Laura von Niederhäusern

FACE NO DIAL OF A CLOCK. Investigating asynchronic experiences of the present by means of art

Beginn des PhD-Programms / Start of the PhD-Program​: WS 2016 Betreuung / Supervision: 
Giaco Schiesser (ZHdK)
Marlis Roth In today’s life and work conditions, the economic imperatives and technological ranges impose an acceleration, whereas complexity and self-responsibility, by contrast, enhance the need for more time in decision taking. The PhD project questions practices of orientation by investigating conceptual and physical frameworks of timing. How does one deal individually with the experience of today’s heterogeneous temporalities? How do institutions manage asynchronicity? What are the effects of the shift to less obvious and sizable time control of internalized and individualized chronopolitics in regard to a common cultural experience? The research unfolds through a narrative inquiry method combining analytical and artistic approaches in an essayist method of film practice and writing. On the one hand, through the loose leitmotif of ‘failing clock-time’ different aspects of ‘the flattening of time’ are explored in a series of ‘case studies’. Situated in the fields of particular interest for the recent economic development of ‘immaterial labour’, these empirical investigations operate through the role of lifetime (age, biography) and time moods (imperatives, indicatives, subjunctives) in the age of digital technology. On the other hand, by means of fragmentation, montage, film and textual interventions and extractions, the research at hand develops specific artistic techniques of focusing – to develop filmic thinking and thought-images as an empowering sense of orientation within the current, fragmented human existence. Kurz-Biographie / Short Bio
Laura von Niederhäusern’s artistic research practice takes mainly form through film-essay and lecture-performance. She has studied critical theory and fine arts at HEAD Geneva, where she subsequently worked between 2009-2015 as a research assistant and faculty member of the CCC Research-based Master Programme. She is currently working as research associate at the Department of Fine Arts at the Zurich University of the Arts. Email-Adresse / Email-Address:
laura.vonniederhaeusern@zhdk.ch