Experiencing Utopia: The Interspecies Campus Experiment

Drawing on the traditions of critical theories of art, utopia, modernity and democratic learning processes alongside psychological perspectives of the affordances of things, designs and structures, this presentation focuses on the intersection of art, research and activism through a study of what we have called, the processes and practices of embodied utopian learning.

Presenting the insights from a social experiment. Together with a group of university students, the authors explored the SUPERFLEX sculptural work of art - The Interspecies Campus at RUC Roskilde University. The purpose was to take on the invitation to oblige the contract of the Interspecies campus to find out what kind of affordances the sculptures provide and what kind of relationship with non-human species is made possible through interaction with the sculptural structures.
This presentation zooms in on the specific subjective and social learning processes developed in the interaction to see the potential of the participating student's development and ability to sense, think and act through the creation of a relation to the ’other’. How this newly emerged relationship helps transform an anthro-centred perception of reality and humans' capacity to act on our knowledge and understanding highlights this project’s utopian desire for a more sustainable and liveable earth, world and society. The Interspecies Campus shows us, how art can produce micro utopias in a place like RUC which itself is the historical result of activism and social revolutions more than fifty years ago.