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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
Michael Duch, Appointed by 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
Inger Stray Lien, 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
Serge von Arx, Artistic Director Scenography Ostfold University College
Magnus Bärtås, Vice-Rector of Research, University of Arts, Crafts and Design
Gunhild Mathea Husvik-Olaussen, Artist
Anna Lindal, Violinist and professor
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

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  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.
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  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.
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  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.
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  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.
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  6. VIS Issue 6 VIS Issue 6 was published 19 October 2021. The issue features five expositions within the theme “Contagion”. Editor: Anna Lindal.
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  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.
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  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.
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  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.
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  2. VIS Issue 2 VIS Issue 2 was published 23 September 2019. The Issue features five expositions within the theme ”Estrangement”. Editor: Magnus Bärtås.
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  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.
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  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

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  TRAVERSING SONIC TERRITORIES (TST) (2023) author(s): Søren Kjærgaard, Torben Snekkestad published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
  What happens when musicians improvising on acoustic instruments sample and exchange their sound libraries? How can such a transgression of sonic territories contribute to an expanded understanding of one’s own sonic identity? And could this b/lending of identities point to a more ambiguous yet vibrant field of intra-play? Departing from these questions, this project intends to challenge our idea of sonic identity as a personal subject-oriented entity, and consequently investigate how a collaborative sharing of sampled sounds, can contribute to an expanded understanding of the sounds we play and are played by. Individual idiomatic approaches to one’s own instrument are thus interfered as we transgress habitual boundaries for action possibilities and musical imagination. The practice circulates from the duo of Torben Snekkestad and Søren Kjærgaard toward external collaborators, where the sharing process involves different approaches to audio sampling and mapping, embedding and embodying, listening and playing with each other’s sonic material to a point where authorship, origin, instrument and sonic identity is diffracted.
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  Cosmologies of Asylum: A Lumbung Collaboration Between Trampoline House and Project Art Works (2023) author(s): Carlota Mir published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
  This exposition is a harvest of ‘Massaging The Asylum System’, a year-long collaboration between refugee justice centre Trampoline House (DK) and neurodiverse collective Project Art Works (UK) by co-curator Carlota Mir. As a lumbung practice, harvest refers to artistic recordings of discussions and meetings. Together, we set out to explore how migrant and neurodivergent communities are affected by social systems of care and control, and we sought ways to massage the asylum system – yes, massage, like a real massage – so that it could become softer and more humane. Bringing together the vision and artistic tools from both organisations, our work became a temporary coalition of dissident bodies.  Organised in a series of concentric circles and islands, the map revisits the ecosystem of the project and its traces: informal encounters, public conversations, art installations, and two workshop series in Copenhagen and Kassel, reflecting a multitude of voices from artists, collective members, facilitators, activists, publics, and the lumbung community. The collaboration between Trampoline House and Project Art Works was initiated by Carlota Mir and Sara Alberani in the context of documenta fifteen and funded with common resources from the lumbung Collective Pot.  With support from the Danish Arts Foundation and the Italian Council. Publication design: Laura Migueláñez and Orestis Nikolaidis. Thanks to lumbung inter-lokal, Trampoline House and Project Art Works communities for their generosity and the knowledge shared, which has made this harvest possible.
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  A conversation about Studio Conversations (2023) author(s): VIS – Nordic Journal for Artistic Research published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
  Filmed conversation between Gunhild Mathea Husvik-Olaussen, co-editor of issue #10, and Andrew Hardwidge, Chrysa Parkinson and Frank Bock, authors of “Studio Conversations”. During this conversation, the editor interweaves the essence of "Studio Conversations" with the overarching theme of "Circulating Practices." Through this talk, you'll get an insight into "Studio Conversations," a research project focused on ways of asking contemporary dance artists about the practices, working and knowing happening in their dancing. "Studio Conversations” was originally intended to be published as an exposition in VIS. In recognition of the project's specific approach, we decided in dialogue with the authors to depart from the conventional exposition format. Instead, we've chosen to present Studio Conversations as a video conversation. This decision stems from our commitment to presenting artistic research in a way that best reflects the purpose of the project and the vision of its creators. The discussion was filmed on Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH) premises at Filmhuset on 29 September 2023.
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  Death to the Welfare State: An Exposition on Political Discourse and Artistic Collaboration (2023) author(s): Kent G R Olofsson, Jörgen Dahlqvist published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
  Död åt välfärdsstaten (Death to the Welfare State) was a theatre performance for actors, dancers, and musicians that dealt with a concern that the welfare system in Sweden was about to be dismantled. To explore this worry political speeches were superimposed with a narrative inspired by George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm to examine how perceptions of welfare in Sweden have changed from the early 1900s to the present. This artistic research exposition elaborates on the process of developing the theatre piece. It unpacks how the relation between discourse and narrative informed the text and music, and how it allowed for a dramaturgical structure that included all the various performative elements and artistic expressions. Furthermore, the exposition discusses how the performance was composed through a collaboration that was characterised by an open-ended dialogue between the artists and how this enabled distributed decision making, as well as artists performing in other ways than they are used to. The exposition explores the open format of Research Catalogue. Through text and video documentation it builds on the dramaturgical structure of the performance itself: an introduction, five parts and an epilogue. The ambition of the exposition has been to make yet another iteration of the performance.
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  evocations – towards a poetics of documentation (2023) author(s): Fernanda Branco published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
  Every art documentation is an encounter with an artwork in displacement, both in time and space. Yet, the experience of being present in the moment a live art work unfolds is – inevitably – lost in documentation. Evocations – towards a poetics of documentation explores non-conventional documentation to evoke imagination, inspired by the fragmentary, concision and absence found in poetry. This exposition passes through early discussions relating documentation to evidence. It looks into contemporary artists who challenge conventional ways to document, and approaches the act of document as bridging. Insisting on the loss and void inherent in documentation, Fernanda Branco's artistic research: environment embodiment – towards poetic narratives explores the circulatory generative process some non-conventional documentation can have. In the two projects I remember and Traces, the documentation viewer is invited to imagine – rather than to see – what occurred. Photo Credit: Performance by Fernanda Branco Traces #3. Drawing documentation and photo by Hilde Grønne Flikke.
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  Tracing Practices – questioning and circulating archives (2023) author(s): Per Roar, Camilla Graff Junior, Luisa Greenfield, Myna Trustram published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
  Our exposition comes out of a conversation and explorative research process about the performative potential of archives, both publicly and personally, shaped by four different artistic mediums and practices in film, performance art, choreography and essay writing. The shared medium has been through the use of text and online communication. The research was developed through ongoing monthly meetings and notes that were taken since April 2019. From those meetings, we laid a structure where we each created our parts of what became the score for "Living and Lasting", which we first performed in Oslo and then in Berlin in 2022*. This score is the pivot point of our exposition. Our working process includes considerable elements of risk and surprise by alternating between collaborative meetings and individual work. The first time we perform a new piece none of us know exactly what or how the others will present. Along with the audience, we experience portions of the text, movements, and media put together for the first time, without knowing whether the whole thing will coalesce, diverge, or fall apart.  (*) In Oslo at the 2022 Nordic Summer University (NSU) and in Berlin at the symposium “Who tells y/our story?” ​​by the artistic research project MEMORYWORK (2021-2024).
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