CharaCteristiCs of visuaL and Performing artsonly. new questions and problems arise when artistic work is evaluated as research
outcomes, as parts of the dissertation or research report.
one problem in doctoral research is that artworks and performances tend to live
a double life, first as public productions in their own right, and then, almost hidden
from the audience, as research outcomes to be evaluated and examined as part of
a dissertation. earlier approaches based on the idea of equivalence between art and
research emphasized artistic excellence, which is easily read as a need for mainstream
credibility. in contemporary art, artworks often include knowledge production,
so explanations are not considered an alien practice. The research is often easily
incorporated into the artwork. in theatre, dance, music, film and live art preliminary
information given to the public mostly serves the purpose of marketing, though
a terminology of investigating issues is becoming more common. There is a lack of
funding for experimental artistic research, especially in performing arts. so many artist
researchers have to rely on commercial productions as parts of research. When artistic
research becomes more common, it will hopefully not be necessary to hide from the
public the fact that something is research and perhaps there will be opportunities for
esoteric experiments created explicitly for research purposes.
another problem in doctoral research is the tendency for the artworks or
performances to remain in the background in the final discussion and evaluation. The
written report tends to be considered the real research work (an influence from the
humanities and social sciences), regardless of the scale of the artworks or productions,
and their examination in live situations. This risk is particularly germane in performing
arts, when the performance is often long gone at the time of the final dissertation,
though today this applies for many forms of contemporary art as well. if the evaluation
takes place in the same context, it is unnecessarily exhausting for the performer (dancer,
actor, poet, musician or live artist) who has to jump directly from the performance
to defending the dissertation, especially if the evaluation is a formal public event as in
Finland and most other scandinavian countries.
a third problem in doctoral research is how to present artworks and performances
as research outcomes, or as demonstrations of research outcomes, in such a way that
the issues and questions central to the investigation are brought to the fore. sometimes
the focus on the written contribution is due to the fact that the artist researcher
herself prefers to put emphasis on the theoretical part and considers the artworks as
ephemeral, trivial or too personal (or wants to safeguard their integrity as artworks). For
an examiner, a vital question is how to avoid the inevitable lure of looking at art as art,
or enjoying a performance as a performance. paradoxically, the examiners sometimes
wish to focus on evaluating their experiences of the performances or artworks, rather
than on the contribution to knowledge and understanding in the report, a situation
the ambitious artist researcher might want to avoid. if artworks are assessed as good or
bad with regard to their quality as art, or as interesting or boring in terms of spectator
experience, as can be the case in performing arts, it is no wonder that many artist
researchers prefer to stress the theoretical part in order to be heard as researchers.
however, by being explicit about what is the research focus, and by trying to point that
out among other possible aims of the work, the artist researcher can help the examiners
to focus on core concerns.