voi Cesin this chapter i want to argue against this conclusion. i accept that the practices
of science, say, and art are different, as are the purposes of science and art, but this
does not mean that one thereby embodies a practice of research and the other does
not. geological science, for example, is concerned with the study of the dynamics of
the earth, its resources, and the use of those resources. implicit in this description is
the idea of knowledge and its application in the enrichment of human experience,
and, in the professional organization of intellectual fields such as geological science,
this relationship has been reinforced resulting in a dissociation of the production
of knowledge from its productive use. Consequently, when we want to ask whether
art practice embodies a function whereby knowledge is renewed, our tendency is to
compare it to fields where the research function is clearly isolated and to find art
practice wanting.
i would like to propose that we look at this question from a different starting point.
observing what happens when normal science goes astray, Kuhn writes:
when it does – when, that is, the profession can no longer evade anomalies
that subvert the existing tradition of scientific practice – then begin the
extraordinary investigations that lead the profession at last to a new set of
commitments, a new basis for the practice of science.
(Kuhn 1970 [1962]: 6)in other words, there are times when the knowledge accumulated through the
practice of research brings a science to a point of disorder and renewal. so let’s pose the
question differently; to investigate whether art embodies a research function, let’s ask
whether art practice undergoes Kuhnian paradigm shifts, since such renewals appear
to be contingent on the production of new knowledge. since art’s ‘set of commitments’
has been rewritten on several occasions during its history and since, on each occasion,
this rewriting constituted a fundamental restructuring or revocation of its conceptual
foundations, it follows that there is a prima facie case for suggesting that art practice
embodies a research function.
With the above in mind, the aim of this chapter is to work toward a theoretical
understanding of the interpretational and material practices of artistic renewal, of their
interrelationship and interdependence. after briefly discussing current conceptions of
art and research, Jacques Rancière’s theory of art will be drawn on in which art is
understood as a bond between image and text, or image and ideas. under this theory,
the critic’s contribution to artistic renewal will be examined before considering the
more challenging question, in the context of art and research, of how the material
innovations of the artist contribute to change in understanding of art. it will be
argued that historically, at least, cognitive surprise can be understood as the primary
mechanism responsible for the cognition of material innovation and the activation of
its consequences. To illustrate this proposition, the art of the late eighteenth- century
english landscape painter, John Constable, will be discussed as a model of the research
function in art, since it contributed to a new understanding of art and to its renewal.
Finally, it will be concluded that, in the contemporary setting, the conjunction of the
historically disjointed practices of material and interpretational innovation might be
the price of the erosion of widely shared, collective appreciation and expectation of art.