Global contemporary art has witnessed a shift in the last decade: a reorientation from media based to what could provisionally be dubbed as ‘knowledge-based’ art making. These new artistic practices - utilizing various research methodologies and generating diverse ‘knowledge forms’ - emerge out of the epistemic co-dependency between subjects and objects, humans and animals, as well as general life forms and technology. In parallel, the convergence of art and philosophy seems to be shaping a trans-scientific form of knowledge within art’s discursive, performative and exhibition arenas that can impact the way science approaches both concepts of truth and the practice of model making. With rigorous translation, these partial convergences of disciplines have the capacity to oscillate in both directions, in movements of productive contamination.
The public seminar initiated by Antonia Majaca, and co-organized with Patricia Reed and Mohammed Salemy departs from a speculative inquiry: Are we witnessing the unfolding of a paradigm shift in the field of artistic research - the formation of what could be dubbed ‘art based trans-disciplinary investigation’ and, if yes, what kind of ‘scientificity’ and ‘knowledge forms’ do these practices produce? Secondly, how does this trans-disciplinarity operate and what kind of transgressivity do such investigations instigate in order to generate novel ecological scaffolds for scientific knowledge we might actually need for addressing the urgencies of our time?
The two-day program of the public seminar, consisting of a workshop at IZK on July 16 th (centered around selected readings and art practice analysis) as well as a public conference with invited speakers, on July 17th at the Künstlerhaus - Halle fuer Kunst und Medien in Graz. The program will evolve from several seemingly unconnectable ‘positions’ that nonetheless relate in their mutual interest for epistemic reconfiguration in the field of spatial and visual practice as a result of the destabilization of conventional categories of knowledge.
The seminar takes place in the context of the Open Modes 2015 project, organised by nine Graz based art and educational institutions and in the context of the institutional reconfiguration of the IZK - Institute for Contemporary Art, at the Graz University of Technology.
Antonia Majaca is an art historian, researcher and curator. From 2005 - 2010 she acted as the artistic director of Galerija Miroslav Kraljevic in Zagreb. In 2009 she founded Delve - Institute for Duration, Location and Variables. Her curatorial projects include: 'Can You Speak of This? - Yes, I can' and 'Exposures' for Spaport Biennial, Banja Luka, 'Moving Forwards, Counting Backwards' MUAC, Mexico City; 'And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out' at Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna; 'Neither from, Nor Towards', Art Pavilion, Zagreb; 'Stalking with Stories’', Apexart, New York, ‘Abandoned Soviet Monuments From The Future That Were Not’, Multimedia Institute, Zagreb, ‘Memorial For(u)ms - Histories of Possibility’, HAU, Berlin. Currently, she is the Visiting Professor and Research Associate at the IZK - Institute for Contemporary Art at the TU, Graz, where her work focuses on the recent reconfigurations of the idea of knowledge through the arts based trans-disciplinary research.
Patricia Reed is an artist and writer. Exhibitions have included those at the Witte de With (NL); Haus der Kulturen der Welt (DE); Württembergische Kunstverein (DE); Audain Gallery (CA); and 0047 (NO), amongst others. As a writer she has contributed to several books and periodicals including: Dea Ex Machina; Mould Magazine; #ACCELERATE - The Accelerationist Reader; The Psychopathologies of Cognitive Capitalism Vol. II; Intangible Economies; Cognitive Architecture; and Fillip. Lectures have included those at ICA (UK); ICI (DE); Schinkel Pavillon (DE); Gertrude Contemporary (AU); The Institute of Modern Art (AU); The Future Summit (CA); Tate Britain (UK, Speculative Tate); University of Westminster (UK); Artists Space (US); MIT (US); and The Winter School Middle East (KW). She sits on the board (and teaches) at the New Centre for Research & Practice, and is part of the Laboria Cuboniks xenofeminist working group.
Mohammad Salemy is an independent NYC based artist, critic and curator from Iran. He has exhibited at Vancouver’s Centre for Asian Arts and Artspeak Gallery and has curated exhibitions at the Koerner Gallery at the University of British Columbia, as well as the Satellite Gallery, Access Gallery and Dadabase. He co-curated Faces exhibition at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. In 2014, Salemy organized the Incredible Machines conference in Vancouver. Salemy holds a masters degree in Critical and Curatorial Studies from the University of British Columbia and is one of the organizers of The New Centre for Research & Practice. He has contributed texts to the Brooklyn Rail, Third Rail and e-flux Journals.