Following the critical theorist Marina Vishmidt’s untimely passing in 2024, a number of drafted syllabi for courses she was due to deliver at The University of Applied Arts in Vienna in an upcoming academic session would remain untaught. This seminar will examine material Vishmidt was in the process of developing for a course on ‘infrastructure’.
Linked to the ongoing formulation of what she termed ‘infrastructural critique’ –a framework that sought to address and move beyond systemic limitations present in acts of institutional critique– the course sought to situate artistic production within ongoing conversations around, amongst other things, the climate crisis, labour struggle and carceral capitalism. This session will consider how Vishmidt’s teaching material could inform the pedagogy of others, and the practical role this specific syllabus might play in that.
What this course document renders clear is a complex genealogy for her line of thinking, one that drew upon art criticism, Marxist value form analysis, engineering, geography, and the digital humanities, while evidencing an increased emphasis on abolitionist frameworks in her later writing. Its activation might stem from a consideration of how these various areas of critical discourse inter-relate, but also through speculating on the ways in which Vishmidt's unfinished research could now be carried forward.
Dr Neil Clements is an artist and writer based in Glasgow. He is a lecturer in the Fine Art Critical Studies department at The Glasgow School of Art, and organises the school’s ‘Friday Event’ talks programme. Along with the artist Rachel Adams he runs the gallery space Ivory Tars.
This talk is part of the 2025-26 CRVC research theme, The Art of the Syllabus