La auto-cosa. Writing Together through Institutions, Artistic Practices, and Critical Imagination

A collaborative piece of writing by the editors, the introduction is composed in the self-reflective voice of two Is, tracking their experiences as students at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Alternately swapping speaking positions, overlapping, or merging their voices in a performative way, the two authors intertwine personal observations of seminars, publications, and the work of colleagues with international positions that have been seminal in the development of radically self-reflexive approaches to research. Mapping connections among the contributions in this anthology, the text also highlights influences and their affective dimension, which recognizes itself as partial and situated. It weaves a network of perspectives that shows what can be encompassed by the concept of autotheory as a way of approaching knowledge and art production.