Dr. Annika Haas

Beyond Repair: Artistic Practices and Critique in Times of Crisis

Situated at the intersection of media theory and affect theory, this research project examines contemporary artistic practices and critiques in response to extended periods of crisis. Given the irreparably broken project of (colonial) modernity (Mignolo 2007), repair, reparation and cultural repair techniques are common, albeit ambivalent and limited, responses in times of crisis. This research project explores artistic practices that seek to imagine habitable worlds 'beyond repair' (Haghighian 2019) in the face of overlapping geopolitical conflicts, ideological polarisation, ongoing colonial violence and precarity (CURE 2025, Attia & BAK 2021, Berlant 2022, Stuelke 2021). The focus is on scenes of crisis in the context of techno-capitalism. What alternatives to repair and techno-solutionism do these practices bring to attention?

Techno-solutionist ‘repairs’ often neglect the irreparable damage that becomes apparent in scenes of crisis, and which are currently studied in the fields of media theory and affect theory: Widening discursive divides (Abend/Richterich 2019, Zuboff 2022), techno-capitalism that fuels “self-devouring growth” (Livingston 2019), and the expansion of exploitative technical infrastructures that perpetuate historical forms of violence such as “electronic colonialism” (Rezaire 2018), “recursive colonialism” (Parisi & Dixon-Román 2020), and “techno-precarity” (Adair et al. 2020). — Do artistic practices constitute their own form of critique in this research context? The artistic practices at the centre of this project depart from the recognition of irreparability. They engage with various scenes of crisis and their relationship to the material, epistemic and aesthetic dimensions of dominant, Western notions of technology. — (How) do artistic practices and forms of critique change in times of crisis? What role do technologies play in this context?

Together with three artists from different geopolitical contexts, these questions will be discussed in collaboratively developed settings that are informed by field research on methods of polyvocal discourse formation in the arts, specifically methods of group critique from the context of higher art education in Southern California since the 1970s.

About

Annika Haas is a media theorist and a postdoctoral researcher at the DFG Research Training Group "Aesthetic Practice" (since December 2023). She studied Media Studies in Potsdam and Istanbul as well as Art and Media at the Berlin University of the Arts and the California Institute of the Arts. In 2022, she obtained her PhD with the thesis Avant-Theorie. Hélène Cixous' écriture du corps at the Berlin University of the Arts. Numerous collaborative projects and experimental teaching formats characterise her way of doing theory at the intersection of media cultural studies and art.

From 2020 to 2023, Annika Haas was a research associate at the Institute for History and Theory of Design at the Berlin University of the Arts. Previously, she was a research associate in the DFG Research Training Group "The Knowledge of the Arts" (2017-2020), an associate researcher in the doctoral program "Epistemologies of Aesthetic Practices" at the Collegium Helveticum Zurich (2018-2022), and a visiting researcher at the Laboratoire d'études de genre et de sexualité at the Université Paris 8 (2020/21).

Selected Publications

Please find a full list of publications and projects under the following link: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1710-467X 

Monographs

2024: Feeling Bad AFK, publication on the occasion of the exhibition Ungovernable Ingredients, silent green Kulturquartier Berlin, 18.-20.12.2024.

2023: Avant-Theorie. Hélène Cixous’ ‹écriture du corps›. Dissertation, Universität der Künste Berlin, Fakultät Gestaltung
https://doi.org/10.25624/kuenste-2161

Edited Volumes in English

2021: How to Relate: Wissen, Künste, Praktiken / Knowledge, Arts, Practices, ed. mit Maximilian Haas, Hanna Magauer, Dennis Pohl, Bielefeld: transcript.
open access online

2020: Théo rit: A Mimetic Approach to Writing Difference(s) with Hélène Cixous, in: Change Through Repetition. Mimesis as a Transformative Principle Between Art and Politics, hg. v. Babylonia Constandinides, Simon Gröger, Elisa Leroy, Doris Rebhan, Berlin: Neofelis, 111–126.
reading sample

2018: Windtunnel Bulletin no. 7, ed. mit Sarine Waltenspül, Zürich: Forschungsschwerpunkt Transdisziplinarität, Zürcher Hochschule der Künste.
open access online

Papers and Essays in English

2024: "Hélène Cixous's Textual Bodies in the Archive and Beyond: ‚I note at top speed what presents itself all the time.‘", in: Vanessa Gravenor, Hanne Loreck (Hrsg.), Archives of the Body, Hamburg: HfBK 2024,
open access online

2022: "Self-Hyphen-Publishing" in: Lerchenfeld Nr. 63, Oct. 2022

2022: "Not a Spectacle. Navigating the Broken Arena. Annika Haas on Nikita Gale at 52 Walker", New York in: Texte zur Kunst online, Jun. 3rd, 2022

2021: with Emily Apter: "Translation: A Relational Practice" in: How to Relate: Wissen, Künste, Praktiken / Knowledge, Arts, Practices, Schriftenreihe „Wissen der Künste“, hg. mit Maximilian Haas, Hanna Magauer, Dennis Pohl, Bielefeld: transcript, 144–159.
open access online

Selected Lectures

2024: "An Alphabet of Data Body-Feelings" Conference Archives of the Body—The Body in Archiving, HfBK Hamburg, Apr. 25-26, 2024

2023: "Liquifying Language" Workshop, Matter of Flux Festival, Art Laboratory Berlin, Jun. 17, 2023
Download Workshop-Zine

2023: "Auto-Archives" Lecture at the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University, within the framework of Dissenting Knowledges, Oxford X UdK Berlin Creative Collaborations, Apr. 25, 2023

2022: "Letters of Joys. Reading, Writing and Corresponding with Hélène Cixous" Lecture & Workshop at Trinity College, Dublin University. At the invitation of the Metaphysical Society, Feb. 22-23, 2022

Conferences and Workshops

2024: "My Body, My Data, My Choice? Data Bodies in the Uncanny Archive", Conference of the Society for the Study of Affect, Millersville University, Lancaster, Pennsylvania (USA), Oct.10–12, 2024.

2024: Workshop chair at conference “Glitch Assembly”, annual conference of the Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft, University of Mainz, 25.-28.09.2024, together with Lisa Andergassen, Lisa Rein, Martin Beck, Julia Preisker, Irina Raskin.
Download Workshop-Zine

2024: “The Alphabet of Data Body-Feelings”, Conference Archive of the Body, Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg, 25.-26.04.2024

2023: “Liquifying Language”, Workshop, Matter of Flux Festival, Art Laboratory Berlin, 17.6.2023

2023: “ Durch den Körper. Hélène Cixous' Philosophie und Schreiben”, Hessische Theaterakademie lecture series 2023, concept by Fanti Baum, Frankfurt/M., 25.5.2023

2023: “Auto-Archives”, lecture at the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University, as part of Dissenting Knowledges, Oxford X UdK Berlin Creative Collaborations, 25.4.2023

2022: “Letters of Joys. Reading, Writing and Corresponding with Hélène Cixous”, Lecture & Workshop at Trinity College, Dublin University. Invited by the Metaphysical Society, 22-23.2.2022

2021: "Medienhaus Lectures: Performance. Peformance? Performance!" with Henrike Uthe, Universität der Künste Berlin, Nov. 17, 2021
Program
Documentation

2021: "Excavating the Present" with Christopher Weickenmeier. Workshop series at the Klosterruine Berlin as part of the seminar Archaeology of the Self. Guests: Enzo Camacho, Dina Khouri, Rossella Biscotti, Övül Durmusoglu; Jul. 2021

2021: "Hyperrêve. Reading Hélène Cixous" with Esther von der Osten. Reading workshop as part of the event series Der Alltag der Dekonstruktion an der Universität Zürich, organised by Philippe P. Haensler, Stefanie Heine, Philipp Hubmann and Thomas Traupmann; May. 28, 2021

2018: "How to Relate: Aneignen – Vermitteln – Figurieren" with Maximilian Haas, Hanna Magauer, Dennis Pohl; Universität der Künste Berlin, Jul. 5–7, 2018
Program
Publication