Artistic Research

By Dick Swart on 14 October 2011

One of the nicest things of doing a Master of Arts instead of a Master of Science is that you are allowed to do Artistic Research. No, this is not an oxymoron. if your fairly open minded than your reaction could be: ‘Okay, we have for instance scientific research, journalistic research and even legal research, so why not artistic research? Please tell me what peculiarities this form of research has compared with other forms!’

Well that turns out to be quit difficult to do for the artistic community. Definitions tumble over each other and all of them seem to contradict each other. The first misunderstanding is of course that one could think of it as ‘research in an artistic way’. In the same way as one can do ‘research in a scientific way’. But that’s of course plain silly. It is more logical to see artistic research as doing research for the purpose of creating art. In the same way journalistic research is doing research for the purpose of making an journalistic product and scientific research is done in order to create an object of (true) knowledge. Therefore artistic research is a normative study where a goal is set and where the research leads to an answer in order to produce a work of art.

Although artistic research is a term that has been invented as a result of the Bologna Accords for Higher Education, artistic research is not a recent phenomenon. Artists have been doing that as long as art exists. From the careful and methodical observation of objects, the laborious study of materials to the diligent historical research for a painting, a play or a symphony. In the end, they are all endeavors in order to make a great work of art. But is it research? That’s the most relevant question in this matter. Not all activities in preparation of the creation of a work of art can be called research. Most artists search for something, varying from useful materials to devine inspiration, but that does not make it research. Using the term too loosely would be just be pretentious and obfuscate matters. If artistic research is to be a valid variety of research like the ones mentioned above, It has to ‘obey’ certain rules and operate within the commonly accepted general definition for research. Since the term comes from the scientific world it is interesting to look at the definition for scientific research. An elegant definition is this:

The strict definition of scientific research is performing a methodical study in order to prove a hypothesis or answer a specific question. Finding a definitive answer is the central goal of any experimental process. Research must be systematic and follow a series of steps and a rigid standard protocol. These rules are broadly similar but may vary slightly between the different fields of science. Scientific research must be organized and undergo planning, including performing literature reviews of past research and evaluating what questions need to be answered.
www.experiment-resources.com

If artistic research does not (partly) fit this definition, there is in my opinion no reason to call it ‘research’ anymore and using it would be a form of ‘terminology hijacking’ in order to suggest more depth and meaning then there actually is.

Whether there is a need for a specific concept as artistic research is of course an entirely different question. It may well be sufficient enough to use the methods used in applied sciences to achieve certain research goals in the context of art production. Artistic research is, as a term, in my view to multi-interpretable. I would rather speak of research driven art. And that research can be scientific, journalistic, religious or whatever flavor of research necessary to create an great work of art. 

Alas, the art community doesn’t like this line of reasoning for its too mundane, ‘too earthy’. For them the term artistic research is mostly used for obtaining a certain status, motivating their position in bachelor master education and of course to buff up their subsidy proposals. Wait a minute, just like the scientific community!

tagged with: master, artistic, research

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