Lecture: What Is Your Substance? Questioning Artistic Research
Bewerunge Room, Logic House (Maynooth University, Ireland)
Artistic Research has become an established and at the same time extremely multifaceted field. As an institutionalized approach, it has created its own discursive platforms and medial formats. With a more critical take one could claim, though: it also has established its own echo chambers. While the implementation of research programs and Third Cycles (PhD) at art schools might suggest an overall consolidation of methods, aims, criteria of evaluation, etc. there still seems to be quite some controversy about the “discipline” with the many alternative names (practice-based research, research in/through the arts, recherche-création, etc.).
The paper proposes a stroll through said echo chamber to shed some light on central terminological and methodological issues which seem to hold together a substantial part of the field. Focusing on artistic research in music, it will then attempt to unfold a rather more pragmatic view on the potentials this approach possesses as well as on the questions it raises. This discussion will include examples from my own research on vocal repertoire of the 1960s and the methodological frameworks I developed.
As part of the Research Seminars @ Maynooth University, Music Department