SP w1 Research
- HildeMaassen
- Sep 29, 2019
- 5 min read
Updated: Aug 15, 2020
My feedback for last module was that I had to do more research on the subject of climate change. That did not come as a total surprise because I had felt the lack of enough research already and I started with following colleges at the University of the Netherlands (online) and I will continue to hear talks on climate changes, art, philosophy and related subjects. When possible I will go to live colleges. I also will do more research on the places that I like to visit. And use, if possible guides because that also is way to gather a lot of information. I am hands-on orientated, partly due to the fact that I am dyslectic and reading is harder than average. Luckily my computer reads a lot for me so that I can hear it.
On the other hand I like it sometimes to just make images for the sake of image making, experimenting and lose myself in that without too much knowledge and influences.
What I see in a gallery or museum must appeal to me to think it is too beautiful. If that is not the case and the story is good, but the image dredges, I feel fooled. It also often seems that the story was conceived to be able to justify and validate the poorly made image. I have no problem with the reverse if the image is beautiful or intriguing, then I don't need a story to appreciate it. I will come up with my own story. It rarely happens that an image appeals to me and that, through the story, I start to appreciate it even more.
That does the question arise what research does to making art and I found a interesting article about that, by TEEMU MÄKI
Some of the highlights that stuck with me
In the article the writer explanes the differents between knowledge and research to start with. Knowledge has to be useful. Be able to know, predict or do something because having a kill. While research is a systematiek procedure that 1, increases knowledge or 2. improves the performance.
Then a very basic but importent question arises: "Why are (some) artists trying to combine art and research?"
Some form of research process is part of practically all art making but most artist want more. They like to test the theories, modify and connect; show the audience new values and experiences.
5 reasons why to combine art and research:
1.To make better art.
This can be made is: an artist knows better what his motivations are en methode he uses as well as the impact the art has on the audience. The artist is central in this. Theories enrich and expand our lifeworld as much as modifications and extensions of the physical reality: we often experience theories intellectually and emotionally with the same intensity with which we experience external and physical reality. Thus, theories are an important part of our lifeworld even when they remain mere theories, without practical usage.
2. To understand and enjoy art more. ‘
To become more conscious and to get more pleasure from art. Good theoretical knowledge and other modes of verbalised inquiry enable us to derive greater meaning and nourishment from a piece of art. It is not an explanation of the peace of art.
3. To explain art better.
The writer puts in critically information is this part that the artist have to question their beliefs.
4. To understand more of the world through art and then to change it with art.
This is a point where the political problem is the most important part and the artist react on it.
5. To gain respect and better pay. A motivation that is not good for art tells the writer.
4 categories of artistic knowledge (proposed by TEEMU MÄKI)
All combinations of art and research use and strive for knowledge. This can be a tool or a goal.
1. How to make art? – Knowledge about how art is made: knowledge of the processes, methods, composition systems, various traditions and how to create from an artist view
2. How to view art, how it is interpreted, used, and consumed.
3. What did the artist mean? What are the intentions and motivations conscious and unconscious. What do you like to archive, what is the meaning of others. Compare them and look for the differenties and What did the artist try to do, express, or achieve.
4. Art's knowledge about society and humanity. Art uses special tools, methods and languages, and may thus produce knowledge and insights about society and us that would be hard or impossible to produce by other means and in other spheres. Art makes observations, analyses, and claims about the world; it tests and evaluates ways of living, it creates and proposes new values, new ways of living and experiencing. Art is thus constantly interfering and overlapping with and contributing to non-artistic knowledge.
Combining art and research means importing non-artistic knowledge into art, but this does not have to be a one-way street. Often, the process is reciprocal: non-artistic knowledge is imported into the research or the art making process in the field of art, after which the research results or artworks are shared, exported, and offered as knowledge or moral philosophical reasoning that can be useful or rewarding in some other sense, not just to the arts but to society in general.
WHATEVER WORKS – THE JUSTIFICATION OF ART AS RESEARCH
These questions about art and research are questions I can ask myself and answer.
1. Should the combination of art and research aim at creating knowledge about art or about the world through art?
> In my photography I do not want to teach the public so much about climate change as to make people think. By making alienating images of everyday landscapes that are threatened with existence. By transforming them into apocalypse-looking, unknown phenomena I hope to add to the discussion.
2. Should it produce more knowledge in general or more knowledge about art in particular, or should it focus on producing better artists and better artworks?
> My research is aimed at gaining more knowledge in the field of climate change and in particular what this can mean for the Dutch landscape. This in order to be able to make clear choices on the one hand for the places that I may or may not want to use as the basis for my images and on the other hand to be better informed of the problems and to be able to talk, about them in order to to be able to answer questions about my work. I hope this will result in better work with more depth.
3. Furthermore, should this type of research be neutral (descriptive) or should it openly demand change (prescriptive)? > I want to create an uncanny feeling and hope to get people into thinking: "what is this about". This is not a neutral position to begin with. Showing what is under the surface by combining the landscape with your own bumpmap and converting it into a 3D image is a method to do that. Another is to convert the image into sound; making the landscape heard. Give nature a voice. This transformation of landscapes themselves is also a way of doing research. A form of research into what may be embedded in an image. A pseudoscientific, I know, but a way that could nevertheless make the public think twice about what they are seeing.
To do justice, my work will probably have to be part of a larger whole or as an illustration for text about climate changes. Not isolated.
I admire some people I know doing, what I call “slow photography”.Exploring their subject for a long period of time often also do courses to be able to work with the people they have as a subject.
One of them Rince de Jong who worked 8 years with people with dementia resuling in a book "Long Life"
The other Isabella Hunts who knows everything about the theorie of hunting and travels the world to take images of it
But for myself in my practise I can relate better to the term alchemist and found this pdf with loads of interesting people to research http://www.heckscher.org/downloads/ED14_HS_LIBest_Chklist_Photography.pdf
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