VIS #14: Experiment and failure in focus

The evening featured presentations by Anne Gry Haugland, Vice Rector for Research at SKH, Heidi Möller, VIS editorial project manager, and Michael Duch, editor of VIS #14. Five of the contributing artists – Alexander Skantze, Márcia Nemer, Alessandra Di Pisa, Robert Stasinski, and Helene Berg – presented their expositions. The event began with mingling and concluded with a soup dinner together with participants from the symposium bodies as institutions as bodies, which was taking place simultaneously at SKH.

The new issue of VIS gathers eight artistic research projects that explore experimentation, uncertainty, and the art of failure. The theme The Heart of the Experiment (and the Art of Failure) investigates artistic processes where the act of experimenting itself is central, and the outcome cannot be predicted. Editor Michael Duch notes that many artistic research projects demand a clearly defined result before the work even begins – but what possibilities are opened when the experiment itself is the focus, and failure becomes a productive part of the process?

Featured artists include Helene Berg, who explores the balance between control and loss of control (inspired by the kung fu film Drunken Master), and Alexander Skantze, who experiments with artificial intelligence to take over his role as scriptwriter for the TV series Morden i Sandhamn. In Gestaltology Encoded, Alessandra Di Pisa and Robert Stasinski explore the interplay between humans, machines, and environment through an AI-driven artistic ecosystem, while Márcia Nemer investigates memory and forgetting in her poetic exploration of failure.

The issue also features contributions by Elina Koivisto, Simina Oprescu, Richie Lux Kramár, and Annika Borg, all of whom place experimentation at the heart of their artistic research, exploring failure, improvisation, and unpredictability as central methods in creative practice.

Thank you to everyone who attended!

Read the full issue here: www.visjournal.nu

From left: Robert Stasinski, Helene Berg, Alessandra Di Pisa, Marcia Nemer, Heidi Möller, Efva Lilja, Alexander Skantze, and Michael Duch.

Michael Duch, editor of the issue, presents the theme The Heart of the Experiment (and the Art of Failure).

Marcia Nemer, contributing artist in VIS, talks about her exposition and research project, where she experiments (and fails) with remembering something she wants to forget.

Helene Berg, contributing artist in VIS, presents her exposition Possible and Barely Possible Moves, inspired by the kung-fu film Drunken Master.

Alexander Skantze, a contributing artist in VIS, explores what happens when AI steps in to take over his work as a scriptwriter and TV dramaturge.