Talkin' loud and sayin' something

During the conference there were five parallell symposia running. I attended the one called "Talkin' loud and sayin' something" about artistic research. The symposium took place in Göteborg Museum of Art and had four photographic exhibitions and video installations as a starting point. Each artist made a presentation of her (all artists were female) work, which was commented by a panel and followed by questions from the audience. The discussion was not about the artistic "end product", but the process leading up to it - could it qualify as "research"? Could the art product be seen as an answer to the research question? Could the theory be visualized? The debate was quite intense. The artists themselves meant that their Ph. D. studies had opened up their minds to explore new methods and approaches while many people in the audience were quite sceptical. There seemed, however, to be a consensus that we need new books in art history and new art critics with this perspective in mind. Everybody also seemed to agree that it was important to make a distinction between "practice based research" and "research based practice"! I must admit that I felt just as confused at the end of the symposium as in the beginning - but maybe on a higher level;-)?

~Pia~