OBJECTIVES
1. To support and explicate research-creation practices at the intersection of the arts, culture, and technology
Research-creation being an as-yet emerging field in academia, Hexagram must maintain and foster conditions conducive to the development of creative and innovative productions based on issues that can generate new knowledge. Hexagram facilitates access to the spaces, equipment, and technical expertise that accompany both the conception and production phases of creative work and its dissemination. Hexagram offers its members a place for methodological and theoretical exchanges by generating opportunities for situating the issues, explicating methods, and setting out results. Hexagram provides student members many opportunities to familiarize themselves with the workings of research-creation and to put it into practice alongside their more experienced peers.
2. Establish and strengthen links between artistic and scientific disciplines through research-creation
Research-creation crosses several academic disciplines that are connected to various departments, faculties, and universities. It is still little known and recognized by other fields of research in the social sciences and humanities or in natural sciences and engineering. Hexagram helps to counteract the effects of compartmentalization, not only between so-called artistic disciplines, but also among other academic research settings. It addresses the methodological and epistemological foundations of research-creation, transversally between artistic disciplines, while articulating them with common issues regarding other forms of knowledge. Its “network” form encourages it to build bridges with other strategic groupings or research communities conducive to the integration of research-creation issues.
3. Promote and share research-creation expertise with spheres of professional practice and cultural organizations.
This objective lies at the heart of the mission of a strategic network that aims to maintain lasting spaces of exchange between the academic research community and society, on the part of both professional practitioners and cultural organizations addressing various types of audiences. It is not just a matter of sharing explicit knowledge and specific know-how, but of also building and sharing common imaginations that can only be transmitted through performed, material, and situational aesthetic experiences. The wished-for collaborations target the organization of conferences and roundtables, but also of demonstrable experimentation in the form of tangible prototypes, of shows, concerts, exhibitions, films, or other forms of sensory experience. It also a question of creating various channels for research-creation transmission in a variety of contexts of industrial application and cultural dissemination.
Recurring Activities
This program structures exchanges and is the primary means of sharing resources dedicated to research-creation across the Network’s partner institutions. It is open to all members, but especially to students; it supports research-creation projects through short stays in research groups and labs or with collaborating organizations in spaces of practice affiliated with Hexagram. Residencies may be exploratory or experimental in nature and encompass conception, production, or dissemination. They entail regular exchanges with the host community to discuss the development of the project. Technical and logistical support is provided and administered by the host partner institution or organization.
DEMO
Through the DEMO grant program, the Network encourages the documentation and dissemination of research-creation projects produced by its co-investigator and student members. Documentation can be audio, visual and/or textual, produced in the course of a residency, an exhibition, a festival or a conference. DEMOs of research-creation projects produced as part of the Network’s inter-university residencies are prioritized. The Network coordination team works with members to produce and publish de dedicated DEMO webpage on hexagram.ca. Financial support may be granted to a student member who is hired by a co-investigator member to produce documentation for that member.
This program provides financial support for members’ research activities and dissemination outside of their own academic community. It privileges international outreach at major events and/or established cultural organizations (symposia, festivals, conferences, exhibitions, shows, study days, research-creation residencies, and so on), preferably for concerted travel involving two or more members; for activities potentially leading to new collaborations or to strengthening emerging collaborations at intersections of interdisciplinary expertise; and the dissemination of R-C to new research milieus and to new audiences. Half of its budget is allocated to student members.
Hexagram Gala for Emerging Researchers
Since May 2019, Hexagram undertakes a yearly presentation and celebration of student laureates who have been awarded funding or other programs of support for their research projects. The Gala invites all Hexagram members as well as representatives of professional, academic and cultural spheres to attest to the network’s support to emerging researchers and practitioners, to encourage the advancement of their projects, and to contribute to disseminate their R-C outcomes. It aims to present R-C in accessible, synthetic, and captivating ways and to identify issues that associate different forms of knowledge.
This biennial event aims to bring together all members of the network as well as key practitioners from abroad, thus pairing perspectives and approaches addressed in research-creation with those of other scientific fields of research. The programming includes activities such as thematic symposia, research-creation workshops, and artistic events (exhibitions, concerts, shows, etc.) that map current artistic, cultural and technological developments.
Founded in 2008, LASER Talks is a program of evening gatherings set up by the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology (Leonardo), which connects more than 30 cities around the world where artists and scientists meet to discuss and share presentations. Hexagram has been the Montreal host since 2014. Twice a year, researchers from different fields meet and share perspectives on the relationships between the arts, science, and technology.
In collaboration with the web radio station CHOQ.ca, REC offers a series of podcasts of “short interviews, round tables, and reports on the definitions, methodologies, and other current issues of research-creation […] particularly in the Quebec context.” Guests are, for the most part, members of the Hexagram network. The productions are disseminated on CHOQ.ca’s public platform with the goal to vulgarize scientific knowledge, as to reach students and professionals in the cultural sphere as well as the general public
Two to three times per month, our bilingual newsletter sends to 2,000+ subscribers the latest information about the Network, the accomplishments of its members, and pertinent updates and opportunities related to R-C.
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