Brainstorming annual conference on artistic research
September 11th - 12th 2025

Program & more information.

Art Research: The Sensory Knowledge

See English below

The researchers are increasingly focusing their attention on artists and how they approach their subjectsThe insight and the creative thinking that artistic creation requires has proven to be an effective addition to the standard methods of physical science Artists are curious individuals who apply critical and interdisciplinary thinking to solutions to complex problems Often, that skill has evolved from an early age Art research therefore has value far beyond the obvious aesthetic elements.

Despite this, there seems to be a lack of understanding and dialogue with the research environment The purpose of Hugarflugi 2024 is to find out what lies behind it. Is there a lack of common language? Are artists' research methods too different from the traditional ways to be taken seriously? Could the results of art research be communicated in a different way than is done, or is quality at times simply lacking?

We open the discussion with the aim of answering the above questions. The Iceland Academy of the Arts is calling here for proposals of any kind, presentations of research that are ongoing or have been carried out by our staff, students and/or partners. In this way, we hope to produce a “ screen shot of our research culture that can be discussed between us, but no less with representatives of today's broad research environment. The clear visitor's eye is, as it is a valuable contribution to the development of research within the Iceland Academy of the Arts for the future.

Hugarflug 2024 will be held in Hamri, Stakkahlíð 1, the premises of LHÍ on September 13. 

2024 Brainstorming Committee

Ása Helga Hjörleifsdóttir
Carl Boutard
Ingimar Ólafsson Waage
Katrín Ólína Pétursdóttir
Peter Jónasson
Sahar Ghaderi
Elín Þórhallsdóttir

Artistic Research: The Tacit Knowledge  

The creative insight of artists is increasingly engaging the attention of the weller research arena. Artists’ divergent thinking (ie imaginative, open ended) has been shown to add a new, beneficial dimension to problem solving which hitherto has mostly been in the hands of convergent thinkers (ie logical, analytical). But the artist's mind is also an investigative mind. It is a modern, cross-disciplinary mindset, geared towards working on highly complex tasks through skills which have often been developed from a very young age. Needless to say, there is this great value in artistic research, beyond the simple aesthetic value of art works which is more generally and easily recognized. 

Still, there seems to be a lack of understanding between these different research communities. The overarching question Brainstorming 2024 sees to answer is: why? Is it a lack of common terminology? Are the methods of investigation used by artists too different from the more traditional ways of performing research to be taken seriously? Are artists' means of dissemination not clear enough, or is it even a simple question of quality? 

In order to answer the above questions, we want to open the field to wide discussion. The Iceland University of the Arts calls for research topics of any kind being performed3⁄4or having been performed3⁄4by our staff, students and collaborators. The aim is to provide a snapshot of our research output and to sit down and talk, not only between our products but not least with results of the result with experience of the well-reported community who will be informed to the discussion, providing a valid „guest's eye“ It is such a truly open call.

Brainstorming  

The brainstorming research conference of the Iceland Academy of the Arts will be held on February 9 and 10.  

The theme of this year's conference is: Multiple futures, where the challenges we face and will shape the future will be considered.  

Among the participants are the key speaker philosopher Philip Kitcher who discusses the role of art in enrich human experience and make it easier for us to throw anger at ourselves, our world and life. 

Other participants come from across and represent diverse arts and disciplines that offer interdisciplinary seminars, workshops, lectures and video installations Papers deal with artificial intelligence in artistic creation, diverse communication methods in art education, the home office based on architecture, a staff study in music and interesting roundtable discussions where we can dream together about the future, but discussions are moderated by people aged 13-18.

The conference is held on Friday, February 10 at LHÍ, Laugarnesvegi 91, 105 Reykjavík. Starts the program at 9:00 and lasts until 17:00, admission is open and free to everyone.

Hugarflug's opening ceremony will be at 17:00-18:00 on Thursday, February 9 at Y Gallerí in Hamraborg 12, 200 Kópavogur, where a group of contemporary dancers shake us up with Februar Idea Dump and we listen to a talk about Hamraborg Deammachine, which explores the future and past of this urban landscape in a dreamy way. The event is open and free to everyone.

We stand at the turning point of various challenges of climate change, pandemic, rights struggle and also war disaster in Europe with Russia's invasion of Ukraine These are truly open-minded times but we seek to analyze the situation and what the future holds. What we face is the urgent need to nurture our communities, nourish the core values that matter most in the lives of the whole and of each individual How do we best ensure solidarity against tyranny and for peace and justice? What are those values, how do we continue, together, into the future we don't know who we are; the nature and species that together create the ecosystem we live in? How do we co-create, a world that keeps track of everyone?     

At the Iceland Academy of the Arts' 2022 Brainstorming session, we want to discuss how each person is part of a whole, sometimes many wholes. How each experience and action is tied to a larger context. How we flow, instead of standing firm; how we connect as a whole, rather than standing alone; how we face the possibility that none of us can come up with a solution, but rather it lies in the collective power, now and for the future.    

Collective Care is the theme of Hugarflug 2022.  

The key speaker of the council is Sonya Lindfors
Black Hall: 2pm-3pm,  

The title of her talk is:  Attempting the impossible - decolonial dreaming practices
How to dream of futures that we don't know yet how to dream of? Well, as Afrofuturist Sun Ra once said: „The possible has been tried and failed. Now it is time to try the impossible.“ 

Radical dreaming can be a powerful tool to reimagine intersectional feminist and decolonial futures - as well as presents. In her mini talk choreographer Sonya Lindfors talks about the power of speculation, dreams, responsibilities and the decolonial dreaming project We Should All Be Dreaming. 

Sonya Lindfors is a choreographer from Cameroon and Finland and has made a name for herself both in the Nordic countries and elsewhere for her choreography and writing, but also as artistic director of UrbanApa, an anti-racist and intertwined feminist art institution in Helsinki Her work centers questions about the politics of the black body, manifestations and power structures, possible futures and deconstructive decolonial dreams practices/creating a space that allows people to dream new ways of living. 

THE THEME IS: TURNING POINT - TURNING POINT

Hugarflug is a platform for open, professional and critical discussion about arts, design, and architecture; about knowledge creation in the wide field of art and their overlap with other fields of study, with an emphasis on the diversity that characterizes the approaches, methods, topics, communication and research that are applied there.

We stand at a turning point in history that requires us to reflect on the role and importance of the arts in the re-creation of societies following major world events such as those we live in now There are challenging challenges ahead in climate and environmental issues, the circular economy, democratic empowerment and social structure How can we respond to these challenges and challenges in the field of art? How do we begin to understand and respond to the profound changes in our environment that we face? How do we use the ideological renewal that is an important part of artistic creation, our environment and society for the good of our art? How have the arts responded to such challenges in history?

One of the main goals of the conference is to offer a safe space for peers where it is safe to ask open questions, conduct experiments and present projects in progress Staff, students and part-time teachers of the University of the Arts, and other working artists, designers, architects and academics are encouraged to submit proposals.

As the conference becomes electronic, we encourage participants to take advantage of diverse methods, media and approaches to digitally find their contribution the appropriate framework and form Contributions could, for example, take on a material or visual form (exhibition, installation, graphic communication), be staged (performance, performance, intervention) or presented in theory (lecture, Pecha Kucha, self-interview/conversation form, round table discussion, seminar, workshop) Apart from papers and seminars that will be broadcast by LHÍ, only finished proposals such as videos, audio, photographs, text and/or other presentations of art research, art creation, design and architecture will be accepted.

Conference Committee: 
Hanna Styrmisdóttir (chairman)
Atli Ingólfsson
Ásgerður Roberts Gunnarsdóttir
Gunndís Yr Finnbogadóttir
Hildigunn Sverrisdóttir
Magnea Einarsdóttir
Karólína Stefánsdóttir (project manager)

The conference will take place electronically on the 8th-14th. February 2021

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2021 brainstorming:
The theme is: Turning point - Turning Point

The conference is a platform for an open, informed and critical dialogue on the arts, architecture and design; on knowledge production in the expanded field of the arts as well as their intersections with other fields. Emphasis is placed on the diversity of the approaches, methods, discussion, and research that characteristics the field.
We stand at a turning point in history which requirements that we critically reflect on the role and value of the arts in building societies and communities in the wake of current major world events. Head of us are challenging challenges in relation to the climate and environment? How can we make use of ideological renewal, what is meeting in the environment?

One of the main objects of the conference is to offer a safe space for people to ask open questions, performance experiments and present works in progress. Staff, students, and part-time lecturers at the Iceland University of the Arts (IUA), as well as other practicing artists, designers, architects and scholars are improved to respond to the call.

As the conference will take place as an online event, we encourage participants to use diverse methods, media, and approaches to find the appropriate form for their digital contributions. As an example, a contribution could take on a material or visual form (exhibition, graphic dissemination), a staged form (performance, intervention), or a verbal form (paper presentation, Pecha Kucha, auto-interview, panel discussion, seminar, workshop, Apart from paper presentations and seminars, which will be streamed by the IUA, we will only developed control, communication and photography, text.

The conference will take place online February 8-14, 2021.

Conference Committee:
Hanna Styrmisdóttir (chair)
Atli Ingólfsson
Ásgerður Roberts Gunnarsdóttir
Gunndís Yr Finnbogadóttir
Hildigunn Sverrisdóttir
Magnea Einarsdóttir
Karólína Stefánsdóttir (project manager)

Brainstorming on February 13 and 14, 2020

Hugarflug, the annual conference of the University of the Arts, is now taking place for the ninth time, and this time there was a call for talks regarding the subject narratives.

The conference is a forum for staff, students and others who engage in creativity and research in the academic fields of art or in their close proximity to meet and ask questions, experiment and present their projects The intention is to facilitate the possibility of collaboration across different fields and plough the field for new connections and dialogue.

Numerous good proposals were received by the conference committee, and we were particularly pleased to receive many good proposals from the arts and academics working outside the University of the Arts, as dialogue outside the university is an essential part of the work that takes place here.

As you can see in the program of the conference, the seminars are characterized by diverse perspectives on the nature and mission of stories in history and contemporary times. Among the topics discussed are the arrival of polar bears in the country and the history of Icelandic jazz music, the support system of the market, equality and diversity at the level of university work, to name just a few.

The key speakers at the conference are Hildur Guðnadóttir and Egill Sæbjörnsson, who have each attracted a lot of attention for their use of the narrative possibilities of art. The special guest of the conference is Goddur, Guðmundur Oddur Magnússon, a research professor at the Iceland Academy of the Arts who is currently putting the finishing touches on an extensive study of the visual narrative heritage of the Icelandic people.

There is obviously a lot to take in and we encourage guests to familiarize themselves with the program while we warmly welcome you to Hugarflug 2020.

Sincerely, the conference committee,

Martin Sindri Jónsson
Chairman of committee and adjunct professor in the Department of Design and Architecture
Ásgerður G. Gunnarsdóttir
Lecturer and professional director in the Faculty of Performing Arts
Ingimar Ólafsson Waage
Lecturer and professional director in the art education department
Jesper Pedersen
Adjunct professor in the music department
Páll Haukur Björnsson
Adjunct professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts
Ólöf Hugrún Valdimarsdóttir
Hugarflug's project manager

The conference will take place in the premises of the University of the Arts at Laugarnesvegi 91 on Thursday, February 13 and Friday, 14, 2020.

Registration is unnecessary and everyone is welcome.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Hildur Guðnadóttir

Egill Sæbjörnsson

SPECIAL GUEST

Guðmundur Oddur Magnússon-Goddur

Brainstorming 15 - 16 February 2019

Brainstorming 8 - 9 February 2018

(English below)

Hugarflug is the annual conference of the University of the Arts and will now be held for the fifth time. The aim of the conference is to create a platform for professional and critical discussion about knowledge creation with an emphasis on art research and the diversity that characterizes approach, methods, content and communication in the field.

Hugarflug offers opportunities for networking in the academic context of the creative industries and brings together the school's employees, students, part-time teachers and working artists, designers, curators, artistic directors and academics in the fields of culture, art and education.

This year, the program is particularly auspicious, but 18 seminars, performances, workshops and joint discussions will take place on Friday, February 19. On Thursday, February 18, we invite Rolf Hughes, professor at the University of the Arts in Stockholm, together with a panel discussion with Friða Björk Ingvarsdóttir, rector of the University of the Arts.

The conference will take place in the premises of the art education department and the art department, Laugarnesvegi 91.

KEYNOTE:

ROLF HUGHES: MONSTROUS RESEARCH STRATEGIES: ON CREATING AN EXPERIMENTAL FLYING CIRCUS

This presentation yes together different research traditions to explore monstrousness as a research strategy that spans conferences of scientific and artistic research traditions to create a hybrid research. They are also most appropriate through my own artistic practice with the potential and responsible within the collective.

Monsters residence identity, genre, discipline - i.e. categories that make claims on authority. Monstrousness is the site of experimentation, where certainties are torn apart and stitched together in new forms. One such site of experimentation is my current endeavor to bring together the nascent field of circus arts research with the established field of space research.

Circus arts research is a space of radical transformation, a theater of becoming, full of magic and organization. It subverts the tools of assessment applied to other research and demands new applications. The scientific spaces such as tent, big top or street are now joined by other spaces that foreign sheep of but is responsible, and responsible for animals, and events to meet such animals, and events to meet such animals, and events to meet such animals, and events to meet such animals.

One such site of monster experimentation is starship Persephone. It takes the form of an experimental environment in which the nature of life itself is being choreographed into existence through the interactions of its bodies, spaces and the many potential relationships between them. Persephone's laboratory is a living body produced by countless prototypes and relationships between human beings and claims that research or research institutions. It is an instrument of radical research. These conditions and research.

Persephone's principal investigator, Rachel Armstrong, Professor of Experimental Architecture at Newcastle University School of Architecture, and Rolf Hughes, Head of Research at the newly created Stockholm University of the Arts, are working together to explore monstrous methods and materials, and how these might contract to the creation of a third millennium experimental research laboratory. My

presentation will outline work so far and how a paradigm of monstrousness is at the core of the project's design-led research.

Rolf Hughes Bio (2015)

A prose poet and disciplinary nomad, Hughes has been actively promoting innovative forms of artistic and transdisciplinary research over the past twenty years.

Hughes is Head of Research and Professor of Artistic Research at Stockholm University of the Arts (inaugurated 2014).He has been expert advisor for artistic research at the Swedish Research Council, the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme, and the Austrian Programme for Arts-based Research (PEEK); Guest Professor in Design Theory and Practice-Based Research at Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design (2006-2014); Senior Professor in Research Design at Sint-Lucas School of Architecture (KU-Leuven, Belgium), where helped create and develop an international, design-led PhD. program (2007-2013). He has also presented by the Sector-2013, (2007-2013). He has also presented as an international research society for the S.

Hughes holds a First Class degree in English and Related Literature (University of York), an MA (with Distribution) in Creative Writing and the first ever PhD. in Creative and Critical Writing found by the British Academy from the University of East Anglia, UK. He is currently exploring the potential contribution of magic and the circus arts to the conception and design of a third millennium experimental research laboratory Writing and theatre remain central to his endeavour to link diverse forms of experience, expert, and knowledge.

Conference Committee

Dr. Berglind María Tómasdóttir, assistant professor and professional director at the music department

Dr. Einar Torfi Einarsson, assistant professor at the music department

Dr. Guðbjörg R. Jóhannesdóttir, assistant professor at the design and architecture department and the art education department

María Dalberg, MA student in art

Ólöf Gerður Sigfúsdóttir, director of research services

Tinna Gunnarsdóttir, assistant professor at the Department of Design and Architecture

Hugarflug's program 2015

Hugarflug's program 2014

Hugarflug's program 2013

Conference on the relationship between artistic creation and research

Hugarflug's program 2012