Content:

0. Message from SAR’s President
1. SAR International Forum on Artistic Research 2024
   15th International Conference on Artistic Research.
2. What Methods Do – International Symposium on Artistic Research Methods.
3. SAR General Assembly.
4. Portal Partner Stakeholders Meeting.
5. New Institutional Members and Portal Partners.
6. RC Webinars.
7. Annual Prize for Best RC Exposition 2023.
8. Portal Partner Thematic Seminars.
9. Portal Partner Meeting 2024: Porto June 17th–18th.
10. New SIGs Endorsed.
11. Contribute to ENCATC’s Journal Special Issue!
    What does artistic research need, and what can be further achieved through artistic research?
12. Invitation to Host Future SAR Events.
13. Executive Board’s Meeting Schedule.
14. Following SAR on LinkedIn.
15. Become a Research Catalogue Portal Partner with SAR
    Including the option of an internal teaching, learning and examination platform..

 

0.        Message from SAR’s President

Although the New Year is not so new, I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of the entire Executive Board, to send you my best wishes for a happy and successful 2024.

This year will be an important one for the Society for Artistic Research. The Board is designing and implementing a strategy process, the cornerstones of which were presented and discussed at the General Assembly 2023 in Trondheim. The overall aim is to ensure the long-term development and continued growth of our society.

In April we will all meet in Tilburg in a new conference format. Our colleagues at Fontys and the conference committee have been working hard to organise an event that will highlight the opportunities for discussion and exchange among SAR members and beyond.

The Artistic Research Forum will also host the forthcoming General Assembly of the Society for Artistic Research. On this occasion we will be electing five members of the Executive Board. Please note that the deadline for nominations is 16^th February.

This year we will be upgrading the Research Catalogue code base to ensure its sustainability for the future. These changes will not affect the user experience, but will be key to the continued development of the largest platform for artistic research in the world.

Last but not least, we will be focusing on strengthening our communications, both internally and externally. We will therefore be announcing a part-time position for a Communications Officer for SAR to support the Executive Board.

I am looking forward very much to see you in Tilburg in April to discuss details, exchange experiences and make plans for the future.

Florian Schneider, SAR President

1.        SAR International Forum on Artistic Research 2024
15th International Conference on Artistic Research

SAR International Forum on Artistic Research will take place from April 10^th to 11^th 2024, hosted by Fontys Academy of the Arts in Tilburg.

 

This year the Society for Artistic Research (SAR) introduces a new biennial meeting format, that offers time and space for thought-provoking and stimulating dialogue between artistic researchers, artists, practitioners, as well as policy makers and stakeholders from diverse backgrounds.

The Forum 2024 co-developed by Fontys and SAR to be a new and innovative biennial format, that will alternate with the already established SAR conferences.

Instead of the traditional keynote speech, the Forum will host three focus sessions in the afternoon of the first day. These sessions aim to address, explore, and negotiate challenges, visions, and opportunities for artistic research in contemporary society. In particular critical issues and questions that relate to:

-> the ethical dimensions of artistic research and the responsibilities when navigating this complex area. How should ethics ‘look like' for artistic research, and who and how should they be managed and implemented?

-> the spaces, places, and contexts of artistic research: 
What should a progressive and responsive research environment for artistic research and artistic researchers on all educational and career levels look like?

-> the challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence for artistic research(ers):
How and when does artificial intelligence create new directions for artistic research? What supports or hinders artistic research and artificial intelligence to coalesce and collaborate mutually and productively?

We invite both established experts and emerging voices in the field of artistic research to actively participate, share their insights and practice, and imagine the central role of artistic research in addressing the societal challenges of our time. Newly formed connections and the building of community relationships will shape the future of and for artistic research.

Instead of the traditional Open Call for contributions, we invite Forum participants to share their artistic research work with the research community in the form of poster presentations. These will be exhibited in a dedicated gallery setting during the 2-day forum in Tilburg. Posters might link up (e.g. with a QR code) to a dedicated RC exposition that allows for a more comprehensive presentation as well as online availability of all contributions via the official Forum website (via links). There is no selection process and participation are included in the Forum fee, making this line of participation entirely open and accessible to all Forum participants. An official invitation letter can be requested. 

With this new format of the SAR Forum we would also like to foster more dynamic interactions with the SAR Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and facilitate debates that encourage active participation not only within the SIGs but also across the broader SAR community. For the second day, a number of SIGs have accepted our invitation to co-create the SIGs’ contribution to the SAR Forum 2024 and are currently developing tailor-made formats to engage with the Forum’s participants and encourage a thought-provoking and stimulating dialogue about their special interest. We’re looking forward to range of exciting and diverse contributions!

More information on the Forum programme and registration options here.

 

 

 

2.        What Methods Do – International Symposium on Artistic Research Methods

What Methods Do – Exploring the Transformative Potential of Artistic Research

This international symposium on Artistic Research Methods will take place at the Textile Museum in Tilburg on April 9^th 13:00-19:00.

Artistic research makes the relationship between art and society permeable. Rather than bracketed in the private realm of the lone artist or the network of autonomous art institutions, artistic research opens up its practice to the public domain. Its methods become part of collective process of exploration and re-imagining.

This symposium will explore and evaluate how these methods play a role in producing knowledge, shifting boundaries between disciplines, and reconfiguring the agency of art in a societal context. What do methods do? How can they be used? How do they address the urgencies of a world in dire need of new perspectives?

The symposium will be structured in three sessions, each addressing one of these implications in the use of artistic research methods. A group of internationally active makers and scholars will address the role of methods in interdisciplinary endeavours, activist practices and the agency of technology, among other concerns.

As an expansion of this in-person event an online platform will be set up, that will enable a process of exchange, archiving and enquiry to start in advance of the symposium and to extend afterwards.

It is organized by Leiden University’s Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) and the Platform for Arts Research in Collaboration, in coordination with Fontys Tilburg and SAR. The symposium is an initiative of Route Kunst – NWA, the Dutch National Research Agenda.

You can enter the registration site from the SAR Forum registration pages.

 

3.        SAR General Assembly

The SAR General Assembly (GA) 2024 will take place at Fontys Academy of the Arts in Tilburg on Thursday April 11th at 15:00 CET. During the GA the Activity Report 2023/24, the Financial Report 2023 and the Working Budget 2024 will be presented and discussed as well as a proposal for some amendments of the organisations’ statutes. During the GA there will also be the election of five members to our Executive Board. Invitation and preliminary agenda have been sent to the membership in the beginning of this year.

 

4.        Portal Partner Stakeholders Meeting

By personal invitation, the Executive Board will arrange a Portal Partners’ Stakeholders meeting at Fontys in Tilburg on Friday April 12th 10:00-13:00. The RC is a joint academic venture between the portal partners and SAR. For this reason, we have been looking for a way to meet regularly at a more executive level with our partner members. This invitation is a first attempt to do this. The aim is to review the unique concept and context of the RC, present the range of opportunities the RC offers to portal partners, provide an update on how we plan to ensure the sustainability and stability of the system and discuss options for further development.

 

 

 

5.        New Institutional Members and Portal Partners

The Executive Board welcomes the following new Institutional Members:

• Gustav Mahler Privat University, Klagenfurt
• Faculty of Art and Design, University of Lapland
• Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences, Tampere University
• London South Bank University, School of Arts and Creative Industries

 

The Executive Board also welcomes these new Portal Partners:

• FAVU- Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology
• Fundación Genalguacil Pueblo Museo, Málaga
• mdw-University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna

 

6.        RC Webinars

Two Webinars are planned for this spring: One webinar for new and inexperienced RC users (already announced) as well as a second Webinar for more advanced users. The webinars are open to anyone affiliated to one of our member institutions, as well as to our individual members.

 

7.        Annual Prize for Best RC Exposition 2023

By the deadline for nominations to the Annual Prize for Best RC Exposition 2023, a record 25 submissions were received. This included submissions published by the journals, by institutional portals as well as self-published expositions. The winner will be presented during the opening of the SAR International Forum on Artistic Research on April 10^th at Fontys Academy of the Arts in Tilburg.

 

8.        Portal Partner Thematic Seminars

This spring the RC Management Team and the RC Monitoring Group organise three online thematic seminars for our portal partners:

• RC for Teaching, Learning and Examination Purposes

Thursday 15.02 – 15:00-16:30 CET

• Nurturing an Artistic Research Community

Tuesday 12.03 – 10:30-12:00 CET

• Portal Content Visibility and Accessibility

Tuesday 07.05 – 10:30-12:00 CEST

In these seminars, our portal partners may participate with as many colleagues as wanted.

 

9.        Portal Partner Meeting 2024: Porto June 17th–18th

The annual Portal Partner Meeting will be hosted at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto on the 17th and 18th of June.

Our annual onsite Portal Partner Meeting this year will take place in Porto. Based on the very positive responses on our face-to-face meeting in Vienna (2022) and in Tilburg (2023), our portal partners are invited to join a similar gathering for all in mid-June, with i2ADS-Instituto de Investigação em Arte, Design e Sociedade at the University of Porto as the organising host. All partners are welcome to be present with several people.

The preliminary programme (to be confirmed) includes:

• Status on the transfer to a new software framework for the RC, which also will include improvements in the user interface for both user profiles and administrators;
• Workshop to follow-up on how you can make the layout on your portal landing page at the RC more flexible;
• Detailed presentation of the Winner of the Prize for Best RC Exposition 2023.

More details on the programme and registration will follow.

 

10.    New SIGs Endorsed

SAR Special Interest Groups (SIGs) serve the purpose of lasting in-depth peer exchange, activity, and productivity on any topic or focus area of special interest in relation to artistic research, its practice, education, and institutionalisation. New SIGs may be suggested, founded, organised, and moderated by any SAR member (i.e. individual members or employees/students of SAR member institutions) with the aim of conducting a particular activity, theme or focus area in affiliation with SAR and promoting the activity and its results within the SAR community, thus contributing to the resources for the SAR membership and the artistic research community.

There is now eight Special Interest Groups (SIGs) endorsed by the Executive Board, and several of them will take active part in the SAR International Artistic Research Forum 2024.

Two new SIGs have recently been endorsed:

• Facilitation as Creative Practice

This SIG is organized by Marija Griniuk, Director, The Sami Centre for Contemporary Art; Janne-Camilla Lyster, Associate Professor, Oslo National Academy of the Arts; and Adelheid Mers, Professor, School of the Art Institute of Chicago (coordinator).

It is becoming increasingly clear that facilitating is a widely present practice across the arts. Facilitation techniques draw on performance modalities, while also engaging more broadly with architecture, design, sculpture, music, language, and gaming in their intersections with cooperative and community building practices. Facilitation emerges in cross-fertilization with practitioners’ experience as artistic researchers, arts educators, arts mediators, and arts administrators, roles that already include designing and deploying communicative systems.

Participatory configurations such as laboratories, workshops and interventions are becoming more common as integral parts of, not ancillary to work with ideas, objects, or performance, even as institutions may be grappling with how to accommodate them. Collecting these emergent modalities under a new umbrella term, the SIG Facilitation as Creative Practice asks: What does it mean to facilitate? Why is this focus developing now?

 

• Sound Research

The SIG group Sound Research consists of the core team and co-organisers Marcel Cobussen, Karl Salzmann and Salomé Voegelin, who are both contact persons and organisers of the group.

This SIG group is a sound research group that considers political, social, experiential, ecological, feminist, philosophical, etc. possibilities via sound. In other words, a group that in different ways and from different sonic orientations questions and re-visions realities, everyday hierarchies and conventions as well as political, academic, and institutional realities. The aim of the group is not, or not only, to produce practice-based and discursive answers to the urgent questions of these contemporary problems, but rather to have a more sustainable investigation of the condition that produces their reality and its normalisation, i.e. its acceptance as inevitable and unchangeable.

 

 

To this end we propose to engage a Sonic Thinking: the imaginary of sound’s connecting logic, as well as its embodied materialisation, which meets the complexly interwoven logic of the current crises, to understand this condition as a pre-condition, and to develop, collectively, methodologies of how to engage this condition: to produce conceptual and actual transformations and approaches that could be shared beyond the arts and humanities with scientists and social-scientists working on their causalities and consequences.

 

11.    Contribute to ENCATC’s Journal Special Issue!
What does artistic research need, and what can be further achieved through artistic research?

ENCATC’s European Journal of Cultural Management and Policy published by Frontiers invites researchers to submit to the special issue “Unlocking Artistic Research - How to Reframe and Transform the Current Challenges of Managing and Supporting Artistic Research by Discovering and Imagining New Forms of Impact and Value”.

The special issue invites scholarly and artistic contributions to critically address current challenges in artistic research management and its policy frameworks. Submissions are encouraged to delve into advocacy, funding, infrastructural opportunities, and the unique contexts of artistic research.

The Article Processing Charges (APCs) for the articles in this special issue are 100% waived by ECBN (European Creative Business Network)! Do not miss this opportunity and submit your paper by 31 March 2024. Learn more here: 

 

12.    Invitation to Host Future SAR Events

The Executive Board are welcoming our institutional members and portal partners for taking on the role as host for our annual larger and smaller events. These events need long-term planning and for this reason we are eager to establish such relationships for the coming years. For further information, contact our Executive Officer Johan A Haarberg – johan.haarberg@uib.no.

 

13.    Executive Board’s Meeting Schedule

The SAR Executive Board is scheduled to hold four meetings this spring. The first took place online on February 2^nd, and the next will be onsite hosted by Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna.

The third will take place in Tilburg on the day after the General Assembly, and the fourth will be confirmed as soon as the new Executive Board has been elected.

 

14.    Following SAR on LinkedIn

SAR now operates a dedicated LinkedIn page. It serves as an additional channel to increase the visibility of SAR, its profile and activities among the members, within professional communities and beyond. We invite you to share your thoughts, promote activities and engage with colleagues at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/society-for-artistic-research/

 

15.    Become a Research Catalogue Portal Partner with SAR
Including the option of an internal teaching, learning and examination platform

The Research Catalogue (RC) is an academic, non-commercial, and collaborative publishing platform for artistic research offered by SAR.

For artistic research, the mode of presentation of research results is essential. The RC provides a platform for the dissemination of artistic research where sound, image, video and text can be combined in an integrated format for presentation, and where the visual disposition and focus on different media formats can be decided by the author. Images and sounds are not subordinate to the text, but on an equal footing, and the linear narrative structure can be broken.

The RC is available as a portal partner option for institutions, online peer-reviewed journals and research projects. For these purposes, the RC hosts public portals for the documentation, presentation and archiving of research processes. Research outcomes and results are peer-reviewed according to the portal's own criteria. Portal partners have the opportunity to present externally funded research projects within the RC's main project page.

For our portal partners, the RC provides internal portals as collaborative workspaces and learning platforms for staff and students, or as a research management tool. Collaboration, supervision, student assessment and peer review can take place within the portal and users can be organised into different groups for workshops, courses or projects. The institution can decide what part(s) of the results of such activities should be archived and/or displayed on its public portal.

Both public and internal portals can be used to organise and present conferences, seminars, sub-projects, etc.

To date, more than thirty institutions have subscribed to establish and run such a portal - not all of them are publicly active yet. For further information, please contact the SAR Executive Officer Johan A Haarberg: johan.haarberg@uib.no