transformationaL Pra Cti Cethe place of art in research and art that changes artThere are many different definitions of what we here are calling arts- based research
(uKCge 1997; gray and malins 2004; strand 1998; scrivener 2002; hannula et al.
2005; Borgdorff 2006; Rust et al. 2007) which in one way or the other seek to clarify
the relation between art and research. however, Frayling (1993) was perhaps the first
to examine this relation, describing three kinds of research: research into art and
design, research through art and design, and research for art and design. it has been
argued that rather than describing three different types of research,^2 these descriptors
say something about the relation of art and design to the conditions of research
(scrivener 2009c). Thus research into treats art and design as the subject of inquiry:
art and design practices and objects are the things to be explored and understood.
Research through relates art and design to the method condition as a means of arriving
at knowledge and understanding about something, in fact anything, including art and
design itself. Frayling cites george stubbs (1724–1806) and John Constable (1776–
1837) as historical examples of artists who might be described as conducting research
through art and design: the one contributing to knowledge of equine anatomy,^3 the
other to knowledge of meteorological conditions. Research for art and design is that
which the artist or designer conducts for the purposes of art or design. such research,
often described as little ‘r’, is not required to yield new knowledge and understanding.
Characterized in this way, research for art and design does not satisfy the goal condition
of academic and professional research.
hence Frayling’s characterization of art and design research excludes the possibility
that works of art in themselves contribute new knowledge and understanding, or if they
do it is not a kind of knowledge that we would associate with research: typically, that
which can be characterized as communicable, true, justified belief. if works of art cannot
in themselves contribute in this way, then the labour of art cannot be understood as the
activity that we name as research. however, let us consider stubbs and Constable, cited
by Frayling as examples of artists who might be regarded as having contributed, through
their practices as artists, to new understanding in fields outside art. accepting this
claim for the moment, we should also note that both are credited with having changed
art. The artistic practices of stubbs and Constable can be described as transformational
because they produced works of art that challenged and, in challenging, changed the
contemporary and future perception, reception, production and understanding of art
(scrivener 2006). What is suggested here is that some works of art go beyond the
particular ambition attributed to art in any historical period, thereby contributing to
its reassignment. if both stubbs and Constable contributed to science, then this was
incidental to their primary contribution to art fact and art discourse. This is not to say
that stubbs or Constable sought intentionally to change art, but that their works of art
nevertheless contributed to this effect. implicit in this account is the notion that a work
of art, of itself, can challenge its beholder’s beliefs about art and that accommodating
this challenge can result in a change in belief system. But it also begs the question: how
does a work of art promote change in ideas about art?