ARTILACS IV – SYMPOSION

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Subject according curriculum

ARTILACS

Teachers

Scope

Thursdays, 12:00–1:30 p.m. (Starts Oct. 15, 2026) Dates: October 12, 2026 / October 19, 2026 / November 2, 2026 / November 9, 2026 / November 23, 2026 / November 30, 2026 / December 7, 2026 / December 14, 2026 / January 11, 2027 / January 18, 2027 / January 25, 2027 / February 1, 2027

Room

Keine Angabe

Duration

1.5 Semesterwochenstunden

Description

Plato’s legacy is a heavy burden. It is not a body of work that can simply be “managed,” but rather a claim that must continually be reinterpreted, challenged against one’s own canon, and renewed in order to remain relevant at all. This task takes on particular urgency in the age of artificial intelligence. Large Language Models appeal to both the conceptual and the sensory. They generate arguments with the same ease with which they produce images, voices, and moods, thereby causing one of the oldest Platonic distinctions—between logos and aisthesis, between concept and appearance—to merge into a single stream that is now almost impossible to distinguish. At the same time, they compel us toward both consumption and renunciation—that is, toward a constant intake of text, images, and knowledge, and toward an equally constant practice of restraint, selection, and saying no. From this dual compulsion arises the need for a distinct form of curating and limiting knowledge. We must be mindful of our consumption of knowledge and combine abundance with scarcity in such a way that the result is not mere abstinence, but a new mindfulness in our engagement with the knowable.
The seminar traces the essential lines of development that extend from Plato’s text *Symposium* to the political present. It asks what can be drawn from the ancient scene of the communal drinking feast—from the practice of alternating speech, praise, and contradiction—and from the economy of gift-giving, intoxication, and restraint that governs this format—can be drawn for a present in which knowledge no longer circulates in the shared space of a banquet but rather through interaction with language-generating models. Within this framework, the participants are preparing their own symposium for the ARTILACS Graduate College, scheduled to take place in June, and are jointly refining its concept over the course of the seminar.

Literature

Düttmann, Alexander García (2021), In Praise of Youth. With a foreword by Marcus Quent (= Anarchies, ed. by Mehdi Belhaj Kacem and Jean-Luc Nancy), Zurich–Berlin: diaphanes.

Plato (2006), *The Symposium*. Greek/German, translated and edited by Thomas Paulsen and Rudolf Rehn, Stuttgart: Reclam.

Sauvagnargues, Anne (2016), *Artmachines: Deleuze, Guattari, Simondon*, translated by Suzanne Verderber (with Eugene W. Holland), Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Credits

2 Creditpoints

Comments

The seminar will take place exclusively online via Zoom.

It is aimed at all students interested in a transdisciplinary discourse between “art,” “society,” and “technology,” as well as in associative, material-rich research and collaborative, debate-style explorations.

Please register by October 9, 2026, at Benjamin.sprick@hfmt-hamburg.de

To earn credit points, students must demonstrate an interest in the connection between theory and artistic practice, give a presentation during the seminar, and submit a written reflection. Various approaches to theoretical work will be explored, including dialogic reading, clustering, and AI-supported readings. Optional participation without earning credit points is also possible and requires consultation with the instructors.

Modules

Promotionsmodul, Wahlmodul freie Wahl (alle Studiengänge), Studium generale Wahlmodul Master