David-Pariser Arts Based Research
Content
Paper abstract: Who Needs Arts Based Research? David Pariser, Professor of Art Education, Faculty of Fine Arts, Concordia University, 1455 DeMaisonneuve Boulevard,West, Montreal, PQ, Canada, H3G 1M8 Tel: 514 848 2424, Ext 4646 Email, [email protected], [email protected]
Abstract: I offer a reasoned but dissenting voice in the spirit of critical reflection. In my presentation I will critique “arts based research” as championed by Barone(2008) Eisner(2008),and Sullivan (2010). In my paper I will indicate that a) the meaning of the term “research” cannot be infinitely stretched, such that it refers both to the careful, intelligent and unsystematic explorations of creative artists, AND to the equally ,creative but thoroughly systematic activities of social scientists. I propose that there is no sound epistemological reason for referring to what both artists and social scientists do as “research.” Which brings me to point b) that there is a political reason for insisting that artists do research. This claim springs from the quest to legitimize the creative arts in the academy(See Sullivan 2010, Lesage 2009) .This attempt at legitimization is unnecessary as it is evident that artists seek and solve problems through applying reason, intelligence and intuitionand there ought to be no problem accepting the arts and artists on their own terms. c) That the effects of accepting arts-based research in the academy are likely to be problematic, if not pernicious. That is, the criteria for judging arts-based research projects are ill-defined, with the result that arbitrary standards may be applied and in many cases students who pursue this path may well produce work that falls short of both artistic and rigorous academic standards.
Who Needs Arts Based Research?
What is and is not “research”? The term “arts-based research” is in fashion these days. Sullivan (2010) delivers a comprehensive discussion and defence of this conceptwhich was first promoted by Eisner(1995) and then adopted by others (Barone 2008, Irwin 2005, ) . Sullivan acknowledges the fact that in the academy , artists-(like Rodney Dangerfield)- “Don’t get no respect.” This begs two questions-First, Why should artists care that their activity is not valued as much as the activity of the sociologist or chemist, by those who dwell in the cloisters of academe? Artists of all sorts have done quite well for many centuries without collecting academic credentials. And in fact, with few exceptions, successful contemporary artists do not begin to sport honorary doctorates and academic credentials until after they have attained fame and fortune outside the university. Secondly, the fact is that the arts as objects of study are highly respected in academia- Vast intellectual empires have been built on the study, interpretation, assessment and emulation of works of art – however such things are defined. Critics and interpreters to this day swarm over the vast corpus of work left behind by historical and contemporary literary, musical and visual giants . When it comes to interpreting and analyzing works of art, all of academia is unanimous in its enthusiasm for this task. So where is the problem that an advocate like Sullivan wants to address? The problem is that artists and their associated practices, lack academic legitimacy in the eyes of those who fund institutions of higher learning. Hence the necessity for forcing the round peg of artistic practice into the square hole called “research”. The term “research” has a nice , no-nonsense ring to it. The layman instantly associates the term with a white-clad scientists in his laboratory, a rational and systematic investigator, who, not coincidentally, brings in large grants to further his/her research projects. In what follows it will be clear that I have no problem with the layman’s understanding of research and research activity- as something restricted to the physical and social sciences and philosophy. I maintain that while there is no doubt that both scientists and artists are
intelligent, hardworking problem finders (Getzels & Csikszentmihalyi ,1976) who approach their goals in an intelligent fashion with skill and creativity- there are some good reasons for using the term “research” only as it applies to those who practice systematic enquiry in the human and natural sciences-and philosophy. My response to Sullivan is to suggest that his definition of the term “research” is so loose as to drain it of much clear meaning. Elsewhere I have referred to this loose use of the term as the “Trojan Horse” strategy (Pariser 2009) That is, one cloaks art practice with a term that has good currency in academe as a way of securing artists a place in the bosom of the university. As a way of illustrating the conceptual slippage in Sullivan’s (2010) use of the term “research” here are a few passages from his introduction: “For those who see the inclusion of fields such as visual arts within the research culture of universities as an unnecessary incursion into the very basis of visual arts practice or as an exercise in economic opportunism, they miss the point. Visual arts has much to offer in helping redefine what universities need to do in these uncertain times, yet inclusion has to be based on the diversity of theories and practices that continue to give contemporary art its distinctive voice and vision. This is why this book was written.”(p.xxi) ( In response to both points made above- I would maintain that the notion of arts based research is indeed an unnecessary incursion into the very basis of the visual arts, and an exercise in economic opportunism. What , to my mind undermines Sullivan’s argument is the flexibility of the concept of “research” as he uses it. ) He continues: “If it is accepted that research undertaken in universities and within other agencies has the capacity to create the knowledge necessary to continue to troubleshoot , innovate, critique and create , and otherwise yield new probabilities and possibilities for change, (my italics) then it raises the expectation of the important role played by higher education. It comes as no surprise that many scholars and practitioners see the arts in general and the visual arts in particular as contributing in important ways to the research culture through the development of new programs, partnerships and projects that make use of the unique capacity of artists
to create and critique phenomena in profound ways. …(my italics). The thesis presented in Art Practice as Research is that visual research methods can be grounded within the practices of the studio and that these are robust enough to satisfy rigorous institutional benchmarks and demanding artworld expectations” (p.xxii) In the above quote we find that Sullivan defines research so loosely that it becomes a vast and baggy category encompassing “traditional “ scientific methods as well as those employed by artists. If the criterion for research is any work that yields, ”new probabilities and possibilities for change” and that creates and critiques “…phenomena in profound ways..” –then it becomes a challenge to find any human activity that might not fall under this definition. Religious gatherings and Sport events can certainly have a profoundly transformative effect on the audience- as can a culinary or political event- yet it seems deceptive to refer to Pope Benedict as a “religion-based “ researcher, or to Beckham as a “soccer-based” research practitioner even though their practice has the effects that Sullivan identifies with research. Throughout the book, Sullivan defines “research”-in terms of certain outcomes: the discovery of “new possibilities for change” and “critique” – outcomes which can certainly be identified with traditional, linear scientific research, but also with any number of other creative practices that have little in common with the traditional scientific investigation of phenomena-which for better or worse, I take as the default definition of “research”. Perhaps the clearest exposition of the difficulties and contradictions inherent in the concept of arts-based research comes in Phillips’(1995) critique of Eisner (1993). In fact, Phillips critique of Eisner’s wideranging definition of research applies equally well to Sullivan’s (2010) definition of research. In his essay, Eisner (1993), claims that the hallmark of research , its cardinal quality is that it advances human understanding. Phillips comments-: “ This is a very broad account., one that is insufficient to distinguish research from other activities that historically have been aimed at the attainment of understanding. …at the height of the counter-culture movement, Timothy Leary , with the same aim, advocated the addling of one’s brain with chemicals; others became
enamored of deep meditation or the practice of yoga…Nor is it true of course, that all works of art promote our understanding in the sense that Eisner wishes to establish-consider the paintings of Jackson Pollock…(p.74) Phillips goes on to make two more telling points, points that apply as well to Sullivan as to Eisner. First, he observes that as it is clear that not all art works advance our understanding, Eisner needs to “…provide a criterion that would enable us to distinguish those works of art that are research from those that are not….(p.74) Second, Phillips poses a key question, “ one might ask in this context why a work of literature or a sensitive film , which promotes reflection and insight, is somehow made stronger by being considered a piece of research in a social science sense? The competent practice of art undoubtedly is a complex and demanding cognitive activity, but not all such activity is research in the social science sense , and nothing is gained by pretending that it is.” (p.74) Phillips’ provides the outlines of what, to my mind, is a workable definition of research- one that satisfies the old latin tag- “Definitio est Negatio”- that is, to define is to exclude. In responding to Eisner(1993), Phillips identifies the key differences between artistic and scientific research . He points out that the conventional notion of research is of “disciplined enquiry”. And not only is the enquiry disciplined, but all members of the disciplinary field have agreed to pursue one of the several agreedupon methods available to them. Then there is Eisner’s key concept“understanding”. Phillips comments, “ A person might claim (sic) to have achieved understanding, about some phenomenon…but the person might well be deluded (sic)….Indeed some of our most cherished and fervently held beliefs turn out to be …downright false…” (p75) He continues with what is an excellent thumbnail description of what researchers do, “ …a researcher is concerned to discover propositions, in the context of some problem that has been formulated in a clear and manageable way, and that are warranted by evidence, and the ability to withstand skeptical scrutiny and criticism..” (p75) The final and most dramatic difference between the artist who solves a problem, and the systematic researcher is that the researcher is contributing to the cumulative process of developing knowledge. Such
a process is never finished and no reasonable scientist would ever claim a final answer, but in the realm of scientific research theories are discarded, the work of researchers is disproved or discredited through the introduction of empirical evidence or other forms of empirically based critique-and our knowledge of the world improves asymptotically with “reality” being the unreachable limit. But in the arts, as Phillips indicates: “…it does not make much sense for a composer to claim that Mozart.-and any one of the “meanings” expressed in a piece of his music- was wrong, or for a painter to claim that the meanings Pollock displayed in his canvasses were incorrect or in need of replication before they could be accepted….Eisner is misguided in suggesting that the term “truth” should not be restricted to what one can claim. ; it is a philosophical truism…that in the literal or technical sense, the predicates “true” and “false” only apply to propositions (sic), not to things or states of affairs.” (p.76). Artists are not obliged to comply with these constraints- and their work is no less valuable or compelling just because its power does not reside in empirically demonstrable, logically constructed proofs. Extending Phillips point about the way that artists do not “disprove” each other’s work, it is the case that artistic worlds and insights coexist without making earlier visions obsolete: Chaucer is not eclipsed by Beckett, nor is El Greco displaced or disproved by Ai Wei Wei.
Researchers demonstrate, prove and debate-always with an eye to describing a world “out there”. Artists seduce with rhetoric ,skill and the creation of imagined but plausible worlds. No less a voice than that of the poet Seamus Heaney (1995) supports the notion that art is never about true and false, at its best, it is about creating equivalences. Heaney approvingly cites the American poet Archibald MacLeish , who stated that “ A poem should be equal to/not true." That is, the artist creates what Arnheim (1969) refers to as “equivalences in a medium”which is to say how one represents a horse is very much a function of the medium one has chosen. The artists’ representation is never about accuracy but always about creating a convincing equivalent. Regardless of the difference in their goals, both artist and researcher practice skills that are intellectually demanding. As Phillips observes, both kinds of activity can be subsumed under the broad category identified by Dewey as “inquiry”. (It seems a pity that no one in this debate has called in this great educator as a mediator.)
And what is the common ground among these two groups of inquirers ? For these two groups of “problem finders” (Getzels & Czsikszentmihalyi ,1976) do have much in common. Their goals and methods are very different but they do use the same tools. Artists and Researchers use the same cognitive tools A persuasive illustration of Phillips’ observation that artists and scientist-researchers both engage in thoughtful creative, cognitive inquiry is found in the Root-Bernsteins’ (1999) fascinating look at the mental strategies that artists and scientists share. The authors present what they refer to as the 13 thinking tools of the world’s most creative people. Among these tools are such activities as, Observing, Imaging, Abstracting , Recognizing patterns, Analogizing, Body thinking etc. The authors document the ways in which both artists and scientists- utilize these same 13 tools in the pursuit of totally divergent aims. To my mind, the Bernstein’s work does nothing to justify the claims for the practice of “arts-based research.” Rather, the authors demonstrate the shared cognitive strategies of artists and scientists while at the same time illustrating the different ends to which such cognitive work is put. Thus, in their discussion of “pattern finding”-a common tool among artists and scientists- the Root-Bernsteins give the example of the geologist Alfred Wegener who studied the map of the world and noticed that the west coast of Africa could snugly fit into the east coast of South America. Others such as the early British scientific thinker, Francis Bacon, and the German, Alexander von Humboldt had also noticed the way these two land masses fit together. But it was Wegener, in the early 20th century who made a compelling argument that North America, Europe and Greenland fit together as well, giving rise to the notion (now accepted) that at one time Africa, Europe and the Americas were all part of a super continent (Pangaea). The theory of plate techtonics and paleontological evidence later gave empirical force to Wegener’s hunch. Artists also have long been fascinated with patterns and have used them for decorative ,structural, and metaphorical purposes- Artists like Escher, Mondrian, Matisse and Vasarely all use their sensitivity to pattern as a way of developing a visual work. The artists’ works are selfsufficient-either they provide an aesthetic/cognitive experience for the audience or they do not- it is up to the viewer to decide-but there is no
way to prove Escher or Matisse “wrong”. Art may be effective or not, moving or not, but as Phillips says, the categories of “true” and “false” simply do not apply. Wegener, the scientist proposes the prior existence of a geological state of affairs, and then has to appeal to geologists, chemists and paleontologists to confirm the truth of his hypothesis. Another powerful intellectual tool for both artists and scientists is the use of play. Play is often the origin of scientific and artistic insights. A recurrent figure in the Root-Bernsteins’ book is the Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman. He was a prodigy who earned his Phd early, and was tempted to leave academia because he had lost the sense of fun that doing physics used to give him. He made the decision to cultivate a light hearted attitude towards his discipline. It was in this frame of mind that the brilliant and deeply schooled physicist noticed two students in the Cornell University cafeteria playing Frisbee with a paper plate. ‘As it went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around’.. For fun, Feynman worked out equations for the wobbles, and delving into relativity, electrodynamics, and quantum electrodynamics, he thought about how electron orbits are supposed to move. (p.250) He continues: “ And before I knew it, (it was a very short time) I was ‘playing” – working, really- with the same old problem that I loved so much , that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos… There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from piddling around with the wobbling plate.” (p.250) So the combination of Feynman’s observational acuity, his playful attitude and his formidable background in physics, put him in the position to extract deep meanings and insight out of an otherwise trivial event- as trivial as an apple falling from a tree. Play seems a powerful catalyst for creative thinking in both the arts and science. In the case of Fleming’s discovery of Penicillin, the medical discovery had its origins in Fleming’s hobby of “painting with bacteria”. This process of medical discovery illustrates nicely the difference between arts-based and scientific research. Fleming was known to be a playful spirit: “ He found delight …in making difficulties for himself, just for the fun of overcoming them. ..Nor did Fleming confine his playful spirit to after hours only. …’I play with microbes, ‘ he said whenever
anyone asked him what he did. .”(p.246-247) One of his favorite games was to make portraits with bacterial cultures. He would use different strains of bacteria for their distinctive colors. In so doing, he noted also that the blue mold (Penicillin) destroyed the neighboring colonies of bacteria. However, Fleming’s artistic “research” using bacteria to make colored images would not have paid off with the discovery of the powerful drug penicillin, without his vast store of scientific knowledge. Without his knowledge of bacterial cultures he would not have noted anything important in the way that the other bacterial cultures suffered in the vicinity of penicillin. But he was knowledgeable, and at the point where he made this observation he then tested it systematically in order to find out just how effective penicillin might be. It is true that if Fleming had not messed around artistically with the cultures, he might never have witnessed what he recognized as a struggle between two bacterial groups. But once he had made this observation, he moved from the realm of arts-based research, where the goal was to make an appealing image, to the realm of the systematic medical researcher. So Fleming’s artistic playfulness led him to a medical breakthrough-but that breakthrough would not have been possible if he had simply stayed in his “artistic research mode”. He had to switch from artist to researcher in order to truly understand his results and to convince others in his field of the implications for controlling disease. Arts based research in the academy One of the thorniest problems associated with the call for arts based research is the question of how an arts-based work produced in the academy is to be judged. Two educational researchers, Howard Gardner and Elliot Eisner debated the question , “Should a novel be admissable as a doctoral dissertation ?” (Sacks, 1996) . Eisner took the affirmative and Gardner the negative. Among other things the debate is an illuminating look at the dangers of failing to distinguish between the ideographic thrust of the creative arts –visual verbal, musical, kinetic or theatrical, and the nomothetic thrust of the social sciences. Eisner’s defense is founded on his definition of research as anything that adds to human understanding. Gardner does not disagree that a novel
might add to human understanding, but he raises the thorny issue of how such a work is to be judged when it is presented as a dissertation. Basing his argument on the notion of research as the engine that drives cumulative science in its quest for an ever-more elegant and abstract understanding of the world for the purposes of prediction and control, he proposes the following syllogism“Scholarly research-especially that cherished in dissertations- is designed to add reliability to our body of knowledge. Novels constitute a genre whose purpose is, only incidentally to provide reliable knowledge: their primary purposes are aesthetic. Therefore, novels cannot properly be submitted as scholarly researchand they are particularly inappropriate as the basis on which professional credentialing takes place. “ (p.412) Gardner puts the student’s plight bluntly; “ I think where I would really draw the line, is at the point where the fate of a student ought to hang on the way a collection of senior faculty members pass judgment on a work of art like a novel-the criterion remain as invisible as ever, and Elliot has said nothing to clarify them. “ (p.416) The hapless student faces a double-whammy. Not only does he/she need to produce a text that provides credible evidence of research, and that offers novel insights and understandings that will withstand critical scrutiny, but this same text has to live up to the tough standards for literary craftsmanship. It is hard enough to satisfy one of these requirements, to try to satisfy both seems ill advised. It does not take much to modify Gardner’s syllogism vis a vis novels and dissertations, and make it apply to the broader issue of arts based research, thus: 1)Scholarly research-especially that cherished in the social sciences and hard sciences- is designed to add reliability to bodies of knowledge. 2) The arts constitute a genre whose purpose is, only incidentally, to provide reliable knowledge : their primary purposes are aesthetic. 3) Therefore, the results of arts-based research cannot properly be submitted as scholarly research-and they are particularly inappropriate as the basis for awarding human science credentials.
In their quest for respectability within the academy, some artists and art educators want to promote the notion that what they do is no different from what their colleagues in the social sciences also call “research”. But to insist on this parallel is to ignore the fact that normative science, be it social, psychological or even physical is always concerned with testing paradigms and theories through recourse to empirical interventions. Scientific work is systematic and cumulative. By contrast, artists do not rely on empirical demonstrations, they persuade through eloquence, skill and creation of equivalences. Artistic visions do not supercede one another. Conclusion and a modest proposal What I have demonstrated is that the notion of arts-based research is burdened with a number of disadvantages. In the first place the term “research” when it is made synonymous with any activity that advances human understanding , encompasses almost any kind of human activity. Secondly, the arts and artists do not need to have their status upgraded in the academy by laying claim to the sort of rigor generally associated with the sciences- physical or human. The only reason for this sort of linguistic sleight of hand, is to allow artists to ‘pass” as academics and also to make them eligible for the sorts of subventions available to “scientific researchers”. In point of fact, any reasonable person must grant that artists are hugely talented, rational beings whose engagement with the problems they have elected is every bit as energetic and focused, and worthwhile as their colleagues in chemistry or physics labs. The work of the RootBernsteins (1999) makes this clear. In order for artists to have a better place in the academy, the academy needs to accept artists on their own terms- not as mutant social scientists. Lastly, the introduction of arts-based research as a paradigm for study in places of higher learning is unwise and unfair to students. First because in envisioning an academic project that has to satisfy two sets of criteriathose for accomplished art, and those for credible research, one is asking the student to take on a doubly difficult task. It is hard enough to satisfy one of these two criteria, let alone both. And, as a corollary to this, as long as the criteria for successful arts-based research remain uncodified and ad hoc- students will be at the mercy of the aesthetic and or scientific whims of their professors. We all know of the notorious arbitrariness of studio critiques-where the art professor is able to enforce his/her own personal tastes as the criterion for success or failure- (See Zwigoff, 2006). When it is a question of a work done in the framework of “arts-based research”
the most un-transparent studio critique will begin to look like a rigorously framed exercise in educational evaluation! A modest proposal By way of conclusion I propose a thought experiment: What reaction would one expect if the universities and other social trend setters decided that henceforth, the terms “research” and “researcher” be abolished, and that the terms “artist” and “art” be used in their stead? As we noted, and as is clearly the case, both Scientists and Artists share many of the same intellectual traits. They work out of the same intellectual tool kit- so why not call everyone whether they solve problems in a laboratory or a studio “Artists”? One may imagine the outcry if this edict came down one day from the High Panjandrums of Culture. Would researchers in the humanities and the physical sciences gleefully jump at the opportunity to be part of that great Artistic fraternity- comprising everyone from Michelangelo to Anselm Keifer and everyone from Archimedes to Madam Curie? And yet, the same kind of “language magic” is involved with the burgeoning movement called “arts-based research”. I leave it to you and Macbeth to “trammel up the consequences” of such a linguistic turn. References Arnheim, R., (1969). Visual thinking. Berkeley: University of California Press. Barone T., (2008). How arts-based research can change minds. In M. Cahnmann-Taylor & R. Siegesmund (Eds). Arts-based research in education:Foundations for practice (pp.28-49). New York: Routledge. J. W. Getzels, M. Csikszentmihalyi, (1976).The creative vision: A longitudinal study of problem finding in art (Wiley, New York,). Eisner, E. (1993). Forms of Understanding and the Future of Educational Research, Educational Researcher, (22) 7, 5-11. Eisner, E, (2008). Persistent tensions in arts-based research. In M. Cahnmann-Taylor & R. Siegesmund (Eds). Arts-based research in education:Foundations for practice (pp.16-27). New York: Routledge.
Heaney, S. (1995). Crediting Poetry. (Nobel prize acceptance speech.) Stockholm. Lesage, D. (2009).Who’s Afraid of Artistic Research? On Measuring Artistic Research Output. Art and Research (2) 2, 2-7. Pariser,D. (2009) Arts-Based Research: Trojan Horses and Shibboleths. The Liabilities of a Hybrid Research Approach. What Hath Eisner Wrought? Canadian Review of Art Education/Revue Canadienne d’education artistique. (36) 1-18. Root-Bernstein,M., & Root-Bernstein,B. (1999). Sparks of genius. The 13 thinking tools of the world’s most creative people. New York: HoughtonMifflin . Sacks, A.L. (1996). Viewpoints: Should Novels Count As Dissertations in Education? Research in the Teaching of English, 30 (4) December, 403-427. Sullivan, G., (2010). Art practice as research . Inquiry in visual arts. California: Sage Publications Inc. Zwigoff , T.(Director) (2006) Art School Confidential. (Film)
Abstract: I offer a reasoned but dissenting voice in the spirit of critical reflection. In my presentation I will critique “arts based research” as championed by Barone(2008) Eisner(2008),and Sullivan (2010). In my paper I will indicate that a) the meaning of the term “research” cannot be infinitely stretched, such that it refers both to the careful, intelligent and unsystematic explorations of creative artists, AND to the equally ,creative but thoroughly systematic activities of social scientists. I propose that there is no sound epistemological reason for referring to what both artists and social scientists do as “research.” Which brings me to point b) that there is a political reason for insisting that artists do research. This claim springs from the quest to legitimize the creative arts in the academy(See Sullivan 2010, Lesage 2009) .This attempt at legitimization is unnecessary as it is evident that artists seek and solve problems through applying reason, intelligence and intuitionand there ought to be no problem accepting the arts and artists on their own terms. c) That the effects of accepting arts-based research in the academy are likely to be problematic, if not pernicious. That is, the criteria for judging arts-based research projects are ill-defined, with the result that arbitrary standards may be applied and in many cases students who pursue this path may well produce work that falls short of both artistic and rigorous academic standards.
Who Needs Arts Based Research?
What is and is not “research”? The term “arts-based research” is in fashion these days. Sullivan (2010) delivers a comprehensive discussion and defence of this conceptwhich was first promoted by Eisner(1995) and then adopted by others (Barone 2008, Irwin 2005, ) . Sullivan acknowledges the fact that in the academy , artists-(like Rodney Dangerfield)- “Don’t get no respect.” This begs two questions-First, Why should artists care that their activity is not valued as much as the activity of the sociologist or chemist, by those who dwell in the cloisters of academe? Artists of all sorts have done quite well for many centuries without collecting academic credentials. And in fact, with few exceptions, successful contemporary artists do not begin to sport honorary doctorates and academic credentials until after they have attained fame and fortune outside the university. Secondly, the fact is that the arts as objects of study are highly respected in academia- Vast intellectual empires have been built on the study, interpretation, assessment and emulation of works of art – however such things are defined. Critics and interpreters to this day swarm over the vast corpus of work left behind by historical and contemporary literary, musical and visual giants . When it comes to interpreting and analyzing works of art, all of academia is unanimous in its enthusiasm for this task. So where is the problem that an advocate like Sullivan wants to address? The problem is that artists and their associated practices, lack academic legitimacy in the eyes of those who fund institutions of higher learning. Hence the necessity for forcing the round peg of artistic practice into the square hole called “research”. The term “research” has a nice , no-nonsense ring to it. The layman instantly associates the term with a white-clad scientists in his laboratory, a rational and systematic investigator, who, not coincidentally, brings in large grants to further his/her research projects. In what follows it will be clear that I have no problem with the layman’s understanding of research and research activity- as something restricted to the physical and social sciences and philosophy. I maintain that while there is no doubt that both scientists and artists are
intelligent, hardworking problem finders (Getzels & Csikszentmihalyi ,1976) who approach their goals in an intelligent fashion with skill and creativity- there are some good reasons for using the term “research” only as it applies to those who practice systematic enquiry in the human and natural sciences-and philosophy. My response to Sullivan is to suggest that his definition of the term “research” is so loose as to drain it of much clear meaning. Elsewhere I have referred to this loose use of the term as the “Trojan Horse” strategy (Pariser 2009) That is, one cloaks art practice with a term that has good currency in academe as a way of securing artists a place in the bosom of the university. As a way of illustrating the conceptual slippage in Sullivan’s (2010) use of the term “research” here are a few passages from his introduction: “For those who see the inclusion of fields such as visual arts within the research culture of universities as an unnecessary incursion into the very basis of visual arts practice or as an exercise in economic opportunism, they miss the point. Visual arts has much to offer in helping redefine what universities need to do in these uncertain times, yet inclusion has to be based on the diversity of theories and practices that continue to give contemporary art its distinctive voice and vision. This is why this book was written.”(p.xxi) ( In response to both points made above- I would maintain that the notion of arts based research is indeed an unnecessary incursion into the very basis of the visual arts, and an exercise in economic opportunism. What , to my mind undermines Sullivan’s argument is the flexibility of the concept of “research” as he uses it. ) He continues: “If it is accepted that research undertaken in universities and within other agencies has the capacity to create the knowledge necessary to continue to troubleshoot , innovate, critique and create , and otherwise yield new probabilities and possibilities for change, (my italics) then it raises the expectation of the important role played by higher education. It comes as no surprise that many scholars and practitioners see the arts in general and the visual arts in particular as contributing in important ways to the research culture through the development of new programs, partnerships and projects that make use of the unique capacity of artists
to create and critique phenomena in profound ways. …(my italics). The thesis presented in Art Practice as Research is that visual research methods can be grounded within the practices of the studio and that these are robust enough to satisfy rigorous institutional benchmarks and demanding artworld expectations” (p.xxii) In the above quote we find that Sullivan defines research so loosely that it becomes a vast and baggy category encompassing “traditional “ scientific methods as well as those employed by artists. If the criterion for research is any work that yields, ”new probabilities and possibilities for change” and that creates and critiques “…phenomena in profound ways..” –then it becomes a challenge to find any human activity that might not fall under this definition. Religious gatherings and Sport events can certainly have a profoundly transformative effect on the audience- as can a culinary or political event- yet it seems deceptive to refer to Pope Benedict as a “religion-based “ researcher, or to Beckham as a “soccer-based” research practitioner even though their practice has the effects that Sullivan identifies with research. Throughout the book, Sullivan defines “research”-in terms of certain outcomes: the discovery of “new possibilities for change” and “critique” – outcomes which can certainly be identified with traditional, linear scientific research, but also with any number of other creative practices that have little in common with the traditional scientific investigation of phenomena-which for better or worse, I take as the default definition of “research”. Perhaps the clearest exposition of the difficulties and contradictions inherent in the concept of arts-based research comes in Phillips’(1995) critique of Eisner (1993). In fact, Phillips critique of Eisner’s wideranging definition of research applies equally well to Sullivan’s (2010) definition of research. In his essay, Eisner (1993), claims that the hallmark of research , its cardinal quality is that it advances human understanding. Phillips comments-: “ This is a very broad account., one that is insufficient to distinguish research from other activities that historically have been aimed at the attainment of understanding. …at the height of the counter-culture movement, Timothy Leary , with the same aim, advocated the addling of one’s brain with chemicals; others became
enamored of deep meditation or the practice of yoga…Nor is it true of course, that all works of art promote our understanding in the sense that Eisner wishes to establish-consider the paintings of Jackson Pollock…(p.74) Phillips goes on to make two more telling points, points that apply as well to Sullivan as to Eisner. First, he observes that as it is clear that not all art works advance our understanding, Eisner needs to “…provide a criterion that would enable us to distinguish those works of art that are research from those that are not….(p.74) Second, Phillips poses a key question, “ one might ask in this context why a work of literature or a sensitive film , which promotes reflection and insight, is somehow made stronger by being considered a piece of research in a social science sense? The competent practice of art undoubtedly is a complex and demanding cognitive activity, but not all such activity is research in the social science sense , and nothing is gained by pretending that it is.” (p.74) Phillips’ provides the outlines of what, to my mind, is a workable definition of research- one that satisfies the old latin tag- “Definitio est Negatio”- that is, to define is to exclude. In responding to Eisner(1993), Phillips identifies the key differences between artistic and scientific research . He points out that the conventional notion of research is of “disciplined enquiry”. And not only is the enquiry disciplined, but all members of the disciplinary field have agreed to pursue one of the several agreedupon methods available to them. Then there is Eisner’s key concept“understanding”. Phillips comments, “ A person might claim (sic) to have achieved understanding, about some phenomenon…but the person might well be deluded (sic)….Indeed some of our most cherished and fervently held beliefs turn out to be …downright false…” (p75) He continues with what is an excellent thumbnail description of what researchers do, “ …a researcher is concerned to discover propositions, in the context of some problem that has been formulated in a clear and manageable way, and that are warranted by evidence, and the ability to withstand skeptical scrutiny and criticism..” (p75) The final and most dramatic difference between the artist who solves a problem, and the systematic researcher is that the researcher is contributing to the cumulative process of developing knowledge. Such
a process is never finished and no reasonable scientist would ever claim a final answer, but in the realm of scientific research theories are discarded, the work of researchers is disproved or discredited through the introduction of empirical evidence or other forms of empirically based critique-and our knowledge of the world improves asymptotically with “reality” being the unreachable limit. But in the arts, as Phillips indicates: “…it does not make much sense for a composer to claim that Mozart.-and any one of the “meanings” expressed in a piece of his music- was wrong, or for a painter to claim that the meanings Pollock displayed in his canvasses were incorrect or in need of replication before they could be accepted….Eisner is misguided in suggesting that the term “truth” should not be restricted to what one can claim. ; it is a philosophical truism…that in the literal or technical sense, the predicates “true” and “false” only apply to propositions (sic), not to things or states of affairs.” (p.76). Artists are not obliged to comply with these constraints- and their work is no less valuable or compelling just because its power does not reside in empirically demonstrable, logically constructed proofs. Extending Phillips point about the way that artists do not “disprove” each other’s work, it is the case that artistic worlds and insights coexist without making earlier visions obsolete: Chaucer is not eclipsed by Beckett, nor is El Greco displaced or disproved by Ai Wei Wei.
Researchers demonstrate, prove and debate-always with an eye to describing a world “out there”. Artists seduce with rhetoric ,skill and the creation of imagined but plausible worlds. No less a voice than that of the poet Seamus Heaney (1995) supports the notion that art is never about true and false, at its best, it is about creating equivalences. Heaney approvingly cites the American poet Archibald MacLeish , who stated that “ A poem should be equal to/not true." That is, the artist creates what Arnheim (1969) refers to as “equivalences in a medium”which is to say how one represents a horse is very much a function of the medium one has chosen. The artists’ representation is never about accuracy but always about creating a convincing equivalent. Regardless of the difference in their goals, both artist and researcher practice skills that are intellectually demanding. As Phillips observes, both kinds of activity can be subsumed under the broad category identified by Dewey as “inquiry”. (It seems a pity that no one in this debate has called in this great educator as a mediator.)
And what is the common ground among these two groups of inquirers ? For these two groups of “problem finders” (Getzels & Czsikszentmihalyi ,1976) do have much in common. Their goals and methods are very different but they do use the same tools. Artists and Researchers use the same cognitive tools A persuasive illustration of Phillips’ observation that artists and scientist-researchers both engage in thoughtful creative, cognitive inquiry is found in the Root-Bernsteins’ (1999) fascinating look at the mental strategies that artists and scientists share. The authors present what they refer to as the 13 thinking tools of the world’s most creative people. Among these tools are such activities as, Observing, Imaging, Abstracting , Recognizing patterns, Analogizing, Body thinking etc. The authors document the ways in which both artists and scientists- utilize these same 13 tools in the pursuit of totally divergent aims. To my mind, the Bernstein’s work does nothing to justify the claims for the practice of “arts-based research.” Rather, the authors demonstrate the shared cognitive strategies of artists and scientists while at the same time illustrating the different ends to which such cognitive work is put. Thus, in their discussion of “pattern finding”-a common tool among artists and scientists- the Root-Bernsteins give the example of the geologist Alfred Wegener who studied the map of the world and noticed that the west coast of Africa could snugly fit into the east coast of South America. Others such as the early British scientific thinker, Francis Bacon, and the German, Alexander von Humboldt had also noticed the way these two land masses fit together. But it was Wegener, in the early 20th century who made a compelling argument that North America, Europe and Greenland fit together as well, giving rise to the notion (now accepted) that at one time Africa, Europe and the Americas were all part of a super continent (Pangaea). The theory of plate techtonics and paleontological evidence later gave empirical force to Wegener’s hunch. Artists also have long been fascinated with patterns and have used them for decorative ,structural, and metaphorical purposes- Artists like Escher, Mondrian, Matisse and Vasarely all use their sensitivity to pattern as a way of developing a visual work. The artists’ works are selfsufficient-either they provide an aesthetic/cognitive experience for the audience or they do not- it is up to the viewer to decide-but there is no
way to prove Escher or Matisse “wrong”. Art may be effective or not, moving or not, but as Phillips says, the categories of “true” and “false” simply do not apply. Wegener, the scientist proposes the prior existence of a geological state of affairs, and then has to appeal to geologists, chemists and paleontologists to confirm the truth of his hypothesis. Another powerful intellectual tool for both artists and scientists is the use of play. Play is often the origin of scientific and artistic insights. A recurrent figure in the Root-Bernsteins’ book is the Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman. He was a prodigy who earned his Phd early, and was tempted to leave academia because he had lost the sense of fun that doing physics used to give him. He made the decision to cultivate a light hearted attitude towards his discipline. It was in this frame of mind that the brilliant and deeply schooled physicist noticed two students in the Cornell University cafeteria playing Frisbee with a paper plate. ‘As it went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around’.. For fun, Feynman worked out equations for the wobbles, and delving into relativity, electrodynamics, and quantum electrodynamics, he thought about how electron orbits are supposed to move. (p.250) He continues: “ And before I knew it, (it was a very short time) I was ‘playing” – working, really- with the same old problem that I loved so much , that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos… There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from piddling around with the wobbling plate.” (p.250) So the combination of Feynman’s observational acuity, his playful attitude and his formidable background in physics, put him in the position to extract deep meanings and insight out of an otherwise trivial event- as trivial as an apple falling from a tree. Play seems a powerful catalyst for creative thinking in both the arts and science. In the case of Fleming’s discovery of Penicillin, the medical discovery had its origins in Fleming’s hobby of “painting with bacteria”. This process of medical discovery illustrates nicely the difference between arts-based and scientific research. Fleming was known to be a playful spirit: “ He found delight …in making difficulties for himself, just for the fun of overcoming them. ..Nor did Fleming confine his playful spirit to after hours only. …’I play with microbes, ‘ he said whenever
anyone asked him what he did. .”(p.246-247) One of his favorite games was to make portraits with bacterial cultures. He would use different strains of bacteria for their distinctive colors. In so doing, he noted also that the blue mold (Penicillin) destroyed the neighboring colonies of bacteria. However, Fleming’s artistic “research” using bacteria to make colored images would not have paid off with the discovery of the powerful drug penicillin, without his vast store of scientific knowledge. Without his knowledge of bacterial cultures he would not have noted anything important in the way that the other bacterial cultures suffered in the vicinity of penicillin. But he was knowledgeable, and at the point where he made this observation he then tested it systematically in order to find out just how effective penicillin might be. It is true that if Fleming had not messed around artistically with the cultures, he might never have witnessed what he recognized as a struggle between two bacterial groups. But once he had made this observation, he moved from the realm of arts-based research, where the goal was to make an appealing image, to the realm of the systematic medical researcher. So Fleming’s artistic playfulness led him to a medical breakthrough-but that breakthrough would not have been possible if he had simply stayed in his “artistic research mode”. He had to switch from artist to researcher in order to truly understand his results and to convince others in his field of the implications for controlling disease. Arts based research in the academy One of the thorniest problems associated with the call for arts based research is the question of how an arts-based work produced in the academy is to be judged. Two educational researchers, Howard Gardner and Elliot Eisner debated the question , “Should a novel be admissable as a doctoral dissertation ?” (Sacks, 1996) . Eisner took the affirmative and Gardner the negative. Among other things the debate is an illuminating look at the dangers of failing to distinguish between the ideographic thrust of the creative arts –visual verbal, musical, kinetic or theatrical, and the nomothetic thrust of the social sciences. Eisner’s defense is founded on his definition of research as anything that adds to human understanding. Gardner does not disagree that a novel
might add to human understanding, but he raises the thorny issue of how such a work is to be judged when it is presented as a dissertation. Basing his argument on the notion of research as the engine that drives cumulative science in its quest for an ever-more elegant and abstract understanding of the world for the purposes of prediction and control, he proposes the following syllogism“Scholarly research-especially that cherished in dissertations- is designed to add reliability to our body of knowledge. Novels constitute a genre whose purpose is, only incidentally to provide reliable knowledge: their primary purposes are aesthetic. Therefore, novels cannot properly be submitted as scholarly researchand they are particularly inappropriate as the basis on which professional credentialing takes place. “ (p.412) Gardner puts the student’s plight bluntly; “ I think where I would really draw the line, is at the point where the fate of a student ought to hang on the way a collection of senior faculty members pass judgment on a work of art like a novel-the criterion remain as invisible as ever, and Elliot has said nothing to clarify them. “ (p.416) The hapless student faces a double-whammy. Not only does he/she need to produce a text that provides credible evidence of research, and that offers novel insights and understandings that will withstand critical scrutiny, but this same text has to live up to the tough standards for literary craftsmanship. It is hard enough to satisfy one of these requirements, to try to satisfy both seems ill advised. It does not take much to modify Gardner’s syllogism vis a vis novels and dissertations, and make it apply to the broader issue of arts based research, thus: 1)Scholarly research-especially that cherished in the social sciences and hard sciences- is designed to add reliability to bodies of knowledge. 2) The arts constitute a genre whose purpose is, only incidentally, to provide reliable knowledge : their primary purposes are aesthetic. 3) Therefore, the results of arts-based research cannot properly be submitted as scholarly research-and they are particularly inappropriate as the basis for awarding human science credentials.
In their quest for respectability within the academy, some artists and art educators want to promote the notion that what they do is no different from what their colleagues in the social sciences also call “research”. But to insist on this parallel is to ignore the fact that normative science, be it social, psychological or even physical is always concerned with testing paradigms and theories through recourse to empirical interventions. Scientific work is systematic and cumulative. By contrast, artists do not rely on empirical demonstrations, they persuade through eloquence, skill and creation of equivalences. Artistic visions do not supercede one another. Conclusion and a modest proposal What I have demonstrated is that the notion of arts-based research is burdened with a number of disadvantages. In the first place the term “research” when it is made synonymous with any activity that advances human understanding , encompasses almost any kind of human activity. Secondly, the arts and artists do not need to have their status upgraded in the academy by laying claim to the sort of rigor generally associated with the sciences- physical or human. The only reason for this sort of linguistic sleight of hand, is to allow artists to ‘pass” as academics and also to make them eligible for the sorts of subventions available to “scientific researchers”. In point of fact, any reasonable person must grant that artists are hugely talented, rational beings whose engagement with the problems they have elected is every bit as energetic and focused, and worthwhile as their colleagues in chemistry or physics labs. The work of the RootBernsteins (1999) makes this clear. In order for artists to have a better place in the academy, the academy needs to accept artists on their own terms- not as mutant social scientists. Lastly, the introduction of arts-based research as a paradigm for study in places of higher learning is unwise and unfair to students. First because in envisioning an academic project that has to satisfy two sets of criteriathose for accomplished art, and those for credible research, one is asking the student to take on a doubly difficult task. It is hard enough to satisfy one of these two criteria, let alone both. And, as a corollary to this, as long as the criteria for successful arts-based research remain uncodified and ad hoc- students will be at the mercy of the aesthetic and or scientific whims of their professors. We all know of the notorious arbitrariness of studio critiques-where the art professor is able to enforce his/her own personal tastes as the criterion for success or failure- (See Zwigoff, 2006). When it is a question of a work done in the framework of “arts-based research”
the most un-transparent studio critique will begin to look like a rigorously framed exercise in educational evaluation! A modest proposal By way of conclusion I propose a thought experiment: What reaction would one expect if the universities and other social trend setters decided that henceforth, the terms “research” and “researcher” be abolished, and that the terms “artist” and “art” be used in their stead? As we noted, and as is clearly the case, both Scientists and Artists share many of the same intellectual traits. They work out of the same intellectual tool kit- so why not call everyone whether they solve problems in a laboratory or a studio “Artists”? One may imagine the outcry if this edict came down one day from the High Panjandrums of Culture. Would researchers in the humanities and the physical sciences gleefully jump at the opportunity to be part of that great Artistic fraternity- comprising everyone from Michelangelo to Anselm Keifer and everyone from Archimedes to Madam Curie? And yet, the same kind of “language magic” is involved with the burgeoning movement called “arts-based research”. I leave it to you and Macbeth to “trammel up the consequences” of such a linguistic turn. References Arnheim, R., (1969). Visual thinking. Berkeley: University of California Press. Barone T., (2008). How arts-based research can change minds. In M. Cahnmann-Taylor & R. Siegesmund (Eds). Arts-based research in education:Foundations for practice (pp.28-49). New York: Routledge. J. W. Getzels, M. Csikszentmihalyi, (1976).The creative vision: A longitudinal study of problem finding in art (Wiley, New York,). Eisner, E. (1993). Forms of Understanding and the Future of Educational Research, Educational Researcher, (22) 7, 5-11. Eisner, E, (2008). Persistent tensions in arts-based research. In M. Cahnmann-Taylor & R. Siegesmund (Eds). Arts-based research in education:Foundations for practice (pp.16-27). New York: Routledge.
Heaney, S. (1995). Crediting Poetry. (Nobel prize acceptance speech.) Stockholm. Lesage, D. (2009).Who’s Afraid of Artistic Research? On Measuring Artistic Research Output. Art and Research (2) 2, 2-7. Pariser,D. (2009) Arts-Based Research: Trojan Horses and Shibboleths. The Liabilities of a Hybrid Research Approach. What Hath Eisner Wrought? Canadian Review of Art Education/Revue Canadienne d’education artistique. (36) 1-18. Root-Bernstein,M., & Root-Bernstein,B. (1999). Sparks of genius. The 13 thinking tools of the world’s most creative people. New York: HoughtonMifflin . Sacks, A.L. (1996). Viewpoints: Should Novels Count As Dissertations in Education? Research in the Teaching of English, 30 (4) December, 403-427. Sullivan, G., (2010). Art practice as research . Inquiry in visual arts. California: Sage Publications Inc. Zwigoff , T.(Director) (2006) Art School Confidential. (Film)
