Ebook: SHARE Handbook for Artistic Research Education

The Contexts of Artistic Research Education: The opening part of this book consists of two chapters. The first of these attempts to outline the multiple genealogies and contexts of artistic research education in a way that seeks (I) to understand why the notion of artistic research is contested and (II) to identify some of the different factors underpinning the energetic contest of meanings and values which characterizes contemporary artistic research education. The second chapter turns to the organizational bases of contemporary research education in the arts. In doing so, it deliberately juxtaposes the contested genealogy of artistic research, given in the preceding
chapter, with a discussion of some of the practical strategies already prevalent in doctoral education in the arts. This is done in a bid to renegotiate the arguments from first principles (‘Is research through art practice possible?’), paving the way for a consideration of actually existing practices and organizational strategies. In summary form, the proposal is that the debate on artistic research should be pursued, in substantial part, through attending to actually existing practices and production. This can best be done by attending to the forms and contents of already operative doctoral educations in the arts, and not predominantly through exchanges of meta-theoretical propositions on the nature of art or research by commentators.