objective:

The objective of this symposium is to foster the study of ideas and practices that will allow us to establish visual production processes as valid research models and creators of knowledge, as well as open a debate about the efficiency or obsolescence of traditional scientific research methods as they apply to the visual arts.

justification:

In recent decades, criticism of the scientific paradigm has been recurrent. In general, critics contend that science can only approach its object of study based on rules and determinations of its method, and this limits the scope of its research.
Recently, in her book “The Test Drive,” theorist Avital Ronell presents an interesting study based on Nietzsche concerning the tradition of scientific knowledge and its openness to experimentation. For Nietzsche, the central problem of science was that the structure of its inquiry must not only be applied to a supposedly “external” objective, but rather to science itself—to the limits of knowledge, techniques and methods that have remained mostly untouched.

Questioning the rule of objectivity in the sciences has initiated a discussion about whether artistic productions also forge a certain cognitive approach to reality. Contemporary art is founded on self-searching and reflections regarding its essence and existence.

Artistic production has been using the discourse of scientific disciplines (psychoanalysis, semiotics, anthropology and so on) for a long time. However, cross-disciplinary artistic projects whose hybrid results question the exclusiveness of science as a creator of knowledge are increasingly frequent.

From this perspective, how can we understand the visual arts as a form of research? What conceptual system or terminology could help us determine whether artistic creation is a form of production of knowledge? What are the specific properties and differences of art versus the sciences?