Is the body the primary locus of our knowledge of the world? Does it enable us to know ourselves as being-with-others? In the social sciences these ideas have only gained traction in recent decades, but in artistic practice they have long been fundamental. For artists it is obvious that much of our practice is spent developing our knowledge of how to do something. This not only goes for musicians, dancers, and other performers, but equally for visual artists in their disciplinary variety and hybridity.
Artists have acted out know(ledge)-how and have shared it through the 'show and tell' of art development and education for centuries. Perhaps artistic research has then earned its right-of-way in the development of “embodied knowledge.” Originating from real-time physical action and intuition, however, embodied knowledge is often tacit or unconscious and thus remains hard to communicate.
In the one-day symposium Bodies of Evidence (28 April, Cultuurcentrum Hasselt, 09:00 - 22:00), researchers from different artistic disciplines will take up this seminal challenge. In a series of talks, lectures and interventions they will attempt to map out corporeal knowledge as a crucial aspect of artistic research.
Bodies of Evidence is organized by PXL-MAD School of Arts, RITCS School of Arts, UHasselt, VUB, Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, ARIA (Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts) and Brussels Arts Platform.