call ziegler - KuvA Research Days

Call for artworks & papers for an exhibition and Research Days related program at the KuvA Research Days in December 2019 in Helsinki organized by the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of the Arts Helsinki. Tapahtuman kielet sekä suomi että englanti – the event will use both Finnish and English.

Deadline for applications March 10^th, 2019
 

Kun koen kokeilen – kokeilen kun koen.

Kokemus ja kokeellisuus taiteellisessa työskentelyssä ja tutkimuksessa

I Experience as I Experiment – I Experiment as I Experience.

Experience and experimentality in artistic work and research

 

Call for artworks & papers

The Academy of Fine Arts invites doctoral students, doctoral alumni/alumnae, postdoctoral researchers, staff members and visiting researchers of the University of the Arts Helsinki to exhibit and present a work of art as well as a text at the Exhibition Laboratory gallery in Helsinki in November/December 2019.

The medium of the artwork is free, it can be a physical artwork or a time-based work, a finished work, version, demo, performance etc. The text can be in Finnish, English or another language. The suggested length is 1–5 pages; it may not be poetry.

The work and text should in some way discuss how or/and why you involve pieces of art into your research. What is your experience and experimentality in researching with artworks?

Are artworks needed to solve confusion and to illustrate thoughts in artistic research? Or are they needed to create confusion? Do they have a purpose? What is the origin of an artwork, what is the need for making it?

What is the status of the artwork in artistic research? Is a focus on how to do research sufficient in art education at the university level? What about how to do research with artworks? We wish to address these issues by investigating momentary experiences (elämykset, Erlebnisse) and experience as something accumulated over time (kokemus, Erfahrung) in the everyday activities of artists involved in art making, artistic research and teaching.

The participants of the exhibition will also take part in one program day of the KuvA Research Days, which will be held at the Exhibition Laboratory gallery. In this way the artworks and the papers come together. The texts will also be published in a printed “notebook”/pamphlet.

Exhibition and one day program at the KuvA Research Days, schedule and venue

• Date of the exhibition 27.11.–11.12.2019
• Installation of exhibition 25.11.–26.11.2019
• Taking down of exhibition 12.12.2019
• KuvA Research Days 9.12.–11.12.2019
• The call is for one day of the KuvA Research Days. The exact date will be confirmed later.
• Texts ready for publication  15.10.2019
• Venue of the exhibition and KuvA Research Days: Exhibition Laboratory gallery (Merimiehenkatu 36, Helsinki)
• 1st meeting of the participants in April 2019
• 2nd meeting in autumn 2019

The participants are offered the possibility to take part in a taught workshop in autumn 2019 on the theme of the exhibition, organized by the KuvA Doctoral Programme.

Who can apply?

You are:

A doctoral student, doctoral alumnus/alumna, postdoctoral researcher, staff member or a visiting researcher of the University of the Arts Helsinki

You want to:

- exhibit your artwork. The medium is free, it can be a physical artwork or a time-based work, a finished work, version, demo, performance etc.

- participate in the program of the KuvA Research Days by presenting a short paper or statement. The text cannot be poetry (the artworks can of course contain text or language too). The text and your talk can be in Finnish, English or another language. The text must be ready for printing by 15 October 2019.

If you agree with these conditions, please:

Write a three-sentence statement on why and how you want to participate. Send this statement together with your name no later than 8.3.2019 to Denise Ziegler, postdoctoral researcher, curator of the exhibition and the research day event, at the address: denise.ziegler@uniarts.fi

The selected participants will be notified by 5 April 2019.

Practicalities

Possible transportation of artworks or travelling costs in Finland will be negotiated beforehand with the participants. Participants who are not employed by Uniarts Helsinki will receive a lecture fee; the sum will be settled beforehand. The artworks are insured during the time of the exhibition.

 

Experiencing is to my mind connected to an actual situation or to a material thing. Experience can start out from an occurrence but it is also right from the start an individual experimental act involving fictional features and uncertainty regarding the consequences and outcome. It often involves confusion and emptiness.  

 

In artistic practice, experience is the key source not only for the enjoyment of art but also for the creation of art, i.e. for the artistic working process. Experience is not exclusively connected to enjoying a finished artwork, but equally and essentially also to the making of art (Heidegger 1960/2003, p.83).

 

In Finnish kokeminen, experiencing, can mean “going through something” as well as trying out or checking something, such as seeing if anything has been caught in a trap set in the forest or in a net in the water. What you experience is what you caught as prey, what you faced, what you went through and what you won for yourself. (Rajanti 1998, p. 153). 

 

Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe  goes to the root of the term: the Latin word ex-periri means crossing through danger. Lacoue-Labarthe emphasises the unknown and the risk involved in working with experience. He wants to “avoid associating it with what is ‘lived,’ the stuff of anecdotes.” (Lacoue-Labarthe 1999, p. 18). He distinguishes Erlebnis (a momentary occurrence, Finnish elämys) from Erfahrung (experience, Finnish kokemus).  According to him a lived moment or anecdote (Erlebnis) cannot as such give rise to an artwork. Only in the interpretation and in passing through the artist’s memory can an Erfahrung (experience) be created. This experience has nothing to say; Lacoue-Labarthe calls it an “echo of excitement”.  (Lacoue-Labarthe 1999).

 

An experience contains things that were not there in the original situation. Experience is looking for and moves towards its own origin. (Lacoue-Labarthe 1999).

 

In rhetoric experience is connected to the ability of the speaker to give listeners the opportunity to have insights on their own instead of persuading them. In the ancient Greek treatise on good writing, On the Sublime (Peri Hypsous), the presumed author Longinus gives concrete advice on how to compose a rhetorically good speech. The rhetoric Longinus refers to is closely connected to an actual speech held in a public space. Longinus states that an experience has to be brought forward to the listeners in such a way that the audience is under the impression that “it had itself produced what it just heard” (Murray, Dorsch 2000, p. 120).  

 

Denise Ziegler

 

References:

 

Heidegger Martin 1960/2003. Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes (Reclam Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart)

Lacoue-Labarthe Philippe 1999. Poetry as Experience. Translated by Andrea Tarnovski (Stanford University Press, California)

Murray Penelope and Dorsch T.S. 2000. Longinus: On the Sublime, in: Classical Literary Criticism, translated by Penelope Murray and T.S. Dorsch (Penguin Books, London)

Rajanti, Taina (1998): Kaupunki on ihmisen koti. Tutkijaliitto, Helsinki. In: Elo Mika 2005. Valokuvan medium, väitöskirja (Tutkijaliitto, Helsinki)