The objective of this PhD-project is to investigate the exchange and efficacy of concepts of energy between the scientific and artistic communities during the early Soviet Union period. By examining the dynamic and vigorous engagements of the avant-garde artists with diverse energy concepts, and simultaneously exploring the usage of these concepts within various scientific contexts such as Soviet labor science this research project wants to investigate how terms and concepts of the presence, intensity, dynamics, impact, art production and reception, and productivity are being rearticulated in terms of energy and figurated in metaphors. As a result of the interactions between art practices, theories, and sciences, new forms of knowledge emerge.

This project will investigate these forms of knowledge that occur at the crossroads of arts and sciences as endeavors to organize energetic transmission processes. By analyzing case studies in the fields of labor science, painting, and architecture theory this research hypothesis should pursuit the history and evolution of concepts of the body, image, and space under the impression of energetic thinking. In this way, the PhD-project will provide a novel and comprehensive understanding of the aesthetic, phenomenological, medial, and epistemic shifts that facilitate the collaboration between arts and sciences, working towards a collective energetic future.

Doctoral researcher: Werner Boschmann