The Special Interest Group (SIG) in Language-based Artistic Research was inaugurated in 2019 within the frame of the Research Pavilion #3, Venice, and now comprises an international network of over 600 artistic researchers. Towards curiosity and openness, exploration beyond definition: How is language-based artistic research? Beyond words alone, how is artistic research undertaken in and through different language-based practices?
The focus on language within artistic research is considered from a broad and transforming perspective to include diverse fields such as visual arts, performance, film, theatre, music, choreography as well as literature. The intent is not to define or fix what language-based artistic research is but rather to reflect how it is practised in its diversity.
Since its inception, this SIG has tested different ways for creating community and sharing practice within the evolving field of language-based artistic research. This includes live research events and online gatherings creating connections between international artistic researchers working with language, alongside the online publication of over 150 examples of individual language-based ‘practices’.
The SIG has also evolved through the activities of different ‘thematic nodes’, sub-groups coming together for engaging with a specific thematic focus, resonant affinity, or a matter of urgency relating to language-based artistic research.
These ‘thematic nodes’ address diverse language-based issues and questions including - to whom or what do we give a voice; the ethics and politics of language justice as a framework and set of practices for equitable, authentic communication; the relation of languaging/bodying, voicing/listening, sound/speech; the asemic and ‘eco-asemic’ materiality of language; collective writing in public space; alongside ecologies of practice for exploring relationships between aesthetic thinking and discursive-propositional thinking.
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Emma Cocker
is a writer-artist based in Sheffield and Associate Professor in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University, UK. Her research enquiry unfolds at the threshold between writing/art, exploring experimental, performative and collaborative approaches for writing with, through and from artistic process and practice.
Emma’s writing is published in Reading/Feeling, 2013; On Not Knowing: How Artists Think, 2013; The Creative Critic: Writing as/about Practice, 2018; Writing Choreography: Extending the Conventions of Dance, 2023, and the solo collections, The Yes of the No, 2016, and forthcoming How Do You Do?, 2025.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2985-7839
Cordula Daus
is a writer-artist who works across performance, literary fiction and a general study of feelings. Her artist books and lecture performances have been presented internationally. She holds a PhD in Art from the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
Currently, Cordula is leading the artistic research Outer Woman at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (FWF: V 797).
Her novel SEHR was published by Ritter Verlag in 2024.
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Alexander Damianisch
heads the Department Support Art and Research at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. He is a member of the executive board of the Angewandte Interdisciplinary Laboratory and serves on the representative board of the European League of Institutes of the Arts (ELIA).
His practice spans teaching, moderation, writing, and consulting, with a focus on the transformation of understanding.
He works to advance the development of art and research projects, funding strategies, organisational change, and postgraduate research activities.
Previously, he designed the Programme for Arts-based Research at the Austrian Science Fund and founded the Zentrum Fokus Forschung.
Lena Séraphin
is an artist-writer based in Helsinki. Her postdoctoral research Sharing Text at the Faculty of Education and Welfare Studies, Åbo Akademi University (2020-2023) was an exploration on collective writing in public space and site-specific publishing as a research practice. She holds an MA from Goldsmiths’ and a doctorate from Aalto University, and teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts.
Lena is currently PI of the artistic research project transitory writing in no one’s land which is supported by the Kone foundation (2024-25).
