship and copyright, of patenting and the contractual non-disclosure of know-how and processes. How far this can reach was discussed at a conference in May 2018, which served as the first step in the “Dynamic Archive” project. Drawing on a range of contributions, the thematic field surrounding collaborative working and open-source practices in the most diverse artistic archives was explored. The question of what a “Dynamic Archive” can achieve, in particular, was at the centre of the discussion.

The conference initiated an open exchange and opened up the “Dynamic Archive” as a field of experimentation in which potentials are explored and experiments are initiated in the fields of performance, media art and design.

6 April 2020