Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung

In June six fellows working on Arts & Sciences / Artistic Research projects and coming from five different Institutes for Advanced Study all over Europe came together at the Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study (HIAS) to share the thoughts and insights on artistic research. The exchange centered around questions like: Can arts and sciences be seen as two separate epistemological domains? Does art oppose science/scholarship? What is the relationship between them: is it linear, circular, superimposed…? What kind of questions are asked by art, by sciences? What drives the curiosity that is at the origin of the desire to research in both spheres?

One of the participants was the Berlin-based Artist Clemens Krauss, who lived and worked at ZiF as Artist-in-Residence from October to December 2024. During his stay he prepared the exhibition “92 Days of In Between” which can be visited at ZiF until August, 15th. Here he shares his thoughts on the meeting and on the idea of artistic research.

The five-day gathering at the HIAS brought together a small but intense group. What actually is artistic research, what could it become and what is it perhaps not? It became apparent quite early on: definitions are of limited use. What mattered more were our different attitudes. Especially from the academic side, there was an understandable desire to frame artistic research within familiar grids. Theory allows order and security.

I tried to stay in my artistic way of thinking, which made me vulnerable but also more positioned. I presented my own performative works, some of which are difficult to document. Works that only become graspable in the process itself and that require a theoretical foundation in their conception, but are simultaneously sensually and aesthetically experienced.

The question, at what point a certain way of artistic practice can be seen as a form of research came up during discussing our own experiences. In my case, I would call my engagement with methods, contexts and material a research, because it creates shifts, evokes, and produces knowledge – just not on paper. Particularly in relation (and methodologically in opposition) to my personal background in medicine, biology and psychoanalysis.

As I stated in the final panel-discussion on Thursday: My works do not have footnotes. My artistic practice is rooted in theory and I constantly engage with it. But I don’t see why I should impose it onto my practice merely to be academically legible. Often, I experience theory in the context of active art practice as a form of defense: a protective mechanism against the risk of truly revealing oneself through the work. Against not-knowing and embodiment and maybe even against the fear of failure.

From the exhibition "92 Days In Between" at ZiF. Foto: P. Ottendörfer/Universität Bielefeld

For example, we talked about Rembrandt’s Anatomy of Dr. Tulp. But we didn’t speak about Rembrandt’s „artistic research“ in this context. It is well known that he undertook countless self-experiments through self-portraits, exploring his own aging, his emotional states (doubts?) and his social position. In his historical paintings, he dealt profoundly with human emotions and relationships. In his practice he experimented with materials, painting technique and brushwork and was researching archives in the sense of engaging with the oeuvre of other artists. His experiments taught us how to create painterly illusions of light and texture without relying on precious materials (he painted „gold“ without using a gold-pigment). His techniques became relevant for modern approaches to portraiture, but also to „expressive painting“ in general and even to „artistic freedom“.

It is to say, I certainly don’t share Rembrandt’s exceptionality ;) – but I do share similar economic conditions as a freelancer. This is – discussing artistic research – a relevant point. I am not affiliated to a university; I don’t hold a secure teaching position. I make my living through my artistic work and long-term projects. So, when I speak of artistic research in my own case, I also mean: experiences of persistence, generosity, empathy, vulnerability and uncertainty. This is, of course, difficult to measure. Perhaps immeasurability is one of artistic research’s essential qualities.

One aspect we didn't talk about was the question of authorship – even though it is in the core of any research-oriented practice: Who speaks and who gets to assign meaning? In other words: In whose hands is this discourse? Especially when theory meets practice, these are not neutral questions. They touch on issues of power, responsibility and representation – particularly when artistic knowledge is not only reproduced and communicated b u t generated.

Very important impulses for me during the HIAS debate come through the sheer diversity of approaches – and the challenge it poses: to not treat artistic research as a homogenous concept, but as an interface of divergent practices, modes of thinking and textual explorations.

Ideally, what connects all artistic researchers is a commitment to uncovering forms of knowledge – material and epistemological – that reach beyond conventional categories. For me, this also means a constant effort to leave the ivory tower of Western academia behind.

This diversity is what probably makes artistic research vital – and it raises a key question: How can we bring these different forms of knowledge and perspectives together in a way that allows mutual enrichment, rather than categorizing and channeling?

To me, this is a central concern, because it requires an openness to ambiguity, contradiction and plurality – qualities that often find little room in a defined academic research landscape.

In this sense, the debate was not only an exchange of definitions, but an attempt to understand artistic research as a relational and embodied process – one that resists simplification and instrumental readings at its core.The encounter in Hamburg was valuable because it revealed those differences and moments of irritation between the participants.

From the exhibition "92 Days In Between" at ZiF. Foto: P. Ottendörfer/Universität Bielefeld

Artistic research for me remains fruitful where it stays embedded in the body, the material, the uncertain. Where it doesn’t detach into abstract self-reference, but remains rooted in doing: in working/playing/dealing with paint and color, body, space, with others, with resistance, with history and so on – with the risk that something real might actually happen.

And that’s why I believe - especially in a time of automation and learning machines - we must insist on the human. On contradiction, not-knowing, the embodied, the fragile and to being able to bear it. Art in that context is not an appendix to established theory. I believe the same goes for artistic research.

In his artistic works, Clemens Krauss alludes to the recurring approach between the viewer and the viewed that comes from psychoanalysis: The viewers also become actors and take on both the role of the acting objects and the role of the treated subjects. In this sense, there is no work without viewers, and accordingly no work without interaction between object, visitor, and author. Krauss questions social processes and processes of existing social orders. Krauss virulently and aesthetically problematizes the role that viewers play in this.

Artist's website