Theories and practices of contemporary artistic research: a transdisciplinary approach
and some recent writing ꩜ .ᐟ
✦•┈๑⋅⋯ ⋯⋅๑┈•✦ I had the pleasure to curate, together with an amazing group of collegues, the international seminar Theories and practices of contemporary artistic research: a transdisciplinary approach, which will be held at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts on March 18-19 2025.
The event marks the launch of project IartNET - an international platform for artistic research and cultural heritage in Higher Education in the Arts and Music, funded by NextGenerationEU and coordinated by Nicoletta Leonardi.
Following the establishment of doctoral programs at Italian higher arts education institutions in 2024, the seminar addresses artistic research from a transdisciplinary perspective across different genres and media, responding to the need for discussions and exchange on ideas, methodologies, and practices of artistic research at an international level.
The Opening Keynote is by Giovanna Cassese, President of the National Council for the Arts and Music Education (CNAM). Panel 1, chaired by yours truly, is devoted to contemporaneity, interpreted not only as a mere temporal designation, but also as a condition marked by states of emergency and the impact of global information technologies on our perception of temporality. The panel concludes with a discussion on the role of contemporary art and art institutions in the storytelling economy of the Post-Truth era. Speakers: Leevi Haapala, Jacob Lund, Santiago Zabala.
Panel 2, chaired by Eva Frapiccini, addresses current practice-based artistic research vis-à-vis the institutional frameworks in which this is developed across disciplines, from the visual arts to dance and music. Speakers: Samuel Bianchini, Elena Cologni, Leonella Grasso Caprioli, Rosita Mariani, Akram Zaatari.
Panel 3, chaired by Leonella Scacco, focuses on some key issues in contemporary artistic research, including the relations among humans, other living organisms, and machines, the impact of automation and artificial intelligence on contemporary artistic practices, sustainability and the care for the common good in design and architecture. Speakers: Kristin Bergaust, Fosbury Architecture, Antonio Somaini.
In the Closing Keynote, Johan A. Haarberg, Executive Officer of the Society for Artistic Research (SAR), will discuss the challenges facing artistic research within the academic context and its overall acceptance as a valid part of knowledge production in Europe and beyond.
Following his speech, Haarberg will lead a workshop on the Research Catalogue – a non-commercial, collaborative and publishing platform provided by SAR to artists and researchers. The workshop is open to faculty members, researchers, and doctoral students.
Attendants can register on Eventbrite, where the full programme is also available. If you can’t make it to Milan, you can still check out the live streaming on YouTube. For more information on the seminar and/or the workshop please write to iartnet@fadbrera.edu.it.
(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧ For a special issue called Agenda 2025, Flash Art Italia commissioned me a piece of writing connecting Maurizio Cattelan with Eva & Franco Mattes. The above spread is so good that words become useless, but if you still want to read it, just follow the link. The paper issue is damn good, though.
𓃷 𓃸 𓃻 Another nice publication that went ink on paper quite recently is Second Order Reality, a book accompanying Carola Bonfili’s latest body of work, but that could hardly be described as a catalogue. For the book I wrote a short text which, again, takes off from Philip K. Dick to discuss the concept of worlding. You can find it here.
💩💩 “Alchemical Sublimations. Authorship, Scarcity and Value, from Merda d’artista to the NFTs” was written almost two years ago, but one may say it still smells fresh. The essay could be described as an articulate attempt to answer a twofold question: can Merda d’artista help understand NFTs? Can NFTs solicit new, unprecedented keys for interpreting Merda d’artista? The text is now available in a serious book published by Cambridge Scholars and edited by by Luca Bochicchio and Rosalia Pasqualino di Marineo, titled Piero Manzoni’s Merda d’artista: That Scandalous Can. The book, in English, features many valuable contributors, including Letizia Bonizzoni, Marco Gargano, Flaminio Gualdoni, Francesco Guzzetti, Choghakate Kazarian, Federico Leoni, Nicola Ludwig, Jaleh Mansoor, Luisa Mensi, Monica Molteni, Arianna Novaga, Giada Pellicari, Raffaella Perna, Marco Senaldi, Irene Stucchi, Matteo Torre, Giorgio Zanchetti. I’m sure I wouldn’t violate Cambridge’s Scholars’ copyright by sharing a an excerpt from my favourite chapter, “The Pact”.