Proposal for The Art of Research

The Art of Research

Future Response - a two-part Project

By Future Reflections

(Marsha Bradfield, Katrine Hjelde, Catherine Maffioletti, and Aaron McPeake)

Chelsea College of Art and Design

Proposal in response to the theme: Making and Research - Knowing through Making

This two-part project will address a key assumption in the emerging field of art and design research: that creative practice is a vehicle for investigation rather than research in itself¹. Using Maarit Mäkelä and Sara Routarinne's articulation of this position as a point of departure, our project will respond to other theories related to creative practice and investigation also discussed in the recent publication, The Art of Research: Research Practices in Art and Design.

This proposed project is a continuation of an exhibition, conference and publication that took place in the Triangle Gallery at Chelsea College of Art and Design, between the 18th-20th of April 2007. Entitled Future Reflections, this event was the first in an ongoing investigation into the theory and practice of research in relation to art and design, which we, four first-year PhD students at Chelsea, are facilitating.

The first part of the project will comprise of a paper for presentation in the seminar that disseminates the outcomes of the Future Reflections project. These outcomes will be presented at The Art of Research in relation to an assumption expressed in the call for papers for this event: that art and research are two distinct fields in need of bridging.² Taking issue with this assumption, we will argue that in practice of these two fields overlap and productively inform each other.³ Whilst presenting Future Reflections as a case study, this paper will also consider the act of responding and how it can constitute research in and of itself. Entitled Future Response, it will experiment with response as a medium for art. We propose to use various kinds of audience/artist response as part of our practice-led research.

The second element of the Future Response project will involve a participatory forum. As part of the workshop/exhibition section of The Art of Research, this forum will provide a more fluid, dynamic and ultimately responsive context than the formal seminar. Qualitative and quantitative surveys, formal and informal discussions, question and answer sessions, will comprise the research-as-artwork throughout the workshop. The aim of this forum is two-fold: first, to explore the interplay between the production and dissemination of research in the form of discourse; and second, to consider how the characteristics of this discourse shape and are shaped by the research community. By simultaneously exploring and practicing/performing/subverting methods for gathering data/responses in arts and sciences research, we seek to investigate the development of discourse in relation to institutional requirements and histories. We aim to expose and question how academia conditions certain kinds of research/response/community. Through facilitating a dialogue about these issues, we seek to share our findings with our research community, receive feedback on our methods, outcomes, and ambitions, and in the process further our research program and practice.

1. Maarit Mäkelä & Sara Routarinne, 'Connecting Different Practices' in The Art of Research: research practices in art and design, ed. Maarit Mäkelä & Sara Routarinne (Helsinki: UIAH, 2007) 13.
2. Call for papers, The Art of Research: Connections between Research and Art/Design Practices [email] (Helsinki: UIAH, 2007)
3. The idea of overlapping fields is informed by Turkka Keinonen's second model for art/research, 'Art Interpreting Research' Turkka Keinonen, 'Fields and Acts of Art and Research', in The Art of Research: research practices in art and design, ed. Maarit Mäkelä & Sara Routarinne (Helsinki: UIAH, 2007) 46-47.