Undisciplined (original) (raw)

There is something deeply perverse about the amount of background work that goes into making cultural, or really, any work happen. But we find it perhaps most strange in the wonderful world of funding. For every project we write proposals explaining why we think that it is worth the effort to undertake the projects, filled with cultural, historical and other references, written from the heart and often brimming with lucid explanations and perhaps more than necessary poetic imagery. Knowing that the few admin people who get to read these enjoy them (which one only hears after years (decades?) of doing it) is a pleasure and a reminder that, in spite of the apparently wasted effort, it is worth doing it. Someone cares.

The flip side of the coin is when a report on a finalised project comes back to us and someone, anonymously, has taken the time to look at, reflect upon and share their impressions of the work that has been done. We began attempting to undertake arts based research about 15 years ago and found ourselves outside the building; almost literally. We became aware that only universities and similar organisations are allowed to host research activities. We were outside the gates. So when we were invited to collaborate with the University of Applied Arts a few years ago, we were wary to try again. But we are ever optimistic. The work on the project Curiouser and Curiouser Cried Alice started in 2019 and came to an end in 2023, strangely messed with by the pandemic and a range of other influences. We are not classically academic, although we are also not anti academic. We merely do not seem to perceive the walls that apparently should exist between ways of working. We are similarly not only inter-, cross- and trans-disciplinary, but also undisciplined. At least that is on of the explanations that makes sense to use.

So when the review report arrived, we opened it with a bit of trepidation. Had four years of work demonstrated that we deserved to be banished beyond the gates, out into the no mans land of non academic reflection? No fear! A very nice report in many senses, but it also indicates the undisciplined nature of our work.

With the phrase “This project does not only expand but rather reconfigures the boundaries of artistic research, engaging complex scenarios through transdisciplinary practice that resist simplistic categorisation” the reviewer indicates to us that it is okay that no one ever quite knows what it is that we do.

We are not explicitly and consciously Lückenhaft and Kryptisch, but perhaps the world is and as we try to deal with it we are not trying to simplify to reach some categorisation.

So given half a chance we will carry on our arts-based research of things that resist investigation. Hopefully we will find some ways to think about things that help, or at least offer other perspectives. Or whatever it is that we do.

We write a lot, but we also do not ever think we know exactly what it is that we are doing. And perhaps that is no bad thing.

Time’s Up is supported by BMKOES, Linz Kultur, Land OÖ & Linz AG.