Jan-Philipp Possman
Jan-Philipp Possmann studied Theater- and Political-Sciences at Freie Universität Berlin. From 1999 to 2007 he directed and produced theater performances in Berlin. As dramaturg and producer he has worked with international artists like Rimini Protokoll, Patrick Wengenroth, David Hermann and repeatedly with David Weber-Krebs. From 2005 to 2007 he curated and directed the international performance festival Plateaux at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt/Main. 2007/2008 he was the house dramaturg of Sophiensaele, Berlin. In 2007 and 2009 he was the festival dramaturg for Internationale Schillertage. Currently he is a dramaturg at Nationaltheater Mannheim. In his research project he collaborates with David Weber-Krebs.
Catalog of Situations
With CATALOG OF SITUATIONS Jan-Philipp Possmann and David Weber-Krebs want to investigate art history as a history of situations. They look at aesthetics from a perspective of social encounter. In this view an aesthetic experience becomes a characteristic way of experiencing a situation as structured space and time. In an aesthetic situation the subject separates a specific space and timespan from the continuum of experiences and distances himself from his surrounding. They investigate these situations in their social dimensions and develop strategies to denote and discuss the net of relations between beholder and surrounding.
Drawing from their practical experience as dramaturge and director having worked together on several theater creations as well as from an interest in aesthetic theory, Jan-Philipp and David have developed several modules: a series of lecture performances and performances to be presented in theaters and art institutions; an online discussion board and archive for theoretical research; a seminar on aesthetics of reception for academic institutions and art schools; collaborative public programs of artistic and scientific presentations and talks to which they invite artists and scientists. While the online platform is mainly their private work tool, the other modules aim at developing a language for communicating aesthetic situations in greater depth, drawing from the languages of academic discourse as well as performance, theater and visual arts. In the course of the research since 2008 David and Jan-Philipp Possmann created a body of four lecture performances that are available for presentation and have been performed in various venues in- and outside the Netherlands. In spring 2011 the research is the base for the seminar ‘Performing Presentation/Presenting Performance’ at the Dutch Art Institute, ArtEZ.
selected publications
Für eine unruhige Ästhetik, programme text for 'Sing für mich, Tod', Claude Vivier, Albert Ostermeier, Ruhr Triennale 2009.
archive
- Lecture performance Frascati CATALOG OF ENCOUNTERS
- Seminar proposition CATALOG OF SITUATIONS
- Research proposal CATALOG OF SITUATIONS