Within the framework of a new line of work by the AGI research group, we present our first annual gathering with Goldsmiths College, University of London and the Art History Department of Barcelona University. This session will take place on November 24, 2016 at the Fundació Tàpies (Barcelona) between 10 am and 8pm. The seminar is aimed at researchers, PhD candidates, curators, artists and other cultural producers engaged in interdisciplinary research, with methodologies coming from the humanities and the social sciences, involved with artistic research.

Simon Sheikh proposes three possible definitions for artistic research:
1. Research into artistic practices and materials
2. Research as artistic practice
3. Research that is artistic, i.e. an aesthetic approach to science.

Taking Simon Sheikh’s work as a point of reference, and with the presence Carles Guerra and Gerard Vilar, we will discuss the implications and the potentialities of artistic research today.

Sheikh connects post-Fordist capitalism’s immateriality with the dematerialized practices of contemporary art and the production of knowledge within the university. Thus, he claims it is necessary to think about the political meaning of educational institutions, calling for a transformation of these spaces of knowledge production into spaces for thinking.

Starting from this idea, this seminar aims to become a meeting place, in which we can collectively discuss the different ways of understanding the emerging field of artistic research. Beyond the analysis of case studies, the seminar seeks to put together proposals of a methodological and conceptual nature.

Through plenary lectures and roundtable discussions, we aim to create a framework for international debate. Here, participants will be able to discuss different ways of researching in, from and about contemporary artistic and cultural practices, putting their work in dialogue with other researchers and with experts of international prestige.

Opening Speech:
Simon Sheikh

Simon Sheikh, Senior Lecturer in Curating and Program Director of the MFA in Curating at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Simon Sheikh’s research deals with the modalities and potentialities of curating, within the relation between exhibition-making and political imaginaries. He is concerned with how exhibitions articulate through arrangement, narrative and spatialization, as well as how the very format of the exhibition can be expanded, negated or transformed.

Convenors: Carles Guerra, Director of the Fundació Tàpies and Gerard Vilar, Full Philosophy Professor of Barcelona’s Universitat Autònoma.