MaHKUzine: Out now

MaHKUzine. Journal of Artistic
Research. Issue 8. Out now.

Epistemic Encounters:
Daniel Birnbaum, Natalia Calderon,
James Elkins, Mika Hannula,
Tom Holert, Henk Slager, Hito
Steyerl, Chris Wainwright.

http://www.mahku.nl

In the context of the Utrecht Consortium, MaHKU and local partners engaged in 2009 in various research activities where DARE (the one-week Dutch Artistic Research Event, co-curated by Mika Hannula) was again the yearly point of culmination. Urban Knowledge was the theme of DARE 4, referring to an investigation of the specific perspectives art deploys in order to understand and rethink our current urban environments and their complexities. DARE 4 (a series of exhibitions and an international symposium) underscored how context-responsive projects are a novel and prolific perspective for the Utrecht Consortium and its intended research focusing on the interconnection between experimental exhibition models and artistic knowledge production. In a DARE 4 related research essay, Natalia Calderon explores public space from a Mouffian agonist point of view while deploying a process of mapping. Calderon’s space of confrontations and encounters ultimately leads to knowledge of the “terra infirma”, the difference, the unknown.

The issue of the specificity of artistic knowledge production continues to be of major importance in recent MaHKU activities. In one of MaHKU’s Utrecht Research Lectures, James Elkins inquires how the concept of artistic knowledge is understood in various ways by artists and philosophers and how that affects art education. A major issue we should deal with refers to “what artists are taught, how they are taught, and why they are taught the things we teach them”, says Elkins.

The questions posed underscore time and again the urgency of a further reflection on the phenomenon of artistic knowledge. Thus MaHKU organized the expert meeting Epistemic Encounters, where the characteristics of artistic knowledge and its role in graduate art education has been tackled from three different perspectives. First, the artist perspective. Hito Steyerl deals with the disciplining character of a discipline in artistic research. Does the danger lurk that we will ultimately have an aesthetics of administration and a cognitive capitalism? Second, the institutional perspective. Tom Holert notices that the concept of “knowledge production” turned art academies into reliable partners in dialogue with academic knowledge networks. However, at the same time art academies search for a form of agency enabling to continuously withdraw from commodification processes. Third, the perspective of knowledge networks. Chris Wainwright delves into collaboration networks such as the European League of Institutes of the Arts (ELIA) and investigates how they contribute, initiate, and incite a dialogue creating opportunities for artistic research across Europe. Thus, they engage in shaping the development, production, and application of creative “new knowledge” within a variety of institutional and public contexts.

Editorial Board MaHKUzine: Annette W. Balkema, Arjen Mulder, Henk Slager.

Download MaHKUzine, Journal of Artistic Research, Issue 8, here: http://www.mahku.nl/research/mahkuzine8.html

More information about MaHKU’s Master of Arts (Fine Art and Design) and Research Programs: http://www.mahku.nl