Track Report reports on research in/as art. It is conceived as a flexible “paper presentation space” in which the artists/authors experience the greatest possible freedom to determine its form and content, within the physical limitations of the publication. In that sense, Track Report is a hybrid form that is situated somewhere in between the artist’s book and the art publication. In addition, each publication can also be understood as a report, as a “track”, a trace of a research process and /or result. Every year, four to five issues, selected by an editorial board, are published. The diversity of research, discipline, form, etc., highlights the different facets of research in the arts at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. In this way, Track Report hopes to not only document and stimulate research and research activities, but also to inform and inspire those who have an affinity with research and the arts.
Between 2009 – 2020, Track Report published fifty-four issues, spanning from rather conventional looking textbook editions to alternative bearers as fold-out posters and vinyl records. All of them, in one way or another, represent the strategy and the status of artistic research being conducted in and around the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. The red thread running throughout all these publications is their materiality and plasticity. Being printed and distributed, Track Report goes against the tendency of radical digitization. This physical embodiment of edgy research reflects also the status of the Academy as a research community, trying to bridge the gap in between the past and the future by being stubbornly in the physical present, day by day.