uni'wissen 1-2013_ENG

“Artists don’t usually even talk among themselves about how strenuous it is to move around all the time” “A blend of historical and empirical cultural studies” is how she refers to her approach. “We use the tools of field research to study people, also taking into account historical perspectives, and attempt to access the field from as many dif ferent avenues as possible.” One important avenue for Lipphardt was a research scholarship at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, a public foundation whose main purpose is to pro vide accommodations and studio space for young artists. This allowed her to fill her research journal with anonymous accounts of informal conversations in the cafeteria at lunch or over a glass of wine in the evening. In addition, she conducted interviews with the artists over an extended period: “Artists enjoy talking about the official version of their biography and artistic work, but it takes a good while before they start talking about problems and setbacks.” Some of them now provide Lipphardt with additional material, like project and travel data or reports on expenses resulting from their mobile lifestyles for their tax returns. In addition, the cultural stud tion is: “How do mobility rhetoric and mobility politics compare to the reality of these people’s lives?” Mobile, cosmopolitan, trendsetting: These are the words typically conjured up in our minds when we talk about musicians, actors, or artists, but it also often corresponds to their own self image. Lipphardt devoted one of her projects to this topic: “The socalled creative class is char acterized as a mobile avantgarde, and this is how they characterize themselves too.” Avoiding routines and perpetually calling one’s own work into question are important components of cre ative work, says the junior professor. However, “artists don’t usually even talk among themselves about how strenuous it is to move around all the time.” She wants to conduct case studies to ana lyze the tension between the “official narrative” and the “behindthescenes narrative” and illus trate the differences between various branches of the arts, artistic practices, and biographical situations. “Artists don’t usually even talk among themselves about how strenuous it is to move around all the time” Up in the air: On stage, every movement is meticu- lously rehearsed, but when it comes to organizing their daily lives, performing artists don’t have a routine to fall back on. Photo: Thomas Kunz 5

uni'wissen 1-2013_ENG

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