Adam Geczy (b. 1969, Australia)
Art is not Research, 2009

Geczy’s argument that art is not research is advanced in the context of integration of Australian art schools in academic structures developed for science – and implications thereof for public funding and its influence on artistic practices. However, the most interesting part for me is how he discusses artistic knowledge production, suggesting that there certainly is knowledge in art, but it is not necessarily “new” and not necessarily immediately revealed.

I’ve been sporadically following debate on artistic research from some distance, vaguely seeing a PhD somewhere along my way, and therefore interested to find out whether it can be meaningfully pursued within the discipline of Fine Art. Geczy reiterates some of my own concerns – scientific research tends to be very purposeful and instrumental, assuming that useful universal truths can be discovered as its result, while art often deals with “purposiveness without a purpose”. Where science articulates verifiable truths, art evokes idiosyncratic affects and interpretations. Where science [claims to] discovers pre-existing truths, art introduces new objects for appreciation. Research holes are round, art pegs are square.

However, I can also see many ways how artistic and scientific explorations converge, using same methods and/or asking same questions – that’s how I drifted from social science into art myself. And I am positive that many artistic processes contain elements of “research proper” and may deliver outcomes that are to a large extent comparable to scientific research outcomes (even if their articulation and/or medium may differ). And these considerations are rather critical for my practice that could be seen as balancing somewhere between art and science – I am trying to explore the world (as scientists do) rather than to communicate a message (as opposed to many artists), but I do not believe in universal truths (as opposed to many scientists) and do not require for meanings to be necessarily articulated in words (just like many artists). So whether I would pursue a PhD in Fine Art or not, questions of epistemology and the nature of artistic practice are always pertinent to me.