Vytautas Michelkevičius performative talk in the 8th International Conference on Artistic Research in Helsinki is held on 28 & 29 April, 2017 at the Theatre Academy in Helsinki, Finland.

ABSTRACT
Debates on artistic research are dominated by artists
doing research; however, there are very few thoughts
about curators and (social and humanities) researchers
doing artistic research. What would a debate
through artistic research look like? During a performative
presentation my book Converged by Artistic Research
in Lithuania and Beyond: Along the Contours of
Knowing (2016/2017) will come into play together with
diagrams and other actors. Its title refers to things
and people (communities) brought together by artistic
research. It celebrates mapping and diagrammatic
thinking as a way of sharing the processes and results
of (artistic) research made together in collaboration
with artists, designers and humanities researchers.
32 diagrams and 29 images made specifically for the
project do not illustrate the text of the monograph but
take an equal position. The book deals with certain
specificities of artistic research, e.g. cases of Lithuanian
contemporary art outside Academia since the
beginning of the 2000s; a map on artistic research
made collectively by a local group of artists and researchers
etc. with keywords such as “epistemological
engine”, “metaphor as method”, “groping/fumbling
while researching”.

Dr Vytautas Michelkevičius is a curator (Nida Art Colony), researcher
and associate professor (Vilnius Academy of Arts) whose
focus gradually shifted from photography in an expanded field to media
art & theory, and lately to artistic research in academia and beyond.
In 2016 he published the book Converged by Artistic Research
in Lithuania and Beyond. He is a member of the editorial board of the
peer-reviewed journal Acoustic Space (RIXC and Liepaja University,
LV) for scientific and artistic research.

You may view and download book of conference abstracts here.