What is artistic research?

Art offers a premise and an aim for research: a motive, a terrain, a context and a whole range of methods.

Art and research are basic concepts in our culture. They feed on one another and are intertwined in many ways.

Research that defines art as its object in one way or another is generally called art research. Art can, however, also offer a premise and an aim for research: a motive, a terrain, a context and a whole range of methods. This kind of research is often referred to as “artistic research”. It is not a counter concept of “scientific research”, but instead, its primary aim is to describe the framework of research in a way that does not simply reduce art to the subject matter of a study.

Artistic research is typically carried out by experts in various fields of art, i.e. artists – or artist-researchers, to be exact, because not all art is research. Artistic activities can be considered research only when they are done within a critical community.

Similar to a scientific community, an art community defines, shapes and renews the criteria for its own research frameworks and practices in interaction with the surrounding society. In this sense, artistic research is comparable to scientific research and constitutes its own form of research among various other forms.

We have endorsed The Vienna Declaration on Artistic Research.

Our most central networks within artistic research: