THE ACADEMIC COMEDY

The university as an institution is one of many agents in the progressively inscrutable web of cultural hegemony. While it embodies both knowledge and power, it is important to understand the relationship between, and the execution of the two. 

This thesis raises the question of whether and how Institutional Critique can be translated into architecture. By examining the Technical University of Vienna (Micro) and the university as a general concept (Macro), how these institutions function nowadays as well as how they were organized historically, the universities’ cornerstones begin to crystallize. From student riots in the beginning of the 20th century to the formation of utopian architecture collectives during the 60ies, all these instances were part of the habitus that was shaped by and was able to shape the university. How are notions of hierarchy, accessibility and performativity communicated nowadays? Are these conventional forms of protest still applicable and do they lead to lasting change? The Academic Comedy borrows from Dante Alighieri‘s Divine Comedy, as it tries to extract and reapply the spatial organisation of Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy, in addition to TAC performing the status quo of the university in crisis. Rather than a top down approach that tends to legitimize policies by way of institutionalizing power, The Academic Comedy calls for a modus operandi that works from beneath, that is viable and resilient. »[Going] hands full into the underground of the university, into the Undercommons [...] is the only possible act.« (Moten, Harney 2013: 28)

The Academic Comedy is a multi faceted project, combining research within the University with Dante‘s Divine Comedy and a design for the stage of TAC at the Techincal University of Vienna.