Are you engaged in artistic research & development?

Invitation to the conference

Sensuous Knowledge:
Creating a Tradition

at Solstrand, close to Bergen, Norway, October 26-28, 2004

Bergen National Academy of the Arts - Kunsthøgskolen i Bergen
Strømgt. 1
N-5015 Bergen
Norway
+47 55587300
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For at least 20 years we have now been discussing 
what artistic research and development (R&D) 
might be, and how much or how little it may 
resemble traditional research. Many conferences 
with titles like "What is artistic R&D?" have 
been held, often leaving the impression of not 
getting much closer to an answer. Yet all along 
artists from all aesthetic fields have been 
engaged in projects that might possibly be called 
nothing but examples of artistic research or 
development.

The aim of the conference Sensuous Knowledge: 
Creating a Tradition is not that we should once 
more discuss what artistic R&D is, but that we 
should discuss examples of projects of various 
kinds - and hopefully also yours! But you are 
welcome as a participant in the conference even 
if you do not want to present a project or read a 
paper.

Sensuous Knowledge: Creating a Tradition is 
planned as the first in a row of yearly 
conferences, arranged by Bergen National Academy 
of the Arts - Kunsthøgskolen i Bergen (KHiB) - 
with the purpose of contributing to the creation 
of a genuine tradition of artistic R&D. The 
conferences will make use of the fact that we can 
now point to many completed R&D projects, while 
even more are going on at the moment. Such real 
projects will be presented and discussed already 
during this first conference, not primarily to 
evaluate their individual quality, but to make us 
all aware of their character and the ontological, 
epistemological and methodical - and artistic - 
problems to which they give rise. In this way the 
conference will take a first step towards 
developing a language in which we can discuss 
such projects in a meaningful way, and help us to 
distinguish between what is essential or of minor 
importance, forceful or bland, good or less good 
in this field. It is to be expected that the 
presentation of examples will show how varied the 
field is, and give rise to the question whether 
it is at all possible to develop just one common 
language for this multifariousness.

The question about the boundaries of artistic 
R&D, and the way it differs from traditional 
research within the Humanities (e.g. in the 
history of art) or from traditional technical 
development (e.g. within programming), will no 
doubt also be raised. And since some institutions 
of education in the arts - Bergen National 
Academy of the Arts being one of them - also 
teach design, the relationship between artistic 
R&D and research and development in connection 
with design may be expected to become part of the 
agenda.

To highlight the activity in which we are 
engaged, and to help us reflect on it, this first 
conference will also place artistic R&D in an 
historical and social context. On the one hand 
the conference will be concerned with the way in 
which other, but related professional traditions 
have been established, not least within the 
humanities and the social sciences. And on the 
other hand the conference will look upon 
ourselves and our actual situation and ask which 
traits in society and its institutions create the 
trend towards professionalization and 
academization that characterizes the aesthetic 
field today, and the consequences this may have 
for artistic creativity, teaching and R&D.

Publications on the central issues should be one 
of the results of the conferences.

The conference Sensuous Knowledge: Creating a 
Tradition will aim for international participants 
and English will be the main language. It will 
consist of three types of activities: The keynote 
speeches will focus on the philosophical, the 
historic and the social framework of artistic 
R&D. Some main examples of artistic R&D projects 
will be presented, commented on and discussed in 
plenary sessions. And we will have smaller group 
meetings where participants make presentations of 
their own work for comments and discussions.

The success of the conference depends to a large 
degree on the participants' involvement in the 
group discussions and in their willingness to 
present projects - both projects that are 
finished or are ongoing, and projects that so far 
exist only as ideas and sketches. Each project 
should be given a 20-minutes oral presentation 
(preferably visualized by pictures, films, 
sketches, objects etc.) in the group, but for the 
organizers (KHiB) to prepare commentary and 
discussion it has to be presented in writing 
(preferably with illustrations), i.e. as a paper 
(5-15 pages), mailed to us no later than October 
1.

Details of the program, including names of the 
keynote speakers, will be published early this 
autumn.

Academic organizers of the conference are

Søren Kjørup, professor/R&D adviser at Bergen 
National Academy of the Arts (KHiB) and professor 
of theory and history of the humanities at 
Roskilde University, Denmark.

Nina Malterud, ceramic artist, professor and 
rector at Bergen National Academy of the Arts 
(KHiB).

For further information please contact the R&D 
coordinator at KHiB: Tone Lund Olsen, phone +47 
55.58.73.00, e-mail

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