At the book presentation of “Updating Germany” by Raumtaktik (the curators of the German contribution to the Venice Biennial International Architecture Exhibition 2008) the term “Betroffenheitskunst” was brought up and kept coming back throughout the panel discussion. The term is used to criticize art that aims to cause empathy as an end in itself. At least this is how I understand it. In the context of architecture – which in one way or another is always about altering reality – the term does not seem to make much sense in my opinion.Wolfram Putz of Graft presented a project that used a TV show and celebrities to raise money and build houses in a devastated area in New Orleans. He made clear that he found the term annoying and that it almost made him angry, because after all what counts was to help improving a situation. On the other hand Stephan Kovats, artistic director of Transmediale, said that he was trying to avoid “Betroffenheitskunst” at the upcoming festival which is entitled “Deep North” and deals with the world that we have to expect after the climate change that we caused ourselves.
I think that the apparent misunderstanding here is quite interesting, because it shows that there is a fundamental difference between the system art and the system design/architecture even though players from both worlds end up in the same exhibitions and on the same projects and panels and often enough deal with the same topics (sometimes even compete about them). While for artists art as a means in itself is not only a very usual concept, but also totally legitimate since it underlines the claim of freedom and independence. In design and architecture a means itself is traditionally suspicious (not only since the naive days of form follows function).
The result of architecture can be observed in the world, the result of art to the contrary must be observed in peoples heads. Using empathy in a calculated way to achieve a result in peoples heads is something very different than using empathy in order to achieve a result in the world.