In Touch: Encounters between Art and Research

The entanglements between the realms of science and art have always been multiple—even more so in our times, although often this is not easily to be seen at the surface. Over the last years, this interest has found its expression in a series of conversations and engagements of Hans-Jörg Rheinberger with the oeuvre of various artists. In Touch is the result of these discussions. Taken together, they create an encompassing picture of the author’s approach. The reflections and deliberations on the oeuvre of seven different artists convey an impression of the ways in which Rheinberger addresses the work of artists, not as art historical exegeses, but rather as engagements with the oeuvre as an ongoing process. In the conversations conducted with artists and curators on aspects of the actual debate about artistic research, what is at stake is an understanding of the arts as research processes possessing their own character and specificities. These conversations find their extension in a monological form, focusing on the relations between scientific and artistic research—on what unites and what separates them. The figure of the experiment and its multiple facets stand in the center of these explorations. A number of vignettes turning around objects that have again and again aroused the interest of scientists as well as artists concludes these investigations. Since the close of the millennium, there is an ongoing international debate among artists, in art universities as well as among exhibition curators around the theme of artistic research. In Touch intends to intervene in the debate and to enrich it with a personal contribution.