I went to a book presentation at SMBA in Amsterdam two weeks ago. They did a tiny symposium on the artist as researcher in honor of  a book about artistic research. Book is titled ‘See it Again, Say it Again’, written by art critic and art professor Janneke Wesseling. Bought the book, have yet to read it.

I’m still puzzled by the artistic research thing. If it is a question of making stuff, then reflecting on it, then making some more stuff, etc etc etc, that is something I can relate to. What I don’t get is how knowledge can be produced by artistic research – artistic research trajectories are so individual. Artistic research trajectories do not lock into each other, nor do they build on or expand other’s finds. Which is a big difference with scientific research. In the sciences, any new find needs to be reproduced by another research group in order to be accepted. Also scientific research is transmissible, where artistic research seems noninheritable.

Why would artists want to produce knowledge, anyway?