Mapping Artistic Research. Towards Diagrammatic Knowing

Map! Unroll! Translate! Visualise! Contour! Outline! Practice!

How can we practice artistic research not only as artists but also as curators and researchers in the social sciences and humanities? This book maps various modes and manifestations of artistic research in three contexts: contemporary art, doctoral studies, and research in academia.

Employing both methods of interdisciplinary scholarly research and practice-based (curatorial) research, it outlines the most sensitive issues in artistic research: the relationship between theory and practice, connections to art practice and usual modes of research, knowledge and its production, and the changing identities of artists and researchers.

Vytautas Michelkevičius employs a diagrammatic take on artistic research, both in the sense that the knowing of this subject is still diagrammatic (rather imaginary and not yet final) and that the major statements here are interpreted and presented in 25 diagrams.

Written within a curatorial practice and post-doctoral fellowship, it opens up perspectives of artistic research for artists, curators, researchers in the social sciences and humanities, and wider audiences.

Dr. Vytautas Michelkevičius (LT) is a curator, researcher and associate professor whose focus has gradually shifted from photography in the expanded field to media art & theory, and lately to artistic research in academia and beyond. He teaches art practice & theory for BA, MA and DA/PhD students at the Vilnius Academy of Arts and is the artistic director of Nida Art Colony. He has curated exhibitions of artistic research in various situations, among them the Lithuanian Pavilion in the 56th Venice Biennale. He has edited and authored more than 10 books on art and media.

Translation from Lithuanian Jurij Dobriakov