Dramaturgies of reality – shaping and being shaped by things

New dramaturgy expands beyond the theatre and stage, working on the ways in which things in each time and space are organised and produce meaning. I link this to object-oriented ontology (Morton, 2013; 2016; 2018) and the ethics of relating to things (Benso, 2000) in my discussion of three works of art in public space: House of Commons (2015) by Marianne Heske, Movimento HO (2016) by Eleonora Fabião, and The Viewer (2019) by Carole Douillard. All three works temporarily introduce specific material into a public space, working with time to open up the ‘thingliness’ (Heidegger, 2001/1971) of the material, thus changing the dramaturgy of the place and how people relate to it. The works subtly introduce the potential of experiencing reality in new ways, changing narratives through a reciprocal process of shaping and being shaped by things. This is the result of the fact that every thing is always in motion, morphing without purpose or direction. ‘Things rock’, as Timothy Morton puts it. I use Morton’s concept of tuning, and Silvia Benso’s concept of tenderness when discussing how the materials in the three works – a house, bricks and human bodies – tune into a place, and how the viewer also tunes through what Benso calls ‘tender touch’, sometimes touching the material concretely, at other times touching the common ground or breathing the same air.

Form, exform, and information in public space

If the urban tissue can be compared to a verbal text, how appropriate, then, do the linguistic disciplines prove in urban studies? This article briefly shows how morphology (Oliveira, 2016) and semantics (Benveniste, 1971) help us understand the city’s physical structures as well as the meaning these structures embody. Then follows a more substantial discussion of poetics (Ricœur, 1991) and its relevance to research on art in public space. An artistic intervention in public space may in fact appear as a poetic trope within the prosaic context of the city (De Certeau, 1988). Interrupting the smooth run of the urban machinery, it may re-inform what has become redundant. Thus, Marianne Heske’s House of Commons not only questions our definitions of form and exform (Bourriaud, 2016); in-forming an ex-form, it also questions the power of definition and other power structures inherent in the cityscape.

Artistic research in processes of urban change

Can the figure of the city of knowledge be an inspiration to commissioning of artistic research in contexts of urban change? This article argues that it represents a way beyond the seemingly dead ends that have been forged by the temporary and creative city. This article presents some initial reflections on this subject and reflects upon how artistic research expands the roles ascribed to public art. The conceptual approach to understand the relations between knowledge and the development of cities applied in this article, draws on the idea that cities are learned developed by urban geographer Colin MacFarlane (MacFarlane, 2011). The article applies MacFarlane’s concept to artistic research in public space and argues that artistic research as public art can move divisions between what is extra-public and public, known and unknown. Drawing on public art projects that have relations to the urban development of Bjørvika, the article argues that artistic research of the city produces new ways to “learn the city” and conceive change.

Public art as research in the open

In 1979, the Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar staged his first public intervention in the context of military dictatorship. His inquiry on states of happiness anticipated a working method that Jaar has been following since. In taking Studies on Happiness as an early example of social aesthetics, this article will show that the work itself is not only seen as the product of making (poïesis), but that the process itself is seen as the embodiment of knowledge, the dwelling and outcome of an intended action. However, this action is not simply an act in the everyday (praxis), but as an intended action it is intelligent in itself and calls for the practical wisdom of acting (phronesis). As soon as the project includes a relational process and forms of participation, both in nature of unforeseeable outcome, the aim is no longer the production of a (common) object; rather, it is the social relation itself, established through the aesthetic or “boundary” object that puts into action the relation as well as the reflection on the conditions of its becoming. We will assess how play and phronesis can mediate between research and art by creating a situational knowledge, that is both critique and contributory: a research in the open.

Changing public spheres – from Eastern European underground to international platforms

This essay explores the work of at artists from different generations who have dealt with restrained public spheres, counteracted by their work: Russian Ilya Kabakov (b. 1933), Czech Kateřina Šedá (b. 1977) and the collective digital platform Harabel in Albania. Many artists who worked within the Soviet Union were subjected to extremely deman­­ding conditions. All the same several found ways of collaborating in col­lec­tive strategies, as in the case of Ilya Kabakov, who ‘defected’ in 1989 in New York. In the west the reception of Kabakov´s art has to a large extent been reductionistic in the sense that it was initially culturally biased, tied directly to biography and nationality rather than understood as fundamentally multifaceted. Šedá’s situation is a very different one, working within a social and conceptual conception of art. She has repeatedly engaged a variety of local societies in combining city planning, daily life, politics and the private sphere in her art. In Albania a younger generation of artists has created communication networks across geographic boundaries with a main focus on digital platforms. The question the essay revolves around is the following: How does one conceive of artistic approaches to the collective in the aftermath of totalitarian systems?

Researching public art and public space

This special issue is devoted to research on the changing paradigms of public art, and of public spaces. Today all art can be characterized as public since it is mediated via relational networks. The shift of paradigm from modernist art to contemporary art coincides with this shift of paradigm – from consumption to communication – in the sense that advanced art practices had already absorbed the change from individual mediation to relational networks. In the communication network of relations, artists and works are constitutive elements. Without the works and the artists, the relational network does not exist, and vice versa: Without the network of relations, neither artists nor works are made visible. This constitutive reciprocity of relations is decisive both for theorists doing research on public art and art in public spaces, as well as for artists who are doing research in public spaces.

Haugerudbekken: Community Improvement through Socially Engaged Art

Haugerudbekken is the collective title of a series of art projects where two local artists (the authors of this article) collaborate with pupils from local schools in Haugerud to create public art installations in the neighbourhood. Haugerudbekken may be considered a practical exploration guided by principles in the fields of socially engaged art (SEA), teaching artists (TA) and community artists (CA). The project is being undertaken within the broader context of a government run local improvement initiative in the Oslo suburbs of Haugerud and Trosterud. A growing demand for art entering a societal context (like urban development) calls for approaches emphasizing dialogue, communication and local affiliation. As this demand grows, so does the need for best-practice guidance for initiating artists as well as for policymakers and others inviting artists to contribute. Furthermore, our approach as independent artists working within a community setting might also benefit from clarification of theory and framework in this field. This article therefore aims to share knowledge gathered through our three years (and still ongoing) working on Haugerudbekken, pinpointing what we believe to be key success factors as well as challenges in our project. Findings are discussed in relation to existing theory and relevant practice in SEA, TA and CA informing existing guidelines as well as terminology.

Practice-led Research in the Art Museum

As art museum education practices get more ambitious in form and content, and to a higher degree inform the overall audience strategies, the need for a research framing is required. The art museum is facing new and high expectation from society and policy makers in terms of being a relevant social and democratic platform inclusive for everyone. To manifest the changes, the institution must draw on all the different museal knowledges, not least the one about the audience. There has been a history of professional hierarchy and knowledge hegemony inside the art museum, where the object-based knowledge has trumped the practice-based. An important reason for this imbalance has been the lack of adequate practice related research methods and a theoretical framing within art museum education. Research in art museum has to a large extent operated within the classical art historical field, but more and more museums are looking to and are drawing on other models outside the museum disciplines to develop new adequate research standards. One of the museums that have undergone a profound change much due to a change in how they think about practice and research, is Tate with research leader Emily Pringle in the lead. Inspired by models within the arts and school system, they have developed a practice-led research method. In this article I will reflect on how and why it is important for art museum educators to do research on their own practice, drawing on both the Tate model and my own experience from working at the National Museum for over ten years.

Art in Education – Treasures Within and Treasures Between Us

This special issue of Nordic Journal of Arts and Research is a collection of articles based on selected papers presented at the conference Art in Education held at Oslo Metropolitan university in august 2019. Our goal with the conference was to create a widely based international venue for exploring the many ways in which art becomes meaningful and powerful through ways of teaching and arts promotion. A key intention was to include both artists, academics and teachers and to stimulate encounters that cross conventional disciplinary barriers. The two partners organizing the conference were Kulturtanken: Arts for Young Audiences Norway, and the Faculty of Education at Oslo Metropolitan University. The mobilisation of both the artistic and scholarly networks of these two organizations laid the grounds for three days of stimulating interaction, art experiences and discussions

Renegotiating Aesthetic Disinterest for the Literature Classroom

This paper discusses a dialectic between a so-called disinterested appreciation of literature and what I refer to as the ‘neoliberal ethos’. I am interested, primarily, in the influence of this dialectic on literary pedagogy. I will argue that the way in which the neoliberal ethos has permeated educational settings creates a need for a reconceptualised notion of aesthetic disinterest, without which we will struggle to coherently argue for alternative conceptions of the value of education, especially arts and humanities education. I hope to show that reviving the concept of disinterest will facilitate a renegotiation of the literature classroom as a space for genuine aesthetic experience and non-instrumental discussion.