Research Catalogue

In progress Dorsal Practices — Murky Back Thinking is a collaboration between choreographer Katrina Brown and writer-artist Emma Cocker, for exploring the notion of dorsality in relation to how we as moving bodies orientate to self, others, world. How does cultivation of a back-oriented awareness and attitude shape and inform our experience of being-in-the-world? The dorsal orientation foregrounds active letting go, releasing, even de-privileging, of predominant social habits of uprightness and frontality — the head-oriented, sight-oriented, forward-facing, future-leaning tendencies of a culture intent on grasping a sense of the world through naming and control. Rather than a mode of withdrawal, of turning one’s back, how might a backwards-leaning orientation support an open and receptive ethics of relation? How are experiences of listening, voicing, thinking, shaped differently through this tilt of awareness and attention towards the back?

This is an archiving project initiated by Siobhan Davies Studios, UK. The Archiving of the performance work "Truth and Transparency" Questions what it means to archive dance as well as what happens when a dance is archived acknowledging that some types of choreographers' work have historically been archived while other types of choreographers have not. What does it do to a dance and choreographer to be archived? This project is also interested in the changes in the creative process of performing the dance which was first choreographed in 2007 and is now being given new life through this archiving project. Truth & Transparency (2007): a performance work for three (two performers and one dancer manipulating projected image onto the performance space using a mirror). The work was inspired by Ralph Ellison’s ‘Invisible Man’ and Adesola’s reflections on bringing up their own children as two masculine presenting Black youth at the time. The piece researched Step and Crumping dance forms as well as foreshadowed new technology using projection in real-time to manipulate the audience’s perception of dancers and space.

A 2-part module by the MA Transdisciplinary Studies of ZHdK, Department Kulturanalysen und Vermittlung. Held by Anna Rubi & Eirini Sourgiadaki. Autumn 2023-Spring 2024 Colour perception varies, so do the semantics of colour terminology, for both sighted and blind individuals. The questions around colour perception from ophthalmology or neurobiology perspectives to cognitive and artistic ones, are infinite: Is there a universal human experience of the blue sky, the green grass and the brown soil? How is colour perceived in the brain, how is it translated into a communicable concept and how does it affect our perceived world, our mental and physical state? What is the role of colour in synesthesia? And most importantly, does colour have to do just with vision? In this module we work with the generation of blue colour on print, using the major light source available, the Sun. The Island of Amorgos is often referred to as “Le grand bleu” after the famous french film was shot at location. Its ancient name is “Melania”. “Melani”, the Greek word for ink, (“Melano” for dark blue, cyan) as it is said that in ancient times the place was covered with dark green flora. Our investigation begins exactly with this deep tint. We pay a visit to the famous monastery and the water oracle, walk the trails to observe the sensual -not only vision-based- shades of blue. In the spring term, we participate in local activities such as beach clean-up initiatives of the remote bays by local fishermen and their boats. We visit bee-hives and herb-distilleries, we work with the most basic bits and pieces of the island to capture its essence.

The publication Envelope offers insights into ongoing PhD projects by candidates in the PhD programme PhD in Art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in an innovative format. The major thrust of “Envelope” presents content supplied by doctoral researchers based on their individual artistic research and provides insights into ongoing work processes. These visual and textual traces reveal the state of the Art within its ongoing research processes. This open format seeks to reflect on experiences through exchange, as well as document relevant developments in the field of art and research. Participating projects: Sanja Andelkovic: Voice-Shifting as a Method: Eco-Gods in Future Orthodox Chants, Supervisor: Gerhild Steinbuch Margit Busch: A Garden for a Fish, Supervisor: Virgil Widrich Johanna Bruckner: Xenopoetic De/Compositions: The Affect-Body as Interface, Supervisor: Jakob Lena Knebl Andrew Champlin: Technique Concerns: Ballet Practice Against the Western Archive, Supervisors: Ruth Anderwald + Leonhard Grond George Demir: Ancestral Junctures: On the Expansion of Ancestral Mythologies, Supervisor: Hans Schabus Rah Eleh: Xenofuturism: A Proposal for a Liminal Futurism, Supervisor: Bouchra Khalili Wolfgang Konrad: Before the Truth in Documentary, Supervisor: Luzius Bernhard Joseph Leung: Post-digital Angst – An Arts-Based Research on the Manifestations of Angst in the Digital Milieu, Supervisor: Gabriele Rothemann Cristiana de Marchi: Casting a Shadow. On Disappearance, Emptiness, and the Haunting Power of Absence, Supervisor: Judith Eisler Jo O’Brien: Confusion: As Resistance, as Relationship, and Towards the Relational, Supervisors: Ruth Anderwald + Leonhard Grond Marthin Rozo Castaño: Art and Conservation in the Post-Conflict, Supervisor: Cristina Garcia Grinda + Efrén Diaz Moreno Konstanze Stoiber, Untitled, Supervisor: Brigitte Felderer Fabian Weiss: Ideal Self: How We Use Photography and Technology to Present and Optimise Ourselves, Supervisor: Margarete Jahrmann Ksenia Yurkova: Figures of Reticence as a(bio)political Strategy, a Forced Necessity, and the Impossibility of Artistic Expression, Supervisor: Jakob Lena Knebl Conny Zenk: RAD Performance – Driving Voices of Resistance, Supervisor: Ruth Schnell Feel free to zoom in on each poster for ensured readability.

PhD project: Before the Truth in Documentary, Supervisor: Luzius Bernhard Envelope is a publication of the PhD in Art programme at the University of Applied Arts Vienna

PhD project: Art and Conservation in the Post-Conflict, Supervisor: Cristina Garcia Grinda + Efrén Diaz Moreno Envelope is a publication of the PhD in Art programme at the University of Applied Arts Vienna