Research Catalogue

The publication Paths of artistic research is a collection of interviews with artistic researchers - Andrea Buršová, assistant professor at the Nika Brettschneiderová Dramatic Acting Department, Faculty of Drama, JAMU, Jiří Honzírek, director, manager of the Feste Theatre and PhD student at the Theatre Faculty, JAMU, Barbora Klímová, head of the Studio of Environmental Design at the FFA BUT, Lenka Klodová, head of the Studio of Body Design at the FFA BUT, Lucia Repašská, researcher at the Cabinet for Theatre and Drama Research, Theatre Faculty, JAMU, Hana Slavíková, head of the Studio of Radio and Television Dramaturgy and Scriptwriting, Theatre Faculty, JAMU, Pavel Sterec, artist and former head of the Intermedia Studio at the FFA, BUT, and Lenka Veselá, researcher at the Department of Theory and History of Art at the FFA, BUT and PhD student at the FFA, BUT. These are artists who have been associated with art colleges in Brno, specifically with the Faculty of Fine Arts of the BUT and the Theatre Faculty of the JAMU. Through interviews with the artists, the reader will learn under what circumstances they began to engage in artistic research, how they perceive it, what meanings they attribute to it and the purpose it serves for them. The selected group of artists is very diverse and their creative and research strategies are different, as are the purposes for which they use artistic research. The publication does not aim to provide an exhaustive overview of the methods used in artistic research, but it does aim to show that there are many approaches to artistic research and to present the paths that have brought particular artists to artistic research.

The PD Arts + Creative Symposium takes place at LocHal in Tilburg (NL) on 20 June 2025. This year’s symposium will highlight the programme’s multidisciplinary character by zooming in on the diverse fields of practice that its researchers operate in, connect to, and impact. It asks where, how, and with whom does the PD-research resonate? And what is the contribution of artistic and creative research to societal challenges?

Following on from my PhD research, Deeper Canine Topographies continues to explore human-canine cartographies, rhythms, repetitions,micro geographies and relational choreographies towards a proposal for future research.

This chapter will detail the evolution of a set of improvised performances that explored Empathic Speculation in both live and studio settings. As a means to elevate musical attunement in live performance based on an atmosphere of musical trust that ‘allows for creative risk-taking, which can result in the production of spontaneous musical utterances’ (Seddon, 2005: 58), Empathic Speculation (Bain, 2021) describes a further level of interaction that attempts to encourage another member of the ensemble beyond their perceived musical boundaries; or ‘comfort zones’.

When starting a composition, waiting for the fabled “inspiration to hit” can be unreliable at best and frustrating at worst. To investigate this issue, I look at how experts in other art disciplines approach the practice of creativity, specifically when beginning a new project, which, in composition, equates to starting a new piece. This paper explores how encounters with six creativity exercises originating from the disciplines of writing, choreography, and visual art can result in new possible approaches to jazz composition. The approaches explored include a Daily Method from author Julia Cameron, an Animal Method from poet Ted Hughes, a Haiku Method from authors Linda Anderson and Derek Neale, an Improvisational Method from choreographer Twyla Tharp, a Habit Method from choreographer Jonathan Burrows, and a Modeling Method from visual artist Austin Kleon. Throughout my research, I tested these six methods in my compositional practice and recorded the musical outcomes. I then shared three methods with musical colleagues to try before collecting their thoughts. In each method, I will recount my writing process using the method, my journal entries, and my overall thoughts. In the animal, haiku, and improvisation methods, I will also compare this to the experience of my colleagues. Each section will conclude with a musical work created from the method and my own evaluation of the resulting composition. The research demonstrates viable conceptual strategies for approaching jazz composition derived from other art disciplines and suggests that creative practice can be both accessible and sustainable over the long term.

The project comprises text, location photos, photos of artworks, and video animations that record the experiences of a natural flood that affected house and studio. The project’s content is a consideration of the consequences of the flood towards an existing project in progress at the time and on existing finished artwork. The finished exposition had two unsuccessful reviews; the first due to insufficiently proposing a workable consideration of failure, the second for insufficient clarity of purpose. As this self-published iteration, screenshots taken from the original iteration as formatted on the RC are overlaid with short summaries of aspects of the project’s content, in terms pertaining to both the staining of the flood water and the often unacknowledged writing, re-writing, and over-writing of whatever is the language basis of one's practice. The screenshots, as simulated text-and-image cameos, have the summaries ranged next to them as legible text. The original submitted project is archived though accessible as a PDF only, along with its supplementary papers and video clips.