Difference As Arithmetic Exercise is a public study group on maths textbooks from school, organized by Annette Krauss und Claudia Hummel. In series of seminars, together with invited guests, we do close-readings of maths textbooks, and experiment with exercises and inputs that approach the politics of images, texts and numbers in maths schoolbooks.
The study group attempts to read the maths textbooks in the context of societal processes such as migration, questions of gender, economization, big data, changes of the labor market, climate change and extractivism. A collection of maths textbooks, predominantly from West Germany and spanning from 1984 to 2016 constitutes the material basis of the study group.
The seminars Difference as Arithmetic Exercise has been held so far in the following contexts: at Theater an der Parkaue in Berlin Lichtenberg (2011), im Kunstverein Munich (2012), at the elementary school (Nürtingen Grundschule) in Berlin-Kreuzberg (2013), at the Whitechapel Gallery in collaboration with The Showroom in London (2013), at Haus der Statistik in Berlin (2016), and at the Free University Berlin (department: Mathematische Bildung und Gesellschaft) (2018).
The title "Difference as Arithmetic Exercise" is borrowed from an essay by sociologist Helma Lutz, chair of Women and Gender Studies at Goethe University. Lutz, Helma; Differenz als Rechenaufgabe: über die Relevanz der Kategorien Race, Class und Gender. In: Lutz, Helma (Hrsg.); Wenning, Norbert (Hrsg.): Unterschiedlich verschieden. Differenz in der Erziehungswissenschaft. Opladen: Leske + Budrich 2001, S. 215–230.
Images
1.
Workshop table with stacks of maths textbooks, Theater an der Parkaue, Berlin 2011.
2.
Seminar #1, Theater an der Parkaue, 2011. With contributions by invited guests Angelika Bartl (art theorist and padagogue), Anton Kats (artist), Miya Yoshida (curator).
3.
Seminar #4, Whitechapel Gallery, including a number walk at The Showroom, London, 2013. With contributions by invited guests Eva Jablonka (critical mathematics), Ricardo Basbaum (artist).
Links:
casco.art
dutchartinstitute.eu
hausderstatistik.org
kunstimkontext.udk-berlin.de
theshowroom.org