Volume 16, Issue 1 - Special Issue: Artistic Collaborations: The Practice and Aesthetics of Working Together Guest editors: Ines Barner, Anja Schürmann, Kathrin Yacavone

This article explores creative collaboration as an old, yet rarely discussed problem. It is mainly focused on literature, but the questions raised as well as the results are broadly applicable to most modern artforms that are based on a strong concept of authorship. Collaborations are familiar to all artistic genres at all times, in some periods and contexts they are even prevalent. Therefore, they currently gain notable attention in many academic disciplines, especially in the humanities but also in social sciences. In recent years the notion has become popular that in a certain way all works of art are collaborative (cf. Inge 2001, 623). One of the central points the article is trying to make is that the loose application of the concept of collaboration is clouding the view onto specific practices. At the same time, it is the main reason for the present uncertainty of what an artistic collaboration actually is or how it manifests itself in the resulting work of art. Therefore, the article explores the threshold of the concept of collaboration and presents readings of a few examples that challenge the stereotype of cooperative action as a setting of shared intentionality and stable roles of action. To make the huge field of collaborations more manageable, the article proposes to divide it into two different sets of practices: The first consists of all acts that bring texts into existence. On that level of material practices there is no need to make typological distinctions between the actors involved. It is more about the way a text is produced than who claims to be the author. Hence the question is how a person writes, on which surface and under which circumstances, if alone or interacting with others. The distinction between the author and all other actors involved in the production – the secretaries, the editors, the partners, to name only a few – is made on a second tier. It is the level of representation and representational practices. To separate the level of writing ( Verfasserschaft ) from the level of authorship ( Autorschaft ) allows a more neutral perspective on collaboration, that prevents confusion of writing with its representation. Based on Pierre Bourdieu’s Esquisse d’une théorie de la pratique (1972) the article proposes a praxeological approach which calls for a close look at the specific constellation of textual production. To acknowledge the symbolic value of different writing-scenes ( Schreibszenen ) this approach needs to be complemented by a history of reading and writing (i.a. Roger Chartier). To specify and exemplify this notion the article analyses three different settings of textual production that can all be located at the margins of collaboration. All of them show a certain way of making common practices seem extraordinary. It is not the general type of practice but the specific way it is acted out in a certain constellation that gains symbolic value. Some of the specific examples addressed are: 1) What makes Johann Christian Günthers dictation so special that it is communicated in the paratext to his poem? And is it enough to let the unknown writer escape mere instrumentality and advance to being a collaborator? 2) Can individual verses of Goethe’s and Schiller’s Xenien be perceived as collaborations even though only one of them has written them? Can, in other words, doing nothing be considered an authorial practice as long as there is a contextualizing agreement on co-authorship? 3) Can Brecht’s Kriegsfibel be considered a collaboration even though he used photos published in newspapers without permission or consent? Is intention necessary or is it possible to collaborate unknowingly? These questions are difficult to answer definitively and maybe it is not even possible to answer them with absolute certainty. But they provoke reflections on the theoretical foundation of collaboration and authorship, they let us see some of the outlines of these concepts, hence help make our ignorance ›specified‹ (Robert K. Merton).

The present article proposes, as its successively developed tool of analysis, a combination of literary, theatre historical and manuscriptological approaches, which then reveal the extent to which the study of written artefacts may further our understanding of collaborative models of (literary) creation, analysed along with their corresponding practices. Authorship is often understood, on the one hand, as a discursively produced phenomenon – as an ensemble of attributes that are not only ascribed to any producer of literary texts, but are also demanded of them, and which, at the same time, are supposed to guarantee the quality of their literary ›products‹. By contrast, the present article focuses on a level of concrete practices at which, instead of a lone individual, a plurality of actors contributing to a literary text may be identified. This text, in turn, should be considered not as an inviolable work of art produced by a single entity but as an object of utility used by many, at least in those instances where it is functionally incorporated into a dynamic ensemble of technical, aesthetic and social requirements, norms and expectations, where, in other words, it becomes the basis for a theatre performance. As this article argues, the inclusive approach just described, as well as its consequences regarding questions of authorship and textual work, can be fully identified only in specific textual artefacts found at the centre of the eighteenth-century manuscript culture shaping the literary theatre of that time. Accordingly, the contrast between, on the one hand, discourses and practices (sketched more fully below) and the various understandings of authorship, on the other, can be located in historical terms: In the present article, it is sought out and analysed based on those stretches of history during which the various notions began to emerge with great formative power. In the case of the discourse of single authorship, this decisive phase is the Sturm und Drang period with its concurrent aesthetics of genius; the corresponding practice is that of a wholly literary theatre, already mentioned, which is founded on a dramatic text now considered binding; and the corresponding textual artefact is the prompt book, which adapts that textual foundation to the needs of a theatrical production (and which, at that time, is often the only book containing all of the dramatic text). Ultimately, this article is focused on the hypothesis that, upon closer consideration of the materiality of the textual artefact, the dramatic text, which usually is considered the work of a single auctorial consciousness, may reasonably prove a work of many hands. And indeed, various actors contribute, by different theatrical and manuscript practices, to the adaptation of the dramatic text to the conditions and requirements of the stage, without being placed, however, in a position of authorship comparable to that of the ›classic‹ author. More often than not, they remain unmarked and can only be differentiated – e. g., with regard to their hierarchical relationships – through an analysis of the artefacts themselves, their contexts of use and institutional framework. As this analysis suggests, prompt books in use were in a state of continuous revision, based on various intra- and extra-theatrical factors. Individual revisions include different kinds of corrections such as deletions, additions or pastings, as well as traditional elements of Western manuscript cultures or symbols and abbreviations specific to the theatre. It also becomes clear that the changes made in this way are by no means final but, being the material equivalent of theatrical and thus ephemeral processes, are only ›valid until revoked‹, i. e., they may be changed again at any time. These changes, which in the written record are usually effected by several hands (especially when a prompt book has been used for several productions), therefore could be considered as a kind of ›updates‹ on the original text, as theatre professionals keep a prompt book that is in use up to date. And even though such prompt books are standardised, to an extent, by the requirements of theatrical procedure, these updates individualise each written artefact which in turn exhibit both their revisions and their various dynamics in a two-tiered material performance. There are many reasons for introducing changes to the dramatic text. Aspects of theatrical practice may come into play, such as when there are fewer actors available than are needed to fill all roles, or when the text at hand is too long and deletions have to be made. Even poetological concerns and others – often closely related – with the aesthetics of theatre can occasion such changes. Theatrical depictions of sexuality and violence are a case in point, as they may be addressed and/or portrayed too directly (e. g., when lines spoken onstage are too explicit or events depicted are too drastic, either would have to be ›softened‹). In cases of doubt, the audience’s reaction would draw attention to sequences in need of such ›softening‹. And lastly, there were demands for changes originating not from the theatrical sphere, per se, such as in the case of political censorship. From a manuscriptological perspective, the present article considers the specific practices of updating and revising prompt books, as well as the interplay of the factors motivating or demanding those changes. In order to be able to identify and assess those factors in terms of their relative importance, a contextual background in literary theory and theatre history is needed; this will facilitate the placing of the textual artefacts under consideration in their cultural, social and institutional contexts. By following this interdisciplinary approach, the present article investigates the requirements and representational modes of single authorship within the discursive framework of the aesthetics of genius, as well as the various and contrasting ways of dealing with individual texts as they are adapted in theatrical terms, i. e., are rewritten and updated constantly. The article proposes an analytical framework, which is then demonstrated by way of example. This framework serves to make the various characteristics and functions, the material dynamics and concrete uses of prompt books – both as literary texts and as the focal points of theatrical and manuscript practices – accessible and methodologically suitable for further historical and systematic investigation and discussion.

The paper argues that the ways in which editors shape cultural perceptions of authors, or their works, are only partially evident from theoretical writings and testimonies. Programmes and practices of editing often do not coincide, they can even contradict each other. This is not necessarily due to a lack of consistency, but to the fact that there is an inherent logic to editorial practice that is sometimes not even fully reflected upon by the professionals and experts within the community. What is needed, it is argued, is a praxeological approach that looks at the practices of selecting and editing, framing and medially placing texts, as well as the social, economical and political aspects of editions in concrete historical constellations. Thus, fundamental tensions that characterize the practice of modern editing since the beginning become visible. In the nineteenth century, a notion of editorship as a purely reproductive activity emerged. Editors were not allowed anymore to make any interventions in the texts. However, this concept of editorship contrasted with the idea that the editor should become a second maker, by not only replicating the original creative activity, but claiming to be able to understand the author better than the author understands him- or herself. The collaborative practice of editorship therefore equally works in favour of the author and against the author. Bettina von Arnim’s literary debut Goethe’s Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde (1835) is used as an example to illustrate this basic problem of modern editorship. In Arnim’s work, different functions and programmatics of editorship come together. Goethe’s Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde is situated between a poetic form of appropriation and a poeto-philological practice of editing. It is both an act of memorialization and an attempt by the editor to secure a place for herself in the literary field. Through her editing of the letters and their arrangement, Arnim initially places herself in the role of one of Goethe’s imaginary sister: At the end of the first part of the correspondence, Arnim is asked by Goethe’s mother to write down the story of Karoline von Günderrode. Thus, she composes a female Wertheriade. In the second part, Arnim stages herself as the poet’s muse by putting words into her own mouth in the letters to Goethe that later reappear in his poems. Finally, Arnim repeatedly slips into the role of Goethe’s female characters and continues their stories on her own authority. While the second part of the correspondence ends with Goethe’s death, the third part, the Tagebuch ( Diary ), becomes the initiation of Arnim’s own authorship. Here the dialogue turns into a monologue. The logic of inspiration is reversed: Arnim becomes a poet kissed and blessed by the muse Goethe. Owing to its fictional elements, Goethe’s Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde has tended to be regarded in German-studies scholarship as an epistolary novel or artistic adaptation rather than as an ›edition‹ in the proper sense of the word. This article, on the contrary, argues that the book illuminates a fundamental contradiction of modern editing precisely because of its intermediate status between philology and poetry. Editorial activities always aim to establish an authentic speech and a specific form of authorship. Even as nineteenth-century editorial philology formed an ethos that prohibited purposeful interference with the text, the editors still claimed to become second creators. This led to self-contradictions that have not been discussed within philology for a long time. Arnim’s poetical edition Goethe’s Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde makes this contradiction visible by exaggerating it: She pursues the hubris of being able to understand the author better than he understands himself in an excessive form.

The methodology and subject matter of this essay venture into the disciplinary borderlands of musicology. Taking Disdéri’s carte-de-visite portraits of the singer Pauline Viardot-Garcìa as a starting point, it attempts to broaden the notion of of the author for a historical period that quintessentially stood for the establishment of the concept of genius and thus for a definition and limitation of authorship as individual and singular. The article combines an interdisciplinary approach by considering image and media theory, theories of art and its practices, alongside historical musicological methods. Its theoretical perspective is situated at the intersection of performativity and media theory via the concepts of the ›messenger figure‹ ( Botenfigur ) and the ›reading of traces‹ ( Spurenlesen ) both according to Krämer, thus opening up a historical resonance space for contemporary music practices. As a consequence, the re-perspectivization goes beyond the basic understanding that multiple authorships are at work in every form of sounding music. Instead, it fixes diverse facets of the term authorship on a concrete example and reframes them methodologically. Thus, as a basis for a systematic generalization in music research, a model is proposed that makes medial transitions in performatively negotiated authorships describable, categorizable, and at the same time historicizable. With these interdisciplinary concerns in mind, Viardot-Garcìa’s photographic portraits in her role as Orphée in Gluck’s opera of the same name from 1859 appear to have been instrumentalized in a multilayered representational way: as images standing for a performance, as a photographic image reminiscent of a painting, as a depiction of classical Greek costume that takes on meaning for the present, as the visual standing in for the acoustic, as a depiction of a female singer embodying a man, and finally also of a title role standing in for an opera as a whole. How exactly these relations of representation are to be grasped – both in the French Gluck opera revival and in the photographic images discussed – has not yet been explored in depth. To attempt to entangle all these meanings is not motivated by trying to identify the ›actual‹ portions of the musical adaptations made by different persons to Gluck’s opera in the course of its 1859 revivals. Rather, this new perspective on the carte-de-visite photographs is intended to outline Viardot-Garcìa’s figure with the help of the numerous functions the singer assumed in the production. The essay thus looks at a blind spot that is still dominant in music research, namely the question of the methodological framing of performative authorship in historical perspective. It questions the critical concepts of ›messenger figure‹ and of the ›reading of traces‹ not only for their suitability to grasp the basic questions of the example dealt with in the text, but also for their potential for generalization.

Debates about authorship in cinema have held a privileged position in film studies since the 1950s, when the young generation of critics of the film journal Cahiers du Cinema formulated the politique des auteurs . This critical strategy proposed that the director of a film was the major creative source of the finished work. Since this assumption contradicts the industrial and collaborative character of the film medium, the politique has been questioned, attacked and reformulated ever since its beginnings. The auteur theory was appropriated and deconstructed under the influence of structuralist and poststructuralist theories that questioned the very concepts of individual creativity and self-expression. Nevertheless, questions about authorship in cinema did not vanish but were developed in many ways. If film is regarded not only as an art form but as a commodity, the director’s name cannot only be regarded as a sign of a discernible style (a ›world view‹), but as a brand name. ›Scorsese‹, ›Tarantino‹, ›Lynch‹, ›Nolan‹ – these names imply certain images, dramatic approaches, and themes. They also serve as a label for marketing a product. Directors and producers like Steven Spielberg or Ridley Scott lend their names to a certain kind of media production (film or television series) that raises expectations associated with their work. They do not necessarily work as a director. As producers – or even only as the owners of a production company – they may function as a kind of team leader, leaving the creative work to hired teams. In television, the showrunner is the major creative and managing force in the production of a series that is scripted, shot, and directed by several production crews simultaneously. Film and media studies have sought to discern the structures of collective working from historical and contemporary perspectives. Bordwell and others have described the (Hollywood) system and its mode of production, that defined the auteurs’ work. When looking closer at ›the system‹, it becomes obvious that there are different kinds of authorship in existence. Recent production studies on the working conditions in todays’ television have sought to analyse the structures of working together and ask questions about individual agency. The growing awareness of collective authorship promotes new ways of close film analysis. The German television series Babylon Berlin here serves as an example of a major contemporary media production with multiple creative influences and explicit collective authorship. A closer look at the successful series reveals the impact of this plurality on its storytelling and form.

Even though it is well known that only very few buildings have been planned and built by individuals alone, dominant conceptions of art and architectural history still are shaped by the idea of a few, self-sufficient artistic personalities. However, the fact that the production of architecture is always integrated into societal and social contexts, i. e., that it always takes place in interaction with a variety of actors, has garnered scholarly attention in recent years. At the same time, there has been increasing interest, from the point of view of architectural practice, in considering different forms of collaborative work. One specific form of this collaborative approach to work is that of the collective . During the interwar period, in particular, this concept was influenced by the various protagonists of classical modernism; in most of its iterations, it is based on a socio-critical foundation questioning established hierarchies (including the construct of a formative author figure) as well as the conditions of living and working under capitalism. Instead, they conceive of building as a task to be taken on by society as a whole. This idea already was politicised in the early Soviet Union, where it went hand in hand with a centralised notion of the state. In the German Democratic Republic, also, government building policy was tied in with this notion, as is evident from GDR agencies organising the entire building process in collectives. This led, at least in part, to resentment (discussed more or less openly) among contemporary architects, whose self-image as creative workers had thus been called into question (a fact which found expression in various debates about the organisation of working methods and the role of the author or collective leader within the collective). Certain persistent difficulties in the practice of architectural and art history – those in assessing and valorising buildings from that era – also reflect this problem: Even today, dispensing with a clear attribution of authorship apparently still is difficult (though this phenomenon may also be attributed to a lack of knowledge and understanding as regards the organisational and working methods of collectives at that time. Starting from this problem, the present article focuses on the various processes that take place during the creation of a work of architecture. One of the questions to explored is whether there are – or have been, historically – specifically ›collective‹ ways of ›doing architecture‹. In order to focus on this question from another angle, the article also points out significant parallels (and differences) between the working methods and self-image of architecture and planning collectives, then and now. Initially, work in collectives appeared to have taken a backseat after German reunification – a circumstance due in part, possibly, to the association of collective working modes with the failed socialist utopia of the GDR. In more recent years, however, there has been renewed interest in the topic of collective work. Taking up ideas from the interwar period, these new collectives usually choose to inhabit a decidedly critical framework which questions both widespread working methods and production systems. Terms such as ›participation‹, ›multidimensionality‹, and ›inclusion‹ have become core concepts, expanding the focuses of ›classic‹ collectives with genuinely contemporary perspectives. Here also the question arises, however, as to how this new focus is reflected both in the concrete work and in dealing with the created object or with spatial interventions. In partial answer, the first part of this article derives the genesis of the term or concept of ›the collective‹ from its sources in architectural history, before taking a closer look at the specific form the collective took in the GDR. Next, an empirical analysis examines the working methods of two collectives active in the GDR and today, respectively, are examined and contextualised vis-à-vis the respective contemporary discourse on collective work. This empirical investigation focuses on the conflicts surrounding the so-called Zitronenpresse (›lemon squeezer‹) in Gera, East Germany, a café building planned and built between 1973 and 1978 by several architect collectives, before being demolished in 1997 and, finally, reconstructed in a spatial intervention by a planning collective. Throughout, the juxtaposition of different working methods – represented by the different collectives in their respective historical and social contexts – serves as a basis for the presentation of ideas and practices of collective working in in architecture and planning. A concluding analysis then summarises the similiarities and differences between the two collectives – for example, with regard to their hierarchical structure, modes of everyday cooperation, and divergent notions of authorship.

At the latest with the designation of Indonesian group of artists, ruangrupa , as collective co-directors of documenta fifteen in 2022, the collective has arrived at the centre of the art world. This notion includes not only the organizational form of a group, but also designates a specific mode of cooperating with outsiders, of reflecting and of cultivating appearances. In their curatorial approach, ruangrupa present an extremely comprehensive conceptualisation of the collective, in which the various collective aspirations observable in the art field, which have been spreading for some time now, are condensed. As early as the 1990s, there has been, in the art world, an increase in individual facets of the collective. This is evidenced not only by the growing differentiation between different forms of collective associations, which can hardly be represented in a typology anymore; the turn towards the collective is also reflected in its being addressed in exhibitions, which in turn often refer to theoretical considerations derived from the fields of philosophy, cultural studies, or sociology, interpreting the ›collective turn‹ as a ›sign of the times‹. Art-historically speaking, the examination of the collective is a relatively young phenomenon which exhibits a range of subject-specific peculiarities. While art-historical classification, in particular, retains fundamental reservations about this ›unconventional‹ artistic working mode (Thurn 1991, Stahlhut 2019), rather more recent, cultural studies approaches tend to put forward typologies based on such notions as complicity (Ziemer 2013) or collaboration (Schneider 2006). In all these contributions, authorship is the central ›axis‹ of analysis. However, the breaking up of individual authorship, which in the visual arts remained virtually unchallenged for a very long time, to make room for collective associations, has been neither the only nor the most important reason, in recent decades, for artists to associate collectively. The rejection of a ›singular‹ notion of creation is nevertheless often introduced as the most important theoretical-analytical reference; social factors, by contrast, which have accompanied or even promoted the spread of the phenomenon, are often pointed out only selectively, if at all. Well-founded discussions of select examples, or instances of reasonably systematic contextualisation, may only be found from the mid-2000s onwards (e. g. Lind 2007). And it was only in the 2010s that art historians and scholars from other disciplines became interested in collective working modes. In their attempts to clarify and classify this trend, whose reality can no longer be gainsaid owing to its omnipresence, most publications and events initially started from a rather broad, and thus vague, understanding of the collective. Nevertheless, the tension between the creative individual and the collective remained central to the narrative put forward in numerous contributions. Those texts originating from artistic and/or curatorial practice – i. e., from the art world itself – often were written in a legitimating style which, combined as it often was with inventive text and image elements, appeared intended confidently to position collective forms of organisation (cf. Baukrowitz 1994; Bianchi 1999; Block/Nollert 2005). Based on this, the diversity of the formats that have since been established was emphasised, as were the advantages of this mode of working and organising. So far, there has been hardly any question as to the social structure within which this mode of working has been able to gain its considerable resonance; neither have scholars investigated how the individual groups relate to their political and social framework, what kind of self-image they derive from this, or how they relate the ›we‹ they have created to the group’s individual members. Against this backdrop, the present article proposes an interpretation of collective authorship as a complex and dynamic constellation of elements that develops and positions itself within a field of tension generated by the various notions of authorship, the organisation of work, criticism of the prevailing system, and competing models of society. The notion of a ›constellation‹ appears particularly suitable here because it suggests a ›bigger picture‹, yet at the same time allows to crystallise, for concrete situations (such as specific collective associations), »the elements of their respective special relationship, and what may conceivably emerge from them in concrete terms« (Mersch 2015, 166). The present article outlines and traces these relationships based on a selection of such collective associations, intending to show where and how – despite specific contextual difference – common concerns and overarching trends may be identified. This, ultimately, results in a complex reading of those individual phenomena.