Artistic Research as Method

Art and Artistic Research, Edited by Corina Caduff, Fiona Siegenthaler, Tan Wälchli, Zurich University of Arts

On the Difference between Artistic Research and Artistic Practice, Germán Toro-Pérez

According to Heidegger, the nature of research consists of the fact "that knowing establishes itself as a procedure within some realm of beings in nature or history. Procedure, here does not just mean methodology, how things are done. For every procedure requires, in advance, an open region within with it operates. But precisely the opening up of such a region constitutes the fundamental occurrence in research.

Whereas exactitude is a requirement for research in physics, artistic research requires that which is in accordance with sensuous comprehensibility. Artistic resarch must there fore find forms for the investigation and representatin of sensory perception that do justice to artistic practice./Research is directed to knowing and art is directed to experiencing... Artistic practice articulates itself on the basis of individual positions which, though related to each other, demonstrate their precise characteristics in the singularity of individual works. Conversely, artistic research...articulates itself on the basis of institutions."/More Heidegger: Institutions are necessary because...research has the character of constant activity.

Artistic reseach is a way for the artist to articulate her relationship with/approach to knowlege.

-->Artists deal with available knowledge selectively and methodically but not systemically.

-->Knowledge systemically amassed by research is consistent but uncertain; truth opened up by art is certain but fleeting. Art opens the possibility of experiencing the truth, but does not guarantee it. Knowledge supposed to be best secured through research must continually question the limits of its validity.

Also, interesting comments on contempoary art music: During the course of the twentieth century, art music underwent a change from an aesthetic of expression to an aesthetic of experience... New modalities for the experience of sound such as interaction and immersion as well as the emergence of new forms for the exhibition of sound in the context of sound art exemplify this transformation. Composition is no longer primarily a matter of bringing something to exppression, of revealing something, but rather of opening up opportunities for the experience of sound.