By Peter C. Sonderen
Art and Scholarship
Ingredients of scholarship and art: desire, curiosity and passion
Born in the 1800’s but developed parallel as they were still considered as two separate domains. Post traditional ways of thinking, these two domains came together as interrelated and contributing to one another.
The collective ideology was broken by Postmodernism where individualism was regarded highly. Thus universality was found as a common element between the two domains.
Universality: in scholarship it was an important principle as no particular individual can be traced in scholarship but rather a history of individuals work seen collectively or in relation to different domains. Whereas in art- it was universal yet individual as each work is subjective and origins from the artists own practice, work and ideology which differs from person to person.
Art moves freely and doesn’t have a designated place per se until it reaches the purpose of showing eg galleries etc whereas scholarship is academic and thus associated to institutions.
2. Self-research to research
Scholarship-systematic, depersonalised
Art- personal quest…self-research. Greater focus on self-awareness and using research to aid personal practice.
Art Education emerged with a confluence of both as artists started entering education and brought in the element of professional practice but theory was still regarded as most important in art institutions.
Practice of art: professional practice along with research. But the idea of an “artist” and seeing art as a vocation was in question.
3. Method of research
The revised definition of Research states the answering of questions that leads to relevant knowledge rather than “new” knowledge.
3 way division and function of Research:
I. Research Into:
-different domains of knowledge are examined to focus on what has been written about art and art related subjects.
-to increase the student educational development
II. Research For:
-same as above but for the benefit of the student own work. It’s a kind of preliminary research.
-to find knowledge that is instrumental to artistic work/domain
-knowledge is neither transformed nor doubted
III. Research In and Through:
-answering research questions that have been asked in or through the students own artistic work.
-not only uses knowledge instrumentally but also finds new knowledge.
-Epistemic (relating to knowledge) and aesthetic (visual, auditory, tactile etc any form)
-performative: research process and its outcome
-the individuals “situatedness” is considered as an “observing subject”.
I and II are methods that are more as research as a form of gaining knowledge and is more academic in nature. Whereas III is performative in nature as it uses research in various forms and is a confluence of practice and theory.
Artistic Research : Fluidity of and between different knowledge domains is possible. Its interested in bridging the old, new and present fields of knowledge. “Particularization of art”: “a form of art that is interested in its own epistemic aspect”.
Artistic Research is also fluid in its forms of representation or presentation as it’s not confined to text based only but sensory, tactile etc.
AR is essentially to develop the students work and position themselves and their work using different domains of knowledge-leaning more towards theory development too(Bachelors). Whereas for Masters’ its more heavily related to finding or searching for “new forms, methods and content”. The performative aspect of it is given more weight.
Publishing: making research (in any form) public is given importance.
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