The Research Catalogue (RC) is a non-commercial, collaboration and publishing platform for artistic research provided by the
Society for Artistic Research. The RC is free to use for artists and
researchers. It
serves also as a backbone for teaching purposes, student assessment, peer review workflows and research funding administration. It strives to be
an open space for experimentation and exchange.
recent activities
Unknown Beyond Abyss: Toward Vocabularies of/for/at the Limit
(2025)
Julia Hoelzl, Derrick Ryan Claude Mitchell, Ruth Anderwald
At this time of exception, in these extra-ordinary times there seems to be no limit to the limit: Once an extreme, excessive and acute experience, the limit has become an all-inclusive, continuous condition that coincides with a lack of language and other forms of expression and connection. Aiming to collaboratively inhabit and investigate this border experience, the objective of this project is to create contemporary vocabularies and related contextualizations of/for/at the limit. In order to do so, the project’s design for 36 months will develop 3 arts-based research programs exploring 3 select limit-experiences: The Unknown, The Beyond, The Abyss. Each of the interrelated programs includes a score of 5 formats: banquet, symposium, exhibition, podcast and performance collaborations with Saint Genet, Tianzhuo Chen and Marina Abramović.
recent publications
Drawing in the In-Between – ma, Intelligens and the Sketch&Draw Method
(2025)
Tanja K. Hess
On drawing as a practice of the in-between in the sense of the Japanese concept ma. Using the Sketch&Draw method, it is shown that drawing is neither mere representation nor pure invention, but a dialogical process between perception, memory, hand, and world. Neuroscientific models such as Predictive Coding demonstrate that each line is a proposal by the brain of how the world might be, which is then fed back and refined in the process of drawing. The hand appears not as a mere tool, but as a thinking organ, tightly coupled with perception and memory.
Referring to Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s theory of Flow, it is shown that the immediacy of hand drawing – in contrast to digital procedures – is decisive for entering a state in which perception and action seamlessly merge. Philosophical perspectives from Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Tim Ingold highlight that the line is not merely a boundary, but a resonance space in which the invisible can become manifest.
Drawing thus proves to be a process of knowledge, one that unfolds slowly, comparable to a species-rich meadow: unplannable, yet not random. In the in-between of world and subject, line and gaze, a form of knowledge emerges that can be understood as Intelligens – a creative third way beyond control and helplessness.