Initiators and responsible curators:
Silke Steets is Professor of Sociological Theory at the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Her interest in utopian thinking can be traced back to her sociological examination of the historical Bauhaus and its lateral thinking figures, which she began during her studies and never abandoned. Since then, she has also dealt with city and space, culture and creativity, materiality and architecture, religion and knowledge, and the theories and history of sociology. https://silke-steets.de/en/home-en/
Silke Gülker is a private lecturer and researcher in the field of cultural sociology at the Institute for Cultural Studies at the University of Leipzig. With this project, she ties in with earlier work on futurology, she is particularly interested in its potential contribution to political learning. Her research also focuses on the sociology of religion, knowledge, science and health. Her latest book, “Transcendence in Science”, deals with the boundaries between the available and the unavailable in the field of stem cell research. https://www.sozphil.uni-leipzig.de/cm/kuwi/mitarbeiter/dr-silke-guelker/
Cooperation partners
Reinhard Krehl is a free artist. As a “strollologist” (psychogeographer), he deals with nature and plants as well as the systems of order that underlie processes of knowledge and experience. Important sources of inspiration for his art are Lucius and Annemarie Burckhardt, his time at the Bauhaus Dessau 1998 — 2001 as well as the utopians, apple growers and lateral thinkers to whom he pays homage in his private altars he produces. Here you will find Inger Christensen, John Cage, HAP Grieshaber, Jimi Hendrix, Robert Gernhardt, Astrid Lindgren, Friedericke Mayröcker, H.D. Thoreau, J.J. Rousseau, Walt Whitman and many others. He has received numerous scholarships and awards. He also produces various wildflower mixtures as living works of art for the improvement of cities and the world. http://www.reinhardkrehl.de
Francis Hunger is a visual artist (http://www.irmielin.org) and web designer/programmer (http://www.design-hunger.com). He has designed and implemented utopian-worlds.org. In his artistic practice he combines artistic and media-theoretical research with the possibilities of narration in installations, radio plays, performances and internet-based art.
We would like to thank the following people for their support
Klaus Abel, Patricia Bongiovani, Emilie Dobrovolski, Martin Fuller, Giselle González García, Jessica Holldack, Joanna Katharina Kiefer, Karin S. Korth, Séverine Margin, Anneke Müller, Andrea Ploder, Olga Schesler, Eymard Toledo, Eva Josephine Weber, Anne Wessel
Financing
The project is funded by the Chair of Sociological Theory at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg and the Institute for Cultural Studies at the University of Leipzig.