Eighty-seven Questions on Artistic Research · 2018. 12. 17. · SARN — Swiss Artistic Research Network – is a network of competences that regroups researchers from the seven

Eighty- seven Questions on Artistic Research

SARN :: Swiss Artistic Research Network

SARN — Swiss Artistic Research Network – is a network of competences that regroups researchers from the seven Swiss Arts Schools. Based on the idea of enriching the debates and practices of artistic research in Switzerland through exchanges, group activities (work-shops), publications and symposia, SARN would also like to progressively incorporate points of view from the artistic community in general (artists, institutions, universities, public authorities and foundations in charge of supporting culture) in its reflexions in order to promote the specific contribution of artistic research and enlarge this community in Switzerland and internationally.

This notebook will be launched at the Basel Conference ‘Economies of Aesthetics’ taking place from 18 – 20 June 2015 at the Academy of Art and Design of the Univer- sity of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzer-land (HGK FHNW) and co-organised with the European League of Institutes of the Arts (ELIA).

It focuses on the dynamics and epistemological impact of the question form: by asking personalities of the art world to share their questions regarding artistic research, SARN wishes to initiate a sustainable reflexion in the rich and booming field that is artistic research.

Anne-Catherine Sutermeister, President of SARN

SARN — Swiss Artistic Research Network – is a network of competences that regroups researchers from the seven Swiss Arts Schools. Based on the idea of enriching the debates and practices of artistic research in Switzerland through exchanges, group activities (work-shops), publications and symposia, SARN would also like to progressively incorporate points of view from the artistic community in general (artists, institutions, universities, public authorities and foundations in charge of supporting culture) in its reflexions in order to promote the specific contribution of artistic research and enlarge this community in Switzerland and internationally.

This notebook will be launched at the Basel Conference ‘Economies of Aesthetics’ taking place from 18 – 20 June 2015 at the Academy of Art and Design of the Univer- sity of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzer-land (HGK FHNW) and co-organised with the European League of Institutes of the Arts (ELIA).

It focuses on the dynamics and epistemological impact of the question form: by asking personalities of the art world to share their questions regarding artistic research, SARN wishes to initiate a sustainable reflexion in the rich and booming field that is artistic research.

Anne-Catherine Sutermeister, President of SARN

Eighty- seven Questions on Artistic Research

Nº 1

Sabine Schaschl, Director Haus Konstruktiv Zurich

In which direction does research direct the artist?

Nº 2

Kathleen Buehler, Curator contemporary art, Kunstmuseum Bern

Are we looking for artistic solutions for a chaotic world? Or chaotic solutions for an artistic world?

Nº 3

Damian Christinger, Gallery owner, Zurich

Is artistic research the contemporary equivalent of alchemy?

Nº 4

Denise Ziegler, Artist, post-

doctoral researcher Aalto University / Finland

Can we look forward to a day when artistic research does not have to justify its existence as a recognized form of research parallel to academic research?

Nº 5

Elena Filipovic, Director Kunsthalle Basel

Since we do not demand of artists that the ‘research’ they do follow the same rules / criteria or account-ability as does that of a scientist, historian, or other researcher, should we use the same term — ‘research’ — at all?

Nº 6

Sabine Hagmann, Artist, Zurich

Who is going to pay?

Nº 7

Mika Elo, Artist, Professor in Artistic Research University of the Arts Helsinki

Who comes after the artist?

Nº 8

Beat Brogle / Nicole Schuck, Artists, Berlin

Do the arts lose their own language when they try to be scientific?

Nº 9

Claudia Mareis, Designer, cultural scientist, Head ixdm HGK FHNW

Why such concern about methods?

Nº 10

Julie Harboe, Art historian, critic, curator, Zurich / Lucerne

Is artistic research becoming just another organizational category?

Nº 11

Philippe Sormani, Head Science Program Istituto Svizzero, Roma

If there is (or should be) such a thing as ‘artistic research’, can it (or should it) be ‘curat-ed?’ If so, what would it mean — how, what for, and by whom?

Nº 12

Katharina Ammann, Head Department for Art History, SIK - ISEA, Zurich

Is the thinking process pro-voked by artistic research the main result of the research?

Nº 13

Lucie Kolb, Artist and currently SNSF Doc. Mobility Fellow

Do artists benefit from the label artistic research?

Nº 14

Johannes Bruder, Sociologist, post-

doctoral researcher HGK FHNW

Can artistic research be the political consciousness of art?

Nº 15

Petra Lange-Berndt, Curator, art historian, University of London

Is capitalism illogical?

Nº 16

Christine Heil, Professor University of Duisburg - Essen

If several artistic research projects are in play, how do they play together?

Nº 17


Is scientific research cre-ative? Can it be artistic? What about curatorial research? Is this more scientific, theoret-ical, practical? Or if on artistic practice — in a way — artistic?

Nº 18

Daniel Brefin, Artist, researcher HGK FHNW

Does the Earth’s rotation slow down when all people make a leap into the air to-wards the east at the same time?

Nº 19

Thierry Davila, Publisher MAMCO Geneva

What does it mean to make a discovery in art?

Nº 20

Beate Florenz, Professor for Art Education, art historian, researcher HGK FHNW

Could we describe artistic research as the strong little sister of philosophy of science?

Nº 21

Oliver W. Villiger, Art philosopher

The most pressing question to debate is whether the expe-rience of art — as opposed to the scientific consciousness — may be a powerful reminder to admit its limitations. To what extent artistic research can establish its characteris-tic epistemic implications is not merely a question of art, but of the traditional scientific establishment and its in- herent ontology.

Nº 22


Are scientists interested in collaborations with artists, or do they rather expect pos-sibilities of creative illustra-tion for scientific results?

Nº 23

Thierry Davila, Publisher MAMCO Geneva

In what way does artistic research coincide with scien-tific research?

Nº 24


Why does research by artists need to be artistic?

Nº 25


Isn’t research already artis-tic in some sense, and the very expression ‘artistic research’ either redundant, dismissive, or both?

Nº 26


Can artistic research be done by non-artists?

Nº 27


To what extent should an

artist understand the implica-

tions of his or her findings?

(This question is not my own.

It is, perhaps appropriately,

taken from a title devised by

artist Bojan Sarcevic, who

was invited to do an exhibition

and instead responded by

organizing an event with this

question as its topic, bringing

in speakers to try to ans-

wer the question for him. It

remains still to my mind one

of the best questions asked by

an artist about the role and

responsibility of artists in

relation to the production of

meaning).

Nº 27


To what extent should an

artist understand the implica-

tions of his or her findings?

(This question is not my own.

It is, perhaps appropriately,

taken from a title devised by

artist Bojan Sarcevic, who

was invited to do an exhibition

and instead responded by

organizing an event with this

question as its topic, bringing

in speakers to try to ans-

wer the question for him. It

remains still to my mind one

of the best questions asked by

an artist about the role and

responsibility of artists in

relation to the production of

meaning).

Nº 28

Walter Leimgruber, Head Seminar für Kulturwissenschaft und Europäische Ethnologie, University of BaselIf art is the triumph of cre-

ative uniqueness and science the triumph of standardized generalization, what then is artistic research? ThE triumph of unique generalization or the triumph of standardized creativity?

Nº 29

Diego Castro, Artist, critic, Berlin

Doctorates do not guarantee better chances for getting academic jobs. In earlier days PhD students could at least get jobs as assistants: this has widely been eliminated nowadays for there are not enough opportunities with regard to the number of appli-cants. The situation is preca- rious without perspectives in the artistic-scientific re-search field. Does a doctorate lead to a professional occupa-tion at all, or is it merely a status symbol for privileged milieus?

Nº 30

Marianne Burki, Head of Visual Arts Pro Helvetia, Zurich

Is society and its new ele-ments closer to the arts than 20 years ago? Are the main triggers in artistic research natural sciences and techno- logies — or rather popular online culture?

Nº 31


Why does every artist, who reads a book once in a while, think s/hE is doing research?

Nº 32

Samuel Herzog, Art Critic Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Does art have to be research today? Is art really more ex- plorative now than 100 years ago, when nobody called it research? Or is this just an-other language regime? Or an ingratiation to scientific crite-ria? Or pure bumbledom?

Nº 33


Is anarchy the highest form of order (elisee Reclus)?

Nº 34

Marianne Halter, Artist, Zurich

Whoever reads all those pa-pers swallowed by the digital mouth of institutions?

Nº 35


Will I have to speak your language?

Nº 36

Christoph Keller, Journalist, author, Basel

Is my artwork speaking to me, and if so, in which lan-guage?

Nº 37

Pat Badani, Artist, Editor-in-Chief, Media-N Journal of the NMC / USA

Is my meaning wrong, or is it just my grammar?

Nº 38

Nicole Henning, Artist, Zurich

Why do we have to talk in English when we talk about artistic research?

Nº 39

Regula Valérie Burri, Professor HafenCity University Hamburg

What are adequate forums to debate and present artistic research? Do we need new arenas or should we rather focus on existing ones? Who is /should be addressed?

Nº 40


Do we need more and more extensive knowledge to work in the art field?

Nº 41

Susanna Kumschick, Deputy Museum Director, curator, Gewerbemuseum Winterthur

How can the unknown be dis-covered in the well known? Or: how could we look at the familiar from another per-spective?

Nº 42


What happens if an artist does research on another artist? (As Bethan Huws did re-cently on Marcel Duchamp?) Is this artistic research, art history, art theory, art philosophy …?

Nº 43

doung anwar jahangeer, Artist, architect, Durban / South Africa

What’s next?

Nº 44


Is artistic research a sign of contemporaneity?

Nº 45


How can knowledge produced in artistic research be relat-ed to and enrich scientific knowledge production (and vice versa) in a way that both art and science are equally involved and addressed?

Nº 46

Dorothée Baumann, Artist, researcher, Geneva

How can practice-based artis-tic research keep its autonomy as a form of aesthetic thinking in an institutional frame? Or in other words: How can academization be prevented?

Nº 47


Scientific jargon and method-ology entangles with art in collaborations which causes art to derive from artistic form. What can art expect from science in content and form? Can artistic formats play a more important role in science? Aren’t the expecta-tions of creativity and dislim-itation rather a projection originating from creativity techniques?

Nº 48

Nicole Henning, Artist, Zurich

Is artistic research a good auxiliary income?

Nº 49



Can artistic research be political?

Nº 50



Will artistic research be able to loosen up and find its way back to inventive perception?

Nº 51


Do we need a third field in which neither art nor science are at home — where the two disciplines could develop something new together?

Nº 52

Marianne Burki, Head Visual Arts Pro Helvetia, Zurich

Can we function in the arts if we are not spending more time outside the arts (gaming, video-clipping, congresses for neurosciences and similar events)?

Nº 53

Daniel Brefin, Artist, researcher HGK FHNW

How does perception and thinking change if space is conceived as memory?

Nº 54


How distant should I feel towards my work?

Nº 55


How can we be complicit with materials?

Nº 56


Monopoly cash notes to credit my idea incubator?

Nº 57


Any practical tips on how to turn my research results into valuable pieces of contempo-rary art?

Nº 58

Roderick Coover, Artist, lecturer Temple University / USA

As ever, it is very confusing for funding organizations to approach works that combine scholarship and creative methods. Many of my works and my students’ works are too creative for scholarly support and too scholarly for creative support. Each thinks the other should be doing the funding. Couldn’t this be im-proved by better definitions of what visual research and creative research projects are, from leading institutions in both scholarship and arts? And couldn’t co-funding be targeted across organiza-tions to promote some awards that are explicitly hybrid (and / or support collective, interdisciplinary work)?

Nº 59


Where are the limits of words and images? How could they complete or substitute each other?

Nº 60

Katharina Ammann, Head Department for Art History, SIK-ISEA, Zurich

How does artistic research relate to ‘scientific’ research in art?

Nº 61


Can we change the conver- sation about both art and research by unconditionally working for a return to open knowledge, praxis, poetics and the empirical?

Nº 62


Do we need new interdisciplinary forms and formats to assess and critique the outcomes of artistic re-search? Who is entitled to evaluate artistic research projects and proposals?

Nº 63


How much thinking and searching contributes to good art?

Nº 64


How can we find the expertise for evaluating projects that are not located in the tradi-tional artistic disciplines — or in the codes of academic re-search?

Nº 65


Do I need to knead my archive now?

Nº 66


Will I lose my practice?

Nº 67


What does the ‘end of prac-tice’ mean?

Nº 68


Should it [the artwork] be understood, or rather produc-tively misunderstood?

Nº 69


Where is the line between artistic ‘research’ ( in what is often called an artist’s ‘re-search-based practice’ ) and simply, being an artist, period: which is to say, being someone who looks closely at, is in- quisitive about, and ultimate-ly reflects on history and the world around him or her?

Nº 70

Beat Brogle / Nicole, Schuck, Artists, Berlin

What is the perspective of scientific understanding and what is the perspective of artistic understanding? Which are each other’s interests?

Nº 71


The lack of a basic education in scientific methodology for PhD students may cause frus-tration and demotivation on both sides, for professors and for students. What could be done to ensure better precon-ditions?

Nº 72


Current scholarly models based on monograph produc-tion and solo work are not particularly useful for many digital projects that require artists and scholars to work together. Arts and humanities institutions have a lot of trouble giving tenure credit and funding to multi-author work. The teaching schedule, in the US context, is also not so well set up for this, though some European systems are better. Wouldn’t laboratory approaches such as in science and short teaching modules, and teach-research-module periods, better suit the arts and humanities, rather than semesters and summers?

Nº 73

Sabine Schaschl, Director Haus Konstruktiv Zurich

Is a self-employed artist more responsible for his works than an employed re-searcher for his findings?

Nº 74


What kind of discourse is both, intrinsic to individual art research practices and comprehensible for the development of a larger research community?

Nº 75


How do different salaries influence the status of the involved researchers?

Nº 76


Longer solo residencies for traditional artists and writ-ers are also not necessarily the best model for funding creative research. Wouldn’t an intensive month with dedicated technical support, followed by solo time when artists and researchers devel-op the project; then a fol-low-up month to advance or finalize the work be much more economically viable and useful?

Nº 77

Marianne Halter, Artist, Zurich

Can artistic research be funny?

Nº 78

Mika Elo, Artist, Professor in Artistic Research University of the Arts Helsinki

If form is born of the form- desire of knowledge, what then could research be when made for the sake of the forming of the form only?

Nº 79


Does the term artistic re-search keep the ball in the court of the institutions?

Nº 80


Are there any secret agents around?

Nº 81

Christine Heil, Professor University Duisburg - Essen

Which role does the materi- ality of the record play in the research process?

Nº 82



Is the immaterial artwork the nucleus of artistic re-search?

Nº 83



In what way can the meaning of art be reconfigured in ar-tistic research?

Nº 84

Christine Heil, Professor University Duisburg - Essen

Does knowledge originating from the collaboration of diverse artistic research projects have a specific form or specific qualities?

Nº 85


When does questioning turn into research? When does searching turn into research?

Nº 86


How to practice the art of exactitude?

Nº 87

Mika Elo, Artist, Professor in Artistic Research, University of the Arts Helsinki

What does the artwork want?

Eighty-seven questions on artistic research

After more than ten years of experience with research at art schools in Switzerland – and internationally since the beginning of the 1990s – scholarly statements and visions about the future development of artistic research have become well known. SARN’s aim is to in-vestigate the impact of artistic research with a focus on non-school protagonists in Switzerland and abroad – by collecting questions.

In a first step, and inspired by the book by artists Fischli/Weiss, Findet mich das Glück?, we looked for questions – straightforward, multi-layered, enigmatic, inspiring – presenting the personal experiences of artists, curators, researchers, and observers of the field or representatives of a funding organisation.

The present notebook includes 87 multi-faceted ques-tions and is the starting point of a long-term project dealing with the impact or ‘added value’ of artistic research in society. We invite you to step into the flow of questions in order to enable a deepened reflection. By accepting the current ambivalent situation in which there might be no (simple) answers, we would like to keep the discussion going.

In a second step, after the conference, SARN will con-tinue the project by including various points-of-view. The space left in the notebook is provided for you to sketch your thoughts. You are very welcome to send further questions, remarks and answers to SARN under the following address: [email protected].

Get inspired!

Flavia Caviezel & Markus Schwander, Members of the SARN board, June 2015

Flavia Caviezel – Ethnologist/vidéaste, senior researcher and lecturer at the Institute of Experimental Design and Media Cultures, Academy of Art and Design at the Univer-sity of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzer-land.

Markus Schwander – Artist, senior researcher and lecturer at the Institute for Art and Design Education, Academy of Art and Design at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland.

Anne-Catherine Sutermeister – Head of research and lecturer at HEAD – University of Art and Design Geneva at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzer-land HES SO, and consultant in cultural policies.

We would like to thank all members of the SARN board, the contributors of the questions for the Notebook and the HGK FHNW for its financial support.

Published by SARN – Swiss Artistic Research Network, www.sarn.ch Editors: Flavia Caviezel, Markus Schwander Coordinator: Camille Dumond Correcting/Proofreading: Matthew Burbidge Design: Simon Mader, Basel Font: Dinamo-Grow (Fabian Harb & Johannes Breyer, dinamo.us) Cover colour: PANTONE 206 U Print: Grafisches Zentrum, Bürgerspital Basel Published in Basel, Switzerland 2015 ISBN: 78-3-9524411-3-8

© 2015 SARN — Swiss Artistic Research Network, and the authors

www.sarn.ch

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Eighty-seven Questions on Artistic Research · 2018. 12. 17. · SARN — Swiss Artistic Research Network – is a network of competences that regroups researchers from the seven