Q and A

Towards a Practice of
Artistic Research
Janneke Wesseling and Kitty Zijlmans
Leiden University

Posing the Question within the

Framework of Artistic Research
Janneke Wesseling

Questioning and being questioned

One of the biggest challenges for PhD students is finding a research question.
Without it, no serious research is possible. In fact, research is a way of asking
questions, guided by a central research question. Often, the central question
is only revealed at the completion of the research project: “Aha, now this is the
question that has haunted me over all these years—this is what I wanted to find
an answer to!” The question evolved over time and was adapted during the dif-
ferent phases of the research process. The difficulty, then, is in first finding the
initial question, a well-formulated and viable question that will be productive
enough to set off the research process.
This initial question is a challenge for PhD researchers in every field, but I
believe it is especially difficult for researchers in the field of artistic research.
This is so, first, because artistic research is rooted in and deals with sensory
perception. There is a gap to be bridged between sensory perception and
experiential, non-linguistic content on the one hand and linguistic modes of
argument on the other (Biggs 2004). In artistic research, or “research in and
through art,” artistic practice is the source of and the condition for the research
and its outcomes. Artistic research may be defined as the critical and theoreti-
cally positioned reflection by the artist on her or his practice and on the world,
in artworks and in written texts. This is to say that the research relates theoreti-
cal discursivity, which is expressed in writing, with artistic practice and sensory
perception. The research question must do justice to this interconnection of

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sensory, non-linguistic practice and discursive writing. In finding the question,

then, artist-researchers to a certain extent have to jump over their own shadow
and distance themselves from practice.
Second, the idiosyncratic nature of each individual art practice (and of art-
works) does not necessarily predispose artists to communicate questions aris-
ing from their practice with others and to share their dilemmas and insights
with peers. There is often a certain lack of experience and exercise in this
respect. This may explain why PhD students in artistic research sometimes
have trouble making the distinction between information and argument, as
well as between a subjective view of things and argument (the argument being
the objectivisation of a personal perspective). But the capacity to make this dis-
tinction is a prerequisite for PhD research.
Thinking in terms of “argument” in relation to art practice signifies a para-
digmatic shift in our appreciation of art. The traditional model of art practice,
which was deeply Romantic, was described some thirty-five years ago by Pierre
Bourdieu as follows: “The pure intention of the artist is that of a producer who
aims to be autonomous, that is, entirely the master of his product, who tends to
reject not only the ‘programmes’ imposed a priori by scholars and scribes, but
also . . . the interpretations superimposed a posteriori on his work” (Bourdieu
1984, 3). Very few artists and theorists would subscribe to this model today.
However, old habits die hard, and art education is still in the process of adapt-
ing itself to the demands of more recent, collaborative and research-oriented,
models of art practice. Artists doing research still are pioneers in this relatively
young field.

The primacy of the question

The role of the research question is threefold: limitation, clarification, and
deeper understanding. The subject needs to be narrowed down and the field of
research needs to be limited and restricted. The general tendency among new
PhD research students is to zoom out and open up the scope on their topic
as widely as possible: they want the research to contain everything that comes
into sight. However, precisely the opposite is necessary. The researcher must
zoom in on a specific topic. Some particular “how” is necessary, and the more
particular this “how” is formulated, the better.
In a column in the Dutch daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad, scientist Robbert
Dijkgraaf advised young researchers to “travel lightly” (Dijkgraaf 2015, my
translation). Students need a compass, enabling them to intuit the direction
that interesting developments are leading toward. The second instrument they
need is a tuning fork, to “feel” which subjects or directions they are in tune
with, to feel what it is that inspires them. Then they need a loupe, enabling
them to focus on the subjects that spark their imaginations, to forget about the
bigger picture and to loose themselves in details. And finally, they need a dice:
researchers need a bit of luck and should remain open to the element of play.
Often, artists are proficient in using compasses, tuning forks, loupes, and
dice in their practice. But when it comes to doing research in an academic con-

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text, they often tend to think that “objectivity” is a defining characteristic of

academic discourse and that they have to focus on the bigger picture. As said,
the contrary is true. The research question, which finds its origin in personal
considerations and suppositions, will serve as the loupe.
Doing research requires complete surrender to the research question. In
Thinking with Whitehead, Belgian philosopher Isabelle Stengers (2011, 58) states
that we “must limit ourselves to the problem that has been raised, and trust our
problem.” She then goes on to explain that “there are two modes of ‘trusting’:
the implicit one presupposed by our certainties and habits, and the riskier one,
which exposes the thinker to adventure.” It is, of course, the riskier one that
counts here.
What is meant by “adventure” is illustrated by a metaphor used by Whitehead,
namely the “foothold of the mind.” I freely adapt this metaphor here to research
in the humanities, of which artistic research is part. (Stengers and Whitehead
primarily refer to scientific research.) It means that we must have confidence
in and take advantage of our attributions and definitions, just “as mountain
climbers take advantage of what offers them a foothold” (Stengers 2011, 91).
Like a mountain climber, the researcher gropes her or his way forward, search-
ing for a position to enable the next step, “for everything that acts as a land-
mark must offer a foothold for memory and judgment” (ibid., 75).
The experimental foothold is not “invented” or “created” by the mountain
climber. It is “offered,” as a gift yielded by the experiment that is part of the
research process. The foothold exists out there, as part of “nature” and our
experience. In other words, the experimental adventure sees traffic from both
directions: “What is at stake is the survival of the ‘mind’s new ‘foothold,’ and of
what is supposed to be that foothold’s respondent in nature, that is, the two-
fold passage to existence of the experimental apparatus qua reliable, and of the
object to which it refers qua belonging to nature, or to what we have to do with
in awareness” (Stengers 2011, 100–101). This, then, is where trust comes in: that
there will be two-way traffic, that there will be reverberation, and that when we
dig deeper (or climb higher) we will always find more. Only through restricting
a specific problem or question will we be able to find the next foothold.
What follows from this is that the question has primacy over the proposition.
As the Dutch philosopher Gerard Visser writes in his essay Oorsprong & vrijheid
(Origin and freedom): “The existential primacy of possibility over reality mani-
fests itself in philosophy and science in the logical primacy of the question over
the proposition. What is at stake? When the question returns, than there is the
opportunity for the issue to present itself again” (Visser 2015, 85, my transla-
tion). This is what philosophy and science have in common with art. The art-
work is not so much an object, let alone an unambiguous proposition; rather, it
is the presentation of a question.
Clarification and deeper understanding will follow from the operation of
limitation and restriction engendered by the research question. A well-formu-
lated and specific question will aid understanding of the meaningfulness and
urgency of the topic. This to say that there is an intrinsic link between value on
the one hand and restriction or limitation on the other.

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How to find it?

The struggle to find a research question may have different causes; but, gener-
ally, it comes from the artist-researcher’s lack of conscious awareness of his or
her own position in the discursive field, as well as a lack of conscious awareness
of a specific perspective on the topic. Also, as most artistic research-projects
are interdisciplinary, PhD researchers tend to get lost in the new field of study
they are addressing.
A typical response to a PhD supervisor might read like this: “The background
research to my investigation is probably what gives you the impression that I
am writing as a visual studies student or as a historian rather than as an artist,
but I think I got carried away in explaining Western colonialism only because
I am so immersed in it and this immersion was actually very fruitful because it
allowed me to define my direction clearly. . . .” But this is not how any direction
will be defined clearly. Immersion is inspiring and necessary during a certain
phase of the research, but it will be much more fruitful after a question has
been formulated, not before.
How to find the question then? Stengers (2011, 22) suggests considering the
following: “What are the questions that make you think, around which the
demands that define what matters for you are organized?” This implies that
the question is complex and consists of sub-questions (the organisation of “the
demands that define what matters for you”) and that the question is highly
personal. What matters to you, what makes you think? A research question is
intimately connected with a general sense of importance, an importance that
in the incipient phase may not yet be fully understood. It is mainly felt; it is the
conviction that “this is important.” The general sense of importance will be
made specific in the course of the research, by way of detailed investigation and
concentrated attention (“dig deeper”).
In Modes of Thought, Whitehead ([1938] 1968, 11) suggests that “one character-
ization of importance is that it is that aspect of feeling whereby a perspective
is imposed upon the universe of things felt. . . . The two notions of importance
and of perspective are closely intertwined.” There is, he says, “no importance
in a vacuum.” Importance means selection—it is “this rather than that” (ibid.,
7). A perspective is posed on the universe, on what is out there, because to deal
with the universe, to deal with “matter-of-fact” (factuality, that which is given),
we need to select. Selection “requires the notion of relative importance in order
to give it meaning” (ibid.). We know there is always more, we may even have
a vague sense of this “more” and of its potential. But to move forward in our
inquiry, we select, and through this selection process we may be able to access
more of the wider range of potential. The selection (restriction, limitation)
actually creates more space, which Whitehead calls “elbow room”; it is freedom
to move (Stengers 2011, 191, 229). “Thus importance, selection, and intellectual
freedom are bound up together, and they all involve some reference to matter-
of-fact” (Whitehead [1938] 1968, 7). This last sentence is a beautiful and concise
description of research and of the role of the question in the research.
The research question, which originates in a subjective perspective on things,
will be objectivised in a systematic approach, leading to a coherent argument.

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Research is the communication of one’s insights to peers; it is making one’s

presuppositions explicit, in a process of questioning and being questioned.
This presupposes a sense of whom and where these peers are. Therefore, in
finding the research question, the researcher must consider who her or his col-
leagues are. “What definition of what matters do I share with them? To what
tests shall my proposition be subjected?” (Stengers 2011, 22). There will be no
research without communication and debate with colleagues. Once more,
Whitehead ([1938] 1968, 8): “The notion of importance. . . . can be inadequately
defined as ‘Interest, involving that intensity of individual feeling which leads to
publicity of expression.’”

The question and the act of questioning thus have primacy in the research
process. However, this does not mean that the question does not need to be
answered. It is the “response-ability” of the researcher to come up with an
answer (or multiple answers). In fact, if a question is not answerable, it is not
a research question. The desire to find an answer is the precondition for a
well-formulated question.

Giving an Answer
Kitty Zijlmans

What is needed to formulate an adequate answer to an individual research

question, as elaborated above? Except for personal drive and motivation, also
required are a clear sense of how to position oneself, a proper research environ-
ment, and writing skills as well as praxis.
Starting with the first aspect, taking up the responsibility of answering the
question means literally to open oneself to the ability to respond; thus, desire
and urgency need to be felt for this endeavour. The obvious follow-up con-
cerns formulating a research question and how one can best answer it. There
never is only one best way: a relevant and convincing answer largely depends
on the extent to which the answer—that is, the argumentation, the narrative—
expresses the urgency and desire to understand one’s own drives and direc-
tions. Janneke Wesseling and I take the standpoint that answering a research
question in the context of a PhD project basically means elaborating the narra-
tive, giving an exposition of what the artist would like to convey in clear—but
equally poetic—language (if one has the gift of writing). Artistic research-based
questions cannot be answered in one-liners; instead, they need a substantial

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corpus of writing, discourse if you like, to be able to respond deeply and genu-
inely to the issues preoccupying the investigator and to complement, in its par-
ticular and unique way, the (visual) artwork, musical piece, composition, and so
on of the PhD project.
The answer also needs a clear positioning—that is, a contextualisation of
the investigation, of the issue(s) in question in the field to which it refers. It
depends on the investigator what field or fields that may be. This may sound
random, but it isn’t; artistic endeavour and inquiry explores a particular sub-
ject that has been of interest to the artist for a long period, because it emerged
out of her or his artistic practice and may address particular scholarship from
fields relevant to the artist’s study, be it philosophy, anthropology, archaeology,
psychology, or another. These disciplines are not a smorgasbord from which
to pick arbitrarily; there is a need for theoretical consistency, but the artist
may have a good reason to read certain scholarship idiosyncratically. As James
Elkins (2009, 130) remarks in Artists with PhDs, if a peculiar reading is the case,
it is “absolutely essential to build in a commentary on the writer’s purposes:
a commentary that would ideally also demonstrate that the author knows the
discourses and chooses to ignore or distort them.” I would like to add that writ-
ing such commentary is always essential because it clarifies the position the
artist takes.
All this sounds as though there is a clear path demarcated for one to fol-
low, but every research project also has its contingency and serendipity. The
material or information one is looking for might come from a completely
unexpected side, at an unanticipated moment or place; one can never fully
organise one’s research. Just as most artists have not been trained to formulate
a research question, they also have been challenged too little to articulate in
writing how they position themselves in the field of art and/or in relationship
to an academic field relevant to their research. Different from any other kind
of academic research, the start of an artist’s research is his or her own prac-
tice, as Janneke Wesseling has elaborated above, and the main problem an art-
ist faces is how to articulate the unique coherence between her or his artistic
praxis and the research question—or between practice and theory if you like.
From here, the answer—or rather, the argumentation—will follow, but this
never just follows from it, especially because writing and art making are inextri-
cably entwined in the process. Building up an argument is not a linear process;
in contrast, the road is full of bifurcations, and looking back, the path taken
resembles the game dominos rather than the arrow from a bow.
In arriving at an answer to the posed research question, a clear comprehen-
sion is needed of the fields the artists are working in and, following from that,
of relevant and related artists (and theorists) with whom they associate or to
whom they juxtapose themselves. This is the horizon against which artist-
researchers position themselves to articulate their singularity, which is needed
for a clear focus in the research and to create a relevant frame of reference. The
frame of reference is not just “out there waiting for you” but also needs to be
formed. This is a subjective enterprise but at the same time there are also limits
to what can be brought together. There needs to be a rationale to it—and it is

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precisely the exchange and balance between singular and general, individual
art praxis and theoretical discourse, that makes artistic research unique and
urgent. The next section contemplates what might be needed to get there.

Research environment
All research presupposes an environment that allows research to be executed
and that stimulates it. No research of any kind is possible in a vacuum. It is
reminiscent of the audacious question boldly posed by art historian Linda
Nochlin in 1971 in the early days of feminist art history, Why have there been
no great women artists? The answer is not because women lack talent or are
incapable of greatness, but because the right questions about the conditions
for producing art need to be asked. There have not been great women artists,
so Nochlin argues, because they lacked the institutional (not the individual
or private) preconditions and access to proper art education to achieve such
levels in the arts. One needs the proper context to flourish, male artists not
excluded; but women artists were more often than not deprived of such frame-
works. Therefore, Nochlin ([1971] 1988, 176) made an appeal to women artists
to “take part in the creation of institutions in which clear thought—and true
greatness—are challenges open to anyone, man or woman.”
Linda Nochlin’s call for a new type of institute may very well apply to the bud-
ding field of artistic research today: to create the conditions for a framework to
critically assess art creation and reflection, and to reach a level of scholarship
equal to the academic field. Artistic and academic research are mutually bene-
ficial in being communicating vessels that introduce to one another the other’s
mode of operation. Elkins (2009, 130) draws a further conclusion: “Universities
have not been set up to think about the confluence of making and studying,
understanding and knowledge, practice-led research and research-led prac-
tice, writing and seeing. Studio art practice could be the place to carry those
discussions forward.”
Clearly, the necessary conditions for elaborating a research question include
an inviting and stimulating institutional bedding of artistic research. Such an
environment—the Orpheus Institute being a case in point—brings with it the
enriching opportunity to get feedback on the research process from super­
visors as well as one’s peers in a laboratory-like setting. Being engaged with dif-
ferent angles and perspectives—from advanced researchers to beginners and
from various artistic disciplines and theories—engenders a research environ-
ment that stimulates the artistic outcome by means of artistic experimentation.
Ideas bloom in a culture of invention, creation, experimentation, and testing.
An inspiring research environment is needed to produce innovative, pioneer-
ing research. Also, it builds up a research memory, an archive, and best prac-
tices (and failures, for sure)—in short, a context to relate to. Without such an
environment, answering a research question will always fail.

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Importance of writing
Writing is a means of articulating one’s thoughts, hunches, and ideas. No
research question, nor its answer(s), comes out of the blue. People already
have a lot of knowledge or rather carry with them a sense of knowing (like
in the Dutch weten or the German Wissen), indicating a deeper level of know-
ing, of inherent or tacit knowledge. Such implicit knowing is also fuelled by
making, by making things that emerge in the interaction with the material as
a fellow player, by learning and getting “the feel of it.” The body remembers
this (tacit skills). Ways of knowing and ways of making are nested, they are
deeply ingrained in body and mind, as John Pickstone argues in his book Ways
of Knowing (2000); this is because, following Michael Polanyi who coined the
term “tacit knowledge,” all ways of knowing involve both craft and skills. So the
proper research question may also stimulate tacit knowledge to come to the
surface, and writing may help in that process.
On the one hand, writing is self-centred: artistic research simply asks for a
written discursive-reflective text—it is about the artist’s motives, her or his
“key-drivers.” On the other hand, it needs to connect to the world outside by
contributing to what we can call cultural work. Cultural work in this context
can be described as generating a critical public discourse on art within the field
of art, for higher education, academia, and society at large. Thinking about art
that results in “art writing”—to choose a somewhat neutral term—needs to
come from both artists and academic scholars/critics; in contrast to academic
theorists, artists’ theory springs from or is strongly related to their art practice.
“Art writing” in the sense of a written dissertation as part of the doctoral degree
in art thus contributes largely to a new discourse and stimulates the debate
about the nature of artistic research, about understanding art and the way it
is made; important societal value also lies in this role. In German sociologist
Niklas Luhmann’s theory of society as composed of various emerging dynamic
functional social systems, each of which is run by its own type of communica-
tion, art is one such system. Artistic research contributes to the self-description
of the art system. By “self-description,” Luhmann means the mode of operation
by which systems generate their internal identity; in the case of art, it “reacts to
internal problems of meaning and is not just concerned with illustrating gen-
eral philosophical theories. . . . In self-description, the system becomes its own
theme; it claims an identity of its own” (Luhmann 2000, 248). This self-descrip-
tion occurs both in artworks (called “compact communication” by Luhmann)
and in writing.
More than any other type of utterance (scientific, political, religious, eco-
nomic, etc.), art and art writing demonstrate the power of imagination and cre-
ativity, driven by artistic motivation. They have a language of their own because
of the interconnection of sensory, non-linguistic practice and discursive writ-
ing, as Janneke Wesseling argued above. But how can one arrive at writing such
a text? A text prompted by a research question rooted in art practice, which, to
paraphrase Isabelle Stengers, makes you think, and around which the demands
that define what matters for you are organised. Again, there isn’t a simple
answer to this question, but it gives a direction: the narrative that the artistic

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researcher builds up springs from her or his interest, artistic and intellectual
curiosity, and art practice. In Artists with PhDs, Henk Slager (2009, 52) calls artis-
tic research a form of experience-based knowledge, which, so he adds, “does
not preclude the fact that artistic research as a form of idiosyncratic research
still should be able to answer well-defined questions.” This brings us full circle
by returning us to the mutual dependency of question and answer.

To round off this reflection on Q and A, a few words on the notion of experience
as mentioned by Slager. Experience can be understood in the sense of either
an experienced artist or embodied, sensual understanding. In 2016, during her
inaugural lecture on the occasion of accepting the new Chair of Practice and
Theory of Research in Visual Art at Leiden University’s Academy of Creative
and Performing Arts, Janneke Wesseling expounded the latter notion of expe-
rience as in-depth understanding, alluding to the development of a concep-
tual apparatus specific to the interrelation of making and thinking; this, she
contends, is fundamental to artistic research. In giving an answer to the posed
research question, a methodical itinerary needs to be followed that relies on
thought processes as well as experience. This is where the response to the ques-
tion may reside.

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