Research Catalogue

Solarization: a partially exposed film is exposed to more light, with halo-like effects as a result. Solarization, Solaris, sun / shadow, light / darkness. Colors are experiences of light, on surfaces that hit the eye with different wavelengths. Digital solarization evens out and inverts the colors. A small, superfluous, torn off silk remnant from a hand-printed textile work is the starting point for this two two-sided digitally printed textiles. Colors lose their brillians and darken in step with the light. No darkness without light, no shadow without sun. Two sides of the same coin.

ARTikulationen 2023 is an artistic research event conceived and organised by the Doctoral School for Artistic Research (KWDS) of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (KUG). It takes place at Theater im Palais, Graz, 04–07 October 2023. ARTikulationen interweaves in-depth presentations of very recent artistic research and findings, a festival character, and a mini-symposium – this year on matters of interdisciplinarity and interconnectedness of research practices with the (sound) environment, nature, and other living beings („Researching Across“).

Art activism is powerful. Also known as activist art, protest art, visual activism, artivism and creative activism, it changes lives, situations and is and has been a powerful weapon across a whole spectrum of struggles for justice. Teresa Sanz & Beatriz Rodriguez-Labajos(2021) relay that art activism has the unique ability to bring cohesion and diverse peoples together and it can, as Zeynep Tufekci notes, change the participants (2017). As Steve Duncombe & Steve Lambert (2021) posit, traditional protesting such as marches or squats are no longer as important as they once were. As a result of my own lived experience in activist activities, I very much agree with Andrew Boyd & Dave Oswald Mitchell (2012) that the reason people use art activism is that it works, by enriching and improving protest. In the past, when I lived in a metropolis and was not a parent, I used to be an activist. Now I no longer have immediate access to international headquarters at which to protest and I have to be concerned with being arrested, I am hindered from protesting. This project is an attempt to increase inclusion and widen access to art activism. By devising methods which include at least one of the following: that do not require on-site participation, that can take place outside the public gaze, that reduce the risk of arrest, that open up protest sites that are not “big targets”, that include remote locations, that involve irregular timing, my thesis aims to increase inclusion and widen access to art activism to those who are underserved by more mainstream methods of conducting art activism. Textiles have unique properties that enable them to engage in subterfuge and speak loudly through care and thought(Bryan-Wilson, 2017). They have strong connotations of domesticity, the body and comfort that can be subverted within art activism to reference lack of this domestic warmth and protection(O’Neill, 2022). Being a slow form of art-making, they show care and thought, attention in the making, so that the messaging is reinforced through this intentionality in slow making.

Skolbrandsarkeologi (“School Fire Archaeology”) is an artistic excavation (2022–2026) of Slättgårdsskolan in Skärholmen, Stockholm, led by artist Patrick Kretschek. The art project uses contemporary archaeology, participatory art, and documentary methods to explore the aftermath of the June 1, 2020, school fire. It combines text, photography, film, and artifacts to narrate the event through testimonies from students, teachers, parents, and the public. Exhibited locally at culture house FOLK in Skärholmen, it offers a space for reflection on loss, memory, and reconstruction.

What is a narrative, when it moves through time and history, when it moves through bodies? The narrative is always in danger of dying, until it is picked up and given new movement into new contexts. Where does the new begin? Where does the old one go? Vocalist Live Maria Roggen and pianist Ingfrid Breie Nyhus have over several years investigated duo music that was once romantic music. Through time, body, forgetfulness, fallibility – and improvisation as a method – the music has merged with the whims, derailments and backtracks of the inner sound and the duo's body. Where does the narrative live in the next moment?

Darkness Matters displays historic lightscapes, specifically at night, from petroglyphs to James Webb Telescope images. The exposition constructs a sort of cabinet of curiosities and wants to take the visitor on a private journey to a virtual exhibition space to re-embrace the endeavors under and around the nocturnal vault, an underrepresented micro-story of our times. By researching archive material, image recordings and other available data Costanza Julia Bani creates speculative reconstructions of our nights and our relationship to the universe behind the sky we can see with our naked eye. Starting from fireflies in olive groves, alpine forests and the Milky Way, the exposition becomes a visual experience around darknesses and light pollution that has been transforming our nocturnal habitat since the introduction of artificial light.