Research Catalogue

an international database for artistic research

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  22. Indigeneities This Ruukku issue has been edited as part of the research project Taking Back the Museum – Opening the Space of Community Museums to Recover the Art of Indigenous People (2021–2025), funded by the Kone Foundation, which brings together artistic research and Indigenous studies.
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  21. Performing Artistic Research in Music – Performing Music in Artistic Research This issue of Ruukku explores the relationship between artistic research and the performance and presentation of music, asking what kind of music performance practices artistic research produces or enables.
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  20. Artivism Our Artivism issue is inspired by dismantling the contemporary conception of art and by a space where working methods, contents, and ideals produced by art have changed. This also enables negotiations and struggles between various conceptions of art.
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  19. Making Artistic Research Public Making something public is intrinsic to both art making and artistic research. This issue of RUUKKU focuses on the variety of ways artistic research is made public and on the effect of published artworks and research on their immediate surroundings, neighborhoods or environments. The issue discusses the relevance of changes and traces that published artworks and artistic research leave in public space and vice versa. The call was opened for researchers and artists to ponder artistic research's relation to its publicity in its diversity.
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  18. Responsibility In this issue of RUUKKU, we are unpacking the notion of responsibility in/with/for arts and artistic research with five expositions and three voices. The RUUKKU issue Responsibility supplements the Art of Research VII conference organized on 3-4 December 2020 at Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Finland.
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  17. Everyday Utopias and Artistic Research What kinds of perspectives can artistic research offer in seeking to cultivate political imagination and utopian thought? What kinds of tools and methods does it suggest for social action and thought? How do spaces, materiality and embodiment shape the practices of imagination? How can artistic research contribute to creating more ecologically and socially sustainable societies?
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  16. Working with Vegetal This, the 16th issue of Ruukku – Studies in Artistic Research, focuses on artists, researchers, scholars, and artistic researchers who are working with the vegetal in various ways. In the call we invited artists and researchers with an experience of working with plants and vegetation in different ways to contribute to this issue with expositions or articles, accounts of work in progress, and artistic experiments.
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  15. Slowness and Silence, Inertia and Tranquility The themes of this issue discuss the methodical, conceptual and practical connections of artistic research to slowness and silence, inertia and tranquility. What kinds of dimensions can silence or slowness open up and catalyse in artistic research? What might silence challenge, and what slowness? Depending on the perspective, slowness can either be worth pursuing or it can clearly refer to "retardation" or a lack (e.g. bureaucracy).
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  14. Ecologies of Practice This issue of RUUKKU has its starting point in the Research Pavilion #3 project that brought together more than fifty artist-researchers from twenty countries over a period of twenty months. The project started with an open call for "Research Cells" in April 2018 and evolved through a series of Research Cell Assemblies organised in Helsinki to an intensive period of activity in the context of the Venice Biennale.
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  13. Sonic Art, Sonic Practice, and Sonic Thought: Artistic Research and Music Sound is omnipresent, and we live, think, feel, and experience in and through sound every day. Sound studies have developed mainly in the disciplines of acoustics and music. The former defines sound as mechanical waves while the latter considers it as discrete sounds organised in time. Artistic Research offers us opportunities to study sound from a different perspective. How do we live, think, feel, and experience in and through sound as artistic practitioners? What constitutes such knowledge production, and how does this search for knowledge relate to the other modes of knowledge and experience often associated with ‘music'?
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  12. Peripheries RUUKKU #12 considers the conceptual, methodical, concrete and practical peripheries in the arts. This thematic issue ponders questions concerning what kinds of roles margins, peripheries or fringes have in the arts and artistic research? Can artistic research itself be conceived as a peripheral zone on the edge of the rationalistic scientific world?
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  11. How to do Things with Performance Welcome to this 11th issue of Ruukku - studies in artistic research devoted to performance and performance as research, and the question how to do things with performance. Not only what should be done, but how it should be done is today a question as relevant as ever. And some argue we should actually do less, and think a bit more, for example how we do what we do. In the research project How to do things with performance, we have been asking what can be or could be done with performance and how.
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  10. Catalyses Since its very beginning artistic research has openly or unconsciously deemed as its reason for existence the task of finding new ways of doing things; namely new ways of researching this world and new ways of understanding artistic practice. For many, artistic research could be defined as the amalgam of 'research' and 'artistic practice' reinventing and reconfiguring themselves in each other's shadow.
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  9. Practicing New Materialisms in the Arts This issue dedicates itself to the intersections of new materialist theory and artistic or practice-inspired research through a sustained conceptual focus on intra-action and via a wide variety of previously not presented projects. The distinctive main focus of the issue is the intra-active implementation of the notion of intra-action itself. Instead of taking this concept as a theoretical given, the issue's contributions aim to work with, enact, test, expand, and modify it within diverse intra-active settings comprised of highly varied artistic processes, research questions, disciplinary fields of action, and analytical and political concerns.
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  8. Conditions of Sharing RUUKKU – Studies in Artistic Research issue 8 has been collated under the theme of Conditions of Sharing to supplement the Please Specify! conference organized by Uniarts Helsinki together with the Society for Artistic Research in April 2017. The issue explores new perspectives on conditions of sharing research in the artistic field and thus offers a peer-reviewed platform related to the conference theme.
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  7. Practicing and the Practice of Art Each art genre has its own praxis. The way people practice a specific genre of art tells something essential about the genre and about the artists themselves. A performance, an exhibition, or an artwork is a kind of outcome, but with this RUUKKU issue, we peer inside the making of art, where nothing is yet finished and where the direction is not yet settled. Or is there a specific direction in the first place?
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  6. Change in Artistic Research The present issue, titled Change and Artistic Research, shows how artistic research and the ways in which art is made can contribute to not only societal debate but also to methodologies in other disciplines. Indeed, this focus has prompted artist-researchers to take bold steps forward in the worlds of content and form. In the process, they have borrowed and augmented techniques, not only going beyond the conventional boundaries of research but also forging into new areas of modern art, such as media art blogs and the occupation of urban space.
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  5. Research Gestures The expositions of this issue provide diverse – and in no way definitive – approaches to the role of gestures in artistic research. Ultimately the gesture that they perhaps perform the best is one of opening doors to terrain where methodological, discursive and epistemic stakes still run wild.
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  4. Process in Artistic Research Processes can be examined in relation to a starting point or a destination. Here we might as well begin from the call to this fourth issue of Ruukku. In the call we noted that articulating and opening up artistic processes has been considered one of the main aims of artistic research. Since the 1960s "process" has been one of the magic words of contemporary art, with works of art that transform and evolve through time.
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  3. Materiality in Artistic Research II Like any empty vessel, RUUKKU is potentially useful for storing a variety of materials, whether solid or in a state of flow. Are we now beginning to see the real uses of this hollow container or are we still merely testing how much it can hold before cracking?
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  2. Materiality in Artistic Research The theme of the second issue of RUUKKU came from expositions proposed for the first issue, many of which were connected to the idea of materiality. The ideas were presented both at a conceptual level and as explorations of the characteristics and artistic expression of specific materials. In this issue, we approach materiality as a loose term that encompasses different approaches to art, research, materiality and their intersections.
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  1. Experience and Experimentality in Artistic Research The theme of the first issue of RUUKKU "Experience and experimentality in artistic research" involves questions which relate to both art and research. If the concept of experience refers to past time, experimentality opens up to future. However, it is worth noticing that still during the Middle Ages, experimentum and experientia, experiment and experience, were used more or less synonymously and experiments were not arranged in order to gain new information in a systematic way, unlike in later years.

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  Drawing Exercises (2017) author(s): Tero Heikkinen published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
  In this exposition, I present three different exercises for drawing space and form that have been helpful in analyzing the current state of my drawings and refreshing my abilities. I look at the exercises in terms of skill building, reflective research practice and indwelling. The study is a process of framing and re-framing drawing through devising drawing tasks for the self. These exercises steer the drawing towards different directions or reinforce the skill. The broader practice of drawing also includes this direction-setting, both building and being aware of a space of possibilities for the drawing practice. Thoughtful drawing exercises can become material for research in the arts.
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  Practicing art - as a habit? / Att utöva konst - som en vana? (2017) author(s): Annette Arlander connected to: Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH) published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
  This bilingual exposition (English and Swedish) presents and problematizes the relationship between artistic practice and habit, describing two projects that deal with repetition and place. The projects 'Solsidan' and 'Summer at Söder' were undertaken during the years 2015-2016 in Stockholm. The idea of repetition and returning to the same site were crucial, as in much of my previous works. Unlike them, neither of these two projects involved performances for camera; in both the actual practice consisted of video recording the view. The shift in emphasis from an artistic practice aiming to produce an artwork, into an activity undertaken mainly as an exercise, an activity, could be seen as a strand in the general trend in contemporary art since the 1960s and accentuated in this century towards valuing the 'working' of art above the work of art as an object. This trend can also be related to research and linked to the preference for various terms like practice as research, performance as research, creative arts research or, indeed, artistic research. - This exposition combines a description of the actual practice, with an encounter with the material generated through that practice and proposes that these works can exemplify artistic research as a speculative practice.
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  Sosiaalisen muutoksen muotoilua (2016) author(s): Satu Miettinen0 published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
  Sosiaalinen muotoilu “social design” on muutoksen muotoilua. Sosiaalisen muotoilun tavoitteena on käyttää taiteen ja muotoilun menetelmiä elämän laadun parantamiseen (Papanek 2006). Muutoksen tarve on sisäänkirjoitettu sosiaalisen muotoilun prosessiin. Tavoitteena on päätyä eri tilanteeseen mistä lähdettiin (Andrews 2011). Sosiaalista muotoilua toteutetaan kehittyvissä maissa tai yhteisöissä, jotka ovat syrjäytyneet tai syrjäytymisvaarassa (Miettinen 2006). Tämä artikkeli pohtii sosiaalisen muotoilun aiheuttamaa muutosta taiteilijassa, tutkijassa ja paikallisessa yhteisössä. Artikkelin tavoitteena on nostaa esiin sosiaalisen muotoilun aiheuttama muutosprosessi ja sen vaikutukset yhteisöön (Miettinen 2007). Taiteilija tai tutkija elää muutoksessa mukana ja yrittää tuoda paikallisille ihmisille edellytyksiä tulla toimeen muutoksen keskellä Artikkeli nostaa esiin sekä moniäänisen kehittämis- ja tutkimustyön haasteet että dialogin, joka tuottaa taidetta, tunnetta, muistoja ja muutosta tekijöissään. Artikkeli kysyy miten sosiaalisesti vastuullisen taiteen ja sosiaalisen muotoilun tekemisen prosessi muuttaa tekijöitään ja miten sen kenttä muuttuu ja määrittyy yhä uudelleen? Artikkelin taustalla on taiteilija- ja tutkijaryhmän yli vuosikummenen kestänyt työskentely afrikkalaisten paikallisten yhteisöjen parissa. Tutkija- ja taitelijaryhmää on yhdistänyt pyrkimys ja mahdollisuus sosiaaliseen vastuullisuuteen. Projekteista viimeisin on ollut “My Dream World ” –hanke 2013-2015, jonka tavoitteena oli käyttää palvelumuotoilun menetelmiä etelä-afrikkalaisten ja namibialaisen työttömien nuorten palveluiden kehittämisessä ja osallistamisessa demokraattisemman ja tasa-arvoisemman yhteiskunnan rakentamiseen (Miettinen et. al 2014). Hanke sai tunnustusta osana Wolrd Design Capital Cape Town 2014 vuoden virallista ohjelmaa. Artikkelin aineistona toimivat projektin aikana dokumentoidut ryhmäkeskustelut, hankkeeseen osallistuneiden nuorten kirjoittamat tarinalliset luotaimet ja kommentit projektista sekä osana projektia tuotetut videot, valokuvat ja tekstiiliteokset. Artikkeli keskittyy erityisesti kahden työpajan aineistojen analysointiin. Työpaja Namibian Keetmanshoopissa ja työpaja Etelä-Afrikan Kimberleyssä San –nuorten kanssa. Projektissa toteutettiin yhteensä neljä työpajaa Afrikassa ja yksi työpaja Suomessa. Osana projektia toteutettiin myös näyttelyiden ja flash mob –esitysten sarja Suomessa ja Etelä-Afrikassa. Artikkeli aukaisee “My Dream World” hankkeen kontekstia, johon sosiaalinen muotoilu sijoittuu ja sen haasteita ja mahdollisuuksia taiteilijalle tai tutkijalle. Taiteilija tai tutkija saa yhtä paljon tutkimuskohteeltaan kuin mitä itse pystyy sille antamaan. Artikkelissa pohditaan sosiaalisesti vastuullisen taiteen ja sosiaalisen muotoilun välistä keskustelua, toimintamalleja ja nimikkeitä, yhtymäkohtia ja eroavaisuuksia. Artikkeli nostaa esiin osallistavan ja yhteisöllisen taiteen nimike-runsauteen. Kenttä on niin elävä ja muutoksessa, että nimikeetkin syntyvät uudelleen. Artikkeli tuo esiin paikallisen yhteisön, nuorten äänet käyttämällä apuna heidän kirjoittamiaan tarinallisia luotaimia ja sankarin matka –videotyökalun avulla kulkemaansa tarinallista matkaa. Nuoret kertovat toiveistaan ja unelmistaan sekä muutoksen tarpeesta. Sosiaalinen muotoilu ja sosiaalisesti vastuullinen taide mahdollistavat moniäänisen dialogin. Tämän tuloksena syntyy kuvia unelmista ja muutoksesta sekä nuoriin että taiteilijoihin. Artikkeli nostaa esiin kuvia ja videoita, jotka liittyvät prosessiin.
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  A City Never Lies – Situational Irony and the Political Impact of Public Urban Space. (2016) author(s): Denise Ziegler published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
  In this text, I question the concepts of urban space and public art. Experimental artistic interventions are conducted using situational irony as a method for reflecting on the impact urban public space and its user can have. Instead of interrogating people and involving them in the process, the interventions put questions directly to public infrastructure, to walls, fences, buildings and pedestrian ways. In a post-Beuysian vein, an artist workshop is extended to public space in order to work with its mechanisms and possibilities. This is considered a political act. The research aims to contribute to the redefinition of concepts regarding how we look at and develop public urban space.
  open exposition comments (1)
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  Speculation on change from the posture of performance art practice (2016) author(s): Tero Nauha published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
  In this exposition, change is perceived as an essential part of the paradigm of immanent capitalism, where the transcending immanence articulates the world of capitalism. In other words, capitalism is a system of exchange and economy, where all arrangements within this system are determined by economic functions, such as exchange or constant flux of matter and meanings articulated by sufficient reason. The capital form of thought - that is to say the philosophy of capitalism - is economic, sufficient and productive. The transcending immanence of capitalism produces the world, the immanence of capitalism is a transcending immanence. This exposition is set to inquire how these forms affect the position of artistic practice. The focus will be on the possible limits of economic and sufficient forms of thought, or what is speculation in this context. In recent discourse on the paradigm of Anthropocene and speculation of nonhuman thought, the distinction between the human and the ‘world not for humans’, or the world in itself and the experience of the world, have instigated another perspective to regard the immanence of capitalism only as an arrangement or ‘pseudo-immanence’. However, due to space constraints, this exposition is a mere introduction to the ongoing research of mine subsequent to the examination of my doctoral research on schizoanalysis and artistic research held on January 2016. In short, I ask: how can we speculate on the limits of change from the perspective of artistic research including the different arrangements of nonhuman thought and the immanent capitalism?
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  Poliittisen utopian sinnikkyys – Representaatioanalyysiä piirtämällä (2016) author(s): Kalle Lampela published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
  Esitän tekstissäni, kuinka reaalisosialismin kuvasto, yhteiskuntatieteelliset metodit ja piirtäminen muodostavat monitieteisen tutkimuskokonaisuuden. Tutkimusprosessi etenee tutkimusaineistoa katsomalla ja piirtämällä. Myös aineistonanalyysi toteutuu piirtämällä. Verbalisoin tässä tekstissä tutkimusprosessin eri vaiheita, lähestymistavassani vaikuttavia tutkimusmetodeja ja aiheen kannalta olennaista poliittista historiaa lähinnä edesmenneiden sosialististen aikakauslehtien (DDR-Revue ja Neuvostoliitto) konteksteissa. Tuon piirrettyjen johtopäätösten rinnalle myös sanallisen loppukoonnin. Mutta ihan aluksi, palatkaamme aikaan, jolloin reaalisosialismi tuli tiensä päähän.
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