Artistic Research Seminar

Teacher: Assoc. Prof. Michelle Teran
Guest lecturers: Suzana Milevska, Alex Murray-Leslie, Annett Busch, Edvine Larsson, Raphaël Grisey, and Henrik Karlstrøm.

Location: Kunstarken

The seminar Artistic Research centers on the question of what constitutes artistic research, or research in the arts. The seminar invites presentations and propositions by different practitioners, invited theorists and researchers inside and outside of the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art.

Fundamentally, artistic research implies that the artistic practice itself is an essential component of both the research process and research results; yet it is not exclusive to traditional artistic formats and forms of exhibiting. Artistic research can encompass methodologies from interdisciplinary fields to create art, applying artistic methods within other non-artistic contexts, or something entirely different and as-yet-defined. Artistic research, therefore, includes many senses and meanings.

If we consider practice is a mode of thinking, how can/does one think through practice and by doing? Artistic research is a push-and-pull, give-and-take activity of creating, articulating, revising, reflecting, and sharing. Each artistic investigation is an individual one; a process-oriented way of working; a highly intellectual endeavor which encompasses a distinct, and hybrid assemblage of methodologies and critical tools for thinking through making. Scribbles, sketches, drawings, readings, studies, exhibition visits, wasting time on the internet, models, rapid prototyping, field work, travels, thoughts, conversations, and failed work are common attributes related to an artistic activity. They can also be useful tools for placing work within a context, by providing insight and a roadmap to the artist’s intentions, reasons, and processes.

The seminar Artistic Research is mandatory for all MFA1 students enrolled in Advanced Artistic Work 1. MFA2 and BFA students are also strongly encouraged to participate in the seminar module.

Teaching formats:
- Lectures
- Work groups
- Public discussions
- Practical exercise

Learning Outcomes:
- Develop a platform for discussing approaches and how to work with artistic research in artistic practice
- Develop an awareness of methodologies within artistic research.
- Able to extract and define artistic methodologies within their own thesis work.
- Be able to discuss and debate how artistic research (of others and their own) can intervene with different processes and connect to society at large.
- Situate their practice within a larger context, which influences the decisions they make and incentives for turning something into art.

Schedule:

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27TH
Morning
10.00 start
Warm up exercise: Conceptual speed-dating

Lecture 1: Suzana Milevska - Kalokagathia: On the Possibility to Think Together the Ethical and Aesthetical in Artistic Research
http://kit.ntnu.no/en/content/lecture-suzana-milevska

Afternoon
13.00 start
Seminar led by Suzana Milevska

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28TH
Morning
10.00 start
Lecture 2: Alex Murray-Leslie — Ready to Foot: Decolonising the feet through Demaking High Heeled shoes for audiovisual theatrical performance and a new location of knowledge
http://kit.ntnu.no/en/content/lecture-alex-murray-leslie
Lecture 3: Edvine Larssen — Doing doubts and doubting doing/Close looking as a compass
Students and presenters come up with questions to develop further in afternoon work groups

Afternoon
13.00 start
Work groups
Method: world café, graphic recording
Discussion

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29TH
Morning
10.00 start
Lecture 4: Raphaël Grisey — Figuring Fallow Time
Lecture 5: Annett Busch — Predicates moving out of place, Electronic Textures, Women On Aeroplanes
Some reflections on Setting-Up, Framing, Not-Knowing, Sideways, Collaborating
Students and presenters come up with questions to develop further in afternoon work groups

Afternoon
13.00 start
Work groups
Method: world café, graphic recording
Discussion

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30TH
Morning
10.00 start
Practical Exercise: Make a drawing of your project and place where you are in it. What is your research? Where are you in relation to your project? Who is your audience? What is your role towards the subject matter?
Lecture 6: 11.00 to 12.00 Henrik Karlstrøm - Exploring Artistic Research Data, discussion to follow

Afternoon
13.00 start
Lecture 7: Florian Schneider — The Artistic Self and Academic Divisions of Labor
Final summing up and discussion

PRESENTERS

Edvine Larssen
Edvine Larssen is a Norwegian artist and researcher working on the thresholds between various fields through architectonic installations, durational performative works using directing as both material and method, and various publications. All her works are site-bound and are to be experienced, through spending time while moving inside of, and as part of the works, often led by performers. Her passage works are using both time and space as active material components.

Edvine Larssen has trained as an artist in England (Ba. Honours 2001), Norway (Mfa 2005) and Japan (Diploma 2007). She holds a Doctorate degree from the Norwegian Programme for Artistic Research at KIT/NTNU from 2018, where she has been researching the Japanese concept of [Ma] through both qualitative research methods and site related art-practices involving physical presence in various ways. Edvine Larssen has been commissioned to make site bound works for places like: Tromsø Kunstforening, SALT, Trondheim international festival for performative arts, Kunstnernes Hus, TSSK and Nordenfjeldske museum for art and design. She currently holds a two year work grant for artists from Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond and is working towards new solo works in collaboration with Rake and LevArt.

Suzana Milevska
Suzana Milevska is an art historian and curator from Skopje, Macedonia. Her curatorial interests include postcolonial critique of representational regimes of hegemonic power, gender difference and feminist art; construction of visual memory in photographic imagery and archives; art in postsocialist and transitional societies; collaborative, participatory and activist art practices. Currently she is Principal Investigator, Polytechnic University Milan (TRACES, Horizon 2020). From 2013-2015 Milevska was the first Endowed Professor at the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna and she taught Central and South Eastern European Art Histories. In 2004, she was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar. She holds a Ph.D. in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths College London. Her project The Renaming Machine (2008-2010, in collaboration with P74 –artist run space in Ljubljana) focused on the politics of renaming and overwriting memory in art and visual culture. She curated several exhibitions of contemporary art by Roma artists, including Roma Protocol, the Austrian Parliament (Wiener Festwochen), and Call the Witness, BAK Utrecht (the basis for Roma Pavilion – Call the Witness, collateral event at the 54 Venice Biennale, 2011). Milevska is the recipient of the Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory and the ALICE Award for political curating (2012).

Alex Murray-Leslie
Dr. Alexandra Murray-Leslie is an academic pop-artist and co-founder of the art band Chicks on Speed. She’s currently guest researcher at Animal Logic Academy, Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation, The University of Technology Sydney and Research Affiliate at CCC (Critical Curatorial Cybernetic Studies), HEAD, The University of Art and Design, Geneva. Her practice-based research focuses on the design and development of somatic wearable musical instruments, with a focus on computer enhanced foot devices for on land, in air and water theatrical audiovisual expression.

Henrik Karlstrøm
Henrik Karlstrøm works as a bibliometrician at the NTNU University Library section for collections and digital services, and is responsible for NTNU’s work with Open Access and publication policies. He has a Ph.D. in science and technology studies from NTNU.