Research Catalogue

Simple page for presentation on 13/12/2023

The article unfolds how the combination of qualitative research and immersive performance has given Inga Gerner Nielsen insight into her audience's aesthetic perception and imaginary realm in a performance installation. It sets out by stating that to ask an audience open questions about a performance only provides testimony of the after-rationalizations of their experience. The author introduces a phenomenological interview method, which draws on sense-memory techniques directing the interviewee to produce thick descriptions; actualizing the lived experience in the interview instead. In response to Norman K. Denzin's call for a performative dialogical social science, she argues why interview material should be conceptualized as performance and how working artistically with the interview setup can serve to highlight the inherent power dynamics. The article ends with examples showing how the interview was turned into a central immersive element of Inga Gerner Nielsen ́s artworks.

This study examines the relationship between the narratives in audio-visual artwork and the temporality of historical preservation within sociocultural contexts of destruction and re-construction, and rusting, through the concept of Sankofa. The series of photographic artworks titled “Patches of Time” delves into the socio-cultural fabric of memory, historical sites, forest, and the contemporary reconstruction of the past. Together with the written content, I show various forms of media such as photos, sound files and videos that reveal different aspects of the audio-visual practice. The photos and sound compositions are discussed here as ways of doing and making, exposing the experiences that hold aesthetic qualities and a sense of the sublime. The materiality of the photos and soundscapes mirrors an archaeological process, where remnants of the past are not only recovered but also recontextualized within contemporary sociocultural frameworks. Specifically, I investigate the integration of destruction and re-construction which aligns with Walter Benjamin’s notion that reproduction destabilizes traditional narratives, offering opportunities for reimagining history, and reshapes the aura of cultural artifacts. The destruction and re-construction of these photos impacts the narrative gestures of going back and starting anew (Sankofa). The study aims to observe the interconnectedness of art, memory and the mind as historical sites and explore the potential for re-imaging the nature of audio-photographic art.

This exposition explores the concept of speculative utopias within artistic research, offering glimpses into potential futures at the intersection of artistic imagination and futures thinking. Developed as textual concepts, these speculative utopias serve as vehicles for envisioning inclusive and sustainable futures, addressing complex socio-economic, cultural, and environmental challenges. The study employs a multidisciplinary approach by integrating aerial photography of Iceland’s landscapes with futures thinking methodologies and artistic research practices. These photographs function not merely as documentation but as speculative utopias that prompt critical reflection on climate adaptation, socio-political transformation, and public engagement. A unique aspect of the research is the use of artificial intelligence (ChatGPT), which supported iterative narrative development and reflexive inquiry. Through this exploration, the research offers alternative visions for resilient futures catalysing transformative dialogue and deepening reflection on the politics of the present while imagining possibilities for the world to come.

This article discusses four artworks that employ artificial intelligence (AI) as practice as research (PaR) by artist Garrett Lynch IRL. These are: I’m not Garrett Lynch IRL – DoppelGANger Portraits (2021), a series of Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) portraits; TheLastStraw (2021–23), a performative generative artwork for social media; Flag for States of Damage (2018), a performative mixed-reality artwork for the web and The Traveller (2024), a four-channel video installation with artefacts. The objective of the works is two-fold. Firstly, each artwork’s use of AI is distinct yet is intended to form part of a broad ongoing exploration of how networks can be transformative to art practice. The works maintain that AI is a form of network that enables emergence. Not the emergence of intelligence as defined in the field of AI, but instead in the context of art theory a manner in which artworks are expanded, extended or activated beyond their artist/author defined forms. AI as a network is therefore defined as both the generative adversarial network, the input, employed in the formation of the work and the resulting network of artist, artwork and audience that emerges when a work is expanded, extended or activated. Secondly, instrumental in facilitating AI as a network is the use of language as a combined form of encoding and performative utterance (Austin, 2018). Building on a fundamental basis of computing that all digital media is reducible to language, code, and numbers as well as a basis of communication theory that language is a social construct, the works explore language as both form of representation and communication between human and machine. Language enables a process of folding (O’Sullivan, 2005) or flipping (Sloan, 2012) of concepts, media and artefacts between ‘virtual’ and ‘real’ spaces, between digital and materialised forms.

Interested in how photographs are constituted, this exposition situates itself in between materialities of photography to discover how photographs are actualized. Using photography as artistic research practice, it uncovers how matters, sounds, bodies, and machines intra-act within the practice of photography. The inquiry challenges the bifurcation between the outside/inside of the frame, rather it emphasizes its fluid nature. It delves into the cosmogenesis of a photograph exploring the multiple folds and transformations in actualizing a photograph revealing the intricate and dynamic assemblages of humans and non-humans from the outside folding with the inside. Thinking with Gilles Deleuze's concept of the Folds, the exposition was able to surface layers upon layers of bodily and material folds that trouble the traditional notion of photographs as images separated from the outside. In the middle of its messiness, the exposition was able to develop an Applique technique as a method of knowing that emerges from this artistic research practice. What came out are layers of images that describe photography as performative movement of matters and bodies, a metamorphosis of infinite images while navigating the rich culture of Vietnam’s Hanoi capital.