Art
as Research. Research as Art. Anything goes?
Art as Research. Research
as Art. Anything goes?
A lively discussion concerning research methods is currently unfolding within
the arts as well as in the humanities. While this discussion revolves around the controversial term ‘artistic research’ in
the arts, the debate in the humanities is revolving around research practices labelled as ‘digital humanities’. Novel research
practices in the humanities are largely informed by computer-aided methods and the inclusion of accessible data through open
data, digitized archives, online repositories and Application Programming Interfaces. The Artistic Technology Research LAB
cooperates with diverse international researchers, artists, festivals and institutions, to stress the critical discourse in
(and about) new media, technology and their intersections to society. In our presentation we will show examples from our practice,
as well as from practitioners and cooperation partners of the wider network of Artistic Technology Research. Drawing from
these examples we will argue why interdisciplinary cooperation between different domains (academic-, maker- and other research
cultures) are fruitful and promise not only valuable research results and the development of research tools, but also provide
ground for societal critique.??
Mirko Tobias Schaefer is Assistant Professor for New Media
& Digital Culture at the University of Utrecht and Research Fellow at Vienna University of Applied Arts. He studied theatre,
film and media studies and communication studies at Vienna University and digital culture at Utrecht University. He obtained
a PhD from Utrecht University in 2008. His research interest revolves around the socio-political impact of media technology.
His publications cover user participation in cultural production, hacking communities, politics of software design and communication
in social media.??
Matthias Tarasiewicz co-founded the group 5uper.net and the CODED CULTURES
initiative (media arts festival and research platform). Being active as a digital bricoleur / coder, researcher and technology
theorist since the last millennium, he is developing experimental media prototypes and creating projects on the intersections
of media, arts, technology and science. He is project leader of the ‘Artistic Technology Research LAB’ at the University of
Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria. Recent projects include the cryptocurrency Bitcoin (‘BitCoinCloud’), DIY-video (Artistic
Bokeh Initiative) among mapping research methods of artistic production cultures.??
Twitter: @mtschaefer, @parasew,
@atechres, @artisticbokeh
Art as Research. Research as Art. Anything goes?
JOUR
FIXE Discussing Methods and Materials
A central part of a scientific paper is its “Materials and Methods” section
that helps colleagues to elucidate and reproduce a given experimental set-up. It is this closer look that may decide upon
the (mis) fortune or further development of the finding. In the JOUR FIXE we would like to provide a forum for discussion
that has the goal to approach the practice of artistic and scientific methods. It is about the questions of traceability,
precision and rigor, about the role of (lucky) chance, contingencies and accidents, about processes and plans, sketches and
(art) works. Is there a necessity for using a “method”? What is a method actually “doing” - not merely in its very context
but also in a societal sense? Is a method a constraint that should be avoided? The guests will report on their work and their
approaches of engaging with interdisciplinary boundaries, artistic positions, and socio-cultural or economic strategies. In
the best case, the audience will experience how things, processes, concepts, or matters of concern, that may affect us, are
generated, negotiated or constructed.
JOUR FIXE Concept and Direction: Bernd Kräftner with assistance of Valerie
Deifel and Juliana Herrero
www.dieangewandte.at/artscience
