both archive research and field research – could help practitioners of theatre, dance
and film to see that the difference from more formal research procedures is often one
of degree only.
do formal research procedures imply that art- based research simply applies existing
methods from social sciences and pedagogical studies? many artist researchers borrow
qualitative methods related to phenomenology, hermeneutics, ethnography, narrative
approaches, grounded theory, etc. This is convenient, for instance, in situations where
artistic work is created in the beginning of the research process and where the research
questions change during the process. Then artworks can be turned into research data,
rather than research outcomes and qualitative methods can be applied to analyse the
documentation of the creative process, like data from interviews. however, this is not
really art- based or artistic research in a strict sense, since it could be done by anybody. a
situation where the artist stops being an artist after completing the work, and turns into
a researcher looking at the material created by the artist, has been criticized (hannula
et al. 2005). This is inevitable to some extent. it is what reflexivity is all about, but other
alternatives could also be developed.
one way is to understand art making as a method. making art can be a kind of method,
if it is articulated and systematized as such (mcniff 1998). an example of such a method
would be video filming a still act once a week in the same place and then analysing the
material while editing a year later, to use my own art practice as an illustration. another
example would be to gather a group of dancers to do contact improvisation and discuss
their experiences with them after each session. however, if art making is a method, does
it have to produce art or is it enough that one uses the same procedure? Can the result
be something other than art? Yes, probably the result can be a demonstration or even a
report only, depending on the object and purpose of research.
if research methods are developed out of the working methods used within each
field, then the research process will have specific characteristics due to the chosen
methods. Could an artistic research project resemble empirical experimentation? The
idea of variations resembles an experimental situation. The analogy can be problematic,
however, since there are inevitably too many variables in a large production like a
stage performance or a film. alternatively, could an artistic research project criticize
some previous theory on the basis of practical experiments? This could be easier, since
one can expose weaknesses in a model through experiments, without being able to
solve all those weaknesses. in my doctoral work (arlander 1998) i used the analytical
model developed by peter eversman (1992) and criticized its limitations using my
own performances as examples. This type of critical experimental approach is rather
exceptional today. a more common way is to start with a topic or a problem, to create
your performances or artworks around it, and choose how to focus your reflection
as you go along. This resembles an ethnographer’s approach, and inevitably places
stronger demands on the written part, the reflection and analysis of experiences.
Today the topic that interests me is landscape, and i work with the following
question: how to perform landscape? it is too general a question to be a really useful
formulation, but it is a question to start with since i can attempt to answer it by means
of artistic practice. What makes my works in and with landscape examples of artistic
research instead of ordinary artistic work, which includes development of approaches
and methods? What makes these works a means to produce new knowledge and
