What does art do? While academic claims differ greatly, they agree that it does something – it moves, translates, mediates, sells well, is labelled and discussed widely. However, the ways art and society are intertwined in these unsettling and uncertain times need to be discussed and (re-)negotiated. The online ‘ESA-Arts 11th midterm conference - THE SOCIAL EFFECTS OF ART’ in March 2021 provided a platform to elaborate on sociological approaches in arts research and the relevance of art practice for academia.

In 2020, doctoral student Bogdan Szyber’s thesis was rejected by Stockholm University of the Arts. He said that the field of artistic research is “fake” and that "the empress has no clothes." (All translations by Per Zetterfalk, unless otherwise noted.) This has led to a debate about artistic research in Sweden. Research where art and academia meet. The field is difficult to fix and many are challenged.

As linhas que se seguem têm como objectivo dar a conhecer o projecto RIACT e partilhar os motivos que o fizeram eclodir. A RIACT é uma nova revista no âmbito da Investigação Artística (I. A.) que abrange um vasto conjunto de expressões artísticas, preparada para receber e disseminar artigos relacionados com a especificidade da I. A., ou seja, artigos que se enraizem na prática artística e que desta façam derivar as noções que orientam a reflexão produzida.

In traditional research journals, the author does not define the appearance and layout of the paper. Artistic research journals that publish expositions, invite authors to format the presentation in a way that works with their research. This means a freedom of layout and positioning, but the approach can also result in some frustration.

PhD Vitamin was a first-time event, held in a digital format at the Estonian Academy of Arts from the 4th to the 8th of May 2020. It consisted of a series of public video lectures on artistic research, held by theorists and practitioners in the field, with the aim of introducing different approaches to acquiring a PhD degree as an artist.

Ahora que se acercan las fechas en las que tendría que haber tenido lugar la onceava Conferencia Internacional sobre Investigación Artística de la SAR—la Society for Artistic Research—, revisamos qué sucedió en el anterior encuentro para así tener una mayor perspectiva sobre estas regulares reuniones e intuir—o especular—sobre qué podríamos haber encontrado durant

There is a story in Greek mythology of a man named Theseus. Theseus became a hero when he ventured into the dark corridors of the labyrinth to hunt and kill the part bull/part man monster residing at its core—the Minotaur. All he had to find his way back was a ball of red thread he carried into the maze. This past December we used similar metaphors to introduce the idea of artistic research (AR) to the participants of our cozy salon in south Tel Aviv.

“Who needs it?” Gesa Ziemer, cultural theorist at HafenCity University in Hamburg recently put this fundamental issue for debate at the first SwissGradNet conference:

My interest in “art epistemology” originally derived, already more than a decade ago, from a continuously growing frustration with critical theory’s teachings, and let alone, from words themselves as they indefatigably attempted to organize my conceptual vortex in a clear manner—often, however, without any luck.

Discussions on artistic research is mostly happening in the Global North with very few voices from the Global South and nearly no voices from the Global East.