User:Aitantv/The Pleasure of Research (2015) Henk Slager

Experimental Aesthetics

• "Against the scriptedness of an ontological anchorage, against the thought that one could define art beforehand, Duchamp proposes that we should approach each work of art as if it is the very first work of art. That implies that the definition—and thus also the method—of the work of art is determined again and again during the artistic process. “By wiping the slate clear of habit-encrusted assumptions about ‘Art’, we would have to cook it up fresh each time,” declares Duchamp." (28)
• This"leads Feyerabend to argue that, “It is important to defend the idea that all methods and ways of perception are in their basic premise possible and nothing is excluded when aiming to understand the world.” 6 His view is that the scientific fact, contrary to appearances, is not indestructibly solid because it remains open to overhaul depending on changes in context, coordinates and controls. Science has to throw up propositions, rules and shifting models that are subject to constant evaluation, restoration, and rejection. Thus, there should be space for “ironic, experimental strategies, ludic modes, reversible states, contradiction, non-binary, nonlinear associations, paradoxes.”." (28)
• "the philosopher of science Bruno Latour—who realized the program component The Theatre of Proof for this project—argued that the modern myth of scientific, universally problem-solving reason has diminished considerably in our day and, therefore, increasingly more space will be demanded for “research.” He said, “Science is certainty, Research is uncertainty. Science is supposed to be cold, straight and detached; Research is warm, involving and risky. Science puts an end to the vagaries of human disputes; Research fuels controversies by more controversies. Science produces objectivity by escaping as much as possible from the shackles of ideology, passions and emotions; Research feeds on all those as so many handles to render familiar new objects of enquiry.” (29)
• Whereas in many traditional (academic) forms of research the objective seems to be collecting or noting identical characteristics between situations and contexts, often at the expense of the consideration of differences, artistic research seems critically inclined to seek out divergences more than similarities." (29)
• "A subsequent question inevitably arises: is it possible—in addition to the via negativa and in spite of all heterogeneity, multiplicity and dadaist diversity—to chart a number of well-described essences with respect to artistic research?" (31)
• "Viewed from that perspective, artistic research is a Duchampian endeavor pur sang. During each separate research project, one has to re-establish and clarify time and again what in fact “artistic research” entails." (31)
• "...the situation of artistic research as experimental aesthetics is ultimately characterized by the continuous movement between fluidity and rigidity, laboratory and herbarium, smooth space and striated space, non-discipline and discipline, the particular and the universal." (33)