While all visual research employs these three systems in varying degrees, the means by which they are utilized in each session is variable and unpredictable. Like acts of spontaneous play, the three methods come together is a kind of ‘stone soup.’ In fact, like the mélange at the center of that European folk tale the ‘play’ of visual research is triggered by a catalyst — something that evokes curiosity and amazement. This (often common) object (text, thought, even stones) is suddenly seen in a new context and sparks an essential moment of openness during which time we allow ourselves to suspend what we know or think we know because the possibilities of that ‘fantastic idea’ are too enchanting, too provocative and at times too terrifying to ignore. Some other aspects of the stone soup tale mirror the play stage of visual research as well: the success of the ‘stew’ is enhanced by novelty, collaboration, and the suspension of ownership of

materials and ideas.

The outcomes of any visual research are focused and open-ended; conclusive and open to conjecture; beyond doubt and open to question. This does not contradict the accepted notion that research is supposed to come up with tangible results. On the contrary, the task of any rigorous intellectual and imaginative inquiry is not only to produce new insight, but also to transform parts of knowledge we think we already understand, to create new knowledge that critiques existing explanations and understandings.

This text is adapted from Art Practice as Research Inquiry in Visual Arts by Graeme Sullivan Learn more about visual research at the Institute of Cultural Inquiry at www/culturalinquiry.org/blog/ activities/visualist-in-residence-project

Applications for our 2014 Visualist-in-Residence project will be available 1/20/14.

What is

Visual research

the institute of cultural inquiry

2014

Institute of Cultural Inquiry • 1512 S. Robertson Blvd. • Los Angeles, CA 90290 • www.culturalinquiry.org

“in art, every new interpretation is a Copernican revolution, in the sense that each new interpretation constitutes a new work”

— Arthur Danto

Whether it is creative inquiry that opens up new possibilities, logical methods that yield probabilities, or technical approaches that offer plausibilities, any research endeavor has to be as systematic and rigorous as it is imaginative. Visual research takes into account more than the physical and formal process of creating images, objects or events. Not only is the artist involved in a type of studio “performance,” but this activity also results in documents, objects, or other sites of knowledge that are open to further interpretation by others.

Art practice as research invokes a methodology that is premised on the need to 'create and critique' while it opens up the possibility of achieving new understanding. In many instances there is merit in stepping outside what is known so as to see more clearly what is not. Usual art practices may help locate theories and practices within comfortable knowledge structures, but these can often be limiting if seen mostly as a repository of privileged information within an insider’s ‘club.’ The capacity to seek new knowledge, new understanding, is at the center of visual research.

The activities of Visual Research can be divided into three board categories: data collection, critical methods, and interpretive methods.

Data Collection Although the mind is the medium that most clearly shapes art practice, for many art researchers, art materials are still the most tangible means to give form to imaginative and critical thought. Whereas research in science is often driven by a problem or a proposition, visual research is sparked by hunches and parapraxia, slips of vision, hiccups in hearing, in touch, or small tears in that which we hold dear—books, photos, ideas. Whether they are made or found, these material ‘thought forms’ are central to data collection. This activity can be likened to traditional inquiry strategies of observation and empirical confirmation except in one important way. For the visual researcher who employs these methods, the questions and any understanding they propagate emerge and become known

(knowable) within the process of data collection itself.

and addressed. Critical research methods acknowledge cultural systems, historical assessments, a disciplines’ antecedents or imagined progeny but then takes those systems and lineages and turns them on their head, inverts them in a lens, or infiltrates treasured traditions with the jester’s hat. Critical research is not limited by scale; it can have a similar structure if undertaken in the studio, in the community, within cultures, or within the virtual space of the Internet.

“[Knowledge] production” centers on a transformative crossover that churns out something more than what was there to begin with. In this sense it harbors the possibility of spawning something “other” than what already exists - the logic of invention and innovation. It is about generating data, new objects and ways of knowing.”

- Graeme Sullivan

interpretive methods

Visual research provides a space for creating and constructing interpretations as meaning is made during the inquiry process. As Arthur Danto (1981) expresses in the above quote, “each interpretation constitutes a new work.”

Through the research process, objects are contextualized and interpreted as evidence for some phenomenon, some idea, some unshakeable thought, the meaning of which is not always known or identified before the research begins. Visual researchers who employ interpretive methods move between disciplines and outside the barriers of traditional research methods. Research objects are places to explore ideas rather than any specific object of received knowledge. Visual research produces forms that are interpreted within ever-changing contexts. Outcomes will resist reductive analysis since the researcher is not

meant to find some simple, universal form. Instead, within the processes of creative and critical investigation, the interpretive contexts that might surround the ideas being investigated will involve a series of processes centered on cutting, layering and bricolaging.

CRITICAL METHODS For visual researchers called to critical action, visual research allows them to

create critical objects from which critical options can be more clearly assessed

“in art, every new interpretation is a Copernican revolution, in the sense that each new interpretation constitutes a new work”

— Arthur Danto

Whether it is creative inquiry that opens up new possibilities, logical methods that yield probabilities, or technical approaches that offer plausibilities, any research endeavor has to be as systematic and rigorous as it is imaginative. Visual research takes into account more than the physical and formal process of creating images, objects or events. Not only is the artist involved in a type of studio “performance,” but this activity also results in documents, objects, or other sites of knowledge that are open to further interpretation by others.

Art practice as research invokes a methodology that is premised on the need to 'create and critique' while it opens up the possibility of achieving new understanding. In many instances there is merit in stepping outside what is known so as to see more clearly what is not. Usual art practices may help locate theories and practices within comfortable knowledge structures, but these can often be limiting if seen mostly as a repository of privileged information within an insider’s ‘club.’ The capacity to seek new knowledge, new understanding, is at the center of visual research.

The activities of Visual Research can be divided into three board categories: data collection, critical methods, and interpretive methods.

Data Collection Although the mind is the medium that most clearly shapes art practice, for many art researchers, art materials are still the most tangible means to give form to imaginative and critical thought. Whereas research in science is often driven by a problem or a proposition, visual research is sparked by hunches and parapraxia, slips of vision, hiccups in hearing, in touch, or small tears in that which we hold dear—books, photos, ideas. Whether they are made or found, these material ‘thought forms’ are central to data collection. This activity can be likened to traditional inquiry strategies of observation and empirical confirmation except in one important way. For the visual researcher who employs these methods, the questions and any understanding they propagate emerge and become known

(knowable) within the process of data collection itself.

and addressed. Critical research methods acknowledge cultural systems, historical assessments, a disciplines’ antecedents or imagined progeny but then takes those systems and lineages and turns them on their head, inverts them in a lens, or infiltrates treasured traditions with the jester’s hat. Critical research is not limited by scale; it can have a similar structure if undertaken in the studio, in the community, within cultures, or within the virtual space of the Internet.

“[Knowledge] production” centers on a transformative crossover that churns out something more than what was there to begin with. In this sense it harbors the possibility of spawning something “other” than what already exists - the logic of invention and innovation. It is about generating data, new objects and ways of knowing.”

- Graeme Sullivan

interpretive methods

Visual research provides a space for creating and constructing interpretations as meaning is made during the inquiry process. As Arthur Danto (1981) expresses in the above quote, “each interpretation constitutes a new work.”

Through the research process, objects are contextualized and interpreted as evidence for some phenomenon, some idea, some unshakeable thought, the meaning of which is not always known or identified before the research begins. Visual researchers who employ interpretive methods move between disciplines and outside the barriers of traditional research methods. Research objects are places to explore ideas rather than any specific object of received knowledge. Visual research produces forms that are interpreted within ever-changing contexts. Outcomes will resist reductive analysis since the researcher is not

meant to find some simple, universal form. Instead, within the processes of creative and critical investigation, the interpretive contexts that might surround the ideas being investigated will involve a series of processes centered on cutting, layering and bricolaging.

CRITICAL METHODS For visual researchers called to critical action, visual research allows them to

create critical objects from which critical options can be more clearly assessed

While all visual research employs these three systems in varying degrees, the means by which they are utilized in each session is variable and unpredictable. Like acts of spontaneous play, the three methods come together is a kind of ‘stone soup.’ In fact, like the mélange at the center of that European folk tale the ‘play’ of visual research is triggered by a catalyst — something that evokes curiosity and amazement. This (often common) object (text, thought, even stones) is suddenly seen in a new context and sparks an essential moment of openness during which time we allow ourselves to suspend what we know or think we know because the possibilities of that ‘fantastic idea’ are too enchanting, too provocative and at times too terrifying to ignore. Some other aspects of the stone soup tale mirror the play stage of visual research as well: the success of the ‘stew’ is enhanced by novelty, collaboration, and the suspension of ownership of

materials and ideas.

The outcomes of any visual research are focused and open-ended; conclusive and open to conjecture; beyond doubt and open to question. This does not contradict the accepted notion that research is supposed to come up with tangible results. On the contrary, the task of any rigorous intellectual and imaginative inquiry is not only to produce new insight, but also to transform parts of knowledge we think we already understand, to create new knowledge that critiques existing explanations and understandings.

This text is adapted from Art Practice as Research Inquiry in Visual Arts by Graeme Sullivan Learn more about visual research at the Institute of Cultural Inquiry at www/culturalinquiry.org/blog/ activities/visualist-in-residence-project

Applications for our 2014 Visualist-in-Residence project will be available 1/20/14.

What is

Visual research

the institute of cultural inquiry

2014

Institute of Cultural Inquiry • 1512 S. Robertson Blvd. • Los Angeles, CA 90290 • www.culturalinquiry.org