A/r/tography

A/r/tography is a form of educational-artistic research in which making art is used to bring new knowledge to the surface from the roles of artist, researcher and teacher. The three roles meet in the person doing the research. Teaching and making are both treated as inquiry, and as sources of knowledge.

It grew at the University of British Columbia around 2003. They do not speak of a method with guidelines, but of concepts and practices with renderings — because knowledge, they argue, arises in the practice of research in the arts.

Working with it, I found it loose as a method, and you have to know very well what you are going to investigate in order to mark the ground. At the same time that is impossible. The research is not linear and cannot be predicted. A question is the starting point from which further questions follow. In the literature this is called rhizomatic relation. A/r/tography grows through everything, like bamboo.

The researcher is not a third practice beside the other two. It is the middle. I work as artist-researcher and teacher-researcher. That attitude generates a great deal, because everything that comes onto the path is relevant. It is urgent, it includes doubt, and it takes place in the here and now.

I wrote about this at length in Cultuur+Educatie 50. Research on a human scale.