Henk Borgdorff, Artistic Practices and Epistemic Things in Experimental Systems: Future Knowledge in Artistic Research, ed Michael Schwab, (Leuven University Press, 2013)
“What does it mean to present art as research? What relationship exists between art—artworks, artistic practices—and the presentation of art as research in an academic context?”
The issues:
Standards of assessment
Institutional rights to award doctoral degrees
Funding criteria
How relevant are these issues to my personal situation/location. Standards of assessment are important as I am currently enrolled in this program; the same applies to institutional rights relative to the program I am enrolled in -at the same time not really relevant to my situation/location in terms of the rarity of such programs (in the visual arts) in the US. As for funding criteria, in general this is disappearing at a rapid pace in the US, almost no funding is available for this program, and I foresee no greater access to what little funding might still be available upon completion of this degree. Yet, despite all this, I am doing it in the hope that it will sometime, somewhere, someplace to someone be beneficial.
“Do the usual criteria for doing academic research (concerning research questions, methods, and justifications) automatically apply to this new field of research?”
To some extent I think yes. However, we are not the same field, therefore there will be differences that need to be taken into consideration. Furthermore it is up to this field to define what the criteria to be applied to it are relative to these differences. As artist-researchers part of what we are doing now is this. The questions that follow the quote above are asking this: define the differences (and similarities) and what that means to the criteria applied.
The fundamental question: what is the epistemological status of artworks and art practices as research?
This question hinges on the elusive nature of most artworks and art practices, making the very idea that they can be used to pin down knowledge -function as conduits of research- an odd one.
“...how can they function not just as objects of research but also as the entities in which and through which the research takes place—and in which and through which our knowledge, our understanding, and our experience can grow. What is the nature of such an “object of research,” particularly in terms of epistemology? What gives art the ability to generate new knowledge and understandings?”
“the philosophy of science—or more broadly, our understanding of what academia is—can be furthered by the things that take place in the emergent field of artistic research.”
I think this is part of what draws me to this undertaking; although I am not embedded in academia in the sense that I’ve made this my career these past 30 years - my career is painting - the idea that what I am undertaking here might impact not only how other painters might view what they make from a more scholarly perspective, but also how academia understands what is being made. In other words, it is about contributing to a multi-directional, paradigmatic shift.
It does seem to me that it is logical for Borgdorff to look to how the history and epistemology of experimentation in the life sciences developed and is study within the research field of the theory of science. Identifying the how and why of the development in that field can lend itself to identifying the how and why in this field. At the same time this approach could become problematic if/when recognition of the differences between the fields is lost.
“context of discovery” - “context of justification”, separate the two: “The goal is not only to understand the dynamics of scientific conduct but also to clarify the epistemology involved—that is, how knowledge is constituted in and through practices.”
Yes. That is what is important to the process of finding the relevance of the knowledge to a particular practice.
Husserl, Heidegger and the phenomenological tradition; late Wittgenstein and the pragmatist tradition - responsible for the turn towards practice in contemporary theory (ex. cognitive sciences, science and technology studies, cultural and social practices).
“As the context of discovery becomes liberated, practices and things take the places of theories and mental states. Embodied, situated, and enacted forms of cognition become more important to our understanding of research than world-mind representations and detached modes of rationality and objectivity.”
This does seem to be the stated goal of practice-led research. However, it often seems as if the practitioners are still, at times, too dependent upon theory, not just of those named in the paragraph above, and practice is made (reformed,even), intentionally or not, to model the theory instead of the other way around -which seems to me at least to be what those theorist had originally intended. I would see this as a potentially large pitfall that the researcher must be aware of and take steps to avoid in his/her practice-research.
“What is the epistemological status of art in artistic research? Are artworks or art practices capable of creating, articulating, and embodying knowledge and understanding? And, if so, what kinds of artworks and practices do this (what is the ontological status of art here?) and how do they do it (the methodological status)?”
With the third question I feel it would be limiting to identify only specific kinds of artworks and/or practices and methodologies; and I’m not really sure that is the intention of Borgdorff. As an artist-researcher I feel it is my duty to not only answer the second question in the affirmative, but to show why and how (answering the third question). I am interested in what Borgdorff has to say to the first question.
Rheinberger:
“ “experimental systems” are the centre and the motor of modern scientific research.”
artists’ experiments and experimental systems
experiments are more than just methodological means by which to test theories or hypotheses.
experiments produce new knowledge
Characteristics of experimental systems:
interplay/entwinement of “technical objects” (technical conditions) and “epistemic things” (objects of knowledge that emerge). For Rheinberger ‘thing’ represents indeterminacy, ‘object’ is solid (knowledge).
functional as opposed to material distinction between object/thing -place occupied in experiment determines this and can vary/change -the epistemic thing can become the technical object, maintaining system stability and making way for new knowledge (epistemic things) to enter the experiment; this works in both directions: “Rheinberger speaks in this context of a synchronic intertwinement of the epistemic and the technical, and of a diachronic intertwinement of difference and reproduction.6 “
“Systems must be “differentially reproducible,” Rheinberger argues, “if they are to still be arrangements where knowledge can be generated that lies beyond anything we could conceive or anticipate” (Rheinberger 2008, 19:28, my translation). “ This confirms my thoughts that with the third question Borgdorff is not limiting the what/why/how.
Open systems allowing for knowledge to emerge, therefore the methodologies cannot be too narrow or closed, because that would not allow for the unknown to develop. [serendipity, improvisation and intuition as important as stable, technical conditions within the experiment according to Rheinberger]
‘subsidiary awareness’ (nicht-fokale Aufmerksamkeit) prevents a fall into dualistic thinking and being, and is based on tacit knowledge -from the technical conditions of the experiment.
Borgdorff states that these hybrid forms of intertwined thinking and things are what comprise ‘Epistemic things’. Returning to the first question above, What is the epistemological status of art in artistic research? it does appear to me that the practice of making (and doing) artworks does resemble somewhat that of an experimental system, where the artwork emerges as an epistemic thing, and can become a technical object from which further epistemic things emerge. Yet, I agree with Borgdorff on this, they are analogous and not identical (equal).
“Kunst als epistemische Praxis” (Art as Epistemic Practice), Dieter Mersch (2009): distinguishes between artistic and scientific experiments in the practices of Cage, Stockhausen and Beuys, concluding artistic experiments:
not reproducible (in fact, this appears a requirement)
not intended to add to or supplement knowledge, rather to question perception instead of understanding through ‘experimental reflexivity’ See reading notes on diffraction...
Borgdorff states that Mersch’s view of what scientific experiments are based on his definition of what artistic experiments are not is limited and in opposition to the openness people such as Rheinberger identify as being part of scientific experiments (experimental systems). I do agree with this based on conversations I’ve had with scientist who state the over emphasis on the methods and lack of acknowledgement of the role chance does still play in the lab. As artists this is important to recognize and not fall prey to the myth of the scientific method as the standard above all standards. This is the point Borgdorff is making with the example/definition from Rheinberger. Experimental systems (scientific methods) allow for chance occurrences within a structure that is open.
Practice -similar in characteristics to Rheinberger’s experimental systems.
Experimental practice = Experimental system
Practice is more than routine, it is actions. “In and through practices, knowledge comes into being.” (Latour 1987) This applies to both scientific as well as artistic practices.
Borgdorff returns to the first question: What is the epistemological status of art in artistic research?
“An experimental system thus involves the realisation and articulation of epistemic things that derive their propelling force in the research from their very indeterminacy (we don’t know exactly what we don’t yet know [Rheinberger 2006b]). Similarly, within artistic practices, artworks are the hybrid objects, situations, or events—the epistemic things—that constitute the driving force in artistic research. To paraphrase Rheinberger (2010, 156), as long as artworks and their concepts remain vague, they generate a productive tension: in reaching out for the unknown, they become tools of research.11 In the context of artistic research, artworks are the generators of that which we do not yet know. They thereby invite us to think. Artistic research is the articulation of this unfinished thinking.”
“Artistic practices, like experimental systems, are “vehicles for materialising questions” (Rheinberger 2006a, 25/28).”
Artworks are never fully complete, transparent, they remain open questions -inconclusive!
“Art’s knowledge potential lies partly in the tacit knowledge embodied within it and partly in its ability to continuously open new perspectives and unfold new realities. I have elsewhere described this “knowing” as pre-reflective and non-conceptual (Borgdorff 2011, 59–61). I would now like to characterise it, with Rheinberger, as a productive not-yet-know- ing against the backdrop of an ever-receding knowledge horizon.”
I’m not quite sure here with the example Borgdorff is giving from Rheinberger which seems to equate the artwork -epistemic thing- as the embodiment of the question, and the reality being embedded in the question. Is this what is being stated? Borgdorff follows with:
“An artistic “fact,” like a scientific, social, or historical fact, is what we make real with our epistemological undertakings.”
Yet, this fact does not decline into a form of relativism -or become an illustration; mainly, it seems to me, the author is saying, because of the stated incompleteness/inconclusiveness of the ‘fact’ -the openness of the system/practice from which the thing emerges.
“Artistic and scientific research is about something real, while simultaneously transforming it into what it could be.”
“Moreover, it is quite possible, though perhaps not very common, that the meaning of certain words changes because their usage changes, either now or in the future. Often, in fact, the very history of what is denoted by those words, or at least our interpretation of that history, may change.”
I don’t agree that it is just ‘quite possible’ or ‘perhaps not very common’ that the meaning of words change because their usage (context) changes. It is what happens all the time, and it is what we need to argue for -the right to recognize new meaning of words within the context of artistic research -acknowledge the origins, state the similarities, but also argue for the differences brought to the term through artistic research.