Research Catalogue

an international database for artistic research

About this portal
VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research

Visit VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research: visjournal.nu

VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research is a digital journal presenting artistic research, emphasising the importance of reflection that is interwoven with artistic practice, thereby generating new knowledge. VIS is an open-access publication and uses the Research Catalogue publishing platform for its submission and peer-reviewing processes, as well as for its final publication. It has adopted an approach to peer-reviewing in which, rather than the process being blind, a dialogue is established between author(s) and peer-reviewer.

VIS holds an open call for every issue. Up to seven expositions are selected by the Editorial Committee for further peer-review. Submissions in the Scandinavian languages are actively encouraged, but VIS is also open to contributions in English. Following the appearance of its inaugural Issue 0 in spring 2018, VIS has produced two issues in every subsequent year.

The journal is the result of a cooperation between Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH) and the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme (part of Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills).

The Steering Committee for VIS
Ellen J Røed
, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Professor, Stockholm University of the Arts
Paula Crabtree, Vice-Chancellor, Stockholm University of the Arts
Anne Gry Haugland, Board member at The Norwegian Artistic Research Programme (part of Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills)
Ann Kroon, Active Director of the Research Office, Stockholm University of the Arts
Morten Schjelderup Wensberg, Chairman, The Norwegian Artistic Research Programme (part of Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills)
Geir Ivar Strøm, Policy director, The Norwegian Artistic Research Programme (part of Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills)

Editorial Committee for VIS
Tale Næss, Dramaturg, playwright and author
Magnus Bärtås, Vice-Rector of Research, University of Arts, Crafts and Design
Gunhild Mathea Husvik-Olaussen, Artist
Michael Francis Duch
, Musician, professor, and Deputy Head of Research at NTNU – Department of Music.
Behzad Khosravi Noori, Assistant Professor of Practice, Communication and Design at School Of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences, Habib University
Eliot Mmantidi Moleba, Research fellow at The Oslo National Academy of the Arts, KHiO
Cecilia Roos, Vice Rector of Research, Stockholm University of the Arts

Contact:
visjournal@uniarts.se



contact person(s): Heidi Möller

url: http://www.visjournal.nu

• 
  14. VIS Issue 14 VIS Issue 14 was published on 21 October 2025. The issue features eight expositions within the theme “The Heart of the Experiment (and the art of failure)”. Editor: Michael Duch. Co-editor: Tale Næss.
• 
  13. VIS Issue 13 VIS Issue 13 was published on 18 March 2025. The issue features six expositions within the theme “Brieftopia”. Editor: Behzad Khosravi Noori.
• 
  12. VIS Issue 12 VIS Issue 12 was published on 23 October 2024. The issue features seven expositions within the theme “Contemporary Ar(t)chaeology: A dead-alive of Artistic Re-search and History”. Editors: Behzad Khosravi Noori and Magnus Bärtås.
• 
  11. VIS Issue 11 VIS Issue 11 was published on 2 April 2024. The issue features six expositions within the theme “Play, come what may”. Editors: Cecilia Roos and Gunhild Mathea Husvik-Olaussen.
• 
  10. VIS Issue 10 VIS Issue 10 was published on 20 October 2023. The issue features six expositions and a recorded conversation within the theme “Circulating Practices”. Editors: Cecilia Roos and Gunhild Mathea Husvik-Olaussen.
• 
  9. VIS Issue 9 VIS Issue 9 was published on 14 March 2023. The issue features seven expositions within the theme “of Memory and Public Space”. Editors: Serge von Arx and Eliot Moleba.
• 
  8. VIS Issue 8 VIS Issue 8 was published 18 November 2022. The issue features seven expositions within the theme “of Rules and Alternatives”. Editors: Serge von Arx and Eliot Moleba.
• 
  7. VIS Issue 7 VIS Issue 7 was published 14 March 2022. The issue features five expositions within the theme “Metamorphoses – Tales of the Ever-Changing”. Editor: Anna Lindal.
• 
  6. VIS Issue 6 VIS Issue 6 was published 19 October 2021. The issue features five expositions within the theme “Contagion”. Editor: Anna Lindal.
• 
  5. VIS Issue 5 VIS Issue 5 was published 15 March 2021. The issue features seven expositions within the theme “One more time, let's do it again!”. Editor: Trond Lossius.
• 
  4. VIS Issue 4 VIS Issue 4 was published 14 October 2020. The issue features seven expositions within the theme “Affecting material and technique”. Editor: Trond Lossius.
• 
  3. VIS Issue 3 VIS Issue 3 was published 1 March 2020. The issue features eight expositions within the theme “History Now”. Editor: Magnus Bärtås.
• 
  2. VIS Issue 2 VIS Issue 2 was published 23 September 2019. The Issue features five expositions within the theme ”Estrangement”. Editor: Magnus Bärtås.
• 
  1. VIS Issue 1 Risk – and associated topics such as vulnerability, unguardedness, precariousness, failure and uncanniness – are frequently raised as concerns within artistic research arenas. VIS # 1 – Risk in Artistic Research – jeopardy or validation? moves through more artistically-stylised accounts of ‘danger’ towards the more hopeful linkage of risk with discovery and the reconfiguring of the imagination.
• 
  0. VIS Issue 0 Issue 0 features eight expositions created by researchers within the arts. Every contributor has been carefully chosen and invited by the Editorial Committee, with the view of presenting best practice within the field of artistic research.
  The expositions have gone through a dialogue-based peer-review which is something that the Editorial Committee would like to continue to develop in the coming issues, a process intended to be significant for VIS.
  Every exposition is presented on the VIS webpage and has an editorial text that explains why the contributor was chosen. The actual exposition itself, on the other hand, will be found in the database of the Research Catalogue. The expositions have their own designs and explore widely different topics, depending upon how each researcher has chosen to work within the offered format.
  
  The Editorial Committee would like to thank all the contributors for their inspiring work which sets the tone admirably for what we hope will follow.
  
  Editorial Committee: Cecilia Roos, Serge von Arx, Anna Lindal, Mia Engberg, Trond Lossius, Magnus Bärtås och Darla Crispin

• 
  Serious Personal Conviction – on measurements of conscience (2020) author(s): Björn Larsson, Carl Johan Erikson published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
  In Serious Personal Conviction – on measurements of conscience, we encounter two groups of people interviewed on different occasions discussing consciousness and ethics in relation to the military system. One of the groups are men that during the 1970s and ‘80s chose to perform non-combatant service and now reflect on the choices they made as 18-year olds. The other group consists of young people of today trying to answer several questions regarding the right to take another person's life. The exposition is part of the artistic research project Refuse to Kill – stories of the conscientious objectors. Our methodology involves a montage of a large number of voices collectively collected through statistical surveys, open-call procedure via advertising in newspapers and the internet, interviews and searches in archives.
  open exposition comments (0)
• 
  Telescopic Listening (2020) author(s): Eivind Buene published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
  In contemporary music, the ethos of experimentation and newness is constantly confronted with a strong historical presence. The historical residue in the apparatus of production and dissemination can be found in the instrumentation, institutions and formats of performance. Certain periods in time, like that of post-war modernism tried to eviscerate that residue, other periods have seen a keen interest in evoking history, for a variety of reasons. Eivind Buene’s ongoing project Schubert Lounge probes notions of historicity in an explicit way, taking songs of Franz Schubert as a starting point for the investigation. The work challenges the idea of authenticity in musical performance through applying methodologies from one layer in time to materials from a different historical moment. In the project he tries to create a multi-layered experience through a process of ‘telescopic listening’, as different modes of interpretation and creation is brought into conflict in a staged work for singers, ensemble and turntable with recorded sound.
  open exposition comments (0)
• 
  Lineage (2020) author(s): Otto Ramstad published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
  The project Lineage draws lines between the learning practices of experimental dance and somatic work, and personal ‘artistic genealogy’. ‘Artistic genealogy’ is a creative process Ramstad has been using to build relationships to his Norwegian ancestors and the land they inhabited and about which he knew very little. Lineage strings together these seemingly separate ways of gaining knowledge: official archives and private stories, his archive of somatic approaches and attempts to research land somatically – to think about what it was like to live in a body in rural Norway 100 years ago and ask how this affects how we are living in our bodies now. This exposition reflects a project that includes a video installation, a studio practice, and a performance which uses his archive of videos, stories, and movement. Here he shares thoughts about how we care for and engage in our personal histories and how this engagement changes how we are living in our bodies now. In this exposition you will see or hear the following people, listed in their order of appearance: Otto Ramstad, Lisa Nelson, Maura Gahan, Margit Galanter, Kristin Van Loon, Steve Paxton, Emmett Ramstad, Hans Steinar Gjerdet, Carle Lange, Olive Bieringa, Uma Rabbit Bieringa Ramstad, Andrea Parkins.
  open exposition comments (0)
• 
  Demmin – letting a city sound (2020) author(s): Mareike Nele Dobewall published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
  The project ’Demmin – eine Stadt zum Klingen bringen’ (’Demmin – letting a city sound’) explores the history and stories of the German city of Demmin in a dialogue between the local choir, Peenechor, and the site of Haus Demmin. During a two-week workshop the choir and Mareike Dobewall explored how to vocalise other stories, of the inhabitants of Demmin and the two decaying buildings known collectively as Haus Demmin (the ruins of an 11th century fortress and a former mansion). In a sonic dialogue between ageing voices and decaying architecture a vocal performance in the open air was created. Stories, history and fairy tales took new shape through vocal music, and un-listened sound was given presence. The site-determined performance allowed for the memory and the imagination of the visitors and the participants to rise up and become a part of a holistic experience.
  open exposition comments (0)
• 
  Listening in/to Exile: Migration and Media Arts (2019) author(s): Budhaditya Chattopadhyay published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
  This exposition responds to the current flux of migration and the resulting condition of estrangement. The projects – an augmented book project and a corresponding media artwork – respond to mass migration, hyper-mobility, placeless-ness and nomadism, which are blurring the boundaries between the local and the global, the corporeal and the digital, the private and the public. Through an exploration of the poetic and critical capacities embedded in everyday listening the two projects attempt to shed light on the aesthetics of addressing the notion of exile, alienation and estrangement. The exposition let the viewer/reader engage with the artistic matter; namely, the field recordings and on-site writings - artistic acts of poetic contemplation grounded in a personal experience of the urban alienation, with the aim of movement towards self-understanding and emancipation.
  open exposition comments (0)
• 
  Spin, Puppet, Spin: Drawing Estrangement (2019) author(s): William Platz published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
  The life studio is an eccentric place and this exposition is populated by eccentric characters. The drawings and photographs contained in this research have all been created by studio puppets. Each puppet's awkward methods of working — stabbing, pulling, twisting a clutching hand — magnify the work’s unorthodox strategy. Puppets will illuminate the idiosyncrasies, malfunctions and estrangements typically surfeited in the life studio’s private sphere. This research responds to the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann (‘Spin, puppet, spin’) and George Méliès; puppet/art hybrid exhibitions; the Puppet Master horror franchise; and the lay figure of Gustave Courbet. Puppets are not alien in the life studio. Although they were typically concealed in the artist's process and hidden from public view, they were common fixtures until the 20th century. This exposition estranges artists and models from the life drawing apparatus and invites puppets to make pictures.
  open exposition comments (0)