Programme for Applied Ethics Research

Programme for Applied Ethics Research

Cooperation Trondheim/Düsseldorf: Ethics - Knowledge - Aesthetics                                                    

Upcoming activity: INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP
(Ethics - Knowledge - Aesthetics Research Network)
Date & Place: 15-16 May 2014, NTNU Dragvoll Låven Room DL 145, Trondheim 
Organization & funding: Prof. May Thorseth, NTNU Globalization Programme and NTNU Programme for Applied Ethics
Prof. Timo Skrandies, Institute for Art History, HHU Düsseldorf (Germany)
Theme/topic: Dilemmas of Sustainability
During the last years "sustainability" has become a key concept within the debates on climate change and the anthropocene. For the interest in a green future the concept of sustainability plays a role as fundamental as „globalization" is for the social, political and cultural changes of our world and as „digitalization" is for the new media realities. Nevertheless "sustainability" is not a new or even just trendy labeling since its global emergence during the UNCED 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. Historically seen sustainable practice has a quite long tradition – not least in agriculture and forestry of the 19th century sustainability meant the equivalence of breeding and use.
In early 2014 NTNU launched its new research area "Sustainable Development". In this context our workshop will explore and discuss some dilemmas or antinomies going along with the interest in a sustainable development. For the interrelations of human culture, biosphere, noosphere and technosphere seem to be far too complex for simple descriptions. Thus to claim the necessity of a sustainable development (like in the discourse on climate change) is not the answer to, but just a starting point of the circumstances we live in.
The dilemmas/antinomies we think of are touching ethical questions as well as aesthetic conditions and dispositivs of knowledge: how to relate the necessity to act now with the lack of knowledge about future consequences of our today's decisions; what is it to act responsible in today's circumstances as well as with regard to future generations; how can we realize justice in the asymmetry of local and global/intercultural environments; which impact does the visualization and medialisation of the biosphere and nature have to our "Weltbild"; how can we anyway visualize the complexity of and our knowledge on sustainable developments. Included in this is also discourses on sustainability (cf. Promethean and Survivalist views).
Past activity: RESEARCH LABORATORY II
Date & Place: 30-31 May 2012, Trondheim
Leaders: May Thorseth (Trondheim), Timo Skrandies (Düsseldorf)
Theme/topic: Ethics - Knowledge - Aesthetics
Within the research context of NTNU's "Globalisation Programme/Intercultural Dynamics" and "Programme for Applied Ethics" some of us met in December 2012 at the Filosofisk Institutt. The plan for this first come together meeting in the form of a "research laboratory" was to establish a field of research within the theoretical frame of "Ethics-Aesthetics-Knowledge". Our working method was to focus on the process of thinking and discussing to find links between us and our research interests.
     We found some strong links between aspects of globalization, responsibility, visual cultures, media aesthetics, sustainability, knowledge and even the technical and the artistic sides of biotechnologies. This was and still is a wide range of perspectives and we hope and think that our upcoming "research laboratory II" (30/31 May) will result in both further contributions of concepts, theoretical perspectives, research paradigms and methodological frameworks on the one hand and more focused ideas on research designs and possible project applications on the other hand. For the "research laboratory II" in May we are especially looking forward to have some more "aestheticians" sitting at the table, sharing their knowledge on aesthetic, media and visual cultures with us.

Past activity: RESEARCH LABORATORY I
Date & Place: 13-14 December 2012, Trondheim
Leaders: May Thorseth (Trondheim), Timo Skrandies (Düsseldorf)
Theme/topic: Ethics - Knowledge - Aesthetics
     We are interested in the manifold relations and tensions of Ethics - Knowledge - Aesthetics. And - of course - we don't want to work on it on our own - our idea is to build up a research group together.
     A first come together in form of a "research laboratory" is scheduled for the 13. and 14. December 2012. In October we will come up with some more detailed information on the "come together" meeting.