TomHolert_ArtKnowledgePolis

8/6/2019 TomHolert_ArtKnowledgePolis

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Tom Holert

Art in theKnowledge-

based Polis

Lately, the concept of Òknowledge productionÓhas drawn new attention and prompted strongcriticism within art discourse. One reason for thecurrent conflictual status of this concept is theway it can be linked to the ideologies andpractices of neoliberal educational policies. In anopen letter entitled ÒTo the KnowledgeProducers,Ó a student from the Academy of FineArts Vienna has eloquently criticized the way

education and knowledge are beingÒcommodified, industrialized, economized andbeing made subject to free trade.Ó1

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn a similar fashion, critic Simon Sheikh hasaddressed the issue by stating that Òthe notionof knowledge production implies a certainplacement of thinking, of ideas, within thepresent knowledge economy, i.e. thedematerialized production of current post-Fordist capitalismÓ; the repercussions of such aplacement within art and art education can bedescribed as an increase in Òstandardization,Ó

Òmeasurability,Ó and Òthe molding of artisticwork into the formats of learning and research.Ó2

Objections of this kind become even morepertinent when one considers the suggestiverhetoric of the major European art educationalnetwork ELIA (European League of Institutes ofthe Arts), which, in a strategy paper published inMay 2008, linked Òartistic researchÓ to the EUpolicy of the generation of ÒÔNew KnowledgeÕ in aCreative Europe.Ó3

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊI am particularly interested in how issuesconcerning the actual situations and meaningsof art, artistic practice, and art production relateto questions touching on the particular kind ofknowledge that can be produced within theartistic realm (or the artistic field, as PierreBourdieu prefers it) by the practitioners or actorswho operate in its various places and spaces.The multifarious combinations of artists,teachers, students, critics, curators, editors,educators, funders, policymakers, technicians,historians, dealers, auctioneers, caterers, galleryassistants, and so on, embody specific skills andcompetences, highly unique ways and styles ofknowing and operating in the flexibilized,

networked sphere of production andconsumption. This variety and diversity has to betaken into account in order for these epistemesto be recognized as such and to obtain at least aslim notion of what is at stake when one speaksof knowledge in relation to art Ð an idea that is, inthe best of cases, more nuanced anddifferentiated than the usual accounts of thisrelation.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÒFar from preventing knowledge, powerproduces it,Ó as Foucault famously wrote.4 Beingbased on knowledge, truth claims, and belief

systems, power likewise deploys knowledge Ð itexerts power through knowledge, reproducing it

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b r u a r y 2 0 0 9 T o m H o l e r t

A r t i n t h e K n o w l e d g e - b a s e d P o l i s

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Buckminster Fuller speaking at Hornsey College of Art, June 29, 1968. Photograph © Steve Ehrlicher

Kim Howells (speaking) and Alex Roberts during a sit-in meeting. Photograph © John Rae

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and shaping it in accordance with its anonymousand distributed intentions. This is whatarticulates the conditions of its scope and depth.Foucault understood power and knowledge to beinterdependent, naming this mutual inherenceÒpower-knowledge.Ó Power not only supports,but also applies or exploits knowledge. There isno power relation without the constitution of afield of knowledge, and no knowledge that does

not presuppose power relations. These relationstherefore cannot be analyzed from thestandpoint of a knowing subject. Subjects andobjects of knowledge, as well as the modes ofacquiring and distributing knowledges, areeffects of the fundamental, deeply imbricatedpower/knowledge complex and its historicaltransformations.

1. The Hornsey RevolutionOn May 28, 1968, students occupied HornseyCollege of Art in the inner-suburban area of

North London. The occupation originated in adispute over control of the Student Union funds.However, Òa planned programme of films andspeakers expanded into a critique of all aspectsof art education, the social role of art and thepolitics of design. It led to six weeks of intensedebate, the production of more than seventydocuments, a short-lived Movement forRethinking Art and Design Education (MORADE),a three-day conference at the Roundhouse inCamden Town, an exhibition at the Institute ofContemporary Arts, prolonged confrontation withthe local authority, and extensiverepresentations to the Parliamentary SelectCommittee on Student Relations.Ó5

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊArt historian Lisa Tickner, who studied atHornsey College of Art until 1967, has publisheda detailed account of these events anddiscussions forty years after the fact. As early as1969, however (only a few months after theoccupation of Hornsey College of Art had beenbrought to an end by pressure from the above-mentioned local authority in July 1968), Penguinreleased a book on what had already gainedfame as ÒThe Hornsey Affair,Ó edited by students

and staff of the college. This paperback is a mostinteresting collection of writings and visualsproduced during the weeks of occupation andsit-ins, discussions, lectures, and screenings.The book documents the traces and signs of arare kind of enthusiasm within an art-educational environment that was notconsidered at the time to be the most prestigiousin England. Located just below Highgate, it wasdescribed by one of the participants as beingÒsqueezed into crumbling old schools andtottering sheds miles apart, making due with a

societyÕs cast-offs like a colony of refugees.Ó6One lecturer even called it Òa collection of public

lavatories spread over North London.Ó7

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊBut this modernist nightmare of a schoolbecame the physical context of one of the mostradical confrontations and revolutions of theexisting system of art education to take place inthe wake of the events of May Õ68. Not only diddissenting students and staff gather to discussnew terms and models of a networked, self-empowering, and politically relevant education

within the arts, the events and their mediacoverage also drew to Hornsey prominentmembers of the increasingly global alternative-utopian scene, such as Buckminster Fuller.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊHowever, not only large-scale events wereremembered. One student wrote of the smallermeetings and self-organized seminars:

It was in the small seminars of not morethan twenty people that ideas could bethrashed out. Each person felt personallyinvolved in the dialogue and felt the

responsibility to respond vociferously toanything that was said. These discussionsoften went on to the small hours of themorning. If only such a situation werepossible under ÔnormalÕ conditions. Neverhad people en masse participated so fullybefore. Never before had such energy beencreated within the college. PeopleÕs faceswere alight with excitement, as they talkedmore than they had ever talked before. Atleast we had found something which wasreal to all of us. We were not, after all, thecomplacent receivers of an inadequateeducational system. We were activelyconcerned about our education and wewanted to participate.8

From todayÕs standpoint, the discovery of talkingas a medium of agency, exchange, and self-empowerment within an art school or the artworld no longer seems to be a big deal, though itis still far from being conventional practice. Ibelieve that the simple-sounding discovery oftalking as a medium within the context of alarger, historical event such as the ÒHornsey

AffairÓ constitutes one of those underratedmoments of knowledge production in the arts Ðone that I would like to shift towards the centerof a manner of attention that may be (but shouldnot necessarily be) labeled as Òresearch.Ó With atwist of this otherwise over-determined term, Iam seeking to tentatively address a mode ofunderstanding and rendering the institutional,social, epistemological, and political contextsand conditions of knowledge being generatedand disseminated within the arts and beyond.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe participants in the Hornsey revolution

of forty years ago had very strong ideas aboutwhat it meant to be an artist or an art student,




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Poster from Hornsey Occupation, 1968, artist anonymous

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about what was actually at stake in being calleda designer or a painter. They were convinced thatknowledge and knowledge communication withinart education contained enormous flaws thathad to be swept away:

Only such sweeping reforms can solve theproblems . . . In Hornsey language, this wasdescribed as the replacement of the old

ÒlinearÓ (specialized) structure by a newÒnetworkÓ (open, non-specialized)structure . . . It would give the kind offlexible training in generalized, basiccreative design that is needed to adapt torapidly changing circumstances Ð be a realtraining for work, in fact . . . the qualitiesneeded for such a real training are nodifferent from the ideal ones required toproduce maximal individual development.In art and design, the choice between goodworkmen and geniuses is spurious. Any

system worthy of being called Òeducation,Óany system worthy of the emerging newworld, must be both at once. It mustproduce people whose work or ÔvocationÕ isthe creative, general transformation of theenvironment.9

To achieve this ÒworthyÓ system, it wasconsidered necessary to do away with theÒdisastrous consequenceÓ of the Òsplit betweenpractice and theory, between intellect and thenon-intellectual sources of creativity.Ó10 Processheld sway over output, and open-endedness andfree organization of education permeated everyaspect of the Hornsey debates.11 It was alsoclear that one of the most important trends ofthe mid-1960s was the increasing interactionand interpenetration of creative disciplines. ÒArtand Design,Ó the Hornsey documents argued,Òhave become more unified, and moved towardsthe idea of total architecture of sensoryexperienceÓ; England underwent Òa totalrevolution of sensibility.Ó12

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe consequences of the intersectingdevelopments within the rebelling body of

students and staff at Hornsey (and elsewhere),as well as the general changes within society andculture, had to become manifest in the veryconceptual framework not only of art education,but of art discourse as such. Hence, there was awidespread recognition that in future all highereducation in art and design should incorporate apermanent debate within itself. ÒResearch,Ó inthis sense, came to appear an indispensableelement in education:

We regard it as absolutely basic that

research should be an organic part of artand design education. No system devoted

to the fostering of creativity can functionproperly unless original work and thoughtare constantly going on within it, unless itremains on an opening frontier ofdevelopment. As well as being on generalproblems of art and design (techniques,aesthetics, history, etc.) such researchactivity must also deal with the educational

process itself . . . It must be the critical

self-consciousness of the system,continuing permanently the work startedhere in the last weeks [June, July 1968].Nothing condemns the old regime moreradically than the minor, precarious partresearch played in it. It is intolerable thatresearch should be seen as a luxury, or arare privilege.13

Though this emphatic plea for ÒresearchÓ waswritten in a historical situation apparently muchdifferent than our own, it nonetheless helps us to

apprehend our present situation. Many of theterms and categories have become increasinglyprominent in the current debates on artisticresearch, albeit with widely differing intentionsand agendas. It seems to be of the utmostimportance to understand the genealogy ofconflicts and commitments that have led tocontemporary debates on art, knowledge, andscience.

2. An Art Department as a Site of Researchin a University System

Becoming institutionalized as an academicdiscipline at the interface of artistic andscientific practices at an increasing number ofart universities throughout Europe, artisticresearch (sometimes synonymous with notionssuch as Òpractice-led research,Ó Òpractice-basedresearch,Ó or Òpractice-as-researchÓ) has varioushistories, some being rather short, othersspanning centuries. The reasons for establishingprograms and departments fostering thepractice-research nexus are certainly manifold,and differ from one institutional setting to thenext. When art schools are explicitly displaced

into the university system to become sites ofresearch, the demands and expectations of thescientific community and institutionalsponsorship vis-ˆ-vis the research outcomes ofart schools change accordingly.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊEntitled ÒDevelopment and Research of theArts,Ó a new program of the Austrian fundingbody FWF aims at generating the conceptual andmaterial environment for interdisciplinary art-related research within, between, and beyond artuniversities. Thus far, however, the conceptualparameters of the FWF appear to be the subject

of debate and potential revision and extension.One should be particularly careful of any hasty




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Board Room at the African Leadership Academy

6137 McKeldin Library at the University of Maryland

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grafting of a conventional image of a ÒscientificÓmodel or mode of research (whatever it may be)onto the institutional context of an art academy.This is not only a matter of epistemologicalconcern, but of education policies and ofpolitical debate as well.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊOne only has to look at the history of theimplementation of practice-led research in Artand Design in Great Britain. In 1992 the Research

Assessment Exercise (RAE) of the HigherEducation Founding Council for England (HEFCE)began to formulate criteria for so-calledpractice-based/practice-led research,particularly in the field of performance, design,and media. By 1996 the RAE had reached a pointwhere it defined research as

original investigation undertaken in order togain knowledge and understanding. Itincludes work of direct relevance to theneeds of commerce and industry, as well as

to the public and voluntary sectors;scholarship; the invention and generationof ideas, images, performances andartifacts including design, where these leadto new or substantially improved insights;and the use of existing knowledge inexperimental development to produce newor substantially improved materials,devices, products and processes, includingdesign and construction.14

The visual or fine arts of that time had yet to beincluded in this structure of validation, though inthe following years various PhD programs in theUK and elsewhere did try to shift them to anoutput-oriented system of assessment close tothose already established for design, media, andperformance arts. ÒNew or substantiallyimproved insightsÓ as well as Òsubstantiallyimproved materials, devices, products andprocessesÓ are the desired outcomes ofresearch, and the Research Assessment Exercisecould not be more explicit about the compulsoryÒdirect relevance to the needs of commerce andindustry.Ó

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊPARIP (Practice as Research inPerformance) is a research group thatsupervises, assesses, and discusses the ongoingresearch in the new art and design environmentinitiated by the RAE and other organizationsconcerned with higher arts education in the UK.A 2002 report by Angela Piccini repeatedlyfocuses on the relation between research and(artistic) practice, and on the subjects andsubjectivities, competencies, and knowledgesproduced and required by this development.After having interviewed various groups of

researchers and students from the field ofperformance arts and studies, it became clear

that both concepts assume specific meaningsand functions demanded by the configuration oftheir new settings. One of the groups Picciniinterviewed pondered the consequences of theinstitutional speech act that transforms anartistic practice into an artistic practice-as-research:

Making the decision that something is

practice as research imposes on thepractitioner-researcher a set of protocolsthat fall into: 1) the point that thepractitioner-researcher must necessarilyhave a set of separable, demonstrable,research findings that are abstractable, notsimply locked into the experience ofperforming it; and 2) it has to be such anabstract, which is supplied with the pieceof practice, which would set out theoriginality of the piece, set it in anappropriate context, and make it useful to

the wider research community.15

It was further argued that Òsuch protocols arenot fixed,Ó that Òthey are institutionalized(therefore subject to critique and revision) andthe practitioner-researcher communities mustrecognize that.Ó The report also expressedconcern about Òexcluded practices, those thatare not framed as research and are notaddressing current academic trends andfashion,Ó and it asked, Òwhat about practicesthat are dealing with cultures not representedwithin the academy?Ó16

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWhen articulated in terms of such a regimeof academic supervision, evaluation, and control(as it increasingly operates in the Euroscapes ofart education), the reciprocal inflection of theterms ÒpracticeÓ and ÒresearchÓ appears ratherobvious, though they are seldom explicated. Theurge among institutions of art and designeducation to rush the process of laying downvalidating and legitimating criteria to purportedlyrender intelligible the quality of art and designÕsÒnew knowledgeÓ results in sometimes bizarreand ahistorical variations on the semantics of

practice and research, knowledge andknowledge production.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊFor applications and project proposals to besteered through university research committees,they have to be upgraded and shaped in such away that their claims to the originality ofknowledge (and thus their academic legitimacy)become transparent, accountable, and justified.However, to Òestablish a workable consensusabout the value and limits of practice asresearch both within and beyond the communityof those directly involvedÓ seems to be an almost

irresolvable task.17 At the least, it ought to be atask that continues to be open-ended and




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inevitably unresolved.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe problem is, once you enter theacademic power-knowledge system ofaccountability checks and evaluativesupervision, you have either explicitly orimplicitly accepted the parameters of thissystem. Though acceptance does not necessarilyimply submission or surrender to theseparameters, a fundamental acknowledgment of

the ideological principles inscribed in themremains a prerequisite for any form of access,even if one copes with them, contests them,negotiates them, and revises them. Admittedly, itis somewhat contradictory to claim a criticalstance with regard to the transformation of arteducation through an artistic research paradigmwhile simultaneously operating at the heart ofthat same system. I do not have a solution forthis. Nonetheless, I venture that addressing thepower relations that inform and produce the kindof institutional legitimacy/consecration sought

by such research endeavors could go beyondmere lip service and be effective in changing thesituation.

3. Art in the Knowledge-Based PolisI would like to propose, with the support anddrive of a group of colleagues working inside andoutside the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, aresearch project bearing the title ÒArt in theKnowledge-based Polis.Ó The conceptual launchpad for this project is a far-reaching questionabout how art might be comprehended anddescribed as a specific mode of generating anddisseminating knowledge. How might it bepossible to understand the very genealogy ofsignificant changes that have taken place in thestatus, function, and articulation of the visualarts within contemporary globalizing societies?ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWith reference to the work of Frenchsociologist Luc Boltanski, the term polis hasbeen chosen deliberately to render the deepimbrications of both the material (urbanist-spatial, architectural, infrastructural, etc.) andimmaterial (cognitive, psychic, social, aesthetic,cultural, legal, ethical, etc.) dimensions of

urbanity.18 Moreover, the knowledge-based polisis a conflictual space of political contestationconcerning the allocation, availability andexploitation of ÒknowledgeÓ and Òhuman capital.ÓÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAs a consequence, it is also a matter ofinvestigating how the Òknowledge spacesÓ withinthe visual arts and between the protagonists ofthe artistic field are organized and designed.19

What are the modes of exchange and encounterand what kind of communicative and thinkingÒstylesÓ guide the flow of what kind ofknowledge? How are artistic archives of the

present and the recent past configured(technologically, cognition-wise, socially)? In

what ways has artistic production (in terms ofthe deployment and feeding of distributedknowledge networks in the age of ÒrelationalaestheticsÓ) changed, and what are the criticaleffects of such changes on the principle ofindividualized authorship?20

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe implications of this proposal aremanifold, and they are certainly open tocontestation. What, for instance, is the qualifier

enabling it to neatly distinguish between artisticand non-artistic modes of knowledgeproduction? Most likely, there isnÕt one. From(neo-)avant-garde claims of bridging the gapbetween art and life (or those modernist claimswhich insist on the very maintenance of this gap)to issues of academic discipline in the age of theBologna process and outcome-based education,it seems that the problem of the art/non-artdichotomy has been displaced. Today, thisdichotomy seems largely to have devolved into aquestion of how to establish a discursive field

capable of rendering an epistemological andontological realm of artistic/studio practice as ascientifically valid research endeavor.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAs art historian James Elkins puts it,concepts concerning the programmaticgeneration of Ònew knowledgeÓ or ÒresearchÓmay indeed be Òtoo diffuse and too distant fromart practice to be much use.Ó21 Elkins may have apoint here. His skepticism regarding thepractice-based research paradigm in the finearts derives from how institutions (i.e., universityand funding bodies) measure research and PhDprogramsÕ discursive value according tostandards of scientific, disciplinary research. ForElkins, Òwords like research and knowledgeshould be confined to administrative documents,and kept out of serious literature.Ó22 In a mannermost likely informed by science and technologystudies and Bruno Latour, he argues instead thatthe focus should turn toward the Òspecificity ofcharcoal, digital video, the cluttered look ofstudio classrooms (so different from sciencelabs, and yet so similar), the intricacies ofPhotoshop . . . the chaos of the foundry, the heatof under-ventilated computer labs.Ó23 I think this

point is well taken.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊHowever useless the deployment of termssuch as ÒresearchÓ and ÒknowledgeÓ may seem,such uselessness is bound to a reading anddeployment of the terms in a way that remainsdetached from the particular modes of discourseformation in art discourse itself. The moment oneenters the archives of writing, criticism,interviews, syllabi, and other discursivearticulations produced and distributed within theartistic field, the use of terms such as ÒresearchÓand discussion about the politics and production

of ÒknowledgeÓ are revealed as fundamental totwentieth-century art Ð particularly since the




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Art Classroom at The Calhoun School

inception of Conceptual Art in the late 1960s.After all, the modernists, neo- and post-avant-gardists aimed repeatedly at forms and protocolsrelating to academic and intellectual work Ð ofresearch and publication, the iconography of thelaboratory, scientific research, or think tanks.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAdministrative, information, or serviceaesthetics, introduced at various moments ofmodernist and post-modernist art, emulated,

mimicked, caricaturized and endorsed theaesthetics and rhetoric of scientificcommunities. They created representations andmethodologies for intellectual labor on and off-display, and founded migrating and flexiblearchives that aimed to transform the knowledgespaces of galleries and museums according towhat were often feminist agendas.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWithin the art world today, the discursiveformats of the extended library-cum-seminar-cum-workshop-cum-symposium-cum-exhibitionhave become preeminent modes of address and

forms of knowledge production. In a recentarticle in this journal on Òthe educational turn incurating,Ó theorist Irit Rogoff addresses thevarious Òslippages that currently exist betweennotions of Ôknowledge production,Õ Ôresearch,ÕÔeducation,Õ Ôopen-ended production,Õ and Ôself-organized pedagogies,ÕÓ particularly as Òeach of

these approaches seem to have converged into aset of parameters for some renewed facet ofproduction.Ó Rogoff continues, ÒAlthough quitedifferent in their genesis, methodology, andprotocols, it appears that some perceivedproximity to Ôknowledge economiesÕ hasrendered all of these terms part and parcel of acertain liberalizing shift within the world ofcontemporary art practices.Ó However, Rogoff is

afraid that Òthese initiatives are in danger ofbeing cut off from their original impetus andthreaten to harden into a recognizable Ôstyle.ÕÓ Asthe art world Òbecame the site of extensivetalking,Ó which entailed certain new modes ofgathering and increased access to knowledge,Rogoff rightly wonders whether Òwe put anyvalue on what was actually being said.Ó24

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThus, if James Elkins is questioning thepossibility of shaping studio-based research andknowledge production into something that mightreceive Òinterest on the part of the wider

universityÓ and be acknowledged as a Òposition Ðand, finally, a discipline Ð that speaks to existingconcerns,Ó 25 Rogoff seems to be far moreinterested in how alternative practices ofcommunality and knowledgegeneration/distribution might provide anempowering capacity.

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4. Artistic Knowledge and Knowledge-based Economies

Since the neo-avant-gardes of the 1960s (at thelatest), knowledge generation within the visualarts has expanded through the constitutivedissolution (or suspension) of its subjects andmedia. Meanwhile, however, its specificaesthetic dimension has continued to be marked

by elusiveness and unavailability Ð by doingthings, Òof which we donÕt know what they areÓ(Adorno).26 A guiding hypothesis of the ÒArt in theKnowledge-based PolisÓ conceit is that thispeculiar relationship between the availabilityand unavailability of artistic knowledgeproduction assigns a central task tocontemporary cultural theory, as such. This notonly concerns issues of aesthetics andepistemology, but also its relation to other(allegedly non-artistic) spaces of knowledgeproduction.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTo advance this line of reasoning, thevarious reconfigurations of knowledge, its socialfunction, and its distribution (reflected withinlate modernist and post-modernistepistemological discourse) have to beconsidered. From the invocation of the post-industrial information society27 to the critique ofmodernist ÒmetanarrativesÓ28 and thetheorization of new epistemological paradigmssuch as reflexivity, transdisciplinarity, andheterogeneity,29 the structure, status and shapeof knowledge has changed significantly. Amongstother consequences, this has given rise to anumber of specific innovative policiesconcerning knowledge (and its production) onnational and transnational levels.30

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊA point of tension that can becomeproductive here is the traditional claim thatartists almost constitutively work on the hindside of rationalist, explicated knowledge Ð in therealms of non-knowledge (or emergentknowledge). As a response to the prohibition andmarginalization of certain other knowledges bythe powers that be, the apparent incompatibilityof non-knowledge with values and maxims of

knowledge-based economies (efficiency,innovation, and transferability) may providestrategies for escaping such dominant regimes.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊMichel FoucaultÕs epistemology offers ahardly noticed reasoning on artistic knowledgethat appears to contradict this emphasis on non-knowledge, while simultaneously providing amethodological answer to the conundrum. In his1969 LÕArchŽologie du savoir (The Archaeology of Knowledge), Foucault argues that the technical,material, formal, and conceptual decisions inpainting are traversed by a Òpositivity of

knowledgeÓ which could be Ònamed, uttered, andconceptualizedÓ in a Òdiscursive practice.Ó31 This

very Òpositivity of knowledgeÓ (of the individualartwork, a specific artistic practice, or a mode ofpublication, communication, and display) shouldnot be confused with a rationalist transparencyof knowledge. This Òdiscursive practiceÓ mighteven refuse any such discursivity. Nonetheless,the works and practices do show a Òpositivity ofknowledgeÓ Ð the signature of a specific (andprobably secret) knowledge.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAt the heart of ÒArt in the Knowledge-basedPolisÓ would be a recognition, description, andanalysis of such ÒpositivityÓ Ð as much as anexploration of the epistemological conditions inwhich such positivity appears. Just as the formsand discourses through which artists inform,equip, frame, and communicate their productionhave become manifold and dispersed, so has anew and continuously expanding field ofresearch opened up as a result.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn many ways, the recent history ofmethodologies and modes of articulation in the

visual arts is seen to be co-evolutionary withsuch developments as participate in the complextransition from an industrial to a postindustrial(or in terms of regulation theory: from a Fordist toa post-Fordist) regime. However, the relationshipbetween art and society cannot be grasped interms of a one-sided, sociological-type causality.Rather, the relationship must be seen as highlyreciprocal and interdependent. Hence it ispossible to claim that in those societies forwhich ÒknowledgeÓ has been aligned withÒpropertyÓ and ÒlaborÓ as a Òsteeringmechanism,Ó the visual arts dwell in an isolatedposition.32 The pertinent notion of ÒimmateriallaborÓ that originated in the vocabulary of post-operaismo (where it is supposed to embrace theentire field of Òknowledge, information,communications, relations or even affectsÓ) hasbecome one of the most important sources ofsocial and economic value production.33 Hence,it is crucial for the visual arts and their various(producing, communicating, educating, etc.)actors to fit themselves into this reality, oroppose the very logic and constraints of itsÒcognitive capitalism.Ó34

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAmongst such approaches is an informal,ephemeral, and implicit Òpractical wisdomÓ thatinforms individual and collective habits,attitudes, and dialects. Moreover, the influenceof feminist, queer, subaltern, or post-colonialepistemologies and Òsituated knowledgesÓ is ofgreat importance in relation to the visual arts.35

Thus, for the purposes of inquiring into ÒArt in theKnowledge-based Polis,Ó the array of artisticarticulations (both discursive and those deemednon-discursive) will be conceived as reaching farbeyond common art/science and theory/practice

dichotomies, while a careful analysis of themarks left on artistic epistemologies will be




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pursued throughout.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe relocation and re-contextualization ofthe knowledge issue create room-for-playabsent in traditional research designs. Thesocio-spatial dimension of knowledgeproduction within the visual arts shouldconstitute another essential interest. Urbanspaces are understood today as infrastructuresof networked, digital architectures of knowledge

as much as material, built environments. Thecontemporary knowledge-based city isstructured and managed by informationtechnology and databases, and the newtechnologies of power and modes of governancethey engender (from surveillance strategies tointellectual property regulations to the legalcontrol of network access) demand an adaptedset of methodologies and critical approaches.Much of the work to be done might deployupdated versions of regime analysis andFoucauldian governmentality studies (which

would by no means exclude other approaches).This urban Ònetwork societyÓ displays features ofa complex Òpolitics of knowledgeÓ that cannot belimited to stately and corporate management ofbiotechnological knowledge, because it is alsoactively involved in sponsoring the so-calledcreative industries, universities, museums, etc.36

By this token, it also becomes important toinvestigate and explore the social, political, andeconomic shares held by the visual arts in theknowledge-based polis.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWhat is needed is a multifocal,multidisciplinary perspective with a fresh look atthe interactions and constitutive relationsbetween knowledge and the visual arts. Thespecific, historically informed relations betweenartistic and scientific methodologies (theirepistemologies, knowledge claims, andlegitimating discourses) should play a major role.However, as deliberately distinguished fromcomparable research programs, research will beguided onto an expanded epistemic terrain onwhich ÒscientificÓ knowledge is no longer aprivileged reference. Internal exchanges andcommunications between the social/cultural

worlds of the visual arts and theirtransdisciplinary relationalities will bestructured and shaped by those very forms ofknowledge whose legitimacy and visibility arethe subject of highly contested epistemologicalstruggles.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAn adequate research methodology has tobe developed in order to allow the researcherspositions on multiple social-material time-spaces of actual making and doing Ð positionsthat permit and actually encourage activeinvolvement in the artistic processes in the

stages of production before publication,exhibition, and critical reception. I would suggest

that notions of ÒresearchÓ motivated by a senseof political urgency and upheaval are of greatimportance here. As can be seen in what tookplace at Hornsey in 1968, positions that arecriticized (and desired) as an economic andsystemic privilege should be contested as well as(re)claimed. Otherwise, I am afraid that theimplementation of practice-based researchprograms and PhDs in art universities will turn

out to be just another bureaucratic maneuver tostabilize hegemonic power/knowledgeconstellations, disavowing the very potentialitiesand histories at the heart of notions of ÒpracticeÓand Òresearch.ÓÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ×This essay is a revised and abridged version of a talk given atthe conference ÒArt/Knowledge. Between Epistemology andProduction AestheticsÓ at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna,November 11, 2008.A Chinese translation of this text has been published in issue#4 of Contemporary Art & Investment..




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Tom Holert is an art historian and cultural critic. Aformer editor of Texte zur Kunst and co-publisher ofSpex magazine, Holert currently lives in Berlin andteaches and conducts research in the Institute of ArtTheory and Cultural Studies at the Academy of FineArts Vienna. He contributes to journals andnewspapers such as Artforum, Texte zur Kunst,Camera Austria, Jungle World, and Der Standard.Among his recent publications are a book on migrationand tourism (Fliehkraft: Gesellschaft in Bewegung Ðvon Migranten und Touristen, with Mark Terkessidis), a

monograph on Marc Camille Chaimowicz' 1972installation "Celebration? Realife" (2007) and acollection of chapters on visual culture and politics(Regieren im Bildraum, 2008).

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ[email protected], ÒTo the Knowledge Producers,Óin Intersections. At theCrossroads of the Production of Knowledge, Precarity,Subjugation and theReconstruction of History,Display and De-Linking, ed. LinaDokuzović, Eduard Freudmann,Peter Haselmayer, and LisbethKovačič (Vienna: Lšcker, 2008),27.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ2Simon Sheikh, ÒTalk Value:Cultural Industry and KnowledgeEconomy,Ó in On KnowledgeProduction: A Critical Reader inContemporary Art, ed. MariaHlavajova, Jill Winder, and BinnaChoi (Utrecht: BAK, basis vooractuele kunst; Frankfurt amMain: Revolver, Archiv fŸraktuelle Kunst, 2008), 196-7.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ3Chris Wainwright, ÒTheImportance of Artistic Researchand its Contribution to ÔNewKnowledgeÕ in a CreativeEurope,Ó European League ofInstitutes of the Arts Strategy

Paper (May 2008),http://www.elia-artschools.org/publications/position/research.xml.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ4Michel Foucault, Discipline andPunish: The Birth of the Prison,trans. Alan Sheridan (New York:Vintage, [1975] 1995).

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ5Lisa Tickner, Hornsey 1968: The

Art School Revolution (London:Frances Lincoln, 2008), 13-14.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ6T.N., ÒNotes Towards theDefinition of Anti-Culture,Ó inThe Hornsey Affair , ed. Studentsand staff of Hornsey College ofArt (Harmondsworth, London:Penguin, 1969), 15.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ7Ibid., 29.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ8Ibid., 38-7.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ9Ibid., 116-7.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ10Ibid. [Document 46], 118.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ11

See ibid. [Document 46], 122.ÊÊÊÊÊÊ12Ibid., [Document 46], 124.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ13Ibid. [Document 46], 128-129.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ14Angela Piccini, ÒAnHistoriographic Perspective onPractice as Research,Ó PARIP(Practice as Research inPerformance),http://www.bristol.ac.uk/parip/t_ap.htm.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ15Ibid.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ16Ibid.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ17See Anna Pakes, ÒOriginalEmbodied Knowledge: TheEpistemology of the New inDance Practice as Research,ÓResearch in Dance Education 4,no. 2 (December 2003): 144.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ18See Luc Boltanski and Laurent

ThŽvenot, De la justification. LesŽconomies de la grandeur (Paris:Gallimard, 1991); Luc Boltanskiand éve Chiapello, Le nouvelesprit du capitalisme (Paris:Gallimard, 1999).

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ19See Hans-Jšrg Rheinberger,Michael Hagner, and BettinaWahrig-Schmidt, eds., RŠumedes Wissens: ReprŠsentation,Codierung, Spur (Berlin:Akademie Verlag, 1997).

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ20See Caroline A. Jones, ÒTheServer/User Mode: the Art ofOlafur Eliasson,Ó Artforum

International 46, no. 2 (October2007): 316-324, 396, 402.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ21James Elkins, ÒAfterword: OnBeyond Research and NewKnowledge,Ó in Thinking Through

Art: Reflections on Art asResearch, ed. Katy Macleod andLin Holdridge (London/New York:Routledge, 2006), 243.



ÊÊÊÊÊÊ24Irit Rogoff, ÒTurning,Ó e-flux

journal, no. 0 (November 2008),http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/18.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ25Elkins, ÒAfterword,Ó 244.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ26Theodor W. Adorno, ÒVers unemusique informelle,Ó inGesammelte Schriften, vol. 16,(Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp,1978), 493-540.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ27See Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (New

York: Harper & Row, 1973).ÊÊÊÊÊÊ28See Jean-Fran•ois Lyotard, Lacondition postmoderne: rapportsur le savoir (Paris: Minuit,1979).

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ29See Michael Gibbons et al., TheNew Production of Knowledge:The Dynamics of Science andResearch in Contemporary Societies (London: Sage, 1994).

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ30See Organisation for EconomicCo-Operation and Development,The Knowledge-based Economy

(Paris: Organisation forEconomic Co-Operation and




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Development, 1996); ÒPuttingKnowledge Into Practice: aBroad-Based InnovationStrategy for the EU,Ócommunication from theCommission to the Council, theEuropean Parliament, theEuropean Economic and SocialCommittee, and the Committeeof the Regions (September 9,2006),http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/innovation/index_en.htm.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ31Michel Foucault, LÕArchŽologiedu savoir (Paris: Gallimard,1969).

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ32Nico Stehr, Wissenspolitik: Die†berwachung des Wissens(Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp,2003), 30.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ33Antonio Negri and MichaelHardt, Multitude: War andDemocracy in the Age of Empire(New York: Penguin, 2004), 126.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ34Yann Moulier-Boutang, Le

capitalisme cognitif: La NouvelleGrande Transformation (Paris:ƒditions Amsterdam, 2007).

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ35See Donna Haraway, ÒSituatedKnowledges: The ScienceQuestion in Feminism and thePrivilege of Partial Perspective,ÓFeminist Studies 14, no. 3(Autumn 1988): 575-599.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ36See Stehr, Wissenspolitik.




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