Contested definitions of artistic research [Elektronisk resurs] : re-establishing art as a form of knowledge

This paper aims to identify a number of challenges arising from the separation of artistic and scientific research, and how they are being addressed through the establishment of the new UmArts research centre. Through a discussion of research principles and questions, the paper will start to articulate the value of interdisciplinary research practices where artists and curators have the freedom to develop all kinds of knowledge and disseminate it in many different forms. This debate has many synergies with decolonial discourse in challenging the empirical traditions of science, opening up space for new kinds of knowledge and new (or very old) ways of knowing. UmArts takes an interdisciplinary approach both between the arts subjects, and between arts and humanities/sciences which embraces all the different artistic and scientific research criteria with the arts subjects. Whilst the definitions of art and science may seem somewhat arbitrary semantics for most hybrid researchers, their differences are constantly instituted within university and state research funding bureaucracies. With each bureaucratic inscription the characteristics of artistic research are in danger of being narrowed by trying to defend itself against the academization of its subject. Whilst many artists will be glad to know that their subject is receiving due care and attention, the separation of art and science produces many semantic, intellectual and discursive problems. There is a danger that separating out art as an exception, can create a research hierarchy with art as a second tier within the academy, reducing its intellectual capacity and agency. A more relaxed and flexible approach is needed to develop a rigorous culture of arts research which can operate in hundreds of different ways. There are as many artistic research methods as there are artists, and not every artwork is a doctorate in itself, so a clear set of research principles are needed as a basic rubric for evaluation. Fortunately these already exist within the wider discourses and practices of research. </p