Photography as artistic research

Photography’s modern day quest was the reason for the research group Image in Context to start up a centre of expertise in which the insights of
photographers and artists concerning this problematic status of photography can be
brought together and studied. This centre of expertise PRICCAPractice (Photographic
Research in Cross-disciplinary and Cross-cultural Artistic Practices) conducts research
into the way in which professional photography is reinventing itself. It is aimed at the
artistic research practices of artists, designers and photographers into the status of
photography in our society. The focus lies on newly developed methods concerning
photography as part of an interdisciplinary artistic (and critical) research practice;
photography as a means of research to make reality visible again. For this reason it makes sense that photography should allow itself to be nourished and inspired by other reality seeking disciplines, such as sociology and anthropology. Based on her interest in processes which are socially meaningful, photography moreover connects itself with fields of study such as semiotics, cultural studies, art theory and philosophy. And in her forms of expression she learns from literature, theatre, and journalism as forms of representation. In other words, the centre of expertise researches how dimensions of reality in photography are made into problems in images which are not merely representations, but also a commentary on photography itself and which explore the narrative and communicative possibilities and limitations of the photographic image at the same time. We are looking for artistic research practices in which a new, authentic relationship between the photographic image and reality will be researched.
In this paper I would like to present a few of these practices.