Concept: Prof. Dr. Jörn Peter Hiekel (Dresden) und Prof. Dr. David Roesner (München);

This year's Biennale theme “OmU - original version with subtitles” evokes being open for what's unfamiliar and unexpected. First of all, this means accepting new formats and strategies in today's music theater. However, it can also point to those differences or cross-relations in the arts from which new possibilities of collaborations arise. But what do altered formats, strategies, and possibilities look like today? And what is their relationship to the transformations in the different fields of present-day art? The symposium will take subjects like these into consideration in view of some of the Biennale productions, but it will also go into detail concerning the fundamentals – starting with questions suggested by the motto “OmU – original version with subtitles”: What is, after all, an “original work,” and which expectations does it inspire in us? Which perceptions of work, authorship, event, and authentication are connected to this term? And what is the relevance then of subtitles? Are they merely translations and comments, or do cast changes, repertoire performances, re-enactments, adaptations, captions, footnotes, margin notes, and YouTube and Twitter comments also take on the role of subtitles in the broader sense?

The symposium will bring artists and scientists from very different disciplines together in order to examine and discuss this.

Participants:
Simon Steen-Andersen (Berlin), Christopher Balme (München), Roman Brotbeck (Bern), Leo Dick (Bern), Hans-Jürgen Drescher (München), Regine Elzenheimer (Leipzig), Christian Grammel (Köln), Petra Maria Mayer (Kiel), Dieter Mersch (Zürich), Isabel Mundry (Zürich), Brigitta Muntendorf (Köln), Katja Schneider (München) und Martin Zenck (Würzburg)