From the abyss to the afterglow: On the practice of vibrant contemplation as a mode of artistic research

Through a form of critical autoethnography, this study diffracts aspects of the author’s artistic practice through the intimate process of mourning to delineate a particular mode of knowledge production within artistic research that queers the relationship between the inside and outside of epistemic and ontological perspectives. The first section considers the abyss as a figure between grief, the unknown, and modes of knowledge production within artistic research. The second section bridges the work of theorising as a form of reconfiguring the world through the study of diffracted light, and further delineates the practice of vibrant contemplation as a method of entangling art practice with theorisation processes beyond a dichotomous opposition between art and science. The final section contemplates the figure of the afterglow as a material-discursive phenomenon that emerges from the temporality of mourning vis-à-vis artistic research.