01 Mar 2016

MaHKUscript, Journal of Fine Art Research, seeks contributions

HKU launches a new, peer reviewed, journal that specifically targets the significance of research and knowledge production in contemporary Fine Art practice. MaHKUscript. Journal of Fine Art Research is published by Ubiquity Press, London and has an international editorial board.

Editor: Henk Slager (Utrecht)
Editorial advisory board: Chus Martinez (Basel), Hongjohn Lin (Taipei), Inci Eviner (Istanbul), Irit Rogoff (London), Maria Hlavajova (Utrecht), Marquard Smith (London), Mick Wilson (Gothenburg), and Ute Meta Bauer (Singapore).

MaHKUscript. Journal of Fine Art Research is the successor of MaHKUzine. Journal of Artistic Research (2006-2011). This new publication series consciously moves away from the accolade concept of Artistic Research in order to fully concentrate on the idiosyncracy and specificity of research in the domain of Fine Art. For this purpose MaHKUscript will select every year a topical research theme.

A pilot issue (MaHKUscript #1, Theme: Experimentality) will be online shortly.
This issue contains contributions by a.o. Andrew Pickering, Anita Seppä, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Natasha Ginwala, Peter Weibel, and Valerie Pihet.

The second issue of MaHKUscript will focus on the current state of Spatial Practice. Public spaces and urban cultures need novel impulses for our contemporary life. Those impulses ask for research-driven strategies based on both artistic and analytic methodologies in mapping and analysis. In connection with these problematics the concept of 'Critical Spatial Practice' has been recently introduced, signifying a coming together of art, architecture, planning and design as expanded practices, with the purpose of creating a new commitment regarding urban processes and the politization of space. With that Spatial Practice seems equivalent to finding new modes and methods for offering resistance to the technocratic and neo-liberal rhetoric producing public space and the entrepreneurial city today.

A number of questions arise when further delving into the strategic field of Spatial Practice: what concepts (such as territory, agency, agonistic negotiation, blurred boundaries, grass-roots democracy, heterogeneity, cross-benching, participation, relational aesthetics, post-public environment, micro-urban tactics) are crucial in defining this new field? But also: does the current situation of thinking in terms of counter-space demand the developing of new concepts? What role does artistic research actually play in the further articulation of critical spatial practice? And finally: what is the most strategic way to incorporate this new way of thinking and working in art education?

For this second issue of MaHKUscript the keynote author is Markus Miessen (Berlin).
MaHKUscript also invites artists, researchers and other thinkers and knowledge producers to submit a proposal for a contribution.

Interested authors can send in an abstract of 300 words max. In this summary they should argue how their submission could be constructive and innovative in the debate about the state of spatial practice.

Deadline call: April 1, 2016.
More information and submission:
Editorial Office: Jessica de Schipper
Email: mahkuscript@mahku.nl