Contemporary Thought and Artistic Practices

This is a basic training subject that is part of the subject Theoretical Foundations of Artistic Practices, and its objective is to introduce the study and reflection on the most relevant theoretical and conceptual frameworks for contemporary artistic practices, emphasizing in the period which goes from the 70s of the 20th century to the present. Having overcome the debate around postmodern culture – central in the eighties and nineties – to our most immediate past, the cultural transformations marked in recent decades by neoliberalism will be analysed, understood as a dominating model of cultural production that is based on a set of power relations, value systems, forms of organization and aesthetic orientations that are inscribed in cultural and educational institutions, but also in the production of our ways of life and our subjectivity. The subject is a continuation of Modern Thought and Artistic Practices, and presents a critical look at the historiographic discourse based on three thematic blocks or axes which we will call ontological openings of contemporaneity.

• Know how to identify the visions inherited from modernity in contemporary thought and current artistic practices.
• Formulate projects or situations through which we create spaces of intersectional relationship, contact, friction or contagion with and between the different agents, communities, audiences and networks of the arts and contemporary thought.
• Activate and put into play issues linked to culture, thought and contemporary creation, understanding them as tools that allow us to build a critical position and a way of looking forward to current reality.
• Critically analyze the ontologies of the contemporary present and propose new perspectives to address identifiable issues or problems.
• Know and use research methodologies and creation, communication and dissemination strategies in the field of contemporary thought and artistic practices.
• Reinforce learning habits and accompany autonomy in artistic research processes.
• Acquire the toolbox necessary for the writings of contemporary thought.
• Manage links and theoretical instruments in a critical and creative way.
• Integrate a series of reading records for bibliodiversity.
• Identify communities linked and binding to one's own work.
• Adapt one's own work to the specific contexts of implementation.

• Acquire and demonstrate advanced knowledge of the theoretical and practical aspects and work methodology in the field of artistic practices. (CB1)
• Shows attitudes of respect for linguistic, social and cultural diversity. (CT5)
• Act with respect for diversity and equal opportunities, taking into account the intersection of gender inequality with other axes of inequality (age, class, race, sexuality and gender identity/expression, functional diversity, etc.). (CT8)
• Promotes gender equality within the framework of practice. (CT8)
• Recognizes the main types of collectives, agents and practices that operate as a response and/or questioning the institutional sphere of art, the forms they adopt and the role they play. (CE1)
• Displays solid knowledge about the role of artistic practices in relation to activism, mediation and pedagogy. (CE2)
• Actively participates in collective knowledge production processes. (CE10)

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