Profile

With our two professorships for Artistic Research (Winnie Huang) and Digital Innovation (Florian Hollerweger), appointed for the winter semester 2023, we have the opportunity to bundle the innovative forces of an art that also sees itself as research and to systematically test an interdisciplinary curriculum for the purpose of its further development. As part of a university that accepts its social and cultural responsibility, we want to make a sustainable contribution to anchoring the arts in society, support the further development of artistic traditions and excellence and promote inclusive cultural participation in a digitalized society with a view to its future cohesion.

Conceived as an integrative force at our university, the ZKD is deliberately not assigned to a department, but is primarily aimed at the (internal and external) networking of all disciplines, students, teaching staff and employees represented at the university.

As an organizational unit directly assigned to the Rectorate, it sees itself on the one hand as a "service point" that is open to all members of the university to support their respective practices; be it to reflect on them and articulate them as research, be it for the practical implementation of artistic, scientific or pedagogical ideas in the digital medium.

On the other hand, we want to create a place for collaboration and inspiration across disciplines and degree programs, promote synergies and allow new things to emerge. Artistic research and digital innovation encompass a broad range of skills that enable students and teachers to deepen their understanding of the socio-cultural and technological dimensions of their practice.

The center strives to offer both target groups an expanded and personalized perspective on their own work. Students will be provided with a complementary understanding of their future professional field and the skills required for it, beyond regular artistic teaching and other existing teaching formats. Digital technologies are used in all these scenarios as a versatile creative tool that serves artistic expression (e.g. in live coding performances) as well as transdisciplinary research (e.g. in computer-aided musical analysis) or the public presentation of one's own work (e.g. when creating an online portfolio).

Our principles of action are characterized by the joy of experimentation (including the courage to fail in an instructive way), an active and critical examination of new art forms and technologies as well as an inclusive openness to the most diverse perspectives on music and dance.