ContextsNotes1 in that context, the phd research trajectories (the so- called third cycle) connected with the
Bologna rules are of great importance. such a form of research does not need the guidance
of the formatting models of established scientific domains, nor is it swayed by issues produced
by the late- capitalist free market. Rather, it is an authentic form of research emerging from
mere artistic necessity while erasing a dependence on any form of rhetoric connected to social-
economic relevance. such programmes offer artists an intellectual sanctuary where they can
reflect on their artistic motives and strategies while creating a qualitative impulse with respect
to their artistic practices. The participating, mainly mid- career, artists have a chance to focus on
issues inherent to their artistic practices. in addition, such a novel, experimental sanctuary for
autonomous artistic (phd) research creates an environment able to function as an example for
the art academy at large. after all, it is important for such artistic research to function as the art
academy’s conscience and, in that sense, govern the continuously pressing issues of the paradigm
of art education.
2 in his book Aesthetica (2009 [1758]), Baumgarten introduced the concept of aesthetics as a
philosophy of the senses. he says, ‘aesthetics should investigate for accuracy analogous to logic,
that is at the basis of scientific knowledge, the concepts constituting sensibility.’ in ‘Camera
lucida’, Barthes (1984) describes similar research as a mathesis singularis, ‘a science of the
person, which can attain a generality which does not belittle nor shatter.’
3 such questions are the starting point for my exhibition project ‘The intermedial zone’,
Boijmans Van Beuningen (2006). see also slager (2006).
4 still, the issue of painterly mediality returns again and again. also, today artists pose questions
such as: is there such a thing as a painterly paradigm in current iconography? What is the role
of painting within today’s media culture? What are the present conditions for a painting to be
defined as a painting. how are the boundaries of the painterly domain being established?
5 Barthes’ Camera lucida (1984) could be viewed as a good example of an artistic research project
avant la lettre because of its mathesis singularis methodology.
6 Flash Cube, samsung museum of art, leeum, 2007. http://www. e- flux.com/shows/view/4419
(accessed 22 February 2010).
7 shelter 07. The Freedom of public art in the Cover of urban space. harderwijk, 2 June–31
august 2007.
8 Translocalmotion (seventh shanghai Biennale), shanghai, 9 september–16 november 2008.
http://en.shanghaibiennale.org/content.php?nid=24 (accessed 22 February 2010).
9 That mode of research has been strikingly described in the 1970s by the philosopher of science
Feyerabend in a then utopian fashion as ‘anarchist methodology’ and ‘dadaist epistemology’
(Feyerabend 1993 [1975]).
10 Cf. agamben and heller- Roazen (2000). here aby Warburg’s research is sketched as ‘unnamed
discipline’: a mode of being freed from a formalizing, academic disciplining.
11 nameless science, apexart, new York, 10 december–31 January 2009 (slager 2009b).
12 such artistic research should be viewed as a potential for opening up reflexive spaces that surpass
a simple investigation in visual cultures.