Artistic Research Syndrome

Abstract

In this essay, I present a heuristic construction that I call “artistic research syndrome”, a constellation of loosely associated cultural symptoms that all have to do with displacement of sense. My aim is to open a new perspective on artistic research practices in a wider cultural, theoretical frame. The approach is informed by the hypothesis that there is an on-going destabilisation of the culturally conditioned hierarchies between different dimensions of sense (in all senses of the word “sense”) and that artistic research practices play a significant role in this destabilisation. “Artistic research syndrome” indicates a crisis of theory-driven models of research and the revival of pragmatogonic research settings. It is signaling the radical relativisation of human-centered conceptions of the world and the recognition of non-human agencies. It provokes the recognition of previously underestimated forms of cognition. It holds sway on the neuralgic points of today’s economies and ecologies of knowledge. I will address some key aspects of “artistic research syndrome” through a set of interrelated questions concerning the relation of aesthetics and arts research. I will formulate these questions in terms of “cultural techniques”, “displacement of sense” and “boundary work”.