Defence of dissertation in the field of Art

Opponent: Dr. Dafydd Sills-Jones, Aberystwyth Custos: Professor Paula Hohti

Dirk Hoyer's thesis (Ap)Art Contemporary Art And Utopia takes Thomas More’s classic work Utopia as a starting point. Written in 1516, it was a catalyst not only for a new genre in literature but gave important impulses in the struggles for political emancipation that would define modernity. Almost 500 years after Thomas Moore’s book, Dirk Hoyer is asking in his practice-based artistic research project: if and how utopian visions can unlock the imagination and what role art can play in this process? In an archeological mode as defined by Ruth Levitas the dissertation “(ap)art-Visual Art and Utopia” is examining four different utopian strategies in the art context (contemporary outopia, contemplative utopia, activism without utopian mental picture, retopia) and re-contextualizes the quest for utopia in the globalized environment.

Hoyer’s research project consists of the dissertation and a 60 minute documentary film “(ap)art” in which 16 Estonian contemporary artists were interviewed on their understanding of utopia. How can utopia as a suggestive device with a prefigured methodology open new ways of countering the existing “There is No Alternative” paradigm that is dominates the political, scientific and the artistic spheres?

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