Last night, York University played host to Dr. Bruce Brown, the Dean of the University of Brighton’s Faculty of Art and Architecture and general go-to guy on research in the creative arts in the UK. Given that this issue he was addressing - research practices in the practical and sometimes-ephemeral creative arts - is a fairly new one, it seemed both useful and timely to have someone clear-headed issue a few useful reminders of exactly what is to be expected of ‘research’ as such.

Probably one of the bravest moves in Dr. Brown’s talk was his attempt to dispel the myth of art’s illusory distinctiveness as an academic discipline - the sort of refusal that not only demands that art crawl out of the ghettos of the university and start receiving an equal share of funding in return for innovative results, but also holds art (as it occurs in an academic setting) accountable for teaching, producing and preserving good research practices. Any researcher, regardless of discipline, needs to articulate a question or a hypothesis in hopes of finding new knowledge or enhancing present understanding, and sadly there are too many artists who don’t know how to ask the right questions. And at the other end of the spectrum you face the artist who claims to be all about research, but if the creative output of that research is the mere illustration of a theory via painting or performance or what have you, then you haven’t done your job as a researcher and have likely made some miserably awful art in the bargain.

Dr. Brown also, quite rightly, hit upon the difference between the artist and the artist-as-researcher, much to the annoyance of a particularly frazzle-haired attendee who challenged his distinction of the two. But ultimately, yes, he’s right to say that while research can and does occur in the creative arts, this does not qualify all creative practice as research activity. The indignant woman seemed so distraught by the possibility that painting-in-itself is not necessarily ‘research’ that my urge to smack her was somewhat mitigated by the urge to give her a biscuit and reassure her that not being a researcher isn’t the end of the world, really. Sometimes, for some minds, being an maker of works is enough, and it doesn’t do art or research any favours to pretend that the two are interchangeable.

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