Midterm Meeting

everything about the MtM. Organisational stuff, content based discussions etc.

On CO-PRODUCTION & VISUALISATION OF RESEARCH DATA by CCP3

WP1: Visualisation of research data: how artistic research methods related to contentious heritage differ from other research projects in humanities and social sciences; relation to specific artistic media and the representation politics in the context of contentious heritage, etc.

CCP3:

...  relation to specific artistic media and the representation politics in the context of contentious heritage ...


1) In the case of CCP3, the Domestic Research Society functions as an artistic-curatorial collective and a producer (2 roles).

We can define and establish a frame of the artistic statement by ourselves. Therefore, it is not necessary to produce actual artwork in order to get the artistic interpretation through.

2) Methodology
We understand public events / formats as open platforms: 
  • online database
  • project's blog
  • press conference
  • exhibition
Why open?
Not in the sense that they would be less structured or a subject to change. On the contrary - they are fixed and precisely thought through as conventional formats. (Note: We also don't appropriate them as artistic means of expression; press conference is not a performance, for instance.)
They are open in a sense that they are a constitutive part of the research itself: from backstage to 'stage' and back again, and serve as a public trial that affects the development of the research.

Why?
  • These are customized environments that reach different audiences (academic, museological, press, general).
  • They actively engage all the CCP3 members (artists, heritage providers, researchers, different collaborators). 
  • In a long-term research these open platforms set a pace (dynamics) and encourage professional responsibility. 

3) ...  relation to specific artistic media and the representation politics in the context of contentious heritage ...

Visualisation and representation politics: Under the above circumstances (DRS as a producer with a set of public platforms) the execution of the actual artwork is obsolete. At the exhibition, however, the curatorial principle is a hybrid genre, combining artistic, museological and documentary material. The exhibition is treated as a medium.

*****
WP1: Issues, challenges and plans?

  • Expectations of the stakeholders and the non-artist members of CCP3 = they expect artistic interpretation of the contentious heritage (topic) in a form of an artwork.
  • What is the promise of the artistic engagement with contentious heritage within TRACES? How does each one of us envision this? What is the relationship between artistic mission and the inner logic of the research process? Does the process affect the artistic output or is it a matter of a predefined role of the artist (healer, revealer, entertainer, critic, advocate ...)?
  • When dealing with contentious heritage there's a greater chance that the object/topic will take over - in the exhibition space (death masks as an attraction for the visitors) & in the press (the topic dominates over the artistic /CCP3/ intention).
  • Do we control (how can we control) the intended output? 
  • Introducing the works by another artist (Viktor Gojkovič) on the exhibition challenge the Domestic Research Society's position: is this going to be a co-authorship, an appropriation, or (paternalistic) featuring of a guest-artist?
Suzana Milevska, WP1 member at TRACES 👏