Content and structure

Course content

Numerous problems of contemporary society transcend disciplinary structures and require methods that take into account different disciplines and perspectives. The Major in “Transdisciplinary Studies in the Arts” helps students to position themselves at such interfaces and integrate artistic processes and/or aesthetic strategies into transdisciplinary constellations and projects. The Master’s programme teaches students to consolidate skills from their own, established professional fields in connection with other professional fields in such a way that new questions, methods and focus areas arise.  

Existing interests and questions lead to new configurations of media and formats, to the generation of different audiences or to unexpected configurations of artistic forms of practice and theoretical reflection. For example, students from this Major might combine music performance with scenography, spoken word elements or film; they might be involved in cultural participation and use artistic and aesthetic resources in social contexts; or they might link research practices with artistic intervention, conceptual work with aesthetic forms of experience or initiate and develop new forms of publishing in collective settings.  

In this way, the “Transdisciplinary Studies in the Arts” Master’s programme takes individual profiles and subject areas as a starting point for the transdisciplinary expansion of established disciplinary elements and for connecting theoretical positions with innovative forms of practice.  

Structure of the degree programme

The degree programme is built around the student’s own artistic, creative and/or academic practice, with the Master’s project taking centre stage. Students develop the latter independently in the “Project” module area throughout the duration of the programme, under the supervision of lecturers from the degree programme and mentors they can choose themselves. Courses offered in parallel deepen the exploration of transdisciplinary theories, methods and their project-related, practical implementation. These courses are broken down into two module areas.  

In the “Discourse” module area, students learn about the history, definitions and concepts of transdisciplinarity in and with the arts, as well as selected examples of discourse fields that are relevant for transdisciplinary issues with a special focus on the arts and design. Theoretical reflections are applied to transdisciplinary concepts, processes and projects.  

In the “Studio” module area, methods and practices are taught in order to generate and manage transdisciplinary forms of work. These are examined through sample topics and formats and in cooperation with different project partners. 

Alongside a small obligatory part, the programme offers an extensive range of core elective and elective modules, which also includes courses from other ZHdK study programmes and other universities. As a result, students have the opportunity to align the focus areas of their study programme with the content-related and practical requirements of their Master’s projects. 

Approaches to transdisciplinarity

Approaches to transdisciplinarity outline figures of thought and subject areas in which disciplinary orders are questioned, broken up or transcended. They designate fields of content to which the courses of the master’s programme are aligned and offer students the opportunity to orient themselves towards these areas and to focus on one or more approaches during their studies and in their master’s projects.

Mediators and hybrids: figures of the in-between

Anyone who works transdisciplinarily shifts artistic and creative processes, techniques and formats, media and ways of speaking or concepts into other contexts where they have to be (re)negotiated and scrutinised for their transferability and positioned differently. In the course of such transfer processes, a nebulousness arises that can hardly be grasped with the usual categorical grids. This approach focusses on figures of the in-between, on transitions and transversal connections. The focus is on constellations with the prefix “trans-” that transcend disciplinary, specialised, medial or culturally influenced paradigms, bring these paradigms into negotiation or mediate between them. In classes with this approach, concepts, projects and formats are discussed and tested that defy categorisation into defined genres and thus open up new spaces for thought and negotiation.

Other places, other ways of working, other publics

Theatre makers leave the stage and work in the landscape, visual artists form collectives and create meeting spaces in social hotspots, musicians deal with natural and everyday sounds and seek an audience outside of concert halls. The boundaries between the disciplines are marked by rules that materialise in traditional divisions of labour and defined spaces. These rules are up for discussion.The approach focusses on the critique of institutional frameworks and the hierarchies and exclusionary effects associated with them. The debate centres on how to work with spatial, social and natural-cultural circumstances and conditions, how to involve the previously excluded and how to form alternative ecologies and economies. Questions about concepts of authorship or experimenting with different forms of collaboration — also with non-human actors — are part of this approach.

Forms of knowledge and thought practices in the arts and elsewhere

Knowing the possibilities and limits of one’s own discipline, questioning one’s own certainties and contextualising them is an essential basis for transdisciplinary project work. A transdiscinplinary approach is based on the diversity and equality of different worldviews and investigates types of knowledge that contribute to orientating oneself in the present and facing its problems under various circumstances. Courses with this approach look at the critically assessed supremacy of scientific and supposedly objective knowledge, ask about the politics of dominant and marginalised forms of knowledge, negotiate the position of art and aesthetics in the formation, organisation and distribution of knowledge and test possible connections between theoretical work and artistic practice.

Skills

Students acquire: 

  • analytical skills for transdisciplinary work between the various arts, design and other overlapping but non-artistic/design-related fields of practice; this enables them to question established divisions of labour and the respective processes and techniques; 

  • the ability to interpret and convey subject matter; this skill enables them to understand the discourses between various disciplines in terms of methodology, terminology and content, and to bring them together in a joint medium or media complex; 

  • ​​practical skills for use in students’ own projects that involve transdisciplinary artistic or aesthetic strategies; they can position themselves decisively in relevant professional fields and put together teams that have the required competency profiles to process and realize specific tasks.​ 

Admissions requirements

The Major in “Transdisciplinary Studies in the Arts” is aimed at students who have a Bachelor’s degree and can already provide evidence of professional experience. They have a critical relationship with their own discipline and would therefore like to go beyond its limits and make it compatible with other professional fields and disciplines. They work at the interface between different professional fields or disciplines and would like to acquire skills that enable or facilitate corresponding collaborations. They are interested, on the one hand, in complex problems of modern society that transcend disciplines and, on the other hand, in the question of how artistic processes and aesthetic strategies can connect with them. 

Special features of the course

  • A degree programme that focuses on issues of transdisciplinarity in and with the arts and brings students together with people from artistic, design-related, scientific and other backgrounds is internationally unique.  

  • Exchange takes place between the disciplines not just thanks to the close proximity to ZHdK’s wide range of teaching and research focuses but also and, in particular, in the heterogeneous student group enrolled on the Major programme. Available around the clock, the student studio is a meeting point and a place of work where students develop cooperation with others and collective projects themselves. 

  • Transdisciplinarity cannot be defined either in terms of content or via specific media and formats. Instead, it is an attitude of curiosity and openness, a way of asking questions and a method for approaching problems. This makes it possible to incorporate topical and urgent issues and the interests and concerns of students into the teaching programme on a continuous basis and invite guest lecturers with appropriate expertise. 

  • The Major in “Transdisciplinary Studies in the Arts” belongs to the “Cultural Analysis – Aesthetics – Transdisciplinarity” subject area of the Department of Cultural Analysis, which views research and teaching as being closely interlinked. It is also connected to the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology of ZHdK and external research institutes at various universities in Switzerland and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH). There are options for students to familiarize themselves with research activity and gain an insight into or become involved in ongoing projects.