Beyond Validity

Claiming the Legacy of the Artist-Researcher

Authors

  • Henrik Frisk
  • Stefan Östersjö

Keywords:

Artistic research, method development, artistic practice, subjectivity, research assessment

Abstract

In this paper we argue that it is essential for artistic research to develop an epistemo logy and methodology that is responsive to modern society’s demands to move towards a decolonized and ethically grounded paradigm. The positivist belief in a value-free, ‘objective’ science has already been decisively countered by a subjectivist turn. In this context, the artistic researcher can be a vanguard representative of an autoethnographic and politically aware counter-reaction in which the space for subjectivity in research in general is expanded – an expansion that goes 'beyond validity'. Rather than being understood as a non-academic and independent research discipline, we claim that artistic research is situated in a space principally defined by four non-conformal fields of gravitation: the subjective, the academic, the experimental, and the field of the art world. The complexity of this picture should not prevent the development of frames and methods for artistic researchers to use or depart from, while still maintaining an experimental perspective. Drawing on theoretical currents in the social sciences and cultural studies as well as method development in the artistic research field, our argument builds on the conviction that artistic practices have always constituted a source of dissemination of particular kinds of knowledge. These non-discursive forms of transmission of knowledge constitute a foundation for artistic research.

Author Biographies

Henrik Frisk

Dr. Henrik Frisk is an active performer – saxophones and laptop – of improvised and contemporary music, and a composer of acoustic and computer music. With a special interest in interactivity, most of the projects he engages in explore interactivity in one way or another. Interaction was also the main topic for his artistic PhD thesis Improvisation, Computers, and Interaction (Malmö Academy of Music, Lund University, Sweden, 2008). Henrik has performed in many countries in Europe, North America and Asia including performances at prestigious festivals such as Göteborg International Biennal for Contemporary Art, Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival (NYC) and the Montreux Jazz Festival. As a composer he has received many commissions, made numerous recordings for American, Canadian, Swedish and Danish record labels and is currently a member of the collective Kopasetic Productions, an independent label owned and run by improvising musicians. Henrik Frisk is also associate professor at the Malmö Academy of Music, Lund University, and assistant professor at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, and works with the Swedish National Artistic Research Academy. As a visiting lecturer he has taught at several schools and universities.

Stefan Östersjö

Dr. Stefan Östersjö, guitarist, is a prominent soloist within new music in Sweden. Since his debut CD (Swedish Grammy in 1997) he has recorded extensively and toured Europe, the US and Asia. His special fields of interest are the interaction with electronics, and experimental work with different kinds of stringed instruments other than the classical guitar. As a soloist he has cooperated with conductors such as Lothar Zagrosek, Peter Eötvös, Pierre André Valade, Mario Venzago, Franck Ollu, Andrew Manze and Tuomas Ollila. His thesis SHUT UP ‘N’ PLAY! Negotiating the Musical Work (2008) was published by Lund University, Sweden. He is presently engaged in artistic research on improvisation in different cultural contexts at the Malmö Academy of Music and, since 2009, is a research fellow at the Orpheus Institute in Ghent, Belgium. He is also working in a CMPCP project together with the composer David Gorton and professor Eric Clarke, and in the AHRC-funded environmental sound art project Landscape Quartet, headed by Newcastle University.

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Published

2013-08-20

How to Cite

Frisk, H., & Östersjö, S. (2013). Beyond Validity: Claiming the Legacy of the Artist-Researcher. Svensk Tidskrift för Musikforskning Swedish Journal of Music Research, 95, 41–63. Retrieved from https://publicera.kb.se/stm-sjm/article/view/33820

Issue

Vol. 95 (2013)

Section

Articles

License

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