What Do Artists Know?

The Common Denominator

1. In addition to sources cited below and elsewhere in this book, see Mike Bode and Staffan Schmidt, Off the Grid (Göteborg: Valand School of Fine Arts, Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, University of Gothenburg , 2008), http://hdl.handle.net/2077/20342; “Employability,” http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/ hogeronderwijs/bologna/actionlines/employability .htm; Mika Hannula, “Catch Me if You Can— Chances and Challenges of Artistic Research,” http://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/21781; and Johan Öberg, “Introduction,” http://gupea.ub .gu.se/handle/2077/21773 (all URLs accessed March 25, 2010). The last two articles were published in ArtMonitor, a series of publications and a periodical published by the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts at the University of Gothenburg. 2. See Section 8 of the Seminars. 3. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, third edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 96. 4. Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 17. 5. See Section 9 of the Seminars. It seems to me that artistic research is a concept that is as open to interpretation as art itself.1 When surveying the artistic research discourse, one finds multiple suggestions about what to call it, and endless alternatives on how to define its essentials. As James Elkins points out,2 a closer look at the MFA shows a similar lack of consensus. The MFA has been around for quite some while, but artistic research is surely a relatively new field, and therefore this state of uncertainty is understandable. Thomas S. Kuhn’s term “the preparadigmatic period” can be successfully used to explain the confusion and disparate opinions about what artistic research is.3 The preparadigmatic period occurs, according to Kuhn, before a solid research practice is established. This is a time characterized by uncertainty, experimentation, and heavy debate about fundamental concepts regarding the emerging scientific paradigm. Kuhn writes, “No wonder, then, that in the early stages of the development of any science different men confronting the same kind of phenomena . . . describe and interpret them in different ways.”4 One can discuss to what extent Kuhn’s paradigm theory, constructed to describe the development of the natural sciences, is appropriate to be applied on artistic research. However, his description of the preparadigmatic period is spot on when transferred to our field. I agree with Christopher Csikszentmihályi that when talking about artistic research, we should keep in mind that science is a human “activity” that takes place in a historical and social context.5 I will not dwell on the similarities between science and artistic research, but just note that artistic research is in a preparadigmatic state. Perhaps this state is not transient , but constant, as in the case of the MFA. If this proves true, that this field will never establish a research paradigm, then I wonder: can we find something that the proponents of this emerging field agree about, a common denominator among the arguments advocating artistic research? When I started to study the discourse about artistic research in Sweden, I was struck by the disparate notions about the nature of the artistic version of THE COMMON DENOMINATOR Anders Dahlgren 00i-228_Elkins_4p.indb 139 9/14/12 1:17 PM what do artists know? 140 6. See Section 1 of the Seminars. 7. See Section 5 of the Seminars. 8. Bode and Schmidt, Off the Grid. 9. See, e.g., Öberg, “Introduction,” 10; or Hannula, “Catch Me if You Can,” 111. 10. See Section 9 of the Seminars. the PhD. My first reaction was that this is impossible to write about. There is no theoretical or methodological fundament or tradition to cling to. The situation is similar to the one described in the Seminar discussion about Thierry de Duve’s third stage, where attitude plays an integral role as a conceptual reference point. As such, it is not very productive or generative, because, as William Marotti points out, “Attitude is described as a zero degree, a neutral point, a tautology: it is the inverse of creativity. It is a nothing.”6 This zero point is present for the artistic researchers as well as for we who study it on a meta-level. Very few of the artistic doctoral theses relate to other work in the field, which makes every dissertation appear an isolated phenomenon. But after a while, having engaging with the writing about artistic research, I started to see a pattern. I began to form an idea about the common denominator of artistic research. One...