VISUAL ART DOCTORATES: PRACTICE-LED RESEARCH,

QUASI-RESEARCH, OR RESEARCH PER SE?

ABSTRACT
As part of a benchmarking project commisioned in 2002 by ACUADS, the Australian Council of
University Art and Design Schools, conducted a series of focus groups !ith candidates for
higher degrees in "isual Art in Australia in order to gain some insight into ho! the terminology
of research !as understood and used by "isual Art higher degree candidates# $he present paper
makes use of that data in order to e%amine to !hat e%tent art practice&led research could engage
in general research debate#
INTRODUCTION
Does C.P. Snow's observation that there are 'two cultures', science and art, that do not
communicate with each other still apply in an environment of practice-based
research degrees? Can visual artists debate the legitimacy of a methodology
with scientists? r do these artists, even when they underta!e a higher degree,
spea! a different language and avoid debating research principles in terms of
their studio wor!?
"mong the sciences, although differences abound, there is a long tradition of debate dating bac!
to when Dilthey in the late #$
th
century first proposed that, instead of see!ing causal laws as the
physical sciences do, social science should be concerned with verstehen, an empathic
understanding of its phenomena %Dilthey, #$&$'. (his rift has recently been further fueled by
postmodern criti)ue, notably poststructuralism and feminism %*urrell + ,organ, #$&$-
.eyerabend, #$&#- /uba, #$$0- 1ather, #$$#'. 2hat is significant is that, although there can be
great differences among the debaters as to what constitutes research, the terms of the debate
remain relatively constant. 3ualitative methodologies, although they re4ect positivism,
nonetheless articulate and debate common concerns regarding what constitutes rigour in the light
of their differences from )uantitative research. 5n other words, they maintain a common language
about research.
(he debate about principles of research pivots around premises concerning the fundamental
nature of the reality about which sciences see! !nowledge. "lthough 5 am necessarily
oversimplifying and stereotyping here, Positivists generally assume a measurable, observable,
world of causes and effects, the material components of which can be discretely e6amined in
order to propose general laws for future application. Postpositivists, on the whole, begin with the
premise that e6perience is constantly changing, interconnected, altered by the very act of
scientific observation, and mediated by culture and language. (hus, while the methodologies of
Positivism are mainly designed to measure, 'e6plain', and then generalise, Postpositivists design
research procedures to uncover, describe, and critically 'interpret' or deconstruct particular
phenomena in relation to a conte6t. "rt historical research and cultural studies research have, in
recent years, largely conformed to this latter paradigm. "nd in "rt Colleges, these disciplines
have commonly served to inform art ma!ing. " candidate's art practice was thus held to lead the
research process in the sense that it prompted other forms of intrinsically more rational in)uiry,
4ust as selling might prompt customer surveys or healing might prompt medical research, but was
not in itself considered research. (here evidently remained traces of the belief that art itself is a
spontaneous natural phenomenon. 5n *arnett 7ewman8s oft-)uoted terms, to artists, even
aesthetics was 9as ornithology is to birds8.

:owever, over the past decade, studio-based doctorates at "ustralian "rt Colleges within
;niversities have shifted emphasis. "lthough the proportion and role of a written component
accompanying the studio pro4ect for these theses can still vary, the studio component itself is
fre)uently considered paramount. 5ncreasingly, in visual art, practice does not lead research, but
is in fact considered to be the research. (his is a clear evolution from the stance ta!en by the
Strand <eport %#$$=> 6ii', which recommended 'research e'uivalence(
i
rather than research per se
as 'an appropriate and valid concept for recognition of research based practice and performance in
the creative arts'.
"t some "ustralian tertiary institutions, such as the ;niversity of (asmania and Dea!in
;niversity, the '(hesis' in a ?isual "rt doctorate is une)uivocally both studio wor! and an
e6egesis. Documents from these institutions both define the PhD as a 'substantial and original
contribution to !nowledge' and state that its thesis 'may be presented in one of two forms> a
conventional written thesis, or a thesis comprising creative !ork and a supporting !ritten
e%egesis'. (he university re)uires that a thesis 'should convey clearly the description of the
pro4ect, how it relates to the field as a whole, how the pro4ect was pursued, what techni)ues were
used, how successful they were, and the outcomes of the research'. 'Since the wor! of art cannot
always present information without ambiguity' the document e6plains, 'it is important that a
written component is included with the e6hibition of wor!s'. (he e6egesis in this model is 'to be
considered together with the e6hibition' but, as the course descriptions assert, it is the e%hibition
that (presents the substantive original discourse of the thesis(# (hus !nowledge, or scientia, is the
distinguishing trait of ;niversity art. *y laying claim to research status, ?isual "rt in the
;niversity conte6t, perhaps parado6ically, in a sense becomes science. "nd the written
component need be neither the vehicle nor evidence of reflective engagement, but simply a
clarifier of what is already in the practice. (his is still typically accomplished by conte6tualising
the images using art historical and cultural studies methods.
"rt history and cultural studies, however, possess refined methodologies only for interpreting
visual art, not for ma!ing it. 5n view of continued disagreement among theorists %,artinet, #$@A-
:oc!et , #$@B- Cco #$=@, #$&#- ,etD ,#$$#' whether, li!e verbal language, visual signs are
capable of 'double articulation' and thus of supporting a metadiscourse, lac! of a framewor! for
debating its principles of practice could pose serious problems for visual art's claims to research
status.
RESEARCH TERMINOLOGY IN PRACTICE
"s part of a benchmar!ing pro4ect commisioned in E00E by "C;"DS, the "ustralian Council of
;niversity "rt and Design Schools, 5 conducted a series of focus groups with candidates for
higher degrees in ?isual "rt in "ustralia in order to gain some insight into how the terminology
of research was understood and used by ?isual "rt higher degree candidates. 5 analysed
documents from nine "ustralian art colleges> the College of .ine "rts, ;niversity of 7ew South
2ales %Co."'- the .aculty of "rt + Design at the ;niversity of 7ewcastle-
the .aculty of "rts at Dea!in ;niversity- the School of "rt at the 7ational 5nstitute of the "rts,
"ustralian 7ational ;niversity- the School of "rt, ;niversity of (asmania- the School of .ine
"rts at 7orthern (erritory ;niversity- the School of ?isual "rts at Curtin ;niversity of
(echnology %Curtin', Sydney College of the "rts, ;niversity of Sydney %SC"'- and the ?ictorian
College of the "rts, ,elbourne ;niversity %?C"'. 5 interviewed students from four of these
instiutions %Co.", SC", ?C", Curtin' as well as from Southern Cross ;niversity for
appro6imately seventy minutes per group. .or the benchmar!ing pro4ect 5 also conducted
additional interviews in 1ondon, but these are not used in the present paper.
(he focus groups ranged in number from seven at Southern Cross to thirty at Co." and contained
:onours ,asters and Doctoral candidates of varying proportions. 5mperfect samples ma!e this
study unable to generate firm conclusions about specific schools, States, or levels of postgraduate
study, or to )uantify the e6tent of its findings. :owever, as a descriptive, interpretive,
comparative study, in the tradition of verstehen, it remains a valid )ualitative identification of
contradictions between policy and student perception within a sufficiently broad sample of the
"ustralian visual art research community.
Principally, the )uestions as!ed of the focus groups probed for an understanding of, and attitudes
towards methodological rigour in art practice as research. "ssociated terms such as 9!nowledge8,
9theory8, 9validity8, 9epistemology8, and 9ontology8 were raised in their relation to art in order to
ascertain the richness of their understanding of these concepts. "ll of these terms figure in
debates about research, and 9rigour8, 9!nowledge8, 9theory8, 9methodology8 and original
contribution to 9research8 are e6plicitly referred to in every research degree course outline at the
;niversities 5 surveyed, including those for ?isual "rt. :owever, 5 wondered whether artists
underta!ing higher degrees in "ustralia actually deemed them to be relevant to studio practice.
/enerally, respondents volunteered that research was a more disciplined form of in)uiry than
other everyday forms and that it had this in common with art practice. *ut when 5 suggested that
art as research may also ta!e more responsibility for its assertions and the methods used to arrive
at these, a considerable number of students in the "ustralian conte6t denied that this was
necessary for art.
Some students, at ,asters level, were reluctant to commit themselves to how they might
recogniDe whether studio wor! is a genuine 'contribution to !nowledge', what could be considered
to be a measure of its 'rigour', or how one might distinguish a valid 'methodology' from an
inappropriate one. thers, although only after some probing, volunteered amaDingly insightful
accounts of these.
" student at another ;niversity e6plained> '5 don't differentiate between research and not- 5 see it
is an independent investigation of !nowledge that need, the sub4ect matter, the technology
need, F it's very intuitive'. :owever, most students recognised that research is, as a Curtin
;niversity student e6pressed it, 'more structured' and conducted at a 'deeper level' than, say, idle
curiosity, and that it involves 'documentation'. "nother student at :onours level described
research as a 'methodical specific in)uiry F that can settle a proposition and might result in your
proposal changing', but with that provo!ed a debate from her peers about whether art re)uires
'conditions under which discovery rather than investigation ta!es place8. 5t was pointed out that
9one might begin with a chance discovery and then afterwards find a way to validate it'. 2hat my
methodology uncovers is the persistence of a range of discourse consistent with a Gantian notion
of art as transcendent of the !inds of criteria that pertain to research.
NOTIONS OF RIGOUR
(he concept of 'rigour' proved the least clearly understood. 5n most cases it was e)uated with
simply 'wor!ing harder'. "t the same time, students argued that rigour was sub4ective> '5n fact,
you wor! under your own steam. Hou come to a level you are comfortable', but conceded that this
was adapted through the influence of their peers. Some students, at the Sydney College of "rt and
at Curtin ;niversity, though not others, completely re4ected that as artist-researchers they needed
to ta!e some responsibility for the worth or validity of their pro4ect. (he persistence of a romantic
individualism among several aspiring researchers belied the ambitions e6pressed in policies and
formats of e6amination. (o them, art research remains entirely concerned with the self and
personal 'sensitivity', or 9integrity8. ne PhD student e6pressed it thus>
ne thing 5've found is that most artists are so fuc!ing scrupulous. Hou !now, the rigour is
almost intrinsically there, because they are not satisfied with it unless they(re satisfied with it.
"nd there's no F , you can't be compromising, right?
:owever, an :onours student in apparent defiance of her own particular institution's relatively
Gantian course descriptions, summed up a more socially responsible viewpoint admirably>
2hen wor!ing you have to as! yourself> 2hy put it this way? 2hy not put it that way? "re
there visual ramifications, political ramifications? "re the political ramifications important in
this instance? "re they not important in this instance? F "nd you have to !eep going around
every angle and be sure you have been truthful and honest the whole way, and you're not
!idding yourself about how you might present something, and in fact that there is reason to
present it this way, and you are satisfied with the reasons of putting it up as such. 7ow, comes
the time of assessment, you 4ust hope that you have had the time to manage to cover every
angle.
"nother student, at yet another ;niversity, e6plained> '5 thin! it is about being critical of your
own wor!, be willing to even abandon wor!, to regularly chec! that you are still on target'. 5n
contrast to other members of his cohort more bent on free individualistic in)uiry one PhD
candidate identified a sense of thoroughness and focus associated with rigour>
2hat's different about a PhD for me which 5 thin! is a great improvement on those earlier
periods of study was that 5 didn't really !now, 5 was so overwhelmed by the immensity of
the terrain, the multiple possibilities, the lac! of any !ind of certainty about anything. *ut
5 ploughed through that, and it's only now that 5'm doing a PhD that 5've come into it with
a much stronger sense of clarity and certainty about what 5'm doing. 5've come into the
pro4ect with a proposal which 5'm wor!ing through. "nd it's not deviated- that's never
happened to me before. 5t's always been, put up a proposal- three wee!s later blow it out.
(he role of methodology was fairly well understood for conventional research, but tended to
remain transparent for studio practice, particularly the notion that methodology was more than
4ust a practical procedure, but an intellectual framewor! that implied a set of assumptions %about
the world and its priorities> the nature of reality, criteria of truth, ideological values, the nature of
art' that could be consciously e6amined and adapted.
Some students were uncomfortable with 4udgments of validity being applicable to art practice,
despite the fact that processes of selection are a fact of life throughout the art world as well
as in the university. " Sydney ;niversity College .ine "rt student says> 'in my ma!ing of
something, 5 don't even thin! whether it is valid F it's a matter of visual significance and
the degree of significance. (his is a problem with art in the university. (o me, the wrong
answers are as important as the right answers'. ,aintaining a blind spot regarding the
conventionality, and role as criterion of a specific !ind of validity of essentially the same
avant-garde credo, a Southern Cross ;niversity student argues>
5n a way, even those categories of wrongness and rightness belong to a particular
paradigm, which, seems to me, doesn't allow space between which 5 would see myself as
wanting to inhabit, always to inhabit the space in between, whether you call that
sub4ectivity, 5 don't !now, but for me, it's more, 5 s'pose, a spatial position, in a sense, you
!now, that 5 want to be there negotiating that space in between, rather than sort of saying
oh, well, 5've come to, 5 can see that's wrong or that's right.
"s a student at the Sydney ;niversity, College of .ine "rt, observes, 'being in a research
community polices what you do'. "nd several students e6press recognition of the value of
the research community of their peers in not only !eeping them rigorous, but in also
helping to define what they do as research, and in reassuring them in the face of private
doubts about the validity of their practice.
(he relation between theory and practice, or the written and studio components of postgraduate
wor!, proved ve6atious for several groups but not for others. Some simply recogniDed the
difficulty of changing mindsets and wor!ing in another medium. thers ob4ected that visual
research did not attract sufficient credibility as research at their institution to be allowed to 'stand
on its own'. (hese students tended to overcompensate by arguing an e6aggerated autonomy of
visual art practice. "fter discussion, those totally re4ecting the value of associated research
invariably contradicted themselves by ac!nowledging the general importance of conte6tual
!nowledge for any significant engagement with art.
TOWARDS A COMMON LANGUAGE
,y findings are that, while ?isual "rt higher degree candidates fre)uently separate the criteria
applied to their theoretical research from the practices of the studio and conse)uently do not
e6amine their methodology in the studio as critically as they do in art historical research %research
for art as distinct from art as research', processes similar to those in other forms of research ta!e
place, albeit tacitly, in studio wor! for higher degrees. (he resistance to research terminology is
thus counterproductive. 5f artists learn to treat these as an agenda for debate rather than as
unwelcome prescriptions, this problem could be overcome.
"t the same time, much wor! is still re)uired to identify forms of e)uivalence, and indeed also of
difference, between concepts and procedures employed in studio practice and those debated
through research terminology by other disciplines %including its dependent disciplines of criticism
and art history' to enable as critical an engagement with the process of art ma!ing as typically
occurs regarding its product.
5f terms such as 9validity8 are applied in a broad senseIsimply to allow an e6amination of the
degree of correspondence between what the artistic research strategy purports to accomplish and
what it actually doesIthey need not be constricting nor contrary to art traditions. Sometimes such
an e6amination can identify an alignment that is contradictory or not desired by the practitioner> a
professed feminist artist carrying baggage of patriarchal beliefs, for e6ample. 2hile the concept
of 'rigour' usually needs to be defined in terms other than personal satisfactionIeven though it
may be arrived at by these meansIit can surely accommodate consistency with whatever
coherent philosophy of art practice underlies an artist8s wor!.
(he relation of their artistic '!nowledge' to a postulated ob4ective 'reality' tends to be more
problematic, but nonetheless worthy of e6amination by each artist researcher. (he relation of
methodology to an artist's ontology is surely crucial for any consideration of its rigour. 5t is
possible to view the practice of artists in the past in terms of research. 5f we adopt the premise
that all of the E0th century movements, for e6ample, were striving to e6plore the nature of reality,
we could say that the 5mpressionist's ontology was based on a phenomenological
notionIperception as the highest form of reality. <ealists such as Courbet on the other hand still
believed in the truth of solid ob4ects. (o Surrealists and Dadaists the highest form of reality was
the human unconscious. Cach of these, it could be argued, developed a methodology to e6plore
their preferred reality. ut of this methodology emerged criteria or epistemological principles.
(he procedure had to be designed to achieve as truthful an e6ploration as possible. (he
5mpressionists wanting to research direct e6perience stipulated that to be rigorous the whole
painting had to be done in front of its sub4ect. (he momentary e6perience could be e6amined by
changing canvases as the light changed and then continuing at the same time on the ne6t day.
(his, 5 would argue, can be no less rigorous a research strategy than that of any of the sciences.
Similarly, to get the unconscious to reveal itself, Surrealists developed procedures of random
association and elaboration such as the well-!nown 'e6)uisite corpse' techni)ue, where several
participants complete a drawing without seeing the contribution of each other. (he
epistemological principle that determined whether the result was !ept or discarded was clearly
whether it could stimulate its viewers to become conscious of otherwise repressed associations.
"nd by its implied ontology, or indeed by its contradiction of a conventional ontology or
ideology, visual art can constitute an 'argument within itself'.
Claims to the effect that avant-garde artists follow no rules are clearly contradictory, as this in
itself could constitute a 'rule' and, in any case, the history of avantgardes contradicts this pose
%"d <einhardt8s list of negations of painting or "lan Gaprow8s principles for performance art are
4ust two notable e6amples'. 5f it is important in a form of studio research to brea! or ignore
certain rules and traditions, this merely needs to be articulated as one of the principles of that
research, and, most importantly, thus e6amined critically in each circumstance.
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Dr George Petelin lectures at the :ueensland College of Art, .riffith University#
i
"ll emphases in italics throughout this paper are mine.