CharaCteristiCs of visuaL and Performing artsunderstanding instead of a means to produce experiences and insight for a potential
spectator? not much necessarily. But perhaps something: my wish to relate them to
previous research and present them in a research context, my openness to documenting
them and discussing choices made during the process, and lastly and perhaps most
importantly, my willingness to write about them (arlander 2008).
however, for a doctoral student or artist researcher starting with a project which
is to be examined as a dissertation i would not recommend this way as a model. To
make art first and contextualize it as research afterwards, will probably produce more
problems than planning a research project which includes experimentation and
artworks to begin with. The question of experimentation can be understood more
formally – like testing a hypothesis – or more creatively – like exploring the unknown
- or as an ongoing process of observation and analysis. in all cases it leads to the point:
is there something you really want to find an answer to, or, is there a problem that
you want to try to understand or solve or clarify? if not, it might be good to consider
what it is that makes your project research. We could of course argue that in the same
way as performance documentation is performative, since documentation constitutes
a performance as performance art (auslander 2006), an art project is constituted as
research when it is documented as research. and we could even claim that if we can
study any activity as (if it were) performance (schechner 2002), we can look at any art
process or performance as (if it were) research.
Based on my experiences with the dilemmas of doctoral students, i would recommend
an artist researcher to try to stick to at least one of the following three, in the turbulent
twirls of a creative research process – the question, the method or the data. however,
by choosing which one of these you try to keep constant, you immediately sign in on
a research tradition as well (discussed by other writers in this book, e.g. Chapter 5).^6
To try to formulate and fix all of them in advance in order to keep the research plan
constant during the process is often sheer idealism (and sometimes even crippling) in
an art- based or artistic research process where all aspects are often in flux and evolving.
most artists are good at exploring the unknown and living with uncertainty in their
creation process, and that could be an important asset for research.
the position of the artistThe position of the individual artist is different in visual arts or contemporary art and in
performing arts like theatre, dance, film and most forms of music. generally the artist
in performing arts is subordinated to conventions and production demands (even in
non-commercial productions). a status as ‘auteur’ or ‘virtuoso’ can help, but it is not
granted to all practitioners to the same degree. in visual (fine) art the artist is more
independent or self- directed, though perhaps tied to demands of creating a ‘brand’ of
herself or her works. The so- called freedom of the artist is most effectively propagated
and defended in fine arts. in performing arts and applied arts the individual artist is in
principle part of a production team and dependent on the customer or the public and
all the specificities of the moment.
performance art and to some extent live art are exceptions, or perhaps illuminating
intermediaries. They can be approached from a visual art context and from a dance
or theatre context. The position of the artist is taken from fine art with the legacy of