In this article, the current debate about paradigm formation in artistic research is chosen as a starting point. The way in which artistic research operates as a convergence of creative practice, artistic thinking, andcuratorial strategies shows strong similarities with the definition of care proposed by Maria Puig de la Bellacasa: a dynamic, triangular interaction between labor, affect, andpolitics. This proposition will be briefly elaborated on the basis of three research projects. Starting from thestatement Research is another word for Care (Marion von Osten), a further reflection on the significance of thisperspective for the topical discussion about curatorial research will developed.Launch Publication: SVA New York: www.e-flux.com/announcements/653732/ma-curatorial-practice-winter-and-spring-programming/
This paper introduces and contextualises Climate Futures, an experiment in which AI was repurposed as a ‘co-author’ of climate stories and a co-designer of climate-related images that facilitate reflections on present and future(s) of living with climate change. It converses with histories of writing and computation, including surrealistic ‘algorithmic writing’, recombinatory poems and ‘electronic literature’. At the core lies a reflection about how machine learning’s associative, predictive and regenerative capacities can be employed in playful, critical and contemplative goals. Our goal is not automating writing (as in product-oriented applications of AI). Instead, as poet Charles Hartman argues, ‘the question isn’t exactly whether a poet or a computer writes the poem, but what kinds of collaboration might be interesting’ (1996, p. 5). STS scholars critique labs as future-making sites and machine learning modelling practices and, for example, describe them also as fictions. Building on these critiques and in line with ‘critical technical practice’ (Agre, 1997), we embed our critique of ‘making the future’ in how we employ machine learning to design a tool for looking ahead and telling stories on life with climate change. This has involved engaging with climate narratives and machine learning from the critical and practical perspectives of artistic research. We trained machine learning algorithms (i.e. GPT-2 and AttnGAN) using climate fiction novels (as a dataset of cultural imaginaries of the future). We prompted them to produce new climate fiction stories and images, which we edited to create a tarot-like deck and a story-book, thus also playfully engaging with machine learning’s predictive associations. The tarot deck is designed to facilitate conversations about climate change. How to imagine the future beyond scenarios of resilience and the dystopian? How to aid our transition into different ways of caring for the planet and each other?
As part of my PhD research, I investigate the factors of student success and the influence of the use of social media by first year students in higher education. For this I use the insights provided by the highly influential and leading integration theory of Tinto and diminished the amount of variables by only using the best predictive ones. Hereby, avoiding the capitalization of chance and establishing a more easy to use model for teachers and management. Furthermore, I enriched the model with the use of social media, in particular Facebook, to better suit students’ contemporary society in the developed world. Principal component analysis on Facebook usage provided different integration/engagement components, which I coined peer-engagement and knowledge engagement. Both consisted of various purposes of Facebook use (information, education, social and leisure) and the use of different pages amongst students. To uncover if these latent variables play a significant role in student success or if Facebook is a multi-distracting platform, two models were compared using structural equation modeling with SPSS AMOS; one with and one without the peer-, and knowledge engagement variables. The fit of both models are compared using the normed fit index (NFI), the comparative fit index (CFI), the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA). In addition, the direct influence and indirect influence of all variables are compared to provide a better insight into what kind of influence social media can have upon student success.
This project develops a European network for transdisciplinary innovation in artistic engagement as a catalyst for societal transformation, focusing on immersive art. It responds to the professionals in the field’s call for research into immersive art’s unique capacity to ‘move’ people through its multisensory, technosocial qualities towards collective change. The project brings together experts leading state-of-the-art research and practice in related fields with an aim to develop trajectories for artistic, methodological, and conceptual innovation for societal transformation. The nascent field of immersive art, including its potential impact on society, has been identified as a priority research area on all local-to-EU levels, but often suffers from the common (mis)perception as being technological spectacle prioritising entertainment values. Many practitioners create immersive art to enable novel forms of creative engagement to address societal issues and enact change, but have difficulty gaining recognition and support for this endeavour. A critical challenge is the lack of knowledge about how their predominantly sensuous and aesthetic experience actually lead to collective change, which remains unrecognised in the current systems of impact evaluation predicated on quantitative analysis. Recent psychological insights on awe as a profoundly transformative emotion signals a possibility to address this challenge, offering a new way to make sense of the transformational effect of directly interacting with such affective qualities of immersive art. In parallel, there is a renewed interest in the practice of cultural mediation, which brings together different stakeholders to facilitate negotiation towards collective change in diverse domains of civic life, often through creative engagements. Our project forms strategic grounds for transdisciplinary research at the intersection between these two developments. We bring together experts in immersive art, psychology, cultural mediation, digital humanities, and design across Europe to explore: How can awe-experiences be enacted in immersive art and be extended towards societal transformation?
The objective of this PD-pathway is pioneering an interdisciplinary composition practice in societal contexts, informed by the scientific field of psychology. Three immersive multi-medium, music-centered compositions involving music and choreography will be created within an existing interdisciplinary practice. The PD's contribution to knowledge lies in the (new) ways of merging music and choreography, the bridging of human psychology and the arts as well as its artistic research approach.
The primary objective of this research is to develop the new practical methodology of "Vocalising Resonance", as a development of existing methods. The approach intends to involve artists and citizens in a multi-sensory engagement with their surrounding environment, by collectively utilizing the 'physical', non-semantic voice as a tool for communication. This methodology's creation is rooted in the application of artistic research to well-formulated arguments within contemporary humanities studies. It also incorporates existing approaches for engaging with sound and voice in a multisensory and multidisciplinary manner. Musicologist, Nina Eidsheim argues that music research should not solely focus on the figure of sound, but should also delve into the materiality of sound as vibration (Eidsheim, Sensing Sound). Similarly, this research aims to explore the voice as an experience connected to the whole body and senses, rather than simply hearing. Several existing strategies offer starting points. The second objective of this research is to investigate how the proposed methodology of "Vocalising Resonance" may have a transformative impact on participants' consciousness, by increasing their exposure to diversity and facilitating their realisation that persons in the literal meaning of the word are “the speaking through - sonare + per- the masks that make up our social selves”(Scapp, A Question of Voice). Broadening the scope beyond traditional norms, the project paves the way for a more inclusive, sensorially rich understanding of performing arts, inviting a holistic approach that goes beyond typical categorisations, enhancing the immersive nature of performances. It prompts reflections on the significance of an audience to define a voice, the essence of a voice irrespective of language, and how the non-semantic use of voice serves as a powerful interdisciplinary communication tool within abstract performance contexts. This process seeks to offer a new perspective and transform our practices.
