Let’s start with a basic question: what is Artistic Research?

Research is often understood as the production of new knowledge – or perhaps better,

the seeking after new knowledge. There are no guarantees.

Our understanding of what knowledge is, of how and where we find it, has developed in
interesting ways over recent decades. How has this come about?

We might identify four strands in particular:

Cognitive theory has proposed a broader understanding of the ways in which humans
produce and use knowledge. We now speak of embodied knowledge, of distributed
knowledge.

In the practice of science, rapid advances have obliged us to confront the new kinds of
knowledge it generates. The technologies of simulation, for example, produce vital
knowledge that may not be falsifiable in conventional terms. And theoretical science can
generate hypotheses that challenge human understanding itself.

Philosophy has widely acknowledged that the very notion of knowledge is a human
cultural phenomenon – we recognise that it exists within a discourse, within some kind of
cultural context, while at the same time we seek to avoid the perpetual relativizing of
knowledge.

And our common understanding of what constitutes culture - what constitutes art and
artistic practice - has broadened immeasurably. In music we see this in the way that
musical institutions, disciplines and criticism have come to encompass improvisation, non-
Western musics, popular music, sound art, technological and conceptual developments
alongside what was previously considered the domain of ‘art’ music.

Whether knowledge exists in different kinds or whether we should rather consider that we
acquire it in different modes is a matter of continuous debate. What is important for our
purposes is that knowledge generated in one situation cannot simply be mapped onto
another. The articulation and mediation of knowledge will become an important topic as
we explore artistic research.

Is it a new discipline? Well, as we listen to different views we will discover that there is no
formula, no dogma. The conception of a project is itself a creative activity, a process of
research. But the various paths to knowledge have in common a balance of coherent,

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rigorous thought, insight, an awareness of context and some kind of sustained practice –
this is as true of the most personal of poetry as it is of the most objective of science.

In the case of Artistic Research we’re dealing with the pursuit of knowledge by artists,
through their art. There are several nearly-cognate terms, labels that mean nearly the
same: for instance creative research, practice-based or practice-led research, or even
practice-as-research. Why are these different? Well, as I said earlier, knowledge exists in
the context of a discourse, an exchange: sufficient consensus for differences of opinion to
make sense. We might think of these as knowledge economies. Economies have their own
terms, values and dynamics, so it’s not surprising that the knowledge economy in one
country – one system of funding and learning – has different ways of expressing and
evaluating this kind of work to that in another, and makes different demands on artist-
researchers.

Just like science, artistic research cannot entirely separate itself from the institutional
context within which it takes place. Just as in science, there is often a dynamic tension
between institution or discipline and the individual. But the negotiation of this tension is an
essential part of the production of knowledge, of discourse and of community. A project of
artistic research implicitly forms a critical relationship with its institutional situation just as
it does with its intellectual and musical contexts. The practice of artistic research explores
the boundaries of the ways in which the institutions of music conceive of their own
discipline, their own role.

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