On Friday Nov 15, we welcome our next visiting professor: Thijs Lijster for a lecture in our Chapter 2WO programme.
Based on his book The Future of the New. Artistic Innovation in Times of Social Acceleration we discuss the role of arts in a world that is accelerating and changing under the influence of globalization and digitization.

Since the nineteenth century the primary value and criterion for art has been the ‘new’. Due to its innovative power, artistic avant-gardes found themselves regularly side by side with political vanguards. But can artistic innovation still function as a source of critique, in an age where everything is sold as ’new’ and ‘improved’? In a world wherein the social acceleration (Hartmut Rosa) and short-termism (Bernard Stiegler) of capitalism are threatening our well being and that of our earth?

How should artists, theorists, and art organizations deal with the changing role of and discussion on innovation? Should we look for alternative ways to innovate, or should we change our discourse and look for other (new!) ways to talk about the ‘new’?

Thijs Lijster is professor in the philosophy of art and culture at the University of Groningen, and postdoctoral researcher at the Culture Commons Quest Office of the University of Antwerp.

His publications include De grote vlucht inwaarts [The great leap inward] (2016), that was awarded with the Essay Prize of the Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature (KANTL) in 2018, Kijken, proeven, denken [Seeing, tasting, thinking] (2019) and Verenigt U! Arbeid in de 21e eeuw [Unite! Labor in the 21st century] (2019).

He was editor of the books Spaces for Criticism. Shifts in Contemporary Art Discourses (2015) and The Future of the New. Artistic Innovation in Times of Social Acceleration (2018). Articles from Lijster regularly appear in newspapers and magazines such as Filosofie Magazine, Metropolis M and De Groene Amsterdammer.