The Logic of Artistic Research

This paper focuses on three artistic methods: a/r/tography; deep mapping; and cross-medial matrixing. A/r/tography encompasses a host of practice-based methods of inquiry attentive to contiguity and resonance, motion and materiality, possibility and potentiality. Deep mapping refers to multi-layered accounts of a place and uses geographic information and positioning systems, images, artistic and engineering drawing techniques (e.g. light drawing), and auto-ethnographic accounts. Cross-medial matrixing – where ‘matrixing’ refers to a process of emergent action-based structuring across media – relies on transposition, layering and symbolic compression. <br/><br/>Transposition uses one or two media different from the medium in which the initial artefact was created to further explore relational potential, e.g. by transposing an image to a sound sequence or choreographic notation. Layering uses sequences from procedural media (music, film, performance, durational painting) to re-structure compositions or artefacts, while symbolic compression relies on spatial and temporal compression to create symbolic resonance (e.g. by condensing the duration of a human life into the time it takes a human body-shaped candle to burn). Employing artistic (e.g. Arata), philosophical (e.g. Derrida), and media-archaeological (e.g. Huhtamo) theories of tracing, the paper will ‘distil’ the prevalent, although not universal, logic of artistic research.