Approximating Borders: Artistic Research in Practice

Ádám Albert, Eszter Lázár, Dániel Máté, Edina Nagy (eds.), Approximating Boarders: Artistic Research in Practice (Budapest: Hungarian University of Fine Art, 2023) 223 pp.

The question of knowledge resonates throughout human history. There have been many attempts to define it across philosophy, art, and science, but one cannot find an ultimate agreement upon the meaning of the term. We could cite innumerable perspectives and ideas about knowledge—from Descartes to Adorno in philosophy, to quite rigid and strict rules from natural science—but this would testify only to the diversity of ideas associated with “knowledge.” In the capitalist system, knowledge is a unit of benefit and economy, and legal documents try to concretize and restrict its purview. The terms knowledge, knowledge-production, and research are key concepts for the field of artistic research, so it is inevitable that artists, scholars, and critics working in this area must engage with them.

Artistic research is a relatively new field in the sphere of institutional education, starting in the 1990s. Nevertheless, it has already accumulated a vast literature discussing its importance and relevancy, including books, articles, and journals, as well as many conferences dedicated to this subject.(Just to mention a few: Henk Slager’s The Pleasure of Research (Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2012) is one of the best-known publications. Previously, the same author was a co-editor with philosopher and curator Annette W. Balkema of the volume Artistic Research (Amsterdam, New York: Lier en Boog, 2004). The JAR – Journal of Artistic Research is an international online journal that has published several researchers, philosophers, and authors in this field since 2010.) Practices of artistic research—just like the texts and theories about it—are widely debated: a reader, observer, or researcher seeking to learn more about it might feel they have stepped into a minefield. It is not immediately evident what belongs and does not belong to the category of artistic research. Since it has two modes—an institutional one (i.e. the doctoral level in the art educational system), and an individual one (artists’ practices), in other words, academic and non-academic practices—various questions arise. Just as Ádám Albert, Eszter Lázár, Dániel Máté, and Edina Nagy, the editors of the recently published book Approximating Boarders: Artistic Research in Practice, formulate, “Does art practice produce knowledge, and if so, what type of knowledge? What is the position of artistic research in the broader field of science and research, and what is the nature of the institutional framework within which it is created?” (p.20) Other questions arise as well: What is the relation between art and science? How can we define research and knowledge in this context? Does artistic research have its own means, methods, and techniques, or it can “borrow” from other disciplines? Approximating Boarders addresses the main problems of artistic research, and while these questions are far from new in this field, it seems they still need to be asked.

Examining the literature of artistic research, it is obvious that there are many interpretations and definitions to the questions raised above, and sometimes the answers are even radically different. The starting point of a publication dealing with this issue should declare at least provisional answers to some of these quandaries, in order to orient the reader, but the editors unfortunately do not do this. Rather, they show how many different understandings of the topic exist. The reader must do some advance reading to prepare to engage with this publication if they want to get a “handrail,” some help to navigate the maze of the subject.(To understand and grasp the essence of the topic, one quite useful resource is American art historian James Elkin’s short lecture on artistic research: see James Elkins, “Concepts and Problems in the Visual Arts, Lecture C15: Artistic research,” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Kv4DZqb2i4 (accessed August 24, 2024). Art historian Kavior Moon has also provided a good summary of the issue: Kavior Moon, “Research Art is Everywhere. But Some Artists Do It Better Than Others.” Art in America, March 8, 2023, https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/what-is-artistic-research-1234660125/.) (Furthermore, it would have been ideal for the book to contain a selected bibliography about the general topic, which it does not.)

The structure of the book is unique in terms of the number of contributions highlighting theory and texts specifically about practices, as the book’s title suggests. The editors, as they put it in the introduction, differentiate three types of texts: artist contributions, which are mostly written by “invited artists from the European region [who] describe their research process and the different phases of creating their artworks,” interviews, and brief, so-called inserts, which are technically sort of theorizations of the topic, where the authors “describe the need to adapt to the institutional infrastructure of research and the impact of the directives and guidelines employed in higher education—in some cases from a historical perspective—thus strengthening the link between artistic research and education.” (p. 19) Despite the number of types of texts, the book has two differentiated sections—artist contributions and inserts—and interviews as such occur in both. In this way, the editors emphasize both the institutional and individual side of artistic research, but they mostly let the artists speak about their own practice.

The fields and specializations of the authors included in the volume is quite diverse; we find writers ranging from a Piombo expert to a cultural worker, from a transdisciplinary artist duo to a composer-performer. This diversity is thanks to the character of the book, which is based on a three-year-long cooperation in the framework of the EU4ART_differences project. This project included four institutions from four countries: the Accademia di Belle Arte di Roma, the Dresden University of Fine Arts, the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, and the Art Academy of Latvia. As the editors write in the foreword, several conferences and encounters took place during these three years, but unfortunately the specifics of the project’s logistics and content are not transparent—even if some lectures are available online—and neither is the criteria the editors used to select the texts and art projects published in the book.(An example of one of the available lectures is Constanza Barbieri, “Artistic Research and Third Cycle in the Arts” Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYC6C8drTJE (accessed April 15, 2024).)

This vagueness about how certain texts were selected for inclusion becomes more of an issue when we consider the book’s eclectic contents and structure. The book has eight artistic contributions, and almost all of them are paired with an insert. Towards the end of the publication, however, this system ceases, and the eighth contribution is followed by the sixth insert, which creates an unnecessary disruption in an already slightly overcomplicated design—the book is large and heavy, with colorful papers in blocks of different dimensions. This design attempts to represent the diverse and far from homogenous content, but in my view, it instead creates confusion and is not a reader-friendly format.

The texts are at least as varied as the design. One of the most interesting writings in the book is Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits’ Case Study of Atmospheric Forest.  The artists, who are both researchers and curators, summarize their project on “visualizing the interplay between the forest, climate change and the atmosphere” in their paper. (p. 70) The duo’s research project took place in a Swiss Alpine forest where the conifers dried out as a consequence of climate change. They examined the aerial ecosystem of the forest, how trees “breathe and emit large amounts of volatile organic compounds into air,” and the impact of that process. (p. 73) The couple cooperated with climate and forest scientists during their project and were interested in “the invisible link between the forest ecosystem and its environment.” (p. 77) The project’s output was an exhibition, based on data visualization and virtual reality, in which the artists made invisible things and processes—i.e. fragrant and emitting particles—visible, and available for experience and “study.” The well-chosen artistic language and means, the relevant topic, and the quality of experiments give this project its power, and prove how artistic and scientific research—while they produce different types of knowledge—can still be intertwined.

Another engrossing example is Anca Benera and Arnold Estefán’s contribution titled Portrait of a Sand Grain. The case study contains both poetical formulations and research-based information focusing on nuclear tests and disposal cells around the world, where the venue, the witness, and, at the same time, the object bearing the consequences was sand. The case study offers an abundance of visual and textual information about this serious and shocking issue, while shedding light on the complexity of a seemingly ordinary material. The artist duo deals with a topic that usually belongs to the territory of the natural sciences, but they approach and work with it in such a way that through their project the viewer gains new knowledge from a unique perspective.

The inserts in Approximating Borders concentrate on theoretical questions and the institutional framework of artistic research, “the possibilities and operations of third-cycle (doctoral) programs”—both in the partners’ art institutions and in general. (p. 18) The Italian art historian Constanza Barbieri reminds us in her text “Artistic Research, Patents and Innovation at the Dawn of the Modern Era” how intellectual property, the theoretical and practical educational system, and the kinds of knowledge production connected to artists, functioned quite differently in the 15^th and 16^th century. “It is quite surprising that nowadays, the discrimination [against] research and PhDs in the arts afflicts many European countries, more than other continents: many fine arts students, as well as performers, video artists, etc., cannot obtain a PhD and therefore cannot complete the third cycle of education. This discrimination results from the misunderstanding of the research method as purely rational and scientific, terms apparently unsuitable to the art world,” she concludes. (pp. 117-18) Researcher and curator Tünde Varga’s text gives a sketch of the structure of the doctoral program at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, one of the few exceptional institutions that have national and international doctoral programs as well. She mentions many important documents, conditions, and projects like the Horizon Grant scheme’s Cultural Cluster or Feral Atlas, but—probably because of the brevity of the text—these remain unexplained, making it difficult for the reader to fully understand the text’s implications.

Approximating Borders frequently demands that the reader possesses prior knowledge of its central issue, as well as a familiarity with the historical and philosophical references often made by the editors and authors. In the introduction, for example, the editors write that “This idea sets the stage for a practice of artistic research that cannot be translated into written or spoken language; the arising knowledge can only be understood through practical experience.” (p. 21) This sentence is about “tacit knowledge,” and specifically about what Hungarian-British philosopher and scientist Michael Polanyi (1891-1976), the most influential writer on the subject, meant by this term.(About Michael Polanyi see: The Polanyi Society, http://www.polanyisociety.org/ (accessed April 9, 2024).) Yet the book refers only to “Polyani,” without any further elaboration. If the book’s primary target audience is indeed “graduate-level art students and doctoral students of third-cycle art program” (p. 19), this passing reference might be rather vague and uninformative. Such an approach to a complicated topic assumes a well-trained reader who is aware and ultimately familiar with the literature of artistic research. Considering that this sentence could also be taken as a concise synecdoche of the publication, a reflection of how the editors and writers approach their topic in general, there is definitely a need for a summarized explanation and some background on Polanyi’s ideas.

The authors handle terms and references quite easily in other places too, as with Elena Giulia Rossi in her text “Artistic Research as ‘Active Æsthetics.’” There, the curator and professor analyzes the boundaries between art, science, and technology, but leaves notions and terms like “boundary objects,” “semi-objects,” or (author) “Experience Byron” without explanation, with only a footnote that requires parallel readings to unpack and contextualize the meanings and relevance of these concepts.

Nevertheless, paradoxically, the publication’s strength lies in its diversity. The book emphasizes the position and analysis of post-Soviet and post-Cold War knowledge production, and this in itself is significant, since this issue has mainly discussed from Western perspectives and institutional frameworks. The publication does not have a deficit of Western perspectives, but most of the case studies do approach the question of artistic research from the characteristic condition of the post-socialist or post-Soviet sphere. For example, in his paper “5G in the Global East,” Vilnius-based artist, media critic, and researcher Vytautas Michelkevičius deals with one of the fundaments of knowledge production—i.e. universities—and with how systems changed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The higher education systems in Central and Eastern European countries were filled by different regulations, stemming from Vienna or Bologna, for example. It was, as he describes, a “smooth transition”: the second and third cycle of arts education was introduced more easily than in the West. Local, folk traditions “held better here than in Western Europe which was more ‘civilised’, ‘urbanised’ and constructed according to ‘modern scientific beliefs’. That’s why artists’ knowledge might be more welcomed here in the East since it is also tacit and practice-based”—he argues. (p. 160) In another case, Manuel Ángel Macía, Ilona Jutkonyté, and Santiago Reyes Villaveces’ text “Regimes of Knowledge Production” focuses on, among other things, how “competing ideations/ideologies constrain the processes of knowledge circulation.” (p. 188) Thanks to this condition, several types of knowledge are invisible, including Lithuania’s contribution to botany during the Space Race in the 1970s and 1980s, a situation with which the duo Jutkonyté and Reyes Villaveces engaged in their project. Judit Böröcz, Bence György Pálinkás, and Máté Szigeti’s project Singing Youth draws a parallel between the Soviet-socialist system and the current nationalist-populist one in Hungary, through the statue of the same title, erected in 1953 by the Greek sculptor Memos (Agamemnon) Makris. (p. 144) The trio used written, visual, and vocal elements in their project, to confront “references from the post-war socialist era (1945–56) and the NER (2010–) [Nemzeti Együttműködés Rendszere / System of National Cooperation, which] has great relevance in the contemporary political discourse since the current regime vilifies the former”—they write. (p. 145) With these case studies, the book not only contributes to enriching the existing narratives and understandings about post-Soviet knowledge production but also shows how art and artistic means can address them.

As is clear from the above discussion, artistic research is a complex and hard-to-grasp area in both academic and non-academic fields, in the same way that the terms knowledge and research are quite problematic and difficult-to-define notions. The Frascati Manual is a document presenting “Guidelines for Collecting and Reporting Data on Research and Experimental Development,” written with a desire “to provide basic principles and practical suggestions on how to deal with the increasingly complex research and innovation landscape faced by today’s economies and the defining features of different sectors”.(OECD, Frascati Manual 2015: Guidelines for Collecting and Reporting Data on Research and Experimental Development (Paris: The Measurement of Scientific, Technological and Innovation Activities, OECD Publishing, 2015, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264239012-en).) It is one of the legal documents that regulates and defines the educational as well as economic framework of the notion of knowledge and research, and such documents are also focal points of Approximating Borders. For example, in the sixth insert of the book (“On the Situation of Institutional Artistic Research: An Interview with John Butler”), Manuel Ángel Macía writes “The Frascati Manual mentions that artistic expression is normally excluded from research and development and that artistic expression fails the novelty test of research and development. This means that the arts do not produce anything new because, according to the Frascati Manual, the arts seek new expressions rather than new knowledges (sic!).” (p. 220) If we consider only those case studies that can be found in this publication, we can easily argue that the sort of definition quoted by Manuel Ángel Macía is not just unacceptable, but also inappropriate for arts. Therefore, we can certainly agree with the critique that the authors of the book formulate towards this—and some other—documents. One should avoid these sorts of strict and radical statements, which unequivocally exclude certain directions and understandings. Since it is almost impossible to give a single definition, it is better to take an approximate approach.

Approximating Borders shows a new perspective in its approach from two different angles. First, it concentrates on mostly artistic means and artists’ practices, presenting artistic research instead of only talking about it. This is an important difference compared to other literature on this topic, which primarily does the latter; it is more common to theorize artistic (knowledge) production than present it on its own. Since Approximating Borders is a book—with corollary limitations of its medium—the editors accomplish this through restricted borders, creating the experience of a sort of guided tour, in printed material form. Second, the institutional aspect of the book helpfully shows the current situation, including economic, educational, and scientific points of view as well, which is relevant for understanding how the present systems function. Artistic research as such is on its way to defining itself, and even if this book has no desire to resolve (or illusion of resolving) the debated questions and problems, its perspectives can contribute to doing so.

The author would like to thank artist Erekle Chinchilakashvili, who—among others—concentrates on artistic research in his practice, for helping her to navigate the literature on the topic.

Judit Árva

Judit Árva is an art historian, curator, and critic who graduated from ELTE Budapest in 2022. In recent years, she has been involved in several collaborative art projects, exhibitions, and publications; her writings and reviews have been published in national and international journals, such as Tranzitblog, Mezosfera, and Flash Art (Czech & Slovak Edition). Since 2018, she has been a curator and researcher at tranzit.hu contemporary art association. She is one of the founding members and operative director of tranzit.hu’s critical, long-term educational and cultural program, the Space of Opportunity, launched in 2020. She is the co-author and editor of the first publication of the program, Colonia Herbaria. Community Spaces - Plant Subjects (with artist Kitti Gosztola; Budapest: tranzit.hu, 2021). As a researcher, one of her main interests is art movements of the 1960s and 1970s, especially experimental tendencies in photography and poetry.