In contested terrain. Artistic research and the paradoxes of knowledge.
Through a study of artistic and arts-oriented explorations – and of the controversies that have followed the academic formalisation of these practices – the purpose of this project is to contribute to an increasingly urgent discussion of the more or less acknowledged fault lines currently destabilising the idea of academic knowledge, research and representation.
The main research questions for the project are the following:
—What are the histories of artistic research, what kind of driving forces, positions and turns can be identified?
—How can we conceive of, theorize and actively explore the paradoxical border zones and contact surfaces between different knowledge cultures?
—What are the motivations in different contexts for employing more ‘artistic’ forms of enquiry, what are the requirements for these to be considered research, and what are the ‘gains’ in term of understanding?
The project is based on experiences accumulated over a twenty-five year period as a researcher in the creative fields, in my case visual arts, landscape architecture and design. The planned outcome is a book that also assembles material from the two research contexts – the Swedish and the French – in which I have been engaged. I also draw on experiences from my four-year employment as scientific adviser in artistic research at the Swedish Research Council (2021-2024), an assignment that has given me a unique overview of what is still a heterogeneous and contested field of knowledge.
The main research questions for the project are the following:
—What are the histories of artistic research, what kind of driving forces, positions and turns can be identified?
—How can we conceive of, theorize and actively explore the paradoxical border zones and contact surfaces between different knowledge cultures?
—What are the motivations in different contexts for employing more ‘artistic’ forms of enquiry, what are the requirements for these to be considered research, and what are the ‘gains’ in term of understanding?
The project is based on experiences accumulated over a twenty-five year period as a researcher in the creative fields, in my case visual arts, landscape architecture and design. The planned outcome is a book that also assembles material from the two research contexts – the Swedish and the French – in which I have been engaged. I also draw on experiences from my four-year employment as scientific adviser in artistic research at the Swedish Research Council (2021-2024), an assignment that has given me a unique overview of what is still a heterogeneous and contested field of knowledge.