Issue 8 proposal deadline: January 6, 2022
Issue six of VIS – Nordic Journal for Artistic Research, with the theme “Contagion”, is now available to read. The editor of the issue is Anna Lindal.
When the Editorial Committee of the journal picked the theme in March 2020, contagion felt like a very relevant subject. But no-one could have predicted at the time just how much contagion would come to influence society—or how many issues about art and contagion that would suddenly turn up and become deeply influential.
“Today, we can’t help but see the term contagion in a different light—in part because we are exhausted after one and a half arduous years of pandemic, and in part because of the overuse and unilateral associations of the term,” writes editor Anna Lindal in her introduction to the issue.
The global pandemic, initially just one of many ways to approach contagion, touch, reference and transmission within the issue, has during the last year grown to become a truly fateful issue for the arts and shaken up many artists’ understanding of their own practice. It has also become one of the starting points of several of the expositions presented in the issue.
“Biological infections and ‘artistic contagion’ happen in similar ways—both require touch, nearness, vulnerability,” Anna Lindal writes.
“Transmission cannot happen from afar, or when one is isolated. Art and artistic practice have undergone enormous changes during the pandemic, and this issue of VIS offers evidence of some of these changes and adaptations.”
The issue consists of five expositions of artistic research that in various ways approach contagion and touch: in process, in observation, via analogies and in examples of nearness and touch as invaluable components of music and performance. In addition, a conversation is included between three of the members of the Editorial Committee that addresses issues about the arts during the pandemic and beyond. Read the new issue and watch the conversation here.
Expositions in the issue:
Jennifer Torrence: “Soft to the Touch: Performance, Vulnerability, and Entanglement in the Time of Covid”
Timo Menke: “Corona Influentia och den mörkare materian”
Karen Schiff: “Viral Drawings: Transmission BC / QT / AV”
Liv Kristin Holmberg: “Smitte som skapelsesmaskin”
Alexandra Crouwers: “The Plot, The Compositor, Mourning/Mistakes”
Open call for issue 8:
Concurrently with the VIS issue 6 release, we’re also opening the call for expositions for VIS issue 8. The issue has the theme ”On Rules and Alternatives” and the editors are Serge von Arx and Eliot Moleba. Deadline to submit exposition proposals is January 6, 2022. Read more about the open call for VIS 8.
About VIS:
VIS – Nordic Journal for Artistic Research is a digital journal about artistic research in the Nordic tradition. The journal is published in cooperation between Stockholm University of the Arts and The Norwegian Artistic Research Programme and is published on the international artistic research platform The Research Catalogue. VIS aims to be a primary source of knowledge for anyone who wants to learn about, and immerse themselves in, the artistic research emanating from the Nordic region, as well as being a platform for international research that places a similar emphasis upon reflection. It is published biannually.
About Anna Lindal:
Anna Lindal is a violinist, primarily active in experimental contemporary music, researcher and professor in Music with a long and substantial international experience within vast parts of the musical and cultural field. She has among other things worked as Dean of the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts at Gothenburg University and was President for the Society for Artistic Research and Concertmaster in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Stockholm.
