Research Catalogue

This exposition contains documentation of the artistic result of Magnhild Øen Nordahls artistic research PhD project Unmaking Abstractions. The exposition also contains the artistic reflection for the same project. On the exposition's landing page the reader can access its different components by clicking different sides of the unfolded cube. The rotating cube in the upper right corner will bring the reader back to the landing page.

Conceived and co-organised by Emma Cocker, Alexander Damianisch, Cordula Daus and Lena Séraphin, this Society of Artistic Research Special Interest Group (SAR SIG) provides contexts for coming together via the exchange of language-based research. The intent is to support developments in the field of expanded language-based practices by inviting attention, time and space for enabling understanding of/and via these practices anew.

This research was conducted with a diverse group of dancers, varying in age, background, and dance experience, and was guided through somatic embodiment and artistic articulation. Through a somatic approach, the body was explored as both an archive of lived experience and an oracle for emergent knowledge, offering a strong gateway into authentic dance material. The creative process unfolded through four phases: somatic exploration and improvisation, composition, structuring, and refinement. Throughout, leadership shifted fluidly between an open, facilitative mode, amplifying the dancers’ voices, and a more directive mode, articulating the artistic vision. The methodology highlights how initial somatic explorations were gradually shaped into choreographic form, maintaining a dialogue between internal embodiment and external composition throughout the process. Key insights include that this process proved particularly effective within a diverse group context, demonstrating that, regardless of formal dance training, each individual, when guided somatically, can access embodied memory and, through compositional shaping, transform authentic movement into coherent choreographic structure. Both the research and the resulting performance, Equilibrium, do not seek to offer resolution, but rather to evoke recognition and the possibility of coexisting with tension.

Exploring how artistic experience can be influenced by mimetic recognition of human motion patterns in non-representative kinetic figures. This project investigates imbuing non-representational kinetic figures with human-like movement patterns and examines how these characteristics can modulate the expe rience of such figure(s). The investigation explores whether these motion patterns may facilitate mimetic recognition of human movement patterns and whether such recognition can intensify onlooker engagement with the figure(s) by eliciting affective and emotional responses. Of particular interest is evoking experiences of kinship and relation between humans and non-humans and proposing that the figures’ actions be experienced as an expression of intent on the part of the figures. These topics are approached as artistic motivation and guiding principles for artistic creation and experimentation.

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.