Vision Forum is a development of the organisation
Curatorial Mutiny
and its dialogue with KSM at Linköpings universitet that started in
2004. Since its inception in 2008, Vision Forum has grown to focus on
international education, production and
research in contemporary visual art and the integration of these on a regional, national and international scale.
1. Introduction and contexts
"We
do not lack communication. On the contrary, we have too much of it. We
lack creation. We lack resistance to the present. The creation of
concepts in itself calls for a future form, for a new earth and people
that do not yet exist."
—Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, "What is Philosophy"
The
collaboration between KSM and Vision Forum allows knowledge, experience
and vision to meet with artistic and academic creativity to enrich the
academic and cultural life of the region of Östergötland. The
collaboration brings together students, researchers, producers and
influential personalities from the arts, humanities and sciences to
dialogue about central life issues. The participants of the project come
from all over Europe, often with roots from other continents, and also
host a broad age range and a balanced gender mix. The exchange
safeguards academic and cultural diversity in the region and inspires
students, researchers and staff to find, enrich and develop their
creative and academic processes.
The collaboration operates on three levels:
I.
Local: To bring knowledge, experience and inspiration and new ideas
from all over Europe and further afield to dialogue with and to enrich
the unique context of the cultural, institutional and academic world of
Norrköping, Linköping and the region of Östergötland.
II.
National: To bring knowledge, experience and inspiration and new
ideas from all over Europe and further afield to dialogue with and to
enrich the cultural and academic worlds in Sweden. To enforce a dialogue
with the academic, institutional and cultural world in the rest of
Sweden with Norrköping, Linköping and the region of Östergötland.
III.
International: To create a platform for international expansion for
the academic, institutional and artistic world of Norrköping, Linköping
and the region of Östergötland and to use this expansion to enrich the
professional processes for academics and cultural practitioners in the
region.
To work on these three levels allow the
students and researchers to develop their personal practice based on
their individual needs, visions and ambitions. But it also allows them
to create a platform where they can actively choose to work locally,
nationally and internationally. The platform gives them the tools, the
network and skills to expand and through that allow the cultural and
academic life in the region to expand with them.
2. The nature of the collaboration its future goals.
“One
of the primary blocks to such latent creativity is what Bohm refers to
as ‘self-sustaining’ confusion in the mind, in contrast to ‘simple’
confusion. Simple confusion is that which we experience when for
instance, we don’t understand directions we are given, or when we can’t
find the solution to a puzzle. Self-sustaining confusion, on the other
hand occurs ‘when the mind is trying to escape awareness of conflict… in
which one’s deep intention is really to avoid perceiving the fact,
rather than to sort it out and make it clear’ Bohm points out that this
process creates an order of its own: a reflexive state of dullness in
which the natural agility of the mind is replaced is replaced with a
torpor on the one hand, mechanical and meaningless fantasies on the
other. Unfortunately says Bohm, this has come to be considered a normal
state of mind, and is therefore endemic to our culture.”
— Lee Nichols, Preface to the Routledge Classics Edition of David Bohm’s “On Creativity”, Routledge 1997.
The
collaboration between KSM and Vision Forum is built on research about
the role and nature of knowledge within in the academic and artistic
fields. This foundation allows the students and researchers both to
operate professionally in local, national and international art
audiences and at the same time develop research that benefits the
academic and artistic worlds.
The collaboration needs
to be based on a clear understanding of the methodologies, goals and
limitations of the respective fields: art, science and humanities. It is
essential not only to demarcate the nature of knowledge in respective
fields and the overlapping aims between them, but also to respect that
there are
profound philosophical differences between the genres.
But both Vision Forum and KSM also both have far reaching experience of
what can be achieved through a dialogue between different disciplines.
In
each project carried out by students and researchers, great detail is
given on the formulation of the problem as well as the context where the
problem is addressed. The projects are created and carried out in such a
way that they allow
the audience to actively follow the outcome
through traces of the process undergone. The project is set up with the
goal of realizing the potential of each individual student and
researcher and to stimulate a rich cultural and academic environment in
Östergötland.
3. Thematic Fields
"The
art of constructing a problem is very important: you invent a problem, a
problem position, before finding a solution. None of this happens in an
interview, a conversation, a discussion. Even reflection, whether it's
alone, between two or more is not enough. Above all, not reflection.
Objections are even worse. Every time someone puts an objection I want
to say 'OK, OK, let's go on to something else'. Objections have never
contributed anything. It is the same when I am asked a general question.
The aim is not to answer the question, it's to get out, to get out of
it."
—Gilles Deleuze
The
collaboration between KSM and Vision Forum focuses on three main fields.
These have been developed over the last years. Within each field the
students and researchers work with meetings, research and production
preferably in parallel. The three fields also open doors for work across
the fields and students and researchers often work with projects that
either is placed between these thematic fields and/or between accepted
artistic genres.
The three thematic fields are:
I.
Performance:
Vision Forum has focused on performance from the outset. The practical
approach to academic research that has been a trademark of KSM from the
start makes it very easy to collaborate in this field and the two
organizations have been working together in this genre since 2004.
II.
Art and Science
: The collaboration offers artistic production and research to meet scientific and humanist research.
III.
Experimental film:
Film is and has always been a strong point for KSM, but the creators
have had a hard time reaching outside the local. Vision Forum offers the
venues for presentation and expansion. This field also works for an
expanded local production of experimental film.
