The 13th SAR International Conference on Artistic Research took place from 30th of June until 3rd of July, 2022, for the first time in Germany at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. The conference consisted of a 24-hour online event and three days of live, on-site events in Weimar.
The SAR 2022 conference presented the state of the art in Artistic Research, as critically responding to the Frascati Manual and the Vienna Declaration on Artistic Research: excellent research through means of high-level artistic practice and reflection; an epistemic inquiry, directed towards increasing knowledge, insight, understanding and skills. The declaration also states that artistic research fulfills the five criteria for research as defined in the OECD framework document for research, the Frascati Manual. With this document, the artistic research community has taken an important step towards a broader recognition of artistic research worldwide. The SAR 2022 conference program aimed at giving special attention to creating spaces of inclusivity and diversity. Submissions from persons of colour, with disabilities, and from LGBTQIA+ communities were especially encouraged.
Online
A 24 hour “long conversation” online offering a variety of successive presentations throughout different time zones. For the “long conversation”, presenters were asked to moderate the discussion of the speaker immediately following their own, interweaving call and response elements of presenting.
On Site
A three-day gathering, providing the opportunity for focused sessions, exchange and workshops in physical presence. Artistic researchers of all disciplines were invited to meet and collaborate in sessions and workshops within a spatially decentralized, socially-distanced and Covid-hygiene-approved program in Weimar.
Artistic Research is in a unique position to confront uncertainty. The dire grievances brought on by Covid-19 and the climate crisis demand more than utopic gestures or hopeful technologies. Challenged by the tensions of our times, Artistic Researchers are tasked with applying diverse forms of embodied knowledge to craft new tools for post-crisis conviviality and radical kindness.
We are seeking future-oriented responses to current social, cultural, ecological and economic challenges through the manifold means of high-level practice and reflection in the arts. The conference proposes three attractors to advance understanding of artistic research and stimulate new collaborative capacities and interdisciplinary scholarship.
Mend
Covid-19 has drastically deepened and at the same time exposed the racial, ethnic and gender inequalities of contemporary societies across the globe. What can artistic researchers learn from loss in order to design a different future? What practices of grieving and repair can help us move forward? We call for a place of dignity, where rupture, wear and tear are acknowledged as part of the historical fabric, where new practices of mending are shared.
Blend
Facing increasingly complex social, technological and environmental challenges, artistic research can offer decidedly open, hybrid and fluid means of dissolving disciplinary boundaries. How can artistic research foster diverse and forward-looking encounters, sensitive interaction, and reflective collaboration? What new practices of interdisciplinary blending result from knowledge transfer in troubled times?
Attend
Proposing a research culture of “attending to”, we are interested in citational practices that swerve the cannon and recalibrate the gravitational pull of historical hierarchies in knowledge production. Within artistic research, there has been a strong tendency to cite disciplines outside the arts, prioritizing other legacies. What would it take to recognize overlooked presence? What kind of attention can be brought to the fragile, complex influences of artists, places, events and things that escape or have been denied citation? We call for radical attention to citational practices in artistic research.
