It is important to emphasize that artistic research contributes to knowledge production beyond skills in the art in which you work and research. The art is thus not artistic research’s only research object. The practice is central to artistic research and the outcome is a work of art or a performance as it is within oral storytelling. In addition to the work, the methodical is also important. Borgdorff writes that “works of art and artistic practices are not self-contained; they are located and embedded. The meaning of art is generated in interactions with relevant surroundings. .. /.. /.. , the context in which artistic research takes place is formed both by the art world and by academic discourse;” (Borgdorff, 2010). Artisitic research thus enters into a number of discourses. For oral storytelling, this means that one relates, among other things, to artistic research, but also the subject of oral storytelling.
The advice is often, when you have the topic to research and a sense of the framework, that one creates a research question and then hypotheses. I prefer a slightly different path to creating a research question where I begin with hypotheses. I write these along the way as I read and try out various practical schemes – i.e. building a framework. An hypothesis is often not suitable within artistic research, because one does not know in advance what one will discover. Artistic research is not led by hypotheses, but discoveries (Borgdorff, 2010).
Although hypothesis are not suitable in the qualitative method artistic research, I still use hypotheses to get on the trail of a research question. It can be useful to formulate some hyphothesis because it initiates a process of formulating oneself precisely.
Based on the hypotheses, I try to formulate a question that should be concrete and clear on what is being investigated. The research question is an operationalization of a problem and is related to the purpose and objective of the research. I must therefore also formulate a clear purpose and a goal with what I do. The purpose can be to make a performance, but the goal is to research women and memory for instance.
So the process I have is:
1. Build a framework
2. Formulate hypotheiss
3. Formulate problem, purpose, and goals.
4. Formulate a research question
5. Formulate sub-questions.
Then there’s a planning of the project/process where I set up milestones for what should be finished when.
Borgdorff, H. (2010). The production of knowledge in artistic research. In &. H. M. Biggs, The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts (pp. 44-63). Routledge Ltd.