Aesthetic as Method: New Perspectives in Epistemology
Location
DeSantis Room 1054
Format Type
Plenary
Format Type
Paper
Start Date
17-1-2020 4:00 PM
End Date
17-1-2020 4:20 PM
Abstract
Arts-based research (ABR) is a burgeoning field that is expanding from its beginnings in therapeutic practice to many more fields of research. The opportunities, but equally so, challenges, that ABR presents is that it fundamentally challenges what scholars have traditionally believed about epistemology. In this way, this project will add to these conversations and raise new challenges to traditional thoughts on the way research is “done.”
Whereas previous research in arts-based method have focused on medium as method, this master’s thesis project makes the argument that aesthetic can be used as a research methodology. Jumping off from the renewed interest in “camp” as an aesthetic from the 2019 Met Gala, I discuss the possibilities of an aesthetic and how camp, specifically, has been used as an unintentional tool for inquiry. Susan Sontag in her canonical 1964 essay makes the argument for the social impact and dialog of camp. I expand on that argument to ask: if an aesthetic can be used unintentionally to create new dialog or explore inquiry, how can we use it intentionally to conduct research?
Combining both a theory based discussion of arts-based research paradigms and a practice based method to construct an art installation in a camp aesthetic, this project couples theory and praxis to explore to the fullest extent what it means to push the boundaries of methodology in new research possibilities.
Keywords
epistemology, arts-based research, camp, aesthetic, method
Aesthetic as Method: New Perspectives in Epistemology
DeSantis Room 1054
Arts-based research (ABR) is a burgeoning field that is expanding from its beginnings in therapeutic practice to many more fields of research. The opportunities, but equally so, challenges, that ABR presents is that it fundamentally challenges what scholars have traditionally believed about epistemology. In this way, this project will add to these conversations and raise new challenges to traditional thoughts on the way research is “done.”
Whereas previous research in arts-based method have focused on medium as method, this master’s thesis project makes the argument that aesthetic can be used as a research methodology. Jumping off from the renewed interest in “camp” as an aesthetic from the 2019 Met Gala, I discuss the possibilities of an aesthetic and how camp, specifically, has been used as an unintentional tool for inquiry. Susan Sontag in her canonical 1964 essay makes the argument for the social impact and dialog of camp. I expand on that argument to ask: if an aesthetic can be used unintentionally to create new dialog or explore inquiry, how can we use it intentionally to conduct research?
Combining both a theory based discussion of arts-based research paradigms and a practice based method to construct an art installation in a camp aesthetic, this project couples theory and praxis to explore to the fullest extent what it means to push the boundaries of methodology in new research possibilities.