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.

2017

Focusing on the relations between art and research, this single topic issue was the result of several conversations held over the last few years between members of the CAIRE, the Experimental Art and Research Cluster. Founded by four research groups at the UAB, UB, UPF and UOC together with the HANGAR artistic production and research between in Barcelona, the objective of the CAIRE is precisely to contribute toward artistic research by capitalizing on its specific and unique features. In this respect, taking advantage of the framework offered by the symposium Questioning Aesthetics: Arts Research & Aesthetics, which took place from 20th to 22nd June 2017 at the Palau Virreina in Barcelona, organized by the UAB, the Transdisciplinary Aesthetics Foundation and Banco Sabadell Foundation, we issued an open call for articles that focus on the relation between the Arts and Research, which, after the peer-review process, ended up as this node of the journal Artnodes. Therefore, the first five articles are written by authors who took part at the aforementioned symposium at the time, while the rest of the articles in the single topic issue come from other writers who share their experiences and reflections with us from a range of different perspectives and approaches. The end result fulfils the desire expressed in the original open call for articles, in which we highlighted the diversity of approaches that exist in relation to the nature of the interrelation between art and research, including research for art, research on art, and finally, research in art, which is claimed by many to be the most genuine type of artistic research. Moreover, the selection of the articles published here in one way or another relates to the four lines specified in the open call, linked both to the theoretical perspective for and on artistic http://artnodes.uoc.edu artnodes

2020

Although doctoral research (and not only) is under the sign of searching for the new, overcoming pre-existence and solving problems specific to the field in which it takes place, in fact, the results are influenced mainly by the freedom that researchers/PhD students allow themselves in order to make associations, to break down barriers, the wall of prejudice. Research in the performing arts area involves, above all, transdisciplinary approaches, which determine us to have an exercise of reflection on the knowledge-action-creativity triad, but also on the relationship between creative technique and research. The rigor of the research does not exclude the abandonment of Procustian patterns, but (only) the lack of arguments, finality and ethics.

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...

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.

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.

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.

A number of recent developments, particularly in higher education in the arts across Europe, have resulted in the theory and practice of research in art gaining new momentum. 1 The underlying reason is simple: academic higher education, whether technical or purely scientific, can only claim to be academic when supported by scientific research and insofar as the institutions that provide such education pursue their own research. Education that consists mainly of learning skills is for this reason not academic: it is craftsmanship. In a great many European countries, the decision has been made-partly in imitation of the Anglo-Saxon model-to include higher education in the arts in academic education. And this very phenomenon-besides creating hilarious phenomena such as teaching piano, trumpet, or violin by "lecture"-has saddled us with a considerable problem. The difficulty is apparent in all sectors of art education: the fine arts, music, performing arts, and even literature, although academic training in the latter is pretty much non-existent in most Western countries. In recent years, research competence has become one of the aims of education and, like the thesis-based doctorate, has become a fundamental condition for gaining tenure in institutions of higher education in the arts.

International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2020

Reflecting on what is currently happening to artistic research in an academic setting, we identified three domains of knowledge that must be interpreted appropriately. In the present article, these three domains of knowledge to which we refer are covered the way we think about art, the way art is processed, and the art works itself. The way we think about art is closely related to the profile of knowledge which is philosophically known as ontology. The way art to be processed is closely related to the structure of knowledge which is philosophically known as epistemology. Meanwhile, the art works itself is closely related to the value of knowledge which is philosophically known as axiology. These three aspects play a role in determining the artistic research paradigms carried out in an academic environment. Based on literature review, we have classified artistic research into two paradigms. The first paradigm, we called artistic as research, in which this notion is representation that artistic works is the production of knowledge. The second paradigm we call artistic as a method, in which this notion is triggered from the understanding that artistic works can be expressed based on research design. Our main motivation to promote two paradigms of the artistic research is to further develop artistic research in conducting scholarly communication. Finally, this article specifically describes how artistic practice and research in academic settings can come together.