Head of Department:
ao.Univ.-Prof. Dr. phil. Mag. art. Marion Elias
Founded in March 2006, the Gender
Art Laboratory (GAL) at the Angewandte is conceived as an “open workshop” at the intersection of art and science, a laboratory
for artistic-scientific research, production, and interpretation. The implications of the related fields of science and art,
concerning their treatment of gender-specific issues and the motif of the “norm” prescribed by society itself, are critically
addressed on equal terms. In the Gender Art Lab students, artists, and scientists analyse and discuss the fundamental subject
of gender and its meaning. The programme alternates between topic- specific lectures and public debates.
The results
and reactions of this “groundwork” are artworks that encompass all disciplines, interpretative works by GAL participants,
individual solutions, questions, problem explanations, and statements in exhibitions and publications. In the combination
of practice and theory, art and gender, manifests the unique character of the GAL, with which the Angewandte attains a pioneering
position in its study programmes. The rapid transformations that our society and every social construction worldwide are allegedly
subject to are a recurring element of sceptical scrutiny, which the GAL strives to sustain.
