[-empyre-] Practice in Research & odd methods, rude mechanics

[Adrian Miles]

On Sunday, 20 January 2013 at 5:18 PM, Johannes Birringer wrote:

> But surely Schneemann, and the other artists who responded, had much to say about knowledge production, but their production is not defensible, if I understand Adrian Miles correctly.
>  
not quite :-). Art is perfectly defensible as art. In the context of research as a contribution of something new to knowledge (and not experience or even understanding) then some art can do this, of course. But it is not a condition that all art has to do this. I am suggesting though that all research has to do this.   

So, in a *university* context if I make art and argue that I've done enough and that's my research, then I think you misunderstand research, and possibly art. As Ross Gibson (I think reasonably) pointed out in an essay scientists *practice* research all the time in labs, field work and so on, but culturally accept that they have to express the practice of their research in other forms to turn it into research and not just practice. (The big difference I see between  these research cultures is that the sciences historically privilege clarity and the denial of ambiguity when they write up their research, the humanities toy with ambiguity and clarity, but its pretty faux and tame as any PhD candidate or academic trying to work outside of scholarly 'norms' knows only too well.) I think in the university context when I make art if I also want to claim it as research then I need to do something more.  

I realise this freaks everyone out, but I think this is only because an entire complicated architecture has been falsely built that mystifies 'project' and 'practice' based research into something particularly special that only refers to a small group of creative 'practitioner researchers'. My blue collar upbringing bridles at this self granting of 'specialness' which seems dubious, if not rather tautological. All good research involves error, chance, intuition, creativity. All good research needs to be communicated in a manner that allows it to be understood by at least some part of the relevant community of peers. Whether artists, scholars or scientists I"m not sure is a game changer. (And I completely agree with Simon that this community is partly self defined, establishes its norms and this is what lets some things count and others not.)

Similarly whoever it was that I read recently (in a book) that argued that science research begins from known hypotheses that are then tested, versus creative research that begins with ambiguity is playing precisely that language game that sends me spare. It turns hypothesis into the thing you read in the scientific report and ambiguity into the artefact that is produced. Any scientist knows that in their *practice* ambiguity abounds. That's why they frame questions to test. Any creative researcher knows that in their creative making they are responding to any number of hypothesises, we just don't call them that ("how do I film narrative fiction with one continuous take to….", "what would it be to write a novel without the letter e?", "what is colour"? "what happens if….?") Ambiguity is not the opposite of a hypothesis ("I intend to write a poem that is ambiguous to see if it could be understood as a love poem, and as an elegy").

Sorry, didn't really answer your question Johannes. In a nutshell I"ve been in too many university meetings where creative practitioners insist that what they do is 'research' all by itself. Yet seem not to recognise that the whole 20 minute discussion explaining how their art is research is necessary precisely because their art *by itself* can't communicate all that (it communicates other things) which is why if they want their stuff to be 'research' and not only art they need to talk, write, etc about what it does.  

--  
an appropriate closing
Adrian Miles
Program Director Bachelor of Media and Communication (Honours)
RMIT University - www.rmit.edu.au
http://vogmae.net.au/



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