Interdisciplinary meetup for artists, archivists & other researchers, initiated by HuC & ARIAS

The Artists & Archivists meetups aim to engage artists, archivists and other researchers in a dialogue on their research approaches, methods and results, to learn from each other’s experiences and to explore future research collaborations. At these meetups, researchers share mutual interests, for example in experimental ways of questioning and researching archival and data collections, data visualization, digital humanities, sonic archiving and archival activism.

On 22 November, four new groups have proposed to meet to discuss issues of art-archive collaborations, queering the collections, new research into the work of Louise Kaiser, and redefining our understanding of text. If you would like to propose a new group, please email flora.lysen@arias.amsterdam.For detailed information on the program, please scroll down. To sign up for 22 November, please send an e-mail to: simone.wolff@bb.huc.knaw.nl.

ARIAS and HuC

This event is a collaboration between ARIAS and the Humanities Cluster (HuC) of the KNAW (Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences). HuC, the KNAW Humanities Cluster is an alliance of three institutes of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) in which humanities research is carried out using advanced methods, in which computer science plays an important role. These three institutes are: Huygens Institute for History of the Netherlands, International Institute for Social History (IISH), Meertens Institute.

ARIAS is a research platform by the Amsterdam University of the Arts (AHK), Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA), University of Amsterdam (UvA) and Vrije Universiteit (VU). ARIAS enables intersections, encounters and collaborations between artistic research and research in the humanities, social sciences and the natural sciences.

Program 22 November

16.00 – 16.30: Plenary opening & introductory talk by the Elise ‘t Hart (first artist-in-residence of the Meertens Institute)
16.30 – 17.30: brainstorm/discussion
17.30 – 18.00: drinks

1. What could ‘collaboration’ between artists & archivists be? Artist Marieke van Rooy opens a discussion of the different ways in which researchers and artists could exchange thoughts on artistic archival projects, on the ways of working and the motives behind such methods. The goal of this discussion is to give researchers a more in-depth view in ways of working of artists and the diversity of reasons why artists delve into archives. This also leads to the question what actual ‘collaboration’ could be. For artists, this discussion is important to get an overview and to contribute to the diversity of approaches to the archive. In this session, we speak about what could be the best forms of exchange for this platform and how already existing archival projects by artists could have more visibility in the academic world and in the archival institutes where this research takes place. We start the discussion in relation to concrete artist cases, for example, Marieke van Rooy will give a short introduction to the ‘Dilution Project’ (together with Domenico Mangano) for which she has worked with the historical archives of the anti-psychiatry movement held by the Institute of Social History.

2. Inclusiveness & Queering the collections.
Riemer Knoop (lector at the Amsterdam University of the Arts) opens a discussion on the possibility of a joint research project that supports practice-oriented & activist movements in ‘queering archives and collections’. In this hour, we discuss interesting practices of (art-)research and activist projects that have shed light on the “invisibilized”, whether by their own choice or by the sytem’s design, in public archives, collections and museums, particularly in relation to LGTB-activism. This hour serves as a platform to explore the possibility of a joint Smart Culture research grant application (deadline 5 February 2019) in this research field.

3. Louise Kaiser research project.
Carolyn Birdsall (UvA) & Douwe Zeldenrust (Meertens Instituut) will discuss the possibility and potential shape of a research project on the work of Louise Kaiser (1891-1973), a pioneer in phonetics research and the first female lector of the University of Amsterdam. Please join this brainstorm if you are interested in the history of phonetics research or an artist interested in language and sound.

4. Redefining our Understanding of Text.
Huygens Institute researchers Elli Bleeker, Ronald Haentjens Dekker and Astrid Kulsdom would like to collaborate with artists on their project ‘Redefining our Understanding of Text’. We invite artists to collaborate with us in redefining text in the digital paradigm by creating textual objects that contain various layers of (audiovisual) information. Artists may work with their own text, or use as a starting point a text taken from a 20th century handwritten manuscript. Ideally, we work with two or more artists at the same time, so that we can recreate and enhance a dynamic, intertextual network of information.