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Unlearning Prompt: visualize unlearning

Prompt: "visualize unlearning", made with Ideogram, January 2025

Maj Ørskov: "Since, in the context of the artistic practices that interest me, the practice of unlearning relates directly to the production, circulation and instrumentalization of knowledge, I also find the concept of unlearning to be a key methodological stance to think, write and practice through when interacting analytically with these works." Continue reading
    Thinking, writing, practicing in circles All the steps towards an image generated with Stable Diffusion XL and the prompt "Thinking, writing, practicing in circles"

    All the steps towards an image generated with Stable Diffusion XL and the prompt "Thinking, writing, practicing in circles", January 2025.

    Maj Ørskov: "we, researchers of contemporary art, are forced not just to work progressively in line with the history of art, when composing a problem or object of analysis, but to work in circles across the analytic material that we find of relevance." Continue reading
      Reflexive transformation An image generated with the prompt "The aesthetic is political". The red dots show the zones of the image activated by the word "political" in the prompt. The visualization is created using DAAM, March 2025.

      An image generated with the prompt "The aesthetic is political". The red dots show the zones of the image activated by the word "political" in the prompt. The visualization is created using DAAM, March 2025.

      Jacob Lund: "The aesthetic is political precisely because of its ability to differentiate itself from the normally inconspicuous organization of our everyday lifeworld, and, through such differentiation, provoke critical reflection on this organization — which is what makes a certain degree of exhibition of decisive importance.[2]" Continue reading

      Maj Ørskov: "I want to ask what consequences this implied precedence of reflexivity over more bodily circumstances has for the analytic potential of the term. In Rebentisch’s and Lund’s writing on the phenomenon, I find a lack of reflections regarding the more “practical” or "material" (in lack of better words) dimensions of reflexive transformation. Under which spatial-temporal conditions can an intense exchange between an interpreting subject and a sensemaking object come to qualify as reflexive transformation?" Continue reading
        Reality/virkelighed Prompt: visualize reality

        Prompt: visualize reality, made with Ideogram, January 2025

        Jacob Lund: "Reality is constituted by what is at work, virker, in the world; by what is in operation, what operates; and by what has effects and informs our perception and understanding of the world. The artistic practices in question here operate in and on reality and demonstrate that the reality of the world, virkeligheden, is negotiable and can be made to work, virke, otherwise." Continue reading
          Planetarity Prompt: visualize planetary entanglement

          Prompt: visualize planetary entanglement, made with Ideogram, January 2025

          Jacob Lund: "Entering the anthropocene epoch influences our very perception of time. Hence, we are not only dealing with a new epoch replacing an old one, the Holocene, in a process of linear progressive development – which in the case of the Earth spans more than 4,5 billion years, a time scale that is highly abstract to our human perception. The new epoch is also accompanied by an increasing need for us to relate to a planetary scale, according to which we, as inhabitants of the same Earth, globally and across our cultural differences and national histories, share the same historical now, the same present." Continue reading
            Ordinary research A composite image showing tthe zones activated by different words in the prompt.

            A composite of four images generated with the prompt "to understand the different processes and gestures which together constitute ordinary analysis within art research today" by Stable Diffusion. On the left top, the red and yellow zones represent the parts of the image most affected by the term "art". On the top right, the zones affected by the term "and". On the bottom row, the red and yellow zones represent the parts affected by the terms "ordinary" and "research" respectively. March 2025.

            Maj Ørskov: "Consequently, I would say that the core practice of humanistic research in general, and particularly the core practice of art research, is analysis. However, I find that we have a relatively poor language to understand the different processes and gestures which together constitute ordinary analysis within art research today." Continue reading
              Institutions/ dependencies/ entanglement Prompt: visualize institutions/ dependencies/ entanglement

              Prompt: visualize institutions/ dependencies/ entanglement, made with Ideogram, January 2025

              Nicolas Malevé: "Art is not only art and its methods proliferate outside of its traditional remits under the constraint of an external factor. The art school inundates the art world and a majority of trained artists are excluded from the art market (or who refuse to join it or abide by its rules, a combination of all that). This population is not just an army of reserve for the art world or art education. They learn other professions, they are “reconverted”. Continue reading
                Historicity A composite image showing tthe zones activated by different words in the prompt.

                A composite of two images generated with the prompt "a global interconnection of different presents" by Stable Diffusion. On the left, the red zones represent the parts of the image most affected by the term "interconnection". On the right, the zones affected by the term "present". March 2025.

                Jacob Lund: "What I find crucial about our present, the present present, is that it is conditioned by con-temporaneity, understood as a global interconnection of differentpresents, with different pre-histories, and of different time-experiences. It is an idea of contemporaneity as a, at least in principle, shared present across divisive cultural and historical differences; of a temporary unity of the present across the planet." Continue reading
                  Flammability Synthetic image showing disguised protesters in front of an art institution in flames

                  Prompt: Amateurish photo of the new york modern museum of art in flames contrast between the white building and the flames at night with a crowd of disguised artists demonstrating, generated with Flux Schnell, March 2025.

                  Nicolas Malevé: "Indeed the consequences of the perilous exercise of pleasing collectors and donors whilst decolonizing the collection offers the perfect fetish to the alt right that never tires to denounce the hypocrisy of the left and their secret alliance to the elite. Whilst museums are in a perfect trap, the institutions that sought to give structural room of manoeuvre to progressive projects, such as the recent documenta, are not in a better place." Continue reading
                    Exhibition A composite image that shows a synthetic image and the vizualisation of the zones where a word in the prompt has significant effect.

                    Image: On the left, an image generated with Stable Diffusion 1.4 and the prompt "a certain openness in regard to sense". On the right, a visualization of the parts of the image (in yellow and red pixels) which correspond to the zones activated by the word "regard" in the prompt. March 2025. 

                    Jacob Lund: "The act of showing, displaying, exhibiting and demonstrating something, is an indispensable part of the manifestation of any work of art – contemporary as well as modern – and hence a condition for its being perceived and experienced. This is not yet, however, what makes the thing being shown art or an aesthetic object, be it physical or not. What makes it artistic, or at least aesthetic, is a certain openness with regard to the sense or signification of the thing that appears, which ignites a process of reflexivity that, ultimately, is a negotiation of the world and how we live in it." Continue reading
                      Diagramming Prompt: visualize diagramming

                      Prompt: visualize diagramming, made with Ideogram, January 2025

                      Nicolas Malevé: "The practice of diagramming requires the unlearning of expected positions, working against my initial assumptions. To undo a certain image of the controversy that I have in mind when I encounter a situation." Continue reading
                        Critical assemblage Prompt: visualize critical assemblage

                        Prompt: visualize critical assemblage, made with Ideogram, January 2025

                        Nicolas Malevé: "Critical assemblage presumes that to critique is not simply to formulate an argument against something or someone. It is to assemble the conditions for a critique to be formulated and be listened to as much as to formulate an argument. These conditions are not determined by the subject who formulates the critique alone. This means that the locus of the critique is distributed." Continue reading
                          Contemporary conditions All the steps to generate a synthetic image

                          All the steps towards an image generated with Stable Diffusion XL and the prompt "an aesthetics that includes more-than-human agents", March 2025. 

                          Jacob Lund: "We are in need of developing an aesthetics that includes more-than-human agents and recognises that we are bound to Earth and inescapably entangled in its dynamic being, but without letting go of human responsibility and political agency." Continue reading
                            Composition Prompt: visualize composition

                            Prompt: visualize composition, made with Ideogram, January 2025

                            Maj Ørskov: "I am aware that the practice of composition as laid out here contributes to further expose the fundamental fragility and unprovability of our knowledge production systems, but I say: wonderful!" Continue reading

                            Nicolas Malevé: "To compose an object then requires to move across all the layers of this problem. To strategically contribute to the general economy of attention, to work on the conditions of discernibility. And be reflexive about the implications of making visible and discernible." Continue reading
                              Autonomy Prompt: visualize artistic autonomy

                              Prompt: visualize artistic autonomy, made with Ideogram, January 2025

                              Jacob Lund: "My assumption is that we, if we are to talk about artistic autonomy today, should talk about the autonomy of a particular form of practice and the experiential process that is related to this practice, rather than the autonomy of a given object-based work or the subject position of the artist as autonomous." Continue reading
                                Aesthetic/Artistic practice Prompt: visualize what aesthetic practice is

                                Prompt: visualize what aesthetic practice is, made with Ideogram, January 2025

                                Jacob Lund: "Thus, artistic aesthetic practice is not only a particular way of engaging with the sensuous world, but also involves the production of aesthetic reflective perception. In artistic practice the production of aesthetic perception is addressed to a public. In this sense, an artistic aesthetic practice proper involves the invitation of an audience, a public, to take part in the process of sensing and sense-making." Continue reading
                                  Unlearning Prompt: visualize unlearning

                                  Prompt: "visualize unlearning", made with Ideogram, January 2025

                                  Maj Ørskov: "Since, in the context of the artistic practices that interest me, the practice of unlearning relates directly to the production, circulation and instrumentalization of knowledge, I also find the concept of unlearning to be a key methodological stance to think, write and practice through when interacting analytically with these works." Continue reading
                                    Thinking, writing, practicing in circles All the steps towards an image generated with Stable Diffusion XL and the prompt "Thinking, writing, practicing in circles"

                                    All the steps towards an image generated with Stable Diffusion XL and the prompt "Thinking, writing, practicing in circles", January 2025.

                                    Maj Ørskov: "we, researchers of contemporary art, are forced not just to work progressively in line with the history of art, when composing a problem or object of analysis, but to work in circles across the analytic material that we find of relevance." Continue reading
                                      Reflexive transformation An image generated with the prompt "The aesthetic is political". The red dots show the zones of the image activated by the word "political" in the prompt. The visualization is created using DAAM, March 2025.

                                      An image generated with the prompt "The aesthetic is political". The red dots show the zones of the image activated by the word "political" in the prompt. The visualization is created using DAAM, March 2025.

                                      Jacob Lund: "The aesthetic is political precisely because of its ability to differentiate itself from the normally inconspicuous organization of our everyday lifeworld, and, through such differentiation, provoke critical reflection on this organization — which is what makes a certain degree of exhibition of decisive importance.[2]" Continue reading

                                      Maj Ørskov: "I want to ask what consequences this implied precedence of reflexivity over more bodily circumstances has for the analytic potential of the term. In Rebentisch’s and Lund’s writing on the phenomenon, I find a lack of reflections regarding the more “practical” or "material" (in lack of better words) dimensions of reflexive transformation. Under which spatial-temporal conditions can an intense exchange between an interpreting subject and a sensemaking object come to qualify as reflexive transformation?" Continue reading
                                        Reality/virkelighed Prompt: visualize reality

                                        Prompt: visualize reality, made with Ideogram, January 2025

                                        Jacob Lund: "Reality is constituted by what is at work, virker, in the world; by what is in operation, what operates; and by what has effects and informs our perception and understanding of the world. The artistic practices in question here operate in and on reality and demonstrate that the reality of the world, virkeligheden, is negotiable and can be made to work, virke, otherwise." Continue reading
                                          Planetarity Prompt: visualize planetary entanglement

                                          Prompt: visualize planetary entanglement, made with Ideogram, January 2025

                                          Jacob Lund: "Entering the anthropocene epoch influences our very perception of time. Hence, we are not only dealing with a new epoch replacing an old one, the Holocene, in a process of linear progressive development – which in the case of the Earth spans more than 4,5 billion years, a time scale that is highly abstract to our human perception. The new epoch is also accompanied by an increasing need for us to relate to a planetary scale, according to which we, as inhabitants of the same Earth, globally and across our cultural differences and national histories, share the same historical now, the same present." Continue reading
                                            Ordinary research A composite image showing tthe zones activated by different words in the prompt.

                                            A composite of four images generated with the prompt "to understand the different processes and gestures which together constitute ordinary analysis within art research today" by Stable Diffusion. On the left top, the red and yellow zones represent the parts of the image most affected by the term "art". On the top right, the zones affected by the term "and". On the bottom row, the red and yellow zones represent the parts affected by the terms "ordinary" and "research" respectively. March 2025.

                                            Maj Ørskov: "Consequently, I would say that the core practice of humanistic research in general, and particularly the core practice of art research, is analysis. However, I find that we have a relatively poor language to understand the different processes and gestures which together constitute ordinary analysis within art research today." Continue reading
                                              Institutions/ dependencies/ entanglement Prompt: visualize institutions/ dependencies/ entanglement

                                              Prompt: visualize institutions/ dependencies/ entanglement, made with Ideogram, January 2025

                                              Nicolas Malevé: "Art is not only art and its methods proliferate outside of its traditional remits under the constraint of an external factor. The art school inundates the art world and a majority of trained artists are excluded from the art market (or who refuse to join it or abide by its rules, a combination of all that). This population is not just an army of reserve for the art world or art education. They learn other professions, they are “reconverted”. Continue reading
                                                Historicity A composite image showing tthe zones activated by different words in the prompt.

                                                A composite of two images generated with the prompt "a global interconnection of different presents" by Stable Diffusion. On the left, the red zones represent the parts of the image most affected by the term "interconnection". On the right, the zones affected by the term "present". March 2025.

                                                Jacob Lund: "What I find crucial about our present, the present present, is that it is conditioned by con-temporaneity, understood as a global interconnection of differentpresents, with different pre-histories, and of different time-experiences. It is an idea of contemporaneity as a, at least in principle, shared present across divisive cultural and historical differences; of a temporary unity of the present across the planet." Continue reading
                                                  Flammability Synthetic image showing disguised protesters in front of an art institution in flames

                                                  Prompt: Amateurish photo of the new york modern museum of art in flames contrast between the white building and the flames at night with a crowd of disguised artists demonstrating, generated with Flux Schnell, March 2025.

                                                  Nicolas Malevé: "Indeed the consequences of the perilous exercise of pleasing collectors and donors whilst decolonizing the collection offers the perfect fetish to the alt right that never tires to denounce the hypocrisy of the left and their secret alliance to the elite. Whilst museums are in a perfect trap, the institutions that sought to give structural room of manoeuvre to progressive projects, such as the recent documenta, are not in a better place." Continue reading
                                                    Exhibition A composite image that shows a synthetic image and the vizualisation of the zones where a word in the prompt has significant effect.

                                                    Image: On the left, an image generated with Stable Diffusion 1.4 and the prompt "a certain openness in regard to sense". On the right, a visualization of the parts of the image (in yellow and red pixels) which correspond to the zones activated by the word "regard" in the prompt. March 2025. 

                                                    Jacob Lund: "The act of showing, displaying, exhibiting and demonstrating something, is an indispensable part of the manifestation of any work of art – contemporary as well as modern – and hence a condition for its being perceived and experienced. This is not yet, however, what makes the thing being shown art or an aesthetic object, be it physical or not. What makes it artistic, or at least aesthetic, is a certain openness with regard to the sense or signification of the thing that appears, which ignites a process of reflexivity that, ultimately, is a negotiation of the world and how we live in it." Continue reading
                                                      Diagramming Prompt: visualize diagramming

                                                      Prompt: visualize diagramming, made with Ideogram, January 2025

                                                      Nicolas Malevé: "The practice of diagramming requires the unlearning of expected positions, working against my initial assumptions. To undo a certain image of the controversy that I have in mind when I encounter a situation." Continue reading
                                                        Critical assemblage Prompt: visualize critical assemblage

                                                        Prompt: visualize critical assemblage, made with Ideogram, January 2025

                                                        Nicolas Malevé: "Critical assemblage presumes that to critique is not simply to formulate an argument against something or someone. It is to assemble the conditions for a critique to be formulated and be listened to as much as to formulate an argument. These conditions are not determined by the subject who formulates the critique alone. This means that the locus of the critique is distributed." Continue reading
                                                          Contemporary conditions All the steps to generate a synthetic image

                                                          All the steps towards an image generated with Stable Diffusion XL and the prompt "an aesthetics that includes more-than-human agents", March 2025. 

                                                          Jacob Lund: "We are in need of developing an aesthetics that includes more-than-human agents and recognises that we are bound to Earth and inescapably entangled in its dynamic being, but without letting go of human responsibility and political agency." Continue reading
                                                            Composition Prompt: visualize composition

                                                            Prompt: visualize composition, made with Ideogram, January 2025

                                                            Maj Ørskov: "I am aware that the practice of composition as laid out here contributes to further expose the fundamental fragility and unprovability of our knowledge production systems, but I say: wonderful!" Continue reading

                                                            Nicolas Malevé: "To compose an object then requires to move across all the layers of this problem. To strategically contribute to the general economy of attention, to work on the conditions of discernibility. And be reflexive about the implications of making visible and discernible." Continue reading
                                                              Autonomy Prompt: visualize artistic autonomy

                                                              Prompt: visualize artistic autonomy, made with Ideogram, January 2025

                                                              Jacob Lund: "My assumption is that we, if we are to talk about artistic autonomy today, should talk about the autonomy of a particular form of practice and the experiential process that is related to this practice, rather than the autonomy of a given object-based work or the subject position of the artist as autonomous." Continue reading
                                                                Aesthetic/Artistic practice Prompt: visualize what aesthetic practice is

                                                                Prompt: visualize what aesthetic practice is, made with Ideogram, January 2025

                                                                Jacob Lund: "Thus, artistic aesthetic practice is not only a particular way of engaging with the sensuous world, but also involves the production of aesthetic reflective perception. In artistic practice the production of aesthetic perception is addressed to a public. In this sense, an artistic aesthetic practice proper involves the invitation of an audience, a public, to take part in the process of sensing and sense-making." Continue reading
                                                                  A Situated Terminology
                                                                  Aesthetic/artistic practice
                                                                  Autonomy
                                                                  Composition
                                                                  Composition
                                                                  Contemporary conditions
                                                                  Critical assemblage
                                                                  Diagramming
                                                                  Exhibition
                                                                  Flammability
                                                                  Historicity
                                                                  Institutions/ dependencies/ entanglement
                                                                  Ordinary research
                                                                  Planetarity
                                                                  Reality/ virkelighed
                                                                  Reflexive transformation
                                                                  Reflexive transformation/ destabilization
                                                                  Thinking, writing, practicing in circles
                                                                  Unlearning

                                                                  Credits

                                                                  Published by the Centre for Research in Artistic Practice under Contemporary Conditions at Aarhus University, as part of the research project Artistic Practice under Contemporary Conditions, made possible by a Novo Nordisk Foundation Investigator Grant in Art History Research for Jacob Lund (NNF21OC0068539)

                                                                  Editors: Jacob Lund, Maj Ørskov, and Nicolas Malevé

                                                                  Website design: Anders Visti

                                                                  Copyright © 2024 Centre for Research in Artistic Practice under Contemporary Conditions

                                                                  All texts © the author

                                                                  ISBN 978-87-975839-0-6