At KIT theory we prefer not to reproduce the popular binaries between theory and praxis. Instead we want to promote, experiment and play with ever changing notions of a theoretical praxis by practicising theories.

In principal we understand art theory as the art of seeing art. It is not a fixed body of knowledge, a compilation of historical facts or philosphical history. Theory is nothing fixed and stable, it is fluid, it flows like water and therefore needs to be revisited and reinvented over and over again.

"Theory" literally means looking at a show. It origins from the old greek "thea", which means view, and "horein" which means to see. In a certain way theory is the prototype of approaching art and at the same time the reflection of this very process. It is the spectators view on things and at the same time a model of reality anticipated by the creator (or artist).

There seems to be no way to escape from theory. Even if you you try to completely ignore theoretical aspects of your work, you will always have to deal with manifolded layers of theories around it, influencing it, corresponding with it, interacting with it.

You will be able to pretend to turn a blind eye on what others may think about what you are doing but by doing so, in the last instance, you are potentially and effectively producing or reproducing nothing but theory.

In the return we understand knowledge or the production of knowledge as an activity: an active endeavor to generate truth or something that can be considered true. A theory operates through observations by introducing a model which contains only a few arbitrary elements and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.

"Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single repeatable observation which disagrees with the predictions of the theory".

In this respect one might see, to a certain extent, every artwork as a piece of theory and every theoretical work as a piece of art.

Theory can be characterized as a series of experiments in a production of truth. First of all there must be a problem, and then a model how to deal with it creatively within an experimental set up. These problems are not "solved", but they determine thought.

The results of these experiments are the creation of concepts, percepts and affects, and they exist independently from the subject that is conceiving, affecting/being affected or perceiving.

Our notion of theory is essentially different from what one might learn in philosophy or art history courses. We are not interested in the true or correct interpretation of this or that philosopher, artist, or theorist. We will not torture you with learning to repeat what other people have been already thinking.

We rather understand theory as the process of figuring out what is the problem: what constitutes this problem, what are the conditions for truth in it and what might be resulting...

We suggest to understand thinking is a violent confrontation with reality, an involuntary rupture of established categories. Truth changes what we think; it alters what we think is possible.

At KIT theory we are working with a wide range of different formats: Collaborative readings, lectures and presentations, artist’s films and documentaries, movie nights, studio visits, tutorials, one-to-one conversations, curated shows, publications, blogs, websites, lunches, joint archiving and research endeavours and collective art projects.

None of these formats is pre-existing. We need to invent and re-invent, create and re-create them.

This is why we are coming here. We do not come because we want to teach you, but because we want to learn with you or better to say: in collaboration with you. The idea of this course is to set up a collaborative learning environment that is open and flexible, that works on a individual and collective basis.

This website is one of the important tools of this course. We set it up when we first came here almost two years ago. It is a multi-user weblog system, which is supposed to function as an archive, as a toolbox, as a platform for note-taking, linking, deepening, extending and multiplying our work.