Artistic Research For Future Challenges

panel organized by A2RU (Alliance for Artistic Research in Universities)

Online program of the Learning Planet Festival, Learning Planet Institute (ex-CRI), Paris, 2023.


This highly open festival brings together each year a vast international academic and peri-academic community, engaged in the field of education, knowledge production for Sustainable Development, and inclusive pedagogical innovation.-In this context, A2RU (federation of universities attached to the University of Michigan, USA) invited a selection of artistic research actors serving these goals, whether by deepening the levers of creativity, by creating bridges between artistic experimentation and innovation, by fostering trans-disciplinarity, and or by getting involved in foresight.-Raphaële Bidault-Waddington emphasizesd the specific vocabulary that she designs, such as the notions of idea engineering, aesthetic intelligence, polygonal research, and “art-based future research” to innovate on these different questions.-Dans ce cadre, A2RU (fédération d’universités rattachée à l’Université de Michigan, USA) invite des acteurs de la recherche artistique venant servir ces enjeux, que ce soit en approfondissant les leviers de la créativité, en créant des ponts entre expérimentation artistique et innovation, en favorisant la transdisciplinarité, et ou encore en allant vers la prospective.-Raphaële Bidault-Waddington met l’accent sur le vocabulaire spécifique qu’elle utilise, tel que les notions d’ingénierie d’idées, d’intelligence esthétique, de recherche polygonale, de « art-based future research » pour adresser ces différentes questions.


Panel presentation


In recent years, a growing number of researchers from the field of the Arts, are developing, in and beyond academia, innovative approaches to address the future and its critical challenges, such as the environment, post-coloniality or technologies, and have an increased impact on society.

The arts are a universal language. In our education systems and research methodologies, these essential tools and perspectives the arts offer have been underutilized. This group of creative futurists and arts-integrated researchers are working to re-integrate the arts to benefit learning and understanding of the earth and each other. Artists and creatives are known for methods that are speculative, non-reductive, and attend to both humanistic and natural concerns. This session will explore the promise and the power of the arts to address systemic problems.

For this exploratory round-table at the Learning Planet Festival, a2ru is pleased to invite four art-based researchers who are pursuing pioneering research practice, platforms and strategies to contribute to future research and positive change. Together, they will share their experience, and discuss how to better value and amplify that movement.

Participants in this roundtable are actively exploring and practicing creative integration in the public sector, higher education, and industry.

Speakers:
Aaron Knochel, Professor, Penn State University
R. Benjamin Knapp, Director, ICAT, Virginia Tech
Raphaële Bidault-Waddington, artist-researcher, futurist, LIID Future Lab
Theo Edmonds, Associate Dean/Co-Founder, University of Colorado Denver/Imaginator Academy

Moderator: Maryrose Flanigan, Executive Director, Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru).

Recap : https://a2ru.org/recap-a2rus-artistic-research-for-future-challenges/