Running head: RESEARCH REVIEW

Doing Artistic Research

Dan Serig, Associate Professor of Art Education, Massachusetts College of Art and Design

Correspondence regarding this article may be sent to the author at: Massachusetts College of Art and Design Art Education Department 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115 Email: Dan.Serig@massart.edu Office: 617-879-7549

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Doing Artistic Research

Research Review Section

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Doing Artistic Research In a previous Research Reviews (Serig), I highlighted arguments made for artistic research as a legitimate and valuable form of research within the academy. In this review, I turn my attention to the pragmatic consideration: How do we do artistic research? Artistic research in the context of this review is about the connections and relationships among three primary domains: the arts, higher education, and arts education. Broadly stated, all artists do research when they do artwhether through material/performance experimentation, subject selection, or technique acquisition, to name a few instances. When connected to academia, however, research takes on the big R and becomes something as art practice but different from professional art practice. I will address this a bit later. For now, let us understand that artistic research calls for border violations between the three domains. The tensions created may make some within those domains uneasy, but in these challenges lies the "unfinished thinking" of artistic research (Borgdorff). Unfortunately, I am unaware of any anthology of artistic research projects. I will present a few projects in this review from the visual arts, but what needs to happen is the doing of artistic research so that enough quality examples can begin to create philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's notion of family resemblances (Kjrup 35-36). An Example Julie Colotti's master's thesis project in art education provides an example of the border violations inherent in doing artistic research (Image 1). Anchored by family heirlooms, Julie investigated the relationship among these objects, the personal and familial stories associated with them, and the use of narrative in the creation of visual art and meaning. She started her

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research journey with notions rather than a definitive research question. During her journey, Julie described how she had to situate and contextualize her work "with other artists working with themes of material culture, embodied experiences and identity development in the their work, and art educators who have explored narrative methodologies for curriculum development." As Julie did, if you are considering doing artistic research may want to pose the following questions to yourself: Do you want to make art about this issue, theme, topic, phenomenon related to arts education? Could making art about this arts education issue, theme, topic, phenomenon provide you with new knowledge and understanding about it that will inform your professional practices? Do you want your research outcomes to be part of the dialog of both contemporary art and arts education? Are you prepared to accept and deal with the methodological openness that confronts the artistic researcher? Answering 'yes' to these questions suggests you may want to consider doing artistic research and suggests your area of interest may be good fit for this approach. Another, crucial component of engaging in artistic research is to determine if the appropriate support systems exist for such an endeavour. Do you have a place to make art? Do you have a place to exhibit and/or perform your work? Do you have access to experts in art and arts education willing to collaborate and critique your work? Will your coursework support your

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need to become familiar with issues and practices in contemporary art and arts education? Does your institution support an exhibition as evidence of research? As I mentioned previously, doing artistic research is a collaborative effort. You will be much better situated for success if the support systems are in place. Characteristics of Artistic Research Julie and her graduate student peers who engaged in artistic research for their master's thesis projects in art education take on the challenges of helping create new structures for making meaning and developing new knowledge. They research within the academy, through their art practices, while contextualizing their inquiries in issues of art education. They are part of a postmodern critique of knowledge, objectivity, intentionality, and culturally-constructed hierarchies of value and provide the impetus for artistic research as a discipline. From an epistemic point of view, artistic research may be seen as embodying the post postmodern possibility of moving beyond barren dichotomies such as theory or practice, form or content, and discursive or intuitive knowledge--an opportunity for developing the mode of thinking, doing, acting, and producing what Jacques Derrida called bricolage. In fact, the artistic researchers are in a unique position to become bricoleurs, both in the sense that they have to use what is always already there in art as well as in research, and in the sense that they are not predetermined by entrenched institutional or material requirements. (Rosengren 107) Producing bricolage thus frames the discipline of artistic research as a transdisciplinary practice. Doing artistic research is not the same as being a professional artist. First, let me hastily add that this does not have to do with the quality of the art products. Artistic researchers create art as does

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the professional artistand necessarily of a high quality. Second, calling a work of art 'research' does not allow it to divorce itself from the contemporary dialog of art, the criticisms of art, and the determinants of quality within the art world. However, the artistic researcher can be divorced from the market forces and corporatization impacting the professional artist. Last, the artistic researcher must address the process of doing research, the dissemination of the research, and the scholarly discourse associated. As Darren Newbury wrote: The commitment to opening up and accounting for the research process and, related to it, the collective project of building the knowledge base and scholarly discourse of the subject, whilst an explicit commitment for the academy, is not of equal importance for professional practice. (371) A professional artist can do artistic research; an artistic researcher can exhibit, sell, and market as a professional artist. But the practices, while overlapping immensely, are also different. The challenges that artistic research pose for teaching artists involves understanding that the arts are an embodied way of knowing. Artistic research within institutions of higher education require a metacognitive stance to this embodied knowing. Teaching artists provide experiential learning, an embodied way of learning, through the arts. I worry that artistic research within higher education may, in some cases, lead to an over-analysis of that which cannot be said. Artistic research must not be severed fromor even partially removed fromartistic practice. Teaching artists, in their use of artistic research and involvement in it, can help make sure this does not take place. Conceptual Perspective and Approach

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So far, artistic research has been framed as being based on the practices of artistsmaking art, being reflexive, writing and speaking, and maintaining and encouraging critical discourse . In claiming the processes and practices of artists as approaches to research, an inevitable consequence is the conceptual perspective of methodological openness. This methodological openness defies a discreet, descriptive definition. Rather an ability to deal with ambiguity is needed to embark on artistic research. On the other hand, artistic research exists within the academy, and as such should be held to the same standards of transparency and elucidation of processes and outcomes as other forms of research. In artistic research these forms may include artworks and exegesis. And as in other areas of research, the quality of artistic research requires critical scrutiny and peer review. The critique form, long established in the art world, provides a valuable and important opportunity for this type of review. Artistic research has resisted singular approaches or paradigms. Methodological pluralism should be considered a positive attribute of doing artistic research, and to reduce it to any single method would be a great misfortune (Borgdorff, Kjrup, Newbury, Schwartz). As Newbury stated: The pursuit of some abstract notion of pure art or design research methods often seems to me misguided; beg, borrow and steal seems a more productive strategy. The field is by its very nature methodologically diverse, even at times promiscuous. (372) I have advised graduate students who used methods from visual anthropology, ethnography, hermeneutics, and heuristics to name a few. They combined these with theories from disciplines as diverse as cognitive psychology, neuroscience, human development, relational aesthetics,

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queer theory, feminism, and computer science. Artistic researchers often contact experts to ask questions and surround the problem. Theories and methods can be taken up and abandoned. Forms get manipulated, discarded, appropriated, and reprocessed. This can also be frustrating and challenging. We often do not know what we do not know. How is a graduate student supposed to know all the methods available? Hint: you're not. However, having to become adept at learning new methods and applying them within your art practice can seem daunting. This is precisely why doing artistic research is a collaborative effort. While your research is yours, artistic research requires input from your peers, instructors, advisors, and outside experts. Artistic research inherently involves the artistic development of the researcher. This places artistic research in close relationship with action research. A goal of action research is to transform and enhance the practice of the teacher/researcher, which is why it has such prominence in graduate schools of education. The artistic researcher should recognize the cycle of investigation, development, changes to practices, followed by further investigation. As Borgdorff stated: Artistic research is therefore not just embedded in artistic and academic contexts, and it focuses not just on what is enacted in creative processes and embodied in art products, but it also engages with who we are and where we stand. (51) However, artistic research must not be limited to the personal artistic development of the researcher. The significance of the research must extend to the fields of art and art education. This is not a call for generalizability, as associated with the goals of scientific research, but rather

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extending a proposition or call for consideration of new knowledge that broadens our understandings of the fields. Contexts for Artistic Research in Visual Arts Education The master's thesis project of Nate Muehleisen (Image 2) serves as an example of artistic research in light of the overview of artistic research. In Nate's statement about his project, he writes: Kinderzeichen is a project that concerns the semiotics of preschool and the constructive role that symbols play in the embodiment of thought. The work is inspired by my experience as a Pre-K teacher and based on research that began with an investigation of the invention of kindergarten by Friedrich Froebel in Germany in the 19th Century. Froebel's emphasis on experiential learning lead to further inquiry into modern learning theory, its application to artificial intelligence, and the findings of cognitive science. The themes of these theories which are explored in my drawings and prints include: the embodiment of the mind, the coding of information, metaphor, and the relationship between complexity and simplicity. (MSAE) Note that Nate's inquiry emerged from his teaching experience. Through his artistic research he gained new knowledge and understandings of the historical and contemporary goals of early childhood education and relationships between his teaching and contemporary theories from a diverse array of fields. During his research process he employed a variety of methods including those from participant-observer, visual ethnography, self-study, and semiotic research. The borders that Nate transgressed, however, were rooted in and surrounded by his art practice.

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Borgdorff reminded us that this means that art practice is paramount as the subject matter, the method, the context and the outcome of artistic research (46). Sullivan refers to meaning making as visual arts knowing. He situates it "as both a biological and cultural construct where mindful practices are structured, framed, and embodied" (134). These mindful practices occur by thinking in a language, thinking in a medium, and thinking in a context. Artistic research in art education demands this visual arts knowing within the contexts of self, community, and art education. We must employ language not only in an exegesis but in the socially mediated spaces of the art world, the academy, and the community. Artistic researchers think through a medium in the creation of art products. These works facilitate dialog, embody understandings and knowledge, and are the process and product of the research. Artistic researchers also write about their work - writing that informs beyond the visual in the same way that the visual informs beyond the written text. Developing a Research Interest Artistic research, as other qualitative research, is about discovery rather than hypothesis testing. As such, a well-defined research question may not be the approach needed (Borgdorff, Newbury). When you develop research questions you are delimiting a space for your research. Often in artistic research there is a phase of divergence, exploration, and journeys down many alternate paths before undergoing a phase of convergence, to a delimiting of the research space. Rather than seeing this as oppositional to traditional research practices, I prefer to view it a part of doing research. A tie that binds artistic research to other forms is described by Newbury: To be a researcher one needs not only a solid grasp of the ideas current in a particular field, but an understanding of the evidence that supports those ideas, the techniques by

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which it has been gathered and so on. Research training, therefore, provides a critical insight into the process of knowledge production. At this level, in my view, research in the arts does not depart significantly from research in any other field of inquiry. (370) Graduate students considering doing artistic research must understand and be able to handle the ambiguity that often surrounds the research at the outsetand may creep up later. You must also be up for the challenge (and opportunity) methodological openness provides, while consequently taking responsibility for understanding and taking an informed, critical stance to the research from other approaches that address your area of interest. Graduate students wanting to do artistic research should start by developing their reflexive abilities. You are already reflexive in your daily reflections and actions, but the level of reflexivity needed for research takes a concerted effort. Initially, you may want to look back at past journals, sketchbooks, portfolios, blogs, tweetsanywhere you use as a repository for thoughts and ideasto determine your interests, influences, and insights. Often students use multiple sites to provide the information from which to reflect. What themes emerge? Where do your passions lie? How do you construct meaning? What is important to you? What is important to you about how your culture(s) and communities(s)? While this introspection takes place, also begin to look outward to contextualize your reflections. Determine what artists, intellectuals, educators, peers, professors, and others grapple with the same issues, work under similar influences, and have develop knowledge and understanding about your interests. This reflexive process (reflection and action) situates your areas of interest within particular theories and practices, artworks and literature, research and

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commentary. In this process you determine where the relationships exist between your interests and what is relevant in the fields of art, art education, and your community. What Counts as Evidence? With the purposes of artistic research evidence becomes that which provides opportunities for the audience/viewers to engage with the research and clarify intentions, processes, and new knowledge and understandings. Artworks, obviously, provide the essential evidence in artistic research. They also present a problem in communicating the entirety of the research. Candy and Edmonds suggested: These artefacts may well represent the core of the new knowledge generated by the research, but the clarity with which that knowledge is communicated directly through the artefact is questionable. Given that one accepts that the artefact can, in some sense, represent new knowledge, the problem of sharing it leads to the perceived need for text describing the context...before the related work is normally described as research. (125) Early in this review I mentioned how border violations between domains may make some within those domains uneasy. This is one instance. Artists may feel uneasy with the need of the research domain for the necessity of an accompanying text to make the artistic research 'complete.' However, the artistic research needs to be open to revealing, reflecting on, and presenting the processes, pathways, and perceptions surrounding the artwork. The romantic notion of the artist that leaves the rational consideration of the creative process to others means that those outside of the artist's practice get to determine its meaning and significance. This is no longer sufficient in contemporary art practice (Sullivan 85)

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This leads to the evidence contributing to the exegesis and another opportunity for angst as there are no formulas to follow, no recipes for successful exegesis. The text depends on and intertwines with the artwork. It may involve the use of other research methodologies and thus evidence from those discourses. The following areas should be addressed in the exegesis to contextualize the research: Contemporary and historical artistic and educational contexts. Theories contributing to the research. Methodological contexts. Reasoning for the selection and use of particular media, methods, subject matter, and exhibition. Personal, professional, and community contexts pertinent to the research. As much as the written word allows, address the new understandings and knowledge gained.

Impact on your art and teaching practices - real or envisioned. What new questions arose?

Additional texts may also be included as evidence in artistic research. The artist statement is an important text as would be any materials that supplement the exhibition such as wall texts, handouts, and lesson plans. Since the art practice is both the process and the product of artistic research, viewing evidence as both part of the processes and the outcome seems plausible.

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The discourse surrounding an artistic research thesis must also be considered evidence. It is part of the processes and product. Artistic research is not complete without it. As Sullivan stated: This interdependent relationship among the artwork, the viewer, and the setting is clearly seen in conceptualizing studio-based visual arts research within higher education, as all these forms become part of discussion in an interpretive community. In this instance, knowledge that is embodied in practice, argued in a thesis, and constructed as discourse within the institutional setting, all contribute to new understanding. (83) Discourse within the interpretive community of peers, artists, educators, and professors provides the necessary opportunities for new understandings that result from and then become part of the artistic research. This calls for a certain detachment from artistic researcher as the community takes some ownership of the research as the discourse calls for their interpretive involvement. They help make the meaning. Your artistic research then becomes part of the community. The most common formal form of discourse in the visual arts is the critique or review. Artistic research thesis projects should undergo a thorough, formal final review, as well as structured critiques along the way. For the purpose of evidence, the discourse that often comes at the arbitrary 'end' of the project should be considered evidence that contributes to the new knowledge and understandings of the research. This calls for documentation of the critiques and reviews throughout the research process. Organization and Documentation Master's theses do not get completed without good organization. And good research does not happen without solid documentation. The documentation in artistic research must satisfy the

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demands of the research community and the arts community. Academic researchers are required not just to present their findings, but to account for the research journey (Newbury 371). Opportunities exist to once again cross borders and use forms more common to artists and teaching artists such as progress portfolios, video, and diagrams to satisfy both areas. As these forms of documentation gain more acceptance in academia the artist provides "innovative forms of discursivity that stand closer to the artist work than a written text" (Borgdorff 58). The organization and documentation of the research and during the process are means to demonstrate credibility and rigor. "What matters most is the cogency of the documentation with respect to both intersubjective forms (Borgdorff 58). Inter-subjective, meaning that evidence, often in the form of various types of documentation, are organized to demonstrate relationships between the forms. This confirmatory network of relationships helps establish the validity of any new knowledge and understandings. Each artistic research project requires different evidence. What must be present, however, is evidence of systematic, rigorous processes surrounding an issue relevant to arts education with art making at its core. Creating documentation involves processes familiar to the artist. Analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating evidence for documentation calls for interpretation, editing, and curatorial skills. This last one, curatorial skills, should be valued in the artistic research processes. Curators often must cull works from a single or multiple artists, keeping in mind several contexts such as the relevant issues in contemporary art, the quality of the work, the exhibition context, the audience, and pertinent funders and administrators. Artistic researchers approach their organization and documentation under similar circumstances. Significance and Implications

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Artistic research can address any number of issues through doing art. Artistic research in art education adds a lens that frames the research contexts, processes, and products. As a new discipline that generally holds to the concept of methodological openness, a quite fascinating possibility occurs: Once you let go of a small set of formal criteria for what may count as "real research", you open the doors for a serious and much more interesting discussion about what should be considered good research that gives us interesting, eye-opening, inspiring, enlightening, fascinating, edifying, uplifting contributions to knowledge and insights that are also well-founded, justified, persuasive. (Kjrup 42) These contributions could address an inexhaustible array of issues relating to and impacting art and arts education. The significance of an artistic research project, thus, becomes a process of collaborative interpretationa dialogic exchange of opinions and ideas. This does not mean the significance is left to relativistic whims. The significance demands and depends on a community of arts and education experts, as well as others who have experience with your project's processes and issues. Through the critique and review processes, the researcher, along with peers, advisors, and critics, debate the significance. Of course, the artistic researcher has a privileged vantage point from which to interpret but not the only valuable one, and certainly not the only one capable of determining implications of the research. Borgdorff reminds us that artistic research is about unfinished thinking. Thesis exhibitions and reviews are pausing points. The thinking continues, and the thinking through making continues. Often any long-term significance and implications emerge overtime in the teaching and art making of the teaching artist. But the process of coming together, to enter into

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the discourses of the arts and arts education through artistic researchwith the art and art making at its coreprovide the an opportunity to understand teaching and learning in art differently than any other way. And if enough good artistic research is conducted and shared, the impact on what counts as research in academia will be greatly impacted. Not to mention the significance for art education to study itself through the very practices and thinking that it teaches to others. Reflection Arguing that the arts provide a unique way of knowing the world is the main rationale for artistic research. As one of the ways humans make meaning, artistic research then becomes a viable means for creating new knowledge and communicating that knowledge. As a new discipline, however, a critical mass of quality artistic research has yet to be cataloged and analyzed. This hinders our ability to characterize it. As more graduate students elect to do artistic research, and as more colleges and universities support it, the field will begin to develop the kinds of familial relationships that enable good research and the significance to be more apparent. In graduate studies in arts education, students doing artistic research use their art practices within the structures of the academy. You become part of a critique of knowledge and culturally-constructed hierarchies of value that positions the arts on equal footing to other, more prominent and valued forms of research. Having an openness to methodologies calls for an ability to deal with ambiguity and a reflexive stance that continually fluctuates between reflection and action. Blending methodological openness with a reflexive approach demands a constant curiosity that continually questions assumptions and positions. This is how an artistic researcher surrounds a problem.

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Several more questions cannot yet be fully answered in the field of artistic research: What counts as good artistic research? What about great research? What criteria should be used to evaluate artistic research? How, exactly, does artistic research impact teaching artists' practices? The challenge to artistic research is to develop a community of experts that can evaluate it. If the field develops within the academy, artistic researchers from the academy should be a part of that community (Bergdorff, Cobussen), all the while trying to avoid unnecessary regularization by adhering to the methodological principle of openness and by keeping artistic research part of the art practice (berg 45). Engaging in artistic research is a collaborative effort and the findings become meaningful in the context of community. Peers, artists, educators, community members, and others provide expertise and feedback. As you exhibit and present your research, these same people provide the critical review that enables a level of meaning making beyond those proposed by any individual researcher. Artistic researchers become bricoleurs, not only through the appropriation and application of various methods, theories, media, and techniques, but also by bringing a community together for critical reflection.

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Works Cited
Borgdorff, Henk. The Production of Knowledge in Artistic Research. The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts. Eds. Michael Biggs and Henrik Karlsson. New York: Routledge, 2011. 4463.

Candy, Linda and Ernest Edmonds. "The role of the artefact and frameworks for practice-based research." The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts. Eds. Michael Biggs and Henrik
Karlsson. New York: Routledge, 2011. 120-137.

Cobussen, Marcel. "The intruder." Art and Artistic Research. Zurich Yearbook of the Arts 2009, 6. Series ed. Hans-Peter Schwarz. Trans. Steve Gander, Johnathan Fox, Tan Wlchli, and Mark Kyburz. Zurich: Vurlag Scheidegger & Spiess, 2010. 46-55. Colotti, Julie. MSAE thesis show 2010. Retrieved January 20, 2011 from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Art Education Department website: http://www.massartedgrad.com/htm/jcolotti.html. Kjrup, Sren. "Pleading for plurality: Artistic and other kinds of research." The Routledge
Companion to Research in the Arts. Eds. Michael Biggs and Henrik Karlsson. New York: Routledge, 2011. 24-43.

MSAE Thesis Show 09. PDF downloaded on January 20, 2011, from www.lulu.com. Newbury, Darren. "Research training in the creative arts and design." The Routledge Companion to

Research in the Arts. Eds. Michael Biggs and Henrik Karlsson. New York: Routledge, 2011.

368-387.

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berg, Johan. "Difference or diffrence?" Art and Artistic Research. Zurich Yearbook of the Arts 2009, 6. Series ed. Hans-Peter Schwarz. Trans. Steve Gander, Johnathan Fox, Tan Wlchli, and Mark Kyburz. Zurich: Vurlag Scheidegger & Spiess, 2010. 40-45. Rosengren, Mats. "Art + research does not equal artistic research." Art and Artistic Research. Zurich Yearbook of the Arts 2009, 6. Series ed. Hans-Peter Schwarz. Trans. Steve Gander, Johnathan Fox, Tan Wlchli, and Mark Kyburz. Zurich: Vurlag Scheidegger & Spiess, 2010. 106-115. Schwartz, Hans-Peter. "From undisciplined to transdisciplinary." Art and Artistic Research. Zurich Yearbook of the Arts 2009, 6. Series ed. Hans-Peter Schwarz. Trans. Steve Gander, Johnathan Fox, Tan Wlchli, and Mark Kyburz. Zurich: Vurlag Scheidegger & Spiess, 2010. 170-179. Serig, Dan. "Research Review." Teaching Artist Journal. 9.2 (2011): 125-131. Sullivan, Graeme. Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in the Visual Arts (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2010.

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Image 1. Julie Colotti, Thesis Installation, 2010. Photograph by Damian Hickey. Reproduced courtesy of the artist. Image 2. Nate Muehleisen, Kinderzeichen : Childsigns, 2009. Works on paper and canvas, various sizes. Photograph by Damian Hickey. Reproduced courtesy of the artist.

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Image 1.

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Image 2.