PhD in the Arts

The Mozarteum University Salzburg is looking for art practitioners to enroll in the PhD in the Arts, a doctoral programme in artistic research. Artists from any field of practice are encouraged to apply, including but not limited to music, the visual arts, theatre, dance, film, digital media, design.

The programme focuses on the potential of artistic processes to articulate themselves as research, as well as on the capability of these processes for creative and critical reflection, whereby artistic practice becomes both the subject matter of the research trajectory and the method through which research is conducted.

The programme provides a framework for the development of individual projects, with a wide spectrum of formats ranging from one-to-one tuition, seminars, workshops, lectures, excursions and an open space dedicated to the self-organisation of candidates. The doctoral curriculum takes place in a collaborative research environment that fosters artistic and intellectual exchange and cooperation and offers appropriate infrastructure and facilities (spaces, instruments, staff, library, etc.).

The programme is designed for a minimum of three years and conducted in English. All courses will take place in monthly gatherings. Residence in Austria is not required, but participants are requested to take part in activities in Salzburg. The Mozarteum University Salzburg cannot provide internal funding or scholarship. Candidates will be supported in all application processes for external funding.

The programme works with the concept of transversality as an operative principle that opposes both a vertical and a horizontal understanding of art. Examples of transversal practices that the programme welcomes include but are not limited to:

–Practices that engage post-anthropocentric modes of creativity (e.g. reflections on human and other-than-human interaction, environmental awareness, historical and new materialisms, speculative realism, post-human discourses, etc.)
–Practices that develop divergent and creative approaches to history and cultural heritage (e.g. archival practices, reflections of temporal linearity and anachronism, experimental modes of music performance, montages of found footage etc.)
–Practices that challenge hierarchical social and political structures (e.g. centered on feminist, queer, Marxist, decolonial and postcolonial discourses, etc.), as well as traditional divisions of labor in the art market (composer/performer/improviser, artist/spectator, art/society, etc.)
–Practices that engage with the imaginary and spiritual not as marginal nonrealities, but as means to change epistemologies and reinvent ontologies.

Applicants are admitted to the doctoral programme through a two-step selection process (proposal and presentation). In addition, knowledge of English (oral and written) must be proven. The online application tool is open from February 1 to March 28, 2024. Please upload all documents here. Dates for interviews will be published soon on the website of the Mozarteum University Salzburg.

The results of the application process will be communicated to applicants at the beginning of June, 2024. For further information please contact: studieninfo [​at​] moz.ac.at.

Necessary documents for the online application
–Master’s certificate (or graduation certificate from an equivalent course of study). If a master’s certificate is not available, an enrollment certificate or official confirmation of the anticipated degree should be uploaded.
–Complete transcript of records for the master’s degree including all subjects taken and grades awarded.
–Applicants with foreign documents must provide an official translation into German or English alongside the relevant original.
–Proof of English (optional for the application process but necessary for admission).

The application (compiled into a single PDF file no larger than five MB) has to be uploaded online and should include the following:
–a résumé (CV);
–a portfolio containing relevant activities (exhibitions, concerts, compositions, publications, conferences, etc.), including links to audio and video files and large images where relevant;
–a written proposal outlining the artistic research project to be developed during the course of the study programme (contextualization of artistic research practice, potential questions of the project, outline of a prospective trajectory and provisional timetable for the project, optional: proposals for potential supervisors). The PhD project proposal should consist of two to ten A4 pages.