In the Presence of Artistic Research

In the Presence of Artistic Research – Public Colloquium with Exhibition

Presentations of the Artistic Research PhD Program (PhD in Art) at the University of Applied Arts Vienna
A collaboration between the Zentrum Fokus Forschung and the Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab

Exhibition Opening
22 May 2023, 19:00h
AIL (Georg-Coch-Platz 2, 1010 Vienna)

Public Colloquium
23 – 25 May 2023
AIL (Georg-Coch-Platz 2, 1010 Vienna)

Events and Programme
23 – 26 May 2023
Zentrum Fokus Forschung (Rustenschacherallee 2-4, 1020 Vienna)

„Perhaps, even today, we do not deal with art. We might have overlooked the moment when it transformed itself into something else, something which we cannot yet name. It is certain, however, that what we deal with offers greater possibilities.“
Jerzy Ludwinski

What does it mean to conduct artistic research today? This exposition of artistic-research work is an invitation to reflect on the present through the prism of current artistic research. Situated in-between provocation and reflection, the exhibition and the series of public lecture-performances and lectures give insight into the diversity of topics, methods, perspectives, and discursive and display strategies afforded by artistic research. Artist-researchers make speculative propositions about the kinds of knowledge, action, and impact art might yield. The PhD in Art program understands modes of artistic-scientific working as an empowerment of the artists, a critical possibility to reach beyond perceived boundaries, to a mode and attitude of working which fuses and confounds, cross-pollinating the ecologies of the artistic and curatorial with scientific, practice-based and societal impact. Creativity and imagination are essential capacities shaping the present and enabling future-making. This reinvigoration of research-impacted artistic practices has situated artists as agents in social, scientific, and political spheres. The diverse practices of artist-researchers may address pressing artistic, social, political, and ecological issues. Employing creative methods that draw from artistic traditions as well as from research practices, artistic research reaches beyond the limitations of representing or elaborating the world, proposing different outlooks on the present and future.

What are the limitations and hazards of such intermingling, and what becomes generative and fecund in these contact zones? To discuss these questions together with the artist-researchers, this four-day event extends an invitation to be present and join the PhD in Art program in discussing the exhibition and presentations of the current state of the PhD in Art projects. Reflecting on the candidates’ artistic work together with the audience, on the practices, modes and methods of research and critical analysis, four renowned international guest critics are present. Sebastian Cichocki, chief curator and head of the research department at MOMA Warsaw and The Consortium for Postartistic Practices, Davide Deriu, architectural theorist and historian at the University of Westminster London, Yael Eylat van Essen, curator and researcher at Holon Institute of Technology, and Astrid S. Klein, artist-researcher and lecturer at University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf and Quartier Flottant, will contribute from their perspective and give insight into their own work in the field.

Participants: Tamara Antonijević, Niels Bonde, Nisrine Boukhari, Erik Bünger, Margit Busch, Andrew Champlin, Cristiana de Marchi, George Demir, Rah Eleh, Jošt Franko, Oscar Gardea, Joseph Leung, Judit Navratil, Ana Rajčević, Marthin Rozo, Juli Sikorska, Georg Tremmel, Conny Zenk