Initiated under the working title "Recercar la recerca" ("research the research"), this project undertakes an open-ended anthropology of research-based practices in art and design. The first outcome of this study is “A Wounded Matrix. Speculative Portraiture System for Critical Vectors in Current Art-driven Research”, a visual essay and descriptive prototype for the analytical mapping of multidisciplinary, art-centered research practices. The speculative profiling of representative practitioners whose work involves the disruption of knowledge production - against current quantitative criteria applied by capitalist academia -- is the starting point for our effort to reflect on what art and design actually *do* to the knowledge economy. Most importantly, this study aims to expose the dynamics and movements of artistic agents in their disregard of predictive knowledge mapping. The methodology of AWM blends qualitative analysis and the intrinsic self-criticism of aesthetic production. Specifically, the first developments of the project involve a series of in-depth interviews with key practitioners who freely circulate through the fields of science, technology, and contemporary art. Featured interviews include Lluís Nacenta, Elena Bartomeu, and Pep Vidal, among others. The intelligence obtained from these scripted conversations will provide the basis for a visual, graphic, and performative formulation of a chaotic portraiture system. The basis of this investigation as well as the first visual results shall be published in 2022 by .able Journal, an image-based, experimental academic journal to be launched also in 2022 as a collaborative effort of ENSAD Paris.
Proceedings