Defining Artistic Research: Mapping Recent Contributions in the Discourse (original) (raw)

Artistic Research: Context, Perspectives & A Definition

2017

Excerpt of the introduction: In the first part, I will dissect the term research, dipping into the everlasting dispute about art versus science, coming back to the initial term of artistic research and giving ideas of what it is and what it can contribute to scientific research. In the last part I will focus on the education reformation, elaborating detected challenges and chances it might bring. As literature, the essay draws – amongst others – from the book Artistic research published by philosopher, editor and curator Annette W. Balkema and philosopher, editor, curator and Professor for Artistic Research at the MaHKU, Utrecht Graduate School of Visual Art and Design Henk Slager, who is also leading the publication of the Journal of Artistic Research (JAR). It is a collection of essays and discussions from a two-day symposium on artistic research. Other sources are websites of art academies involved in the development of artistic research, different speeches on the topic and the Belgian philosopher, writer and critic Dieter Lesage’s text Who’s Afraid of Artistic Research? On measuring artistic research output (2009). As the evolution of artistic research is still ongoing, I found it important to include a variety of different opinions, in order to detect common tendencies.

Artistic Research: Practice and Research redefining each other

Research Methodologies talks series, Art Creativity Education and Culture Mphil Course, 2015

This session will focus on the recent contemporary art context characterised by a strong theorisation of practice defining a research practice of its own. The session will look at existing models of artistic (academic and independent) research, while introducing the dimension of participation in research and its impact. Within this paradigm we shall also consider: the ontology of the produced and/or embedded knowledge on the one hand, and the role of the artist as interface in society (and education) on the other.

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.

Artistic Research: Charting a Field in Expansion

Artistic Research: Charting a Field in Expansion, 2019

Artistic Research: Charting a Field in Expansion provides a multidisciplinary overview on different discourses and practices, exploring cutting-edge questions from the burgeoning field of artistic research. Intended as a primer on artistic research, it presents diverse perspectives, strategies, methodologies, and concrete examples of research projects situated at the crossroads of art and academia, exposing international work of significant projects from Europe, Asia, Australia, South and North America. The book includes chapters on diverse fields of thought and practice, addressing a common thread of questions and problematics. The comprehensive editors’ introduction offers a much-needed extensive overview of practice-based artistic research in general. This book is ideal for graduate students across philosophy, cultural studies, art, music, performance studies and more.

Dispatch from the Shores of Artistic Research

In this essay I bracket the formally approved UK definition of impact as “an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia”. I do this in order to focus on the impact of Artistic Research on the practitioner herself, rather than her stakeholders: I am interested in the effects of research before academia. The discourse in question is Western Classical instrumental pedagogy, and the research in question is that undertaken by instrumental pedagogues in conservatoires. My focus is on the passage from output to impact and the means by which practitioners of Artistic Research incorporate impact into output.

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.

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.

Functions, fissures and failures - Strategies of Artistic Research

2018

Table of Contents: Indicative Content and Structure Introduction: Editors Section One: Slow Spontaneity Section Two: Functions, fissures and failures Section Three: Legacy Afterword: Editors Outline: This volume, focuses around the symposia we have shared over the past three years and takes as its theme, ways in which artistic research operates to create transformative societal strategies. We welcome contributions from the diverse range of disciplines of these symposia, including the performing arts, dance, oral and ethnographic practices, fine art, film, video, architecture, philosophy, poetry and more. This anthology explores, problematizes and performs potentials of aspects of artistic research and its role in creating societal strategies. It reflects the need to test, break and build together individual and collaborative strategies that are political and societally affective.