Curious Art: Art Research as Creative Process

Research Centre, Academy of Fine Arts Prague (ed.), Notebook for Art, Theory and Related Zones, No. 20, p. 50–62, 2016

In the last decade, artistic research arose as a new avant-garde practice in the arts. Regarding the dissolution of artistic limits, research-oriented practices increasingly challenged the once inflexible boundaries between art and science. Not only did artistic research challenge well-established notions of scientific knowledge production, but it also confronted art criticism with a number of problems. Considering contemporary theories of aesthetic experience, one can reasonably criticize the claims of artistic research as being contradictory to one another. While they tend to lean on the production of knowledge through artistic forms, the inherent "aestheticity" of the materialized objects of this production leads to the undermining of all conceptualization. A Czech translation of this essay has appeared in the paper edition of the journal. URL: http://vvp.avu.cz/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/muhl.pdf

2010

This contribution investigates the possibilities of communicating artistic research without minimizing the multi-interpretability of the artwork and without having to adopt a philosophical vision-to be applied to the art and the research-as a starting point. The archival model, the rhizome model, and the contingency model are highlighted as viable possibilities. The models and the search for these models are applied to the music and other artistic domains. Keywords. Artistic research, artistic research versus philosophy, openness in the communication of research results. Resumen. Esta contribución investiga las posibilidades de informar sobre la investigación artística sin minimizar la multi-interpretabilidad de la obra y sin tener que adoptar una visión filosófica-que se aplicará al arte y a la investigación-como punto de partida. El modelo de archivo, el modelo de rizoma, y el modelo de contingencia se destacan como las posibilidades viables. Los modelos y la búsqueda de estos modelos se aplican a la música y otros campos artísticos. Palabras clave. La investigación artística, la investigación artística frente a la filosofía, la apertura en la comunicación de resultados de la investigación. _______________________________________________________

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.

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.

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).

Conference proceedings, 2013

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.