OBSERVATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

Sociology

19 July 2015, Amsterdam

Substance abuse and prostitution – Field study New York and Frankfurt by C. Bernard / A. Langer

What is it that’s going on here? – Reflections on sociological theory by E. Goffman und H. Becker

Undergoing spaces – Architecture of psychiatry and prison

External image & Self image of drug addicts

Oral History – Audibility of voices as Outcast Registration

Observational perspectives – Interdisciplinary utilisation of Artistic Research

Literature (in german)

“Frauen in Drogenszenen. Drogenkonsum, Alltagswelt und Kontrollpolitik in Deutschland und den USA am Beispiel Frankfurt am Main und New York City“, Christiane Bernard, 2013
„Klandestine Welten. Mit Goffman auf dem Drogenstrich“, Antje Langer, 2003
„Visuelle Gewalt. Menschenbilder aus der Psychiatrie des 20. Jahrhunderts“, Susanne Regener, 2010

Participants:

Christiane Bernard, sociologist, State Coordination Office for Women and Addiction, Frankfurt/Essen, Germany
Nina Glockner, artist, Amsterdam, Netherlands and Vienna, Austria
Antje Langer, educational studies, Professor at University Paderborn, Germany
Ulrike Möntmann, artist, Amsterdam, Netherlands and Vienna, Austria
Susanne Regener, culture and media studies, Professor at University Siegen, Germany and Affiliate Professor of Media Culture at University Copenhagen, Denmark

to be aware of outsiders, that is, marginalised groups in a society, to register and research conditions they live under, and to demand public visibility for them, is the main concern of this arts and science research project. Such groups all suffer from similar systematic exclusion procedures that push them over and over again further to the margins of society. Unlike their male fellow sufferers, drug-addicted women in European prisons are considered a “negligible phenomenon”. The work of the OUTCAST REGISTRATION counters this by recognising the need of the participants to make their lives a public affair, which ultimately also means laying part of the responsibility for their illness at society’s door.

the projects of the OUTCAST REGISTRATION operate in different topological spheres, that is, in spaces that reflect specific social functions and all have a private (individual) and a public (communal) meaning. The fact that private space is largely excluded highlights the problematic fact that the private sphere in democratic systems is fundamentally—and constitutionally—hidden from public view. While this does protect from state control and interference, it does not protect those who are exposed to (sexual) violence behind closed doors. For all the women who participated in the projects, the private space has never been a protective space, as is clear from their respective biographies—on the contrary. Since access to private space is denied, the OUTCAST REGISTRATION projects concentrate on social spaces that are accessible but under normal circumstances strictly separated from each other, and it is there that encounters or even confrontations are initiated between their inhabitants: — in isolated spaces, where segregated life far away from society is imposed, for example, in prisons, therapy facilities, psychiatric wards, and asylum seekers centres; — in cultural spaces, that is, institutionally legitimised and supported spaces and facilities, including museums, art halls and galleries, as well as, for example, playgrounds, parks, and zoos; spaces that are categorically in contrast to subcultural, secret, or even forbidden spaces for ideas, thoughts, and life styles, which are rejected by the majority and/or officially banished from the public sphere; — in the public realm, which ideally expresses the need and obligation of all people to be able to articulate in public everything that concerns all us, independent of whether they have been granted, have acquired, or have coerced authorisations and privileges. In the sense of Hannah Arendt, the sphere of what is public is not only a possibility, but rather a call to action.