navigating in heterogeneitytechniques for producing images and sounds challenge or even threaten the hegemony
of philosophy to construct concepts, theories of science, or models of thought? or
will they offer new combinations of conceptualization and artefacts, experimentation
and theory? most people have the senso- motoric ability to make spatial analogies and
experiences of models and maps; landscapes that can be imagined and constructed.
Therein lies the opportunity for a more extensive use of new tools for modelling and
imagery, and of making- action- performance.
of course there are performative power struggles ahead: forming new disciplines,
fighting for academic positions and funding, defining the most urgent problems. The
academic fashion industry is fit for institutional fights. But in essence, the nineteenth-
century, ‘stable’ classification system of disciplines has outlived its function. learning
traditions develop along much more combinatory lines. interesting topics of research
are found in between established investigative results. To ‘build on existing knowledge’
does not mean to range within existing categories but to collectively and continually
place each project in relation to other projects, and reconnect to other researchers’
strategies and methods.
While, ten years ago, artistic investigative practices were still often looked upon
with suspicion by other research paradigms, today i meet curiosity when lecturing
in different research environments. many scholars see the possibilities of trans- or
cross-disciplinary collaboration where different types of precision and modelling,
performance and experiments can be combined, confronted and exchanged. as the
fine arts demystify abR, it will gain its full potential.
it is my hope that it is not only art- based researchers within the making disciplines
who can recognize themselves in the descriptions of these spatially founded making-
composing- actions, critical reflections and setting of assemblages; but that this multiple,
modelling, non- linear way of working with constructions of knowledge will reach to
other scholars and bridge gaps between different traditions of inquiry. To be scholarly,
conscientious and creative always includes the use of relevant material, systematized
data and critical consideration of conditions linked to the research problem. But,
in addition, it is through the conscious operations with fiction, innovation and
composition that knowledge is produced, and new meaning emerges.
Notes1 For practical reasons, the term art- based research (abR) is used here as a general approach
including practice- based or design- based research or research by design.
2 http://www.usit.nu (accessed 22 January 2010).
3 ‘zones of convergence’ are described by neurologist antonio damasio as part of the thinking-
acting- creating in ‘sensomotory maps’ (damasio 2006).
4 urban sound institute, http://www.urbansound.org/eng/index.php (accessed 12 February 2010).