International Forum on Artistic Research
17th Conference of the Society for Artistic Research (SAR)
Submission Number: 246
Submission ID: 306
Submission UUID: 64da1cf7-b90f-4901-9879-b1aa6e696768

Created: Sat, 28 Feb 2026 - 16:52
Completed: Sun, 1 Mar 2026 - 17:18
Changed: Wed, 13 May 2026 - 08:48

Remote IP address: 77.119.169.169
Submitted by: Julia Hölzl
Language: English

Is draft: No
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Given name Julia
Surname Hölzl
Email hoelzl-j@mdw.ac.at
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Title Vocabularies of/for/at the Limit
Format Poster presentation
Main language English
Abstract What can we utter at, with, and of the limit? What languages exist beyond the boundaries of the “known” and “understood”? Why are such experiences frequently intensified by a perceived speechlessness?

This contribution aims to introduce and present the arts-based research project “UNKNOWN BEYOND ABYSS: Toward Vocabularies of/for/at the Limit” (Grant-DOI 10.55776/ART5589424). As such, it offers a collaborative exposure to the project’s core objective: to create vocabularies and related contextualizations that explore the limit and the im/possibility of experiencing and communicating in, with, and out of it.
By sharing this process of exposure to the limit, we adhere to Sara Ahmed’s "Strange Encounters":
“The unknowable is a relation to what is already assumed to be known: it is hence not an absolute. The unknowable is a limit that pushes us to the boundary of the historical and ontological: the ways of being in the world in which being-ness is constituted by the worldliness of the world.”
For all this is to relate to the limit-experience of and through language – a language that would defer rather than refer, indicate rather than signify, suggest rather than state, fragment rather than originate, and reverberate rather than resonate.
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Short biographies of the presenter(s)
  • Julia Hölzl is a theorist/lecturer/writer whose work traverses and intersects the humanities, arts, and social sciences. Engaging text in performative gestures, her research and writing practices explore – but are not restricted to – limits, endings, finitude, and transience.
    Julia holds PhDs from the European Graduate School and the University of Aberdeen and has taught, researched, and advised across universities in Austria, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand and the UK.
    She is the Principal Investigator of the arts-based research project “UNKNOWN BEYOND ABYSS: Toward Vocabularies of/for/at the Limit” (funded by the Austrian Science Fund).
  • Ruth Anderwald (ARC, mdw Vienna) has led the artistic-research projects Dizziness–A Resource (FWF PEEK 244), Navigating Dizziness Together (FWF PEEK 598) and is an active member of the Society for Somaesthetics, Center for Cosmopolitan Culture, IMHAR Institute for Medical & Health Humanities and Artistic Research, and an affiliate member of the Centre for Sensory Studies, Concordia University. Her publications include “Dizziness–A Resource” (2019), Sternberg Press/MIT Press, “Der Abgrund braucht” (2026), and the podcast series, “On Certain Groundlessness” (2024), with contributions by Gloria Benedikt, Gabriela Caniero da Cinha, Tim Ettchels, Trevor Paglen, Ben Spatz, et al., which found listeners in over 50 countries.
Previous presentations or iterations of the research This contribution consists of an introduction to our arts-based research project “UNKNOWN BEYOND ABYSS: Toward Vocabularies of/for/at the Limit” (funded by the Austrian Science Fund and hosted at ARC/Artistic Research Center at mdw -University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna). While singular components of it have been/will be published or performed, the proposed paper presentation has not yet been presented in this form.
Additional information
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