Project partners

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.