This a common concern amongst participants in the Thinking Practices module and once again it came up last week during our debate on writing strategies for the module’s essay: how to combine the artistic approach with the academic requirements, how to write in a creative manner whilst following the need for rigorous referencing and quoting as a way of legitimising one’s assertions? The Journal of Artistic Research (JAR) is used to similar questioning so its interesting to see what they propose as a their format to publish artistic research.
They call it exposition: This can be done with the help of an online editor that allows one to combine text, image and audio, into a networked nodes called ‘weaves’. What distinguishes it from other types of art writing is that it “must expose the research dimension of artistic practice. This process of engaging with, rather than simply documenting, artistic practice is essential.” The difference is that in this proposed mode of writing, the art work appears not simply an illustration of the theories, but rather emerges from the art practice, in the manner of the art as research.
You can browse their Research Catalogue (RC): “Given that the RC is a site for artistic research, to add a work is to make a claim that the work can be seen as research; through expositions, comments and articles the initial claim is transformed into an argument. It is believed that the reflective space provided by the RC can become an essential part of the research process by providing a suitable structure in which to develop the relationship between documentation and exposition, whilst also retaining congruence with art itself.”
As this week’s etivity, read more about JAR’s position on art writing, take a look at some of the ‘expositions’ in the catalogue and come back to this blog to post your thoughts on their proposed relationship between artistic research and writing.
