8-9.11.2014
The Trial
with Martin Heller.
The title the Trial comes from one of Franz Kafka’s best-known works, telling the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor the reader, so rendering in question the relationship between ideas of natural and state law.
From the idealised position of Karl Marxs ‘withering of the state’ where the development of human consciousness no longer neccesitates the rule of a state or its laws, to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, arguably one of the most important practical documents of the last century in creating a platform for global liberty and equality, that is instilled in the idea that these rights must be protected by rule of law, the understanding and use of the mechanisms of law can be seen as a fertile medium. Ideas of morality, state, property, copyright and identity are all put into play as conceptual processes.
In the two day workshop, students are asked to use the law as a creative medium, relating to both individual or collaborative practices,
with the goal and the end of the two days to produce a series of trials or legal constructions as both reality and performance. Martin Heller will be on hand to give advice.
Martin Heller
Born 1961 in Gelsenkirchen/Ruhrgebiet in Germany, Martin Heller is a gentleman, lecturer and a lawyer heavily involved in the art scene. He has been a lecturer
in Philosophy, Legal Writing and Legal Methods at the Humboldt University, a member of the board of the Kunstwerk in Berlin, he is specialised in art related legal matters and is the CEO of Heller Projects and Arts Consulting & Management.