(Re-)searching artists in artistic research – creating fertile ground for experimentation

As an emergent new discipline, can artistic research escape the obligatory, hierarchical pathway: 'practice - discourse - knowledge'? By exploring the processes of artistic research at the Orpheus Institute in Ghent, Belgium, we shall advocate the potential benefits of an artistic and epistemic articulation of the musician's practice that stresses the 'context of discovery' over the 'context of justification'. Two interrelated lines of argumentation will orientate our approach.

Firstly, we shall seek to transform the question: 'What is this thing called knowledge?' into: 'What is this process called artistic research?' As a leading example of the institutionalisation of artistic research in the knowledge society of Europe and the broader world, the Orpheus Institute strives for an accommodation of both knowledge-based artistic practice and artistic practice-based knowledge - the dynamics of the epistemic and reflective processes embedded in this practice being at the heart of the Institute's endeavour.

Secondly, since we consider experimentation to be intrinsic to the processes of music creation and the development of artistic identity and expertise, we shall argue for the primacy of an experimental attitude in artistic research and practice. Experimental relationships take place not only inside artistic practices, but also at the interactional plane where the sensorial, creative and aesthetic world of the artist meets the world of science, research and explicit communication. In implementing its programme of artistic experimentation, the Orpheus Institute acknowledges the importance of the recommendations of The Association Européenne des Conservatoires, Académies de Musique et Musikhochschulen (AEC 2004-2007).

Examples provided in the paper will draw upon the Institute's international doctoral programme for musicians, docARTES, describing its innovative educational content, the participatory nature of its collective student activities and the hands-on types of learning processes employed, and upon the work of the Orpheus Research Centre in Music [ORCiM] which emphasises collaborative, reflective and practice-based methods of artistic research. The paper will consider the benefits of both these environments, where the visionary and the pragmatic, epistemic and artistic, tacit and explicit are encouraged to meet. It will argue that, in addition to their impact within the field of artistic research, these dynamics can expand and fertilise diverse domains of both practice and research.