Review

Working with the unpredictable in artistic research design

Paul Craenen

Several bookshelves have been devoted to the rise of artistic research in academia in recent decades. While by no means has a consensus been reached on ‘the being’ (the ontology) and ‘the knowing’ (the epistemology) of the discipline, the focus in recent publications seems to be shifting more towards methodological aspects and best practices. This is telling of the state of the field: now that it can boast so many and diverse experiences, there is a need for syntheses that can inspire further development.

Falk Hübner's Method, Methodology, and Research Design in Artistic Research is a good example of this growing maturity. The book addresses both inexperienced and advanced artist-researchers, as well as their supervisors, and is based on Hübner's own experiences as a researcher and supervisor of research projects in higher arts education. Hübner aims to encourage thinking about and working with methodology in artistic research, and, to this end, he develops a number of perspectives that he links together in what he calls the “Common Ground model”. The model's name refers to the need to take “the experience and reality of playing and making” of artistic researchers as a starting point to design research processes from the bottom up, without forcing them into the straitjacket of standardised, predefined research methods (p. 69).

A central idea is the importance of flexibility in the research design to respond to unforeseen elements that manifest themselves only during the research process, a phenomenon Hübner captures with the term “emergence”. This is likely to sound familiar to researching artists who feel the demands of established academic research formats are too rigid and restrictive, since they leave little room for the receptivity to unpredictable perceptions, complex experiences, and emerging creative ideas that characterize artistic practice. Yet the book is by no means a plea for an “anything goes” approach to artistic research. On the contrary, Hübner stresses the importance of thorough preparation and reflection on research methods and strategies. In doing so, he takes a middle position between the defenders of unrestrained freedom on the one hand and the guardians of academic rigour on the other (p. 5). It could be understood as a compromise, were it not for the fact that Hübner radicalizes this middle position by arguing that the emergence he wants to allow depends precisely on a well-thought-out research design.

The Common Ground model does not provide a concrete roadmap to this end, but a flexible framework that can be used both in the preparation and during the conduct of the research process, and as a tool for reflection, feedback, and supervision. The model, richly illustrated throughout the book, mainly consists of two interconnected spheres. The inner sphere represents research methods, usually grounded in the researcher's artistic practice, and consisting of five elements: Entities, Activities, Documentation, (Forms of) Reflection, and Learning/Experiencing/Knowing (p. 70). The outside sphere, built on top of this inner sphere, represents the design of a more general research strategy. Here Hübner distinguishes between Collection (of methods), Structure, and Time. Both spheres are interconnected by and embedded in a “sea of emergence”.

Overview

The structure of the book largely follows the concept and logic of the Common Ground model. An extensive introductory chapter already provides a good overview and summary of the principles and main propositions, and it is followed by a read-worthy chapter on ethics in research. Subsequent chapters develop the Common Ground model from the inside out, beginning with the sphere of method, which is described as “the smallest entity of research methodology” and “the level at which doing takes place” (p. 66). Hübner raises the question of “what a method actually is or what defines an activity in order for it be considered a research method within a certain field or for a specific peer group” (p. 68). In response to this, he proposes his Crafting Methods concept, in which he reconceptualizes method as a means of inquiry through a fluid and flexible network of the five elements mentioned earlier:

The role of each of these five elements is discussed in a separate subchapter, but it is especially the first element that attracted my attention. Hübner uses the term entities for those aspects that are most central to crafting a method and indispensable for every research activity. It is entities, either human or other-than-human, that carry out a method and play an active or passive role in it. (p. 70).

As such, in the network, Entities are directly connected to Activities—they are the elements that do something in the research. However, Hübner chooses to separate Entities and Activities in the design phase of a research trajectory, as this may be relevant to “bring unforeseen and unexpected ideas to the table” (p.73). I find this an interesting and useful approach that invites thinking beyond preconceived roles of actors and activities in a research process. Hübner makes further interesting observations on the diverse and creative roles of documentation (often multimedial in nature) in artistic research, and in this respect also complexifies the relation between the elements Documentation and Reflection. Finally, Learning/Experiencing/Knowing indicates the outcome of a method. In my opinion, this last element deserved more elaboration, as I will further argue in relation to the role of aesthetic experience.

Hübner’s redefinition of method as a flexible network may offer little guidance for those looking for concrete examples of artistic research methods. But the approach is indicative of the tension that runs like a thread throughout the book: on the one hand, methods are conceived as purposeful, systematic, and practical procedures; on the other hand, the researcher must be constantly open to what emerges from interactions within the network that constitutes a method. Here Hübner's model clearly differs from common research methods in other academic fields: what he calls the “layer of emergence” (p. 11) refers not only to unexpected research results, but also to a continuous possibility of adjusting methods and strategies during the research process.

This flexibility is also stressed in the fourth chapter, where Hübner discusses research strategies to collect and structure research methods, as well as the role of time in research trajectories. Although research design may suggest a certain hierarchy between these elements, Hübner clarifies that they should be seen as nodes “in a flexible network that can constantly shift and within which different conditions can react to other conditions” (p. 106). In other words, there is no preconceived order of steps to be followed when it comes to research strategy in the Common Ground model. It leads Hübner to one of the boldest claims in the book:

The kind of structure that is eventually implemented will emerge entirely from the design process, creating a form that by definition has not been described before. There is no deviation from the norm, as there is no norm. (p. 112)

Perhaps this statement should be understood more as a matter of principle than a description of a reality in artistic research. At least in my experience, artistic researchers often resort to a recognizable repertoire of approaches and procedures, even though these may not be as tightly imposed or defined as in other areas of research.

Although the phenomenon of emergence is a common thread throughout all previous chapters, it is only in the fifth chapter that Hübner elaborates on the meaning and importance of the concept itself. Building on theories of emergence in anthropology, sociology, and management and complexity studies, Hübner clarifies how working with the unexpected may benefit from a strong and solid research design, including research questions, demarcated methods, and overall structure. A few suggestions, strategies, and examples are added to put these insights into practice.

The book ends with a concluding chapter that doesn’t really summarize, but reflects on how to integrate artistic research into daily life and practice “as a behaviour, a habit, an overall state of mind and ‘state of doing’” (p. 146).

Aesthetic experience and the posthuman perspective

Hübner also inserted two shorter but essential interludes on terminology and research preparation. In the first one, he distinguishes between methods, strategies, and methodology. In his view, methodology refers to a meta-level that offers conceptual and philosophical grounding for doing research. He rightly points out that this meta-level cannot be the subject of the flexibility he advocates in methods and strategies. Methodology is therefore not treated as a separate topic in the book, but Hübner clarifies his own methodological sources of inspiration:

Methodology is not situated explicitly within the model itself; rather, it ‘flows through’ the entire model and is included more implicitly, with notions such as non-hierarchy, network logic, and posthumanist philosophy, all interwoven throughout the method and strategy choices. (p. 38)

Indeed, some of the concepts used in Hübner's model, such as the human and nonhuman Entities as part of methods, are clearly inspired by posthumanist and new materialist theories that have gained considerable popularity in recent years in some parts of the humanities, social sciences, and the artistic field—Hübner refers to authors such as Karen Barad, Donna Haraway, and Bruno Latour. One element common to these theories is, in my understanding and extremely simplified, the attempt to develop more-than-human perspectives on interactions and meaningful relations (the stronger word “entanglement” is omnipresent in the discourse) between actors or Entities that constitute the world as we know it. Hübner mentions as possible Entities the researcher, spaces or locations, authors or texts, conversation partners, musical instruments, installations, tools or objects, all of which are considered potential participants in the unfolding of a research process. Such a decentralized approach is in line with the receptivity of artists to interactions between the living world, matter, technologies, social structures, ideas, and concepts during creation processes.

Yet applying posthumanist thinking to artistic research methodology raises a number of questions that merit wider discussion. Although Hübner states that it is the researcher who determines who and what the important and necessary Entities are within a research method (p. 71), it struck me that there are very few examples in the book that refer to concrete artistic activities. There are examples of a participatory workshop where Hübner and colleagues tested different forms of documenting and note taking (pp. 77-78), and an illustration of a scenographer who sketched “the different amounts of time necessary for the parallel or integrated activities of reading, making work, learning, ‘hanging out’ with space, and conversations” (Figure 4.9, p. 116). In one picture we see two participants writing notes before a practical session (Figure 3.5, p. 85); in another one we see sticky notes on a wall that were the result of a brainstorming session in the context of music research (Figure 4.5, p. 110).

As relevant as these examples may be from the perspective of research design, none of them clarify how concrete artistic competences may take a leading role in the design of artistic research methods. Although it may have been a conscious choice not to zoom in on any particular artistic or disciplinary practice, I also wonder whether the posthumanist gaze prevented Hübner from giving too central a place to the researcher’s artistry. In relation to this, what also remains unaddressed in the book, is the role of aesthetic experience, and the ability to make—and necessity of making—aesthetic choices. What role can these play in the methodology of artistic research? It remains one of the most difficult questions in discussions on the epistemological nature of artistic research,¹ and is also directly linked to the weight of embodied knowledge that the artist puts on the scales—for example, when playing an instrument, dancing a pattern, or visualizing an emotion. While Hübner refers to authors like Robin Nelson (p. 13) and Erin Manning (p. 69, p. 90), who stress the importance of tacit or nonlinguistic knowledge, in my opinion the role of embodied human knowledge in artistic research design deserves more attention, since it is often put forward as a crucial element, on which also rests much of the credibility and authority of the artist as researcher.

Research design as a creative endeavour

Besides these caveats, there are many things to praise in this well-written, compact, and highly accessible book. I want to pick out two ideas that exemplify how research design inspired by artistic practice can foster methodological innovation. The first is about the element of Time, which Hübner conceives as one of the three main elements of an overall research strategy, alongside Collection and Structure. Time here stands not only for planning, but also for how it is spent and experienced. In other words, it is about qualitative time, and this includes, for example, the pause or incubation time needed during a research process to process or digest something. Hübner gives the example of including “a half-hour walk that is methodically understood as important for the writing process” (p. 115). Such attention to personal bodily routines is very common among artists in creation processes, but rather unusual in academic research. The meaning and potential of this invites further exploration.

However, the idea I found most inspiring and relevant in the book, is the conceptualization of artistic research design as a creative endeavour in itself. This creative aspect comes to the fore when Hübner discusses the importance of Documentation.

Documentation is a natural part of most forms of practice-based research, but Hübner points at a more multilayered and complex role of documentation that, again, requires flexibility. The need to use some form of documentation may only become clear during the research process, and its role may be one of reflection, more than just providing evidence. Moreover, documentation can take an artistic form, leading to a research output that is both “artistic and discursive” (p. 79). In this sense, documenting means not only collecting but also creating data. Here a more controversial aspect of artistic research appears that, in my opinion, also reiterates the important role of aesthetic choices in the research process. I found this implicitly evident in the photographic documentation of ethnographer and urban explorer Bradly Garrett, one of the few examples with a more 'artistic feel' in the book.

Method, Methodology, and Research Design in Artistic Research contains numerous valuable and useful ideas and perspectives for artistic researchers. The book adds a fresh perspective to the expanding literature on artistic research, and it can be particularly relevant for research projects that do not focus on one specific artistic discipline. In such a context, the Common Ground model may offer a helpful framework for consciously shaping the possible connections and interactions between the various elements and activities that can contribute to a research process.

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Paul Craenen

is a sound artist, composer and scholar at the intersection of artistic practice, music education and research. He is research professor at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague and Assistant Professor at Leiden University.

p.craenen@koncon.nl

Footnotes