Artistic Research: Context, Perspectives & A Definition (original) (raw)
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English version of "Künstlerische Forschung", in Hans-Peter Schwarz (Hg.): Zeichen nach vorn. 125 Jahre Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Zürich. Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Zürich, Zürich, 2003
Knowledge in its current form is not identical to the knowledge of the sciences. Scientific knowledge is a specific kind of discourse that is set off from the discourse genres of other, non-scientific areas of competence. In concert, they all form a diversity of essentially equivalent and equally necessary systems. Nonetheless, the currently prevalent style of thinking is that cultivated by the sciences and the humanities. And it is primarily scientific technology that has proven to be the most efficient contributor to contemporary society's focus on innovation. Scholarship and the sciences also constitute the last bastion of a culture that exists exclusively as high culture. Scientific research is a curious mixture of ideology and practice, of realistic procedures and unreal demands. The need to resort to scientific support in order to reinforce the relevance or status of a given area of competence has become obsolete. In this paper I shall outline a few thoughts on the character of research in the fine arts. The concept of research is closely allied with the sciences. Even so, it is fruitful to apply this term to the pragmatic context of artistic endeavour although it is not possible to address the concepts of research and art in greater depth in this context.
The Problem of Artistic Research
Sisyphus — Journal of Education, 2015
Although almost every debate about artistic research highlights its novelty in references to «uncertainty», »indefinability», and to its lack of identity whilst «bound to a tradition external to itself», this novelty has lasted for a few decades already. Many of the problems raised today are to be found back when research and art education began to relate within the academic context in the 1980s. So where is the speculative discussion on its uncertainty taking artistic research to? Is a solution intended to be found? Is there a problem to be solved? Through ‘productivitism’ this text argues that the aprioristic idea that artistic research is problematic has been securing its state of pendency and increasing its fragility. The final part of the article suggests a creative potential and a challenging dimension in the process of institutionalization, and ends by pointing out possible topics of work for a shared agenda with contemporary art.
Artistic Research: Delusions, Confusions and Differentiations
Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture, 2019
Concerning artistic research, the state of affairs is still one of delusions and confusions. The reason for this is the pluralization and dedifferentiation of rationality pushed forward by the postmodern period. The way out of it is the way of differentiations. Thus, it seems helpful, first, to remember what we already have in philosophical aesthetics, namely four basic models of art and knowledge. The question, then, is whether artistic research fits into (one of) these models. To my mind, it does-though in a new way. Secondly, it is helpful to have a short sober sociological look at the situation. Finally, we have to ask the question about the kind of research that is at stake in artistic research. Here, the meaning of non-propositional knowledge and Kant's idea of an as-if-knowledge is useful. All in all, artistic research still fails in giving a sufficient explanation of itself.
Insight and Intensification - Some Thoughts about Artistic Research
English version of "Einsicht und Intensivierung - Überlegungen zur künstlerischen Forschung", in Elke Bippus (Hg.): Kunst des Forschens. Praxis eines ästhetischen Denkens. Diaphanes, Zürich/Berlin, 2009
What is it that distinguishes artistic research? Can one speak of a tradition of artistic problems? The tendency is to concentrate on trying to define the essential features of artistic research. This involves inquiry into not only how artistic research differs from but also how it resembles or is comparable to scientific research and philosophical work. As far the pragmatics of research are concerned, there is no fundamental difference between the systems of art and scholarship. And in both fields, it is often no easy task to distinguish substance, i.e. what is essential and intrinsic to the conditions and rules of the research process, from accident, i.e. what factors should be assigned to the external operations of research. One might inquire into whether artistic research works with special methods, whether it makes use of a specific set of tools, whether it typically addresses a specific subject of research, and whether it produces knowledge that is characteristic of art.
Manifesto of Artistic Research
2020
Since its beginnings in the 1990s, “artistic research” has become established as a new format in the areas of educational and institutional policy, aesthetics, and art theory. It has now diffused into almost all artistic fields, from installation to experimental formats to contemporary music, literature, dance or performance art. But from its beginnings—under labels like “art and science” or “scienceart” or “artscience” that mention both disciplines in one breath—it has been in competition with academic research, without its own concept of research having been adequately clarified. This manifesto attempts to resolve the problem and to defend the term and the radical potentials of a researching art against those who toy all too carefully with university formats, wishing to ally them with scientific principles. Its aim is to emphasize the autonomy and particular intellectuality of artistic research, without seeking to justify its legitimacy or adopt alien standards.
Defining Artistic Research: Mapping Recent Contributions in the Discourse
2018
The term ‘artistic research’ is generally referred to as research in the arts, or ‘art as research’. More distinctively, it is also described as ‘research in and through art’ (Wesseling 2016, 8), distinguished from other types of research in the arts and brings to mind the popular yet seldom consistently discussed categorical distinctions from Christopher Frayling (1993). With increasing discussions to identify, describe, and legitimise artistic research against the largely scientific traditions of ‘research’, there has since been a growing amount of literature on the subject. Despite this accessibility of literature on artistic research—many written in English and published in easily available or open access journals—they often remain as efforts isolated from each other. I highlight this as an opportunity for mapping key ideas and developments of artistic research within recent discourse. This essay attempts a brief yet condensed discussion on artistic research using six recent key texts on artistic research. Chronologically, they are single books from authors Graeme Sullivan (2005), James Elkin (2009), Henk Borgdorff (2012), Mika Hannula et al. (2014), Janneke Wesseling (2016), and Danny Butt (2017).
Does Artistic Research Produce Knowledge? A Five-Fold Distinction
2018
catala«La recerca artistica» es un terme de moda que sembla portar les practiques de les arts contemporanies cap a noves formes, academicament mes respectables i properes a les ciencies socials i empiriques i a les humanitats. La introduccio de doctorats a les escoles d’arts i la normalitzacio dels plans d’estudi a Europa arran del Proces de Bolonya han estat cabdals en aquest sentit. Aquestes urgencies han creat una confusio enorme al voltant del significat de «recerca artistica». M’agradaria ajudar a aportar una mica d’ordre a aquestes veus sovint contradictories. El valor de l’art rau en el que el separa de la religio, la ciencia, la filosofia i totes les altres formes i productes del pensament huma, i estic convencut que qualsevol persona que cerqui el reconeixement academic i l’eliminacio de les diferencies esta confosa. En aquest article distingeixo entre cinc conceptes diferents en l’us de l’expressio «recerca artistica»: 1. Recerca per a l’art; es a dir, per a la produccio d...
Artistic Research and the Institution: A Cautionary Tale
Proceedings of the Arts Research Africa Conference , 2020
Artistic Research and the Institution: a cautionary tale Prof Mark Fleishman, Centre for Theatre, Dance & Performance Studies, UCT 1. Points of departure The central question I will examine today might be stated as follows: what impact do the specific institutional contexts, academic or otherwise, in which we produce research have on the art work itself and the potential ways of knowing associated with it? If we were to shift from a concern with epistemology (how we go about doing artistic research), or ontology (what in fact artistic research is), to a Levinasian concern with ethics, what would an ethical approach to the work of art entail with reference to these institutional pressures/distortions? I have been engaged with artistic research since the mid-1990s. Over that time I would suggest, artistic research has undergone a process of institutionalization. I understand institutionalization to be a process by which individuals come to accept shared definitions of a particular reality-the process by which actions are repeated and given similar meaning by oneself and others. Such an understanding requires us to accept that institutions are not 'naturally' occurring entities but are made by people over a period of time. Any process of institutionalization involves regulative elements: the development of policies and work rules; normative elements : the emergence of habits and work norms; and cognitive elements: the institution of a relatively stable set of beliefs and values. All three help to provide a basis for legitimacy and durability. One vector of institutionalization has been driven from within the arts disciplines themselves. Artistic research has developed a history, a number of structured organisations (PARIP; The Society for Artistic Research; The Performance as Research Working Group of the IFTR; The SenseLab etc) in different geographical locations, and a set of writings, a literature consisting of a body of key texts. And while these texts are by no means equally available or meaningful to all and the literature assembles and reassembles differently according to regional specificities, understandings and proclivities, the literature ensures an element of legitimacy and a perception of stability to the practice. Even if we cannot/don't necessarily always agree on everything to do with artistic research, the existence of the literature suggests that something actual is out there when we speak of artistic research in our various contexts. One of the papers from that body of literature, published in 2009, continues to haunt me in the sense that it unsettles any certainty I might entertain about what we now quite confidently assert about artistic research.