Research Catalogue

From the very beginning of European philosophy the relation between philosophy and arts has been highly problematic. In accordance with this historical demand, the project aimed to develop a research performance in which philosophy is methodologically and conceptually demonstrated as a matter of arts-based research rather then a “pure” science. By organizing a research-festival “PHILOSOPHY ON STAGE #4”, artists, philosophers and scientists collaborated to demonstrate on stage their theoria on the artist-philosopher.

No abstract provided

In the research retreat, students from 4 art universities as well as the Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Sciences of the University of Vienna are offered a cross-disciplinary research seminar, in which art students together with master students of the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Vienna collectively develop research strategies in a research retreat in India, in which a research question is addressed with methods and means of artistic & philosophical research. In this retreat, the teaching and research formats "arts-based-philosophy" and "Philosophy On Stage" developed by Böhler & Granzer over 25 years are applied, in which artistic and philosophical research methods are cross-disciplinarily intersected with each other.

Arts-based-philosophy is an emerging research concept at the cutting edge of the arts, philosophy and the Sciences in which cross-disciplinary research collectives align their research practices to finally stage their investigations in field-performances, shared with the public. Our research explores the significance of the HEART in artistic research and performance philosophy from a cross-cultural perspective, partially based on the concepts of the HEART in the works of two artist-philosophers, in which philosophy already became arts-based-philosophy: Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Aurobindo’s poetic opus magnum Savitri. We generally assume that the works of artist-philosophers are not only engaged in “creating concepts” (Deleuze), but their concepts are also meant to be staged artistically to let them bodily matter in fact. The role of the HEART in respect to this process of “bodily mattering” is the core objective under investigation: Firstly, because we hold that atmospheres trigger the HEART of a lived-body to taste the flavor of things it is environmentally engaged with basically in an aesthetic manner (Nietzsche). In this respect the analysis of the classical notion for the aesthete in Indian philosophy and aesthetics, sahṛdaya––which literally means, “somebody, with a HEART”––becomes crucial. Secondly, because the HEART is said to be not just reducible to one’s manifest Nature, but has access to one’s virtual Nature as well. The creation hymn in the oldest of all Vedas (Rgveda) for instance informs us that a HEART is capable of crossing being (sat) & non-being (asat), which makes it fluctuate among these two realms and even allows its aspirations to let virtual possibilities matter. Such concepts show striking similarities with contemporary concepts in philosophy-physics, e.g. the concepts of “virtual particles” and “quantum vacuum fluctuations” (Barad).