Positioning Artistic Research

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Positioning Artistic Research

• Contested subject and field
• Opposition academia
• art world
• government

• Reykjavik, 3 October 2008

• Demarcation art practice artistic development
• academic (scientific) research
• Legitimacy practice-based degrees (MA, PhD)
• funding

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Questioning Artistic Research

• Reykjavik, 3 October 2008

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Art Practice
Higher Education Policy

Emerging Paradigm
Art Education
Artistic Research
Academic Research
Epistemology Methodology
Science System
Other Research Fields
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Artistic research Research-Creation Performative
research Practice-based/ -led/ as
research Research in and through art practice

Emerging Paradigm

• A conceptual and institutional framework
• Practices, vocabularies, theories
• Professional organisations
• Journals, books, editors, e-platforms
• Conferences
• Government agencies
• Funding
• Education

Artistic Research
Research institutes, ELIA, AEC,
?
PhD-Design, PARIP
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• Books
• Gray, Carole, and Julian Malins. Visualizing
  Research. A guide to the research process in art
  and design. Aldershot Ashgate 2004.
• Sullivan, Graeme. Art Practice as Research.
  Inquiry into the visual arts. Sage 2005
• Hannula, Mika, Juha Suornta, Tere Vadén. Artistic
  Research, Helsinki/Gothenburg 2005.
• Macleod, Katy, and Lin Holdridge. Thinking
  through Art. Reflections on Art as Research.
  Routledge 2006.
• Barrett, Estelle and Barbara Bolt (ed.). Practice
  as Research. Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry.
  London, New York I.B. Tauris 2007.
• Forthcoming Biggs, Michael and Henrik Karlsson.
  Handbook on Art-based Research (2010?)

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Artistic Research
Emerging Paradigm
Sensuous Knowledge 5 Bergen, Norway, 24-26
October 2008 Research into Practice 5 London, 31
October 2008 ELIA Biennial Göteborg, 29 October
-2 November 2008 Netherlands Organisation for
Scientific Research. The Hague, 21 November
2008 Austrian Science Council (Wissenschaftsrat)
Vienna, 4 December 2008 Swedisch Research
Council (Vetenskapsrådet) Stockholm, 12-13 March
2009

• A conceptual and institutional framework
• Practices, vocabularies, theories
• Professional organisations
• Journals, books, editors
• Conferences
• Government agencies
• Funding
• Education

Research Fellowship Programmes PhD research
projects
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Art Practice
Higher Education Policy

Emerging Paradigm
Art Education
Artistic Research
Academic Research
Epistemology Methodology
Science System
Other Research Fields
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Bologna
Higher Education Policy

• 2010 European Higher Education Area
• Quality assurance
• Recognition of qualifications
• Bachelor Master Doctorate
• Dublin Descriptors research !
• Higher education reforms

Artistic Research

• Different solutions in UK, Norway,
• Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland,
• Germany, Holland, (cf. ELIA report)

Dictate and threat from outside art and art
education? Chance and challenge for art and art
education?
Artistic Research A free space within higher
education for material thinking
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Art Practice
Higher Education Policy

Emerging Paradigm
Art Education
Artistic Research
Academic Research
Epistemology Methodology
Science System
Other Research Fields
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Art Practice

• Research hype ? scepsis
• Art practice Reflective practice
• from outside need to contextualise
• from inside reflexiveness of art itself
• A free space to think
• market
• creative industries
• strains of production
• ? Urgency
• Tension art academia
• Effect on art Effect on academia

Artistic Research
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Art Practice
Higher Education Policy

Emerging Paradigm
Art Education
Artistic Research
Academic Research
Epistemology Methodology
Science System
Other Research Fields
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Basic research Applied research Experimental
development

• Frascati Manuel Fields of Science Technology
• Fields of Research Development
• Research into to intellectual en social
  organisation of the sciences
• Mode 1 science Mode 2 knowledge
  production
• Quadrant model of research
• - quest for fundamental understanding
• - development of practice
• Artistic research
• ? to broaden our understanding of the world and
  ourselves
• ? developing new artefacts images,
  compositions, performances,

Artistic Research
- context of application - transdisciplinarity -
extended peer review
Science System
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Art Practice
Higher Education Policy

Emerging Paradigm
Art Education
Artistic Research
Academic Research
Epistemology Methodology
Science System
Other Research Fields
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• Research Original investigation undertaken in
  order to gain
• knowledge and understanding
• Questions, problems, issues
• Context (art world, art discourse)
• Methods
• Outcome presentation, documentation,
  dissemination

What? Why? How? What form?
Artistic Research
Academic Research
Liberalised understanding of research Dublin
Descriptors The word research is used in an
inclusive way to accommodate the range of
activities that support original and innovative
work in the whole range of academic,
professional and technological fields, including
the humanities, and traditional, performing, and
other creative arts. It is not used in any
limited or restricted sense, or relating solely
to a traditional 'scientific method.
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Artistic Research
Academic Research

Research Original investigation undertaken in
order to gain knowledge and understanding
Artistic Research Art practice is central
! question context method outcome
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Art Practice
Higher Education Policy

Emerging Paradigm
Art Education
Artistic Research
Academic Research
Epistemology Methodology
Science System
Other Research Fields
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Knowledge understanding
, insight, comprehension ? experience
Theoretical knowledge - Practical
knowledge Propositional knowledge -
Embodied knowledge Knowing that -
Knowing how Explicit knowledge -
Pre-reflexive knowledge Focal knowledge -
Tacit knowledge Artistic research is an
articulation of the non-conceptual forms of
experience and knowledge in and through the
creation of art.
Artistic Research
Epistemology Methodology
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Artistic Research
Epistemology Methodology

• Humanities research
• Applied research
• Social science research
• Art Science collaborations
• There is no distinct, exclusive methodology for
  artistic research
• Methodological pluralism
• ? The practice of the arts (creating, designing,
  performing) is central
• to the research process, and works and practices
  of art are partly
• outcomes of the research
• Material Philosophy, Material Thinking

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Art Practice
Higher Education Policy

Emerging Paradigm
Art Education
Artistic Research
Academic Research
Epistemology Methodology
Science System
Other Research Fields
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Baumgarten
? Kant, Hegel, Adorno
Philosophical aesthetics Cultural studies /
performance studies Post-war French
philosophy Ethnography, anthropology Phenomenolo
gy, cognitive sciences Engineering
technology Philosophy
Theoretical object (Mieke Bal) (Theatre and
gender studies)
Artistic Research
E.g. Deleuze Guattari
Field study, participant observation
Bodily knowledge, embodied skills, expert
understanding
Building a bridge
Other Research Fields
Reflection, Thinking
not knowing
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Art Practice
Higher Education Policy

Emerging Paradigm
Art Education
Artistic Research
Academic Research
Epistemology Methodology
Science System
Other Research Fields
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• Level of competence bachelor, master, doctorate
• Research Training in the Creative and Performing
  Arts and Design
• UKCGE 2001 (www.ukcge.ac.uk)
• Research Environment
• Research Seminars
• Research Training Programme Content
• Admission
• Supervision
• Assessment

Art Education
Artistic Research
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Artistic Research
Art Education

• Research environment
• A range of research programmes across the
  creative and performing arts
• Access to research resources (books, on-line text
  and images, artefacts, collections etc.)
• An active programme of professional practice
  (concerts, exhibitions, readings, performances
  and presentations)
• A range of opportunities for presentation,
  discussion and debate (lecture series, seminar
  series, colloquia, conferences etc.)
• Properly resourced working facilities
  (workstation, materials, IT provision, access to
  basic office and study requirements e.g.
  photocopier, phone)
• Discussions with a range of significant others
  practitioners in the field, peers, supervisors
  and individuals with expertise and experience at
  the interface between theory and practice
• Collaborative arrangements between departments or
  institutions

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Artistic Research
Art Education

• Seminars
• to share problems
• to heighten awareness of models and opportunities
  at the interface between theory and practice in
  the particular field
• to heighten awareness of breadth and depth
  (levels) of study
• to develop necessary vocabularies for debate
• to conceptualise relations between theory and
  practice as a part of the problem-solving process
• to build confidence
• to provide examples of effective research
  practice (i.e. by discussing already successful
  projects with their authors)
• to engage with interdisciplinarity (how the
  research interfaces with the wider field of
  academic enquiry)

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Artistic Research
Art Education

• Training Programme Content
• How to devise a research project
• Understanding the subject area as a field of
  systematic enquiry
• Contextualising the research in a form
  appropriate to the subject
• Introduction to a range of methods/methodologies
  in the context of their appropriateness for the
  particular research project and subject area
• Research skills and techniques matched to the
  subject
• Understanding the iterative process, or the
  process of continuous redefinition
• Models for comparative study particularly of
  existing, successful PaR projects
• Understanding the possible relationships and
  tension between practice, theory and criticism
• General and specialised presentation skills
• Systems and options for documenting practice
• Continued development of artistic and performance
  skills as appropriate to the subject
• Structuring a thesis to incorporate practice and
  its documentation

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Art Practice
Higher Education Policy

Emerging Paradigm
Art Education
Artistic Research
Academic Research
Epistemology Methodology
Science System
Other Research Fields