Notes on Artistic research as a phd

It is complicated to find out how to do it.
Issue with non-dutch applicants at crucial moments.
Changing rules, sometimes badly communicated.

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(case: A did first master in research in Antwerp.)

To do a phd you first:

Find someone that is interested in the project. 

Antwerp has the most interesting Phd in art; not pre-structured so interesting

At first call could be handed in any time. Judged twice a year.

Phd as a possibility for artists that have no gallery ... "truly specialised research"
thesis as an art project.

Sint Lucas has a research coordinator. 
Complicated connections between artschools and academia.

In Brussels: through Leuven
In Hasselt (with Leuven): design oriented, good conditions but subject pre-defined.
In KASK (with UGent): need promotor from Ugent, teaching, full scholarship. 100%  employment.

Royal Academy Antwerp through Nico Docx - Open call

ARIA: cross institute research group for artistic research

Research coordinator 2: Els de Bruijn / Royal Academy

Volonteering (without funding) was possible in Royal Academy (as a way to understand the process/network better)

Lack of communication between university (formal) and art-academy (content)

At Royal Academy. 1 year research position = grant to turn your research into a phd. Training; outcome = getting into the phd. "it is the only way". 3 years before you can start? 1 + 2 years?
like mphil?

This research grant is only for production (10.000). You do not have other obligations. You can propose a masterclass, but not clear if you get paid for it.
phd (25000) = 50% job; 1050 per month (more or less)

The proposal is very much formatted. (fixed amount of words, questions, ...)
signature of head of school. Is it a formality? No, it is the signature of the coordinator of an (existing) research group.

Issues with 50% payment for non EU.
KASK: needs EU.

If you have noone from the inside. Nico Docx: sympathetic but at some point no answers

Next year: no artist call

Usually only 1 or 2 positions for everyone

KASK 70 people apply
careful: schools want people from inside. It is about training their own staff

It is tightening/changing - more formal, less space.
it is not a crack anymore at the moment.

role of the promotors.

Vienna phd in research
No grant
5 out 500 - no grant, no studio, no production money. You can easily get additional grants?
It does give a structure.

Giessen applied theatre theater studies.
Artistic phd is not academic enough. 

Graduate center for the center of culture / German Excellence / Giessen
Hybrid academic work. Depend on a grant. Graduate school, very rigid.
Needs a promotor too.

apass as a bridge institution, can help with transition?

Projects to apply for (like the one Pia applied for)?
Leiden university. HNI, PZI, De Waag, INC

Any artschool can join with an university. Grants from universities are sometimes available.

a.pass should take on phd research! How to do this collaboration on our own terms? To have agency in that collaboration.

Sweden?

[ask Sina, Vladimir]

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PAF room 210, 27/03/2018

(Braintests as an introduction)
Secret room 210 associated with The Name of the rose: as an artist coming to a convent. What could be the problem, what the case. PAF as a place of production.

The impossibility of reproducing. A text written on the mirror, the death of the artist.
A. has no material gain from solving crimes. Examples of artistic practices at the margin.
Who would benefit from the death of the artist?

strategies of mythmaking.

evidence is in the room: Mnemosyl. Arts needs conflict. Multiply life to create evidence. Does the artist follow the protocol?

was the artist happy? happy = succesful = lucky?
death of art = death of luck

Evil eye lenses (evil eyes of the artist?)

power

greed, survival, revenge
give structure to work
seduction of feeling in control

sabotage her own convictions
open hands closed fist

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Feedback, PAF 30/03/2018

interested in exhibition and the agency of the artist in there
conditions of art production (90's) -- displacement
60-80's artists working outside of institution

Anxiety -- and where to find resilience.
How will artistic practice change in response to that. The objects reflect an anxiety of exhibition.
"some of them are not meant to be taken, some yes"

Q: Anxiety - resilience: A: if you overcome anxiety, it enables resilience. It is a problem when you forget why you worry? 
The working against/with conditions (people, building, history)
General anxiety -- personal anxiety?
"making exhibition possible", "making anxiety possible"

Q: definition of exhibition? What is not an exhibition?
A: Everything is (could be)! [2 diagrams: standard model vs. desired model] -- artists can become exhibition.
"where is the artist"?

Not taking away the anxiety -- staying within the model. 
Incorporating diagram B into A (not separating/transforming the whole)

Q: do you want to scale this? Universalize it? Rearrange?
Who decides what an artist can be? What roles he/she can take up?

artist have been organisers, curators, designers ... for a long time. Education and institutions re-confirm the individual artist. 

Q: Institution vs artist. Is it as separated? Is it true? And what about group anxiety. Faking collaboration?

Collaboration etc. gives authorship from the artist away (to?) ...
Let's get concrete?
And also: what about the practice you proposed? Is it just anxiety and resilience? Market and anxiety as a motor. There is not just anxiety, also excitement.

... Sedgwick "You are so paranoid" essay is relevant. Reparative reading; hope, curiosity, not paranoid. How to be in the now (not just go between past and future).
What about time? Time and space and the exhibition. Could time be my place? Exhibitions are always temporal. As a feminist asking: is a paronoid reading working for "us".

Q: Cause of anxiety is 'who gets the money'? Artist comes with the money / money centers around the figure of the artist. Admin is financed, not artists. They are permanent.

A: Jobs? I don't have money. 

Different defaults, different motors of anxiety?
Working through friends ... 

Q: Multiplicity of roles interesting. Artist, curator, student, administrator, teacher, ... See them as practices, not positions.

Which museum can really handle this type of hybridity? 
Feeding upon anxiety. The museum as a source of creativity, and how does it feed the institution?

Q: You want the conditions to be/stay there? Art is a response to conditions? And is this actually establishing the status quo?

The critique of the system is already creating a new system. Or it is capitalism functioning?

Some practices refuse to go into exhibition / what if you do not refuse.

What if lots of people apply successfully for phds? 

Artist curation as an opening for another kind of practice, but it became a model quickly, and artists work even more. Entrepreneur aspect.
How do we organise differently.

The practice becomes a model. 
Example: architects, ... Cruz (San Diego), doing system architecture, working with university. Trying to change institutions with their power.

Q: When talking about time --- it becomes immediately a performance. Why just exhibition? Theatre could be more relevant.

A: It is already an exhibition?

Exhibition as instituted practice ... vs. an action. This is the tautology!

Q: What would be the exhibition in your room function in MOMA?

A: It was connected to talking about phd. A response to apass and phd. It would be a group exhibition

Explicitness of the performativity, so I understand the critique.
"I did not see it yet, but probably I am blind"

Q: MoMa is mega. To be invited there is a moment in a trajectory, you can be in the annals. Do you want that?

A: Space i can work with/on/in is group exhibition.

Q: What is your ambition? Is it just the moment? Or are you going somewhere? It will have consequences, and how will you carry it?

creating conditions / created by conditions. 

"I am under" Overcoming anxiety, as a way 

Q: the phd on the laptop was part of the evidence?

I was detective and artist at the same time. The story finishes with the splitting in two of the artist. We discover it is me.