Essaying art
How can we use essayism in the context of artistic reserach, to connect and merge form and content (practice and theory) in the artistic and research process?
abstract
Science needs to articulate its sources, as well as its relevance and its context, and it must provide clear argumentation. Furthermore, it is strictly bound to academic and ethical rules. Art is not constraint by these methods, ethics and rules. In the relatively new field of Artistic Research, science and art are integrated. But defining this institutionalized field, and the methods and evaluation criteria of its output, is highly debated. Can we integrate the scientific and artistic in a working method?
The essay inherently embraces both the artistic and the scientific. It drifts in-between the subjective and the objective, the experiential and the intellectual. The essay expresses a train of thought, and critically reflects on those thoughts: it experiments and speculates.
What if artists use the essay as an un-methodological research method? The artistic researcher approaches the topic of investigation essayistically; essaying art. The form of expression can encompass all possible artistic media, and all possible combinations of media like: writing; video; photography; sound; composition; performance and more.
This article summarizes my current research and the theoretical underpinnings for a case study practice tutorial at the University of Amsterdam in the context of my educational research project at the Piet Zwart Institute Rotterdam. Through this case study research I investigate how an essayistic approach to artistic research could practically be used as an un-methodological method for developing individual artistic research strategies.
Presentation:
NICA (National Institute Cultural Analyses)
ASCA Research Group on Artistic Research
“Spectrology and Hauntology”
"the complex relation between theory and practice and also engaged in discussions about the interdependence between form and content: dualities at the centre of most debates surrounding this emerging discipline."
Article:
Ticontre.
Teoria Testo Traduzione n. 9 (May 2018)
The Essay’s Boundaries.
For a New Reflection on the Destinies of the Essay
- long history (1580)
- definition dificilties
- authors perspective
- many diciplins and topics
- in-between art and science
- contemporary relevance
- threats: 'anything goes'
the essay as verb
- assai: attempt
- exagium: balancing, testing
- exigo: to drive out, to thrust
- agere: act
- coup de essay:
'Faire son coup d’essai, son chef d’oeuvre,
pour passer Maitre'
English:
- assay: to attack
- relatively young field (early 90ties)
- definition difficulties
- artist perspective
- many disciplines and topics
- in-between art and science
- contemporary relevance
- threats: 'anything goes'
Practice Tutorial
- four essayistic characteristics
l investigate artistic research strategies for essaying art, artistic research on artistic research.