This research project and its forthcoming publication The Archive as a Productive Space of Conflict deals with archival practice and its spatial repercussions. Inquiring whether any accumulation and organization of knowledge is productive—to the effect that it generates a narrative and/or history—this project focuses specifically on productivity produced by a spatial framework. Consequently, it debates the conflicts that arise when topological and architectural structures of archives overcome existing models of reservoirs. Archival practice takes place not only in traditional archives, but also within the processes of conception, realization, and reception, including museums, artistic work, and the fields of architecture and urban development. By achieving this transfer, the project makes an important contribution to the discussion of productive archival practice within these and other fields.

Dagmar Füchtjohann finished her studies in education and fine arts at the University of Cologne (Germany) in 2006. She continued her studies in art theory and aesthetics at the University of Arts and Design (HfG) in Karlsruhe in 2007. She will finish her studies in 2011 with a thesis on the question of in/exclusion in regards to art produced in the former GDR. She is editor of the forthcoming publication The Archive as a Productive Space of Conflict.

Johanna Hoth studies exhibition design and curatorial practice at the University of Arts and Design (HfG) in Karlsruhe. In 2009, she participated in TV TOWERS: 8.559 meters of Politics and Architecture, which was realized at the DAM Frankfurt. Together with Armin Linke, she worked on the collaborative project flocking, which was shown at the 11th Architecture Biennale in Venice. Within the context of a seminar by Wilfried Kuehn she is currently researching a Carlo Mollino retrospective at the Haus der Kunst, Munich, which will take place in 2012. In 2009–10, she worked on an UNESCO project in Bogota, Colombia. She is editor of the forthcoming publication The Archive as a Productive Space of Conflict.

Laurent Schmid develops narrative types of laboratory trials in the field between scientific and pseudoscientific physics, an inquiry into this system as a metaphor of social concepts. His work oscillates between digital and analogue media, including lectures, interactive works, radio, videos, installations, drawings, and photos. Schmid teaches and researches at the Geneva University of Art and Design. He previously studied at Basel Art School and Berne University. He is an editor of the forthcoming publication The Archive as a Productive Space of Conflict.

Markus Miessen is an architect, researcher, and writer. In 2002, he set up Studio Miessen, a collaborative agency for spatial practice and cultural inquiry, and in 2007, he cofounded the architectural practice nOffice. In various collaborations, Miessen has published The Nightmare of Participation (Sternberg Press, 2010), Institution Building (Sternberg Press, 2009), East Coast Europe (Sternberg Press, 2008), The Violence of Participation (Sternberg Press, 2007), With/Without (Bidoun, 2007), Did Someone Say Participate? (MIT Press, 2006), and Spaces of Uncertainty (Müller+Busmann, 2002). In 2008, the Independent listed Did Someone Say Participate? as one of the ten best architecture books of all time. He has taught and lectured at the AA, the Berlage Institute, and MIT. In 2008, he founded the Winter School Middle East (Dubai/Kuwait). Miessen is currently a professor at the HfG Karlsruhe, a PhD candidate at Goldsmiths, and a recent member of the European Cultural Parliament. He is coeditor-in-chief of the forthcoming publication The Archive as a Productive Space of Conflict.

Yann Chateigné Tytelman is a Geneva-based curator, critic, and publisher. He is head of visual art at the Geneva University of Art and Design. He has been working as chief curator at the CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux, after having worked at French Ministry of Culture and Pompidou Center in Paris. He curated and cocurated exhibitions such as Fun Palace (Centre Pompidou Paris);  Insiders: Practices, Uses, Know-How (CAPC, 2009); IDO: Explorations in French Psychedelia (CAPC, 2008); A Theater without Theater (Macba, Barcelona and Museu Berardo, Lisbon, 2007–08). He has also contributed to various publications and magazines, including Heimo Zobernig, Les Presses du Réel, Mousse Magazine, and Rosa B. Tytelman is coeditor-in-chief of the forthcoming publication The Archive as a Productive Space of Conflict.

The University of Arts and Design in Karlsruhe (HfG) was opened in 1992. Prof. Dr. Heinrich Klotz established the University and the Center for Art and Media (ZKM). The unique connection between academic-, research-, and exhibition-oriented work corresponds to a new artistic and educational assignment: to apply traditional arts to media technologies and electronic manufacturing processes.

This project is based at the Institute for Exhibition Design and Curatorial Practice, which examines interrelated artistic, curatorial, and architectural-scale decision-making, located within specific spatial situations. The actual implementation of a curatorial concept depends on the conditions presented by the space in question. Whether private, institutional, or urban, any space used for exhibiting art generates a complex set of relations, both spatial and social, between artists, visitors, collectors, gallerists, curators, and designers. In short: the production of space calls for situational thinking in the conception and realization of exhibition projects.