Call for Proposals 2014

The project is foreseen to take place in April 2015


Order // Structure

„’Most people […] see order in everything’“ (1)

"„… an analysis […] is structural if (and only if) it can present content as a model.” (2)

Social order is kept under control and protected by keepers of order. Order is proclaimed in written form. In the case of violation, the script (usually) contains a list of sanctions that can be enforced in the occasion of violation. Orders are written down, and in consequence are generally seen as a way of understanding the world. Order structures societies. On the other hand, structures clarify conditions that are less precise. They, as well, mirror processes and habits, responsibilities and advantages as well as disadvantages within societies. However, they are not codified within the law and are not openly regulated by an apparatus pertaining to the state or other entities. The essence of order can be seen in its being fixed, its obviousness. Structures, on the other hand, may be assumed, they seem to contain a leeway for understanding and enforcement. There are those who would see this the other way around: orders allow for a leeway of understanding and debate, while structures are unconscious and indestructible.

Who has insight into the order – or structure – that governs one’s own actions? The assuredness of having been a part of a known or unknown destination arises only when that which we are accustomed to peaks or breaks – for whatever reasons this may happen.

The thealit-laboratory Order // Structure searches for a conscious break or peaking in the familiar conditions of artistic or scientific production and presentation. These conditions never cease to inform content. With a clear restructuring/reordering as an interruption, the possibility of posing questions opens up. Frameworks and spaces of action are placed in the center of observation and thus turned into an investigative field of art.

This also concerns the longstanding structures of the Frauen.Kultur.Labor thealit itself. In this sense, this laboratory stands in a direct relation to a program that calls for thealit to “make room for the interaction between artistic and theoretical reflections of working conditions. In this way, a critical investigation and experimental variation of practice becomes possible.” The laboratory invites this critical view towards itself as well.

Looking back, we can at least see that our history of 20 years has called for the order of exhibitions and symposiums, and that an artistic reflection remained mainly the object of the first, while theory dominated the second.

Every artistic, every scientific work evolves from that which has gone before. Does art history, does the history of science prescribe an order, or do they offer a structure? Is it possible that each artistic or scientific work aims at the enhancement of structures that have been investigated or developed so far?

„The multitude of entities can in this way arrange itself in such an order that the difficulties pertaining to the knowledge of measurement itself may dissolve with respect to the orderly row that hitherto was its only priority.” (3)

In order to study order, we offer two different modes of presentation, leaving the choice among them to contributors.

Instead of a conference situation with a fixed, linear schedule and short presentations following each other at a conference center with physical gathering spaces, we plan to broadcast the presentations via USW/Radio within fixed times and from one broadcasting studio, without an audience. The presentations can then be heard together in an open space through radio sets that have been brought along or made available.

Instead of an exhibition showing a variety of works together within one space during a certain amount of time (time of exhibition), artistic positions will be presented in small rooms within a building, and only for a short space of time (45 min). These rooms are opened one after the other. Only one room can be viewed at a time.

These guidelines with respect to spatial and temporal placement and pulsing are an experiment that invites queries into and break-outs out of order // structure.

We are looking forward to your many contributions.


Z. Schmidt and thealit

Please send us your concept + short CV until April 10, 2014
(Texts, Images or Films) to:



info@thealit.de
or to:
thealit. Frauen.Kultur.Labor.
Im Krummen Arm 1
28203 Bremen

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(1) Robert Musil: Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften
(2) Michel Serres in: Hermes 1. La communication, p. 33
(3) Michel Foucault, Les mots et les choses, Paris 1966, p. 67-68. Foucault cited from: René Descartes, Regulae ad directionem ingenii [1637], XIV.)


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