Artist-Philosophers. Philosophy as Arts-Based Research.

From the very beginning of European philosophy in ancient Greece the relation between philosophy and arts has been highly problematic. On the one hand we find "artist-philosophers" like Plato or Nietzsche, whose philosophical investigations used artistic practices to demonstrate their thoughts; on the other hand philosophy has been extremly hostile to such practices, especially since Plato himself banned a wide range of arts from his ideal state ruled by philosophers. Philosophers, since then, have often even opposed arts, claiming that they were doing science (reasoning) rather than "art"which they equal with "poetry", based on fiction and pure imaginations. Through his conception of the "Künstlerphilosoph" (artist-philosopher), Nietzsche probably questioned this Socratic image of philosophy most profoundly, since this conceptual persona longs for a new kind of post-Socratic "philosophers to come" who are ready to do philosophy in an almost "anti-Platonic" manner by precisely crossing- over the disciplines of arts and science. Not to mind their gap, but in order to find a new (anti-Platonic) relation between philosophy and arts that will produce a different kind of philosophy and new forms of philosophy-based art in the end. In accordance with this historical demand, our PEEK-project aims to develop a research performance in which philosophy is methodologically and conceptually demonstrated as a matter of arts-based research rather then a "pure" science. This aim ought to be realized by organizing a research-festival "Philosophy On Stage#4" at Tanzquartier Vienna, in the context of which artists, philosophers and scientists will collaborate to demonstrate on stage their theoria on Zarathustra. The Artist Philosopher both in a scientific and an artistic manner. Thereby they will have to demonstrate anwers to research questions such as: What happens to the traditional image of philosophy and arts, once philosophers and artists are called to stage their thoughts and implement arts-based research practices for the demonstration of their ideas? Can Nietzsche`s notion of the artist-philosopher help us to understand what performing philosophy as a kind of arts-based research could mean? This project will be carried out in close co-operation between the University of Applied Arts Vienna, University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MRS), University of Bremen, University of Surrey, University of Applied Arts Zurich and Tanzquartier Vienna. It will consolidate and enhance the international research of the worldwide growing network working on the edge of Philosophy & Performance.

The main question of our research project was: What happens to the traditional image of philosophy, once philosophers start to stage philosophy and implement arts-based practices into their discipline? In order to respond to this question, Nietzsches concept of the Künstlerphilosoph (artist-philosopher) became a guiding code of practice for us.For the artistic-experimental part of our research project we organised three Art Labs (http://homepage.univie.ac.at/arno.boehler/php/?p=7781), in which lecture performances for the research festival Philosophy on Stage#4 were developed. The research festival (http://homepage.univie.ac.at/arno.boehler/php/?p=8009) finally took place at Tanzquartier Wien from 26.29. Nov. 2015. In the course of this event the researchers made use of artistic practices by developing lectures, lecture performances, artistic interventions etc. in close transdisciplinary co-operations (see project website: http://homepage.univie.ac.at/arno.boehler/php/?p=9987 and SAR research catalogue: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/365941/408730). More than one thousand visitors give evidence of the extraordinary public interest in our new research approach, which has been discussed intensively also in daily newspapers and radio stations. Some works have been presented on further festivals like Wiener Festwochen, the 12th international Kant Congress, Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi or City University of Hongkong.Our theory part was realized in three conferences (http://homepage.univie.ac.at/arno.boehler/php/?p=9836) and five publications (http://homepage.univie.ac.at/arno.boehler/php/?p=9705).The first publication, issue 35 of the journal polylog Berührungen: Zum Verhältnis von Philosophie und Kunst, investigates philosophy as artistic research from an intercultural perspective. In the second and third publicationa bi-lingual edition (German/English) of the peer reviewed journal PERFORMANCE PHILOSOPHY Philosophy On Stage: The Concept of Immanence in Contemporary Art and Philosophy (Vol. 3/2 and 3/3 2017)we considered thinking no more to be the outcome of an isolated subject. Rather, we claimed that the process of thinking has to be conceived as an expressive mode of our collectively shared being-in-the-world. The fourth publication, the anthology Philosophy On Stage. Philosophie als künstlerische Forschung, finally discussed the question: What happens to the traditional image of philosophy, once philosophers start to stage philosophy and implement arts-based practices into their discipline? The anthology posed these questions in the context of the research festival Philosophy On Stage#4. The fifth publication is the book Actors and the Art of Performance. Under Exposure from Susanne Valerie Granzer, which was published in English by Palgrave Macmillan in 2016.Our method to pose philosophical problems in artistic field performances and to understand Philosophy as Artistic Research meanwhile became a role model for several research festivals in Europe. In a residency programme for artistic research, co-founded by our principal investigators Böhler and Granzer, this method is now even tested from a cultural perspective outside of Europe in India (http://homepage.univie.ac.at/arno.boehler/php/?page_id=8787).