Introduction

Design, art and media follow, mirror, advance and shape the trajectory of cultural developments. They create constellations that inform the world we live in and reflect transformations in our lifeworld. In the course of the process, existing structures, views and methods are scrutinized, new alignments are modelled and put up for discussion. Out of these activities, which, from an economic point of view, we may ascribe to the cultural industry, arise the f...

Background

HGK FHNW was founded in 1796 and is one of the oldest art and design institutions in Switzerland. Basel, the city at the center of Europe’s largest, tri-national metropolitan area, home to a three quarter million people and with thousands of commuters crossing the borders between Switzerland, France and Germany on a daily basis, is the ideal location for ECAM. Furthermore, HGK FHNW moved with its ten institutes to the recently established Campus of the Arts Basel in 2014. T...

Cluster I Arts, Design and Media Based Research

Cluster I is centered around the reflection and development of practice-based research in the fields of art, design and media. Although the concept of practice-based research has gained recognition in recent years, the establishing of common understandings in methods and criteria for research contributions in this field is still in an early stage. Research in this cluster asks after advanced transdisciplinary methods, heterogeneous modes of knowledge production, expanded...

Cluster II Poetry of the Real

This cluster specifies the importance of aesthetic practice within the development of the ‘new’ in shaping future environments. Its focus lies on the particular dynamics of processes that are elusive as well as on methods and forms of narration in the technical as well as the creative-aesthetic domain. Poetry of the Real negotiates the diverse qualities of describable and non-describable forms of knowledge, which lie beyond addressability through abstract symbolic systems...

Cluster III Impact of Cultures

Cluster III focuses on the diverse forms in which art, design and media communication may unfold impact on society. Research in this field is empiric and analyses current conditions; it is critical-reflective as well as historical-systemic and seeks to elaborate on the effects of art and design within a specific context. Research in this cluster can be conducted from an economic, anthropological or sociological perspective, but also from the point of view of urban planning or...

Collaborations

• University of Art and Design Linz (Kunstuniversität Linz) (UADL), Linz
• Dr. Thomas Macho, IFK Wien
• Carla Delfos, ELIA
• Pierluigi Sacco, PhD, IULM, University of Milan
• Christian Schneegass, Junge Akademie | Akademie der Küste, Berlin
• metaLAB at Harvard University, Cambridge
• The School of Architecture, Design and Conservation, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen