Into the Woods with Heidegger: Reflections about an Artistic-Academic Experiment

Abstract

This article is an academic reflection about a video project that I conducted in the summer of 2016. The video documents my collaboration with artist Thomas Wolsing. My ambition for this collaboration was to discover and experience interlacements between, on the one hand, art theory (epitomized by some sentences of Heidegger’s “The Origin of the Work of Art”) and on the other hand, artistic and physical-constructional work that is building a land art piece. The article cites and reflects on dialogues and monologues presented in the video by discussing the mutual dependence between and incompatibilities of art theory and art making. The conceptual cornerstone of the discussion is the notion of embodiment as outlined by Edgar Wind and Fischer-Lichte augmented by Barad’s related notion of agential intra-action. The article discusses the experienced integration of physical and discursive actions that, in the moment of performance, are elusive and refute any ethical assessment.