Past Editions

Artistic research as a discipline is gaining momentum. In a number of European countries we have, by now: a steadily growing body of publications; a set of dedicated journals, conferences, and professional associations; an increasing number of research projects, funding schemes (including the ERC); and doctoral programmes with numerous doctoral projects. The research field and community is excitingly alive, diverse and pluralistic, as it should be. Practitioners follow a spectrum of different ideas of artistic research and of what contributes to its quality, or lack thereof. The discourse about artistic research is indeed productive, yet it also shows that, overall, there still is much room for development. The journey towards utmost sophistication and full epistemic potential in artistic research has still just begun.

In this, the Dr. artium Programme of the Doctoral School for Artistic Research (KWDS) of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz stands out, together with very few other such programmes, with a special aspiration: that artistic research involves an intertwined combination of artistic and scholarly methods, in this way leading to discoveries and an extension of our understanding, knowledge, and skills that may otherwise be unattainable. Outcomes should be relevant to both, artistic practice and scholarship. And we believe that the ongoing and finalised doctoral work undertaken and completed in the now ten years since the KWDS’s inception by its founders Ulf Bästlein, Wolfgang Hattinger and Franz Karl Prassl clearly show that this is a sensible, realistic, and fruitful ambition. Today, the bar is set even higher: we are confident that the specific dialectic flavour of our local practice of artistic research can shape future quality standards, and are well on our way towards founding a Centre for Artistic Research, and towards founding the first Journal for Artistic Research in Music in the foreseeable future.

ARTikulationen is the KWDS’s annual international festival of artistic research that engages with artistic, aesthetic, social, and other human questions through integrated artistic and scholarly/scientific research approaches. The 2019 issue was directed and organised by Dorothea Seel, Marlene Schnepfleitner, and Deniz Peters. It featured 13 presentations with integrated performances by Dr. artium candidates including rigorosa by Susanne Fröhlich and Hannes Dufek and new candidate performances by Liz Allbee and Janhavi Dhamankar; guest lectures by Jonas Baes, Amanda Bayley, Marc Vanscheeuwijck and Friederike Wißmann; a discussion round ‘Critically Concerned?’ in cooperation with the Styrian contemporary music festival musikprotokoll, with Khyam Allami, Deniz Peters, Bushra el-Turk, and Cynthia Zaven; and a closing discussion round on the underlying theme ‘Reflection through music’.

May our exchange be diverse, deep, constructive, thought-provoking and inspiring!