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David Smith	MaMMID
Conventional versus practice-based research in art and design	Darren Stevens
Friday 6th December 2002 (revised)

In order to expand on this, it is necessary to provide definitions of practical and conventional research.

 

-practical research in this sense being artistic visual imagery.

-conventional research being scientific empirical.

 

In view to the two main disciplines of research development, there are two areas of contention, that of Methodology and Documentation.

 

Conventional research can be viewed in terms of objectivity, rationality and formalism, defined methodologies of research, where as Art and Design research shares more to do with subjectivity, intuitiveness and organised chaos. How then can the two be looked upon as research together?

At first glance the scientific method of research carries a greater level of authenticity than that of the artistic view, but why should this be?

 

Rationality and objectivity allow the researcher to be divorced from the research in itself, thereby not contaminating the research with the researchers' own views, the research data henceforth stands by itself, and if performed by another the same results would be gained time and again.

 

How can a researcher, working in a visual realm, divorce themselves from the research in itself through objective means, where it is the artist and their subjective understanding of imagery that initially allow for research to be taken within art and design?

 

Is it appropriate and possible to develop visually based methodologies for research in visual arts ?

 

Objectivity and rationality, in this sense, would suggest the existence of methodologies of research in the visual field, which would therefore suggest defined rules for image production and image reading. Hence art would be removed of both its intuitiveness and the artists necessity to create.

How can the artist relinquish the intuitiveness and necessity that drives the research in ever new cycles, whereby it is this initial intuitiveness and necessity that is the arts compelling strength.

 

In view to the lack of methodologies and the haphazard nature of practical image research, should the two areas of research be seen as entirely separate, or alternative means by which research is carried out in differing fields?

 

In view to a post-modern world of universal independence and multiple perspectives, research, in the two fields, should not be seen as entirely exclusive but as alternative means by which knowledge is gained in relevance to its subject.

 

To carry this idea further, is it necessary for research in the fields of art and design to be viewed and examined in terms of conventional scientific methodical research?

 

The second area of contention that follows methodology is that of Documentation.

 

‘They (the students) must reconcile established research practice, dominated by the sciences with their preference for number and text, with an arts agenda, which is communicated visually’1

 

The quote above illustrate the degree to which the dominance of the sciences towards what constitutes qualifiable and quantifiable research.

 

Research in the conventional scientific method initially follows along a similar course of practical research as that of the visual field; in order to answer questions and gain knowledge hypothesis are produced where experiments (empirical) are devised and taken to either prove or disprove the hypothesis. The point at which the two fields diverge is what constitutes the final submission towards review by examiners/peer groups.

At this point conventional research is presented through written documentation whereas visual based research is presented through visual imagery.

 

Written documentation allows for greater control over the meanings associated with textural language than that produced through visual imagery whereby meanings are inferred in relation to the individual reader. Therefore conventional research confirms a singular meaning to textural documentation whereas visual based imagery bestows multiple (individually relevant) representations.

 

Significance for the singular interpretation of visual based research can be given greater definition through the associated environment surround the imagery. This can be attained through presentation setting, title, referential imagery, notations, verbal or textural documentation. The need for greater definition with visual research presentation is essential for the researcher to express thoroughly the intended research hypothesis that was tested and the relevant outcomes/results obtained of the research taken, be it successful or not.

In this circumstance it is essential for the visual based researcher to present secondary or supporting textural documentation in order to comprehensively define the research taken and to enhance the result achieved and so preventing multiple interpretations being inferred.

 

It is of necessity to transfer

 

‘artifactual knowledge or tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge’2