Visual art practice reconsidered: transformational practice and the academy

This paper, the last of the three papers concerning the field of practice-based research submitted for assessment, reports research supported by AHRC Grant, No:112155, entitled Consolidating understanding and experience of practice-based research. The book, in which the paper appears, arose from the Combining Art and Research conference held at the University of art and Design Helsinki, 2005, at which Scrivener gave as keynote presentation (see portfolio).

The central ideas developed in Scrivener (2002a) and (2002b) are that visual arts culture is not essentially a knowledge acquisition process, and that visual arts research is better understood as original creation undertaken in order to generate novel apprehension. Nevertheless, this begs the question of what distinguishes visual arts research from contemporary visual arts practice.

The paper explores this question by first arguing that visual arts culture embodies a transformation function equivalent to the progressive function of research (i.e., knowledge advancement) in many other disciplines. Unlike other research-led disciplines, it is argued that this function has not been institutionalised through a professional research/transformational class, strongly embedded in academe.

However, it is argued, professionalisation is now underway and the question is “How might the academic artworld enhance its contribution to this transformational function?” This is explored by examining the features of intellectual and creative cultures as they relate to transformational agents’, i.e., artists/researchers’, competences, which when embodied in academic culture constitute a transformational practice distinct from that of the contemporary artworld.

Hence, together these three papers, submitted for assessment, represent steps in the elaboration of a singular contribution to the debate on art and design research.