Annegret Huber, Doris Ingrisch, Therese Kaufmann, Johannes Kretz, Gesine Schröder, Tasos Zembylas (eds.) Knowing in Performing

**Annegret Huber** (Prof. Dr.) is a professor at the Department of Composition, Electroacoustics, and Tonmeister Education at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria. Her research focuses on epistemological, cultural and historical questions on musical analysis and its methods in interdisciplinary contexts, especially sociology of knowledge, media philosophy, and gender studies.

**Doris Ingrisch** (Prof. Dr.) is a cultural scientist and a visiting guest professor of gender studies at the Department for Cultural Management and Gender Studies (IKM) at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna since March 2011. Her research focuses on science, art and gender, experimental methods, and arts-based research.

**Therese Kaufmann** is head of research support services at mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria.

**Johannes Kretz** (Prof.) is a composer, electronics performer, artistic researcher, and head of the Artistic Research Center (ARC) at mdw – University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria.

**Gesine Schröder** (Prof. emerit. Dr.) is a professor for music theory at the Department of Composition, Electroacoustics, and Tonmeister Education at mdw – University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria, and at the University for Music and Theatre »Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy« Leipzig, Germany.

**Tasos Zembylas** (Prof. Dr.) is a professor for cultural institutions studies at mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria, with a research focus on the sociology of artistic practices, the institutional analysis of art worlds, and public cultural funding policies.

Annegret Huber, Doris Ingrisch, Therese Kaufmann, Johannes Kretz, Gesine Schröder, Tasos Zembylas (eds.)

# **Knowing in Performing**

Artistic Research in Music and the Performing Arts

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**First published in 2021 by transcript Verlag, Bielefeld © Annegret Huber, Doris Ingrisch, Therese Kaufmann, Johannes Kretz, Gesine Schröder, Tasos Zembylas (eds.)**

Cover layout: Maria Arndt, Bielefeld Cover illustration: Angélica Castelló, *Magnetic Room,* sound installation/composition 2017 © noid 2017. Proofread by Anne Ewing, Michael Delaney and Heidi Wilm Foreword translated by Michael Delaney Typeset by Mark-Sebastian Schneider, Bielefeld Printed by Majuskel Medienproduktion GmbH, Wetzlar Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-5287-1 PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-5287-5 https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839452875

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# **Einleitung** Über das Wissen und Erkennen im künstlerischen Tun: *Knowing in Performing*

*Annegret Huber, Doris Ingrisch, Therese Kaufmann, Johannes Kretz, Gesine Schröder, Tasos Zembylas*

Künstlerische Forschung, wie sie sich in den letzten drei Jahrzehnten entwickelt hat, ist mit einem zunehmenden Interesse an erkenntnistheoretischen Fragen verbunden sowie mit der Frage, wie künstlerische Praktiken konstitutiv Prozesse der Wissensgenerierung anstoßen. Kunst fungiert somit sowohl als Gegenstand als auch als Medium künstlerischer Forschung und nimmt teil am Diskurs über Wissensregime und Forschungsmodelle. An diesem Punkt der Entwicklung künstlerischer Forschung setzt *Knowing in Performing* an.

Die Begriffe »Wissen« und »Erkenntnis« weisen eine Reihe von ideengeschichtlichen Konnotationen auf. Wissen und Erkenntnis können beispielsweise durch Kontemplation, wie etwa in bestimmten philosophischen Auffassungen, durch Berechnungen und induktive oder deduktive Ableitung, etwa in den Naturwissenschaften oder der Medizin, durch logische Analyse und Schlussfolgerung, wie in den Formalwissenschaften oder der analytische Philosophie, sowie durch die inhaltliche und genealogische Interpretation von Handlungen, Ereignissen, Artefakten und ihrer Bedeutung, wie wir es aus den Geistes-, Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften kennen, gewonnen werden. In solchen Fällen nehmen Wissen und Erkenntnis symbolgebundene, propositionale Formen an.<sup>1</sup>

Der Begriff »*knowing*« – die deutsche Übersetzung des transitiven Verbs als »wissend« ist nicht befriedigend – grenzt sich von den oben erwähnten

<sup>1</sup> »Symbolgebunden« heißt, dass das Wissen durch ein symbolisches System (auch Arithmetik, Programmiersprache, formale Logik) ausgedrückt wird.

Bedeutungen ab. Das Suffix »-ing« weist auf einen genuin körperlich-sinnlich gebundenen, praktischen Vollzug und somit auf den f luiden, prozesshaften Status des Wissens hin. »Knowing is literally something which we do«, so John Dewey (1916, 331). Das Wissen-im-Tun – so könnte man also *knowing* sinngemäß verstehen –, hängt nicht von einem vorangegangenen Erlernen kontemplativer, berechnender, logisch-analytischer und interpretativer Methoden ab. Vielmehr setzt es ein praktisches Lernen-im-Tun voraus, in dem sich Wissen und Können parallel entwickeln und vollständig überlappen. Wenn es um repetitive Tätigkeiten geht, dann sprechen wir vom prozessualen Wissen, dass durch vorangegangenes Üben erlernt wird. Darunter kann man zum Beispiel das Klavierspiel subsumieren. Wenn aber kreatives Handeln sich auf partikuläre Situationen und Herausforderungen bezieht – etwa die Schaffung eines neuen Werkes –, dann kann man nicht einfach auf vorhandenes bzw. propositionales Wissen zurückgreifen und dieses anwenden. Erfahrenheit hilft vielleicht, aber die Übertragung von Erfahrungen, die gerade kein propositionales Wissen darstellt, bedarf einer Übertragung auf andere, neue Fälle. Durch Learning by Doing wird ein Wissen angeeignet, das im Handeln implizit ist. Die Bewältigung neuer Herausforderungen geht folglich mit einem Wissen einher, das nicht bereits vorhanden ist, sondern im Tun, d.h. im Ausprobieren und Experimentieren, überhaupt erst entsteht.

*Knowing in Performing* bezieht sich auf das Handeln in den darstellenden Künsten als spezifische Form der Wissensgenerierung. Diese kann sich unter anderem auf die Entstehung neuer künstlerischer Fertigkeiten beziehen. Es handelt sich, wie oben erwähnt, um ein künstlerisches Wissen, das im performativen Tun vollständig inkorporiert ist. Dieses Wissen ist eigentlich multidimensional. Es umfasst in erster Linie ein Körperwissen, ein sinnlich-situatives Wissen sowie ein erfahrungsgebundenes Arbeitsprozesswissen. Kunst ist aber mehr als das bloße Machen, daher stehen die verschiedenen Formen des künstlerisch-praktischen Wissens nicht für sich allein da. Vielmehr sind sie mit anderen, allgemeinen und propositionalen Wissensformen verknüpft. Die Inkommensurabilität der verschiedenen Wissensformen verneint nicht die Möglichkeit ihrer Synergie. Performative Künstler\_innen handeln also auf der Basis eines Amalgams von Kompetenzen und Erfahrungen (vgl. Zembylas & Niederauer 2016, 101-132).

*Knowing in Performing* ist eine Voraussetzung für künstlerische Forschung; zugleich ist es ihr naheliegender Forschungsgegenstand. Ein pluraler Wissensbegriff, der ein künstlerisches Wissen bzw. ein »Wissen der Künste«2 einschließt, muss sich so nicht nur der Vielfalt von Ausdrucks-, Artikulations- und Entstehungsformen stellen, sondern auch der Verstricktheit in geohistorische, institutionelle und geschlechterspezifische epistemische Bedingtheiten und Machtverhältnisse. Die Beiträge dieses Sammelbandes loten in vielfältiger Form diese diversen, ineinander übergehenden Modi des Wissens und seiner Hervorbringung im künstlerischen Tun anhand von Beispielen unterschiedlicher künstlerischer Traditionen und Disziplinen aus und setzen sie in Relation zu epistemologischen Machtverhältnissen, gesellschaftlichen Normen und Praxen sowie institutionellen Situierungen.

Die folgenden Beiträge gehen sowohl auf das Symposium *Knowing in Performing. Artistic Research as a Distinct Practice and Discourse in the Field of Performing Arts*, das am 4. April 2018 an der mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien stattfand, als auch auf die Ringvorlesung gleichen Titels zurück. In den letzten Jahren hat die mdw ihre institutionelle Haltung zur künstlerischen Forschung unter Beteiligung zahlreicher engagierter Kolleg\_innen in einem bemerkenswerten, dynamischen Prozess entwickelt, dem es keineswegs an kritischen Stimmen mangelt. Das Thema der künstlerischen Forschung wird an der mdw mittlerweile auf den verschiedensten Ebenen und unter Berücksichtigung verschiedener Konzepte (Artistic Research, Arts-based Research und Research-based Art) intensiv ref lektiert und bewertet.

Das Symposium und die Ringvorlesung waren wichtige Schritte für die mdw, ihre institutionelle Haltung zur künstlerischen Forschung zu entwickeln. Die Vielfalt der Beiträge machte sehr deutlich, dass das Phänomen der künstlerischen Forschung nicht a priori definiert werden sollte, da eine Definition im ursprünglichen Sinne der Grenzziehung dem Wesen der künstlerischen Forschung widerspricht. Dennoch wurden in den Beiträgen verschiedene Charakteristika hervorgehoben, die zum Verständnis des Phänomens beitragen.

In ihrem diesem Band vorangestellten Essay *The Pot Calling the Kettle Black* nimmt Efva Lilja aufgrund ihrer eigenen Praxis seit den 1990er Jahren

<sup>2</sup> Vgl. das DFG-Graduiertenkolleg *Das Wissen der Künste*, welches eine für Deutschland richtungsweisende Initiative für künstlerische Forschung darstellt. https://www.udk-berlin. de/forschung/temporaere-forschungseinrichtungen/dfg-graduiertenkolleg-das-wissender-kuenste/

in manifesthafter Weise eine Positionierung der Kunst und der Künstler\_innen zum System der künstlerischen Forschung vor. Diese könne nicht nur eine Weiterentwicklung innovativer künstlerischer Methoden unterstützen, sondern auch zur Relevanz künstlerischer Arbeit in einer zunehmend komplexen und diversen Gesellschaft beitragen. Gleichzeitig jedoch geht diese Entwicklung mit institutionellen, akademischen und kommerziellen Zwängen einher, die letztlich mit einem konservativen Wissensbegriff verknüpft sind. Dagegen gelte es individuellen ebenso wie institutionellen Ungehorsam zu entwickeln, Konventionen zu sprengen und Grenzen zu erweitern. Ganz konkret werden diese Überlegungen auch verknüpft mit Liljas kritischer Ref lexion zu neuen künstlerisch-akademischen Ausbildungsformen auf Master- und Doktoratsebene für Künstler\_innen.

Musikforschung als disziplinübergreifende Forschungspraxis weist manche Ähnlichkeiten und Differenzen zur künstlerischen Forschung auf. Das ist das Thema des kritischen Beitrags von Georgina Born. Dabei fokussiert die Autorin in einer vergleichenden Analyse den epistemologischen Anspruch, das jeweilige Verständnis von Interdisziplinarität und die institutionellen Bedingungen beider Richtungen. Born kritisiert das »unconsolidated terrain of A[rtistic] R[esearch] epistemology«, den »›subordination-service‹ mode of interdisciplinarity«, den sie vielen Musikforschungsprojekten zuschreibt, die scheinbare Ahistorizität des Diskurses über künstlerische Forschung und die neoliberale Transformation jener (meist akademischen) Institutionen, die Musikforschung und künstlerische Forschung organisieren und betreiben.

*Meta Hodos* – zu einer Reise über gewohnte Pfade hinaus lädt Kathleen Coessens ein, um Methoden künstlerischer Forschung zu befragen. Als Reisestationen wählt sie fünf Vorstellungen von Tätigkeiten, welche die Herausforderungen und Chancen von Praktiken künstlerischer Erkenntnis erhellen. Durch die Metapher des Brotbackens legt sie dar, dass ein Beschreiben der Brotbäckerei in Backrezepten ebenso wie das Zeigen der Arbeitsschritte in How-to-Videos als Vermittlungsformen dieser Praktik ohne die Qualia des Erspürens des Brotteigs nur unvollständig kommuniziert werden können. Am Beispiel des Hämmerns wiederum erläutert sie die Situiertheit künstlerischer Wissenspraktiken in einem komplexen Beziehungsgef lecht von Menschen, Ideen und Objekten, in dem ein Weg stetig begangen werden muss, damit er *meta hodos* gebahnt werden kann. Wittgensteins Nachdenken über Spiele als Bündel von Praktiken nimmt sie zum Anlass, um aufzu-

zeigen, wie Forschungspraktiken, die sich zunächst an der Spezifik einzelner Forschungsprojekte entzündet haben mögen, sich aufgrund ihrer mehr oder weniger ausgeprägten Ähnlichkeiten zueinander zu Spiel-»Regeln« verdichten, die für einen profilierten Forschungsbereich paradigmatisch werden. (Selbst-)Wahrnehmung und Ref lexivität von künstlerisch Forschenden nimmt Coessens anhand von Leonardo da Vincis Spiegeln in einem oktogonalen Raum ins Visier, wo sie neue Relationen zwischen An-Sicht, Aus-Sicht und Ein-Sicht der Forschenden enthüllen. Eine Zeichnung von Maurits Cornelis Escher (auf der eine zeichnende Hand zu sehen ist, die eine andere Hand zeichnet, die wiederum die zeichnende Hand zeichnet) und das Porträt eines Mannes vor dem Spiegel (dessen Gesicht im Spiegel zu sehen sein müsste, dort jedoch nicht ›reproduziert‹ werden darf und so durch die Ansicht des Hinterkopfes ersetzt wird) von René Magritte lenken schließlich die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Rolle der künstlerisch Forschenden. Als Beobachtende und Beobachtete erfüllen sie – Subjekt und Objekt zugleich – eine komplex partizipierende Funktion im ›Innen‹ und ›Außen‹ des Erkenntnisprozesses.

Ausgehend von der Seidenschal- bzw. Schleier-Metapher interessiert sich Darla M. Crispin für bestimmte epistemische Fragen, etwa die Reichweite, Gebundenheit und Begrenztheit unseres Erfahrungs- und Erkenntnisvermögens. Dafür fokussiert sie die drei Begriffe »Ref lexion«, »Selbstref lexivität« und »Autoethnografie«, welche sie eng mit der Praxis und dem Diskurs der künstlerischen Forschung denkt. Diese Thematisierung geschieht entlang einer Zeitebene: zuerst rückblickend auf die Entstehung von künstlerischen Forschungsprojekten und entsprechenden Doktoratsprogrammen in Europa, dann bezugnehmend auf aktuelle Ansätze in Norwegen, wo Crispin tätig ist, und schließlich prospektiv auf die Relation dieser drei Begriffe zur künstlerischen Forschung. Während Ref lexion Ausdruck eines relationalen Denkens ist (als Herstellung und Analyse von Beziehungen), ist Selbstref lexivität eine Form der Selbstvergewisserung und Selbsthinterfragung. Autoethnografie als Methode in künstlerischen Forschungsprojekten wiederum ist zugleich ref lexiv und selbstref lexiv, denn die Autoethnografie betrachtet die forschenden Künstler\_innen als integralen Teil des Forschungsprozesses.

Einen experimentellen Zugang zu künstlerischer Forschung stellt die Geigerin Mieko Kanno vor. Ihr Experiment besteht darin, dass sie dasselbe Stück – im konkreten Fall Salvatore Sciarrinos Violin-Caprice auf der G-Saite – in zwei unterschiedlichen Designs spielt: einmal als Standard-Aufführung vor dem Publikum stehend, einmal sitzend inmitten des Publikums. Die Hörer\_innen direkt neben sich spürt sie weniger den Raum, und so braucht die zweite Aufführung weniger Zeit, auch wird ihr Spiel leiser. Das beinhaltet ein Potenzial: Was leise dargeboten werde, könne Türen öffnen, ein Flow werde angeregt, der Hörer\_innen dazu bewegt, in ihren Köpfen aus dem Vernommenen Musik entstehen zu lassen. Nicht jeder Sound eigne sich aber, um von Hörer\_innen in Musik transformiert zu werden. Der zarte und leise Sound offeriere eigene Typen der Poetik. Mit ihren Aufführungsexperimenten möchte Kanno erforschen, unter welchen Bedingungen leise Sounds oder sogar Stille in den Köpfen der Hörer\_innen Musik auslösen. Je leiser die Sounds, desto aktiver werde das Hören. Stille fordere zugleich ein Gran von Komplizenschaft mit der Spielerin ein. Wer leise spiele, übergebe das Vernommene der Verantwortung der Hörer\_innen, mache Hören intersubjektiv und politisiere den Sound, denn die Modi, über die das Subjekt mit dem Werk interagiert, sind ein Teil von Sinnstiftung: Indem sie für eine Kollision des Werks mit seiner Perzeption sorgt, macht Kanno Sounds expressiv und kommunikativ.

Einen anderen und doch mit Kanno verwandten Zugang zum Sound weist der Beitrag *voicings of an auralist* von Till Bovermann, Thomas Grill, Tobias Leibetseder und Almut Schilling auf: *Rotting Sounds* ist ein vom FWF in der PEEK-Schiene gefördertes künstlerisches Forschungsprojekt, das die Vergänglichkeit digitaler Tonträger untersucht sowie im Sinne eines Erkennens im Tun mit dem musikalischen Wissen experimentiert, das aus digitalen Daten und deren physischer Erosion entsteht. Der Textbeitrag beschreibt nicht nur ein Experiment, er ist zugleich ein Experiment. Auf mehreren Ebenen versuchen die Autor\_innen sich dem Probieren anzunähern: Zahlreiche Klammerausdrücke bieten den Lesenden die Möglichkeit, den Text im Lesen selbst zu schreiben, ein eigenes Verständnis dessen zu erzeugen, was Sound, aber auch »error correction« auf digitalen Tonträgern bedeuten kann.

Der elektroakustische Komponist Johannes Kretz und die Bratschistin und Ethnomusikologin Wei-Ya Lin stellen in ihrem Beitrag ebenfalls ihr 2018 begonnenes PEEK-Projekt *Kreative (Miss-)Verständnisse* vor. Das Projekt ist der Suche nach Methoden der transkulturellen Inspiration gewidmet. Zu den Forschungsspartner\_innen gehört die Tao-Gemeinschaft Taiwans. Tao unterscheiden nicht zwischen aufführenden Künstler\_innen und Publikum, und die Erprobung unter anderem dieser Haltung auch in anderen Kontexten soll in dem Projekt dazu verhelfen, in einer stark kommerzialisierten

kulturellen Welt die Solidarität künstlerischer Minderheiten zu stärken. Erprobt wird eine multidirektionale Inspiration mit dem Ziel egalitärer Interaktion. Der Visualisierung und der Schriftlichkeit als akademischem (westlichen) Paradigma von Wissensproduktion stellen Kretz und Lin Verfahren gegenüber, die – wie das implizite Wissen – andere sensuelle Bereiche als das Sehen und den Text nutzen. So geschehe Wissensproduktion auch übers Hören, Klangschöpfungen ließen sich als Wissensproduktion verstehen. In ihrer Suche nach Antworten auf die Frage, wie Forschungsmethoden in Methoden künstlerischer Schaffungsprozesse umwandelbar sind, entwickeln Kretz und Lin transdisziplinäre Methoden, die ethnomusikologische mit kompositorischen Ansätzen verbinden. Der künstlerische Output des Projekts umfasst individuelle und kollektive Kompositionen, Improvisationen, Installationen, neue Performance-Praktiken. Mit der Methode, den Spieler\_innen ein »Stück« in verschiedenen Darstellungs- und Ausdrucksformen vorzulegen, wird ermittelt, in welchem Maße bestimmte kulturelle Traditionen und Fachspezifisches zentral oder peripher für das jeweilige Produkt sind. Der präsentierte Stand ist vom Jänner 2019. Kurz nach dessen Start seien vor allem neue Fragen entstanden, darunter die Frage, auf welche Weise soziale Veränderungen die Ästhetik, Bedeutung und die Funktionen von Musik oder Sound generell berühren.

In seinem Beitrag *Schallnamen* lässt uns Johannes Kreidler an seiner Ref lexion über das Hören teilhaben. Während er die Bedeutung der Sprache als Voraussetzung für das Hören hervorhebt, zeigen seine Werke auch, wie durch ein Kunstwerk Erkenntnisse und Wissen generiert werden können. Seine Komposition *Einleitung in die Musiksoziologie* funktioniert sowohl als ein Stück Konzeptkunst als auch als ein Kunstwerk, das Einsichten und eine neue Perspektive auf ein kulturelles und soziales Phänomen erzeugt.

»Can we develop communities of individuals who are participants of an ongoing dialogue?« (Bogart 2014, 2) Diese Frage der Regisseurin und Professorin Anne Bogart stellt Jörg Holkenbrink seinem Artikel *Souveränität riskieren: Transdisziplinäre Forschung, kontextorientierte Auf führungspraxen und die Arbeit des Theaters der Versammlung. Eine Anregung* voran.<sup>3</sup> Ausgehend von dem Befund der durch Globalisierung und Individualisierung in Bewegung geratenen Wissensformen befragt er das zeitgemäße Erforschen und Einbetten aktueller gesellschaftlicher Themen in den darstellenden Künsten.

<sup>3</sup> Vgl. die Webseite des Theaters der Versammlung: https://www.tdv.uni-bremen.de/

Die Produktivität, die durch Fremdheit hervorgebracht werden kann, steht dabei im Fokus. Jörg Holkenbrink war der Gründer des in den Performance Studies an der Universität Bremen angesiedelten, zwischen Bildung, Wissenschaft und Kunst situierten Forschungstheaters – er war, denn Jörg Holkenbrink erlag seiner schweren Krankheit noch vor dem Abschluss der Arbeiten an diesem Sammelband. Wir trauern um ihn. Aber sein Theater der Versammlung lebt weiter und fokussiert nach wie vor auf die Vernetzung unterschiedlicher Wissenskulturen. Die für Jörg Holkenbrink drängenden Fragen in diesem Kontext waren: Welche Settings, Formate und Dramaturgien unterstützen dieses Anliegen? Welche Methoden und Praktiken stehen für Interventionen und Untersuchungen zur Verfügung? Welche Überlegungen, welche Abläufe braucht es dafür? Anhand anschaulicher Beispiele, wie u.a. zur Kultur der Selbstoptimierung wie in *Brecht für Manager – ein Seelentraining* und der Klick-Performance *C COPY A, VERSCHLÜSSELT,* die in unterschiedlichen Kontexten jeweils andere Themen und Fragen evoziert, bietet er Einblicke in die Konzepte und Arbeitsweisen seines Theaters der Versammlung und bietet dem Denken Anregung dazu, vielleicht auch einmal die eigene Souveränität zu riskieren.

Ihre Perspektive einer »künstlerisch denkenden, für die Etablierung der kulturwissenschaftlichen Gender Studies an der mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien zuständigen Wissenschafterin« nutzt Doris Ingrisch, um Impulse in der Diskussion um Episteme unterschiedlichster Wissensformen in Künsten und akademischer Forschung zu geben. Als wissenschaftliche »Inter«-Viewerin von Künstler\_innen verfügt sie über einen reichen Erfahrungsschatz, um »Gespräche im Inbetween« zu führen. Diese führten sie zu der Auffassung, dass es sinnvollerweise eines »Intra«-Viewing bedarf, um »die den Künsten wie den Wissenschaften zugeordneten klassischen westlichen Erkenntnismodi nun erneut mit der hegemonialen Geschlechterordnung« (Ingrisch 2020, 152) zusammendenken zu können und damit das Bewusstsein dafür zu schärfen, dass jeder Art von Forschung die performative Wirkung der Welterzeugung innewohnt. Aus Überlegungen zur Epistemologie von Art-based Research entspringt das Potenzial, hier als Forschende gestaltend teilzuhaben.

Eine Liebesbeziehung mit der Kunst UND mit der Philosophie zu unterhalten stand im Zentrum der Lecture Performance der Schauspielerin Susanne Valerie [Granzer] und des Philosophen Arno Böhler mit dem Titel *In Love with Art & Philosophie // Zwischen Kunst & Philosophie*, deren Szenen wir

mit den einem Buch eigenen Mitteln erneut erleben dürfen. Die Schauspielerin und der Philosoph lassen ihr Publikum an der eigenen, gemeinsamen künstlerisch-philosophischen Entdeckungsreise teilhaben und erfüllen das Forschungsformat »künstlerische Forschung« mit Leben. Sinnliche Lebenswelt und Denken werden in ihrer Verschränktheit in Inhalt und Form wahrnehmbar. Indem sie dem leiblichen In-der-Welt-sein Raum im Forschungsfeld zugestehen, ändern sich die tradierten Koordinaten. Was und wie hat Kunst, was und wie Philosophie zu sein? Anhand von verschränkten Einblicken in die eigenen Biografien sowie in die Geschichte der Philosophie wird uns die Sehnsucht zu beidem, zur Kunst UND zur Philosophie nachvollziehbar. Wozu die Trennung? Das Publikum dieser Lecture Performance wird durch Worte und Spiel angeregt, die Gelegenheit beim Schopf zu packen und den eigenen Wertekanon zu hinterfragen. Ein experimentelles Intermezzo lädt dazu ein, in sinnliche Erfahrungen einzutauchen. Was passiert mit uns, wenn wir etwas von der Gewalt zu spüren bekommen, die darin liegt, nur in einem der Pole, wie es die »westliche« Kultur und Philosophie setzte, Kunst ODER Philosophie, existieren zu dürfen?

Während die künstlerische Forschung im Zusammenhang mit bestimmten Künsten – von der bildenden Kunst bis zur Komposition, vom Design bis zur Filmproduktion – ziemlich naheliegend wirkt, scheint der Bereich der Interpretation und der (nicht nur) musikalischen Performance von besonderem Interesse für das *Knowing in Performing* und für die künftige Entwicklung der künstlerischen Forschung zu sein. Dies ist einer der Gründe, warum der Beitrag von Barbara Lüneburg mit dem Titel *Worldmaking – Knowing through Performing* relevant ist. Die Geigerin und Performance Künstlerin ref lektiert epistemologische Fragen, die in der Performance-Praxis auftauchen, und geht auf Wissensquellen, die Art des Wissens, das Interpret\_innen produzieren, und methodische Werkzeuge ein. Sie untersucht auch die Darstellung und Verbreitung von Forschungsergebnissen und erörtert die Bedingungen und Grenzen des Wissenserwerbs durch die Performance-Praxis und die künstlerische Forschung im Allgemeinen, wobei sie über das eigentliche musikalische Tun hinaus auf der Suche nach dem epistemischen Potenzial von »*performing*« ist.

Anton Rey gibt schließlich in seinem Beitrag anhand zweier Forschungsprojekte Einblick in Forschungsparadigmen und interdisziplinäre Arbeitsweisen des Institute for Performing Arts & Film (IPF) an der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste: *Analog / Digital* untersuchte mit qualitativen und

empirischen Methoden die emotionale Wirkung von analogen gegenüber digitalen Filmaufnahmeverfahren auf das Kinopublikum. *Actor and Avatar* untersuchte an der Schnittstelle von Philosophie, Schauspielforschung und Neurologie die Differenz zwischen der Kunst des Schauspiels und dem, was Avatare im Film leisten können. Die Annahme eines zunehmenden Schwindens dieser Differenz könnte elementare Auswirkungen auf die Schauspielausbildung haben. Gleichzeitig demonstrieren diese multiperspektivischen Untersuchungen, wie künstlerische Forschung immer nur mit und in der Kunst als ästhetische Epistemologie stattfinden kann, die methodisch keine Grenzen haben kann und nach ihrer jeweils spezifischen »Sag- und Lesbarkeit« verlangt.

Wir danken den Vortragenden, Moderator\_innen, Organisator\_innen und allen, die dazu beigetragen haben, den Diskurs zu künstlerischer Forschung an der mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien gemeinsam zu führen und auch kritisch weiterzuentwickeln. Der vorliegende Band soll dazu als Inspirations- und Wissensquelle dienen.

Unser Dank gilt auch all jenen, die am Entstehen dieses Buches mitgewirkt haben. Vor allem danken wir Karoline Feyertag für ihre fachliche Kompetenz, ihre Umsicht und ihr Engagement, dieses Buchprojekt inmitten einer der Krisen unserer Zeit zu realisieren.

*Die Herausgeber\_innen Wien, im April 2020*

#### **Literatur**


# **Foreword** About Knowledge and Realisation in Artistic Activities: *Knowing in Performing*

*Annegret Huber, Doris Ingrisch, Therese Kaufmann, Johannes Kretz, Gesine Schröder, Tasos Zembylas*

Artistic research as it has developed in the last three decades is related to an increasing interest in epistemological issues, as well as with the question of how artistic practices initiate processes of knowledge production. In this way, art acts as both the subject and the medium of artistic research. Furthermore, via artistic research art participates in the discourse on knowledge regimes and research models. The anthology *Knowing in Performing* addresses these points in the development of artistic research.

The term 'knowledge' has a range of epistemological connotations. For example, knowledge can be gained through contemplation (e.g. in certain philosophical conceptions), by calculations and inductive or deductive reasoning (in natural sciences or medicine), through logical analysis and inference (in formal sciences and analytical philosophy), or through the interpretation of actions, events and artefacts in terms of their meaning and genealogy (in the humanities, cultural and social sciences). In such cases, knowledge takes on symbolic and propositional forms.

The meaning of 'knowing' differs from that of 'knowledge'. The suffix -ing points to a genuinely physical, sensual and practical accomplishment and thus to the f luid, process-like status of knowing "Knowing is literally something which we do", says John Dewey (1916, 331). Knowing in action does not depend on the previous learning of certain (contemplative, calculational, logical-analytical or interpretative) methods. Rather, it presupposes practical learning by doing in which knowing and mastery develop in parallel and completely overlap. In the case of repetitive activities, like learning to play a piece on the piano, we talk about processual knowledge which is learned

by previous practice. However, when creative action is related to particular situations and challenges – such as the creation of a new piece of work – one cannot simply fall back on existing or propositional knowledge and apply it. Experience may be helpful, but the transmission of experiences which do not constitute propositional knowledge requires a transmission to other, new cases. Via learning by doing, knowledge can be acquired which is implicit in the action itself. Mastering new challenges is thus accompanied by a knowledge which does not already exist, and which only arises in doing, in other words by trying things out and experimenting.

*Knowing in performing* refers to action in the performing arts as a specific form of the generation of knowledge. Among other things, this can be related to the emergence of new artistic skills. It is, as mentioned above, an artistic knowing that is fully incorporated into the performative process. This knowing is actually multidimensional. It comprises primarily an embodied knowing, a sensuous-situational knowing as well as an experience-bound knowing of the work process. However, art is more than just creating, and therefore the various forms of artistic-practical knowing do not stand alone. Rather, these forms of knowing are linked with other general and propositional forms of knowledge. The incommensurability of the various forms of knowledge and knowing does not preclude the possibility of their synergy. Performative artists thus act on the basis of a blend of competences and experiences (cf. Zembylas & Niederauer 2018, 80-110).

*Knowing in performing* is a prerequisite for artistic research; at the same time it is its obvious object of research. A plural concept of knowledge which includes artistic knowing and knowledge of the arts<sup>1</sup> must thus not only face up to the diversity of forms of expression, articulation and creation, but also to the entanglement in geohistorical, institutional and gender-specific epistemic conditioning and power relations. The contributions of this anthology explore these diverse, intertwining modes of knowledge and its production through artistic doing on the basis of examples from various artistic traditions and disciplines, and relate them to epistemological power structures, social norms and practices as well as institutional settings.

<sup>1</sup> Cf. the DFG Research Training Group *Knowledge of the Arts*, which represents a trend-setting initiative for artistic research in Germany. https://www.udk-berlin.de/forschung/temporaere-forschungseinrichtungen/dfg-graduiertenkolleg-das-wissen-der-kuenste/

The following contributions stem from the symposium *Knowing in Performing: Artistic Research as a Distinct Practice and Discourse in the Field of Performing Arts*, which took place on 4 April 2018 at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, as well as the lecture series of the same name. In recent years, the mdw has, with the participation of numerous dedicated colleagues, developed its institutional stance on artistic research into a remarkable dynamic process which in no way lacks critical opinions. In the meantime, the issue of artistic research is being ref lected upon and evaluated intensively at the mdw at a wide range of levels and with the aid of different concepts (artistic research, arts-based research and research-based art).

For the mdw, the symposium and the lecture series were important steps in the development of its institutional stance on artistic research. The variety of the contributions makes it abundantly clear that the phenomenon of artistic research should not be defined *a priori*, as a definition in its original meaning as demarcating territory contradicts the essence of artistic research. Nevertheless, the contributions highlight various characteristics which are conducive to understanding the phenomenon.

In her essay *The Pot Calling the Kettle Black* at the beginning of this volume, Efva Lilja carries out a manifesto-like positioning of art and artists towards the system of artistic research on the basis of her own practice since the 1990s. In her view, this positioning can not only support the further development of innovative artistic methods, but also contribute towards the relevance of artistic work in an increasingly complex and diverse society. At the same time, however, this development is accompanied by institutional, academic and commercial constraints which are ultimately linked to a conservative concept of knowledge. By contrast, the aim is to cultivate institutional disobedience, to break down conventions and to push boundaries. In tangible terms, these thoughts are also linked to Lilja's critical ref lections on new forms of artistic/academic education for artists at Master's and PhD levels.

As a cross-disciplinary practice, music research exhibits some similarities and differences to artistic research. This is the topic of the critical piece by Georgina Born, in which she uses a comparative analysis to focus on the epistemological aspirations, the respective understandings of interdisciplinarity and the institutional conditions of both fields. Born criticises the "unconsolidated terrain of a[rtistic] r[esearch] epistemology" and the "'subordination service' mode of interdisciplinarity", which she attributes to

many music research projects, the apparent ahistoricism of the discourse on artistic research, and the neoliberal transformation of those (mostly academic) institutions which organise and carry out music research and artistic research.

*Meta Hodos –* Kathleen Coessens invites us to take part in a journey going beyond well-trodden paths in order to query the methods of artistic research. As stops on the journey she presents five activities which illuminate the opportunities and challenges of practices of artistic insight. Using the metaphor of baking bread, she illustrates that describing how to bake bread in recipes and showing the individual steps in how-to videos can only partially communicate this activity as long as the qualia of feeling the dough is lacking. In another example, this time in relation to hammering, she elucidates the situatedness of artistic knowledge practices in a complex network of relationships between humans, ideas and objects in which a path has to be constantly followed for it to be created *meta hodos.* She then takes Wittgenstein's thoughts on games as bundles of practices as a vehicle to show how research practices which might have initially been ignited by the specifics of individual research projects are then – due to their more or less pronounced similarities – condensed into 'rules' which become paradigmatic for a distinct field of research. Coessens focuses on (self-) perception and ref lexivity on the part of artistic researchers using Leonardo da Vinci's mirrors in an octagonal chamber, where they reveal new relationships between the views, outlooks and insights of the researchers. A drawing by Maurits Cornelis Escher (in which one can see a hand drawing another hand, which in turn is drawing the first hand) and a portrait by René Magritte of a man in front of a mirror (whose face should be visible in the mirror, but which cannot be 'reproduced' there and is thus replaced by a view of the back of his head) both finally direct the attention of the reader to the role of artistic researchers. As observers and observed, they fulfil – as the subject and object at the same time – a complex participatory function in the 'inside' and 'outside' of the knowledge process.

Proceeding from a silk scarf or veil metaphor, Darla M. Crispin is interested in specific epistemic issues, such as the range, embedding and limitations of our ability to experience and realise things. To this end she focuses on the three terms of ref lection, self-ref lexivity and autoethnography, which she views as being closely connected with the practice and discourse of artistic research. This takes place along a time axis: initially looking back at the

emergence of artistic research projects and corresponding PhD programmes in Europe, then referring to current approaches in Norway, where Crispin works, and finally prospectively to the relationship of these three terms to artistic research. Whereas ref lection is the expression of relational thinking (as the creation and analysis of relationships), self-ref lexivity is a form of personal affirmation and self-examination. As a method in artistic research projects, however, autoethnography is ref lective and self-ref lective at the same time, given that it views the researching artists as an integral part of the research process.

The violinist Mieko Kanno presents an experimental approach to artistic research. Her experiment consists of playing the same piece – in this case Salvatore Sciarrino's Violin Caprice in G – with two different designs: first as a standard performance standing in front of the audience, and then another sitting among them. With the listeners directly alongside her she feels the space less, and thus the second rendering takes less time, and she also plays more quietly. There is a potential here: that which is presented quietly can open doors and stimulate a f low which moves the listeners to allow music to be made in their heads from what they perceive. However, not every sound is suited to being transformed into music by the listeners. Soft and quiet sound offers its own types of poetry. With her performance experiments, Kanno wants to investigate under which conditions quiet sounds or even silence can provoke music in the heads of listeners. The softer the sounds, the more active listening becomes. At the same time, silence requires a grain of complicity with the player. A musician who plays quietly passes the responsibility for what they hear on to the listeners, and makes listening intersubjective and politicises sound, because the modes via which the subject interacts with the work form a part of the meaning: by creating a collision between the work and its perception, Kanno makes sounds expressive and communicative.

A different but nevertheless related approach to sound is followed by the contribution *voicing the auralist* by Till Bovermann, Thomas Grill, Tobias Leibetseder and Almut Schilling: *Rotting Sounds* is an artistic research project funded by the programme for arts-based research of the Austrian Science Fund (PEEK-FWF) which examines the temporal deterioration of digital audio. It also experiments – in the sense of cognition in doing – with the musical knowledge which arises through digital data and its physical erosion. The written contribution not only describes an experiment; at the same time it *is* an experiment. The authors try to approach experimentation at several levels: numerous expressions in brackets offer readers the opportunity to write the text themselves while reading it, to create their own understanding of what sound, but also "error correction" on digital recording media can mean.

In their contribution, the electroacoustic composer Johannes Kretz and the violist and ethnomusicologist Wei-Ya Lin present their PEEK-FWF project *Creative (Mis)Understandings*, which was started in 2018. The project is dedicated to the search for methods of transcultural inspiration. Its research partners include the Tao community of Taiwan. The Tao do not differentiate between performing artists and the audience, and trying this and other attitudes out also in other contexts is intended to help the project to strengthen the solidarity between artistic minorities in a heavily commercialised world of culture. What is being tested here is multidirectional inspiration with the goal of egalitarian interaction. Kretz and Lin contrast visualisation and the written form as academic (Western) paradigms of knowledge production with procedures that – like implicit knowledge – use other sensory realms than vision and text. In this way, the production of knowledge also occurs via listening, and sound creations can be understood as knowledge production. In their search for answers to the question of how research methods can be transformed into processes of artistic creation, Kretz and Lin are developing trans-disciplinary methods which combine ethnomusicological and compositional approaches. The artistic output of the project includes individual and collective compositions, improvisation, installations and new performance practices. The method of presenting the players with a "piece" in various forms of representation and expression is used to determine the extent to which certain cultural traditions and subject-specifics are central or peripheral to the respective product. The state of the project as presented in the book is January 2019. Shortly after the project began, new questions arose, including the issue of in which way social changes affect the aesthetics, significance and functions of music or sound in general.

In his contribution *Schallnamen*, Johannes Kreidler shares his ref lections on listening. While he emphasises the significance of language as a prerequisite for listening, his works also show how insights and knowledge can be generated by a work of art. His composition *Einleitung in die Musiksoziologie* functions as a piece of conceptual art as well as a work of art which creates insights and a new perspective of a cultural and social phenomenon.

"Can we develop communities of individuals who are participants of an ongoing dialogue?" (Bogart 2014, 2). Jörg Holkenbrink places this question by

the director and professor Anne Bogart at the beginning of his article *Risking sovereignty: Transdisciplinary research, context-oriented performance practices and the work of the Theater of Assemblage.*<sup>2</sup>  *A suggestion.* In the light of the changes occurring in forms of knowledge due to globalisation and individualisation, he investigates contemporary research and the embedding of current social issues in the performing arts. The focus here is on the productivity which can be generated by unfamiliarity. Jörg Holkenbrink was the founder of the research theatre located in the Performance Studies at the University of Bremen, situated between education, science and art – he was, because Jörg Holkenbrink succumbed to his serious illness shortly before this anthology was completed. We mourn for him. But his Theater of Assemblage lives on and continues to focus on the networking of different knowledge cultures. The pressing questions for Holkenbrink in this context were: Which settings, formats and dramaturgy support this aspiration? Which methods and practices are available for interventions and investigations? What needs to be considered, and which processes are required? Based on graphic examples, such as the culture of self-optimisation in *Brecht for Managers – Training for the Soul* and the click performance C COPY A, VERSCHLÜSSELT, which evokes different themes and questions in different contexts, he offers insights into the concepts and working methods of his Theater of Assemblage and encourages thinking to perhaps risk its own sovereignty at some point.

Doris Ingrisch uses her perspective as an "artistic-thinking academic who is responsible for the establishment of Cultural Gender Studies at the mdw – University of Music and the Performing Arts Vienna" to provide impulses in the discourse on the epistemes of a wide range of forms of knowledge in the arts and research. As an academic 'inter' viewer of artists, she has a wealth of experience in conducting "conversations in between". This led her to the opinion that an 'in between' or 'intra' viewing is necessary in order to be able to "rethink the classical Western modes of knowledge assigned to the arts and sciences together with the hegemonic gender order" (Ingrisch 2020, 152) and thus to sharpen the awareness that the performative effect of world production is inherent in every kind of research. The potential to participate creatively at this point as a researcher arises from ref lections on the epistemology of art-based research.

<sup>2</sup> See the website of the Theater of Assemblage: https://www.tdv.uni-bremen.de/

Maintaining a love of art AND philosophy was at the heart of the lecture performance by the actor Susanne Valerie [Granzer] and the philosopher Arno Böhler entitled *In Love with Art & Philosophy // Between Art & Philosophy*, whose scenes we are now able to experience again with the means offered by a book. The actor and the philosopher allow the audience to take part in their own joint artistic-philosophical journey of discovery, and breathe life into the field of artistic research. The inextricable nature of a sensuous lifeworld and thinking become perceptible in content and form. By admitting physical existence into the field of research, the traditional coordinates change. What does art have to be, and what does philosophy have to be? On the basis of interwoven insights into their own biographies and into the history of philosophy, their desire for both, for art AND philosophy, becomes comprehensible. Why separate them? The audience of this lecture performance is stimulated by words and play to take advantage of the opportunity to examine their own sets of values. An experimental interlude invites them to immerse themselves in sensuous experiences. What happens to us when we get a sense of the violence which lies in only being able to exist in one of the poles set by 'Western' culture and philosophy, art OR philosophy?

Whereas artistic research works fairly closely in connection with certain arts – from visual arts to composition, from design to film production – the field of interpretation and (not only) musical performance seems to be of particular interest for *knowing in performing* and for the future development of artistic research. This is one of the reasons for the relevance of the contribution by Barbara Lüneburg entitled *Worldmaking – Knowing through Performing*. The violin player and performance artist ref lects on epistemological issues which appear in performance practice and addresses sources of knowledge, the type of knowledge which is produced by performers, and methodological tools. She also examines the presentation and dissemination of research results and considers the conditions and limits of the acquisition of knowledge through performance practice and artistic research in general, in a search for the epistemological potential of performing above and beyond musical activities themselves.

Last but not least, Anton Rey uses the example of two research projects to provide insights into the research paradigms and interdisciplinary work methods of the Institute for Performing Arts & Film (IPF) at the Zurich University of the Arts: *Analogue/ Digital* deploys qualitative and empirical methods to investigate the emotional effect on cinema audiences of analogue

filming techniques compared to digital ones. *A*t the interface between philosophy, drama research and neurology, *Actor and Avatar* examines the difference between the art of acting and that which avatars can achieve in films. The assumption that this difference is diminishing could have fundamental effects on drama training. At the same time, these multi-perspective investigations show how artistic research can only ever take place with and in art as aesthetic epistemology, which cannot have any methodological limits and demands its own specific expression and readability.

We would like to thank all of the lecturers, moderators, organisers and all those who contribute towards the discourse on artistic research at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna – and to its critical continuation. This volume aims to be a source of inspiration and knowledge for this purpose.

Our thanks also go out to all those who were involved in the creation of the book. Above all we wish to thank Karoline Feyertag for her subject-related competence, her prudence, and her commitment to realising this project in the midst of one of the crises of our age.

*The publishers Vienna, April 2020*

#### **Literature**


# **The Pot Calling the Kettle Black** An Essay on the State of Artistic Research

*Efva Lilja*

The object of artistic research is art. As artists we engage in research to become better at what we are doing, for the development of knowledge and methods. We introduce new ideas in order to rethink art, become leaders, increase audience engagement, investigate new presentation formats, tackle political and societal issues, or to develop sustainable practices. We do it for the relevance of art in an ever more complex and diverse society.

The threat to artistic research is political ignorance and lack of insight as well as a conservative view of knowledge which tries to mould art into the established structures of academia. Art runs the risk of being held hostage by those universities where artistic quality is subjugated by pedagogical or scientific standards. In many countries there is still resistance and opposition to artistic research on artistic bases and art is forced into areas that demand methods, theories and training developed for science. How will this affect art? And to what extent are we, the artists, to blame if this happens?

We all live and work in a context, in a reality we can inf luence through what we do and say, how we live and act, how we deal with practice. Given the current situation for culture and art in Europe, the markets for performing art are experiencing rapid change towards increased commercialisation. This is a factor that affects the need for research activities and the expectations they must meet.

With the digital explosion and the requirements from a globalised world comes a sharp increase in the demand for interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary research methods, and the transfer of results into concrete implementation. We must challenge the status quo. This takes a measure of individual and institutional disobedience. To do this, one must stay in shape and be on the move, physically and intellectually. That is how we can stimulate ourselves to insights that make us capable of dealing with the inescapable uncertainty and fuzziness of the future.

To keep in shape and be creative, we need opportunities for in-depth work processes, risk-taking, experiments and research that does not necessarily lead to a performance as a final product. We need time for the kind of processes that are no longer attainable in an increasingly commercialised market. We are dependent on meeting others in order to catch sight of ourselves, of our ideas, thoughts, opinions, tastes and political positioning. We need time for collegial dialogue and international exchange. Through indepth work processes and research we can assume the right of interpretation and responsibility of and for issues for which art may hold the answer.

Not all artists are potential researchers, but all innovative art demands a certain amount of research. Some artists do this in an academic context, some outside of academia. Anyone can call themselves a researcher or claim a research practice, but to gain formal recognition as a researcher one must fulfill the required sharing and documentation that makes one's research available to peers/colleagues for an exchange of views, project reviews and critical dialogue.

I have been involved in the development of artistic research since the 1990s. For 25 years I have witnessed in Sweden a development from a situation in which the academic world actively worked against artistic research to a climate of openness and co-operation, in which the artistic researcher is given real opportunities to work on an artistic basis, supported by a legal framework and sufficient infrastructure. The latter refers to the application of artistic methods, the formation of artistic theory, and the financing of senior artistic research on par with the requirements for scientific research. Art is afforded the same opportunities to inf luence society as science. This has not always been a given. As artists, we have been actively engaged to make this happen through lobbyism, activism and as experts in our field. What do we then do with these opportunities? How does all this contribute to the development of the arts? How does it affect our ability to produce, engage and facilitate dialogue? Does it really affect us?

I am focused on contemporary choreographic performative art – an area that is seriously disadvantaged in many countries, and in which there is no higher education on an artistic basis, or no education at all above BA level in some countries. Many European countries accept an artistic basis for research at BA level, but demand traditional academic approaches for an MA or PhD. This also applies to a so-called 'practice-based' PhD. Judging from academic institutions I have visited, this means a weaker artistic result.

The reasons for this are either that (1) candidates are accepted on the wrong criteria; or (2) those who select candidates are not merited or are poorly updated on contemporary art and/or its role in society; or (3) the market compels less competent artists to choose an academic career for lack of professional opportunities; (4) or universities design their programmes in a way that runs counter to innovative art; or (5) senior artistic research is not considered a priority.


Universities have established themselves lately as a complementary market, particularly in countries where cultural policies have collapsed and support for innovative art has been put on hold. These are countries in which artists find it increasingly difficult to finance their work, with many of them forced to seek alternatives, such as positions as teachers, doctoral or postdoc researchers.

4. When universities design doctoral programmes within the arts on a scientific basis, the artist is deprived of the chance to conduct specific in-depth artistic research to further the arts; if these programmes are supervised by professors with only theoretical knowledge the whole idea is lost. Artistic education must be conducted on an artistic basis, supported by theories aimed at the development of artistic competence, artistic method and artistic practice – not the other way around. Artistic research must be supervised by artistic professors/artists, happily in collaboration with professors from other fields of knowledge.

5. All higher education within the arts should be supported at the senior level by artists who are professors within their field of art. The title of professor should be bestowed on artists with documented experience of art at a high professional level. This should be judged by a group of peers with knowledge and experience in the specific field.

All higher education should be affiliated with research. The idea is that all artistic researchers must have the same opportunities as researchers within other fields of knowledge to attain academic degrees and gain access to funding and infrastructure for research. Only then can art be properly represented within the academic world.

It is always interesting to discuss criteria for the assessment of artistic quality or a "high professional level". In my book *Art, Research, Empowerment – on the artist as researcher* (Lilja 2015) I write about quality criteria developed by peers and used to value a choreographic work, as an example:


To be able to answer questions such as these, one requires knowledge in and of choreography, artistic process and production, both from experience and commitment to the field. Good art is not equal to good artistic research. Good artistic research is not the same as good art.

"Artistic research is research conducted with artistic practice as its base and artistic practice as its object." Lars-Göran Karlsson, as quoted in *Art, Research, Empowerment* (Lilja 2015, 14).

Artistic research is conducted by artists who research within and through the arts. Artistic methodologies are applied, and the end result is presented in the way that is best suited to the content and theme of the project. The research can take place within groups with cross-disciplinary and/or scientific

competences, or as a solitary effort. The process and the results are documented and made available to peers/colleagues with relevant competences from the same field (art form/discipline) who meet in the research environment for an exchange of views, project reviews and critical dialogue.

When one experiments, researches or produces innovative projects for the market, there are no demands for documentation, publication or collegial sharing. Nor is there much time for in-depth processes, ref lection or living non-productively. A filter of political correctness is often added to the work. To be frank, many artists adapt their ideas and themes to those of public debate or current trends. Art institutions often prioritise works that lie within trends and are expected to draw a large audience. Artistic processes, however, cannot be streamlined and adapted without losing their relevance. Who dares to go against these trends?

The artistic researcher, just like the artist "on the market", must have time to think – to practice thinking. One must have time to critically ref lect about the art one would like to see/do/experience – one needs time to fantasise. One must face the consequences of such questions and find solutions; or as choreographers Paula Kramer and Stephanie Misa ask in their article *Artistic Research as a Tool of Critique:* "How then can we develop and position our research projects, doctoral and otherwise, so they don't fall prey to stabilising structures that threaten the existence of multiplicity in all kinds of possible ways, attending instead to the complexities of situated, historically embedded, critical research?" (Kramer & Misa 2019)

Whatever you do must be done fully for it to attain relevance, to make a difference. To do something "just right" is not enough for a person who wants to see progress. Art becomes important only when it touches you, shakes you and/or offers an alternative to the given. This demands courage and a knowledge of art, culture, society and politics. It also implies an element of risk. This responsibility always lies primarily with the artist and secondly with her or his counterpart – the audience. The links are the producer, the curator and the media. When it comes to research, the responsibility lies first and foremost with the artist and secondly with their counterpart – the academy.

How can we, then, avoid becoming stuck in comfort and adaptation to systems that promise more than what we ourselves expect to accomplish? How can we act to find alternatives that support the needs of those who are investigating, experimenting and innovating? If the system and/or infrastructure do not fit the purpose, they must be changed.

To move on we must practise thinking, questioning and rephrasing the commonplace with integrity and individuality. We must work to bring spatial as well as conceptual sites into dialogue with the contemporary, to seek enhanced living in movement. That is how our attention is sharpened. That is how alternative expressions are created. That is how systems are changed. The act of living embodied in and through movement.

Research (at its best) stimulates collegial interaction and makes collective effort possible. We do have needs in common and are certainly capable of suggesting alternatives for change. Research can contribute to new market platforms with the aim of making contemporary art available to broad and diverse audiences; it can focus on empowerment, capacity building and social cohesion; it can initiate, develop and implement social innovation processes based on cultural and artistic formats; it can promote interdisciplinary formats, methods and instruments for cultural production and innovation processes. We can do it.

We see, hear and feel movements that are space and time at the same time. Objects are moved around their translations, transposed into transgressing boundaries. Academia must offer conditions to make it possible for the artist, fed by a hunger for knowledge and new insights, to take the risks needed to work with research and innovation, including (good conditions for) work for endangered practices. This is a question of infrastructure and politics. Politics shape the conditions.

As attentive, creative and empathic individuals, we are all needed with our individual insights and visions – with our practices, with our research. We are all active in the creation of our futures, of futurities to be approached as consequences of practice. We must strengthen the opportunities to engage in knowledge production, enhance our chances for a career and put the public in direct contact with qualitative and challenging artistic endeavours. The academic context can be most fruitful and rewarding for artistic research, but it can just as well be in contradiction with what art needs, a hindrance for progress.

It is up to us as artists to focus on how we can make academic infrastructures embrace artistic research, and which aspects we think can enhance the relevance of art and its presence in our lives. This, I would say, takes a measure of individual and institutional disobedience. Boundaries must be expanded and extended, and conventions based on tradition exploded … One simply can't let the pot call the kettle black.

#### **Literature**


# **Artistic Research and Music Research** Epistemological Status, Interdisciplinary Forms, and Institutional Conditions

#### *Georgina Born*

In this paper, I want to address some large questions by holding up aspects of the history of music research (MR) and what can be gleaned from it against the current discourse on artistic research (AR). Moving between music research and artistic research comparatively in this way opens up fruitful insights and lines of enquiry. The focus will be on scrutinizing the epistemological and interdisciplinary status of both artistic research and music research and, in the last section, on the institutional conditions that have been conducive to their eff lorescence.

I begin by addressing these issues through the work of the inf luential exponent of and commentator on artistic research, Henk Borgdorff. To address AR's epistemological standing, Borgdorff draws on the historian of science Hans-Jörg Rheinberger. He sets it up like this, with reference to one of Rheinberger's key concepts, 'experimental systems':

"In his study of the history and practice of research in the natural sciences, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger has demonstrated that 'experimental systems' are the centre and the motor of modern scientific research. Rheinberger's historical case studies, extending from the pre-war genetic experiments to present-day molecular biology, show that the dynamics of experimental systems can only be understood as an interplay of machines, preparations, techniques, rudimentary concepts, vague objects, protocols, research notes, and the social and institutional conditions in which these are employed […]. Experiments are the actual generators of [the resulting] knowledge – knowledge of which we previously had no knowledge at all. Experimental systems

#### 36 Georgina Born

are 'machines for making the future', as Rheinberger (2006a: 25/28) has observed." (Borgdorf f 2016, 189)

Borgdorff continues by introducing Rheinberger's second key concept: "Experimental systems are characterised by the interplay and entwinement of 'technical objects' and '*epistemic things*' – the technical conditions under which an experiment takes place and the objects of knowledge whose emergence they enable" (Borgdorff 2016, 189; emphasis added). And he goes on,

"Rheinberger speaks in this context of a synchronic intertwinement of the epistemic and the technical, and of a diachronic intertwinement of dif ference and reproduction. Rheinberger has deliberately chosen the term 'thing' rather than 'object', in order to signify the indeterminate, not yet crystallised status of the knowledge object. Epistemic things are 'chronically underdetermined' (Rheinberger 2008: 14´30˝). Experimental systems must be suf ficiently open to allow these indistinct things to come into view; enough space must be present *to produce what we do not yet know*. This openness and room for not-knowing, or not-yet-knowing, cannot be imposed by stern methodological procedures. As Rheinberger points out, serendipity, intuition, and improvisation are at least as important in laboratory practice as the attempts that are made to stabilise the technical conditions in which experiments take place." (Borgdorf f 2016, 190; emphasis added)

It is at this point that the parallels Borgdorff wants to draw between scientific experimental systems and epistemic things and the practices of AR come into view. He suggests:

"The artistic research programme is a case where we acknowledge from the start that the research 'object' or 'issue' does not have a fixed identity – which invites, in principle, unfinished thinking. Due to the nonconceptual content of artistic research – the fact that what is at stake can only partially be 'captured' discursively – it evades any definitive epistemological 'grip', while at the same time opening up a perspective on what we do not yet know. *'Artistic things' are epistemic things par excellence; they create room for that which is unthought*." (Borgdorf f 2016, 181-82; emphasis added)

I have quoted at length to convey how fully Borgdorff explores the parallels he wants to draw between AR and Rheinberger's epistemic things, and thus far these parallels are evocative and convincing. It is later that a surprising and definitive tension enters his book when he proposes seven criteria that he argues together constitute an 'assessment framework' for evaluating AR, which he arrives at via a series of key questions posed to any AR project. Among them are intent – whether the particular artistic practice at issue is intended to be research – and originality – whether this AR practice "shows evidence of innovation in content, form or technique in relation to a genre of practice" (231). So far, so good. But when it comes to three more of his seven criteria – contextualisation, methodology, and enhancement of knowledge – a subtle shift occurs, because all three as he discusses them are far closer to scientific epistemology than to existing conceptions of artistic practice. All three also have very clear foundations in academic research norms. Thus, contextualisation demands "a positioning with respect to social, artistic, and/or theoretical issues and to relevant work by oneself and other artists" (Borgdorff 2016, 235), just as in academic research. Methodology appears relatively contentious for Borgdorff and suggests a focus on the "adequacy and soundness of the methods used and the thoroughness of research, analysis, and experiment" (Borgdorff 2016, 236) – again, standard norms for academic research. Enhancement of knowledge entails, in turn, questions as to "whether or not the [AR project] provides new knowledge, interpretation, insights or experiences, and what (kind of) new knowledge, interpretation, insights or experiences these comprise" (Borgdorff 2016, 231).

Having aired these and other criteria, Borgdorff ref lects: "it is a point of debate whether [the] experiential component of artistic research – the aesthetic experience – can be considered to belong to the space of reasons. *Or does this experience, which, although cognitive, is non-conceptual and non-discursive, have no epistemological bearing?*" (Borgdorff 2016, 234; emphasis added). This revealing and frankly rhetorical ref lection surely indicates the fragile nature of the suture that Borgdorff is attempting to achieve between academic and scientific research epistemologies, on the one hand, and the emergent, as yet unconsolidated terrain of AR epistemology, on the other. In effect, the more exploratory, experimental avenues that he has opened up via Rheinberger give way to longstanding normative tropes – thoroughness or rigour, soundness of method, new knowledge and so on – and the chasm between them is left failingly unbridged. I use Borgdorff's aporetic text to

point to the elusive nature of the epistemological claims that have been made for artistic research, as well as the ambivalence that seems to arise in discussions of these claims. Can AR be argued to have epistemological properties akin to those of scientific research? Borgdorff, a leading theorist and contributor to the discourse on AR, appears unresolved on this matter. And this should surely prompt us to question what is to be gained by the very project of drawing analogies between AR and scientific research.

When it comes to music research (MR), the picture is different. This is because the history of MR is tightly bound up with certain kinds of interdisciplinary endeavour between musicians and composers, on the one hand, and scientists and technologists, on the other. Hence, the whole question of whether MR can claim strong epistemological foundations for its 'research' component has, in a sense, been overdetermined or finessed by the far more obviously scientific and technological nature of MR. A central thread of the history here has been captured by Hannah B. Higgins and Douglas Kahn in their book *Mainframe Experimentalism* (2012). They write of the 'long' 1960s that this "was a time when simple access to computers was determined by institutional rather than consumer logics. These institutions [including corporate centres like Bell Labs and university computer laboratories] inhered to geopolitical, military, corporate, and scientific priorities that were not immediately or obviously amenable to the arts. For those artists [and musicians] lucky enough to find access to these computers, technical requirements mandated the expertise of engineers, so the process was always collaborative, yet rarely sustainable over any great length of time" (Higgins and Kahn 2012, 1). My book *Rationalizing Culture* (Born 1995) updates the picture to the 1980s through an ethnographic study of IRCAM, the world-leading computer music research institute in Paris founded in the late 1970s by the composer Pierre Boulez. At the core of my book is a portrayal of the close entanglement between engineers and composers in a formative period of the emergence and academic institutional consolidation of MR.

In my book I show how, by the 1980s, 'music research' had come to be equated with an expansive array of interdisciplinary engagements between musicians and composers, on the one hand, and computer scientists designing music software, engineers designing computer hardware, and scientific specialists in the fields of psychoacoustics, acoustics and room acoustics, on the other. I chart the intimate modes of everyday practice whereby software designers proffered tools to be tested out by composers and thereby re-de-

signed, and the complex division of labour in which composers were to be both served and 'tutored' by scientists and technologists in order to be able to work with the programmes and machines. These interdisciplinary practices had much longer roots in the experimental practices developed between music and computation, as the contributors to *Mainframe Experimentalism* show. And in the three decades since my study this form of interdisciplinarity has consolidated, becoming characteristic of the academic electronic and computer music fields in the present. In fact, it has both expanded and generated a novel autonomy on the technoscientific side, in the guise of the growth of university centres for MR that have no representation of creative practitioners – composers or musicians – but revolve primarily around funded engineering research, often linked to industry. In the UK the leading example is the Centre for Digital Music based at Queen Mary, University of London.1

Crucially, as a result of this partnering with scientific and technological development, the epistemological status of MR appears clearer and less in doubt than that of AR. Music, it seems, can get caught up in orthodox forms of technoscientific research in ways that make it relatively obvious and easy to make claims about MR's scientific status. However, three key qualifications have to be made here immediately. First, this particular form of music-technoscience interdisciplinarity is in fact less interdisciplinary than multidisciplinary, for it is often based (as at IRCAM) on the institutionalisation, and therefore the prolongation, of a division of labour between composer or musician on one side and scientist or engineer on the other. In such an arrangement, neither side of the music-technoscience division of labour is likely to undergo significant transformation on the basis of their interdisciplinary engagement; rather, the skill sets and their associated epistemic underpinnings tend to reproduce themselves, becoming rigidified. In fact, in practice this favours what Barry and Born call a 'subordination-service' mode of interdisciplinarity (Barry, Born, & Weszkalnys 2008; Barry & Born 2013, 10-12) in which science and engineering are brought in apparently as subordinate disciplines to 'serve' what are assumed to be the pre-existing, autonomous creative 'visions' or 'needs' of composers and musicians. Such a mode also, therefore, embodies and buttresses the longstanding idealist model of the musical work in which the composer-as-hero is assumed to be

<sup>1</sup> See the website of the Centre for Digital Music: http://c4dm.eecs.qmul.ac.uk

the sole repository of creative genius and to require support – the input of scientists and engineers – conducive to its unsullied expression (Goehr 1992; Born 1995).

It is only from the late 1980s through the 1990s that an alternative model of interdisciplinarity developed in this area – that of 'interdisciplinarity in one person' (Barry & Born 2013, 29) – because of the increasing availability and affordability of laptop computers and related software applications, enabling individuals and groups to 'skill up' and develop personalised computing environments or to work with standard music platforms and languages, including real-time languages for music synthesis, composition, performance and improvisation like SuperCollider or ChucK. 'Interdisciplinarity in one person' signals the arrival of MR practitioners who are themselves able to cross the boundary between music and technoscience, and therefore able to foster creative directions spanning this boundary (Dean 2009; Haworth 2018; McLean & Dean 2018). This kind of approach is based on premises such as "live music-making [as] a rich open task requires a rich open [computer] interface" (Stowell & McLean 2013, 1); that is, it espouses the intrinsic entanglement, the necessary co-dependence and co-evolution of creativity in both musical and technological practices. Attesting to the growth and maturity of this broad position within MR is the appearance over the past fifteen years of an annual conference and interdisciplinary field devoted to these practices called NIME.<sup>2</sup>

A second qualification is that the predominance of the type of interdisciplinarity described between music and technoscience tends to detract attention from other kinds of interdisciplinarity in which music has been and might become entangled – for example, music's interdisciplinary opening to philosophical and literary currents, or to other areas of science such as the environmental and ecological sciences and humanities (Rehding 2002; Pedelty 2013; Allen & Dawe 2015; Devine 2015). The simple awareness of the existence of interdisciplinary currents of MR less oriented towards, and even critical of technoscience effects an important rebalancing with regard to the spectacular visibility and audibility of technoscientific MR. And this raises the third qualification: the down side of technoscientific MR. For the partnering between music composition and performance, on one side, and science and engineering, on the other, brings serious risks of instrumentalisation

<sup>2</sup> New Interfaces for Musical Expression: http://www.nime.org/

given that, through this multidisciplinary partnering, music gets ineluctably caught up in and mediated by the industrial and commercial logics and dynamics fuelled by technoscientific 'innovation'. This 'innovation' telos is in fact a far more common and general driver for interdisciplinarity and is associated with what Barry and Born term a "logic of innovation": in short, forms of interdisciplinarity motivated by goals of boosting economic growth (Barry & Born 2013). An obvious example today, in music, is the global development of the academic field of Music Information Retrieval (MIR) (Schedl, Gómez & Urbano 2014), which styles itself a scientific field based on extensions of AI into music, including machine learning and 'computational intelligence', but which also informs the design of 'real world applications' like the recommendation algorithms driving global commercial music streaming services like Spotify, last.fm and Apple Music (Drott 2018a; Drott 2018b).

Returning to the epistemological status of artistic research, and in light of the central role of interdisciplinarity in legitimizing the epistemological standing of music research, we can now ask: how does Borgdorff portray interdisciplinarity in relation to AR? When we trace Borgdorff's statements about AR and interdisciplinarity, another ambivalent picture emerges. He draws positively on the legacy of Nowotny, Scott and Gibbons' paradigm of 'Mode 2 knowledge production', which advocates a strong form of interdisciplinarity (Nowotny et al. 2001). According to their well-known account, a "transformation is occurring in the relationship of science and society", an epochal shift from a culture of scientific autonomy to a culture of accountability, where the latter is accompanied by a growing diversity of sites at which knowledge is produced and by the increasing importance of what they call the "context of application" as a site for research – how "problems are formulated from the very beginning within a dialogue among a large number of different actors" (Nowotny 2004, 1). Nowotny et al. therefore propose that "much of the thrust of innovation is coming from new links between traditionally segmented producers and users. Moreover, this contextualization of research around the interests of stakeholders fosters a more 'socially robust' [and ref lexive] knowledge that transgresses disciplinary and institutional boundaries" (Nowotny et al. 2001, 67). On these grounds, Nowotny and her colleagues encourage what they call transdisciplinary research which, they contend, is not derived from and transcends the boundaries of pre-existing disciplines.

Ref lecting on these ideas in relation to artistic research, Borgdorff considers initially how Mode 2 might be thought to be characteristic of AR. In this vein he speculates as follows:

"Especially the type of artistic research that combines the aesthetic project and the creative process with questions and topics from broader areas of life (such as globalisation, identity, gender, or mediality, to mention some common ones) may be characterised as transdisciplinary research if the synthesis achieved in the artwork has something additional (or dif ferent) to of fer, both conceptually and perceptually, as compared to the outcome that would have resulted from a disciplinary approach." (Borgdorf f 2016, 92)

Yet ultimately, Borgdorff is sceptical. Regarding Nowotny et al.'s suggestion about the increasing heterogeneity of institutions and spaces of research, he responds that "the bulk of the creation and transfer of knowledge […] articulated in artistic research still occurs in settings built for artists – studios, theatres, filmhouses, music venues, performance spaces, and galleries, which, for all their differences, are characterised by a certain organisational homogeneity" (Borgdorff 2016, 93). Regarding the greater ref lexivity and accountability of Mode 2 knowledge production, Borgdorff replies that "the agenda of artistic research seems to run counter to this kind of accountability and ref lexivity [since] art often takes an antithetical stance towards the existing world, and it delivers the unsolicited and the unexpected" (93). And regarding any putative prevalence of interdisciplinarity itself, he comments briskly that "*intra*disciplinary research (within the frameworks defined by a particular discipline) is also very common in the realm of the arts" (Borgdorff 2016, 92). Moreover, "the sui generis nature of artistic research practices can actually be seen as casting a critical light on the very dichotomy between Mode 1 and Mode 2 as put forward in Gibbons et al." (95). In sum, he contends, the main characteristics of Mode 2 knowledge production – "context of application, transdisciplinarity, heterogeneity and diversity, accountability and ref lexivity […] – thus apply to artistic research only some of the time, and usually not at all or only partially" (94). For Borgdorff, in short, artistic research has no necessary relationship with interdisciplinarity whatsoever.

If we turn to a very recent paper by Rheinberger, however, he gives a different view, and one that adds to our understanding. He distinguishes between two types of engagement between art and science: the exoteric

and the esoteric (Rheinberger 2019). The former, the exoteric, comes close to that instrumental arrangement identified earlier in relation to MR: Barry and Born's 'subordination-service' mode of interdisciplinarity (Barry & Born 2013). But where, in MR, science and engineering are often portrayed as serving musicians' artistic goals, in AR it is the obverse. Here, in AR, it is the artist that is subordinate to science, engaging with the products of laboratory work to explore and enhance "aesthetic aspects of [the] research products" or with the "technologies of data generation and visualization themselves, that is, with the *means* and the *media*" of the scientific practice in order to aestheticise the scientific products or results of these 'means' (Rheinberger 2019, 242). As Rheinberger comments, in this "confrontation between epistemology and aesthetics, the exchange process remains for the most part unilateral [or one-way]. […] The scientists of the involved laboratories […] remain frequently spectators" (Rheinberger 2019, 243), while the artists are expected *not* to engage in deep epistemological ways with the scientific process itself but, rather, to aestheticise or prettify scientific outputs so as to make them palatable to the public and to funding institutions. Such aestheticising forms of artistic research have often been associated with programmes and policies aimed at fostering the "public understanding of science" (Barry & Born 2013; Born & Barry 2013, 252-255). They represent, as Rheinberger acknowledges, an extremely limited version of the potential engagement between artists and scientists, and they contrast markedly with those artists (or art-scientists) who themselves attempt to develop 'interdisciplinarity in one person' by becoming profoundly involved with the scientific field they choose to focus on and thereby capable of innovative interventions in the *science* of those scientific fields in more than 'prettifying' ways. Exemplary of such an alternative practice is the art-scientist Beatriz Da Costa's interdisciplinary work in the field of air pollution monitoring. Da Costa's work provides an urgent model of how aesthetic, scientific-epistemological and political ambitions can be combined and results achieved in ways that confound the 'subordination-service' mode of interdisciplinarity. Instead her work exemplifies what Barry and Born call an 'antagonistic-agonistic' mode of interdisciplinary practice, one that envisages and promotes ontological shifts in the very nature of art, science and politics through an extraordinary and transformative art-science interdisciplinarity (Barry & Born 2013, 12-13; Born & Barry 2013).

Having sketched out this comparative terrain between artistic research and music research, their epistemological standing and distinctive forms of interdisciplinarity, I want to open, finally, some important questions to do with the very ways in which these categories – artistic research, music research – and the boundaries between them have become self-evident and reified. When reading historical accounts of the arts from the 1950s to the 1970s, for example Brandon Joseph's important studies (Joseph 2003; Joseph 2008; Joseph 2016), or a book such as *Mainframe Experimentalism*, or when perusing the journal *Leonardo*, one is inevitably struck by the convergence between the arts: music, visual and performance art, film and 'intermedia' practices closely intermingle, co-exist and co-mutate. This is, of course, not news either for practitioners or for critics working in the contemporary arts. Then why, we have to ask ourselves, have the categories of artistic research and music research become separated out in the last two decades? And why have independent discourses on them developed in ways that overlook vast areas of their mutuality and overlap, not least the rich and differentiated history of music research that I have been able only brief ly to allude to?

A similar question arises with regard to the status of history itself: if the category of music research has demanded and attracted a considerable amount both of historical research and, on that basis, of searching ref lexivity concerning its variegated forms – although more searching ref lexivity is needed, given the risks posed by the ascendance of the instrumentalised music-technoscientific orientation that I have described – then why is it that the discourse on artistic research that has emerged in recent decades exhibits little drive to base itself in a self-ref lexive historical understanding, and instead adopts a more presentist perspective? Few accounts of the concept of AR begin earlier than the mid to late 1990s, so the perceived historical depth of AR as a practice or field appears to be about twenty years. Strikingly, in comparison with MR, there seems little interest in AR as a historical phenomenon and little sense of the specific aesthetic and conceptual genealogies and institutional conditions that feed into and underpin it. So why is AR generally de-historicised in its self-representation? In short, surely both the 'purification' of AR from MR and the de-historicisation of AR are problematic tendencies. In my final remarks I want to connect these observations to wider institutional conditions that may have favoured or accelerated these tendencies.

I base my comments on institutional conditions in the UK, since this is what I know best. Readers will be able to extrapolate what I write to other countries or, on the contrary, contrast my sketch with conditions they are familiar with in other territories – although it seems that Britain has exer-

cised considerable international inf luence in these areas in recent decades. I begin with the appearance from the mid-1990s of policies brought to bear on Britain's universities that shaped what has come to be known (perhaps reductively) as the 'neoliberal university' (e.g. Olssen and Peters 2005; Abendroth and Porfilio 2015). These policies encouraged a series of major changes by implementing marketisation and corporatisation and by turning the universities towards goals of economic competitiveness and growth, meeting social needs and fostering student employment. At the same time, the universities were subject to the imposition of what was called 'new public management', an ironic term because the techniques being introduced into Britain's public sector, including the universities, were modelled on private, corporate management techniques. Under this rubric, from the late 1990s the universities became subject to linked auditing and accountability regimes. A series of audits were introduced with the aim of measuring and delivering greater accountability to the public, external stakeholders and students, the central mechanisms being the auditing of research (see below) and more recently teaching (via the 'Teaching Excellence Framework') and 'customer satisfaction' (via the National Student Survey). To these regimes have been added a series of new policy rubrics: ideas of the knowledge economy, cultural economy and creative industries, of knowledge transfer and knowledge exchange. In turn, these rubrics are equated with cultivating innovation, enterprise, spin-offs and start-ups as well as partnerships with industry, government or the public sector. The aim has been to engender entrepreneurial subjectivities among coming generations of arts and humanities academics and graduates. From this time on, emblazoned on the home page of Britain's main funding body for the arts and humanities, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), one encounters funding schemes designed to encourage 'Knowledge transfer partnerships' and similar projects. To gain research funding it is necessary to conform to these new rules of the game.

Particularly important was one element of the rising audit culture in the universities. It was the implementation from 1986 on of a regular audit of research across all British universities every four to six years, originally called the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and renamed in the last decade the Research Excellence Framework (REF). This has been a formative historical development in the universities because, for over two decades, a considerable proportion of government funding has come to be distributed on the basis of the outcome of these periodic audits: the ranking of universities according to their relative research performance. The effect has been to elevate research above other aspects of academic life and functioning. To come to the point: it is a plausible hypothesis, then, that the rise of the discourse of artistic research, in the UK at least, responds in part to this elevation of research across the British university system as a whole.

Three other developments converge with this one, strengthening this hypothesis. The first is how these changes have coincided with the intensification of a long process over forty or fifty years of the decline of Britain's independent art and design schools. In short, the public art schools have been subject in this period to closure, rationalisation and being absorbed into the universities. Previously, almost every British city had its own independent art school. Founded in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries, they provided trainings in technical and design trades like printing, textiles and ceramics, as well as the fine arts. From the 1960s they began, first, to be absorbed into the polytechnics, and when the polytechnics became universities in 1992, into the UK university sector. Now, most arts and music trainings (with the exception of a few music conservatories) occur within the universities – and are thereby subject to all the previous conditions outlined. In parallel, the EU Bologna Process has overseen the ascent of arts doctorates, favouring the shift of the arts in the UK into university environments that, for the reasons given, came from the late 1980s to be focused primarily on the value of research.

The second related development is how the paradigm of artistic research, as well as practice-led or practice-based research, came to be fuelled in Europe by the standardisation of higher education into a 'three cycle system' under the Bologna Process. This further catalyzed the academicisation of former vocational arts and music courses, fostering the growth of practice-based doctoral programmes across the arts and a re-siting of these doctoral trainings within universities as opposed to independent art schools. Henceforth, hybrid PhD programmes with a mandatory research element favoured 'research' practices in music and the arts. As a consequence, arts doctorates requiring a combination of artistic practice and a research component have mushroomed internationally and are the model favoured in the British universities in the arts and in music.

The third parallel development concerns a crisis in public and, particularly, governmental belief in the value of the arts and culture, including the humanities. This questioning of the value of the arts and culture was, of

course, at work in the previous developments, notably the establishment of neoliberal university policies intended to foster economic growth allied to concepts of the knowledge, cultural or creative economy. The diffuse sense of a devaluation of the arts and humanities led to a felt need for new kinds of defence of their value – beyond older academic understandings of their intrinsic value. This defensive stance is apparent in statements by 'elder statesmen' among British humanists, a leading voice being the Cambridge intellectual historian Stefan Collini. The defence is epitomised by his muchcited book *What Are Universities For?* (Collini 2012), which is publicised by the statement that "across the world, universities are more numerous than they have ever been, yet at the same time there is unprecedented confusion about their purpose and scepticism about their value" (Collini 2012, blurb). A great deal of pressure has been brought to bear on the arts and humanities through this crisis of value and legitimation. Another symptomatic outcome was the publication by Geoffrey Crossick, former head of the AHRC, of a research report called *Understanding the Value of Arts and Culture* (Crossick & Kaszynska 2016). What is striking is how this publication, under pressure to identify new sources of value and legitimation for the arts, attempts to develop new measures and rationales adapted to the audit-led neoliberal academic environment. Particularly marked is a strong sociological turn such that participation in the arts is identified as having intrinsic social value, along with a new valorisation of popular and 'amateur' cultures as well as the cultures of Britain's black, Asian and ethnic minority communities. At the same time, the report expounds the idea that the arts and culture help to shape ref lective individuals, promote engaged citizens and stimulate urban regeneration. What are being proposed, then, are definitively *extrinsic* criteria of value and legitimation for the arts. While, in this writer's estimation, the articulation of these extrinsic criteria of value represents an important and positive development, since it recognises aspects of the value of the arts that have long been overlooked, it also risks a new type of sociological instrumentalisation of the arts. Overall, what I am suggesting is that the academicisation of the arts, and the turn to research, might in part be seen as responding to the wider sense of crisis over the value and legitimacy of the arts – although they also risk exacerbating this sense of crisis.

To conclude, I offer a provocative historical thesis regarding the genealogy of artistic research. If, at least in Britain, the former independent art schools are considered to have made critical contributions to the eff lorescence from the 1960s to the 1980s both of British conceptual and post-conceptual art and of British popular culture and music, then, with the move of arts trainings inside the universities subject to the institutional conditions described, can artistic research be understood as a kind of academicised, institutionalised and normalised prolongation or outgrowth of the genealogy of conceptual and post-conceptual art? To put it humorously, is artistic research the defanging of conceptual art? In the absence of interrogative histories of these surely related phenomena, my provocation can only hang unresolved in the air. As yet we have little sense of the specific aesthetic, conceptual and – given the contributory role of art schools and universities – pedagogical genealogies that have been formative of artistic research as it has emerged today. To make explicit the implications of this chapter: we need research on these genealogies – in the full sense elaborated by Foucault (1977). Not only do we need these genealogical histories but, as argued earlier, we need such genealogies *not* to take for granted the separation of artistic research and music research, in order to explore their convergence and mutualities as well as historical divergences. Borgdorff and Rheinberger, however significant their work, position us only at the threshold of the scholarship and self-understanding that are necessary preconditions for the now-urgent debates to be had: debates about the epistemological status of artistic research and music research, about the contributions to both fields of distinctive kinds of interdisciplinarity, and on this basis – most importantly – about what these fields *could* (pragmatically) and *should* (normatively) become in the future.

#### **Literature**


## **Artistic Paths in Five Images** Questioning Artistic Research

*Kathleen Coessens*

#### **Introduction: META HODOS**

After more than twenty years of active and institutionalised artistic research in most European countries, we can ask the question of the existence of a specific research community. Is there something like an artistic research environment, in many ways separated from artistic practices? Or is artistic research not, instead of being part of a research community or environment, part of the environing artistic practice itself? If the latter is the case, then artistic practice cannot just be an 'application' of artistic research but is itself the inherent ground, origin, action, goal, and meaning of artistic research.

Some years ago, I presented a lecture on artistic research, *To submit or not to submit: Negotiating artistic research in the academic world* (Coessens 2018), in which I considered the position of artistic research inside the broad world of research – its scientific and academic environments. In those milieus, the environing research traditions, scientific communities, the shared agendas and spaces of disciplines, and broader the history, education and the ideological framework or worldview researchers have inherited and adopted, offer a framework in which 'to research'. The research happens inside an epistemic environment – the production of knowledge – that is different from the ongoing practice – the subject of the research.

Of course, all research activities are also practices: all knowledge evolves from specific ways of doing, behaving, acting, be it by way of analysis, exploration, experimentation, observation and/or ref lection. The plane of interaction and negotiation between the ongoing practices and the construction of discursive and epistemic evidence is at the heart of not only a research

community but also of each cultural community, continuously developing skills and knowledge, know-how and know-that.

In this paper, I will not answer the question of a specific separate and defined artistic research community. Sincerely, I do not believe that such a distinct community exists. Artistic research and its practitioners, artistic researchers, are part of an artistic community, a community of artists. Losing the bind with artistic practice, with artists, makes it almost impossible to engage deeply with artistic research. Of course, here artistic research is considered as research through the arts fully embedded in the practice of the arts – different from musicology, art sciences or observer-based research (Frayling 1993).1 Henk Borgdorff, a theoretician in artistic research, expresses this view very clearly: "We can justifiably speak of artistic research when that artistic practice is not only the result of the research, but also its methodological vehicle, when the research unfolds in and through the acts of creating and performing." (Borgdorff 2012, 147)

How, then, can we define the way of doing artistic research, its methods and methodology? Does this not depend upon artistic practice itself and the role of research in it, its ways of transmission, its ways of know-how, its processes of intellectual, embodied, sensorial- and tradition- based experiences, often considered as connoisseurship or craftsmanship?

Meta hodos is the etymological background of method, *meta* meaning 'half, over, beyond', but also 'higher, transcending', and *hodos* referring to a journey, a way of doing, a path. A path is something created by way of a systematic practice. It has a goal – moving from one point to another – and is a path only because many walkers use it. The word 'metaphor', another concept in this context, has a shared beginning: *meta*. The ancient Greek *metaphora* means literally 'a carrying over', 'a transfer', moving from the sense of one word to a different word; it relates to the verb *metapherein* 'to transfer, carry over' and further 'change, alter', and the word *pherein* 'to carry, bear'. In

<sup>1</sup> In *Research in Art and Design* (1993) Christopher Frayling considers three domains covering the broad field of artistic endeavour. The first approach, research into art, considers art from a critical, theoretical point of view. We find these in the established academic curricula and research centres of sciences of the arts and philosophy of art – e.g. musicology. The second domain, research for art, aims to of fer instruments and insights for the benefit of the practice of art itself – e.g. instrument builders, acoustics. The third approach is the research inside the arts themselves, of ten named 'research through art', in which the object of research is one's own art or the artistic process itself and the researcher is an artist.

modern Greek *metaphora* still has its literal meaning, that is 'transport' and 'transportation', for instance with a bus, but also a bank transaction.

Five metaphorical images will point to the complexity and variety of artistic research as not only embedded and enriched in a practice, but also as inherently embodied, dynamic and ref lective, opening a field where method is challenged by its own etymological origins of *meta hodos* – a journey beyond the usual paths.

#### **Metaphor 1: BAKING BREAD**

How to make bread? Practices of baking bread are part of different cultures. One can find instructive videos on baking bread in different languages and cultures, at amateur and professional levels.<sup>2</sup> The implied audience concerns children, housewives, cooks, industrial or traditional communities, and do-it-yourself minded amateur bakers. Whatever these differences, all use

<sup>2</sup> Books with recipes on how to bake bread lack even more experiential elements.

the same basic ingredients of f lour, water, salt and leaven to ferment, and all end with baked bread (Coessens 2018).

The example of baking bread teaches us much about the communication and translation of tacit and performative knowledge. Gestures and verbal explanations are the discursive practices used, ranging from rather abstract, difficult explanations with magic-like tricks (temperature and humidity), via incomplete information because of cultural bias or presuppositions to very pedagogical information (cooking for children, songs in traditional societies). Sometimes the gesture is clarified by the verbal explanation, sometimes the explanation worsens the understanding, or the gestures complicate the comments. These videos offer a cue to understanding how to bake bread. As an observer of that practice, though, one misses out on access to different elements: the malleability or wetness of the dough, the smell, the bodily movements and practice.

While there is a world between artistic practice and a showcase of baking bread, this very simple example tells us something essential about human practices. It reveals the complexity of how to communicate tacit and performative knowledge. There is no guaranteed nor best way to transform and translate a practice into a discourse, turn making into a writing, knowing-how into knowing-that, nor vice versa. The metaphor stresses the tensions between acting and observing, performative experience and discursive expression.

#### **Metaphor 2: HAMMERING**

Hammering is the combination of a tool, a practice and a goal. A carpenter uses a hammer. He does not need to think about its use. The tool is totally integrated into the act; the impact of the tool in the hand functions as an internal stimulus; the tool functions as an extension of the hand. The use of the hammer, as evident as it seems, implies not only practice-based knowledge and experience, but is part of a whole epistemic context. Firstly, the hammer is, as a tool itself, already involved in a process of invention and creation – the hammer has been invented. Secondly, the use of the hammer – hammering – is a practice, a know-how that most often occurs at a level of subsidiary awareness. The third level is the goal – the construction of a chair or a house – encompassing the projection of the hammer, linked to imagination, invention, intention, improvisation or plan. Those multiple levels are

only implicitly present. The original 'tool-ness' of the hammer only comes to the foreground once the hammer is defective; the use of the hammer – as focal and not subsidiary awareness – only when the hammer is improperly used (Coessens 2003).3 The carpenter becomes conscious of this whole web of knowledge when some part of the action fails. The hammer suddenly becomes an object, different from him, useless, but perhaps reparable. The carpenter suddenly situates himself in the whole project, realises the bond between the hammer and the environment: the relation with the nails, the wood, the construction, as well as the relation between physical and social places. He realises, by way of his bond with the hammer, that he can appropriate the world – plans of construction, dreams of living, projects, instruction, identity, choice.

The example of hammering throws more light on the complexity of a practice of knowledge. Not only is any specific or small act of knowledge – such as hammering – part of a larger process and experience of knowing, as a micro-cosmos it also ref lects the whole range of the human processes of developing and experiencing knowledge. As such, it stresses the fundamental 'acting' of knowledge. The hammer is but one example, it might have been also a path or a theory:

"Building a theory is travelling; having a theory is being at one's destination. [...] Having a theory is being prepared to make a variety of moves [...]. If a farmer has made a path, he is able to saunter easily up and down it. That is what the path was made for. But the work of building the theory was a job of making paths where as yet there were none." (Ryle 1949, 270-72)

And the path needs to be used and re-used to remain a path. Ryle's quote brings us near to our search for artistic research as a *meta hodos,* a way to practise, a way of practice*.* The metaphor of hammering forces us to look at this practice embedded in a dynamic web. The hammering itself is an active deed within a broad context of practices leading to or facilitating a specific goal. Like hammering, artistic practice and its concomitant research consist of complex relations, actors and intentions: humans, objects, environments, ideas, both on a horizontal and vertical plane, past and future.

<sup>3</sup> The philosopher Heidegger (1927) used the act of hammering to exemplify his phenomenological analysis of action.

#### **Metaphor 3: THE GAME**

In *Philosophical Investigations* (1953)*,* Wittgenstein describes activities or forms of life by considering these as different kinds of 'games', language games: bundles of practices that can be classified following the specific kind of materials, actions, rules, and patterns they use. The notion of a game is a strong and dynamic metaphor for human practices. It also involves the creation of a world of specific expectations, behaviour and action. Moreover, the game is never completely defined and is only active when played: when the rules are put into practice.

Together with the metaphor of game, Wittgenstein introduced the notion of 'family resemblances'. Think of a family picture. All of the members of a family will never share the same trait: different characteristics apply to different members, but overall, they all share something with some others. In a similar way games are part of the same family. Specific and often implicit rules and family resemblances prevail but are never totally fixed or applicable to all of the games of a family. As such, we can never give a final, essential definition of 'game', as we cannot find out exactly "what is common to all these activities and what makes them into language or parts of language" (Wittgenstein 1953, §65). We can only think of these as "similarities*,* relationships, […] 'family resemblances'" (Wittgenstein 1953, §66-67). Think of ball games or parlour games: different ball games share different characteristics and rules, but not all share the same. Wittgenstein states that we can participate in such human activities because we know how to play it, how to 'set it in action' – of an otherwise immobile set of things and rules. Moreover, for each game to be a game, it also has to be accepted as such by a culture, by its users. The game becomes dynamic and creates a whole world in and of itself, provided it is played by different members as 'a way of living' – or 'form of life' in Wittgenstein's words – that involves a commitment, a seriousness, where the 'relativity' of the game is suspended.

Wittgenstein's framework offers us an interesting tool to understand artistic practices and research as having their own rules, family resemblances and commitment. When is something an artistic practice? Should we define artistic research as a part of the game, or as a sub-game? How do we play it, when can we play it, and with whom? The notion of play is inherent to art: music is something you 'play', as a soloist or in an ensemble. What are the explicit and implicit conditions of the game to be played? What is

the artist's and – more broadly – the culture's commitment to the game of artistic practice? Which rules, practices and resemblances of research have to be respected? The need for skill, knowledge and experience, for creative and innovative elements, the presence of rather ineffable, implicit elements concerning aesthetics, tradition, intuition and association is proper to the game of art.

#### **Metaphor 4: MIRRORS**

In one of his manuscripts, Leonardo da Vinci imagined a specific mirror room, an invention that extends the visual and kinetic experience of the body. His sketches depict an octagonal room made from eight mirror rectangles in which a subject would be confronted with a normally impossible visible revelation of their own body, seeing him or herself an infinite number of times and from different angles. The environment ref lects a specific multi-sensorial experience of self-display.

These mirrors create, in the first instance, a disturbing externalisation and 'exhibition' of the body, moving the frontiers of and control of the body towards unknown fields. The actor in front of the mirror will experience what is normally reserved for other people – seeing his/her sides, back and movements. The senses and perceptions of the body are multiplied and the subject needs considerable skill to control, cope with and display these multiple images and movements of the body.

The mirrors disturb the awareness of the limits of the body, its centrality as well as its abounding into the environment. Mental and physical schemata of the body are dependent on sensorial and kinetic relations with the environment, now extended by new parameters of vision and movement. As such, the inner perception of the body is decentred: where does the body start, where does it end? The ref lection offered by the mirror room leads the subject to ref lection on their own body, its appearance, extension and display.

The octagonal mirror room is disturbing, revealing and relating. It merges the visible with the invisible, the explicit with the implicit, the conscious with the unconscious, background with focus. From the inside, it reveals the vulnerability of the artist – disposure and exposure – as, from the outside, it ref lects the potential interpretational multiplicity. The mirrors reveal multiple ref lections, 'in-sights' as well as 'out-sights'. The artist is confronted with both positions, merging practice with knowledge, ref lection with research. The octagonal room interrelates all possible points of view, revealing self-ref lection and knowledge and, as such, opens a meta dimension moving from ref lection to ref lexivity.

The origin of 'ref lection' and 'ref lexivity' goes back to the Latin verb *ref lectere*, meaning 'the act of bending back'. 'Ref lection' refers both to a natural process of ref lecting light so that objects become visible to us and to a mental process of awareness. Ref lexivity refers to circular relationships of awareness and questioning – like in research practices. It is the "process of continually ref lecting upon our interpretations of both our experience and the phenomena being studied so as to move beyond the partiality of our previous understandings and our investment in particular research outcomes" (Finlay & Gough 2003, 108). Ref lexivity refers to a relation which is bidirectional and in which both parts inf luence one another.

The difference between ref lection and ref lexivity is the jump from something outside which happens to you – ref lection – just by being and acting in the world, towards the dynamical and personal unique relation in which one engages with the outside – ref lexivity. On the one hand, ref lexivity is considered as the awareness and experience of the self, as an involvement in concrete practices that implies an anticipation of ref lection. Standing in practice means being involved, engaging in a situation of affective and epistemic intentionality, while being engaged in a theory, a tradition, a background. On the other hand, it is also the experience of difference and dissonance, the encounter within other projects of world-construction, questioning all human practices and significance and forcing the individual to strategies and tactics, but also to interaction and dialogue (Sandywell 1996, 5; de Certeau 1980, 1990).

The body in the middle of the octagonal room refers to the artist, his/her intentions, and display. The octagonal room forces the artist at the centre to question relations between artist and public, between inside and outside, 'in-sight' and 'out-sight', self and other – and the self as other – between the visible and the invisible.

#### **Metaphor 5: INSIGHT – OUTSIDE**

Magritte offers us with *La réproduction interdite* (1937) another painting that moves us beyond the notions of mirror and reactivates ref lection and ref lexivity. Magritte's art is a continuous movement 'beyond painting', a "desire to situate his practice at the intersection of different discourses" (Brown 2005). He experimented with the formal and artistic boundaries between artwork and artistic identity, with the relation between his subject and himself as the creator of the art manifestation. The notions of 'mirror', 'self' and 'other' are important elements of his painted philosophy, where he explored the dialogue between the self and the other, the artist and the artwork.

An interesting example of self-referential ref lexivity depicting the insider's relation to the artistic process is Escher's *Drawing Hands* (1948), where the hands that draw and the painted hands are both in the artwork, painting each other, and blurring the frontiers between who is painting and who/ what is painted. It depicts the awareness of one's powers and limits in the artistic process of creation. A confrontation with the self, the self as the artist, as positioned inside a framework of culture and society occurs. The self is a self and at the same time it is another.

This self-other relation is at the heart of Magritte's *La réproduction interdite*, showing the back of the head of a person looking in the mirror at the back of his head, which surpasses immanent ref lection and even self-referentiality. Here we have the next level of ref lexivity – the performer representing the performer – merging an insider's view with an outsider's view. A transcendent ref lexivity surges, urging the artist to consider a third view ref lection, an 'other person' inf luence on the artistic manifestation. Magritte here splits himself – or should we say the character – into the I and the other, superposing what the character can see in the mirror with what the painter sees behind the person.

From the inside, the artist appears as both observer and observed, both subject and object. A questioning of the methodology of the artist's practices appears here. A move from being a participant observer to being an observing participant reveals both the blurring of the subjective and objective position of the artist. Participant observation is an ethnological method used in the social sciences. It implies that a researcher becomes part of the society and culture of study as closely as possible by learning the language, habits and practices of the community he or she is studying and participating in as

a full member. Being a quasi-member of that society offers the possibility to study and understand that society more fully while still being a researcher.

In the method of observing participation in artistic research, the resemblance of the ethnologist to the artist is reversed, in that the artist is not initially an observer, but a participant – the actor. By observing, ref lecting and researching their own participation and activity, he or she becomes an observing participant. The roles are similar, but inversed, the artist coming from the inside, the ethnologist coming from the outside. As such the artist as an observing participant will have more difficulty in escaping idiosyncrasy and the research will always involve parts of personal knowledge, artistic development, identity and sensibility. At the same time, however, this subjective research attitude will be accompanied by multiple interactions with and from the outside. Each process of observing and researching artistic practices from the inside will necessarily link with knowledge and context from the outside. It will open new insights in creative processes; it will reveal interdisciplinary relations and lead to creative interactions between humans and materials as well as sharing personal and cultural knowledge.

Inside and outside elements will participate in relations, interactions and transformations of processes that are mutually conditioned by the author, context and practice. The possible tension between different perspectives and inputs will imply a constant adjustment of intended and presented actions and interactions, opening up a dynamic of approaches of which neither exists outside this mutual relationship and which needs to be repeatedly reassessed.

#### **Conclusion: META HODOS**

The five metaphors situated artistic research inside the environing artistic practice itself, inside a cultural environment, and offered a view from both the inside and the outside. We now come back to the *meta hodos*, to searching for the path, going halfway along the path, going beyond the path. A path is never a path in isolation. A path exists because there was initially an intention and a goal, a need to create a path. The path is realised by way of a practice, a dynamic practice, a repetitive and systematic practice, never exactly the same, but often similar. The path can become broader or can slightly move its orientation, borders and curves, like a river when rain and erosion become intense. But while the f low of the river will push one in a direction, depending upon natural causes, the path is mainly defined by human interaction and intention. To remain a path, it has to invite other walkers. No walkers, no paths. The walker has the possibility to stop, go back, redraw the borders and the curves, look behind, interact with other walkers, explore the environment of the path: going *meta hodos* by way of walking.

#### **Literature**


De Certeau, M. (1980). *L'invention du quotidien, Vol. 1: Arts de faire*. Paris: 10/18.


# **Looking back, Looking through, Looking beneath** The Promises and Pitfalls of Reflection as a Research Tool

#### *Darla M. Crispin*

This essay is based on a lecture given at the mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien within its series entitled *Knowing in Performing*. Those attending the lectures had the opportunity to ref lect in a variety of ways on what might constitute the nature of that knowing. For my contribution, I was interested in asking whether we might stretch out the 'knowing *in* performing' of the series title to include 'knowing *through* performing' and 'knowing *as* performing' – by analogy with Christopher Frayling's modelling of research in-and-through musical practice in his 1993 essay *Research in Art and Design* (Frayling 1993)*.* 1 Within the sphere of music, I have considered these questions from many angles over many years; from the perspectives of my own performing, musicological work and artistic research supervision to the contributions I would like to think I have been able to make to the formation of the discipline of artistic research in music. In the present essay, I would like to focus on how my experiences relate to the practices of 'ref lection', 'self-ref lexivity' and 'autoethnography' within artistic research. I shall do this by considering three issues: the reasons for regarding these practices as important to the field; the nature and limitations of their criticality; and some of the difficulties that can arise when we try to ref lect on our own processes within artistic research contexts.

<sup>1</sup> Frayling's categories of arts research work are: "research into art and design, research through art and design and research for art and design" (Frayling 1993, 5). This model remains highly influential for those involved in curriculum development associated with artistic research, perhaps because Frayling's classifications open up the possibility for a variety of discourses without displacing art-making from its primary role.

Let us open our musings on this topic through the use of a simple metaphor. Imagine a plain, white scarf made of a fine, silk material. If I raise it to my field of vision, it is partially transparent, but what I see is not fully clear. I can detect outlines, but many specificities disappear. Moreover, the vision of someone looking at me changes as well. The point of the metaphor is that, in a sense, we operate constantly with this screening of our experiences. We believe the world to be – to look, to sound – as we perceive it, but our understanding is constantly shrouded by 'the white screen', the opacity of being in our own individuated human orientation.

This may seem, at first, to be a simple point, but in considering self-ref lexive work, it is anything but that. This white shroud is, in many ways, constituted of our own processing of experiences, our preferences, prejudices, aspirations and limitations. It is an expression of ourselves in the world – but it has far-reaching implications for what we perceive. Music also operates in this way; the sounding of a chord evokes any number of associations, visions and perceptions, none of which is entirely transparent or translatable from one person to the other. Consider these words of Judith Butler:

"To know the limits of acknowledgement is a self-limiting act and, as a result, to experience the limits of knowing itself. This can, by the way, constitute a disposition of humility, and of generosity, since I will need to be forgiven for what I cannot fully know, what I could not have fully known, and I will be under a similar obligation to of fer forgiveness to others who are also constituted in partial opacity to themselves." (Butler 2001, 28)

Looking through a white scarf reminds us of this partial opacity: of the need to remember it when carrying out research practices, but also of the importance of respecting its importance as an element of creative processes. As I considered this metaphor, I also contemplated the aspirations that the mdw had for its *Knowing in Performing* lecture series as a whole. As part of coming to terms with the discussed white screening, it is interesting to reiterate some of the objectives for the lectures stated on the project website, including the wish to:

• Explore "interest in epistemological questions*.*" *So, we might ask: what are some of the implications of critical ref lection for knowledge-formation in music-making and the arts more generally?*


Given the strong implications of the institutional agenda for the mdw concerning artistic research, and bearing in mind the current interest in self-ref lection and autoethnography as related but non-identical topics as manifested in recent conferences, we may benefit from striving for a better understanding of some of these implications. On ref lection, the emphasis on the objectives is significant, and echoes developments in artistic research internationally – but what is its nature when characterised as a 'research skill', and how can it serve as a mediator between research and the arts? The aim in seeking answers to this relates to the *Conference Report* of the International Symposium *Knowing in Performing* on 4 April 2018, in which the panel concluded that artistic research "makes it possible for students to develop 'ref lective research skills' opening up a very broad and f lexible field between research and the arts with potential gains on both sides." (Noda 2018) The issues that emerge from this are manifold, but may be summarised in the following, all-embracing question: How may we come closer to a context for ref lective work and a deeper sense of what it might mean for artistic research?

<sup>2</sup> The website for *Knowing in Performing* is: https://www.mdw.ac.at/knowinginperforming\_rvo/

This essay first revisits specific European political developments to show where the discussion on ref lective practice has its roots (*Looking back*). It then examines developments that have become consolidated into what has been described as the 'Norwegian model' of artistic research (*Looking through*); finally, it considers more broadly and critically the role of ref lection in the work of the international artistic research community (*Looking beneath*).

#### **Looking back**

The catalyst for many of the questions surrounding ref lective practice may be found in work carried out over fourteen years ago at the Bologna Seminar on Doctoral Programmes for the European Knowledge Society, in Salzburg in 2005.3 For researchers in Austria and beyond, it feels apposite to be revisiting this work as a part of developing stronger ideas concerning ref lection in artistic research and what it means for artistic research, now and in the future. From the ten *Salzburg Principles* that were generated from that seminar meeting and its follow-ups, three particular points arise, of which research leaders should remain cognisant in relation to artistic research work:

a. The first point is that doctoral training, while meeting the highest academic standards, must increasingly support its students in developing skills and understanding beyond academia. At first, this can seem like a blatant call toward educational instrumentalisation, but we can also regard it as an opportunity to question the nature of research itself, particularly in a field such as music where so much of the epistemological potential emerges within performing environments. *This means that ref lective practices within such research work must be trans-*

*formed, as appropriate, to facilitate reception.* b. The second is that research thrives on intellectual mobility; that our

ideas and research development work should not be confined by national boundaries. At this point in history, this is a precept we should consider

<sup>3</sup> The conclusions and ten points from the *Salzburg Principles on Doctoral Education* (EUA publication, 2005) can be found here: http://www.eua.be/eua/jsp/en/upload/Salzburg\_Report\_final.1129817011146.pdf

in a new light given the dangers posed to intellectual mobility by developments in global politics. In many ways, the idealism of the EU, and of the Bologna Process, has been severely challenged in this aspect. *Ref lective practice suf fers in hermetically-sealed silos; the participants become too convinced about the absolute nature of realities that hold good for them and for those in their own 'echo chamber'; this is a point for attention and concern.*

c. The third aspect that is of particular pertinence to our questions today is the emphasis upon interdisciplinary work. In the arts, this has been seized with considerable energy, and with many surprising and novel results. However, there is no absolute clarity about the core standards of the practices, and there is a real danger in some work that interdisciplinarity itself has been incorporated as a point of merit rather than as potentially generative of such.

*The instrumentalised use of interdisciplinary practice has, at times, led to its devaluation and to research practices that are suspect. This links with some of the more critical points I shall make about 'ref lection' later in this essay.*<sup>4</sup>

Arts organisations have followed up on the Salzburg Principles in various ways; in particular, we can recall the EUA's *Taking Salzburg Forward* (2016)5 and ELIA's *Florence Principles* (2016),6 which bring the discussion right into the arts fields and define such work, in terms of doctoral programmes, as:

"[using] artistic methods and techniques, resulting in an original contribution to new insights and knowledge within the artistic field. The project consists of original work(s) of art and contains a discursive component that *critically reflects* upon the project and documents the research process. Internationalism, interdisciplinarity and interculturality are implicit in many artistic practices […]." (ELIA 2016; emphasis added)

<sup>4</sup> The points are extracted from the website of the European University Association (EUA): https://www.eua.eu/downloads/publications/salzburg%20recommendations%202005.pdf

<sup>5</sup> Position Papers: *Doctoral Education – Taking Salzburg Forward: Implementation and New Challenges,* accessible on: https://eua.eu/resources/publications/354:doctoral-education-taking-salzburg-forward-implementation-and-new-challenges.html

<sup>6</sup> The *Florence Principles* by the European League of Institutes of the Arts (ELIA 2016) can be found here: https://www.elia-artschools.org/documents/the-florence-principles

It is this element of critical ref lection that I wish to interrogate further. In the discussion of this point within the policy writings, there is still a sense that that to which ref lection relates is the verbal and written communication concerning research, its outcomes and significance – as in the phrase used above: 'a discursive component'. However, even if the recording and communication of the critical ref lection must generally be framed verbally, the critical ref lection itself arguably resides inside the artistic practice – it is the 'knowing in performing'. The consequences of this have generated a range of responses. Developments over the past ten years show that not only are our artistic research programmes demonstrating a high degree of diversification generally, but our views upon ref lective work as ref lected in our programmes are especially heterogeneous; in fact, the institutional and ethical stances behind how ref lection is to be generated, recognised and validated are highly significant indicators a of a given institution's more general attitude to artistic research.

#### **Looking through**

To illustrate this, I would like to address the artistic research training in my current place of work, the Norwegian Academy of Music, and its related National Artistic Research Programme (NARP), speculating about its potential and qualities and raising some red f lags about its weaknesses. These include the dangers of a certain kind of intellectual narcissism masquerading as research; to look through is not to be confused with gazing at one's own ref lection – that would be a quite different kind of 'looking back' (or 'being looked back at') from the one I have just discussed.

The following is an extract from a report entitled *Research and Development in the Arts 1995-2015: Twenty years of artistic research*, authored by the working group appointed by the National Council for Artistic Research, Norwegian Association of Higher Education Institutions:

"The Artistic Research Fellowship Programme was established in Norway in 2003 in order to fund the research of individuals within arts training schools. Its activity has since been consolidated and overseen by the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme (NARP). In the work on developing the programme in 1999-2000, the following statements from Central Saint Martin's College of

Art and Design in London had considerable influence because they so clearly describe art as a subject area that communicates in a peer context:


Artistic research in Norway takes the artist's special experience and reflection as its point of departure, and, as such, is in line with the category research in the arts. A high artistic standard is a key requirement for artistic research in Norway. This is part of the platform of the Artistic Research Programme and the institutions' research activities. Artists develop work methods that prove to lead to an artistic result. The methods employed can be individual or specific to each artistic field, such as composition, design or dance. The field of art is experimental in nature, and critically testing, challenging and overturning methods are integral parts of its culture. Questions about and reflection on method are fundamentally interwoven with the artistic work itself. The reflection that is part of artistic practice, on content, process and methods, has a central place in artistic research." (Malterud, N., Lai, T., Nyrnes, A. & Thorsen, F. 2015)

In January 2018, an Artistic Research PhD based on the NARP structures was ratified in Norway. The new PhD programme retains its predecessor's strong emphasis upon personal 'ref lection'; there is no written thesis, instead there is a requirement for the artist to ref lect critically on their project work in ways that may – or may not – involve words. In many ways, the element of ref lection has been the most fraught aspect of Norwegian artistic research programmes – whether pre- or post- the move to PhDs. It has often proved more challenging than the art-making at their core. Tensions between art and its explication, and the credentials of the artist-researcher as a reliable arbiter of these are often problematic. Long-standing questions about the viability of personal experience and self-scrutiny within the supposedly objectified world of advanced research remain unanswered.

A report commissioned by NARP, authored by Eirik Vassenden in 2013, revealed that the ref lective work of the PhD research fellows generally emerges in the form of practical consideration of three areas, with the relative emphasis upon these areas varying according to the work of those writing them:


Vassenden articulates the challenges; many involved with artistic research would find this kind of discussion familiar. He writes:

"How [do we] put into words the experience of developing an artistic project or doing artistic work? All such attempts at articulation involve the writer […] finding a good and expedient language with which to describe his or her experience, a language that will also make it possible to share this experience theoretically and cognitively. A language that enables not only the sharing of experience, but also the discussion and problematization of the experience, so that the creative practice, filtered through a dif ferent medium, also becomes visible to the creative subject. In this perspective, the attempts at articulation are based on an underlying literal interpretation of 'reflection' which can function as a mirror, but also as a contrasting element […]." (Vassenden 2013, 4-5)

So, we can see that the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme has moved to develop a critique of what ref lection might be, understanding that this, in itself, is important research work. But this does not mean that its research candidates find negotiating their studies to be straightforward. For example, a very well-known improviser in Norway, Ivar Grydeland, carried out a third-cycle level practice-based research project from 2012 to 2015. His programme followed the so-called Norwegian Model emphasising the artistic development of the research fellow (more on this later). Upon completion of his work, Grydeland wrote the following as part of his mandatory self-ref lection for the project:

"I recall a peculiar experience of time while recording this. It was an interesting blend of correspondence with an unreliable echo of myself while looking into the immediate future, planning my next echo. Confused whether what I played happened in the moment or moments ago." (Grydeland 2011-15)

In more recent artistic research development work, attention has increasingly turned to ways in which auto-ethnography and self-ref lexivity can continue to be developed as viable approaches to conducting musical research. Grydeland's work is significant because of the extent to which he places the self-ref lexive problem right at the heart of the improvisational practice, hence the title of his project: 'Ensemble and Ensemble of Me.' The very fact that the promoters of artistic research are studying this kind of work demonstrates an attitudinal shift that has taken place over a number of years, for a variety of reasons and across a wider spectrum of activity than that of artistic research alone. What does this mean?

To illustrate, I return to the scarf metaphor with which I opened this essay. The metaphor illustrates the simple point that the world is not our own idea and that we are screened off from many of its realities by virtue of being human. One of the interesting things about being an artist is that this fabric screen can become part of the materiality of our work, coloured both 'on purpose', as part of a creative process, or by accident, as part of the processes of daily life, like dye splashed across its material. Sometimes these processes have a f luency and are easy, and sometimes they are unpleasant, painstaking and difficult; sometimes a great deal of mess is made, and we must not f linch at this if we wish to look through this new, entirely altered screen.

At this point, it is crucial to point out differences between critical ref lection and autoethnography. Heewon Chang's definition is a helpful starting point:

"First, like ethnographers, autoethnographers follow a similar ethnographic research process by systematically collecting data […] analysing and interpreting them, and producing scholarly reports, also called autoethnography. In this sense, the term 'autoethnography' refers to the process and the product, just as 'ethnography' does. Second, like ethnographers, autoethnographers attempt to achieve cultural understanding through analysis and interpretation. In other words, autoethnography is not about focusing on self alone, but about searching for understanding of others (culture/society) through self […]. The last aspect of autoethnography sets it apart from other ethnographic enquiries. Auto-ethnographers use their personal experiences as primary data." (Chang 2008, 48-49)

Could it be that through a definition such as this, one might go as far as to state the paradoxical: 'autoethnography is nothing personal' or, 'autoethnography is none of my business'? Whether or not that is the case, even this stricter practice opens up possibilities for artistic research work. As Jessica Azodi writes:

"Utilising autoethnography within the practice of artistic research strengthens the bond between the embodied aspects of the research and the ethnographies we create to convey our experiences […]. Creating autoethnography from practice-based research is a self-nourishing cycle. I write about and document my experiences throughout the artistic process. Preparing for performance involves many hours of 'in the moment' embodied learning, but that kind of learning is hard to track and dif ficult to explain. When I write about my experiences, I force myself to articulate sensations and discourse while they are in progress or shortly af ter. When the performative moment is over, the accumulation of these materials provides a ground upon which I can build an analysis that facilitates better decision-making going forward." (Azodi 2018, 201)

The key here for disciplined autoethnographical practice is the 'analysis-building' cited by Azodi. The evidence of the disciplinary nature becomes the analysis; done well, and with regard to tested practices, it stands up to what we might call 'scientific' scrutiny. This differentiates it from 'ref lection' in artistic research work, particularly in those countries in which that ref lection can be manifested in art-making itself, as is the case in the Norwegian model.

#### **Looking beneath, or implications**

In such a case, though, critical ref lection has consequences, especially in relation to 'sites' – places of work, but also personal situations and 'styles', the way we are ourselves but not ourselves. Critical ref lection shows potential courage; it requires disciplined questions and the inevitable need to 'give an account of oneself' as Judith Butler (2001) puts it, in relation to the core themes, and referring to the citation from Butler with which I opened the essay.

Artistic research has become concomitant with innovations around musical language and notions concerning its 'truth content', and has also been a driving force behind various innovations in art-making. Western art music is particularly challenged by the standard locations of its developmental, pedagogical and professional practices: the music conservatories and music departments affiliated with colleges and universities, the orchestral halls and opera houses. These institutions, and many others, are woven into entrenched cultural and social spaces and, as such, have varying inf luences and impacts on the socio-political structures of which they are a part. Yet, what could be interpreted as a vulnerable position actually affords opportunities for researchers related to such institutions and their practices to take responsibility for developing exemplary work in microcosm, addressing precisely the most contentious areas in the service of challenging essentialism. Artistic research can critique institutions, going deeper and potentially interrogating the very aspects of artistic materiality which form the basis for the core structures in culture.

Our ref lexivity, our need to 'hear' things on our own terms, has come to represent aspects of our being in the world. We confront an all-too contemporary predicament of finding difficulty in hearing any voice that is unlike our own; non-identical languages point out a high degree of inward turning in self-ref lexivity. Projects developed in this way can have a high degree of regional specificity, which can be a very positive gesture so long as there is a movement beyond a narrowly-owned, merely ref lexive language. In a broader sense, such a move potentially remakes the interrelationships of artistic researcher, scholar, character and performer in the light of sound itself, something related to the focus of the research in a given project, but with implications beyond it. But it also generates a responsibility – to articulate the work and its aspirations far beyond localised reception. The twist

is that in artistic research, we look at ways in which personal ref lection, auto-ethnography and self-ref lexivity can continue to be developed as viable approaches to conducting artistic research. We strive to hear things not 'on our own terms' but 'in our own selves'; the terms on which we hear things must be more inclusive and communicable or the ref lection becomes too myopic to function as research. Ends and means are reversed.

The idea of the twist brings me back once more to the metaphor of the scarf and the idea of how the personal metamorphoses into the transpersonal at the pressure of the twist point. We can imagine that on one side of this scarf is the transcription of an artistic – or other – working life. Experience becomes its threads and patterns, its faults and beauties. Self-scrutiny in artistic work can sometimes bring this field to a point of pressure when it is twisted and reversed, when the private realms of the art-making are reversed to the other side and seen by those ready to witness, or with ears to hear. We may think of this twist point as the necessary locus of resistance in artistic research work, when the difficulty feels most intense and personal, yet the reversal in the aftermath has an impersonal, objective quality. It is not that we leave that point of pressure with a totally clear vision; no, we will return to different kinds of illusions. But sometimes the constriction also offers a view to a clearer, more distant field.

#### **Conclusions**

The paradox of this, in the conservatory setting, is that the fundamental material for the kind of artistic research work being envisaged emerges from very specific, often self-ref lexive work, but finds not only echoes, but perhaps its very raison d'être in more universal arguments. The 'secret garden' of the teaching studio may finally need to f ling open its doors – conceptually, if not physically. Within arts training institutions the development of artistic research therefore brings with it a set of concrete educational questions that are not susceptible to quick or easy resolution. On the contrary, they must remain open as an evolving approach to how curriculum development is to take place within a 'no longer so young', but still rather volatile disciplinary background. If artistic research is to substantiate its propositions for reconceptualising claims to authorship, for example, then this ethical aspect must come to the fore.

I would argue that issues such as those I have presented here also prompt a contemporary consideration of how the work of artistic researchers engenders a call for better, ever-evolving understanding of the ref lexive work that often accompanies their artmaking, but equally often embodies it. Some kind of rapprochement between 'hearing', 'listening' and 'aural ref lection' would seem to be apposite, not least because of the embeddedness of each in identity formation. If, indeed, "identity is the trace of affect", as Anahid Kassabian (2013, xxvii) writes, then an inquiry into these, both in relation to the artistic research project and its associated practices of ref lection (and even into auto-ethnography), may assist us in understanding developments in the field. Perhaps more importantly, such an inquiry may be an important adjuvant to a call for a more trenchant criticality as the field of artistic research matures, so that artistic research might articulate excellence without disregarding the marginal – a notion worth ref lecting upon.

#### **Literature**

Azodi, J. (2018). Got Lost: Embodied Vocal Performance at the Junction of Autoethnography and Practice-Based Research. In S. Holman Jones & M. Pruyn (Eds.), *Creative Selves/Creative Cultures: Critical Autoethnography, Performance, and Pedagogy* (199-215). Melbourne: Palgrave/Macmillan.

Butler, J. (2001). Giving an Account of Oneself, *Diacritics*, *31*(4), 22-40.


## **Making Sound, Making Music**

#### *Mieko Kanno*

The distinction between sound and music is widely understood as a subjective matter. Bruno Nettl (1983) discusses how people describe music as inherently 'good' without clear foundation, and shows the contextual variety with which the distinction can be drawn between the two. In this article I discuss the distinction between 'making sound' and 'making music' as two processes whose differences may be considered separately from those found between sound and music. In other words, I examine different conditions and skills involved in the two kinds of 'making', which may also contribute to the distinction people make between sound and music in the practice of art music.

The background to this enquiry comes from observations in my practice as a professional violinist working in contemporary music. 'Making sound' does not seem to promise that music will eventually be made. I am not even sure whether it is advisable that we try to make 'music'. We can instead focus on the materiality of sound and dispositions, and talk less about music, as though we are making sound art or sound installation. Should we try to make music or make sound that has arresting, expressive power? Where does the distinction between sound and music lie today?

In this article I answer these questions by examining the poetics of soft sound. My hypothesis is that soft sound offers a particular type of poetics centred around listening, and that the mobilisation of the listening experience through the volume control brings about a new relationship between making sound and making music. Salomé Voegelin's discussion about silence as a sonic condition is an example of this approach:

"Silence engages my listening in sound rather than in music, and implicates me in my hearing through its quiet demand to be heard. Such silence shif ts the responsibility of production from the conventions of the composition / the artwork onto the individual audience member, who becomes audible to herself in the contingent context of her listening practice." (Voegelin 2010, 82)

The field of music cognition has studied the effect of 'hearing in time'1 as a critical factor in characterising the experience that lies between sound and music. I propose 'hearing in volume' as another critical factor, and illustrate its effects on making sound and making music.2

#### **Silence**

Although silence relates to an auditory state, silence is a concept with a wide variety of applications.3 Adam Jaworski (1993) studies silence as power for control, manipulation and oppression of others from a sociolinguist's point of view. He documents how silence works and is used in varied aspects of political and social life. He argues that speech and silence form a continuum of indiscrete items, and that both speech and silence should be treated as equally valid and complementary categories. His argument sheds light on the contextual shift that silence is capable of providing: "Although silence is usually associated with the absence of communication, it turns out that in political discourse some forms of silence are capable of producing contextual effects that its use is indeed very effective." (Jaworski 1993, 136)

<sup>1</sup> *Hearing in Time* is the title of the book by Justin London (2004), who explores the subject of musical meter from the perspectives of music theory and music psychology. London's work is part of a series of insightful scholarship that has informed us about how hearing works over the temporal domain in music, including Clarke (2005), Clayton (2012), Hasty (1997) amongst others.

<sup>2</sup> My fascination with volume has its origin in Schönberg's statement: "In a musical sound three characteristics are recognized: its pitch, color, and volume. Up to now it has been measured in only one of the three dimensions in which it operates, in the one we call 'pitch'. Attempts at measurement in the other dimensions have scarcely been undertaken to date; organization of their results into a system has not yet been attempted at all […]. Nevertheless, we go right on boldly connecting the sounds with one another, contrasting them with one another, simply by feeling […]. What system underlies these progressions?" (Schönberg 1978/1922, 421)

<sup>3</sup> I would like to thank Gesine Schöder for drawing my attention to the wider social applications of the concept.

Brandon Labelle (2010) discusses silence with a similar approach from an environmental perspective. He gives an example of how a nuanced idea of 'silencing' creeps in with silence, and brings our attention to the particular way in which silence 'sculpts the social'. His example is the mobile phone ringing on the train in a carriage designated as a 'quiet coach':

"Silencing and silence intertwine in an unsteady and dynamic weave, where the positive ef fects of quieting down slip into the forceful grip of arresting volume. In one and the same move it discloses the possibility of mutual sharing while foreclosing such sharing: I hang up the phone there on the train, and give space to the movements of this public environment, and yet how do such forms of behaviour impart an elemental control onto the promise of individual presence? Silence seems to sculpt the social with an intrinsically moral hand even while aiming to give space to the promise of being together." (Labelle 2010, 74)

George Steiner considers silence as a unique yet problematic means of communication in *Language and Silence* (1976). He observes that in the Western tradition silence is valued very differently than in many Occidental metaphysics. He cites examples of Buddhism and Taoism in which

"the highest, purest reach of the contemplative act is that which has learned to leave language behind it. The inef fable lies beyond the frontiers of the word. It is only by breaking through the walls of language that visionary observance can enter the world of total and immediate understanding. Where such understanding is attained, the truth need no longer suf fer the impurities and fragmentation that speech necessarily entails. It need not conform to the naïve logic and linear conception of time implicit in syntax. In ultimate truth, past, present, and future are simultaneously comprised. It is the temporal structure of language that keeps them artificially distinct." (Steiner 1976, 16-17; also cited partially in Jaworski 1993, 142)

Yet, Steiner considers the phrase 'the silence of cosmic space strikes terror' from *Pensées* (1669) by Blaise Pascal as being very close to the mainstream of classic Western feeling (Steiner 1976, 18). For Steiner, expressions through words constitute the core of language; silence relates to either the unsayable (including mysticism) or a withdrawal from the acts of meaning and expressing. He oscillates between these two interpretations of silence. He follows the latter when he takes a polemical view on the twentieth-century Western art in whose modernism he does not recognise the communicative powers he expects of artworks. Yet, he also has a positive view on the poetry of silence such as in Hölderlin's (Steiner 1976, 71). Steiner recognises that 'silence *is* an alternative' (81), appreciates its meaningfulness in some contexts, but does not consider it to be the same kind of expression when compared to the word in humane literature.

Steiner's example suggests that silence as a medium of expressive communication – rather than of affective communication – is a relatively new concept in the twentieth-century West. It seems apposite to consider Marshall McLuhan's (1964) theory of 'hot' and 'cool' media in this respect:

"There is a basic principle that distinguishes a hot medium like radio from a cool one like the telephone, or a hot medium like the movie from a cool one like TV. A hot medium is one that extends one single sense in 'high definition.' High definition is the state of being well filled with data. A photograph is, visually, 'high definition'. A cartoon is 'low definition,' simply because very little visual information is provided. Telephone is a cool medium, because the ear is given a meagre amount of information. And speech is a cool medium of low definition, because so little is given and so much has to be filled in by the listener. On the other hand, hot media do not leave so much to be filled in or completed by the audience. Hot media are, therefore, low in participation or completion by the audience. Naturally, therefore, a hot medium like radio has very dif ferent ef fects on the user from a cool medium like the telephone." (McLuhan 1964, 36)

Jaworski (1993, 141) observes that if speech is a relatively cool medium, then silence must be even cooler; and this is why silence is generally not considered to be a suitable medium of communication.

Meanwhile, silence in music has been discussed in the twentieth century as a primarily auditory phenomenon, leading to interesting observations.4

<sup>4</sup> Lossef f and Doctor (2007) provide a wide-ranging overview on the topics of silence, music and their relations. Lossef f's chapter "Silent Music and the Eternal Silence" in the same book is of particular relevance to the present discussion regarding dif fering aesthetic approaches to silent music from dif ferent historical periods and geographical locations.

What music do we hear in silence? For Theodor Adorno (2006), music had a non-sensuous element, and silent reading of the score was a legitimate mode of music appreciation. If we take him literally, music does not need to be heard at all in order for it to make sense. Just as language is more than the sounds of words, and just as language can also be read and understood silently, so it is with music. While his view raises questions about what it is to 'understand' music, it is interesting to observe that his silent reading is full of sounds that are perceptible to him.<sup>5</sup> This contrasts with Steiner's idea of silence because, for Adorno, silence affects the external sound only and humans have the capacity to replace it with internally imagined sound.

For John Cage (1963), silence was not the same as the absence of sound. He discovered this when he entered an anechoic chamber and heard his own heartbeat.<sup>6</sup> Cage's experience makes it explicit that total silence is not possible as a human auditory experience. If there is no sound external to ourselves in the world, our mind listens to sounds that are internal to our senses. Both Adorno's and Cage's observations suggest that the more silent 'silence' is, the more actively we can listen to sounds, as though the auditory space cleared of sound allows corrective listening to set in. They imply not only that silence retains our capacity to communicate, but also that silence encourages, in inverse proportion, a degree of complicity on the part of the listener.

What emerges from these observations within the framework of McLuhan's theory, is that the closer we get to silence, the cooler the medium and the greater the degree of complicity the listener exercises in making sense of the auditory environment becomes. A transformation happens in the *content* of listening as a consequence of changes in volume. This can be interpreted in parallel to Jaworski's 'contextual effects' that silence brings to political discourse (where the 'listener' is replaced by 'people' who experience the contextual effects), as well as Labelle's view of silence 'sculpting the social'. It also identifies the location where Voegelin's 'silence as a sonic condition' takes

<sup>5</sup> I owe to Max Paddison (2006) for unraveling Adorno's relations to musical performance.

<sup>6 &</sup>quot;It was af ter I got to Boston that I went into the anechoic chamber at Harvard University. Anybody who knows me knows this story. I am constantly telling it. Anyway, in that silent room, I heard two sounds, one high and one low. Af terward I asked the engineer in charge why, if the room was so silent, I had heard two sounds. He said, 'Describe them.' I did. He said, 'The high one was your nervous system in operation. The low one was your blood in circulation.'" (Cage 1963, 134)

place. There is a powerful transformation in the communicative content at the border of sound and silence. Figure 1 shows this schematically.

*Fig. 1: Listening environment around soundsilence*

#### **Making of an encounter**

Voegelin (2010) discusses how we engage with near-silences in the practice of sound art. Most revealing of her insight, from the perspective of this article, are her descriptions of listening to very soft sound. She begins her discussion with Cage's *4'33"* and describes how Cage frames the emptiness and renders it visible and audible through the articulation of discursive context. In experiencing these near-silences, Voegelin observes a shift of production responsibility from the composer to the listener, as quoted above. She explains the shift as "composing silence is to build a […] frame around the experience of these sounds" and that "it happens on the composer's wish but the desire of the audience to hear fulfils it" (Voegelin 2010, 89).7 She is referring to how the work 'stages' listening and makes sense as sound art by balancing this staging and perceiving the staged silence as equal parts in the experience. In doing so, she touches upon the topic of 'sonic subjectivity': how "silence makes apparent the consequences of intersubjective listening" and "politicizes sound" (Voegelin 2010, 94).

A closely related topic of inter-subjectivity in the experience of playing and listening to music has been discussed by Naomi Cumming (2000) in a very different context. Her study is on music semiotics, and her principal

<sup>7</sup> In this context the word 'silence' is used to describe nearly inaudible sound or aural emptiness rather than total acoustic silence.

claim is that the subjectivities of the performer as well as the listener form a rich tapestry of musical meaning and signification beyond the work and its so-called critical interpretations. Although Cumming does not discuss soft sound, she is profoundly concerned with the production of musical experience. She uses the phrase 'sense-making' for the process of this production. She illustrates from a number of perspectives that the modes of engagement through which the subject interacts with the musical work become a necessary part in the sense-making.

While there are numerous discussions on the differences between the subjective experience of music and the 'formal' approaches to it, Cumming's focus is on strategic details for musical experience as a means to balance and relate the two opposites.<sup>8</sup> She is not merely observing the distinction and how people bridge the gap, but also thinking creatively towards the potential in which the 'rapprochement' could be mapped out – hence her relevance to the present discussion. She uses the term 'encounter' to describe the entering into "a relationship in which the humanly 'personal' does not hold power […] and yet it is still possible to have the sense of being 'addressed'" (Cummings 2000, 286).

For Voegelin, staging silence and listening to the staged silence are two 'contingent' acts and often contain 'moments of coincidence' where the two 'meet' (see Voegelin 2012, 110-111). This is similar to Cumming's 'encounter', and both authors put the point of this collision between the work and perception at the centre of musical discourse. What is implied by them, is that the engineering of such meetings is *performative*.

The collision between the work and perception make both silence and sound expressive and communicative. It can be said that making expres-

<sup>8</sup> The dif ferences between experiential subjectivity and abstract musical work have been discussed from many perspectives, including the feminist's viewpoint in Cusick (1994); ecology in Clarke (2005); and voice and ethics in Nielsen (2012). The perspectives of shared creativity have been a very productive approach in observing inter-subjectivity in action, as in Born (2005); Sawyer & DeZutter (2009); Clarke, Dof fman & Lim (2013), and Clarke, Dof fman & Timmers (2016). The authors who hold the perspectives of shared creativity have sociological leanings in their insights; they excel in elucidating the practices and problems involved in how people and society behave in and around music-making. While these findings show clearly the relations and interplay between subjectivity and musical work, it is of ten outside the scope of discussion to explore how the dif ferences may be turned into strategy in articulating music.

sive sound and silence amounts to making music without trying to do so, because the listener fulfils the task of making music. In this sense, making music is about figuring out a communicative *potential*. Yet, making something expressive is an intention. My contention is that, with regard to the process, the main difference between making sound and making music lies in the nature of a musical design: how we design a musical encounter, and what kind of encounter it is, in order to frame this intention.

Jonathan Dunsby discusses the relation between performance and musical design as something requiring action: "musical design has to be *animated* in performance" (Dunsby 1995, 84; his emphasis). It is debatable whether musical design is what composition gives or what becomes perceptible through performance, perhaps collaboratively created; it is also debatable whether or not this culturally implied teleological expectation becomes the performer's mission. But the unvarying fact is that the performer generates a design at some point, however abstract that may be, and must put it in motion. It is the performer's responsibility to the music community that she enacts a design in practice – regardless of questions such as what kind of design it is (pre-conceived, improvised, borrowed, out-of-contingency, or other), or who has conceived this design (composer, performer, listener, or a set of given circumstances).9

The videos A10 and B11 show two performative instances of the same musical work. The composition is the same but each performance is set with a different performance format. Performance A is a standard performance in front of an audience, while Performance B presents the performer sit-

<sup>9</sup> Dunsby's 'musical design' is more akin to 'theatre' than 'script', both defined by Richard Schechner (1977), because of the contingent elements that become part of the design. Schechner's term 'script' describes those elements that persist from performance to performance. Schechner's 'script' overlaps with the term 'work' (as in the work and perception). Chapter "Drama, Script, Theatre and Performance" in Schechner's book is also significant in the present context.

<sup>10</sup> The performance took place as part of my presentation at the international symposium *Knowing in Performing: Artistic Research as a Distinct Practice and Discourse in the Field of Performing Arts,* at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, on 4th April 2018. I am playing *Capriccio di una corda* (2009) for violin by Salvatore Sciarrino. The video was produced by mdw. Performance A clip shows the opening half of the piece, from 19'08" to 21'45". See the video here: https://doi.org/10.21939/ar-kanno-2018.

<sup>11</sup> The video was produced by mdw. Performance B clip shows the same opening half of the piece, from 24'40" to 27'05". See the video here: https://doi.org/10.21939/ar-kanno-2018.

ting among the audience. I am the performer and my playing responds to the different environment. For example, I project much less in the seated performance, because of the proximity of the listeners around me, and also because of my reduced strength and control when playing in the sitting position. One consequence is that the seated performance takes less time because of my sensing less space. These two performances exemplify a case where the composition is the same but the musical design is not.

The question is raised as to whether the composer specifies the musical design as part of composition. My answer is that some composers do, some don't. My view chimes with Roger Sessions when he writes

"Music is by its very nature subject to constant renewal, and the performer is not in any sense either a mere convenience or a necessary evil. By the same token, the idea of the 'ideal' or even in any strict sense the 'authoritative' performance is an illusory one. The music is not totally present, the idea of the composer is not fully expressed, in any single performance, actual or even conceivable, but rather in the sum of all possible performances." (Sessions 1950, 85)

The risk I take, is that if I do not delineate a musical design well, the listeners may hear the sounds I make but they may not hear the music. Yet, my focus in both performances is less on music, as such. In each case, I am searching for ways in which the listener's subjectivities can 'open the door' to the place where we can collectively make sense of the sounds as music. Figure 2 puts this understanding in a diagram.

*Fig. 2: Activities and locations for making sense of music*

In this diagram, my attention is on making sound in order to induce a f low for the listener's subjectivity to move towards making music. The soft sound of this music is such that its acoustic energy alone may not keep this door open without the listener's subjectivity being activated.

Making an encounter between the work and perception is an art in itself. I don't think the word 'interpretation' does justice to this kind of making process, because the work in question is not known until it is experienced. Had the work been known, as in the majority of the classical repertoire, then the encounter would be set up quite differently with the performer's attention being placed closer to the process of 'making music' rather than that of 'making sound'. The metaphorical door may then open the other way, from the music side to the sound side, as if to invite the listener to the music.

John Shepherd (1991) considers sounds as vibrations and defines musical timbre as vibratory tactility. He describes how the tactility of sound, inclusive of sound and silence, generates meaning and experience that speak to our sense of identity and existence: "if it is the syntax of music, the relationship of individual sonic events as deployed in time and space, that speaks to the socially structured context of existence, then it is timbre, the essence of individual sonic events, that speaks to the core of existence" (Shepherd 1991, 91). Shepherd argues that the content is therefore always mutant, and never entirely given. For the performer who is the maker of artistic encounters, musical communication amounts to juggling contingencies that arise from each particular occasion of musical performance. My examples above gave two ways in which I handled issues of 'hearing in volume' in musical performance. There are many more. I hope that we continue to value communication and expression as significant issues in research, in artistic research, and in art.

#### **Literature**


# **voicings of an auralist** a series of transmissions from an unknown source

As you [can] hear, this place is full of [wonderful | beautiful] sounds. Everything is familiar [yet | but] strange. While the nuances of each new day [pour over | envelop] me (rain sounds different [than | from the] snow, mist and fog change the acoustics as much as temperature and air pressure), I seem to be the only one [noticing it. | who is watching.] People [don't] seem to be [untouched | touched] by [sounds | the sound]. Instead, they are obsessed with "vision": Their optical sensing and recognition [apparatus is much | tools are far] more developed than their ears. What is strange is that they cannot actively [utter colours | say the colour] as [one would assume, | assumed,] given that vision seems to be their [primary | main] modality. [After all | However], we can [create sound | make] as much [noise] as we can listen [to it. | to.]

+ Found object: Flat circular object of unknown use and origin

92

+ Localisation: Latitude: 48°11'16.20" N, Longitude: 16°19'1.80" E, Mariahilferstrasse, 1150 Vienna, close to Technical Museum

+ Type of methodology: Excavation

+ Context of discovery: Unknown

+ Date of excavation: 20.06.2019

+ Specification of excavation: 18 cm below ground level, horizontal position, no associated context

+ Reporters: Bovermann, Grill, Leibetseder, Schilling (researchers of the Rotting Sounds project)

They communicate with their voices and listen to each other with their ears: At least we have something in common.

[Since | Because] listening and [comprehending | [Since | Because] listening and [comprehending | understanding ] are my strengths, I learned their language [reasonably quick | fast enough] and noticed that it is full of words [derived | that come] from the [visual sense | sense of sight]. There are thousands of names for colours, shapes, visual structures, patterns, and so on.

Interestingly, they translate language into "writing": words, sentences, whole stories can be, and are indeed, turned into visual [shapes | form]; static, forever [engraved | etched] into a physical, visual form, [never-changing | ever changed] but constantly fading away. It is like a million [voices | sounds] from the past, [directly | immediately] whispering [at | to] you through your eyes. [Eerie | Spooky ].

[However,] they believe in writing as if it [would | will] come or, [actually, be | in fact, become] one of their gods or elders [that sings to them | who they sing for].

While I judge [things | something] by ear, tell and retell stories, listen to my ever-changing environment, they believe in the [seemingly] static nature of their [voices] captured and transcribed visually as they believe in their writing and imagery.

94

+ Description of condition: The physical object is marked by wear and tear with minor scratches and some fading on the surface. The material basis appears stable and intact. The digital object can not be verified in authenticity, but the migrated fragmentary textural representation reveals semantically informative material.

I[collect sounds| gather voices]. I [acquired| got] a machine that [can| could] "record" and ["play back"| "play"] what [ithears.| sheheard.] Playing back means that, by [the press of | pressing] a button, something the machine [previously listened to |hasheard before] "can beheard again". [In difference to| different from] what the seller [claimed, the play back does not| claims, replays don't] soundexactly the same every time. When I pointed out this [fallacy,| error,] the seller did not understand what I meant. I[think| thought] the machine[is | was] not [broken, though, since| damaged, because] I would[have been| be] surprised to be [confronted | faced] with anexact copy of what the machine [listend| was listening] to.[After all,| However,] everything changes [all the time]. ��� �� ��������⊳� � �� ������⊳ ����� �� �⊳⊳� � ����� ������ ���� ⊳� � �� ������ �� ����

I[collect sounds | gather voices]. I [acquired | got] a machine that [can | could] "record" and ["play back" | "play"] what it hears. Playing back means that, by pressing a button, something the machine [previously listened to | has heard before] "can be heard again".

[In difference to | Different from] what the seller [claimed, the play back does not | claims, replays don't] sound exactly the same every time. When I pointed out this [fallacy, | error,] the seller did not understand what I meant.

I [think | thought] the machine [is | was] not [broken, though, since | damaged, because] I would [have been | be] surprised to be [confronted | faced] with an exact copy of what the machine [listened | was listening] to. [After all, | However,] everything changes [all the time].

[Sound is time-based | Voices based on time,] even [time-dependent. | depending on time.] There is no static [in] sound, only continuation.

[Sound | Voice] is [ephemeral | mortal], its decay is [inevitable | foreseeable] and [immediate | direct].

I [am digging | dug] deeper into the [range of available | various] recording [machines]. It turns out that [the] sound can be "stored" in various [forms | modes]. Similar to "writing", sound can be "recorded" [onto a medium. Only, transcribing] to the [medium | media. It's just that, copying to the media] and reading it [back | again] cannot be done without [a tool. | tools.] There are many different vehicles for [sound recording | recording sounds]: "Phonographs" [("sound writing" machines) | ("voice writing machines")] and magnetic storage media (called "Tape", or "Musicassette") are analogue systems, contrasting to discrete, number-based ones storing their information optically (called "CD"), magnetic ("DAT", "HDD"), or semi-conductive physical ("SSD").

People seem [to be] eager to introduce [abstractions | abstraction] into [these | this] storage [systems | system]. Magnetic storage, for [instance, | example,] can be written and read [out] with electrical devices and [turned | converted] into electrical signals. [This|It] has [the advantage | advantages] that [it] can be manipulated, "copied" and [amplified | strengthened].

The [signals | voices] can be manipulated, "copied" and [amplified | strengthened]. During these [operations | manipulations], no [sounds | voices] are [heard | perceived], or, at least, no [signals | voices | sounds] that I can [associate | link] with the one's [stored | captured] on the machines. It seems like the sound is [held | captured] in a different [plane | dimension], inaccessible [to me], unless [I use] a dedicated playback device [is used].

People [found | find] a way to [even] further ["manipulate"] this ["manipulability"] by discretising waves into [tiny, static sections, | static, small parts,] each [indicating | of which shows] one of a very [finite | limited] number of [values | numbers]. When varying the [strength | power] of an [eclectic | electrical] signal [fast enough | quite quickly] according to these values, [an | the] impression of [a] dynamically changing [wave unfolds, which | waves that] can be made [audible | is heard] by [a "loudspeaker" | "singers"], (basically an electric coil [that is] attached to a [piece | sheet] of cardboard).

This technology is [broadly | widely] used to store [away] sound. [A play | This technology is [broadly | widely] used to store [away] sound. [A playback of | Playing] these [chunks, | pieces | "files"] is a surprisingly [realistic] reproduction of what was previously captured. I [wonder if | want to know whether] this technology also [allows | makes it possible] to [create | make] sounds that were not [recorded before | previously recorded].

102

+ Cultural-historical description: The data object in its physical and digital existence can neither be classified as a known cultural artifact nor can it be assigned to a historical context.

+ Methods of examination: The optical technological reference leads us to the attempt to read the disc with a conventional professional optical disc drive (ASUS BW-16D1HT SATA). We succeeded to extract the binary data stream while also verifying its integrity. The readout yielded a digital audio file (PCM encoding, 16 bit, two channels interleaved) of undefined sampling rate.

104

An investigative audio analysis with software tools from Music Information Research (MIR) revealed a distinct repetitive spectral structure that could be transcribed to text symbols. Since we lack knowledge about the specific cultural context of the text we could generate only an incomplete interpretation with marked ambiguities.

"Digital" is a strange [beast | dragon]. People use it as a term for everything and [nothing | not] at [the same time | once]: Digital is information stored in binary format, digital is [everything | anything] that has to do with modern [living | life]. Digital is [the | a new] way of life, digital is a synonym for [activities of communication via a] network [communication activities] called "internet".

[The notion possibly has its origin in | This idea might come from] the development of "computers": machines that calculate [states | status]; blazingly fast [yet | but] still static, [discrete | separate].

Listening [closely | carefully], digital turns out to be [threefold | triple].

There is "data", a [description that is] symbolically [encoded description | encoded]. In [the case | terms] of sound, it may consist of a series of numbers representing the [deflection of a] speaker cone [deflection] at a given time, but [it] may [as well | also] be a set of rules [on | about] how sonic qualities [could | can] be [derived | obtained] from environmental factors.

There is "hardware", [the] physical [boards populated | board is filled] with semiconductive components, connected with [wires | cables], both printed and [free-running | running freely]; [spinning | rotating] magnetic discs, sometimes magnetic [tapes | bands], microphones and loudspeakers. They form [a] complex [system on which | systems where] data is stored and processed.

There is [the interpretation level | a level of interpretation]. Data storage is [so general, so | very common, very] abstract (almost always in binary code) [so] that an interpretation [guideline | recipe | codec | algorithm] is needed to determine how it is [turned | converted] back into sound.

The [borders | boundaries] of these classes are [fuzzy: interpretation | unclear: interpretations] can be [hard-coded | coded] into [wires | cables], or, as [it is the case] with error correction, data [may | can] contain information [on | about] how it [should | would] be read. One factor informs the other, one cannot be [examined independently | checked regardless] of the other.

106+ Technical description: The cylindric disc is made of a transparent polymer, a silver reflective layer, a gold-plated surface and measures 120 mm in diameter with a 15 mm center hole. With a plate thickness of 1.5 mm the disc weighs approximately 28 g. The gilded surface bears black inscriptions, probably applied with a water insoluble ink "by hand". The silver reflecting layer appears to carry a microscopic, spiral pattern similar to the Compact Disc (ISO9660, EN60908). The information extracted (for description of extraction see: methods of examination below) can not be signed to significant characteristic of a digital object because of missing documentation of adequate data interpretation.

To answer my question interfering with the [digital audio] reproduction [part | section], namely the generation of [digital audio | sound generation | sound], is not only possible but an integral part of "music production":

[Voice | The music] of "production" (its "generation") is separated from [music] "consumption" (its "perception") not only [by | on] the time that passes between production and consumption. [Moreover | In addition], there are [selected people | professionals] [that | who] are explicitly appointed [to | for] music production. They use [specific] tools that are [far more] open in their ability to produce dynamically changing structures than the usual playback [devices | machines]. For them, variations of what was previously heard are not only possible but highly [encouraged | recommended]. Similar to [analogue | musical] instruments [extending | that extend] the [physicality of the | physical] body [by resonant | with resonance] [structures] and vibrating elements, there are digital [tools where the | devices in which] sound production operates [equally to | the same for] sound reconstruction [in | on a] recording [machines | machine]. In [difference to those | contrast], the [directives | direction] for the signal to be played [back] by [the | a] digital [instruments are | instrument is] not determined by [the] previously recorded [streams of sound | sound flow]. [Rather | Instead] they are influenced by dynamic systems [of | with] varying degrees of flexibility: while some are [pretty fixed to | quite fixated on] a limited vocabulary of sonic [chunks | pieces] that can be played back at different times, others dig [deep | deeper] into the complex [interplay | interactions] of digital [dynamic] systems. With [those | that] it is possible to [create | make] sounds [unheard | that have never been heard] before and to [intertwine | interweave] them into [a] complex sonic [weaving such | weaves so] that [both] their [source | sources] and [their] performance become unidentifiable and their [interplay | interactions] cannot be [untangled | described].

Most of the times, however, these [musical] instruments are used to [create fixed | make] recordings of ["music" | "voicings"] rather than being recognised as [a | the] music [medium themselves | media itself].

�� ��� ��� ����� �

❒♏� ❒□♎

✿

✿

### **Voicings of an auralist**

Received in the context of the project of artistic research "Rotting sounds – Embracing the temporal deterioration of digital audio", a cooperation between the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, the University of Applied Arts Vienna and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

Funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) as project AR 445-G24.

Till Bovermann: reception Almut Schilling: retrieval Thomas Grill: analysis Tobias Leibetseder: assemblage

http://rottingsounds.org

Audio available at https://archive.org/details/auralist (c) Rotting sounds

## **Creative (Mis)understandings: A Methodology of Inspiration**

*Johannes Kretz & Wei-Ya Lin (with contributions by Bernd Brabec de Mori)*

This paper aims to provide an overview of the project *creative (mis)understandings*, supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF, PEEK , AR 463-G24), which began in September 2018 and spans three years.

Today, many traditional musical practices face the threat of immanent discontinuation. *Contemporary academic composition* also figures among endangered traditions,<sup>1</sup> along with many other non-mainstream practices. In this sense, our project is an effort to join the forces of creativity, to support the solidarity between (artistic) minorities in the broadest sense, ranging from traditional music to composition in academia, to gain importance in a world of strongly commercialised cultural life, and to redefine aesthetic and social categories.

The project anchors notions of 'music composition' or 'sound creation' and composition within contemporary philosophical and anthropological theories. These theories highlight the diversity of reality constructions, including artistic representation and practice (including music). The project aims to develop transcultural approaches of inspiration (which we regard as *mutually appreciated intentional and reciprocal artistic inf luence based on solidarity*) by combining approaches from contemporary music composition and improvisation with ethnomusicological and sociological research. We encourage creative (mis)understandings emerging from the interaction between research and artistic practice, and between European art music, folk and non-Western styles, in particular from indigenous minorities in Taiwan. Comprehension and incomprehension both yield serendipity and

<sup>1</sup> See http://www.musicendangerment.com/portfolio/new-music-neue-musik/

inspiration for new research questions, innovative artistic creation and applied follow-ups among non-Western communities.

#### **Philosophical foundations**

Ontologies – that is, forms of knowledge about what exists and in which ways the existing interrelates – are diverse among human societies (Descola 2013). In such diverse societies, the meaning and function of sound and music (and other arts) are understood in quite different ways. As the contemporary 'globalising world' tends to overemphasise the ontology of naturalism, other forms of knowledge should be fostered and promoted in order to maintain balance. On the other hand, the idea that knowledge about the world and about arts is consistent within a certain geographical or cultural space is being challenged. Bruno Latour (2013) shows that 'the moderns' (human beings localising themselves in a naturalistic world) do not live in one reality, but make use of a multitude of 'modes of existence'. Therefore, if one were to attempt to understand what music is – and what music can be – one should develop the ability to switch perspectives: it is the perspective that determines the body that perceives the world (Viveiros de Castro 2012).

In the Western world, that is, in naturalist collectives (Descola 2013), the fundamental epistemological paradigm is the scientific method: a claim to knowledge has to be verified by inter-subjectively applicable means (experiments, theoretical validity, reliance on previously proven sources). The methods for doing so are wide-ranging and differ between academic disciplines, or more precisely, between epistemic cultures (Knorr-Cetina 2007); but still, most of the accepted methods are variants of visualisation and writing. However, knowledge production can follow different paths (Feyerabend 1975, 1994)2 and, as the new field of sound studies asserts, it is also present and representable in the sonic domain (Brabec de Mori & Winter 2018).

In both scientific and artistic knowledge production approaches it is crucial to ref lect on the differentiation between explicit and tacit/implicit knowledge (Polanyi 1967, Collins 2012). Whereas explicit knowledge embraces what is uttered, written and communicated, the implicit/tacit

<sup>2</sup> Feyerabend highlights the validity of artistic methods of knowledge production in his article "Art as Nature as a Work of Art" (1994).

dimension often takes on the quality of the pre-supposed, is embodied through practices (Reckwitz 2002), or – most relevant for our project – uses other sensory domains than the visual; it may become manifest as auditory knowledge, i.e. as knowledge tacitly comprehended in sound (Zembylas & Niederauer 2018). Beyond the analytical grasp, auditory knowledge can only be expressed through the non-verbal variability of sonic expression, through what we include in the term 'music'. Both musicians and researchers can offer valuable contributions to reality constructions, that is, how we perceive and understand our world, and how we relate and interact with other humans and with our environment (Brabec de Mori 2016).

The methods applied in this project depart from ethnographic evidence that people living in non-Western or traditional societies often use methods of knowledge production within the sonic domain which are commonly unaddressed or unknown among contemporary music composers (aside from exoticist appropriations). To understand such traditional knowledge productions – conceived as changeable reality constructions – we propose the creation of a framework to develop sonic creations as knowledge production. Therefore, at the core of our undertaking lies a dialogue of sonic reality constructions accompanied by verbal ref lection.

#### **Aims of the project**

The project aims to extend the fundamental concepts and methods of contemporary composition and music creation to various transcultural contexts, and to develop methods of connecting academic artistic work to the musical world with its great variety of traditions, practices and genres.

The following artistic research questions are central:

• How can dialogical knowledge production mutually inf luence the creative minds of both academic composers/music makers and musicians in non-academic music traditions?

Countering habitual notions that see inspiration as a rather unidirectional phenomenon (from the source of inspiration to the composer using the material), we use a multi-directional perspective of inspiration including indigenous concepts of creation (cf. Brabec de Mori 2016, 48-50). Instead of taking inspiration for artistic use, we want to contribute to a model of mutual inspiration exchange and mutual understanding, and to establish a layer of intentional *creative (mis)understanding*. By extending field research to active and egalitarian *interaction in the field*, participants mutually acquire knowledge about music and its context. They can then create a common base for meaningful expressive vocabularies and grammars.

• How can we adapt or transform research methods into methods of creativity?

Being aware of the differences in methodology between research and creative production, we aim to develop a model of interdisciplinary transcultural arts-based research which not only envisions the 'material' (musical content, instruments, recordings, etc.) but also includes the surrounding context and different layers of meaning that the material embodies. Primarily, this is sought from within the tradition of its original history, use and meanings (emic/insider perspective), but also, of course, for the academic composers of the team, initially 'outsiders' (etic perspective). This does not mean that such 'material' can only be used in its original style or context. The dialogue between research and artistic work includes transformations of meaning, creative translations and (mis-)interpretations. Nevertheless, an awareness of the context of the sources allows for a respectful and conscious handling of the 'material'. Furthermore, the interaction with members of the source communities improves mutual understanding and can serve as a basis for conscious distortions and *creative (mis)understandings*. Several transdisciplinary methods are being developed: *artistic field research* combines elements and methods from ethnomusicological field research with artistic exploration and protocolling/documentation. Equally, the methods of transcription (ethnomusicology) and notation (composition) require a process of merging as well as the respective methods for the analysis of musical content.

• How can we deal with discrepancies between research ethics and artistic freedom? Which issues might arise? How can the method of *creative (mis) understanding* solve them?

While drawing from a long-term collaboration between some team members and the Tao people, the project contributes to new methodologies for composition, develops paradigmatic ways of relating music to society, and aims to increase the interest of a general audience for contemporary music and for the related research by connecting it to social contexts throughout the whole process of creation and dissemination. Sensitivity for the particular contexts of musical/cultural phenomena in the artistic process and allowing these contexts to confuse the composer's inspiration also increases the potential impact of new compositions. *Creative (mis)understandings* might lead to works that in turn offer additional or even reverse perspectives on the communities involved and, therefore, have a chance of facilitating new understandings.<sup>3</sup>

• In what sense will the artistic outcome of our methodology differ from that of other initiatives?

The artistic outcome of the project includes several musical forms (individual and collective compositions, improvisations, installations, new performance practices). Most importantly, we aim to achieve different versions and forms based on the 'same' artistic content, which we call *scalable compositions*. The characteristics of those versions will depend on the sociocultural context of the genesis of a piece as well as on their public performance situation in various contexts. Therefore, we will encourage the participating composers/artists to develop at least two different realisations of the same musical ideas (inspired by the team's joint transcultural/inter-traditional research), ref lecting different contexts of presentation.

The same content (e.g., some kind of 'distorted indigenous music') could be perceived as relatively unmodified 'traditional music' in the context of a European new music festival, but as a 'quite extreme experiment' in the context of 'indigenous music'. Therefore, it will be very interesting to adapt the musical content – developed from common field research – to different presentation situations, including audience participation. The challenge of calibrating the outcome of artistic processes in dependence on their partic-

<sup>3</sup> Compare mockumentaries such as *Das Fest des Huhnes* by W. Wippersberg (ORF 1992), presenting 'indigenous people' of Upper Austria from the perspective of a fictitious African anthropologist; or *Borat* by S. B. Cohen (20th Century Fox 2006).

ipants and recipients while still keeping the essence of the artistic idea will lead to new insights in the artistic process and to new concepts and methods of composition.

As an example from previous work, compare the (apparently European) twelve-tone chord (fig. 1) constructed from overlapping pentatonic scales (alluding to being Asian), providing the potential for smooth transitions between otherwise contrasting aesthetics.

*Fig. 1: Pitch structure from ponso no tao for piano and electronics (Kretz 2016)*

The exchange with researchers should add further insights into artistic processes and provide an 'intellectual mirror' for creative activities. Since artistic works strongly relate to various social groups and their perspectives on the relationship between music and life, we expect the artistic results to raise interest in various kinds of audiences. At the same time, we expect to raise further awareness for the indigenous communities in Taiwan and their social and political concerns among 'outsiders' in Taiwan and beyond.

Previous projects of some of the team members with Taiwanese indigenous communities (Kretz 2007a, 2007b, Kretz & Lin 2015) and in particular with the Tao community of Lanyu Island (Lin 2011a, 2011b, 2013a, 2013b, 2015a, 2015b, 2016), have already connected scholarly research with artistic practice both in Taiwan and Austria. Specific artistic, scholarly and social/ political topics were already addressed, and this project finally allows us to generalise methodologies for an extended range of participants, topics and communities, and to provide tools of communication, sound articulation, notation and documentation, which will also be useful for the development and strengthening of the source communities' own artistic practices and development.

#### **Methodology**

While the arts on the one hand, and ethnomusicology and art theory on the other, have developed their own coherent and rigorous methodologies, they are not easily compatible and have proven to be quite resilient towards attempts to transfer them – partly because of obvious differences in the roles of knowledge production, of peer audiences, of originality/non-conformity and of pragmatic problem solving.

The lack of a profound integration of ethnomusicological research methods, of audiences and of collaborators from other musical traditions seems to be a main f law within many transcultural artistic projects. We therefore designed an interdisciplinary methodological framework (see fig. 3), extending team member Bhagwati's AGNI4 methodology (fig. 2, Bhagwati 2013a, 2013b), which connects and intertwines artistic practice with arts-based research and ethnomusicology.

#### **Overview of AGNI**

*Fig. 2: AGNI (Bhagwati 2005)*

<sup>4</sup> Successfully used by Bhagwati: *atish-e-zaban* (2005/6), *PerSonAlia* (2006/7), *Racines Ephémères* (2008-11), *Alien Lands*, *monochrom* (2010), *Native Alien* (2009-12), by Leroux: *Dialogues fantasques* (2008/09), *Resonant Responses to Joanna Baillie's Witchcraf t* (2009-12), by Neumark: *Home Beautiful* (2008-12), and by Laplante: *hyper-écoute* (2011).

The AGNI methodology uses the terms of its acronym in a wide sense. In the *Analysis* phase, researchers observe practitioners of an existing or emerging art practice. Practitioners are invited to demonstrate their work and discuss concepts, techniques and aesthetic ideas, and respond to researchers' questions. Their comments, integrated into the documentation, provide salient insights into the practitioners' (inside) view of their own work. In the *Grammar* phase, insights from *Analysis*, together with material about this art practice obtained otherwise, are analysed for 'unspoken rules'. Possible focuses are aesthetics and ethics: are they oriented towards ideals of perfection, social relevance, marketability or the recognition of peers? Which implicit aesthetic and disciplinary hierarchies, or even taboos, are at work? The goal of this phase is to understand which, and to what extent, cultural traditions and constraints or discipline-based axioms are central or peripheral to the particular art practice. In the *Notation* phase, descriptions of the art practice from *Analysis* and *Grammar* are both formalised to create various methods of representation suited to the art form. These can employ any format and medium. Suitable notations are important for the analysis and creative evolution of non-conventional performance practices. Moreover, notations enable us to structurally create new relationships between different modes of expression. In this context, 'scores' are seen in the broadest sense, as symbolisations of processes which extend over time (Halprin 1970).

The usefulness of various notation systems5 and tools will be explored. Working from the assumption that the experimental 'acid test' for any notation is its practicability, artist researchers will implement several versions of the same 'piece' based on different notations. This process could include grafting a model derived from one practice onto the material of another. Such *implementations* will require practical modifications (e.g., due to limitations of performers/technology, adaptation to new context). We also strongly encourage different implementations for the different presentation contexts. The AGNI method, adapted to the specific needs of this project, is of key importance for allowing both the researchers and the artists to switch perspectives and integrate the different points of view.

<sup>5</sup> Memory supportive, parametric, result or action-oriented, sequential, atemporal, situational, mimetic, multi-modal, oral.

*Fig. 3: Methods used in the project Creative (Mis)understandings: a Methodology of Inspiration (Kretz 2017)*

## **Field research and interaction, Analysis (A from AGNI)**

Our plan is to arrange visits to indigenous communities in Taiwan and to collaborate with their artistic practitioners. The Taiwanese government currently recognises sixteen indigenous groups in Taiwan, all of which have strong, independent cultural identities and astoundingly different music styles, varying from the triphonic homophony of the Bunun people to the microtonal clusters of the Tao on Lanyu Island. Based on the prior work of some team members with the Tao community (Hurworth 1995, Lin 2015b)

and extending the previous scope, we will integrate methods from various academic disciplines:

• Artistic field research parallel to and in interaction with ethnomusicological field research

From the outset, the question of grounding and relating artistic impulses in questions relevant for society will be explored. Active participation in the field – joint performance and improvisation – helps to grasp knowledge which cannot be easily captured verbally, and can serve as a mutual exchange of content, analysis of knowledge, and understanding. Finding situations where such musical encounters on a par are possible requires unconventional behaviour – on all sides. According to our experiences, it can mean setting up an interactive workshop in a public space (in front of a supermarket, in an abandoned house or in a school), or it might occur by integrating ourselves into gatherings after spontaneous invitations. Different strategies need to be combined: involving young people in common public creative activities – even involving simple forms of live electronics – may open doors, but often, as a first step, approaching the older generation rather formally and participating in social and religious events and rituals rather passively may be more appropriate. This requires respect, understanding and f lexibility towards the temporal, geographical and social constraints and taboos of the community, and constant readiness for mutual teaching/coaching and common improvisatory practice.

• Qualitative interviews, narrative inquiries and dialogical approaches, ethnography and ethnographic-biographic writing

Qualitative interviews, narrative inquiries and a dialogical approaches are common in music-related arts-based research and will be used throughout the entire project. Ethnography deals with background information, composers' and music makers' actions and presentations, attendees, location and time of each context of their music practice. Ethnographic-biographic writing is employed by the coordinator of research and artistic work and the scientific team, is introduced to music makers and composers and integrated into their creative process. Hybrid methods, such as *artistic field research*, need to be predefined and evaluated during and after the joint fieldwork.

• Analysis of practice-based knowledge

Led by the assumption that the practitioner does more than s/he knows (Bourdieu 1977), all participants demonstrate their work and discuss concepts, techniques and ideas. Common environments of 'knowledge exchange' are established both formally in an academic context and informally in the field, so that knowledge which cannot be easily expressed through words can spread through common practice.

### **Grammar, Notation (G&N from AGNI) and ethnomusicological transcription**

The *Grammar* and *Notation* steps of AGNI (see previous section) will be enriched by complementary approaches from ethnomusicological methods of transcription. A broad variety of notation and transcription systems – ranging from definitions of concepts to the transcription of performances – will be explored. Ethnomusicologists often develop specific notation styles, even for different genres within the same musical tradition (fig. 4). The development of notation styles dependent on aesthetic aims and musical language has become a key topic in the twentieth century (Karkoschka 1966), and even more so in the twenty-first century.6 Electronic real-time notation (Clay und Freeman 2010, Kretz 2010) and *sound painting* (Thompson 2006) for real-time composition and audience interaction provide further approaches. From this rich pallet of communication systems, we need to tailor specific tools suitable to musical styles and musics in the scope of the project, which are essential for analysis, for the creation of new content (Kretz 2011, 2014) and for audience participation. These tools will vary for different team members (Vienna/Montreal/Taiwan) depending on their backgrounds and contextual requirements.

<sup>6</sup> https://www.gold.ac.uk/cmru/symposium/

*Fig. 4: Example of a transcription method (Anood melody type) of the Tao people, Taiwan. (Lin 2015b, 259)*

#### **Collaborative arts-based research workshops**

In addition to traditional artistic processes, a *platform for collaborative artsbased research workshops* supports interaction within the team. These are also complemented by a non-public Wiki platform where all team members can interact, share knowledge, ideas, content, etc. and document their artistic research processes with the team. To which extent the results of these workshops and the entire project will be collaborative or individual compositions, sound installations, pieces of concept music, performance with audience participation – or any combination of those – will be clarified during the collaborative process. The collected material from the above-mentioned methods – already characterised by a certain collective nature as a result of the previous steps – will be further examined and developed jointly through methods of research close to ethnomusicology as well as via an artistic laboratory of common improvisation and rehearsing. Rehearsing is not meant here as (too) early preparation for a public performance, but rather as an experimental situation where participants can fathom the potential of musical elements and their (individual/collective) works in progress and submit them to a common 'stress test'. Furthermore, the idea of *scalable compositions*  (see the section Aims of the Project) relating to different contexts of dissemination requires joint ref lection and interaction on various levels. Which aesthetic axioms are relevant for which performance situations and which audiences? Which source content can be developed in which direction to open up potential for modification, allowing the outcome to be 'scalable' dependent

on the presentation context? The involvement of experts from source communities will be essential in this phase.

The fieldwork/participant approach and dialogical knowledge production are also applied in different situations during the collaborative processes by the coordinator of research and artistic work and the members of the scientific team, such as through discussions, preparations, presentations, concerts and performances. Musical practices, conversations and oral transmissions are the most common form of research data, allowing an effective approximation and providing a clearer view of the peculiarities of the ideas, concepts and methods applied during the creative process, and later of the behaviour (action, interaction, presentation and representation) in real-time practice. To establish and verify this data, fieldwork is the most essential and efficient research method for collecting and documenting primary sources in written, audio and visual forms. The collected data will be helpful for defining the contexts in which the composers and music makers socialise, act and work.

This research method is also introduced to the invited artists themselves. We will discuss whether this method might be useful for their personal creative processes as well as artistic development and, crucially, music-related arts-based research. Every workshop meeting is also documented (audio and video).

#### **Dissemination**

An online weblog<sup>7</sup> was established at the beginning of this project. We plan to explore the use of various digital platforms, such as Research Catalogue8 and Nuxeo9 during the progress of the work for internal communication, archiving and for providing an online platform for audience participation. Later, various formats of publications, performances and exhibitions are planned.

<sup>7</sup> https://www.mdw.ac.at/creativemisunderstandings/

<sup>8</sup> https://www.researchcatalogue.net/

<sup>9</sup> https://www.nuxeo.com/de/

#### **Implementation (I from AGNI) and audience participation**

The artist researchers will realise works – in various context-dependent instantiations – based on the developed notations and collected knowledge. These works will require constant adjustments (limits of performers/technology, adaptations to the contexts). With respect to the circular structure of the project and to establish a strong connection back to society, we will link the dissemination of the results of the project back to the cultural minorities involved in the field research. This model has already shown promising results in our own experiences and other projects.10 *Feeding back to the field* serves the ethical aspect of 'giving back the borrowed content' (even in modified form), the collection of feedback from informants as evaluation of the applied methods, and as a basis for the development of a future common arts practice. To which extent was our endeavour to make contents scalable successful? To what extent can the informants perceive the relationship between source content and project results? Can the project contribute to increasing awareness of the visited community? Can we integrate the informants' community members into joint performances? To what extent will the result be different when compared to the first field trip two years earlier?

Among other tools, *sound painting* (Thompson 2006) will be employed for community and audience participation in order to include a wide range of people. Since the Tao community does not practically distinguish between performers and audience in many of their traditional practices, we expect a continuum between *co-creation, co-curation* and *active spectatorship*. The feedback of the musicians originally involved in the field research will be implemented in the public artistic work, documented and ref lected upon by the scholars. We will present the artistic outcome in Taiwan on Lanyu Island in the villages of Ivalino, Iraralay, Imorod, etc., as well as at the festivals in Europe and Taiwan*.* 

During all the stages of the project, exchange and coordination between composers, music makers, scholars and source community experts will be essential in order to reflect not only on the creative process, but also to analyse and support strong interaction between creation and society. Repeated interactions with source communities, as well as audience participation in the broadest sense, will aid the increased social relevance of the artistic results.

<sup>10</sup> A. Heidweiller: *Opera in de bus*: http://www.yo-opera.nl/archief\_projects\_template0. php?item=1491

## **Team**

### **Project leaders**

Johannes Kretz, project leader Wei-Ya Lin, project co-leader, senior researcher

#### **Composers**

Samu Gryllus, composer Wolfgang Liebhart, composer Ming Wang, composer Hui Ye, composer

## **Participants from Tao community**

Siaman Vongayan (Han name: Chien-Ping Kuo), translator and coordinator Si Pehbowen (Han name: Zheng Kuo), Tao dancer/singer, Sinan Sakayan, Tao teacher Chien-Hsiang Lin, video artist Hsin-Chi Lin, Tao singer and singing coach Ching-Yu Shih, Tao singer and singing coach

## **Advisory board**

Sandeep Bhagwati, Montreal, composer Iris ter Schiphorst, mdw, composer Bernd Brabec de Mori, Kunstuniversität Graz, ethnomusicology, auditive ontologies, sound stories Marc Antoine Camp, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, ethnomusicology Cheng-Hsien Yang, National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan, anthropology Tasos Zembylas, mdw, tacit knowing of composers Fang-Yi Lin, Studio Acht, Taipei, Taiwan, composer

#### **Support/Cooperation**

Chiao-Hua Chang, ethnomusicologist, erhu player Tao Foundation Lan-En Foundation

#### **Organisation**

Daliah Hindler, assistant & weblog editor

## **Current state of the project**

In January 2019 we invited Tao representatives to attend workshops in Vienna. The aim was to exchange and present every team member's thoughts and their prior artistic work. This two-week exchange gave rise to even more questions. One of the main subjects discussed during the two weeks of the workshop was the preservation of the Tao's traditional music and transformation of their tradition, society and music, or sounds.


New methodologies for composition and developing paradigmatic ways of relating music to society could increase the interest of a general audience for contemporary music.

Creative (mis)understandings might lead to works that, in turn, offer additional, or even reverse perspectives on the communities involved, and therefore, have a chance of providing new understandings and inspiring sustainable developments.

#### **Literature**


## **Schallnamen**

#### *Johannes Kreidler*

Zum Komponieren gehört die Ref lexion übers Hören. Was hört man denn, wenn man einen Oboenton vernimmt, hier und jetzt, im 21. Jahrhundert, in Mitteleuropa? Mir ist im Zuge meiner musikalischen Arbeit immer mehr zu Bewusstsein gekommen, dass Klänge mit sprachlichem Wissen besetzt, ja zutiefst durchsetzt sind. Beethoven klingt wunderbar, aber es klingt auch nach Beethoven. Ein Klavier klingt schön und klingt nach ›Klavier‹. Sprache geht dem Hören voraus. Am Anfang war das Wort.

Solange neue Klänge gefunden werden konnten, ließ sich dem entweichen. Die ›absolute Musik‹ des 19. Jahrhunderts verdankte sich unverbrauchten Klanglichkeiten wie dem seinerzeit modernen Flügel, der neuen Klarinette, den innovativen Ventilblechblasinstrumenten oder Neubauten wie dem Kontrafagott. Ähnlich entfaltete sich die vollkommen abstrakte Ästhetik Gottfried Michael Koenigs, dem Pionier der synthetischen elektronischen Musik in den 1950ern und 60ern; er hatte Geräte, mit denen sich ganz neuartige Klänge generieren ließen. Die These lautet aber: Das kommt an ein Ende, unverbrauchte Klänge werden äußerst rar, so wie das Periodensystem der Elemente in den letzten Jahrzehnten kaum noch um einen Eintrag reicher geworden ist.

Zuletzt waren da die ›erweiterten Spieltechniken‹ der Neuen Musik, von denen Mathias Spahlinger im Programmtext zu seinem Duo für Violine und Cello *adieu m'amour* 1980 noch schreiben konnte, dass sie »ungewöhnlich« seien, und die Möglichkeiten der digitalen Klangsynthese und -verarbeitung. Doch mittlerweile sind auch die erweiterten Spieltechniken nahezu restlos ausgeforscht, in Büchern katalogisiert, mit allgemeingültigen Notationssymbolen versehen und standardisierter Gegenstand der Kompositionsausbildung. Gleichfalls sieht man im Bereich von Audiosoftware nur mehr die Optimierung und Verfeinerung etablierter Kategorien, Prinzipien, Herstellungsweisen, spricht über kanonisierte Anwendungsgeschichten, weiß um historische und kulturelle Verortungen. Dass ein tatsächlich ungehörter, frischer Klang aus dem Lautsprecher erklingt, davon ist kaum noch zu berichten. Im Pop diagnostiziert Simon Reynolds generell die »Retromania« – man remixed eigentlich nur noch einstige Errungenschaften wieder und wieder.

Je mehr die Klänge also da sind und bleiben, desto mehr werden sie auch versprachlicht, ihr Ziel und Schicksal, die ›Tendenz des Materials‹ ist die Nominalisierung. Musik wird be-sprochen, ein- und ausgesprochen. Paradigmatisch ist das bei den Genres der Popmusik zu beobachten: Ich bin kein Metalexperte, ich habe es schlichtweg im Internet recherchiert und bin auf über 70 verschiedene Metalgenres gekommen; einige Kostproben aus dieser Forschung: Death Doom Metal, Drone Doom Metal, Speed Metal, Heavy Metal, Happy Metal, Japanese Power Metal, Flower Metal, Epic Hollywood Metal, Funeral Doom Metal, Industrial Metal, Slam Death Metal, Technical Death Metal, Symphonic Metal, Opera Metal, Nationalsozialistischer Black Metal, Cyber Metal, Trash Metal, True Metal ...

Kein Metal ohne Genre, keine Band ohne namentliche Bindung. Mit dieser Liste habe ich ein Stück komponiert, das jene Namen in alphabetischer Reihenfolge präsentiert, als *Einleitung in die Musiksoziologie*, und zu jedem genannten Genre wird ein kurzer Schnipsel eines mutmaßlichen Beispiels abgespielt; mutmaßlich, weil ich etwa »Melodic Death Metal« einfach als Suchbegriff bei YouTube eingegeben und den ersten Treffer ohne weitere Verifizierung übernommen hatte – und so mit allen Stilnamen. Es bleibt ja ohnehin die Frage, inwieweit die sprachliche Benennung ästhetisch mit dem Klingenden isomorph ist oder wird – oder eben nicht. Ich arbeite also erst einmal die Schallbezeichnungen heraus, die die Gesellschaft hervorbringt, diesseits der akademischen Musiktheorie (die ja auch für jeden melodischen Sachverhalt eine Bezeichnung parat hat). Neben Metal-Genres wären da auch etwa unzählige House-Stile (Balearic Tribal House, Kwaito House, Microhouse ...).

Eine ähnliche Untersuchung von mir galt den Kundenrezensionen von Fahrradklingeln auf Amazon. Manche Fahrradklingeln kommen da auf über 100 Bewertungen in der Kommentarspalte, in denen ihr Klang beschrieben und diskutiert wird – »Musikdiskurs in a Nutshell« gewissermaßen, anhand eines einzigen Tones.

So finden sich in der Kommentarmasse unterschiedliche onomatopoetische Beschreibungen für den Glockenklang wie »Ding«, »Ting«, »Ring«, »Bing«, »Ping«, »Pling« – samt der Frage, ob es eigentlich »der Ping« oder »das Ping« heißt, Auseinandersetzungen um die Geschichte, wo doch die früheren »Ritsch-Ritsch«-Klingeln der Meinung mancher Rezensierenden nach effektiver (und schöner) waren als die heutigen Ein-Ton-Klingeln, und Seitenhiebe auf die arroganten Autofahrenden und allzu klingelverliebten Radelnden fehlen nicht. Aus diesem Kommentargold war es ein Leichtes, eine beinahe schon kabarettartige Nummer zu schreiben: *Das ›DING‹ an sich*.

*Abb. 1: Das ›DING‹ an sich*

Komponieren heißt dann also, nicht mit Klängen zu komponieren, sondern auf der Ebene ihrer Bezeichnungen. Über Klang zu sprechen bedeutet, Musik zu machen. Hier wendet sich freilich das Blatt: Das eine ist, bestehende Klang-Namen einzusammeln; wenn ich sie aber anordne, ausspreche und mit Klang selbst zusammenbringe, wird erschaffen. Gott sprach, und die Welt entstand.

Was bei Kunst hierbei noch hinzutritt: Wir nehmen nicht nur eine Bezeichnung, Bemächtigung, Erschaffung von Klang wahr, sondern auch den Akt des Bezeichnens, die Macht über das Material und dessen Widerständigkeit. Die Sprache spricht – vom Intervall zwischen Sprache und Klang. Der ästhetische Modus ist die Autoref lexivität.

2009, am Höhepunkt der Finanzkrise, als die Aktienkurse weltweit in den Keller gingen, habe ich deren grafische Darstellung in Melodien umgeschrieben und diese in die Kinderkompositionssoftware *Songsmith* eingespeist, die gerade auf den Markt gekommen war. Aus jedem Input macht das Spielzeug einen Happy-Sound, und so auch aus den Daten eines ökonomischen Desasters. Es wird hier völlig klar, dass die Musik nicht darauf angelegt war, so besetzt zu werden, wie es in dem resultierenden Video aufgezeigt wurde: Jedem Halbton abwärts bei diesem unschuldig wirken wollenden Gedudel entsprechen Milliarden an verlorenen Dollars. Das ist also keine ›datengetreue‹ Sonifikation, sondern eine musikalische Intepretation durch einen Widerspruch, der real ist: Denn nach der Krise tut man so, als sei nichts gewesen. Krise ist Bestandteil des Kapitalismus, ihre periodische Wiederkehr ist seit Marx' Analyse wieder und wieder eingetreten. Nach der Krise ist vor der Krise. Dazu ein Drumloop.

*Abb. 2: Charts Music*

In dem Fall war die Konnotation von Melodie und Börsenkurs qua Simultaneität von Klang und Bild hergestellt. In einem anderen Fall ging performativ die Sprache dem Gehörten voraus: In meinem Stück *Fremdarbeit* habe ich einen chinesischen Komponisten und einen indischen Audioprogrammierer damit beauftragt, Stücke zu komponieren, die so klingen sollen wie Stücke von mir. Dieses Konzept beinhaltet zwei Aspekte: Den der Autorschaft – wer hat das nun komponiert? Es klingt wie meine Musik und doch auch nicht, denn die Kopisten stammen aus anderen Kulturen und Erdteilen und haben jedenfalls mit Avantgarde-Musik sonst nichts zu schaffen. Gegen Geld haben sie ihr Bestes gegeben, aber die Unterschiede waren nicht allein mit Professionalität auszuräumen. Der andere Aspekt ist der von Globalisierung und Ausbeutung, denn da die Subunternehmer in Billiglohnländern leben und arbeiten, war es für mich sehr billig, auf diesem Wege die Partitur hergestellt zu bekommen, während ich selber ein übliches mitteleuropäisches Honorar für den Kompositionsauftrag erhalten habe, das rund zehnmal höher war. Und daran knüpft sich unsere Vorstellung von Wertigkeit von Musik. Im Konzert musste dieses Konzept natürlich mitgeteilt werden, also machte ich eine Moderation vorweg. Nun verleiht diese Reihenfolge von Sprache und Musik enorme Macht: Bei der Uraufführung war ich tendenziell sarkastisch und schickte in einem fast schon herablassenden Tonfall voraus, nun höre man eben mal, was die Asiaten versucht haben hinzukriegen – und entsprechend fand das Publikum die Resultate mangelhaft. Bei einer anderen Aufführung dann probierte ich das Gegenteil: Ich präsentierte mit maximaler Wertschätzung, dass wir nun hören dürften, was die fernöstlichen Kunsthandwerker zustandegebracht haben – und prompt fiel das Urteil im Publikum positiv aus.

Ich nenne dieses Phänomen »präpariertes Hören«. So wie Cage das Klavier präparierte, in die Klangerzeugung vorab eingriff, kann man auch das Hören vorjustieren und das wiederum kenntlich machen. Unser Hören ist präpariert und präparierbar. Wir bringen immer schon Konzepte, Erwartungen, eine Rahmung mit, die Präludien der Musik.

Auf dieser Ebene, der Bewusstmachung vorhandener Bedingungen von Musik, ihrer Herausarbeitung, Gestaltung und Umdeutung, komponiere ich also Musik. Dass Geld dabei ein besonders geeignetes Mittel darstellt, versteht sich: Geld gibt Macht. In *Earjobs* habe ich eine Hörstation eingerichtet, bei der Interessierte damit Geld verdienen können, dass sie Musik hören. Der Clou daran ist, dass sich in den offerierten ›Jobangeboten‹ unter Klassikern der Moderne und aktuellen Werken von Komponierenden der Neuen Musik auch ein Muzak-Titel befindet, der zehnmal besser bezahlt wird als alle anderen Arbeiten. Die Arbeitssuchenden können selber entscheiden, welche Hörarbeit sie verrichten wollen.


*Abb. 3-4: Earjobs*

Das Publikum ist hier herausgefordert – wie käuf lich ist man, und wie wirkt es sich auf das Hören aus, wenn es als ›Job‹ deklariert ist, als Lohnarbeit, nicht als Kunstgenuss? Und wie wirkt sich die schiere Taxierung jeder Musik mit einer Honorarsumme auf unsere Wertvorstellung aus? Zumal man den Wert ja nicht bezahlt, sondern bezahlt bekommt? Hören gegen Cash: Die ›Earjobs‹ generieren allerlei Erfahrungen hierzu.

Hören ist konzeptuell besetzt und wird immer konzeptueller, folglich wird das Komponieren konzeptueller und arbeitet mit Fantasie und ästhetischem Bewusstsein an dem mit, was Musik sein kann. Wo vom Besetztsein zum Besetzen vorgedrungen wird, die Kontexte und vor allem sprachliche Mittel performativ hinzugezogen werden, ist denn allerdings Musik offensichtlich nicht nur im Kopf nicht mehr Klang allein, sondern auch in der Präsentation, der Komposition etwas Multimediales. Auch wenn das Hören der Kern, der Fokus bleibt, oder die Idee von Musik als kulturelle und historische Tatsache den Gegenstand des künstlerischen Interesses bildet, haben wir es mindestens mit einem *erweiterten Musikbegrif f*, in der Konsequenz vielleicht sogar mit einem *aufgelösten Musikbegrif f* zu tun. Dann wird eigentlich alles zu Medienkunst, die sich aus konzeptuellen Gründen und Hintergründen mal dieses, mal jenes Mediums bedient, und wenn man sich speziell für Musik interessiert, dann macht man *Medienkunst mit Musik*.

In der Natur der Sache liegt dann auch, dass wissenschaftliches Arbeiten dem Ganzen inhärent ist, sei es in der Vorbereitung, sei es als Teil der Performance, in der diese Erkenntnis oder jener Fund gezeigt wird, oder gerade in der Beobachtung der Wirkungen und nicht zuletzt in der Auswirkung wiederum auf das Wissen vom Klang, vom Hören, vom Komponieren, vom Musikbegriff. Jedes konzeptuelle Werk trägt dazu bei, was Konzeptualismus ist und werden kann. Kein Konzeptualismus ohne Konzepte, und kein Konzept ohne Konzeptualismus.

# **Souveränität riskieren: Transdisziplinäre Forschung, kontextorientierte Aufführungspraxen und die Arbeit des Theaters der Versammlung** Eine Anregung1

*Jörg Holkenbrink*

*»*The moment is ripe to activate new models and proposals for how arts organizations can flourish in the present climate and into an uncertain future. Can we begin to think of ourselves, rather than stagers of plays, as orchestrators of social interactions in which a performance is a part, but only a fragment of that interaction? Can we develop communities of individuals who are participants of an ongoing dialogue?*«*

*Anne Bogart, amerikanische Regisseurin und Theaterprofessorin (Bogart 2014, 2)*

**1.**

Im Prozess der Globalisierung und der Individualisierung treffen unterschiedliche Wissensformen auf oft ungewohnte Weise aufeinander. Insbesondere das Verhältnis von wissenschaftlichem Wissen, künstlerischem Wissen und dem sogenannten Alltagswissen gerät in immer neuen Konstel-

<sup>1</sup> Dieser Beitrag zitiert Überlegungen, die ich in einer Reihe von Aufsätzen und Dialogen weiter ausführe und vertiefe (siehe dazu am Ende des Textes das Verzeichnis der weiterführenden Literatur).

lationen in Bewegung. Von daher ist es relevant, Voraussetzungen, Möglichkeiten und Wirkungen solcher differenzbewussten Grenzüberschreitungen zu erkunden. Es ist zeitgemäß, wenn Protagonist\*innen der darstellenden Künste die Theaterhäuser immer wieder verlassen und ihre performativen Strategien, Inszenierungen und Versuchsanordnungen in völlig neue Zusammenhänge einbetten, die auf *andere* Weise aktuelle Themen und Fragestellungen durchspielen und erforschen. Performer\*innen und ihr Publikum teilen so verstärkt die Verantwortung für die Qualität ihrer Begegnung. Allerdings gehen alle Beteiligten, die sich auf diese Art der Verknüpfungskunst einlassen, ein nicht zu unterschätzendes Risiko ein, weil diese Form der gemeinsamen Forschung auf beiden Seiten einen veränderten Umgang mit dem sogenannten »Nicht-Wissen« herausfordert. Wobei gerade in diesem »Nicht-Wissen« und »Nicht-Verstehen« die große Chance der wechselseitigen Bereicherung besteht. Mit anderen Worten: Wer sich auf die Produktivität der Fremdheit im Umgang mit Gegenständen und Situationen, mit anderen und mit sich selbst einlassen möchte, muss souverän genug sein, seine eigene Souveränität aufs Spiel zu setzen.

#### **2.**

Das Theater der Versammlung zwischen Bildung, Wissenschaft und Kunst (TdV) gilt als eines der ersten Forschungstheater in Deutschland. Es wurde 1992 im Rahmen eines gleichnamigen Modellversuchs der Bund-Länder-Kommission für Bildungsplanung und Forschungsförderung erfunden, erhielt 1993 den Berninghausen-Preis für ausgezeichnete Lehre und ihre Innovation im Hochschulbereich und wirkt seit 2004 als Herzstück des Zentrums für Performance Studies an der Universität Bremen. Zu den Aufgaben des Zentrums zählen die inter- und transdiziplinäre Vernetzung unterschiedlicher Wissenskulturen und die entsprechende Entwicklung neuer Veranstaltungsdramaturgien und -formate. Im Mittelpunkt der Aktivitäten des TdV steht die Zusammenarbeit professioneller Aufführungskünstler\*innen verschiedener Sparten mit Hochschulangehörigen unterschiedlicher wissenschaftlicher Fachrichtung. Das Ensemble wandert durch die Fachbereiche und untersucht dort Themen und Fragestellungen, die in den Seminaren theoretisch behandelt werden, mit Mitteln und Methoden der Performance. Die entstehenden Inszenierungen werden einerseits re-

gional, überregional und international öffentlich aufgeführt, andererseits in Arbeitszusammenhänge der Bereiche Beruf und Wirtschaft, Schule und Hochschule, Gesundheit, Politik oder Kultur eingebettet und diskutiert. Die gewonnenen Erfahrungen f ließen wieder in Einrichtungen der darstellenden Künste und universitäre Zusammenhänge zurück. Die Bremer Performance Studies bilden für diese untersuchende und intervenierende Form der Aufführungskünste aus.

## **3.**

Im Theater der Versammlung hat sich über die Jahre ein typischer Arbeitsprozess herauskristallisiert, den wir in vier aufeinander auf bauende Phasen unterteilen können:


Zur Veranschaulichung soll das folgende Beispiel aus der Zusammenarbeit des TdV mit Informatiker\*innen dienen: Die Klick-Performance *C COPY A, VERSCHLÜSSELT* lädt das Publikum dazu ein, das Ensemble mit Computerbefehlen wie »kopieren«, »wiederholen«, »einfügen« oder »verschlüsseln« live in Bewegung zu setzen. Dabei greifen die Darsteller\*innen auf Bewegungsabläufe und Textbausteine von Rollen zurück, die sie ansonsten in unterschiedlichen Stücken verkörpern. In mehreren Spielrunden können

aus diesen Fragmenten jetzt gemeinsam und in hohem Tempo neue Beziehungs- und Bedeutungsmuster komponiert werden. Das Ziel besteht darin, dem entstehenden Chaos immer wieder neue Sinninseln abzugewinnen. Das komponierende Publikum lernt mit den Befehlen umzugehen und spiegelt sich dabei selbst durch seine Anweisungen. Jeder hat Einf luss, niemand steuert das Ganze. Es geht um die Mensch/Maschine-Schnittstelle, um Systemsteuerung und Komplexität. Wie verändern sich Wahrnehmen, Denken, Verständigen und Entscheiden in unserer immer schneller werdenden Zeit? Wie können wir sinnvoll auf die sich häufenden abgebrochenen Anfänge in unserem Alltag reagieren? Wie können wir in komplexen Situationen handlungsfähig bleiben?

»Kontextorientierte Aufführungspraxis« bedeutet in diesem Zusammenhang, dass die Mehrdeutigkeit der Performance in der Informatik, der Wahrnehmungspsychologie, der Politik oder Demenzforschung zu jeweils spezifischen Erfahrungen, Themen und Fragestellungen führt. »Dialogorientierte Aufführungspraxis« meint, dass die Performance im Austausch mit diesen Feldern stets neu diskutiert und weiterentwickelt wird.

So laden Politikwissenschaftler\*innen und Politiker\*innen das Klick-Spiel gerne ein, wenn im Rahmen der Policy-Analyse die Frage nach dem Zusammenhang von Kontingenz und politischem Entscheiden im Vordergrund steht und nach Friedbert W. Rüb die These diskutiert wird, dass die Politik gegenwärtig »von zielorientierter Rationalität auf zeitorientierte Reaktivität umstellt« (Rüb 2008, 89).2 In der Philosophie wird die Publikumsstrategie, bewusst nicht oder nur selten Befehle zu rufen, um die Rollen sich mehr entfalten zu lassen, für Arbeitsgruppen interessant, die zu Performanzen des Nichttuns forschen.<sup>3</sup> In einem Projekt zum Leben mit Demenz teilen Teilnehmer\*innen an der Klick-Performance mit, wie hilfreich ein spielerischer Umgang mit Brüchen und Wiederholungen auch in ihrem alltäglichen Umgang mit dementen Menschen sein kann und entwickeln gleich Ideen dazu. Diskussionen zu Gender-Themen werden wiederum bereichert, wenn Befehle wie »einfügen« oder »kopieren« die Performer\*innen dazu auffordern, Verhaltensmuster anderer Figuren in die Aktionsfolgen der eigenen Figur zu integrieren, und so beispielsweise als männlich assoziierte Gesten von weiblichen Performerinnen ausgeführt werden. Und schließlich kehrt *C COPY A,* 

<sup>2</sup> Zum Multiple-Streams-Ansatz in der Politikwissenschaf t siehe Rüb (2008).

<sup>3</sup> Zu Fragen der negativen Performanz siehe Gronau & Lagaay (2008).

*VERSCHLÜSSELT* auch regelmäßig an seinen Ausgangspunkt in der Informatik zurück, wenn das Theater der Versammlung z.B. mit einem Projekt kooperiert, in dem Forscher\*innen der Frage nachgehen, inwieweit sich in der gegenwärtigen digitalen Kultur neue Muster des Lernens, der Kommunikation und der Arbeit entwickeln.

#### **4.**

In *allen* Aufführungskünsten werden deren Besucher\*innen stets mitinszeniert. Diese Aufgabe stellt sich jedoch *in besonderer Weise* den Entwickler\*innen von Performances, die sich als Bestandteil von Forschungs- und Verständigungsprozessen verstehen, in denen unterschiedliche Wissenskulturen gleichberechtigt aufeinandertreffen. Ebenso spielen in diesen Zusammenhängen die Orte eine entscheidende Rolle, an denen sich die gemeinsam Forschenden begegnen.

Während der Inszenierung *Tschechow – Eine Landpartie* unternimmt das Publikum in der Rolle von teilnehmenden Beobachter\*innen reale Forschungsreisen zum fiktiven Tschechow-Völkchen. Das Theater der Versammlung entwickelte das Untersuchungsfeld in Zusammenarbeit mit Seminaren aus der Ethnologie bzw. den Transkulturellen Studien. Einen Ausgangspunkt bildete folgendes Gedankenspiel: Tschechow starb 1904. Seine Figuren gelten als unsterblich. Wo aber leben sie dann? Die Antwort lautet: Sie wanderten – von der Weltöffentlichkeit unbemerkt – kurz vor der Russischen Revolution nach Deutschland aus und bewohnen dort bis heute wechselnde Landhäuser, aus denen sie allerdings – wie schon zu Zeiten ihres Autors – ständig vertrieben werden. Das TdV hat die prekären Aufenthaltsorte zufällig entdeckt und bietet seitdem Erkundungstouren zum sogenannten Tschechow-Völkchen an. In der Einladung heißt es: »Tschechows großes Thema ist die Zeit. Forscher\*innen treffen auf Figuren, die vor allem langsam leben. Die Figuren erhalten sich einen Raum für Erinnerung, der ansteckend wirkt. Sie folgen den Fragmenten ihrer (Lebens-)Stücke, die mal zu unerwarteten Begegnungen, mal zum Absinken in innere Welten führen. Die Forscher\*innen beobachten und interagieren mit dem Tschechow-Völkchen, bewegen sich aufmerksam durch die Räume und den Garten des ländlichen Domizils. Nähe und Distanz zwischen den beiden Gruppen werden immer wieder neu ausgehandelt. Auf der Rückfahrt und in späteren Arbeitszusammenhängen tauschen die Forscher\*innen die Erlebnisse und Ergebnisse ihrer Erkundungen untereinander aus.«

In der Performance *Brecht für Manager – ein Seelentraining*, in der es um die Kultur der Selbstoptimierung geht, nehmen die Zuschauer\*innen die Perspektive von Hospitant\*innen einer ›Fortbildung‹ ein, die das sogenannte *impression management* als zentrale Schlüsselqualifikation in Beruf und Wirtschaft schult. Ihren Blicken ausgesetzt, üben sich sechs fiktive, typisierte Seminarteilnehmer\*innen, die von Schauspieler\*innen verkörpert werden, in der Kunst der Selbstdarstellung. Ihr ›Trainer‹ bittet sie, literarische Liebesszenen von Bertold Brecht als Verhandlungssituationen zu spielen. Und eine Verhandlungssituation im Personalbüro als Liebesszene. Was passiert, wenn eine Arbeitsstudie aus der *Harvard Business Review* in einem zweiten Durchgang mit nur geringen Textänderungen als Verhandlung zwischen Liebespartnern am Frühstückstisch gespielt wird? Welches Licht wirft dieses Experiment auf die Verhandlungssituation am Arbeitsplatz?

Der französische Soziologe Pierre Bourdieu hat in seiner Studie *Die feinen Unterschiede. Kritik der gesellschaf tlichen Urteilskraf t* als selbstverständlich aufgefasste kulturelle Vorlieben und Praktiken analysiert. Vor diesem Hintergrund präsentiert das Theater der Versammlung unter dem Titel *Speisen mit dem Menschenfeind* eine Neubetrachtung des *Misanthrope* von Molière in ausgewählten Restaurants. Die Besucher\*innen nehmen an einer kulinarischen Club-Party teil, speisen und feiern gemeinsam mit Figuren des großen französischen Dichterfürsten. In Form von Tischgesprächen, Partyspielen und klassischen Theaterdialogen verschränkt die Inszenierung Texte von Molière mit einschlägigen Karriereratgebern und sinnlichen Genüssen. Es geht um »High-Potentials«, »Low-Potentials«, Ethik und EssThetik und natürlich um die Frage der eigenen Gesellschaftsfähigkeit.

Was hat das vernetzte Leben mit dem Tod zu tun? Dieser Frage geht das TdV in seiner Performance *Am seidenen Faden* nach, die in einem alternativen Bestattungsunternehmen mit dem Einbruch des Unerwarteten in die Komfortzonen unseres Alltags spielt. Drei Schicksalsgöttinnen, die Parzen, steuern und verweben als »beschwipste Schwestern« (Thornton Wilder) die Ereignisse des Abends. Sie spinnen unsere Lebensfäden zeitgemäß am Rechner und programmieren live den Zufall. Dazu hat der Komponist Joachim Heintz eine Soundmaschine erfunden, die während der Aufführung in einen interaktiven Austausch mit den Performer\*innen und dem Publikum tritt und deren Programm zu unvorhersehbaren Unterbrechungen, Abbrü-

chen und wieder eingespielten Aufzeichnungen der poetischen Spielabläufe führt. Gibt es ein digitales Weiterleben? Und wären wir gerne so unsterblich wie unsere digitalen Spuren? Aber auch das Publikum steuert die Aufführung mit, indem es beispielsweise nach bestimmten Spielregeln Momente der Stille entstehen lässt und deren Dauer bestimmen kann. Die Aufführung gestaltet sich so als ein gemeinsamer Forschungsprozess, in dem die Entgegensetzung von aktiv und passiv, von Tun und Erleiden verf lüssigt wird.

Im Rahmen des Projekts *Global Cotton. Eine Uni – Ein Buch – Eine Stadt*, das von der Universität Bremen mit einer Vielzahl öffentlicher Veranstaltungen rund um Sven Beckerts *King Cotton: Eine Geschichte des globalen Kapitalismus* ins Leben gerufen worden ist, gründete das Theater der Versammlung den KING COTTON CLUB. In dieser Einrichtung lernen ihre Mitglieder zunächst Methoden des performativen Lesens kennen. Dabei geht es nicht allein darum, *über* den Text zu diskutieren, sondern auch darum, nachzuforschen, was passiert, wenn Leser\*innen *in* den Text eintauchen. Welche Assoziationen, Imaginationen und Erinnerungen stellen sich ein, welche emotionalen Spuren hinterlässt die Lektüre? Welche überraschenden Bedeutungen tauchen dadurch auf? Das performative Lesen mündet schließlich in öffentliche Gespräche mit Aktionen und Zitaten in der Bremer Baumwollbörse.

Die hier skizzierten Beispiele deuten an, wo, wann und bei wem durch performative Forschung im grenzüberschreitenden Projektverbund Wissen generiert wird:

	- a. von Fragestellungen, mit denen Performer\*innen und Teilnehmer\*innen die Performance aufgesucht haben,

b. von Fragestellungen, die sich während der bzw. durch die Performance neu ergeben haben und an denen dann anschließend in den jeweiligen Kontexten weitergearbeitet wird.

## **5.**

In künstlerischen Qualifikationsprojekten und Ausbildungsgängen, die auf kontextorientierte Inszenierungs- und Aufführungspraxen vorbereiten, geht es also zu einem nicht geringen Teil darum, zu lernen, wie in einer Zeit zunehmender gesellschaftlicher Zentrifugalkräfte Zusammenhänge zu gestalten wären. So fragen die Mitbegründerin des Performance-Philosophy-Netzwerks<sup>4</sup> Alice Lagaay und die Dramaturgin und Philosophin Anna Seitz, die seit Jahren mit den Performance Studies in Bremen zusammenarbeitet: Welche neuen dramaturgischen Verfahren unterstützen die Vernetzung von Dialogketten zwischen Bildung, Wissenschaft und Kunst, die sich wechselseitig anregen und befruchten? Welche neuen Theaterformen sind geeignet, eine interdisziplinäre Dialogkultur innerhalb und außerhalb der Institutionen zu initiieren, ohne den künstlerischen Anspruch an die Theaterarbeit aufzugeben? (Vgl. Lagaay & Seitz 2018, 14) Solche Überlegungen können durch praktisch-ästhetische Versuche, wie sie das Theater der Versammlung durchführt, weiterverfolgt werden. Dies setzt allerdings eine Verständigung darüber voraus, worin sich wissenschaftliche Forschung, künstlerische Forschung und das sogenannte Alltagswissen unterscheiden und wie entsprechende differenzbewusste Grenzüberschreitungen selbst erforscht, z.B. ethnografisch begleitet werden können. Die Formulierung »innerhalb und außerhalb der Institutionen« weist dabei auf ein besonderes Spannungsverhältnis hin, das die eingangs erwähnte Bereitschaft und Fähigkeit, Souveränität zu riskieren, noch einmal verstärkt herausfordert und in dem folgenden Zitat der Theatermacher Falk Rößler und Philipp Schulte, das die hier angeregte Diskussion eher auf- als abschließt, seinen Ausdruck findet:

*»*While art necessarily needs to be flexible and mobile, academic knowledge production necessarily fixates, stabilizes and institutionalizes. […] On the

<sup>4</sup> Zum Performance-Philosophy-Netzwerk siehe z.B. Bebek, Holkenbrink, Koubová, Lagaay, Makhali & Seitz (2017).

one hand, we have institutionalized (i.e. powerbound) knowledge and, on the other hand, we have subjective thinking. One essential ef fect of Artistic Research is to highlight the normative actuality of knowledge and the subversive potential of thinking. To put it more bluntly, while archived knowledge keeps science alive, Artistic Research points out that individual thinking keeps knowledge lively.*«* (Rößler & Schulte 2018 , 153-58)

#### **Literatur**


#### **Weiterführende Literatur**


## **Knowing in Intra-Acting** Arts-based Research als Weg des Welt-Gestaltens

*Doris Ingrisch*

## **I**

Ein großer Raum. Rechts der Mitte eine Person in Jogginghose und T-Shirt, auf einem Sessel, aufrecht sitzend. Die Haare hängen über das Gesicht, bedecken es. Ihr gegenüber eine andere Person, mit überkreuzten Beinen auf dem Holzboden sitzend, den Kopf leicht gehoben und zu ersterer blickend. Eine weitere Person richtet, sie steht dabei, eine auf einem Stativ befestigte Kamera auf die beiden. Im Hintergrund rechts, ganz klein zu sehen, sitzt eine weitere Person mit hochgezogenen Knien auf dem Boden. Der Oberkörper lehnt an der Wand. In der Nähe ein Punching Trainer. Bei genauerer Betrachtung ist der Raum ein Turnsaal, mit von dicken Vorhängen verdeckten Spiegelwänden, einer Unzahl von Scheinwerfern an der Decke, einer Sprossenwand, einem leeren Einkaufswagen, einigen gestapelten Matten, etlichen Stühlen und einem Klavier.

Der Screenshot, den ich hier zu beschreiben versuche, ist der Video-Dokumentation eines Zusammentreffens der zweiten Phase eines Artistic Research-Pilotprojekts entnommen, konzipiert von Adelheid Mers und mir mit dem Titel *Intra-Viewing. Die Kunst, Gespräche im Inbetween zu führen. Ein Design-Studio* (Ingrisch, Mers & Gstättner 2018), in dem wir uns einer intensiven künstlerisch-wissenschaftlichen Auseinandersetzung über eine mehrstimmige, intermediale Begegnung, einem In-Beziehung-Treten widmeten. Der Screenshot zeigt keine klassische Gesprächssituation, das ist gleich zu erkennen. Doch was zeigt er? Vier Personen. Konzentriert. Eine Intention wird wahrnehmbar. Festgehaltene Dynamik. Intensives In-Beziehung-Sein.

#### **II**

Die Versuchsanordnung: Ein von einer belesenen, intellektuellen, in Chicago lebenden und arbeitenden bildenden Künstlerin und einer künstlerisch denkenden, für die Etablierung der kulturwissenschaftlichen Gender Studies an der mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien zuständigen Wissenschafterin (das ist auch die Position, von der aus ich spreche) initiiertes Zusammentreffen, das um die Arbeit einer performativen Künstlerin kreist. Der Rahmen: Ein Experimentieren mit den Inhalten, Zugängen und Choreografien klassischer Interviewsituationen und Künstler\_innengespräche. Die Intention: Über die den klassischen Vorgaben impliziten Herrschaftsmechanismen hinauszugehen, die Möglichkeiten gleichwertiger, propositionaler und nicht-propositionaler Tools auszuloten. Mit anderen Worten: Ein Rütteln an den Grundfesten des westlichen Wissensbegriffs. Und ein Rütteln an den Grundfesten der westlichen Wissens- und damit auch Geschlechterordnung.

Rütteln bewegt. Rütteln, nicht zu vehement und nicht zu sanft, macht wach. Es verstärkt das Gefühl, lebendig zu sein. »Rütteln« ist etymologisch auf das mittelhochdeutsche *rütten* rückführbar, das »In-Erschütterung-Setzen« bedeutet. Die Metapher kam wohl nicht zufällig in meinen Sinn, als ich Begriffe dafür suchte, wofür dieses Projekt steht. D.U., die Gesprächspartnerin, versetzt ihren Körper in Bewegung, um etwas zu verändern. Sie nimmt ihren Körper in die Hände, Stück für Stück, weckt ihn auf. D.U.: »Und wenn ich Hand anlege an meinen Körper, so lege ich Hand an an meine Geschichte und die Geschichte der Welt. Und wenn ich beginne zu vibrieren, vibriert die Geschichte der Welt und meine Geschichte …« (Ingrisch 2018b)

Bevor das Interview zu einer Be-Fragung wurde, einem Gespräch, mit dem Ziel, das Wissen von Expert\_innen und anderen Personen, definiert als Informationen, Sachverhalte, das Vertreten einer Meinung, einzuholen, bezog sich die Definition auf *inter*, also »zwischen« und *view*, »das Sehen«, »Betrachten«, »eine Meinung Vertreten«. In diesem Sinn verstanden lag der Fokus noch zentral auf dem, was zwischen den Personen geschieht. Dieses Dazwischen wurde zu einem Machtraum zwischen Fragenden und Befragten. Der Macht derer, denen die Führung im Gespräch obliegt und der Macht derjenigen, die etwas preiszugeben haben, etwas, das die Interviewenden haben wollen. Die Gesprächschoreografien leisten das ihrige, diesen Raum zu bestimmen. Verbinden wir die Raumebene mit der Machtebene proposi-

tionalen Wissens gegenüber nicht-propositionalem Wissen wird das Rütteln an einer uns allen höchst vertrauten Kulturtechnik deutlicher. »Lasst uns in Stille beginnen«, so die SMS, die G.E., eine weitere Forschungspartnerin, zu Beginn des Zusammentreffens sendet. Wir haben uns vor dem Tanzquartier in Wien getroffen. G.E. beginnt zu gehen. Wir folgen ihr zu dritt, wir, als die Initiatorinnen und eine Person, die die Dokumentation übernommen hat. Die nächste SMS lautet: »Ich kenne den Weg nicht.« (Ingrisch 2018a)

»Ich versuch, meine Arbeit zu kommunizieren«, so D.U. am Anfang, »so stell ich mir das vor?!« Und nach einer kurzen Pause: »Wie fang ich an?« Wir haben drei Sessel im Turnsaal in der Abteilung für Schauspiel und Schauspielregie der Universität in einem Dreieck zueinander aufgestellt, rücken diese so zurecht, sodass wir uns angenehm fühlen, einander sehen. D.U.: »Man fängt immer klassisch an, wer man ist, mit dem Namen und so. Vielleicht fang ich einmal anders an.« (Ingrisch 2018b) Sie lehnt sich zurück, zieht ihren schwarzen Sweater hinauf, blickt auf ihre nun unbedeckte Mitte.

#### **III**

In Stille, gehend, mit dem Körper eine Kommunikation über Inhalt und Form des eigenen Arbeitens beginnen. Den Körper im Zentrum haben. Agieren. Reagieren. Intra-Agieren.

Mit der westlichen neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft, mit René Descartes und der Etablierung des cartesianischen Dualismus, der Gegenüberstellung der *res cogitans* und der *res extensa*, der denkenden Substanz und der materiellen, körperlichen Substanz Ende des 17. Jh. war die rigorose Trennung dichotomer Begriffe vollzogen und ein neues Weltbild gesetzt. Das dichotome Denken kennzeichnet und bestimmt seither den Zugang zu und das Verständnis der Welt, der Wissensordnung ebenso wie der Geschlechterordnung, die in ihrer Verwobenheit dieses System konstituierte und perpetuierte (Braun 2000). Dass das weiblich Konnotierte durchgängig und radikal dem Devianten und Devaluierten zugeordnet wurde und wird, erscheint als eine immer noch zu erwähnende und ins Bewusstsein zu bringende Tatsache. Die gegensätzlichen Begriffspaare »Geist« und »Körper«, »Kultur« und »Natur«, »Mann« und »Frau«, »Aktivität« und »Passivität«, ja sogar »Wissenschaft« und »Kunst« bringen diese gesellschaftliche Übereinkunft, die so unantastbar und immer schon da gewesen wirkt, rasch in Erinnerung. Ein

intelligentes Gespräch über die eigene Arbeit also mit dem Körper beginnen? Das heißt nicht zuletzt, mit Baruch de Spinozas Frage danach, was ein Körper vermag, Erkenntnis neu zu denken (Spinoza 1975/1677; Deleuze 1988).

#### **IV**

Betrachten wir eine Fragestellung wie das Setting eines Gesprächs über künstlerische Episteme und Praxen in den Wechselbeziehungen zur Dimension seiner erkenntnistheoretischen Implikationen, so wird die Agency deutlicher, die im Experimentieren mit künstlerischen beziehungsweise wissenschaftlich-künstlerischen Herangehensweisen für eine kritische Annäherung an gängige Praktiken einerseits und die Entwicklung neuer Formen andererseits liegt. Ein Forschungszugang, der wissenschaftliche und künstlerische Methodologien wie Methoden und Denkgebäude miteinbezieht, eröffnet neue Möglichkeiten, das Denken zu erweitern. Und tritt damit Tendenzen entgegen, die sich nichts geringerem als der Entwicklung von Menschlichkeit entgegenstellen. Dies als Intention gewendet zielt darauf ab, kulturelle Praxen beziehungsweise Konzeptualisierungen wie Gesprächssettings und Kommunikation auf die Dimensionen der Ignoranz, der epistemologischen und ethischen Gewalt hin zu hinterfragen. Diese zu dekonstruieren, zu dezentrieren, zu queeren. Arts-based, Artistic Research zu betreiben oder auch ästhetisches Denken zu praktizieren impliziert, in dieser Art verstanden, eine starke gesellschafts- wie wissens- und nicht zuletzt wissenschaftskritische Haltung. »It is art, research and the power you must conquer to make a difference in this world«, so Efva Lilja (2015, 5).

#### **V**

Im Neudenken der Episteme, ihrer Orientierung an Objektivität versus Subjektivität wie der Verf lüssigung des Primats bipolaren Denkens, öffnet sich ein weites Feld der Re-Vision, nicht allein der Künste und des künstlerischen Forschens, sondern auch der Wissenschaften und der diversen Ausformungen wissenschaftlichen Forschens, Darstellens und Vermittelns. Subjektivität den Künsten, Objektivität den Wissenschaften zuzuschreiben und dabei alle ihnen eingeschriebenen Konnotationen zu aktivieren, ging im Prozess

der Dichotomisierung mit der Charakterisierung der Geschlechterordnung Hand in Hand. Vielfach unbenannt, großteils unbewusst ist ihr eine Wertung unterlegt (Sollfrank 2016, 102). Sie kann durch den Hinweis auf die Hierarchisierung zwischen Wissenschaft und Kunst, Ratio und Intuition ins Bewusstsein geholt werden (Ingrisch 2013). Aus dieser Perspektive wird das gegenwärtige Ringen um ein Verständnis künstlerischer Forschung als ein sich in Bewegung befindlicher Transformationsprozess der Wissensordnung nachvollziehbar (Ingrisch 2012, Haarmann 2015).

Wenn allerdings Herrschafts- und Machtverhältnisse infrage gestellt werden, sind die unterschiedlichsten Kräfte am Werk. Nicht überall wird Begeisterung ausgelöst. Wenn mit Etabliertem experimentiert wird, fahren mitunter Barrieren hoch, entwickeln sich Verhinderungsmechanismen beziehungsweise -strategien mit dem Ziel, Einf lussbereiche abzugrenzen und Wertearchitekturen zu bewahren. Diese Dynamiken machen auch vor den Debatten zu den Formen und der Bedeutung künstlerischer Forschung nicht Halt. Die Diskurse zur Definitionsmacht über künstlerische Forschung, wie sie in Handbüchern, Forschungsförderungsstrategien, Ein- und Ausschlüssen bei Tagungen oder Journals etc. zum Ausdruck kommen, erlauben Einblicke in die Politiken dieser Felder. Das alles sind im Grunde Fragen, welche die Bewertungsdominanz wissenschaftlicher Methoden über künstlerische Zugänge und damit die Konkurrenz zwischen Kunsthochschulen/Kunstuniversitäten und anderen Universitäten betreffen. Doch wenden wir uns nun wieder dem eher verborgenen, doch politisch ebenso hochbrisanten Thema der Herrschaftsverhältnisse in den Denkstrukturen zu, die diesen Dynamiken zugrunde liegen.

#### **VI**

Welche Denkstrukturen, welches wie konnotierte Wissen und damit welches Weltbild dürfen Anspruch auf Wissensgenerierung erheben? Diskurstopografien wie der von Michael Biggs und Henrik Karsson herausgegebene Band *Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts* (2011), das von Jens Badura et al. herausgegebene Handbuch *Künstlerische Forschung* (2015) oder der von Florian Dombois, Mira Fliescher und Julia Rintz editierte Band *Ästhetisches Denken: Nicht-Propositionalität, Episteme, Kunst* (2014), um nur einige wenige exemplarisch zu nennen, können als Fokusse in diesem Feld betrachtet

werden, die in ihrer Gesamtheit den Bewusstseinsstand der Arts-based Research dokumentieren. Die Berücksichtigung des durch den Bologna-Prozess induzierten, bildungspolitischen Strukturwandels sowie die an Kunstuniversitäten herangetragene Notwendigkeit, postgraduale Angebote wie Promotionsprogramme zu entwickeln, haben, basierend auf diversen Motivationslagen, ihr Übriges getan, das Generieren dieses Feldes zu bef lügeln (vgl. Busch & Lesage 2014). Allerdings nicht ohne die Problematiken, wie sie auch in den Strukturen akademischer wissenschaftlicher Kompetition um Ressourcen und den ihnen zugrunde liegenden Mechanismen zu finden sind. Wie und mit welcher Intention, so könnte eine zentrale Frage zur Orientierung in diesem Feld lauten, wirken Beiträge der Artistic beziehungsweise Arts-based Research auf das neu zu bestimmende Verhältnis von Kunst und Wissenschaft? Und vor allem welch neuer Wissensbegriff emergiert daraus respektive wird dadurch erzeugt? Was mich aus der Perspektive der sich mit Wissens-, Geschlechter- und Machtverhältnissen Beschäftigenden sowie der diese Hinterfragenden und nach neuen Zugängen Ausschau Haltenden besonders interessiert, ist die Frage der Agency. Was passiert und was würde es bedeuten, wenn sich im Feld der Forschung aus einer die beiden Sphären gleichwertig betrachtenden Haltung heraus ein experimenteller Raum situiert, in dem künstlerische wie wissenschaftliche Forschung nicht als ein »Entweder-Oder«, sondern als ein »Und« (Ingrisch 2012 sowie Ingrisch, Mangelsdorf & Dressel 2017), ein »to be related« (Ingrisch, Hofecker & Flath 2017, 47) im Sinne von Gilles Deleuzes und Félix Guattaris proklamierter Ungetrenntheit von Inhalt und Form – »There is no difference between what a book talks about and how it is made« (1987, 4) – gedacht würde?

#### **VII**

Bringen wir die den Künsten wie den Wissenschaften zugeordneten klassischen westlichen Erkenntnismodi nun erneut mit der hegemonialen Geschlechterordnung in Verbindung, werden, es klang bereits an, Konturen des Wertekanons unübersehbar, der sich seit der Auf klärung entlang der Pole der weiblich konnotierten Intuition und der männlich konnotierten Ratio etablierte. Alexander Baumgartens Bemühungen im 18. Jahrhundert um ein Hereinholen der Ästhetik in die Erkenntnistheorie, die sich dem Zusammendenken von Sinnlichkeit und Erkenntnis (Baumgarten 1983) entgegen-

stemmten, wurden nun den Künsten überlassen. Der mit dem Etikett »nicht rational, nicht propositional« konnotierte Zugang schloss nicht nur künstlerisch-ästhetisches Wissen, sondern auch nicht-westliche Philosophien und Erkenntniszugänge wie spirituelle Zugänge und indigenes Wissen (u.a. Anzaldúa 1987) aus, Zugänge, die von einem heutigen kritischen Bewusstseinsstand aus betrachtet nicht mehr so ohne Weiteres, weil als eurozentrisch entlarvt, übergangen werden können. Dies erweitert die gedankliche Skizze, wie sie hier aus der Perspektive inter- und transdisziplinär orientierter Gender Studies heraus entwickelt wird. Diese Komplexität im Nachdenken über Arts-based Research bewusst zu machen, erscheint mir unverzichtbar. Mit der Entwicklung der Artistic Research befinden wir uns in den Dimensionen der Welterschließung. Dies immer im Wissen darum, dass wir – wobei stets die Frage mitschwingt, wer bei diesem Wir aus welchen Gründen auch immer ein- und ausgeschlossen ist – dadurch Welt konstruieren, definieren und gestalten.

Wenn die Abwertung weiblich konnotierter Werte den Stand der westlichen Forschungslandschaft verantwortet, dann ist – nicht zuletzt aus einer kritischen Gender- und Diversity-Perspektive – vollkommen nachvollziehbar, wie unabdingbar es ist, sinnliche beziehungsweise künstlerische Erkenntnisgenerierung als gleichwertig zu männlich konnotierter kognitiv rationaler anzuerkennen. Es geht um wesentlich mehr als die Etablierung künstlerischer Doktoratsprogramme. Beginnen wir, die Zusammenhänge zu verstehen und in einem nächsten Schritt zu artikulieren, befinden wir uns inmitten eines gesellschaftlich hochbrisanten Prozesses mit der Frage, wer die Welt regiert. Ängste und Abwehr gegen die Erkenntnisdimension von Kunst werden dann zu Indizien für die Notwendigkeit, dem Trennzwang (Wuttke 2003) entgegenzusteuern.

#### **VIII**

Es ist kein Zufall, dass ein solches Um- und Neudenken sich durch das in der Quantentheorie zeigende Weltbild verstanden und inspiriert fühlt. Hier ist nicht mehr nur auf einen erkenntnistheoretischen Paradigmenwechsel zu rekurrieren, es handelt sich vielmehr um ein neues Weltbild, welches das, was bislang als Wissen galt, massiv in Bewegung bringt – die unmittelbare Kommunikation von Teilchen, die eigentlich getrennt sind, die Möglichkeit, sich an mehreren Orten gleichzeitig zu befinden, die Einsicht, dass Materie nicht Materie und Wirklichkeit Potenzialität ist (Dürr 2012). Dieses Weltbild lässt die für so viele Halt gebende Vorstellung von Objektivität versus Subjektivität obsolet werden. Atome, so Karen Barad, diese »›ultraqueer‹ critters with their quantum quotidian qualities queer queerness itself in their radically deconstructive ways of being.« (Barad 2012, 25).

Aus diesem Kontext erklärt sich ein Thema wie Un/Schärfe als brisante künstlerisch-wissenschaftliche und politische Auseinandersetzung im Rahmen kulturwissenschaftlicher Gender Studies. Vor allem dann, wenn es um Schärfe als »versteckter Imperativ« und »unhinterfragtes Epitheton des Selbstbildnisses« (Hüppauf 2007, 64) der Moderne geht und damit als überaus wirkungsmächtiges Konstrukt westlichen Denkens.<sup>1</sup>

Es ist Schärfe, auf der die neuzeitliche westliche Wissenschaft beruht. »*Clare et distincte*« galten als die Kriterien ihrer Wahrheit (Descartes 2011/1637). Besprechbar allerdings wurde Schärfe, in Abgrenzung zur Unschärfe, schließlich in einem künstlerischen Kontext, der Entwicklung der Fotografie. Hier wurde ihre Relevanz konstitutiv (Hüppauf 2007, 51). Schärfe wurde mit Klarheit und Deutlichkeit assoziiert, Deutlichkeit mit Eindeutigkeit. Unschärfe hingegen führt in den Raum der Mehrdeutigkeit, der Unabgegrenztheit, der Unbestimmtheit. Diese für die Wissenschaften und Künste wesentliche Entwicklung steht in enger Relation zum für die Moderne charakteristischen Primat des Visuellen. Dass dieses – im Gegensatz z.B. zum Auditiven – männlich konnotiert ist, verstärkt das Implizite der Konturen der gesellschafts-, wissens- und wissenschaftskritischen Architektur, die für Überlegungen zur Relevanz, Komplexität und Entwicklung von Artsbased Research ins Bewusstsein zu bringen ist (Ingrisch & Flath 2017).

#### **IX**

Neue Wege des Sehens, des Hörens, neue Forschungsstrukturen, das ist, was Patricia Leavy als die Essenz einer Arts-based Research, oder auch *aesthetically based research*, *art as inquiry*, *art practice as research*, *arts-informed* 

<sup>1</sup> Andrea Sodomka und ich spüren diesem Konstrukt in der Reihe *art konferenz* nach: https:// www.mdw.ac.at/ikm/unschaerfen-eine-art-konferenz/, http://www.kunstradio.at/2016B/ 04\_12\_16.html, http://www.kunstradio.at/2018B/09\_09\_18.html

*research*, *living inquiry*, *performative inquiry*, *transformative inquiry through art* etc., die alle um künstlerisches Forschen kreisen, betrachtet (Chilton & Leavy 2014). Diese darin enthaltenen neuen Praktiken, auch das ist gerade aus der Genderperspektive interessant, »are about composing, weaving, orchestraiting, creating tapistries of meaning, and producing knowledge in new shapes« (Leavy 2015, 291). Sie betont die Qualität der Veränderungen, die das Forschen durch Artistic Research erfahren kann. Die genaue Durchforstung des eigenen Wertesystems, die Kultivierung von Offenheit sowie das Umgehen mit Intuition und ein Einlassen auf eine transdisziplinäre Praxis fordern bestehende Paradigmen und Weltbilder massiv heraus. So betont auch Shaun McNiff, einer der ersten Vertreter der Artistic Research, dass Forschen auf der Basis von Kunst als »a way of knowing and communicating« (2018, 24), nicht bedeute, es seien künstlerische Prozesse, die Artistic Research definieren. Er ist vielmehr der Überzeugung, es sei »the artistic process of inquiry that can be used to explore art, as well as the totality of human experience« (ebda.). Damit bewegen wir uns in einem weiten, menschliche Erfahrungen umspannenden Rahmen. Ein Rahmen, der die künstlerischen wie die wissenschaftlichen Sphären des Denkens miteinschließt. Die Auseinandersetzung mit und das Nachdenken über Artistic Research zeigen erneut den weitaus umfassenderen, sich manifestierenden Anspruch als die Konfrontation mit einer weiteren, durch die (Sozial-)Wissenschaften definierten Ausformung qualitativer Forschung. Arts-based Research und die Auseinandersetzung damit sind eine Aufforderung zur Verantwortung.

## **X**

Nach Karen Barads Agential Realism ist Agency nicht allein ein Charakteristikum menschlichen Bewusstseins, Agency ist in allen Dingen, humanen und nicht-humanen Agent\_innen, die im Intra-Agieren real werden. Konsequent weiter gedacht, generiert jede Forschung diese Art Realität. Anders als ein Forschen im positivistischen Sinn, in dem Forschende und Beforschtes als getrennt betrachtet werden, ist forschendes Tun in diesem Sinne ohne Überlegungen zur Ethik nicht mehr vorstellbar. Karen Barad spricht hier von einer »ethico-onto-epistem-ology« (Barad 2007) und verweist auf das in diesem Weltbild so zentrale Bewusstsein für die Verantwortung der Forschenden, das hier in einer anderen Dimension zu verstehen ist. »[E]thics

is not simply about the subsequent consequences of our ways of interacting with the world, as if effect followed cause in a linear chain of events. Ethics is about mattering, about taking account of the entangled materializations of which we are part, including new configurations, new subjectivities, new possibilities – even the smallest cuts matter.« (Barad 2007, 384) Agential Cut ist der Aus- und damit Einschnitt, den ein Forschungssetting setzt. Ein Cut, der im cartesianischen Denken ebenfalls immer vorhanden ist, jedoch nie thematisiert wird. Demzufolge: »what is on the other side of the agential cut is never separate from us« (Kleinmann 2012, 69). Aufgrund von Permeabilität und Connectedness bedeutet Ethik nicht kognitive Sicherheit, es geht vielmehr um »responsibility and accountability for the lively relationalities of becoming, of which we are a part« (Barad 2007, 69). Differenzen werden dieser Auffassung entsprechend, nicht gefunden, sie werden gesetzt, Dichotomien davon abgeleitet (Barad 2012, 77). Mit Judith Butlers Kritik ethischer Gewalt kann dazu ebenfalls die Anerkennung der eigenen Verletzbarkeit als Voraussetzung eines menschlichen und ethisch agierenden Wesens gedacht werden (Butler 2007).

#### **XI**

Künstlerisches Tun »involves the cultivation of receptivity to a phenomenon or experience, which brings with it a condition of vulnerability to being changed by it« (Rosiek 2018, 639). Bezeichnenderweise steht diese Aussage nicht im Widerspruch sondern in Resonanz zu dem Qualitätsmerkmal qualitativer Forschung, wie Anselm L. Strauss sie formulierte – ein Sich-vonder-Arbeit-Berühren-Lassen und ein Verändert-aus-dem-Forschungsprozess-Hervorgehen (Strauss 1994, 35). Inspirierend könnte darin, neben Karen Barads Begriff des Entanglement von Wissen und Seinsformen auch eine »Research as Future Forming«, wie Kenneth Gergen sie nannte, sein. Versuche, »to draw critical attention to existing ways of life, and to engender a critical consciousness from which social change might spring. The hope is that ›seeing with new eyes‹ can incite resistance to the status quo« (Gergen 2014, 296). Der stärkere Einbezug des »narrative mode of reasoning« (Bruner 1986, 11), in dem das »Imagineering« mit seinem Einsatz von Metaphern, ästhetischen Überlegungen etc. einen wesentlichen Faktoren darstellt (Nijs

& Enegeln 2014), könnte – wie auch in früheren Konzeptionen von Wissenschaft (Daston 2000) – wieder eine größere Rolle spielen.

Vom *Inter-View* zum *Intra-View* zu kommen, es auszuloten, Versuchsanordnungen dazu zu entwickeln, damit zu spielen, ist einer von unzähligen bereits gesetzten und noch zu setzenden Beiträgen, ein vom Tun nicht getrenntes Denken im Und zu entwickeln. Das Experimentieren mit Inhalt und Form und den sie konstituierenden Weltbildern erweitert die Wahrnehmung wie die uns zur Verfügung stehenden Tools, die Verantwortung gegenüber der Welt zu übernehmen, sie zu gestalten und uns als Menschen weiterzuentwickeln.

#### **Literatur**


Ingrisch, D. (2018a). Intra-View mit G.E*.* [Memo 1]

Ingrisch, D. (2018b). Intra-View mit D.U. [Memo 1]


Strauss, A.L. (1994). *Grundlagen qualitativer Sozialforschung*. München: Fink.

Wuttke, D. (2004). *Über den Zusammenhang der Wissenschaf ten und Künste.*  Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

#### **In Love with Art & Philosophy1 // Zwischen Kunst & Philosophie2**

*Lecture Performance von und mit Susanne Valerie [Granzer] & Arno Böhler*

*Setting: Fanny Hensel-Saal der mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien. An der Stirnseite eine weinrote Stellwand, zwei Klavierf lügel, ein schwarzes Podest, davor eine Gitarre und ein Standmikrofon. An der imaginären Rampe, links und rechts, zwei weitere Standmikros und an Stativen zwei zusätzliche Scheinwerfer. An einem hängt ein überdimensional großes Lebkuchenherz mit der Aufschrif t »AMOR FATI«. Ein Holztischchen, ein Manuskript. Auf der anderen Seite eine ebenfalls übergroße, nicht realistisch gemalte Maske aus Pappmaschee in schwarz-weiß, deren Konterfei durch den enormen Schnurrbart unschwer an den Philosophen Friedrich Nietzsche erinnert.*<sup>3</sup>  *Ein Stapel Bücher. Ein Drucker, vor dem einige bereits ausgedruckte Seiten liegen. Ein Stuhl. Der Saal ist übervoll. Licht.*

*Johannes Kretz eröf fnet diese letzte Ringvorlesung vom 14.05.2019 in der Reihe* Knowing in Performing *und Doris Ingrisch stellt die beiden Vortragenden vor.*

<sup>1</sup> Erweiterte und überarbeitete deutsche Erstfassung des bei Routledge in Englisch erschienenen Textes »Being in Love with Art & Philosophy: A Fucking Sublime Dilemma« (Böhler & [Granzer] 2019).

<sup>2</sup> Deutsche Erstveröf fentlichung des 2019 teilweise in Englisch erschienenen Textes »Philosophy AS artistic research: Philosophy On Stage« (Böhler 2019). Der englische Originaltext wurde für diese deutsche Erstveröf fentlichung zudem noch einmal überarbeitet.

<sup>3</sup> Das Lebkuchenherz und die Nietzschemaske sind Requisiten der Lecture Performance *Corpus delicti. Denken, ein Ort des Verbrechens*, die im Rahmen des Festivals *Philosophy On Stage#3* im Haus Wittgenstein uraufgeführt worden ist: https://homepage.univie.ac.at/ arno.boehler/php/?p=4417

#### **Prelude** *Susanne Valerie*

Der Titel dieser Ringvorlesung *Knowing in Performing* ist eine gelungene, inspirierende Wortschöpfung, die bereits einen Hinweis gibt, was in Artistic Research auf dem Spiel steht. Denn horcht man ihm nach, ist man schon mitten im Areal künstlerischer Forschung. Drückt der Titel doch aus, dass es sich bei performativem Wissen um kein vorgefertigtes, abruf bares Wissen handelt, sondern um ein Vollzugswissen. Die verbale, partizipative Form der englischen Verben *know-ing* und *perform-ing* betonen, und darin liegt die Raffinesse des Titels, dass es sich bei künstlerischen Formen des Wissens, wie die englische Grammatik sagt, um den Vollzug eines *present continuous* bzw. *present progressive* handelt. Um Vorgänge und Handlungen, die zwar in der Gegenwart stattfinden, aber in ihr nicht ein für alle Mal abgeschlossen sind. Vielmehr reichen sie offen in die Zukunft hinein – beständig fortschreitend, kontinuierlich progressiv zu Möglichkeiten unterwegs, die es im Zuge künstlerischer Prozesse, und kraft derselben, zuallererst zu entdecken gilt.

Für den Philosophen Arno Böhler, mit dem ich seit Langem zusammenarbeite, und für mich wurde Artistic Research in den letzten 25 Jahren eine künstlerisch-philosophische Entdeckungsreise, in der wir unserer Forschungsneugierde freien Lauf ließen und in der sich unsere beiden Biografien entfaltet haben.

#### **Vorrede: Zwischen Kunst & Philosophie**

*Arno Böhler*

Für viele Philosophien, die heute auf Universitäten gelehrt werden, ist die Lebenswelt, in der sich eine Biografie entfaltet, kein relevantes Forschungsthema. Womöglich, weil Lebenswelten zu ›subjektiv‹, zu ›individuell‹, zu ›heterogen‹ und zu widersprüchlich scheinen, als dass sie sich ohne Weiteres unter allgemeine Begriffe subsumieren ließen.

Natürlich gibt es im akademischen Philosophieren auch Ausnahmen von dieser Regel. So wurde die Lebenswelt für den Philosophen Edmund Husserl in seiner Spätphilosophie ein zentrales Thema und auch der späte Wittgenstein zerbrach sich zusehends den Kopf über das Verhältnis von Sprache und Lebensform.

Für Susanne Valerie und mich stellte Artistic Research von Anbeginn an ein Forschungsformat dar, das es uns erlaubt, die Frage nach der Verschränkung von Denken und sinnlicher Lebenswelt neu stellen zu können. Nicht nur inhaltlich, sondern auch performativ, und zwar durch die cross-disziplinäre Anwendung neuer Forschungsmethoden, die es uns erlauben, unser leibliches In-der-Welt-sein als Teil des Forschungsfeldes zu betrachten, das wir inhaltlich erforschten, wodurch sich das üblich gewordene Verhältnis von ›Theorie‹ und ›Praxis‹ gänzlich verwandelt hat. Übrigens hat das Wort *Theoria,* das etymologisch mit den Worten *Theos* und *Theater* verwandt ist, in der antiken Philosophie noch »Schau« bedeutet. So verstand etwa Platon unter *Theoria* noch die *sinnliche An-Schauung* abstrakter, ideeller Strukturen. Sie werden nicht nur gedacht, sondern intuitiv (*intuitio*) angeschaut.

Nun geht es uns bei unseren Artistic Research-Projekten vor allem um die cross-disziplinäre Verschränkung des Verhältnisses von *Philosophie & Kunst*. Eine Neuverschränkung, die uns not-wendig scheint, sobald man sich den Gang der abendländischen Geschichte der Philosophie und ihr Verhältnis zu den Künsten von Platon bis Nietzsche vergegenwärtigt. Denn wäh-

rend Platon seine künstlerische Existenz aufgibt, um sokratischer Philosoph zu werden, gibt Nietzsche seine sokratische Existenz auf, um Künstlerphilosoph zu werden. Mit ihm scheint eine geistesgeschichtliche Bewegung angebrochen, in der die Philosophie selbst im Begriff ist, eine Form künstlerischer Forschung (Artistic Research) geworden zu sein.

#### **Biografische Notiz 1: Anfang**<sup>4</sup>

*Susanne Valerie*

*Bei der Philosophin und Künstlerin Erin Manning findet sich die schöne Formulierung »care for the event« (Manning 2014, 14). Ganz in diesem Sinn komme ich jetzt zur biografischen Notiz Nummer 1:*

Das Verhältnis zur Welt, das uns mit uns selbst in Differenz setzt, hat mich früh elektrisiert und bis heute nicht aufgehört, mich zu elektrisieren. Vergleichbar einer unendlichen Bewegung, die einen am eigenen Leib ergreift. Oder mit einem Blitz aus dem sprichwörtlich heiteren Himmel. Man wird nicht gefragt. Es geschieht einfach. Der Blitz fährt nieder, trifft, sprengt das Alltägliche. Nicht unähnlich einer plötzlichen Verliebung, die auf einen Menschen einstürzt, und ihn taumeln<sup>5</sup> lässt. – So könnte man durchaus den Auf bruch in die Welt künstlerischer Forschung beschreiben, der mir seinerzeit widerfahren ist. – Ein Ereignis, das psychisch und physisch ergreift; das unter die Haut fährt, mitten ins Herz trifft und das Leben sinnlich virulent Kopf stehen lässt. »O wer sich einmal auf den Kopf sehen

<sup>4</sup> Alle Passagen, die kursiv gesetzt sind, stehen für mündliche Ergänzungen während des Vortrages. Passagen, die kursiv und in eckigen Klammern gesetzt sind, beschreiben Situationen, die sich während des Vortrages ereignet hatten.

<sup>5</sup> »Das Wahre ist […] der bacchantische Taumel, an dem kein Glied nicht trunken ist«, so Hegel in seiner berühmten Vorrede zur *Phänomenologie des Geistes* (Hegel 1998, 46).

könnte!«, sinniert Georg Büchners Leonce (Büchner 1992, 95). *[Sie sehen vorne an der Seite ein Herz. Ein Lebkuchenherz, wie von einem Jahrmarkt, mit der Aufschrif t »AMOR FATI«. Die Aufschrif t erinnert an Friedrich Nietzsches höchste Formel der Bejahung, in der ein Lebewesen dem Schicksal zustimmt, das es erleidet, während es sein Leben lebt.]* ›Sich einmal auf den Kopf sehen können‹ markiert eine Zäsur, einen Riss im Bisherigen. Das Leben klafft auf, die Welt klafft auf, die Zeit klafft auf. Alles wird fraglich. Zugleich öffnet sich ein Fenster, vielversprechend. Eine Aussicht wird freigegeben. Etwas zieht und fühlt sich gezogen. Ein Pathos regt sich – leidenschaftlich, aufregend. Aber es fehlen die Worte. Was geschieht, geschieht präref lexiv. Es wird intuitiv, anschauend anschaulich verstanden. Wortlos.

Diesem Pathos nachzuhorchen, ihm nachzugehen, nachzugeben, es *ad personam* zu bezeugen, was immer das einmal geheißen haben wird, stand für mich schon damals außer Zweifel. Um seine Freisetzung wird es ab jetzt gegangen sein, denn die Zustimmung, die spontan gegeben wurde, hat den Charakter eines Versprechens, das die Zukunft zuversichtlich froh *– fröhliche Wissenschaf t! –* in die Gegenwart hereinruft. Noch ganz ohne Notstand. Nur ein Happy End ohne Ende.

#### **Biografische Notiz 2: Trigger Theater**

Seither, *seit diesem Event – Sie erinnern sich? »Care for the event«, sagt Erin Manning –,* seit damals befindet sich das Leben in diesem Sog, der einem Labyrinth gleicht, in dem Minotaurus und Ariadne gleichzeitig herrschen. Es gibt kein Zurück zu Anzug und Krawatte, zu Rock und Bluse, *zum Schrebergarten.* Zugleich öffnet sich eine Passage zum Theater und zur Philosophie. Andere Möglichkeiten werden entschieden ausgeschlossen. Anfangs sind es die Bühne, das Theater und die Schauspielkunst, die mir über viele Jahre hinweg ein reiches Reservoir an Welt schenkten. Aber bald wird klar, dass neben al-

ler Lust an Spektakel, Performanz und Theaterspielen sich ein Mangel zeigt. *Denn, wie Nietzsche in seinem Zarathustra schreibt, »Geist hat der Schauspieler, doch wenig Gewissen des Geistes. Er glaubt immer an das, womit er am stärksten glauben macht – glauben* an sich *macht!« (Nietzsche 1980a, 65) Und, wenn ich mir das zu sagen erlauben darf: das langweilt frühzeitig.*

Hingegen ist der kreative Prozess im Spielen faszinierend. Er macht süchtig. Zugleich gibt sein Dunkel zu denken und versetzt in Unruhe. Denn die irritierende Erfahrung auf der Bühne ist auf das Flüchtige und Unverfügbare gestoßen – und damit beginnt ein sublimes Dilemma: Gestern der Freudensprung über das geglückte Spiel, das sich so leicht ergeben hatte und heute, – als hätte das gestrige Gelingen nicht stattgefunden. Es lässt sich nicht einfach wiederholen. Gelingen-Misslingen entziehen sich der Machbarkeit. Fragen über Fragen beginnen zu brennen. Einmal f lügelleicht und gleich darauf erdenschwer. *Care for the event …*

Müssen *wir wieder von dem Baum der Erkenntnis essen, um in den Stand der Unschuld zurückzufallen und durch ein Unendliches hindurchgehen?* So steht es bei Kleist *in seinem Marionettentheater* (Kleist 1990, 563).

Aber wie, *bitte wie* soll das gehen? Gibt es dafür eine Route? Ein Navi? Eine Methode? Ein Wissen? Eine *techné*? Nein. Das lehrt die Beobachtung an sich selbst und an den anderen. Nein. Trotzdem es viel Wissen, viele Methoden, jede Menge Know-how gibt, das notwendig ist.

## **Zur Genealogie des antagonistischen Verhältnisses von Kunst und Philosophie**

*Arno Böhler*

Wir sind seit Langem gewohnt, Kunst & Philosophie als zwei unterschiedliche Disziplinen zu denken, die in einem Ausschließungsverhältnis zueinan-

derstehen. Gerade so, als würde man nicht philosophieren, wenn man Kunst praktiziert. Gerade so, als wäre Philosophieren keine Kunst.

Schauen wir in die Geschichte der Philosophie, selbst der *Europäischen Philosophie*, dann wird schnell klar, dass eine solche strikte Trennung von Philosophie und Kunst nicht haltbar ist. Das beredtste Beispiel hierfür ist Platon. So wird berichtet, dass Platon, der in seiner Jugend dichtete und vermutlich auch malte, seine Kunstwerke verbrannt habe, nachdem er Sokrates getroffen hatte. Womöglich auf Anraten von Sokrates selbst, seinem Lehrer (vgl. Erler 2007, 44; Swift Riginos 1976, 39-51).

Offenkundig, *und das scheint uns symptomatisch für unsere ganze abendländische Kultur zu sein*, offenkundig ist es für sokratische Philosophen ratsam, ihre Existenz als Künstler aufzugeben, um ernsthafter Philosoph, ernsthafte Philosophin zu werden. *Entweder* man wird sokratische Philosoph\*in, *oder* man wird Künstler\*in. Künstler\*in *und* Philosoph\*in in einer Person zu sein, wird seither als Antagonismus empfunden. Man hat *entweder* das eine *oder* das andere zu sein.

Zumindest im Kontext der abendländischen Philosophie ist das Verhältnis von *Philosophie & Kunst* seither *antagonistisch* geworden. Akademischer, sokratischer, argumentativer, diskursiver, asketischer, wie Nietzsche zu sagen pf legte.6 Die leibliche Situiertheit des Denkens tritt in der Folge immer mehr in den Hintergrund. *[Der gesamte situative Kontext, der Raum, das Licht, das Publikum, die Erwartungen und Redeweisen, all das wird nicht thematisiert, um im sokratischen Sinne ›rein‹ wissenschaf tlich ein Thema verhandeln zu können.]*

Trifft Nietzsche daher nicht den entscheidenden Punkt, wenn er Sokrates als den Prototypen des wissenschaftlichen Menschen schlechthin charakterisiert hat? (Vgl. Nietzsche 1980b, 116) Er bleibt stets nüchtern, selbst

<sup>6</sup> Zur Frage, was asketische Ideale im Kontext von Kunst, Wissenschaf t, Philosophie und Religion bedeuten, vgl. Nietzsche (1980e, 339-412).

wenn er trinkt, spricht über die Liebe, ohne verliebt zu sein und argumentiert stets aus einer objektivierten Metaperspektive heraus, die allen anderen Perspektiven argumentativ überlegen ist. Sollte Sokrates daher nicht nur der Verderber der Jugend, wie es in der Anklageschrift hieß, gewesen sein, sondern auch der Verderber eines kunstbasierten platonischen Denkens, das den »Theatermacher Platon davon abbrachte, Philosophie als künstlerische Forschung konzipiert zu haben?« (Böhler 2018, 80)

#### **Szenario**

*Susanne Valerie*

*An dieser Stelle haben wir uns ein kleines Intermezzo überlegt. – Wir würden gerne mit Ihnen gemeinsam experimentieren, wie es sich anfühlt, wenn man sein eigenes Werk – ähnlich wie Platon es den historischen Berichten nach getan hat – vernichtet.*

*Wir haben hier fünf Bücher mitgebracht, die wir geschrieben haben. Nun ersuchen wir Sie alle, eine Seite daraus herauszureißen. [Das Publikum reagiert hörbar. Erstaunt, irritiert, amüsiert]. Und bitte behalten Sie diese eine Seite auf, denn am Schluss wollen wir Ihnen noch eine kurze gemeinsame Intervention anbieten, bei der Sie hof fentlich alle mitmachen werden.*

#### *Arno Böhler*

*Sie müssen auch nicht eine ganze Seite herausreißen, es genügt ein Fetzen. Seien Sie dabei nicht vorsichtig, sondern durchaus gewalttätig, denn das Verbrennen oder Zerreißen eines Kunstwerkes ist in der Tat ein Akt der Gewalt. Stellen Sie sich dabei bitte vor, es wäre Ihr eigenes Buch, das Sie zerreißen.*

*Für uns, Susanne und mich, vollziehen Sie in diesem Moment eine entscheidende Geste nach, die im Kontext unserer abendländischen Kultur das platonische Verhältnis von Kunst & Philosophie philosophiegeschichtlich begründet hat: Das* 

*Verbrennen der eigenen künstlerischen Existenz, um sokratischer Philosoph, sokratische Philosophin zu werden.* 

*Man könnte sich fragen, ob derselbe Akt – unter umgekehrten Vorzeichen –, nicht genauso für Künstler\*innen stimmen würde? Und Artistic Research? Wie verhält sich künstlerische Forschung zu diesem gewaltsamen Akt und der Genealogie dieser europäischen Geistesgeschichte?*

#### **Platon, der Künstlerphilosoph**

*Arno Böhler*

Ganz anders als in seiner Autobiografie bestimmt sich das Verhältnis von Philosophie und Kunst in Platons Werken. Denn während er autobiografisch in seinem Leben eine radikale Zäsur zwischen seiner künstlerischen und philosophischen Existenz vollzieht, bleibt Platon *im Wie* seines Philosophierens zeitlebens Künstler. *Für mich ist das ein wichtiger Hinweis, dass es nicht so einfach ist, seine künstlerische Existenz zu vernichten. Und so blieb auch Platon, selbst nachdem er seine Werke verbrannt hatte und seinem Lehrer Sokrates folgte, im Wie seines Philosophierens Künstler. Gebrauchte er doch weiterhin künstlerische Stilmittel inmitten seines philosophischen Werkes, ohne die er überhaupt nicht im Stande gewesen wäre, seinen philosophischen Gedanken Ausdruck zu verleihen.*

So kreierte Platon, lange nachdem er seine Jugendwerke verbrannt hatte, weiterhin kunstvoll gestaltete Dialoge, in denen er fiktiv Charaktere auftreten ließ, die untereinander den Wahrheitsgehalt von Aussagen verhandelten. Selbst sein Lehrer Sokrates, der bekanntlich selbst nichts geschrieben hatte, wird in den Dialogen von Platon nicht einfach porträtiert, sondern imaginär in eine legendäre Begriffsperson7 verwandelt, indem er das Ideal des sokratischen Philosophierens schlechthin erschafft. Es ist diese von Pla-

<sup>7</sup> Zum Konzept der Begrif fsperson vgl. Deleuze & Guattari (2000, 70 f.).

ton im Medium Schrift poetisch-imaginär erschaffene Begriffsperson, die Sokrates über seinen eigenen Tod hinaus idealtypisch überlebt haben wird. Blieb es doch auch nach seiner Hinrichtung möglich, die sokratische Art des Philosophierens am eigenen Leib nachzuahmen, indem man selbst lebte, *wie* Sokrates lebte: argumentierend, nüchtern, sachlich, rational, philosophierend. Erst durch Platons *poetische Erschaf fung* dieser legendären Begriffsperson wurde die sokratische Art des Philosophierens also zu einer allgemein *zitierbaren* Lebensform.

Aber nicht nur in Hinblick auf das, was das *kunstvolle* ›Portrait‹ seines Lehrers betrifft, bleibt der Philosoph Platon Künstler. Auch was die differenzierte Beschreibung der lebensweltlichen Situationen betrifft, in denen Platon seine Gesprächspartner denken und argumentieren lässt – auf dem Marktplatz, außerhalb oder innerhalb der Stadtmauern Athens, draußen im Platanenhain (vgl. Puchner 2010), zeigt auf beredte Art und Weise, dass Platon zeitlebens nicht aufgehört hatte, *musisch* zu philosophieren. Wie ein Künstler, der einen ›magischen‹ Zusammenhang zwischen den Orten und Umständen angenommen hat, in denen philosophiert wird, und den Themen und Gedanken, *über* die philosophiert wird. Die üblicherweise Platon zugeschriebene Annahme, dass Ideen in einem *überhimmlischen Ort*<sup>8</sup> bestehen würden, scheint für den *Künstler* Platon offenkundig abwegig gewesen zu sein. Sollte Sokrates die Jünglinge, allen voran Platon, in der Tat also verdorben haben, indem er die Philosophie auf eine Kunst (*techné*) des wissenschaftlichen Argumentierens reduziert hat, in der das ästhetische Moment – die Leiblichkeit des Denkens, das Elementare, Atmosphärische, Sinnliche – marginalisiert und an den Rand, wenn nicht sogar gänzlich aus der Philosophie verdrängt worden ist? »Die sokratische Mißachtung des Instinktiven … Auch der göttliche *Plato* ist in diesem Punkte dem Sokratismus zum Opfer gefallen …« (Nietzsche 1980d, 542)

<sup>8</sup> Tópos hyperouránios nach Platon, *Phaidros* (Platon 2004, 247c).

#### **Biografische Notiz 3: Trigger Philosophie**

*Susanne Valerie*

Philosophie war für mich stets das Versprechen, das Phänomen »Leben« tiefer verstehen zu lernen. Jenes abgründige Spiel der Kräfte, die in eine Bewegung ohne Anfang und Ende geraten waren, in der sich die alltägliche Sprache unauf hörlich verirrt, weil ihr die Worte ausgehen.

Philosophie. Schon ihr Name inspiriert. Ist er nicht, wie der Akt des Denkens selbst, erotisch geladen?<sup>9</sup> *Philein* heißt »lieben« und *Sophia* »Weisheit«. Könnte man daher die Philosophie nicht als eine *Amour fou* lesen, lüstern nach Wissen darüber, *wie man wird, was man ist* – *[um erneut Nietzsche ins Spiel zu bringen*<sup>10</sup>*]* – und die dabei ungeniert, ohne Feigenblatt, die Blöße des Lebens erfragt?

Mit dieser Passion im Herzen habe ich, parallel zum Theater, ein Studium der Philosophie begonnen. Allerdings zeigte sich rasch ein neuerliches Dilemma. Bei allem Respekt vor den Hohen Schulen fragt sich ein Theatermensch wie ich dort spontan: Die da vorne hinter dem Pult, sind die nicht falsch besetzt? Warum tritt ständig Fausts Famulus Wagner auf und nicht Faust selbst? Das irritiert. Ernüchtert. Ist der akademische Intellekt f leischlos? Ohne Leidenschaft? Neutral, grau, objektiv? Aber was ist Denken ohne einen Körper, ohne Sinnlichkeit? Natürlich gibt es auch andere Beispiele. Pauschalierungen sind immer polemisch, aber auch genüsslich … Außerdem gibt es die großen Texte, die Gespräche und Diskussionen. Später die Philosophenfreunde.

Die Philosophie behält ihre Attraktivität. Ihr Sirenengesang hört nicht auf zu locken. Einmal dem weißen Kaninchen ins Ungewisse hinterher, *Sie kennen alle Alice im Wunderland*, ist man hinter die Spiegel geraten. Dort ver-

<sup>9</sup> Vgl. Nietzsches Vorrede zu *Jenseits von Gut und Böse*: »Vorausgesetzt, dass die Wahrheit ein Weib ist – wie?« (Nietzsche 1980c, 11).

<sup>10</sup> Vgl. *Ecce Homo*: »Wie man wird, was man ist« (Nietzsche 1980f, Titelblatt).

sagt die Logik einer normierten Welt und es gibt kein Zurück mehr. Dieser Sprung ins Ungewisse ist ein Ereignis, das sich ein für alle Mal Bahn bricht und nach Konsequenzen verlangt. Da gibt es kein Zaudern und Zögern. Es bedarf des Lebens und der Kunst als Labor, es bedarf des Denkens als Wagnis, des Experiments auf der Bühne, es bedarf des Spiels der Kräfte von Chaos und Ordnung, des Wechsels von *pathos* und *epoché*. Diese treibende Kraft hört nicht auf, ihren Sog zu entfalten, weder in der Kunst, noch im Denken, noch im Leben. Sie ist dem Werden versprochen, dem Differenten, dem Unverfügbaren.

Fragen nach Subjektivität und Schicksal treten auf und treten wieder ab, ihre Konf likte sind nicht bloß privates Thema, auch nicht das eigene persönliche Glück. Der Schrebergarten ist, wie gesagt, längst verabschiedet. Der Blick aus der Perspektive der Zeit, die vergeht, wechselt mit einem Blick in die Ewigkeit. Die Macht der Diskurse f limmert und schwirrt in Kopf, Bauch und Geschlecht. Sie geben zu denken. Wollen gefiltert und sortiert werden. Verstanden. Getestet. Erforscht. Auch im Herzen.

Ach ja, das Herz! Diese anstößige, verstoßene Größe. *Sie erinnern sich, ich hatte schon auf das Lebkuchenherz hingewiesen, auf dem mit Zuckerguss »AMOR FATI« geschrieben steht.*

*Dieses Lebkuchenherz hat seinerzeit bei dem Festival* Philosophy On Stage#3 *im Haus Wittgenstein bei* Corpus delicti. Denken, ein Ort des Verbrechens *eine zentrale Rolle gespielt. Es wurde am Ende der Lecture Performance von mir über einen Laufsteg zu einer Badewanne getragen, in der ein Philosoph gesessen ist, Gedanken spinnend.*

Natürlich erhebt sich die Frage: Ist eine solche Intervention nicht ästhetisch wie philosophisch ein Fauxpas? Das Herz ist sentimental, konservativ und moralisch vorbelastet. Es ist zum Kitsch verkommen, in der Tat ein *corpus delicti*. Als Erkenntnisorgan hat es lange ausgedient. Oder könnte sein ›Auftritt‹ in einer Lecture Peformance nicht auch als subversiver Akt gegen seine Diskriminierung gelesen werden? Durch Lebkuchen und Zuckerguss – in süßer Ironie mit den Ambivalenzen des Herzens spielend?

Aus der Erinnerung taucht dazu ein Bild auf. Es zeigt die gerunzelte Stirn zweier Intellektueller und harsche Worte sind zu hören: Wie konntet ihr nur!11 Da half auch das laute Gelächter Nietzsches über den zu erwarten-

<sup>11</sup> Vgl. *Philosophy On Stage 3*, *Corpus Delicti. Denken, ein Ort des Verbrechens*: https://homepage. univie.ac.at/arno.boehler/php/?p=4417

den Sieg des Ressentiments nicht, in den das musikalische Ende von Wolfgang Mitterers Musik gipfelte. Selbst die überdimensionale Pappmaschee-Maske Nietzsches konnte dagegen nichts ausrichten, die simultan zur Musik zwischen den geschlossenen Vorhängen des Theaters im Haus Wittgenstein plötzlich hervorlugte und ihren überdimensionalen Schnurrbart nach links und rechts zu eben diesem breiten Gelächter verzog.

Jetzt erhebt sich die Frage, steht das Herz auch auf der schwarzen Liste von Artistic Research*?*

## **Eine kritische Anmerkung zum gegenwärtigen Diskurs »künstlerische Forschung/Artistic Research«**

*Arno Böhler*

Im Kontext von Artistic Research wurde wiederholt argumentiert, dass Wissenschaft, Philosophie und Kunst unterschiedliche Regime mit unterschiedlichen Gesetzmäßigkeiten und Regeln bilden. Demzufolge fordert man konsequenterweise, dass die Gebiete Kunst, Philosophie und Wissenschaft nicht vermischt, sondern als wohldefinierte, getrennte Regime behandelt werden sollten, die ihrer eigenen inneren Logik und Systematik folgen. Ein\*e Philosoph\*in sollte die Spielregeln respektieren, die für das Regime der Philosophie konstitutiv sind, ein\*e Künstler\*in die Regeln, die für künstlerische Praktiken konstitutiv sind. Selbst wenn man gegen etablierte Regeln ankämpft, um sie zu brechen, handelt es sich um einen Paradigmenwechsel *innerhalb* des jeweiligen Forschungsfeldes.

Aber philosophiert man denn wirklich überhaupt nicht, wenn man Kunst macht? Und arbeitet man in der Tat nicht immer auch künstlerisch, wenn man philosophiert? Zumindest graduell?

Selbstverständlich gibt es unterschiedliche Praktiken, wenn man in den Künsten beziehungsweise in der Philosophie forscht. Aber macht es wirklich Sinn, beide als separate Gebiete zu betrachten, als ob es sich jeweils um abgeschlossene, selbstidente Systeme handeln würde, die völlig unabhängig voneinander existieren würden? Als ob es keinen Austausch zwischen ihnen gegeben hätte und immer noch geben würde? Als ob ihre heutige Identität nicht erst im Zuge einer historischen Genese hervorgebracht worden wäre, die den unterschiedlichen Disziplinen erst ihre historisch generierte Identität verliehen hat?

Im Unterschied zu solchen identitätsphilosophischen, um nicht zu sagen ›identitären‹ Ansichten gehen Forschungsformate wie *Philosophy On Stage, Philosophie als künstlerische Forschung* (Böhler & [Granzer] 2018), *Performance Philosophie*<sup>12</sup> oder *[soundcheck philosophie]*, <sup>13</sup> um nur einige zu nennen, davon aus, dass es immer schon *chiastische Verschränkungen* und *cross-disziplinäre Fluchtlinien* in der Philosophie und in den Künsten gegeben hat, in denen die Philosophie im Begriff war, künstlerisch zu werden, die Kunst philosophisch.

Selbst die Geschichte der Europäischen Philosophie liefert uns viele Beispiele, die unsere Analyse stützen. Platon, der, wie wir gehört haben, in der Art des Philosophierens zeitlebens Künstler blieb; Friedrich Nietzsche, der in Form von Aphorismen und Dithyramben dachte, die ihn nicht nur gedanklich, sondern auch physisch tanzen lehrten; Wittgenstein, der Sätze aus seinen Notizbüchern abschrieb, auf Papier brachte, ausschnitt, auf dem Boden räumlich auslegte, um sie schließlich wie Puzzlesteine zu mehr oder weniger homogenen Texten zusammenzumontieren; Hélène Cixous oder Avital Ronell, die im Zuge der Hervorbringung einer *écriture féminine* neue literarischpoetische Schreibweisen suchten, in der sich ein feminines Denken ref lexiv ins Werk setzt, das sich nicht länger scheut, *mit* den Sinnen zu denken, anstatt *gegen* sie. Andere, etwa Sokrates, hatten auf dem Marktplatz philosophiert *– ich würde ihn in heutigen Begrif fen einen Performance-Künstler nennen –*, während es Diogenes bevorzugt hatte, die Vorzüge der Zivilisation hinter sich zu lassen und in einer Tonne zu leben. *Ich würde sagen, ein antiker Punk, der im öf fentlichen Raum performativ-widerständig interveniert hatte*.

Ähnliches ließe sich von Seiten der Künste sagen. Wäre Shakespeare der kosmopolitische Künstler geworden, der er in der Tat war, wenn er in seinen Kunstwerken nicht auch philosophiert hätte, indem er Hamlet etwa den berühmten Satz sagen ließ: »To be, or not to be, that is the question?« Eine

<sup>12</sup> https://www.performancephilosophy.org/

<sup>13</sup> https://www.soundcheckphilosophie.de/

Frage, die in der Geschichte der Philosophie seit mehreren tausend Jahren als typisch philosophisches Problem verhandelt wird.

Künstler-Philosoph\*innen und Philosophen-Künstler\*innen sind offenkundig ontogenetisch *bi*: Sie arbeiten im Zwischen. Sie sind weder das eine noch das andere ›ganz‹, sondern tauchen zwischen den Regimen von Kunst und Philosophie auf – wie ein querer/queerer Hermes, der die frohe Botschaft einer hybriden Form von *Kunst & Philosophie* verkündet, in der unzeitgemäße Beziehungen, Allianzen, Konzepte, Kunstwerke und Begriffe zwischen den Disziplinen produziert werden. Dabei wird das vererbte *antagonistische* Modell der sokratisch-platonischen Konzeption des Verhältnisses von Kunst oder Philosophie notwendigerweise in Frage gestellt und – wer weiß –, künftig womöglich verschoben und verändert worden sein.

#### **Biografische Notiz 4: Philosophy On Stage**

*Susanne Valerie*

Die *Kunst* und die *Philosophie* sind das Liebespaar dieses Lebensweges als glückliche Fügung. Sie werden aneinander nicht müde, keine Gewöhnung erlahmt das wechselseitige Interesse. Im Gegenteil. Sie inspirieren sich immer wieder aufs Neue, sind lustvoll und neugierig aufeinander, auch kampflustig streitbar, aber von ein und derselben Libido getragen und geführt, in der die *Freundlichkeit am Herzen* (Hölderlin 1993, 8) eine besondere Bedeutung hat. Sie steht für die aktive Kraft der Affirmation. Für ein Ja, das sich nicht nur einmal, sondern wieder und wieder gegeben wird als Versprechen, das sich einlöst, indem es sich selbst unauf hörlich erneuert. Mit Sentiment und Kitsch hat das nichts zu tun.

Der erste Anfang hat also nicht aufgehört, Triebfeder für das Feld der Kunst, der Philosophie und der Suche nach einer Lebensform zu sein. Wie sie zusammenführen? Allmählich, aber immer entschlossener rückt die

alte Heimat der Bühne mit ihren traditionellen Formen des Theaters in den Hintergrund und wird zuerst vom filmischen Format *Philosophie im Bild* und dann in einer Art Rückkehr auf die Bühne von *Philosophy On Stage* abgelöst. Dazu fügen sich experimentelle Texte als *écriture féminine* über Exponiertheit und performative Kunst auf der Bühne.

Mit Nietzsche kann *Philosophy On Stage* als *Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunf t* verstanden werden, das einem post-sokratischen Denken versprochen ist. Es geht darin um die Realisation einer *fröhlichen Wissenschaf t*, in der Philosophie und Kunst gemeinsam nach neuen Wegen suchen. In diversen Experimenten und Testläufen wird in Laboratorien der Zukunft, sogenannten Art-Labs, nicht mehr das asketische Ideal der Wissenschaften, sondern die leibliche Dimension eines unzeitgemäßen Denkens riskiert, um so den (Aber)Glauben der Metaphysiker an die Gegensätze der Werte besser durchschauen und in neuen Formen entkräften zu lernen.

Als *Begrif fsperson* steht Nietzsches Figur des *Künstlerphilosophen*, ich ergänze, der *Künstlerphilosophin*, und, in der Umkehrung, die Figur des *Philosophenkünstlers und der Philosophenkünstlerin* im Zentrum von *Philosophy On Stage.* Diese Umkehrung gilt es immer mitzusprechen. Beide haben sich vom tradierten Ressentiment der Philosophie gegen die Kunst *und* der Kunst gegen die Philosophie gelöst. Im freien Zusammenspiel wird versucht, der Philosophie ihre Sensitivität und Verwundbarkeit und der Kunst die Dimension der diskursiven Schärfe zurückzugeben. Das bedeutet im Vorfeld Arbeit in Art-Labs, in denen Felder kreiert werden, die sich intellektuell wie emotional, diskursiv wie sensorisch einen Einblick in ein Forschungsthema erarbeiten, das bei *Philosophy On Stage* zur Disposition gestellt wird.

*Zum Schluss kommend – und das führt zu unserer Forschungsinitiative nach Indien, insistiert Philosophy On Stage* auf den Mitspieler, die Mitspielerin Herz und versteht diese Selbstbehauptung des Herzens, *wie ich oben schon erwähnte*, als subversiven Akt. Im Nāṭya Śāstra, dem ältesten datierten Text der indischen Kultur über das Theater wird der Ästhet schlicht und einfach

als *sahṛdaya* (Bäumer 2016, 92) bezeichnet, »als jemand, der Herz hat«. Und bitte, wer kann wissen, dass ein für alle Mal entschieden ist, dass Saturn – *das Schwere, das Aussichtlose, das Verhängnis* – mächtiger ist als Venus? Der Tyrann braucht den Trübsinn des Sklaven zum Erhalt seiner Macht, ist bei Spinoza (2012, 5) zu lesen. Wer schließlich im Pathos dieser Erfahrung triumphiert, Saturn oder Venus, die Selbstverneinung oder die Selbstbejahung des Lebens von sich selbst – *care for the event* –, das ist, glaube ich, die Frage der Geschichte eines Lebens.

#### **Epilog**

*Zum Abschluss zwei kurze Interventionen: Eine entstammt unserer Field-Performance* LOVE MATTERS …*, die am Ende unseres Residenz-Programms 2018/19 im Süden Indiens entstanden ist und im Theater des Art-Labs Adishakti gemeinsam mit allen Stipendiat\*innen aufgeführt wurde.* 

*Im Zentrum stand ein Drucker, ironisch personifiziert und angesprochen als Mr. Printer. Er symbolisierte die neoliberale Indoktrination möglicher Reproduktion von allem und jedem und promotete sich selbst unauf hörlich als »A Product of Motherly Love«, indem er ohne Unterlass diese Selbstbeschreibung als Botschaf t ausspie.*

*Als Mitspieler darf ich nun Ivan Pantelić vorstellen. Er ist Theaterregisseur und Philosoph, gebürtig in Serbien und er war als einer unserer Stipendiaten zugleich ein wesentlicher Mitgestalter dieser Field-Performance. Sie werden ihn gleich an der Gitarre im Duett mit Arno Böhler hören, der jetzt in bloßen Socken, ohne Schuhe dasteht und ein schwarzes Jackett mit weißem Hemd und Krawatte zu einem indischen schwarzen Dhoti mit Goldrand trägt.*

#### **LOVE MATTERS**

*Arno & Ivan*

#### Love-Song #3 (Auszug): There is no Love without Philo-Sophy

They say, I am a philosopher, Probably, because I teach philosophy at the University of Vienna.

But what does it mean to speak as a philosopher on stage? How does a philosopher speak, how does she touch you on stage?

»The heads of people,« says Ludwig Wittgenstein, »are captured by inherited images and imprints of thoughts.«14

This is, where philosophy, where questioning begins: it frees you from the imprints, even the stereotypical imprints of love, you have in mind.

<sup>14</sup> Wittgenstein (2001, 115)

Love, without philosophy, would just be a compulsion to repeat, over and over again, says Freud.

It would just be a machine-like repetition compulsion; a compulsion to repeat, one and the same, over and over again.

Repetition. Over and over again.

An automatically re-printing printing machine. But not love ...

You have to shut down the printing machine, says Freud, that automatically re-prints the images of love you have embodied in your head, in order to fall in love, truly, surprisingly, inwardly, outwardly.

So, I never understood, why philosophers say that the head is no part of our body. I can touch it, obviously. It's there, it's physical, it's material, it's sensual. It is not just ideal.

You undo the imprints, imprinted in your mind, if you question something. Philosophy is no theory, It's a practice.

I am doing aesthetics, If I am doing Philosophy On Stage I am changing the imprints, embodied in my head, while thinking. My physical brain is actually deconstructed while thinking. How can you call it a theory?

It is a sensual, it's a material praxis Thinking. You undo something, if you question things. You withdraw the stereotypes embodied in your mind, while thinking.

Thus, there is no philosophy without love and no love without philosophy.

*Unsere zweite Intervention ist ein kurzes, dialektisches Satyrspiel des sokratischen Satyrs namens Karl Valentin. Es spielt in völliger Dunkelheit und daher haben wir schwarze Augenbinden mitgebracht. – (Die Augenbinden werden verteilt). – Falls wir zu wenige haben, dürfen wir Sie bitten, einfach die Augen zu schließen. – Sind alle im Dunkeln? (Valentin 1993, 39 f.)*

*Als das Publikum die Augenbinden am Ende der Performance wieder abnimmt, steht Susanne Valerie mit einem Eselskopf vor ihm.*

*Eine allerletzte Bitte an Sie alle. Bitte stehen Sie jetzt auf, bewegen Sie sich frei im Raum, kommen Sie auch nach vorne, quasi auf die Bühne – und lesen Sie dabei eine Textstelle aus der Seite laut vor, die Sie aus einem der Bücher zu Beginn herausgerissen haben, sodass wir zum Abschluss in einer Art chorischer Gemeinsamkeit zusammenkommen.*

*Wir bedanken uns! Herzlichen Dank an alle und natürlich auch an die mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien!*

#### **Literatur**


## **Worldmaking – Knowing through Performing**

*Barbara Lüneburg*

As a performing instrumentalist and artistic researcher, I have a great interest in the nature of knowledge inherent in musical performance. In this article, I therefore set out to explore the sources and kinds of knowledge performers produce, and investigate underlying methodological tools, touching on different ways of representing and disseminating research results and posing questions relating to the conditions pertinent to knowledge gain through performance. By doing so, I intend to establish consciousness and awareness of the core practice and potential of performers with regard to knowledge contribution for their own specific instrumental practice, particularly within the field of artistic research, but also within the humanities in general. This undertaking comes from my conviction that art and artistic research are both domains "in which 'the questions of the human being, consciousness, origin, and the subject emerge, intersect, mingle, and separate off'" (Foucault 1972, 16).

Subsequently, I will provide a brief overview of knowledge production through performing, followed by an outline of research design in artistic research in general and an elaboration on epistemology in performance practice. For this, I will introduce three artistic (research) projects to illustrate manners and conditions of knowledge gain. I will cover data collection strategies and methods of analysis and evaluation, and shed light on the kinds of knowledge that can be gained. In this context I would like to emphasise that I explicitly understand my and others' "arts practice as performative, meaning that both the artwork and the creative process stir me (and my audience) and modify how we understand and ref lect the world. I state that artistic practice can intrinsically have its own status in the search for knowledge." (Lüneburg 2018c, 147)

#### **Knowledge production through performing**

Which kind of knowledge am I referring to when I speak about 'knowing through performing', and how does it fit into the tasks and creative potential of a performer?

A performer's work "extends from the moment of conceptualising a concert to the moment of presenting it on stage and comprises many areas between and around those two points". (Lüneburg 2013, 6) It includes various creative tasks, such as the act of playing itself – and with it the share of authorship in "the work" presented on stage – as well as curatorial and collaborative undertakings. It comprises the relationship to and the charismatic bond with the audience that is built through the actual concert presentation and beyond. (Lüneburg 2013, 11 and 15)

Through their work on stage, by systematically exploring innovative situations of production and novel works, by studying historical works, images and texts as basis for an interpretation, and by bringing those studies together in and through applied practice and artistic research, performers gather various kinds of knowledge. Some of this knowledge is directly related to the development and interpretation of musical works and includes analytical, historical, musical or instrument-specific knowledge. Some of it relates to our practical understanding of and skill in how to 'play' the concert space, i.e. sonic, spatial and phenomenological knowledge gained through systematically investigating, analysing and evaluating the framework of performances that different venues under various circumstances offer. The field of bodily knowledge and embodiment is not only useful for mastering instrument and score, but – combined with psychological and social expertise – it provides performers with the means to effectively and charismatically project music and the symbolic message of an artwork to their audiences. Much of this refers to 'knowing how to do something'.

In this article, though, I intend to go a step further and look beyond the actual musical doing in search of the epistemic potential of performing. I therefore pose the question of whether we can acquire cultural and social knowledge and learn about humankind through a systematic creative and researching artistic process. I am interested in how social or cultural knowledge might manifest in and through performance, and how performing itself becomes a means of representing and sharing research results.

In the following subchapter I will provide a short overview of research design in artistic research, and of challenges that may be encountered.

#### **Research design in artistic research**

In his book *Ways of Worldmaking*, the philosopher Nelson Goodman writes of "the multiplicity of worlds, the speciousness of 'the given', the creative power of the understanding, the variety and formative function of symbols." He asks, "What are worlds made of? How are they made? What role do symbols play in the making? And how is worldmaking related to knowing?" (Goodman 1978, 1) He claims that "[p]erceiving motion […] often consists in producing it. Discovering laws involves drafting them. Recognizing patterns is very much a matter of inventing and imposing them. Comprehension and creation go on together." (Goodman 1978, 22) One finds these ideas at the core of what research for the arts, through the arts and with the means of art is all about.

Artistic research origins in arts practice. The research object is developed as an integral part of a creative arts-based process (usually by the researcher) and the entire process of creation, the actual artwork, and the act of dissemination are often included as objects of investigation. The philosopher Henk Borgdorff describes this as "experimentation *in* practice, ref lection *on*  practice and interpretation *of* practice." (Borgdorff 2012, 23) In an informal email exchange between colleagues, educational researcher Silke Kruse-Weber and I developed the following definition:

"Artistic research operates with forms of knowledge that one cannot investigate using scientific research methods alone. To this category belongs knowledge based on and gained through artistic practice, as well as the knowledge that manifests itself through the results of artistic practice for which experience with the artwork is essential. Artistic research strives for alternative possibilities to communicate these forms of knowledge. […] The essential dif ference between artistic and scientific research is that in artistic research, the goals and methods for acquiring knowledge are infused with the posing of questions that stem from the structured and reflective direct involvement of the artist in the process of creating the work and the artwork itself." (Kruse-Weber & Lüneburg 2016) [translation from German by Clio Montrey]

According to the demands and epistemic interests of their specific investigation, artistic researchers may take on different epistemological approaches. They embrace post-positivist, constructivist, transformative or pragmatic worldviews (to name but a few), and avail themselves of methods and tools not only from their immediate arts practice but also from disciplines of social science, philosophy and other humanities. Thus, in many artistic research projects, boundaries between disciplines are blurred; however, the process of artistic creation and the art work itself form the core of the research: "[D]ata may be collected by doing art (such as performing, exhibiting, artistic software coding, sculpturing, etc., followed by critical ref lection), by personal embodiment […], scientific experimentation, by connecting seemingly distant analogies or by exploring discontinuities to create new contexts within and through the artwork." (Lüneburg 2018c, 159)

#### Investigation from the inside

The artistic researcher's investigation from the inside and their concurrent involvement in the creative production, the resulting artwork, and the study of both, are essential and present both advantages and challenges. Artistic researchers have access to thoughts and ideas regarding the creative process and decision making, bodily experiences while playing, and interpersonal relations and communications with their creative partners. This renders first-hand data and insights that are often "inaccessible to others because they are held 'under closure', i.e., in sociological terms, behind boundaries or within constructed identities that protect them from prying eyes." (Lüneburg 2018c, 160)

However, therein lies a challenge, namely to establish a position of critical self-ref lection that protects against bias caused by intimate personal and professional involvement. As a consequence of the fact that researching artists are usually professional members of the field in which they work, "their investigation may be inf luenced by professional (financial, artistic and aesthetic) pressure from their peer group" (Lüneburg 2018c, 164). Artists need to hold their own in the fast-paced professional playground that is affected by political, cultural-political or simply fashionable inf luences, which may lead to conf licts of artistic or professional interests. Furthermore, working and researching within one's own professional field can lead to ethical concerns;

for instance, it can be almost impossible to anonymise research data from the arts domain and from colleagues.

A carefully arranged methodological set-up, well-conceived structure of the fieldwork, strategies for systematic data collection and methods of analysis and evaluation maximise clarity and transparency of the critical self-ref lective position, "counterbalance subjectivity and reduce the defensiveness that might result from research 'at home'" (Lüneburg 2018c, 167). Furthermore, these structures can guard against possible epistemic blind spots in perception, lessen the susceptibility to error in introspection, and counteract the possibility that some aspects of the investigation might lie outside the focus of the researcher's current attention. Both financial independence through research funding and the consideration of possible ethical objections early on help to alleviate possible dependencies on the arts market and ethical pitfalls that might arise in the course of the project. Last but not least, working in an interdisciplinary team provides the means for differentiated discourse, critical ref lection and methodological rigour, as it offers additional reference points, accountability and the benefit of a second- and third-person research perspective. In a positive sense, however, I believe what organisational behaviour scholar Judi Marshall and action researcher Geoff Mead say about first-person research can be applied to artistic research: "Without wishing to render oneself or others unnecessarily vulnerable, it may be that this 'edginess' is a possible marker of quality in first-person action research, an indication of a willingness to work at one's 'learning edge.'" (Marshall & Mead 2005, 237)

#### Dissemination and sharing of knowledge

Performers in artistic research disseminate research results through both verbal accounts and – specific to artistic research – through artworks. They share their results not only with practitioners of their domain, that is other performers, composers as well as music and art promoters, but also with their audiences and scholars of various domains. Choreographer and artistic researcher Efva Lilja states in her article *What is Good in Art? The Artistic Research Dilemma*:

"[t]here must be openness for what can be a relevant presentation of artistic research based on the idea of the project, its purpose, process and end product. This means that it is not primarily the work as a product that is the object, but that the delivery of the project can be documentation, reflection and conclusions from the research in the form that the artist chooses." (Lilja 2012, 72)

Artistic researchers possibly pursue a twofold quest with the artworks that emerge from artistic research projects: firstly, to develop an artwork that can stand on its own, and secondly, to present insights and research results through language and with the means of art.

In the following subchapter I illustrate knowledge gain in performance and artistic research through examples from practice. I introduce three different arts/artistic research projects through which I intend to show the variety of knowledge that can be won through performance, ranging from cultural to social, creative and philosophical questions. For each project I analyse the kind of knowledge gained, the methodological tools used, and the forms of sharing and dissemination of knowledge. In doing so, I study the condition and limits of knowledge gain.

#### **Knowledge gain in performance and artistic research – examples from practice**

How is the creation of art related to knowing? In which way does performing reveal knowledge?

Project 1: Louis Aguirre *Toque a Eshu y Ochosi* for singing violinist.<sup>1</sup>

The topic: *Toque* is based on the Afro-Cuban religion Santería and involves performer and audience in a religious rite executed by the violinist on stage. The performance recreates the bodily experience and intensity of a religious rite. The violinist invokes the Santería god Eshu (expressed in the vocal part), who swirls around her (expressed in the violin part).

<sup>1</sup> See excerpt of a live performance by the author at *Ultraschallfestival*, Berlin, 2016: https:// bit.ly/2V1zH1b

"The performer functions as the priestess who conjures up the gods and plays and sings herself into an ecstasy. […] *Toque* is a demanding and physical piece with an unusual expressiveness that reaches from guttural, grunted sounds to half screamed, almost sexual sounding passages to classically sung vocal parts with heavy vibrato. […] Aguirre declares *Toque* with its crossing of boundaries as an evocation of the deities through singing and playing; the bodily exertion experienced as a trance-like state, the fast and extreme vibrato as a religious possession – all signs that are typical for a Santería ceremony. […] He claims that the magic of the ritual will happen through the performance and through the performer. The player doesn't just act out the role of a priest or priestess of Santería, he or she embodies it." (Lüneburg 2018c, 139)

*Fig. 1-3: Barbara Lüneburg performing a Santería ritual in Louis Aguirre's Toque a Echu y Ochosi*

Knowledge gained: the experience of *Toque*, in and through the concert situation, serves the performer and audience as a source of information through demonstration of sensorial and emotional aspects of Santería. It involves them in the phenomenological experience of the power of the rite as an entry into a knowledge of Santería that reaches beyond the faculty of the mind. Verbal information is replaced by a (quasi-)bodily and emotional experience that is shared with the performer.

Methodology: embodying a Santería rite through my artistic practice, a method of data collection not only common to artistic research but also to phenomenology, afforded me the ability to observe the practice of Santería quasi from within. Practising and performing *Toque* and the collaboration with the composer and Santería priest Louis Aguirre served as a further data collection tool typical of artistic research in performance. Additionally, I conducted an open-ended interview with the composer and Santería priest Louis Aguirre on the practice of Santería that allowed me to penetrate deeper into the idea of the rite and of his music, a method that might be shared between a sociological and artistic research approach.

Dissemination and sharing of knowledge: in the case of *Toque* knowledge is revealed and transmitted through the aesthetic and performative experience. How does this work? In his paper *Embodying Music: Principles of the Mimetic Hypothesis*, the musicologist Arnie Cox argues that we adopt the perspective of an acting person via mimetic participation, almost as though we are performing a virtual simulation of their actions.

"When we take an aesthetic interest in something, whether people-watching or attending a sporting event or a film or a concert, our responses can be understood as if we are implicitly asking, *What's it like to do that?*, along with the corollary question, *What's it like to be that*? Part of how we answer these questions is via MMI [Mimetic Motor Imagery], along with occasional overt mimetic motor action, as when we move to music in one way or another. In ef fect, it is as if we are responding to an invitation to somehow imitate and to thus take part. Accordingly, we can speak of the performing arts as of fering a *mimetic invitation*, and we can speak of our various responses as *mimetic engagement* or *mimetic participation*, whether in the form of overt movement or in the privacy of covert imagery (MMI)." (Cox 2011, paragraph 8)

By witnessing the performance of *Toque,* the audience gains a sensory and corporeal idea of what Santería means. Through the sonic and visual experience of the concert situation, they engage and participate mimetically, almost as though they were performing a virtual simulation of the action on stage. So when Thorsten Flüh wrote of the performance at Ultraschall Festival, that "in the performance of *Toque a Eshu y Ochosi* (2013) Barbara Lüneburg completely spent herself as a bodily acting medium of a music that was concerned with Louis Aguirre's Afro-Cuban priest cults. The performance turned into a ritual, trance-like action" (Flüh 2016), we can assume that the art and the art event had become a means of transmitting experience and knowledge. The intense sensory qualities of the performance experience were shared with the concert audience via mimetic participation and provided a tool for experiencing meaning.

Project 2: *GAPPP-Gamified Audiovisual Performance and Performance Practice* – an artistic research project.2

The topic: the team of the artistic research project *GAPPP –* with the composer and artistic researcher Marko Ciciliani, I myself in the role of performer and artistic researcher, and musicologist Andreas Pirchner – aims "to develop a thorough understanding of the potential of game based elements in audiovisual works." (Ciciliani, 2016) A work of *GAPPP* is defined as "a multimedia artwork that uses game elements and possibly alludes to game aesthetics; however, it clearly belongs to the world of contemporary (art) music. It involves at least one decision-making player who performs for a concert audience within a computer system designed for interactivity. The system offers a musical and visual environment, a set of (game-related) rules and often specifically designed interfaces while giving the performer creative agency to musically, visually and performatively shape the artwork and the concert experience." (Lüneburg 2018b, 244) The *GAPPP* team investigates compositional, performative and audience-related questions, and studies how the "creative and observing agents, principles, goals, connotations, aesthetics and peer groups" of each field affect the works created, have an impact on the audience in their expectations and perception, and touch the work of the performer. (Lüneburg 2018b, 244)

Methodology: principal investigator Marco Ciciliani designed the methodology of *GAPPP* as a triangular approach that allows the study of compositions of game-based audiovisual works from three perspectives, namely "the inner view of the creator of the audiovisual artwork, the inner perspective of the performer, and from an observing music-sociological view on our audiences." (Lüneburg 2018b, 245)

Twice a year, guest artists, researchers and performers are invited to compose and perform artworks that deal with questions of *GAPPP* and to discuss the process of creation and performance in the course of specially designed work laboratories. The research team gathers data through artistic practice, participant observation and interviews. We ask a carefully selected test audience to complete audience questionnaires during so-called 'lab concerts'. Additionally, we conduct open-ended interviews with collaborating composers, performers and audience focus groups to learn about how the works are perceived in concert and what performers and composers think

<sup>2</sup> http://gappp.net, FWF – PEEK AR 364-G24, 2016-2020

about the process and context. (Lüneburg 2018b, 245) The investigation from the performers' inside position, with its data collection through artistic practice during the creational period and concert, rendered information that would not have been accessible through participant observation from a distance.

*Fig. 4: Performance of the GAPPP work Kilgore by Marko Ciciliani at Ars Electronica 2018*

Knowledge gain in performance practice: In *GAPPP* we focused on topics that we expected to render compositional, performative, and social knowledge. We investigated:


Dissemination and sharing of knowledge through the arts: when conceptualising the research areas of *GAPPP*, Ciciliani targeted not only the development of the arts and playing experience and involvement of performers, he also aimed his questions at which reactions game features in audiovisual artworks would elicit from the audience:

"Game-interaction – and the doubling of the player in the game in a virtual space – of fer a large potential to create a liveness quality of a novel kind. This does not only concern the performer who is interacting with a responsive audiovisual system but can also engage an audience as 'backseat-players'." (Ciciliani, 2016)

Accordingly, we presented *GAPPP*'s arts-research results at lab concerts, exhibitions, conferences and festivals. We exhibited game-related audiovisual installations, performed solo works and chamber music in lecture recitals and in participatory and traditional concert settings. Hereby, we aimed to bring together research results from composition, audience research and performance studies in an effort to further a convergence "between the composer, performer and spectator's 'goal and expectations' and 'commonality of cultural experience,' (Gurevich 2017, 329) in order to enhance the artistic experience for all". (Lüneburg 2018a)

Project 3: Barbara Lüneburg *Osculation* – *A contact between curves and surfaces* (2018) for speaking violinist and three moveable loudspeakers (inspired by Anestis Logothetis' graphical score *Osculationen*, 1964).3

The topic: *Osculation – A Contact between Curves and Surfaces* is an artistic pilot artwork for a future artistic research project that examines social practices of contemporary music and the distribution of creativity, authorship

<sup>3</sup> Video documentation: https://bit.ly/2k5Olnk

and power between performer and composer. *Osculation* was premiered on the occasion of a concert for which four violinists were asked to interpret a graphical score each by Anestis Logothetis (in my case *Oskulationen*) and an improvisation template by the composer Katharina Klement as part of their individual solo recital. The four recitals followed one another and afforded the public a comparison, not only of the individual personalities of the violinists, but also of their creative adapting, or rather composing, of the conceptual and improvisational works. Although the violinists contributed substantially to the content of the works – one could even argue they composed it almost in its entirety –, the festival promoter denied the violinists credit as co-authors of the works when requested to name them as such. This led me to delve into the question of 'authorship' and the role of the performer in 'the work', the performer's creative potential, and their ascribed role in the social practice of the contemporary music business for the composition of my Logothetis-inspired composition *Osculation*.

Method: I collected texts, thoughts and voice contributions by composers, performers, philosophers and media researchers (including Vinko Globokar, Jennifer Torrence, Abbie Conant, Karlheinz Stockhausen, William Osborne, Jean Baudrillard and Marshall McLuhan) that ref lect the creative potential of instrumentalists and investigate power relationships in general as well as between composers and performers. Those texts were woven into musical improvisations and hint at collaborative or conceptual works that I or other prominent performers had realised in close cooperation with composers.

Dissemination and sharing of knowledge through the arts: *Osculation* became an artistic statement on the method of production in collaborations and the artistic share of the performer in 'the work'. Through the artwork, I intended to lay open what I call the buried layers of musical and social practices and cultural (mis-)conceptions that preclude a transparent view of the reality of the creative work that is shared between composer and performer. Corresponding closely to Lilja, I considered it as "the product that describes the process represented by the work", and shared it in "[t]he public space where all art is displayed generates the open discourse." (Lilja 2012, 72)

Knowledge gained: as a pilot project for a future artistic research project, *Osculation* is as yet incomplete in terms of its methodological approach; however, I consider it a first artistic grasp of and contribution to the discourse on what I consider an ongoing social practice regarding the acknowledgment

of performers and their creative authorship in the classical contemporary music field in Western countries.

Outlook for the future: the artistic research project that is developing from *Osculation* will be concerned with the ontology of the performer in contemporary art music. Artistically, I intend to create three concert programmes and a 'Lexicon of Performership' concerned with aspects of the nature of performance, authorship and power relations. The concerts will elucidate the question of 'authorship and power enacted through performing', 'authorship and power through co-creation' in collaborative and interdisciplinary settings, and 'authorship and power through performers' creation' in which the performer shapes the complete production cycle, from the conceptualisation of a work through to compositional and performance aspects. In collaboration with a sociologist I will develop a theoretical basis on the ontology of 'the performer' and the creative power performers yield. Through my and other performers' work on stage and beyond, by exploring innovative situations of production and novel works, we will study their creative agency and authority and the distribution of symbolic, material, organisational, and structural power in the field of contemporary art music. Subsequently, I intend to develop an empirically grounded theoretical model of the ontology of 'the performer' and encourage its further development. By exploring artistic research, what it can mean for performers, their practice, artistic outcome and field, and by bringing it directly to the instrumentalist, I strive for artistic empowerment of performers.

To round off my view on epistemology in practice, I will now look at the conditions of knowledge in artistic research and performance.

#### **Conditions of knowledge**

Generally, artistic research depends largely on the artists' thorough competence in the specific artistic field investigated and their wish and capacity to continuously deepen their knowledge through their own practice beyond the conventional boundaries of our field. As Lilja argues, "[t]he quality of artistic research (and the artistic representations that will emerge as a result) is completely dependent on which artists choose to engage in research" (Lilja 2012, 71). Research needs to be based on extensive artistic experience, and interdisciplinary work might lend artistic research further tools "to address

'subjectivity' and prior knowledge as a complex mix of resource and blinder." (Alvesson 2009, 160 and 166) For each new project, research design and methodology must be individually conceptualised and may diverge profoundly from one project to another.

What, then, are the conditions and limits of knowledge in the projects described? With *Toque* (project 1), knowledge gain and sharing depend on the involvement, power and conviction of the individual performer who affects the overall perception of the audience in the particular performance situation. With *GAPPP* (project 2), knowledge gain and sharing depends on the expertness of performers and their willingness to deal with offered artistic agencies that induce improvisational, compositional and conceptional tasks. On stage, performers have to take on a 'split' creative mind while hovering between game and art, between playfulness of the gamified work and the seriousness of a classical concert presentation, and between involvement in the game and the projection of form and content of the artwork to the audience. It is a complex intellectual and artistic task that is added to the 'ordinary' challenges of performing any musical work in a live context. With the future artistic research project that follows *Osculation*, I expect the conditions and limits of knowledge gain to lie in the artistic personality and conviction of the individual performer that ref lect the power of performance, and in the limits or wealth of creational and compositional skill and performative experience. Moreover, the project will require a finely-tuned documentation and observation system and a comparative methodological framework to render viable research results, since the challenges of knowledge gain here are grounded in the rigorousness of self-observation and -ref lection of the performer on stage and in the creation phase.

#### **Conclusion**

As artists, we build a multiplicity of worlds (represented through our artworks) in which we describe and interpret phenomena of the world around us. Through artistic research (in performance and other disciplines), artists widen their skillset and knowledge of how to do things. On a deeper level they hone their critical understanding of their artistic discipline, of the arts in general, and of their being in the world. Artistic researchers systematically use the potential of the 'creative power of understanding' when researching

in and through the arts, when linking seemingly distant analogies and using symbols to construe meaning. They "shape the knowledge embodied in the artwork, in the practice of art and in the ref lection of it. Researchers are not only witness to their own field and of their own art through their artistic work, they also touch on questions of humanity." (Lüneburg 2018c, 165) Through their art, through their worldmaking, they share this understanding in the form of aesthetic, performative and symbolic knowledge with their audiences.

#### **Literature**


#### **Documentation of artworks**


# **Shooting as a Researcher – Fracking Your Face** Forschung mit darstellenden Künsten

#### *Anton Rey*

Das Institute for the Performing Arts & Film (IPF) wurde 2007 mit dem Auftrag gegründet, Forschung und Entwicklung (F&E) in den Kunstfeldern Film, Tanz und Theater an der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (ZHdK) zu etablieren. Ziel ist nebst der aktiven Auseinandersetzung mit bestehenden Forschungsparadigmen eine stete Weiterentwicklung eines für die drei Kunstbereiche gültigen Forschungsbegriffs. Die Projekte des IPF verfolgen je eigene Erkenntnisziele, indem sie performative Prozesse, deren Bedingungen und Wirkungsweisen, Rezeptionsvorgänge und Sehgewohnheiten beschreiben und analysieren. Dieser Anspruch wird durch interdisziplinäre Arbeitsweisen unterstützt und beschreitet nicht selten ungewohnte Wege einer noch relativ jungen künstlerischen Forschung. Die folgenden Ausführungen stellen zwei exemplarische Projekte aus den letzten zehn Jahren vor.1

<sup>1</sup> Weitere rund 30 Beispiele finden sich in der Jubiläumsschrif t *Die erste Dekade* (Rey & Schmidt 2018).

### **Analog / Digital**<sup>2</sup> **Die emotionale Wirkung von Filmaufnahmeverfahren auf das Kinopublikum**

Spätestens seit der Jahrtausendwende erlebt das Kino einen fundamentalen Umbruch: Die über hundertjährige analoge Technik wird durch digitale Verfahren ersetzt. Dennoch war bis zu diesem Projekt weitgehend unerforscht, ob dieser Wechsel Auswirkungen auf das Publikum und entsprechend auf die Ausbildung hat. Im Rahmen eines interdisziplinären Forschungsprojekts des IPF mit den Universitäten Bern und Zürich wurde deshalb die emotionale Wirkung von analogen und digitalen Filmen empirisch und qualitativ untersucht. Zu diesem Zweck wurden drei kurze Spielfilme parallel mit digitalen und analogen Kameras produziert. Es entstanden pro Film zwei Varianten, die sich nur in Bezug auf das Aufnahmeverfahren unterscheiden. In der Postproduktion wurde zusätzlich eine weitere Variante erstellt, bei welcher der digitale Film so stark wie möglich an den analogen Look angeglichen wurde. Anschließend wurde die Wirkung der unterschiedlichen Varianten mit Kinopublikum verglichen. Für die Auswertung konnten sowohl subjektive Eindrücke (mittels Fragebogen) wie auch Augenbewegungen (mittels Eyetracking) miteinbezogen werden. Im Fokus der Untersuchung stand die Frage, inwiefern der Unterschied überhaupt wahrgenommen wird, ob sich die spezifischen Eigenschaften des analogen Bildes bei den Rezipient\_innen in einem veränderten Erleben der Filme niederschlägt und in welchem Umfang sich eine vergleichbare Wirkung allenfalls durch Nachbearbeitung des digitalen Films erreichen lässt.

Studierende der Fachrichtung Film drehten somit ihre Kurzfilme gedoppelt. An Handkamera war diesmal nicht zu denken: 50 Kilogramm schwer wiegt das Ungetüm, das die Szenen gleich zweimal aufnehmen kann. Gebaut werden solche Vorrichtungen eigentlich für 3D-Filme: Zwei Kameras sind in einem 90°-Winkel so angeordnet, dass sie über einen halbdurchlässigen Spiegel denselben Bildausschnitt einfangen können. Beim Forschungsprojekt *Analog/Digital* wurde diese Technik genutzt, um Szenen gleichzeitig auf 35mm-Film und als digitale Daten aufzuzeichnen. Die Resultate zeigten, dass der Wandel von analogen zu digitalen Aufnahmeformaten keine

<sup>2</sup> Eine ausführliche Beschreibung des Forschungsprojekts *Analog / Digital* findet sich auf: https://www.zhdk.ch/forschungsprojekt/426752

Schmälerung des emotionalen Kinoerlebnisses mit sich bringt. Sobald sich ein Publikum einer Filmerzählung hingibt, sind keine signifikanten Unterschiede zwischen analogem und digitalem Ausgangsmaterial festzumachen. Anders sieht es beim Vergleich der Projektionsart aus. Bei der mechanischen 35-mm-Filmprojektion zeigten sich im Vergleich zur digitalen Projektion bei einer kleineren Testgruppe signifikant höhere Emotionen.

*Fig. 2*

Bemerkenswert an diesem viel diskutierten, erfolgreichen Projekt war auch die Zusammenarbeit innerhalb der ZHdK zwischen Forschenden, Dozierenden und Studierenden des Studiengangs Film. Nicht weniger entscheidend, insbesondere für die Antragstellung, waren die externen Kooperationen, so mit dem Seminar für Filmwissenschaft der Universität Zürich und mit der Abteilung Kognitive Psychologie der Universität Bern. Dazu kamen die für

eine Finanzierung zentralen Praxispartner wie Kodak Lausanne, Egli Film Zürich und der renommierte Kamerahersteller ARRI München. So entstanden nebst den künstlerischen Artefakten, die für Expert\_innen illustres Bildmaterial lieferten, eine Reihe empirischer Daten, die für zahlreiche Publikationen und Tagungen Diskussionsstoff boten.3

#### **Amygdalas Avatar**

Als zweites Beispiel eines jüngeren Forschungsprojektes des IPF kann hier *Actor and Avatar* vorgestellt werden, das in mancherlei Hinsicht die Weiterführung einiger Vorgängerprojekte, so *Disembodied Voice*, *Spiel mit den Gefühlen*, und *Polykulturelle Schweiz am Beispiel der Schauspielausbildung* ist.

Während es bei *Disembodied Voice* um Phänomene der technischen Manipulation der Stimme und deren Nutzbarmachung für das Theater ging und der Forschungsplan vorsah, dass das Potenzial der elektroakustischen Transformation der Stimme in Echtzeit (Live-Elektronik) und der dreidimensionalen Klangprojektion für die praktische Anwendung im Theater erforscht und am Beispiel einer Modellinszenierung exemplifiziert werde, fragte *Das Spiel mit den Gefühlen* danach, ob Schauspieler\_innen willentlich spezifische Gehirnregionen aktivieren können, die für die Verarbeitung und die Produktion von Gefühlen zuständig sind, und – wenn ja – welche Gehirnregionen das genau wären.

Würde sich bei Schauspieler\_innen, die das Method Acting perfekt beherrschten, im Magnetresonanzfeld nachweisen lassen, ob sie ihre emotionalen Gedächtnisaktionen aktivieren oder ihren Text bloß emotionslos referieren würden? Messbar ist dies, weil wir wissen, dass bestimmte Regionen des Gehirns für die Emotionen zuständig sind – die Frage aber war, ob diese auch bewusst aktiviert werden können.

Diese Untersuchung wurde mit namhaften deutschsprachigen Schauspielerinnen und Schauspielern am Schweizerischen Epilepsiezentrum Zürich (EPI) durchgeführt, mithilfe einer bildgebenden Methode der kognitiven Neurowissenschaften, der funktionellen Magnetresonanz-Tomografie (fMRI).

<sup>3</sup> Siehe einen Überblick der Publikationen, Medienberichte und weiterer Outputdaten auf: https://blog.zhdk.ch/analogdigital/?page\_id=65

*Fig. 4: Rey, A. & Kebel, L., Testaufnahmen zum MRT als Bühne, 2018.*

Die Frage war auch hier: Lassen sich Gefühle bewusst in Erinnerung rufen? Was, wenn der Hippocampus, dieses Nervenbündel in der Rinde des Großhirns, nicht nur Erinnerungen abspeichern kann, sondern, weil mess- und abbildbar, nachweislich auch beim Emotionsabruf aktiv wird?

Eines steht, zumindest als These, für die alte Debatte der Schauspielkunst nunmehr fest: Sollten im Muster gespielter und nicht-gespielter, sogenannt »echter« emotionaler Zustände keine neuronalen Unterschiede messbar sein, könnte dies zum Ende der ontologischen Streitigkeiten im Diskurs über Schauspielkunst führen, zumindest aus produktionsästhetischer Sicht. Das könnte eine Entideologisierung der Ausbildungskulturen an Schauspielschulen bedeuten.

*Fig. 5: Stills aus Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho mit Janet Leigh (1960) und Sacha Gervasi's Hitchcock mit Scarlett Johansson (2012). © Shamley Productions, Fox Searchlight Pictures. Folgeseite: Edvard Munch Der Schrei (ca. 1910) und Hirnbild. © H. Jokeit, EPI Klinik Zürich.*

#### **Actor and Avatar**

Gut möglich, dass wir schon bald Begriffe wie »Einfühlsamkeit«, Transparenz«, »sich in die Rolle Finden« und ähnliche neu definieren müssen. Als im Herbst 2017 am internationalen Kongress der Filmhochschulen4 Markus Gross, der Leiter der Walt Disney Research Zurich in seiner Keynote äußerte, dass es zehn, vielleicht aber auch nur fünf Jahre brauchen würde, bis wir den Avatar nicht mehr vom Akteur würden unterscheiden können, war das noch vorsichtig geschätzt. Nur fünf Monate später veröffentliche Unreal Engine auf YouTube das Video einer 100 Prozent artifiziellen Figur »Siren«, die in Echtzeit von einer, mehr noch von jeder beliebigen Akteurin ›bedient‹ werden kann. Auf dem Bildschirm bewegt sich ein Avatar, von einem Menschen nicht zu unterscheiden: »Meet ›Siren‹, a high-fidelity, real-time digital character based on the likeness of Chinese actress Bingjie Jiang.«5 Siren, nicht zufällig als Sirene konzipiert, spricht die Zuschauer\_innen direkt an und bewegt sich ohne erkennbare Einschränkungen oder auffällige, roboterhafte Bewegungen. Diese ›Sirene‹ ist offensichtlich asiatischer Abstammung, ein

<sup>4</sup> *CILECT Congress 2017: Transmedia & Interdisciplinary Approaches*: http://www.cilect.org/cake/ event/74#.XRs0WI9CSUk

<sup>5</sup> *Siren Real-Time Performance*: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9owTAISsvwk

wenig dünn vielleicht oder auch anämisch, aber die braunen Augen schaffen Vertrauen, die makellose Zahnstellung lässt auf eine gute Dentalhygiene schließen, die Haut wirkt gepf legt und insgesamt wirkt die Dame einschließlich Stirnrunzeln und Leberf leck wie eine hübsche Moderatorin, der man auch außerhalb der Sendezeit begegnen könnte. Allerdings bliebe es eine Begegnung der virtuellen Art. Denn die völlig künstliche Figur mit dem Namen Siren wird gespielt von der amerikanischen Schauspielerin Alexa Lee und ist urheberrechtlich im Besitz von Epic Games in Zusammenarbeit mit 3Lateral, Cubic Motion, Tencent and Vicon (Samson 2018). Das Innovative an dieser vorübergehenden Einzigartigkeit ist nur ein Beispiel von dutzenden, bald unzähligen Figuren, die jeden denkbaren und natürlich im virtuellen Raum auch völlig unmöglichen Körper annehmen können. Und bald auch von all jenen Menschen, von denen ausreichend Bildmaterial verfügbar ist.

An einer Schauspielschule ist man verständlicherweise von dieser Entwicklung nicht begeistert. Zahlreiche Dozierende beharren auf den traditionellen Ausbildungswegen, die auf den drei Grundpfeilern von Stimmbildung, Körperbeherrschung und Szenenstudium beruhen. Dazu kommen theoretische Grundlagen und im Laufe des Studiums zunehmend Auftritte vor Publikum, gelegentlich auch ein sogenanntes »Camera-Acting«. Aber im Prinzip hat sich schließlich auch mit der Eroberung der Bühnenräume durch Videotechnik nichts am Kern einer überzeugenden Spielweise geändert, ebenso wenig wie die Einführung der elektroakustischen Verstärkung etwas an einer klaren Diktion geändert hat.<sup>6</sup> Auch künftig wird man unterscheiden können, ob jemand gut gespielt hat oder nicht. Aber ist das wirklich so?

Wir wollten der Frage nachgehen und haben uns in diesem ebenfalls durch den Schweizerischen Nationalfonds geförderten Projekt mit den möglichen, vielleicht bald letzten verbleibenden Unterschieden zwischen Schauspieler\_innen und Avataren beschäftigt.

<sup>6</sup> Siehe dazu das SNF-Projekt *Disembodied Voice*: https://www.zhdk.ch/forschungsprojekt/426780

*Fig. 6: Sechs Schauspiel-Studierende spielen den gleichen emotionalen Umschwung in möglichst identischer Zeit. Still aus einem vergleichenden Video des SNF-Projekts, 2016.*

Avatare, künstliche Personen oder grafische Platzhalter eines Wesens, werden immer spezifischer, immer persönlicher, immer mehr zu einer Konstruktion. Sie scheinen den realen Körper zu ersetzen und ein Erscheinen – oder Auftreten – in einer selbstgewählten Gestalt zu ermöglichen. Während die erste Generation von Avataren vor allem in künstlichen Welten agierte, interagieren nächste Generationen bereits mit der realen Welt. Sie stellen Beziehungen her und erzeugen ungewohnte Wirkungen. Damit nähern sich Avatare dem, was Schauspielende tun. Wo verbleiben die Unterschiede und welche neuen Blicke ermöglicht diese Entwicklung auf den Zusammenhang von Selbstbild und Fremdbild, auf das Erkennen des Eigenen im Fremden? Gibt es einen Zusammenhang zur Denkfigur der »Maske«, und kann schauspielerisches Wissen helfen, diesen zu beschreiben? Verarbeitet unser Gehirn das emotionale Verhalten von Avataren genauso wie das von realen Personen?

Das interdisziplinär aufgestellte Projekt *Actor and Avatar* setzt sich in einem Zusammenspiel aus Philosophie, Schauspielforschung und Neurologie mit diesen und weiteren Fragen auseinander, unter Verwendung der fachspezifischen Expertisen und Methoden der jeweiligen Disziplinen. Es basiert auf einer Kooperation des IPF und des Instituts für Theorie sowie der Klinik Lengg AG / Schweizerische Epilepsie-Klinik. Die philosophische Frage lautet: Was ist der (oder die) Andere? Wie gewahren wir sein (oder ihr) Ge-

sicht? Was bedeuten ein Antlitz, eine Maske? Wie stellen wir Beziehungen zu fremden Wesen oder virtuellen Personen her?

Die schauspielpraktische und künstlerisch-wissenschaftliche Fragestellung fußt auf Experimenten mit verschiedenen Emotionen, wie sie sich in Gesichtszügen abzeichnen und wie sie darstellbar und auf virtuelle Figuren wie Avatare übertragbar sind. Das Setting eröffnet eine ref lexive Selbstbegegnung mit dem eigenen und dennoch fremden Gesicht: Eine Schauspielerin mimt eine Empfindung, sieht sich als Avatar und kontrolliert gleichzeitig ihren Ausdruck. Die so entstehenden Bilder von Menschen und Avataren dienen wiederum als Vorlagen für neurowissenschaftliche Studien in der EPI-Klinik: Gehirnscans mittels MRI und EEG, die im besten Fall Unterschiede in der Gesichtswahrnehmung einer Person und eines Avatars nachweisen und aus deren Differenzen wir Rückschlüsse ziehen und auf verschiedenartige Bezugnahmen schließen können.

*Fig. 7: Annina Euling als Avatar im SNF-Projekt Actor & Avatar, 2018.*

Im Projekt wurden Unterschiede in der Wahrnehmung von Schauspielenden und Avataren bzw. grafisch erzeugten Bildschirmfiguren erforscht, wie sie in Animationsfilmen, Computerspielen und zunehmend auch in Demonstrationsfilmen (Flugzeugen), in der Werbung oder in verwandten Forschungsgebieten Verwendung finden.

Gestartet 2016, lädt das Projekt ab 2020 in einer Reihe geplanter Publikationen drei sehr unterschiedliche Peergroups zur Diskussion ein: Philosoph\_ innen, Neurolog\_innen und Theaterwissenschaftler\_innen werden ebenso

ungleichartige Sprachen und Traditionen nutzen. Die interdisziplinäre Zusammenarbeit wird gleichzeitig Fragen von Alteritätserfahrungen zwischen menschlichen Personen und Avataren und einer ästhetisch-künstlerischen Forschung von leibhaftig Agierenden nachgehen sowie neurowissenschaftliche Untersuchungen anhand von Epilepsiepatient\_innen und einer Vergleichsgruppe auf der Grundlage der erarbeiteten Modelle überprüfen.

Die drei Perspektiven des Projekts ergänzen sich hinsichtlich der philosophischen Begriffsarbeit, der Bereitstellung paradigmatischer Vergleichsfolien zwischen Schauspielenden und deren ›Avatarisierung‹ sowie der empirischen ›Messung‹ von Differenzen in der affektiven Wahrnehmung mittels Methoden des Neuroimaging (fMRI) und EEG. Die Forschungsfrage zielt darauf, ob sich signifikante Unterschiede in ausgewählten Hirnregionen hinsichtlich der affektiven Wahrnehmung von menschlichen bzw. animierten Ausdrucksformen (Avatare) nachweisen lassen und inwiefern sich diese neuronalen Aktivierungsmuster bei Epilepsie-Patient\_innen von gesunden Proband\_innen unterscheiden. Nicht zuletzt werden in einem interaktiven Tool an die hundert Videoclips eines Gesichts in emotionaler Verwandlung dem Direktvergleich zwischen dem realistischen Bild des/der Spieler\_in und Varianten des Avatars unterzogen.

Alle drei Teilprojekte operieren einerseits unabhängig voneinander, indem sie ihre jeweilige für die Disziplin relevante Fragestellung verfolgen, anderseits bilden sie einen gemeinsamen Untersuchungsraum, um sich im Laufe der Projektarbeiten wechselseitig zu korrigieren. Vor allem aber erhofft sich das Projekt grundlegende Aussagen über Differenzen in der Wahrnehmung von Personen und Avataren sowie umgekehrt Konsequenzen für das Design und die technische Applikation emotionaler Ausdrücke bei Avataren.

#### **Nachspiel**

Kann man *mit* statt über Film, Tanz oder Theater forschen, *mit* statt über Künstler\_innen? Falls ja, gibt es dafür eine Art Anleitung oder Generalisierung?

Erstens: Künstlerische Forschung ist immer und zwingend Forschung *mit* oder zumindest Forschung *in* Kunst. Ich übernehme hier die trichotomische Unterscheidung von Henk Borgdorff (Borgdorff 2012, 23-51). Eine ästhetische Epistemologie bedarf zwingend der Künstler\_innen.

Zweitens: Künstlerische Forschung adressiert primär Künstler\_innen. Diese erwarten keinen wiederholbaren, rationalen Universalitätsanspruch, sondern Einsicht in einen fachspezifischen Wissensvorsprung.

Drittens: Die Diskussion, Publikation oder Dissemination künstlerischer Forschung erfolgt in einer dem untersuchten Phänomen angemessenen Form. Diese ist normalerweise ebenso fragenspezifisch und elaboriert wie bei jeder anderen Forschung. Wer versteht Algorithmen, der nicht programmieren kann? Warum sollte sich die Filmemacherin in Tanzforschung auskennen oder der Chemiker in Nanophysik, die Mathematikerin in Biologie? Empirie ist Erfahrungswissen, Daten sind Sprache. Jede Forschung verlangt ihre fachspezifische ›Sag- und Lesbarkeit‹, entsprechend ihrer besonderen epistemischen Qualität. Man sollte folglich endlich auf hören, von *einer* künstlerischen Forschung zu reden. Es gibt sie ebenso wenig wie *eine* wissenschaftliche Forschung.

Und zuletzt: Methodisch sind der künstlerischen Forschung keine Grenzen gesetzt. Anke Haarmann spricht in ihrem sehr lesenswerten Buch *Artistic Research* von einer »Vorzukünftigkeit des nachträglichen Vorwissens – mithin eine Ahnung über die Methoden des Erkennens« (Haarmann 2019, 288). Das trifft die Sache gut. Künstler\_innen sind per definitionem innovativ. Ob sich ihr forschendes Finden als relevant herausstellt, entscheidet im Gegensatz zum Markt beim Artefakt die Peergroup beim Forschungsergebnis.

Entlang Henk Borgdorffs Überlegungen in »Die Debatte über Forschung in der Kunst« (Borgdorff 2009) standen daher am IPF Projekte nicht nur *über* Kunst wie zum Beispiel Geschichte, Analyse, Theorie, Rezeption im Vordergrund, nicht nur ergänzend dazu Forschung *durch* Kunst wie zum Beispiel prozessorientiertes Forschen, Entwicklungserkenntnisse, rezeptives Verhalten, Intermedialität, Entwicklung von neuen Erkenntnisverfahren und Konzepten etc., sondern vornehmlich und zuerst Forschung *mit* Kunst wie die genannten Beispiele produktorientierten Forschens, die wissenschaftlich-analytisch begleitet wurden. Das Ergebnis – Aufführung, Film, Installation – bildet den Kern der Erkenntnis und wird adäquat zur Vorgehensweise publiziert. Am Ende muss dies nicht einmal ästhetisch ansprechend ausfallen. Gute Forschung mit Kunst muss nicht auch gute Kunst sein. Der Output wird nicht an der Anzahl der Zitierungen gemessen, sondern an Einf lüssen auf die professionelle oder intellektuelle Anwendbarkeit. Beim IPF sind dies Aufführungen, Performances oder Verfilmungen.

#### **Literatur**


# **Abbildungsverzeichnis / Image Credits**

## **The Pot Calling the Kettle Black: An Essay on the State of Artistic Research**

*Efva Lilja*

Fig. 1: *Pre-crowd-dashed*, ink on paper, 2015. © Efva Lilja. Fig. 2: *Crowd-beginning-twist-corner*, ink on paper, 2015. © Efva Lilja.

# **Artistic Paths in Five Images: Questioning Artistic Research**

*Kathleen Coessens*

Fig. 1: *Jeu turn Yaro*, photography, 2009. © Kathleen Coessens.

Fig. 2: *Jeu turn end*, photography, 2009. © Kathleen Coessens.

#### **Making Sound, Making Music**

*Mieko Kanno*


#### **Creative (Mis)understandings: A Methodology of Inspiration**

*Johannes Kretz & Wei-Ya Lin (with contributions by Bernd Brabec de Mori)*


#### **Schallnamen**

*Johannes Kreidler*


## **In Love with Art & Philosophy// Zwischen Kunst & Philosophie**

*Susanne Valerie [Granzer] & Arno Böhler*

Fig. 1-57: Lecture-Performance *Künstlerische Forschung – kulturelle Dif ferenzen*, 14. Mai 2019, mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien. Grafische Bearbeitung: Richard Ferkl, Wien, 2020. © Arno Böhler & Susanne V. [Granzer].

#### **Worldmaking – Knowing through Performing**

*Barbara Lüneburg*

Fig. 1-3: Barbara Lüneburg performing a Santería ritual in Louis Aguirre's *Toque a Echu y Ochosi*, 2018. © Maximilian Pramatarov/Wien modern. Fig. 4: Performance of the GAPPP work *Kilgore* by Marko Ciciliani at Ars Electronica, 2018. © Andreas Pirchner.

## **Shooting as a Researcher – Fracking Your Face: Forschung mit darstellenden Künsten**

*Anton Rey*


## **Biografien / Biographies**

**Arno Böhler** ist Universitätsdozent am philosophischen Institut der Universität Wien und Dozent an der Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien. Mit Susanne V. Granzer hat er 1997 die Kulturwerkstatt baseCollective gegründet, in der sie Forschungsformate wie *Philosophy On Stage*, Arts-based-Philosophy und Philosophie als künstlerische Forschung entwickelt haben. Seit 2016 werden diese Formate in einem Residenzprogramm für Artistic Research // Arts-based-Philosophy auch in Südindien erprobt. Böhler leitete mehrere Forschungsprojekte, die vom Austrian Science Fund (FWF) gefördert wurden. Forschungsaufenthalte: Universität Bangalore, Universität Heidelberg, New York University, University of Princeton. Gastprofessuren: mdw Wien, HdK Bremen, UdK Berlin; https://homepage.univie.ac.at/arno. boehler/php/

**Georgina Born** is Professor of Music and Anthropology at Oxford University and Professorial Fellow of Mansfield College. Previously active as a musician, her work combines ethnographic and theoretical writings on music, digital/ media and cultural production. She has held visiting and honorary professorships at UC Berkeley, McGill, Oslo University and UCL. She is a Fellow of the British Academy (in Anthropology and Music) and chairs its Culture, Media and Performance section.

**Till Bovermann** is an artist and scientist, working with the sensation of sound and interaction. He studied Computer Science in the Natural Science, majoring in Robotics at Bielefeld University where he also received a PhD. During his post-doc at Media Lab Aalto University, he led DEIND, a project aimed to design instruments for people with autistic spectrum disorder. Till was principal investigator of the project *3DMIN* at UdK Berlin. Since 2018, he

#### 218 Knowing in Performing

works for the art-science project *rotting sounds* at University for Applied Arts, Vienna. Till displayed artistic work and performed with self-built instruments at various European places such as ZKM Karlsruhe, Queen Mary University London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Athens, Helsinki, Frankfurt. Till co-curated the festival *Performing Sound, Playing Technology* at ZKM. Furthermore, Till has been teaching at various international institutions. Alongside his artistic and academic work, he develops software in and for SuperCollider.

**Kathleen Coessens** explores the crossings of science and art, creativity and cultural representations, tacit, embodied and sensorial knowledge. She graduated in piano and chamber music in Paris and Brussels and in philosophy (PhD), sociology and psychology at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She publishes philosophical and artistic research: *The Artistic Turn* (2009 with Crispin & Douglas, Orpheus Institute Ghent), *Experimentation in and beyond Music* (2017) and *Sensorial Aesthetics in Music Practices* (2019). She supervises PhD students in the arts. At the Royal Antwerp Conservatoire she launched the artistic research group CORPoREAL (Collaborative Research in Performance – Re-imagining Embodiment, Art and Learning, 2014). At the Conservatoire of Brussels she steers the research line KLAP (Knowing and Learning in Artistic Practices, 2015). She sustains and participates in diverse artistic projects, nationally and internationally. She is currently director of the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussels, where she also teaches artistic research practices.

Professor **Darla M. Crispin** is Vice Rector for Research and Artistic Development and Director of the Arne Nordheim Centre for Artistic Research (NordART) at the Norwegian Academy of Music (NMH), Oslo. She previously held senior posts at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Royal College of Music in London and the Orpheus Instituut, Ghent. A pianist and scholar, she moved to the UK from Canada for her postgraduate studies, gaining a Concert Recital Diploma from the GSMD and a PhD from King's College, London. Darla specialises in musical modernity, especially the works of the Second Viennese School. She is an acknowledged expert in the developing field of artistic research, having co-authored with Kathleen Coessens and Anne Douglas one of the seminal books on this subject, *The Artistic Turn: A Manifesto*. Leuven University Press/Orpheus Institute, 2009.

**Susanne Valerie Granzer**. Schauspielerin (Basel/Düsseldorf/Frankfurt/Berlin/Wien), em. o. Univ. Prof. für Rollengestaltung an der mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien/Max Reinhardt Seminar. Studium der Philosophie (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt/Universität Wien). Promotion 1995. Mit dem Philosophen Arno Böhler Gründung der Kulturwerkstatt baseCollective (ehemals GRENZ\_film). Mitbegründerin des Festivals *Philosophy On Stage* und des Residenzprogramms für Artistic Research in Südindien. Drei FWF-Forschungsprojekte als Kooperationspartnerin. Diverse Veröffentlichungen (u.a.): *Philosophy On Stage. Philosophie als künstlerische Forschung* (Hg.). Passagen: Wien, 2018. *Actors and the Art of Performance. Under Exposure.* Palgrave Macmillan: London, 2016. https://www.susannegranzer.at/

**Thomas Grill** works as a composer and performer of electroacoustic music, as a media artist, technologist and researcher of sound. His artistic work encompasses most varied fields of audible and trans-media art, focusing on loudspeaker-based music, electroacoustic improvisation, as well as installations and interventions. His education includes studies of technical physics in Linz, of computer music and electronic media and of interactive electronic instruments in Vienna. He earned a doctorate in composition and music theory at the University for Music and Performing Arts, Graz. Post-Doc research followed at the Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (OFAI) in the domain of machine listening and learning. He is currently heading the University course for Electroacoustic and Experimental Music and the project of artistic research *Rotting sounds* at the mdw – University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Grill has been awarded with a Honorary Mention of the Prix Ars Electronica, with the Theodor-Körner prize, the Award of Excellence of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research, the Outstanding Artist Award for Interdisciplinarity (Bonus prize) of the Austrian Federal Chancellery and various work stipends. For further information see http://grrrr.org

**Jörg Holkenbrink,** Regisseur und Bildungsforscher, leitete das Zentrum für Performance Studies der Universität Bremen und das Theater der Versammlung. Als Regisseur inszenierte er vorwiegend an den Schnittstellen zwischen Bildung, Wissenschaft und Kunst. Zu seinen weiteren Arbeitsschwerpunkten zählten Performative Forschung und Lehre, Wissenskulturen im

Dialog, Wissenskulturen und ihre Aufführungspraxen. Jörg Holkenbrink starb am 3. April 2020.

**Doris Ingrisch**, Univ. Doz.in, Dr.in ist Kulturwissenschaftlerin und Gastprofessorin am Institut für Kulturmanagement und Gender Studies der mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien. Ihre Forschungsprojekte und Publikationen umfassen die Bereiche Gender sowie Cultural Studies mit Schwerpunkt Kunst und Wissenschaft im Dialog, Wissenschaft, Kunst und Gender, Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Exil/ Emigrationsforschung sowie qualitative, experimentelle Methoden und Arts-based Research. Veröffentlichungen u.a.: "Intuition, Ratio & Gender? Über Bipolaritäten und andere Formen des Denkens". In A. Ellmeier, D. Ingrisch, C. Walkensteiner-Preschl (Hg.), *Ratio und Intuition. Wissen/s/Kulturen in Musik\*Theater\*Film* (19-43). Wien/Köln: Böhlau, 2014; *Kunst\_Wissenschaf t. Don't Mind the Gap! Ein grenzüberschreitendes Zwiegespräch*. Bielefeld: transcript, 2014 (zusammen mit Susanne Granzer); *Wissenskulturen im Dialog. Experimentalräume zwischen Wissenschaf t und Kunst*. Bielefeld: transcript, 2017 (Hg. zusammen mit Marion Mangelsdorf und Gert Dressel); »›…im Chaos eine andere Ordnung erraten…‹ – vom Entweder-Oder zum Und«. In M. Böning & L. Ellrich (Hg.), *Werte(De) Konstruktionen – Die Problematik starker Orientierungen* (236-256). Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019. https://www.mdw.ac.at/ikm/ingrisch/

Violinist **Mieko Kanno** first came to international attention in the 1980s when she won prizes in international competitions such as the Carl Flesch, Queen Elisabeth of Belgium and Hannover. Later she developed an interest in performing contemporary music and won the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis at the Darmstadt New Music Institute in 1994. Today she is known as a prime exponent of new music for violin throughout Europe and gives many first performances as soloist as well as in ensembles. She has a parallel career as musician and academic, and is dedicated in both capacities to the development of new performance practices. Her pioneering work spans from subjects such as complex notation, microtonality, live electronics and electric violin. She has worked at Durham University, UK (2001-12) and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (2013-16) and is currently Professor at the Sibelius Academy and Director of the Centre for Artistic Research (CfAR) at the University of the Arts Helsinki.

**Johannes Kreidler** (1980) studierte in Freiburg und Den Haag Komposition, Elektronische Musik und Musiktheorie, u.a. bei Mathias Spahlinger und Orm Finnendahl. 2012 erhielt er den Kranichsteiner Musikpreis der Darmstädter Ferienkurse für Neue Musik. Seit 2019 ist er Professor für Komposition und Musiktheorie an der Hochschule für Musik FHNW Basel. Aufführungen (Auswahl): Donaueschinger Musiktage, Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, Ultraschall Berlin, MaerzMusik Berlin, Foreign Affairs Berlin, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Berlin, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Eclat Stuttgart, Biennale Venedig, Gaudeamus Music Week Amsterdam, Warschauer Herbst, Biennale de Musique en Scène Lyon, Ultima Festival Oslo, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Musica Straßburg, MusicAcoustica Festival Peking, Liquid Architecture Melbourne. Im Wolke-Verlag sind die Bücher erschienen *Loadbang. Programming Electronic Music in Puredata*. Hof heim: Wolke, 2009; *Musik mit Musik – Texte 2005-2011*, Hofheim: Wolke 2012; und *Sätze über musikalische Konzeptkunst. Texte 2012-2018*, Hof heim: Wolke, 2018. www.kreidler-net.de

**Johannes Kretz** has been active as founding member of NewTonEnsemble Vienna, of the European Bridges Ensemble, the international composers' group PRISMA, and as co-curator of *aNOther festival* Vienna. Since 1997 he has been teaching computer music at the University for Music and Performing Arts, Vienna (mdw), and subsequently music theory and composition. Since 2013 he has been head of department of the Institute for Composition, Electro-Acoustics and Tonmeister Education at the mdw. Scholarships and awards include the Austrian Federal Grant, 1997, Stiftung Delz Prize (CH, 2001), and the Theodor Körner Prize, 2004. Commissions of works and performances include National Theatre Hall, Taipei; Wien Modern Festival; Festival Ars Electronica; Konzerthaus Wien; Eclat Festival, Stuttgart; Klangforum Wien; Ensemble On Line; Vienna Flautists; quartett22; Internationale Lemgoer Orgeltage; Haller Bachtage; Triton Trombone Quartett; and Wiener Kammerchor. His works have been performed in Austria, Germany, Poland, France, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Turkey, Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark, Argentina, Mexico, Canada, USA, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Uzbekistan, Iran, and India.

**Tobias Leibetseder** is a composer, performer and media artist. He engages in his work with the aspects of space and transformation. Studied jazz/fusion guitar at the American Institute of Music. Studied architecture at the Vienna University of Technology. Studied computer music and electronic media at the Institute for Electroacoustics at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Studied media composition and computer music at the Anton Bruckner University in Linz. Works in the field of electroacoustic music, sound art, radio art, radioplay, graphics, design, media art. Researcher and artist at the artisric research project *Rotting Sounds* in cooporation with the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Concerts and performances at Zeiträume Basel, Wien Modern, Ö1 Kunstradio, Alte Schmiede (Vienna), Brighton Fashion Week, Ars Electronica (Linz), Radiokulturhaus (Vienna), Volkstheater (Vienna), Steirischer Herbst (Graz), ZKM (Karlsruhe), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), Gessneralle (Zürich), Teaterhuset Avantgarden (Trondheim) etc. www.tobiasleibetseder.at

**Efva Lilja** is a Swedish artist and choreographer with a global reach. Her works include performances, visual art, film and writing, often described as innovative and controversial. Her choreographic sequences represent imagery meant to challenge our perception of reality. Some of her most celebrated works were produced for art institutions such as Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, The Stockholm Museum of Modern Art and The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, but she is also highly recognized for experimental site specifics and research-based works in galleries and at alternative venues. After having worked as a dancer and choreographer in Sweden, Britain and the US, Lilja founded E.L.D., an independent dance company based in Stockholm, in 1985. For twenty years, she was the choreographer and Artistic Director of E.L.D., producing and presenting works in more than 35 countries. In 2003 she was appointed Professor of Choreography and from 2006 to 2013 she was the Vice-Chancellor of DOCH, the University of Dance and Circus in Stockholm. In 2014 she was the expert advisor on artistic research at the Ministry of Education and Research in Sweden. From 2016 until May 2019 Lilja was the Artistic Director of Dansehallerne in Copenhagen, Denmark's national forum and venue for contemporary dance. Lilja is an author of eleven books and a lecturer in great demand world-wide. She has been decorated and received a number of prizes and awards. More info on www.efvalilja.se

**Wei-Ya Lin** is a research fellow and adjunct lecturer at the mdw and the University of Vienna. In 2010, she initiated *aNOther festival* (Vienna), and has

co-curated the festival since its inauguration. Since 2014, she has led the arts summer camp *iKultLab*, and has been involved in planning and developing projects based on scholarly research results, which are implemented by artistic inventions and activist and socio-political approaches since 2013.In 2006 she completed her M.A. in viola performance with distinction, and in 2007, the postgraduate curriculum in chamber music. In 2015 she received her PhD in Ethnomusicology from the mdw for the dissertation *Music in the Life of the Tao (Taiwanese indigenous ethnic group): Tradition and Innovation*, graduation with distinction.

**Barbara Lüneburg** is an internationally acknowledged violinist and artistic researcher working in contemporary classical art music and multimedia art. She received her PhD on the topic of "A Holistic View of the Creative Potential of Performance Practice in Contemporary Music" from Brunel University London. From 2014-18 she was director and lead artist of the artistic research project *TransCoding—From "Highbrow Art" to Participatory Cultur*e, funded by the Austrian Science Fund. Her arts-based research is centred around performance practice and the creative potential of performers, collaborations, charisma, participative art and game-based audiovisual art. Lüneburg holds a professorship for Artistic Research and is head of the doctoral schools at Anton Bruckner Privat Universität Linz, Austria. www.barbara-lueneburg. com

**Anton Rey** ist Dramaturg und Regisseur an und auf zahlreichen europäischen Theatern und Filmsets. Seit 2002 Dozent am Departement Darstellende Künste und Film der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, seit 2005 Professor ZFH. 2007 Gründung des Institute for the Performing Arts and Film. Seit 2015 Mitglied im PEEK Board des Österreichischen Wissenschaftsfonds. Forschungsschwerpunkte: Performative Praxis, Dramaturgien des Alltags, Truth of Emotions. Publikationen: *IPF – The First Decade. 10 Years of Artistic Research in the Performing Arts and Film* (zusammen mit Yvonne Schmidt) Berlin: Verlag Theater der Zeit, 2018; *Disembodied Voice.* Zürich-Berlin: Alexander, 2015. *Wirkungsmaschine Schauspieler*. Zürich: Alexander, 2011; Badura, J., Dubach, S., Haarmann, A., Mersch, D., Rey, A., Schenker, Ch. & Toro Pérez, G. (Eds.). *Künstlerische Forschung. Ein Handbuch*. Berlin, Zürich: diaphanes, 2015.

#### 224 Knowing in Performing

**Almut Schilling** studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and focuses on the preservation of electronic and digital art in her studio. As 'analog native' she is highly interested in pushing her boundaries with challenging projects and transdisciplinary thinking. In a practical-scientific context of art collections, artists, technologists and information scientists, she is continuously expanding her skills in documentation, archiving, migration, emulation of time-based media art.