Mirjana Mitrović
From an archive to a ruin – from a ruin to...
Block seminar, English/Deutsch, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
Tuesday, 20.10.2026, 10-14 h, Kick-off: Introduction and meeting with the curators of transmediale
Tuesday, 26.1.2027, 17-21 h, Marshall McLuhan Lecture, Kanadische Botschaft
Friday-Sunday, 29.-31.1.2027, each 12-18 h: transmediale, silent green & exhibition, Akademie der Künste Berlin
Vilém Flusser Archiv, Grunewaldstr. 2-5, room 208
Excursions: 26.1., 17-21 Uhr, 29./30./31.1.2027, each from 12-18 h

Anmeldung auf Moodle ab / Registration on Moodle begins 12.10.2026: https://moodle.udk-berlin.de/moodle/course/view.php?id=3325
Einschreibeschlüssel / Enrollment Key: ruin

Since 2007 the Vilém Flusser Archive is situated at the Medienhaus at Berlin University of the Arts. The archive will thus celebrate its 20th anniversary at the UdK in 2027. At the same time, however, it is not all cause for celebration, as the archive has had its funding cut as part of the budget cuts, making its closure next year a likely prospect. This raises questions about the significance of archives in today’s society: what value do we place on them? What role should archives play? What prevents them from falling into ruin? Or is that the natural course of events? It is not only the _Vilém_Flusser_Archive that is celebrating its anniversary; the renowned transmediale festival will also be marking its 40th edition in 2027. The two institutions are linked by a long-standing collaboration: for the past 15 years, together they have been organising the Vilém Flusser Residency. The upcoming edition of transmediale will also be exploring similar questions surrounding archives. Marking its 40th anniversary, transmediale 2027 uses this condition to rethink what the institution is and what it can become. The festival refuses a nostalgic or retrospective approach, treating the archive not as history, but as a site for rearticulation. If power operates infrastructurally, resistance must do so as well. transmediale is repositioned as a counter-infrastructure: not a platform for display, but a space where practices, methods, and institutional forms are tested under real conditions of asymmetry. In this seminar, we will explore these two institutions and the mentioned questions. We plan to meet the curators of the upcoming edition of transmediale at the Vilém Flusser Archive in October, and to attend the Marshall McLuhan Lecture at the Canadian Embassy in January, as well as visit transmediale at silent green and the accompanying exhibition at the Academy of Arts.

Leistungsanforderungen für den unbenoteten Schein / Fulfilment criteria for ungraded accreditation: Attendance at the first session is mandatory. Participants are expected to take a regular and active part in the session, prepare for and follow-up on the excursions and hand in a short written or creative reflection.

Mirjana Mitrović is a media artist and researcher. Currently, she works as a research associate at the Vilém Flusser Archive and is doing a PhD about the flâneuse and the digitalisation of urban space at Berlin University of the Arts. She combines artistic and academic practices, focusing on the influence of new technologies, especially the internet and smartphones; the lifeworlds of women* and feminist activism; geographical, physical and mental borders and their transgression. Her art works, ranging from analogue photographs to multimedia installations, are exhibited in Germany and beyond. She studied Cultural Studies, Spanish Philology and Interdisciplinary Latin American Studies. She received a scholarship by the Hans Böckler Foundation, was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society, TU Graz as well as a Panofsky Fellow at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte (Central Institute for Art History), Munich. She is a member of the network „Red de Mujeres Unidas“, German Federal Foreign Office / GIZ and an elected board member of the Association of Democratic Scientists (BdWi). More information: mirjana-mitrovic.de