“Wise words from a house-builder”

Urban Knowledge at the Dutch Artistic Research Event, and something about EUFRAD too

EUFRAD

It’s been three days since the European Forum of Research Degrees in Art & Design closed off in an athmosphere of enthousiasm and community feeling. Even for the odd artistic research sceptic, it was the sort of moment that makes you proud and happy to be there. Dame Janet Ritterman reviewed the state of artistic research now, and Stuart Evans described with characteristic wit how he arrived there.

EUFRAD at the Glasgow School of Art (2)

Live blogging from the European Forum for Research Degrees in Art and Design, Glasgow, 4-6 September

What’s the litmus test for what’s good artistic research? According to Johan Haarberg, coordinator of the Norwegian Stipendiatsprogrammet, it’s when teachers will tell their colleagues to go and see it. The Norwegian programme, he adds with a slight tone of irony in his voice, does not include a course on methodology. After all the headings ‘methodology’ that we’ve seen passing by over the last one and a half days, that’s a relief. When artists are supposed to add a header ‘methodology’ as a disclaimer to their work, and the content of that disclaimer is French thinkers in English translation, one senses that something has gone terribly wrong, particularly in the UK.

EUFRAD is a very friendly meeting of people that want to learn from each other and have a shared interest in art that’s difficult, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t grave controversies. One of them in particular is about entry level. We’re not too eager to have fresh MA graduates, people from Leuven and Bergen state. We want experienced artists that know what they’re doing when they embark upon a three/four-year project. That’s fine, the objection comes, but then we’re not talking about PhD level anymore. If the requirement for admission is international standing, then you’re hiring senior researchers. And also, who’s going to do the quality assurance? Should the supervisors be on a higher level than their pupils?

EUFRAD at the Glasgow School of Art

Live blogging from the European Forum for Research Degrees in Art and Design, Glasgow, 4-6 September

Every one in the art world now knows what artistic research is – or maybe no one knows, for why else would there be all these conferences about artistic research? As Klaus Jung said today, opening the EUFRAD conference at the Glasgow School of Art, we’re all guinea pigs. Actually, he meant something different by that: EUFRAD is not a conference meant to define artistic research, but to create an open discussion between people doing artistic research around Europe, with a full spectrum of disciplines and approaches.

EUFRAD stands for European Forum for Research Degrees in Arts and Design, and it’s one of the initiatives that artesnet is developing to keep track of what’s going on in higher arts education. Another, closely related, is the overview of artistic research programmes that will appear on the artesnet site later this year and gradually develop from there. But so far, we’re still in the informal stage.