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
Konstverket som essä och tänkandets praktiker (2016)
(2025)
Helena Hildur W.
This study sets out from an artistic workshop designed to investigate light, colour and spatiality. During the original event, a number of participants joined to collaborate by means of painting, dialogue and movement. From a presentation of the workshop (as determined in time and space), the text argues that the character of an artwork is essentially unfinished; an ongoing ”truth process”. Adopting lines of reasoning from philosophers Vilém Flusser and Theodor Adorno, I gain a first understanding of how the artwork could be reconstituted within the limits of a scientific essay. Once more turning to the workshop's course of events, I find experiences within the actual situation relating to abstract concepts such as ”spirit”, ”quality” and ”freedom”. Next, the text pays heed to Ludwig Wittgenstein's observation that human knowledge is gained and mediated by language-games of various kinds. The selected concepts are consequently tried out in expanded ”studio talks”, involving artists from different fields such as painter Matts Leiderstam, writer Robert Pirsig and sculptor Joseph Beuys. The operation allows me to single out some specific conditions pertaining to artistic dialogue, from which I seek transitions to philosophical discourse. The text briefly reviews three contemporary, art-based projects offering such discursive exchange: haptiska blickar, Thinking Through Painting and Freikörperkultur. Against this backdrop, I seek to articulate an understanding of knowledge-making which embraces artistically as well as philosophically grounded practises. I find support from philosophers John Dewey and Hans Larsson – Dewey characterizing the esthetic and intellectual faculties as complementary movements within the human mind, and Larsson propounding intuition as the unifying and superior form of thinking. Assenting to their views, I conclusively suggest methodical introspection as another field for discursive interchange between art and science.
Exhibition Curation | Transart London Residency 2025
(2025)
Ali Williams
Development of Curatorial Guidelines for the Transart Residency Exhibition at London's Borough Road Gallery in July 2025.
The Anthologies Assembly, London 2025, extends a call for proposals for a vibrant, student-guided convergence of research inquiry and creative exploration. Building upon the inaugural assembly, participants are encouraged to embrace "research-based creative practice" as a means of knowledge generation where diverse disciplines intersect and boundaries blur. We welcome proposals that illuminate PhD research, including nascent "works-in-progress," emphasizing the value of ongoing inquiry. Guided by student feedback expressing both a desire for grounding in practice and community as well as exceptional moments that inspire, we aim to create spaces for genuine encounters and shared learning, where participants leave with lasting impressions on research and creative endeavors that continue to spark curiosity throughout the year.
Our curatorial framework centers on the concept of investigation, as both a rigorous pursuit and an introspective exploration. Drawing from its etymological roots, we conceive of investigation as a tracing towards something no longer present—a turning-towards truths hidden or lost in time; and a nuanced examination of practices, be they social, political, or personal.
recent publications
Zübük: The Liberal Tyrant’s Authoritarian Spirit
(2025)
Tolga Theo Yalur
During the early weeks of the Gezi Park Protests in the summer of 2013, the Turkish government banned gatherings in Taksim Square. One man, however, stood alone in front of the Ataturk Cultural Centre (AKM), one of the symptoms around the never-ending events and culture wars, with the police around, obviously "obeying" the ban on gatherings. He instantly went viral on the internet: The Standing Man (Duran Adam), reminiscent of an unknown 1950s Hollywood melodrama The Man Who Stood There, while others began to stand "alone" nearby, but not exactly in the legally described form of an assembly or public gathering. As such, only the man's name was mythified and not the other participants'.
Meet the Yunani
(2025)
Tolga Theo Yalur
Meet the Yunani is my mix-up audio-visual-inscriptive artwork for the Unani or Yunani systems of medicine that are deployed in medical fraud. I deploy cognitive philosophy, art and science in this webart for the real settings of scientific hoaxes, the illusions concealed through prescribed fictions, and represented as the real. A mix-up audio-visual-inscriptive artwork for the Yunani, often touted as a "traditional" and "holistic" approach to health and well-being. In truth, the various versions of deploying Unani in medicine is inothing more than a parascientific hoax perpetrated by those aiming to capitalize on the growing demand for "alternative" and “natural” remedies. Unani (یونانی) is simply a rebranding of the Perso-Arabic medical traditions, which in turn were heavily influenced by the teachings of the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, who, while pioneering advances in the human anatomy and physiology, also promoted a flawed model of the human body and health based on the concept of the four humours - blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Unani practitioners of the Perso-Arabic medical traditional medicine, accompanied by Judeo-Hellenic adaptations represented with the neoplatonistic tree of life sefirot (סְפִירוֹת / σφαίρα), Greek humours or "doṣas" (दोष) from the Ayurvedic medicine claim to have inherited this ancient Greek wisdom. In truth they have merely taken these outdated and disproven theories, given them an exotic-sounding name, and presented them as traditional wisdom. Unani's diagnostic methods and treatment approaches, from bloodletting to the use of arcane herbal concoctions, lack scientific bases and were thoroughly debunked by modern medical research. The allure of this “ancient wisdom”, however, continues to draw those in need of alternative healthcare, without knowing that they are falling victim to a sophisticated marketing ploy masquerading as traditional medicine. The Unani's mystical trappings are nothing more than a pseudoscientific hoax rooted in long-refuted Greek four humour theory.