Parts of the prologue of Research as Performance:
Artefacts, Action, and Knowledge
Department III Director Dagmar Schäfer

Prologue <Slide # 1on>

The Director- Dagmar [reading the quote]:
Although different in color and kind, lead, when participating in vermillion making , can function as the colour vermillion. One has to grasp its “inner working” (shu?).
Therefore, that which can be said/known is not effectuated by intricate formula and elegant phrases.
Simply test the causes and that is that” Marianna: Huainanzi Writings of the Masters,
South of the Huai River, 2nd century BCE Dagmar: In the following 50 minutes.…
[Dept III stands up from their seats and moves to stage]
Dagmar:We follow how people through the centuries up until more recent times imagined such ways of working, people such as Robert Hommel who in the early twentieth century took photos of processes such as dyeing for his book China at Work, attributing such inner workings mainly to the domaines of craft, technology, and the everyday.
our aim is to develop a historical epistemology of action.
Dept I I I:[ repeat the sentence one after another in a canon]:
Wilko & Marianna: historical epistemology of action.
Tamar & Shehab: historical epistemology of action.
Alexis & Edna: historical epistemology of action.
Dagmar: Our research agenda has three entry points:
[reading without a pause]
Tamar: artifacts
Mariana: (things),
WIko: action
Lisa: (making),

Shih-Pei: knowledge
Alexis: (work).
Dagmar: Five senior researchers support the organization …
Shehab: What kind of work is it to make “knowledge”?
Edna: Knowledge-making is work for brain and brawn.
By emphasizing the physical side,
Lisa: beyond the written traces of practices and the material remnants of products, to grasp the “inner workings” (shu?) that the Huainanzi speaks about.
Alexis: our aim is to push the historical analysis of what and how people knew
Sonja: We look into the varying conceptual roles of “action” as “knowing”
Shih-Pei: What “knowledge” inhabits the Huainanzi’s myriads of things, such as plants, ghosts,
Marianna:...or stones?
Lisa: As historians of science, we study the artifacts of human action and thought.
Marianna: We study them as sources, as mediators, and as products of scientific and technological change.
Tamar: We search for human histories in their material components
Wilko: Hence, it is important to ask how people make things work.
Edna: how they organize processes, through management, infrastructures organizational forms,
Wilko: or systemic choices.
Alexis: by looking, for instance, at the judgments and decision-making when drawing relations, as those are
judgments and decisions that impact what counts as knowledge and how it counts.
<Slide #1 off>
<Black Slide on>
[Sound of the sea, Wilko walks in the center of the room slowly towards the front stage all DEPT
III speed around the room, some of them are standing, some walking and others are seating in the
crowd]
Fake Link

I First performed Debriefing II: July 2015
Location: Artport, Tel Aviv. As part of Non Finito, Artport’s third year residency exhibition.
Training local agents (performers) and performing as Public Movement Agent at the opening section: June - October 2016: Guggenheim Museum, New York
As part of the exhibition But a Storm Is Blowing from Paradise: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa.
Curator: Sara Raza
Activating Public Movement Agents: Amir Farjoun, Ruth Patir
Head of research and performing as Public Movement Agent: October - December 2015: Tel Aviv Museum of Art. As part of Public Movement durational exhibition, National Collection.
Head of research and performing as Public Movement Agent: October 2015: Spielart Festival, Munich
Location: Villa Stuck Museum
Performing as Public Movement Agent October, November 2018: Debriefing Session Visetamarstudio, as part of Publice Movement solo exhibition Temporary Orders Vistamarstudio, Milan.

TelAviv Museum - Performing as public movement agent
SpielArt Munich - Performing as public movement agent
Guggenheim NYC - Performer conductor and performing the Agent for the prevue and opening action
Vaistamar Studio Milan - performing as Public Movement Agent
Santarcangelo festival - Action leader, performers conductor and performing as the English speaking public movement Agent

Debriefing Session II Is a one on one performance as part of my work with public movement I was part of the creation of this work first by being the head of research for this and as the main conductor of other performers and performing myself as public movement agent.