Testing, Testing: Prologue (vol. 1)

Testing, Testing is an exhibition, book, symposium and second book by PhD practice-based researchers in fine art. The project seeks to explore the range of making practices that form part of artistic research methodologies, and to try and demonstrate how simple making process can advance an enquiry into art at PhD level.

Experiments commonly form part of the artistic process but the title of this project speaks of the difficulties involved in inhabiting artistic research methodologies. How do researchers manage the uncertainties involved in experimental artistic production? Is artwork that is produced as research any different to artwork that is not? What makes art-as-research different to non-research-oriented art?
Wesseling (2011) suggests that the difference between an artist and an artist-researcher is the latter’s willingness to place their practice under scrutiny and open it up for public discussion. The exhibition and symposium were a way of opening up the processes, practices and approaches of each of the participating researchers to a public and entering into dialogue about them. Each of the artists in the exhibition and symposium did this in a different way. Some preferred a ‘crit group’ format, some presented rehearsed readings, and others offered more traditional conference presentations and discussions.
While each researcher tackled the project in ways that supported their own practices, and learned something about their particular approach, some general insights also emerged. The relevance of exhibition as a method of generating insight was underlined by the developmental processes some artist-researcher went through on the way to staging the work. Other artists found it beneficial and challenging to develop a piece of academic writing that came before the work and again after the work. The dual position of artist-research as both author and viewer of the work was occupied and developed throughout the project.

Reference
Wesseling, J. (2011). Introduction. In: See It Again, Say It Again: The Artist as Researcher. Antennae. Amsterdam: Valiz.