Text by Kathi Seebeck, August 2019.
Practical critique
One of the most important questions, it seems, was raised during the last fifteen minutes of the symposium: have we been critical enough?
The answer is hiding in the question: maybe not. And then, what is critique? Some kind of attack? As a first reminder: critique means analysis. An evaluative and corrective exercise. This makes it sound so cerebral, but is critique actually a matter of mind effort only? Isn’t there a preliminary stage of criticising, a bodily way of analysing something and can’t emotional reaction be part of it?
Feeling all heterotopic I’ll venture a glance at Foucault – ‘What is critique?’: [The first sentence I stumble upon is this one: “…critique only exists in relation to something other than itself”]
Tracing it back to the 15th century, the begin of rebellions against laws imposed by the church or other institutions controlling people, Foucault firstly defines critique as “the art of not being governed quite so much”. With Kant and his view on the Aufklärung (sapere aude) Foucault distinguishes the relationship of knowledge and power as a trigger of critique. Critique would then be the operation “which could be called an investigation into the legitimacy of historical modes of knowing” (viz.: how come this or that knowledge is so dominant?).
I follow Foucault when it comes to domains such as philosophy, science, politics or law – but how to apply this to the field of artistic research?
Let’s remind ourselves of a (fictive) symposium situation: A person is presenting an extract of his or her artistic research project to a group of people.
The format of such a presentation can be more than particular, since it often is not only informative in a discursive way. The project frequently involves the performed activities of the researcher in a tangible, emotional, experimental, participatory – or let’s call it practical – manner.
Another difference to ordinary conference presentations concerns the claiming of truth. Rarely have I heard an artistic researcher explicitly expressing that his or her project speaks truth. Formulations stating “this is…”, “we must conclude that …” or “this proves …” are largely being avoided. More common modes of wording one’s findings begin with “I” (and this does make a great difference!) and are followed by “understand this as…”, “have experienced this like..” or “want to use this in order to…” – if at all artistic researchers rely on any kind of explanatory language.
In any case, what is presented to us in the field of artistic research usually doesn’t come across as Foucault’s dominant knowledge. Sure, it can be relevant on a universal level (and maybe we can question this relevance?), but it starts with the interest of an individual drawing upon his/her own methodologies of investigation.
Questioning the legitimacy of a person’s interest seems impossible (and wrong) to me. I’m not sure whether we can criticise a person’s very own way of doing research either. We can give tips, suggest alternatives, indicate ethical guidelines, yes, but isn’t the individual always the one who may decide: “I want it that way”?
If any remark from the audience’s side can be answered with the artist’s “I” (the artist’s alleged right and power to do things differently) we’d be left with a very limited space to place our criticism. There must be another entrance somewhere… let’s work through some possibilities.
Equality mistake
Maybe we are mistaken if we think artistic research is different from any other field of research. Perhaps, in terms of requirements, we should place it on the same ladder rung with the human and natural sciences and therefore, from now on, every little step of research demands valid arguments. Hence, the audience can check this validity. Problem: Artistic researchers will argue that their artistic acts and choices are exactly the valid arguments you’re looking for, presented in a much more authentic, a non-verbal manner. As you see, there’s a huddle of foreign forms of expressions to study before we can even learn how to criticise them.
Transmission error
Which leads us to a second possible point of departure. We could base our critique on the discrepancy between our experience or understanding of a presentation and the researcher’s intention (message sent and message received). We can analyse what and why something has gone “wrong” or “differently”. Problem: Also on this meta-discussion level there are (proven?) unavoidable language-based misunderstandings between hearer and transmitter – so what if we are never going to find out for real what the other meant? What is more, if the presenter turns out to have valuable pedagogical skills it might be the audience’s capabilities of listening that are called into question.
Catch small bugs
Before we get lost here, let’s try to disassemble the presentation into all its elements and start analysing them separately. We might find bits and pieces that are not accurately reproduced (like historical facts or quotes), passages that could be clarified, blurry pictures, ambiguous instructions or unlucky expressions.
Problem: once the presentation is crumbled apart it might be very tricky to see the forest, since the order and connections between all these elements are again bound to very individual and artistic (and not necessarily logical) rules.
Surf on a big flaw
Time to take drastic action. We place the artistic research project in the middle of all other cultural goods ever produced and analyse its relevance accordingly. How is it related to other works? Does this project have any larger meaning? What does it add up to? Does it lead us anywhere? Is this what contemporary art and discourse should be about? And why?
Sure. This gross attitude can shake and destabilize the legitimacy of probably anything we human beings do. But even if relevance on a larger scale should not be given, I can still hear the artistic voice stating: “But it is relevant to me”.
None of these approaches seems to help further.
All I’ve come to know is that the artistic “I” has a lot of words in it, and that artistic research would be uninteresting if it weren’t so. On the other hand this very “I” makes the placement of critique so tricky.
Actually, what bothers me most is that I don’t know what our oh-so-homeless critique is aiming at. Do we want to help the presenter of a project or do we want to show others what a smart thought we’ve had ourselves? Is there a tendency of wanting to be better? Do we strive for anything individually or is there a communal goal? Improve artistic research in general? Make it compatible with other fields of research?
Like wafts of mist something keeps drifting through my mind …
“ … critique only exists in relation to something other than itself.”
How about we amend this sentence a bit:
“Artistic research only exists in relation to something other than itself.”
In other words – this is a hypothesis – in order to enter the realm of artistic research, a project can not only treat the world’s material, it must in turn be open to be treated back. Hence, if not wanting to drift around in self-referentiality, cut-off from everybody else, the project and its creator have to leave the “I”-zone. After all, dealing with the world and hearing opposite opinions might indeed make a researcher stronger, his reasoning sharper, will help the development of the own critique-ability and will show more clearly than ever why things are relevant to the “I”. The same applies to the listener, who experiences a presentation (the world) and processes this information in his “I”-zone, but whose thoughts remain ‘pointless’ if not confronted again with the outside world.
As for answering the question whether being hurt by critique is more helpful than devastating we’d have to study the psychology of criticism in depth.
Yet, what is more important at this point: we need to practice criticising just as much as being criticised. And how?
Picking up on my initial presumption: I do think that especially in the field of artistic research we have to pay attention to the audience’s reaction and not only hope for critique to manifest itself in form of words and sentences. I claim, we can read reactions, interested gazes, annoyed or bored faces, enthusiastic participation, curiosity, emotions, somebody energetically leaving the room, as a form of critique – up to a certain level, of course. A non-verbal, practical critique suited for the domain of artistic research can be established – why not use gestures, moving, singing, dancing, performing or drawing – going hands in hands with language-based reflections. Those are, after all, of unparalleled value – but let’s not let them gain the upper hand.