Ezri Tarazi, New Baghdad Table, 2003-2005, Dozens of Aluminum Profiles Cut into Sections and Welded Together with Argon, Sand Blasted and Anodize Coated. Dimensions: 100X300X70 cm
The meeting of researchers and artists, between theory and practice, between set disciplinary methodologies and free thought, feelings and associations, stand at the center of the current issue of History and Theory: the Protocols; based on the convention "Zug o Pered: Creating / Researching / Discussing" that was held in January 2011 at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. This interplay of elements foreground the complex relations between creative work and theory, and it reveals a portion of the complexity of the internal dynamics in art, design and architecture schools, which constitute a fascinating laboratory for visual culture studies.
In the very first issue of this journal, published slightly more than seven years ago, we sought to discuss the above mentioned complex of relations through the question "are theory and practice parallel lines that never meet, or are they branches that ultimately sprout from the same root, perhaps even being interdependent?" In the present issue we wish to revisit this question from a different perspective, one that focuses on the continuous dialogue between artists and theorists, and try to present the way theory and practice inform each other. Therefore the present issue is composed of interviews that – in being conducted by leading theoreticians and critics, with artists and designers – open interdisciplinary vistas that combine the individual and personal with the contemporary and actual, and which reveal a theoretical reflection of different creative processes.