Exploring art-making as research enquiry: Methods, materiality and intentionality

Abstract

This article discusses the intersections of art-making and research enquiry, focusing on methods, materiality and intentionality. In response to the request to contribute to an archive of creative methodological processes, the author examines a methodology he is developing for co-creating artistic acoustic ecologies with the Great Lakes. It raises questions about the role of practice-based research in generating new forms of enquiry and systems of knowledge while examining the barriers to achieving legitimacy for artistic practices within the research landscape. The article explores ethical, technological and artistic considerations within the context of the author’s auto-ethnographic lens of an artist working in an era that demands verbalization as a primary articulation of knowledge and cultural expression. The author, a practising visual artist, musician and Ph.D. student in the research-creation-based Media and Design Innovation programme at Toronto Metropolitan University, discusses the need for concrete examples of how artistic research methods are effective.