Participation in a transdisciplinary communication network that explores its own processes in the sense of a social sculpture

curating helga köcher
production eop | sammlung essl / klosterneuburg / a / 2003

The networking activities within the framework of the eop process are understood by the project’s founder, Helga Köcher, on the one hand as a second-order art project in the sense of Joseph Beuys’ concept of social sculpture, and on the other hand as a laboratory situation for testing the function and dysfunction of interventions in the sense of cultural studies.

Concrete network projects will be used to examine experiences that, due to the diversity of the environments, can be read as decontextualized insights and are intended to offer network-theoretical approaches.

According to Helga Köcher, transdisciplinary group composition can overcome the most significant barrier to networking, namely the formation of distinct group identities and the development of corresponding enemy stereotypes of other actors (Homan’s law).

However, according to the founder of eop, the self-image of philosophical premises is still lacking for the formation of horizontal structures that would make a “multitude” (in the sense of Hardt/Negri) efficient. Postmodern positions have proven to be more divisive than conducive to networking because “those who know” are played off against “those who do not know.”

Helga Köcher sees an approach in the creation of flexible structures that allow for a balance of opposing positions.*

* By and following Helga Köcher, 2003

EOP installed at

— café kunsthalle / vie / a / 04
— sammlung essl / klosterneuburg / a / 03