Figures of Eight
London and Vienna

Autumn, 26 October – 14 December 2026
Spring, 11 January – 1 March 2027
Summer, 12 April – 31 May 2027

Figures of Eight is a critical studies seminar programme built around repetition and return, taking place in two cities, London and Vienna, on the same evening, at the same local time. Both cities share the same syllabus and their cohorts are entangled by a common line of inquiry. The programme was developed and is taught by Rachal Bradley in London and Joseph Kohlmaier in Vienna.

The central focus of Figures of Eight is the image. The image is not proposed as a privileged object, but as a way of approaching the contemporary world picture: the predominance of vision and the aestheticisation of culture, relation and self.

The course asks what follows if images are understood as alive, having ideas and wants, inventing their own conventions, protocols and affects. It moves from questions of representation towards a condition in which the image operates at the level of both infrastructure and communication. The image is the message and, at the same time, the mechanism of its own delivery. It is currency, a site of transaction, a determinant of value.

These properties have underpinned the expansion of late capitalism, but the image may also hold the agency to arrest or undermine the systems it carries. It is relational and has assumed the force of a universal social protocol. But that universality is rigid and mercurial too.

Each seminar is structured around a proposition, canonical or radical, through which different histories of the image are constructed and reconstructed. Across the programme, participants encounter key writings on the image and work closely with case studies to consider its histories, its present conditions and possible futures, as well as the methods through which images are researched, read and archived.

The course begins from a different premise about what learning is and how it happens. Knowledge is not treated as something accumulated through linear progression, but as something practised through repetitions and returns. There is no final mastery of the material and we are never done with the topic.

Each eight-week figure is a complete course, repeated three times over the space of a year. Each admits a new group of participants. Once enrolled, students can move through a full year of seminars, or three iterations of the course, in different ways. They can attend in either city. They may attend one eight-week figure or attend all three, spread participation across several figures, or repeat sessions. Participants return not only to texts and questions, but to a continuous project that evolves in a shared space.

Figures of Eight is open to anyone. No previous education or accreditation is required to join. The course is designed for people working within, or with a strong interest in, contemporary culture and creative disciplines who want to give time to reading, thinking and discussion with others. For artists and practitioners, the course offers an opportunity to develop their practice through sustained engagement with critical ideas.

The programme asks for attention, curiosity and commitment rather than prior expertise. There is no assessment. No outcome is prescribed in advance and the group produces content according to its own terms and conditions.

A common line of inquiry does not require common positions. Different histories, forms of knowledge and ways of sensing, thinking and participating remain in relation without being made the same. Figures of Eight understands neurodiversity as fundamental to any group. We do not think, attend or learn in the same way, and the programme does not seek to reduce those differences to fixed types.

Figures of Eight
Mondays, 6.30–9pm local time
Central locations in Vienna and London

Autumn, 26 October – 14 December 2026
Spring, 11 January – 1 March 2027
Summer, 12 April – 31 May 2027

The timetable has been arranged so that selected Terms and Conditions residencies offer an opportunity for the London and Vienna cohorts to meet. Figures of Eight students can join one or more of these residencies over the course of the year, extending the seminar series into the wider itinerant programme of Field Studies.

Rachal Bradley (London) is a London-based filmmaker, artist and writer working at the intersection of body, system and material. Rachal’s work traces how identity is shaped: through language, through structure, through what we wear. Her films and artworks have been presented across the UK and Europe, including Kunsthaus Zürich, KW (Berlin), Raven Row (London), Spike Island (Bristol), and her writing has appeared in Texte zur Kunst. She is currently developing FOLD, a feature documentary exploring a northern woman’s lifelong devotion to Japanese avant-garde fashion as a form of self-invention. Rachal has taught in art schools and programmes across the UK and Europe since 2016, including London Metropolitan University, The Ruskin, Nottingham Trent, Glasgow School of Art, Akademie der bildenden Künste (Vienna) and Conditions artist programme (London), where she continues to mentor as a visiting artist. She is currently teaching at the School of Art, University of Reading.

Joseph Kohlmaier (Vienna) is an artist, designer and teacher. Until April 2026, he was Associate Teaching Professor in history and theory at the School of Art, Architecture and Design, London Metropolitan University. He is the founder and creative director of several collectives, organisations and educational projects, including Field Studies, experimental choral ensemble Musarc (2009–present), graphic design studio Polimekanos (with Stefan Kraus, 2000–2020), and independent imprint Cours de Poétique. It is through these frameworks that Joseph’s practice evolves, and where it has had the greatest impact by creating spaces for people to experiment with new ideas. As a curator and producer, Joseph has commissioned and worked with emerging and established artists, and collaborated with leading arts organisations in the UK and Europe on projects that have transformed the landscape of education, contemporary music and performance. Joseph’s work is multifaceted, situated at the intersection of different disciplines and activities that oscillate between solitary practice and collective performance. It is animated by the question of how we learn, how thought is related to symbolic form, the agony and potential of collective acts, the general ecology of the chorus, and marginalised ways of thinking such as the role of embodiment and felt sense in the production of knowledge.

The fee for Figures of Eight is £680 (London) or €790 (Vienna). The fee gives students access to one year of seminars, or three eight-week figures from the moment they join. Students can elect which seminars they attend in any given figure and how often they return over the space of one year. Enrolled students are free to join seminars in both cities.

Admission to the programme is based on an informal and personal exchange. To apply, email us on join@field-studies.org and include a short biography and notes on what motivates you to join.

Three fully subsidised scholarships per figure are offered on an application basis to students who would otherwise not be able to participate. Payment in three monthly instalments is available after an initial non-refundable deposit, at a higher overall fee (£730/€850).

The teaching language is English in both the London and Vienna courses.