The Research Catalogue (RC) is a non-commercial, collaboration and publishing platform for artistic research provided by the
Society for Artistic Research. The RC is free to use for artists and
researchers. It
serves also as a backbone for teaching purposes, student assessment, peer review workflows and research funding administration. It strives to be
an open space for experimentation and exchange.
recent activities
Songs We Sing
(2025)
Hans Knut Sveen, Alwynne Pritchard
This project began in 2018, with the simple desire to play songs that we love. These could be pieces with strong associations, ones we had enjoyed singing and playing before, or songs we had never sung and that were, perhaps, even new to us. When the songs were written or what genre they might come from was not important. Original instrumentation (piano, harpsichord etc) and received ideas about vocal style were also not a priority. Finding a way of creating renditions with the tools at hand (Alwynne's voice and Hans Knut's harmonium) is what originally defined the project.
Bird → ∞
(2025)
Kirill Arkadiev
I work at the boundary where a finite biological object asymptotically approaches zero and, through this disappearance, gives birth to an infinite aesthetic event — a singularity.
The series “Singularity of Beauty” is an ongoing investigation into the moment when decay, entropy, and controlled human intervention collide to rupture the visible world and generate a new, non-representational order.
Method: Asymptotic Ritual
A chosen organic system (bird, bouquet, insect colony, fungal network) is placed on a prepared surface and deliberately abandoned to natural forces — heat, humidity, insects, gravity, time.
During a fixed ritual period (7 days in the current cycle), the object decays following an exponential law analogous to f(t) = a·e⁻ᵏᵗ. The artist is absent; only documentation occurs.
At t → ∞ (practically: when the biological object approaches zero), the artist re-enters as a second asymptotic operator. Selective pigment application, removal of material, and layering transform the residue into a visual limit — a singularity point where the initial object has vanished, yet infinite meaning emerges.
The final state is neither representation nor abstraction; it is the frozen event of the limit itself.
Core Principles
Decay is not a theme; it is the first author.
Time is treated as a physical material with measurable half-life.
Human intervention functions as a controlled perturbation that forces the system past its natural equilibrium into aesthetic infinity.
The resulting image is a palimpsest of two incompatible temporalities: biological time (unstoppable) and artistic time (intermittent, intentional).
The “demon” is not a depicted figure but the mathematical event of the singularity: the instant when order, passing through zero, becomes infinite and alien.
Iceland University of the Arts - Welcome to RC
(2025)
Sigmundur Pall Freysteinsson
This exposition gathers all the essential information needed to get started with the Research Catalogue (RC) platform at the Iceland University of the Arts (IUA). It offers a clear overview of how to create a profile, start an exposition, and navigate the basic functions of the platform. The goal is to provide staff with a central reference point for working with RC in the context of artistic research and institutional use.
recent publications
BEYOND ENTANGLED
(2025)
Ragna Sigríður Bjarnadóttir
A collection of research stories from the Beyond e-Textiles project 2021-2025.
Editors:
Jaana Vapaavuori, Aalto University
Anne Louise Bang, VIA University College
Delia Dumitrescu, University of Borås
Ragna Bjarnadóttir, Iceland University of the Arts
Kati Miettunen, University of Turku
Curating in Context
(2025)
Martin Sonderkamp
This Exposition contains an archived version of the project website of the EU funded Erasmus+ Project 'Curating in Context’.
Curating in Context addresses the challenges of curating contemporary art beyond curatorial approaches inherited from the visual arts. Tanzfabrik Berlin, Lokomotiva Skopje, Stockholm University of the Arts, and the University of Zagreb co-organised the two-year EU funded Erasmus+ project. It aims to enhance curatorial training focused on social impact by engaging local, regional, and international stakeholders, including cultural organisations. The project uses strategies from the performing arts to develop educational resources for universities and ongoing training for cultural workers and citizens. It fosters critical reflection on socio-political and economic contexts and promotes curatorial methods that connect performing arts with activism and social movements. The project's meetings, public events, and resources will emphasise collaborative learning between politics and art valorisation.
Petals Sprouting Out of Skin: Creating Imagery of Latvian and Eastern European Identity within a Devised Process
(2025)
Beate Poikane
This artistic research project in Performing Arts SKH Stockholm University of Arts documents my transition from fine arts into a performative practice. I am focusing on developing a personal toolkit of methods that support this shift to a facilitator and a director/theatre-maker. The first part is my individual exploration that includes methods such as: creating character from image, writing with objects, and working with a real site in developing a semi-fictional space (exploring site-specificity through my observations and video documentation of Riga’s specific environment).
The second part is a collaboration with two artists, Ģirts Dubults and Laine Luīze Freidenberga. We use a devised process concept,Sister Planets, to translate our embodied cultural experiences and identities into performative language. This method emphasises building shared poetics through methods of generating shared poems, visualisation, movement with objects, and integrating methods from the collaborators’ individual practices.
Alongside methodological development, a strong interest in my identity as a maker emerged, deeply influencing my artistic inquiry. This stiltedness—as a young female artist from Latvia and Eastern Europe—shapes the themes of belonging and alienation in the Scandinavian cultural context and intersectionality in my work. I investigate how cultural, gendered, and geopolitical factors inform performance and dramaturgy. These personal reflections have evolved into shared thematic concerns within my collaborations, where individual histories and embodied memories merge into a collective exploration. Through this research, I seek new dramaturgical forms that channel socio-political narratives within primarily visual and poetic means of expression.