Drawing as Research

The university of Brighton uses the diagram above to illustrate what they term the domains of drawing. Research into drawing could belong to any or all of these areas, there is though a fundamental flaw in the diagram as it suggests only an overlap of thinking in neighbouring circles, and in reality all of the areas overlap and interpenetrate. 

Drawing as a series of overlapping and interpenetrating activities

My own way of thinking about research is to follow my instincts and open out any avenue that feels promising, however the traditional way to think about research is that for it to be undertaken you need to identify a problem. You then need to give a history of the problem in order to outline both its importance and to communicate why earlier approaches to solving the problem have unexplored issues and certain weaknesses. Finally you need to set out a hypothesis as to how the problem could possibly be solved and how therefore you as a researcher intend to progress your research, and in particular what methodologies you will use to do this.  As you set out your ideas you would also list the possible theoretical approaches that you could use to frame the research and give it contextual relevance, and set out how certain theoretical lenses would be more appropriate than others because of the way they might highlight certain issues that could emerge from the research.

As someone new to research you might read Wolfgang Iser’s ‘How to do Theory’, a book that introduces a range of theoretical approaches to problems and suggests why each one might be chosen and how it could be used to highlight certain issues.

All well and good but I'm not a researcher and yet I'm very aware that some of you as students may well want to progress onto higher levels of formal education, such as MAs and PhDs and as you do you will be expected to undertake some form of traditional research practice. You will have of course already have had to undertake something called research as part of your existing module structures. You may though not have had to undertake this research with the rigour that is demanded of academic research at higher levels. 
I am becoming more and more aware of the growth of practice based research, so (and forgive me if you are a PhD level practice based researcher) as a sort of feeling around the edge of what I think what might be happening, I shall put in my pennyworth, if only to stimulate debate as to what research is or isn't, or to simply help you begin to think about developing a more academic approach to your practice.

The first two paragraphs that form the introduction to this post hopefully give a rough idea of what traditional research in drawing could be about. The problem in relation to drawing that you have identified is usually put forward as a research question. The question might be what sort of understanding could be brought to a drawing topic? How might something, a process or an attitude, or an understanding of drawing, contribute to the way certain things are thought about? How might an interpretation of a drawn event or drawing as cultural object, change because of the addition of new knowledge? How might a different understanding of a way of making drawings change the way we approach the making or change the way we think about them? The development of new knowledge should be shown to develop new ways of doing things. 

There are several models out there. 
The Tate Gallery has produced a booklet for students entitled 'Drawing as Research' and it sets out an interesting set of premises as to how an artist uses drawing to research. In one case the work of  Sovay Berriman is used as an illustration of 'How to Research' and it suggests that drawing might be initially used to sketch out an idea, then it might be used as a type of maquette making process, a type of 3D drawing that is used to make models of a proposed situation in order to test out what a full scale idea might be. Technical drawing might eventually be used to visualise how a work might fit a particular gallery space.  Interestingly these booklets state that they are for GCSE, BTEC and A level students. The booklet I read states that research is to be celebrated as rhizomatic, non-linear, formless and continually forming, the Tate wanting "to position research as characterised by the process of ceaselessly establishing connections between ideas, individuals, artworks, experiences, materials, text and images". It's interesting to see that Deleuze and Guattari are referenced here, the quote used in the booklet being that, the “rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo.” (1987, p.25) taken from 'A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia', a book that I struggled to read, no mind a GCSE student. However the fact it celebrates interconnectivity was for myself something to be lauded. In order to set out a picture of a research process that involves lots of interconnections the booklet offers a series of things to access and actions to take. 

• An image of something you have in your studio, or of something that you are currently using to make art with
• An image of your work
• An image of an artwork in the Tate collection
• The connection between the three images you have chosen – this could be a written explanation, an annotation, a drawing, another image etc...
• A process that you undertake to help you think/research/progress ideas
• A quote or textual reference that informs your approach to making art
• A question you would like to pose to students/teachers to initiate research 

 Each stage is further contextualised in relation to Sovay Berriman's studio practice, so that students can see that these processes are grounded in reality. 
What I thought was interesting about this research model was that it offered a sort of triangulation process. The student is asked to move between different points, the research being as much about what happens as you link the processes up, as how you come to explore where to get an image from or how you might make an image of your work. What I thought was missing though was the thinking that comes from materials investigation. Therefore my bullet point 7 question would have been "How do the materials you work with shape the ideas you have?" The model also doesn't mention how a connection might shape or form an idea? But I thought this a reasonable start, especially as it is targeted at a level below degree. Above all it might be a starting point for someone wanting to develop practice based research. 

The 'On drawing' research project directed by Anna Mendes is a very different kettle of fish. She is working on a 'research and artistic project', suggesting that the research is an embedded component of her practice. See 

Mina Pegourie, Canary, pencil on paper

Mendes was stimulated to begin her research after she had come across a young woman Mina Pegourie, who was unable to read or write, but who was using drawing as a memory device. Mendes eventually making a video of this woman presenting the drawings she used in an address book to help remember who or what the telephone numbers referred to and then going on to see how she processed other forms of drawing, by making a further series of videos. There are of course ethical issues here and it could be argued that Pegourie was exploited, however as Mendes’ research work unfolds you get the sense that she is genuinely interested in how drawing helps shape different people’s ways of thinking.

Mendes methodology is again phased. Part one being theoretical and involving research into neuro-science, part two interviewing people that use drawing as a research tool and collecting examples, and finally an inclusive phase open to anyone who uses drawing to think with. Potential contributors will be invited to submit a drawing and statement that show how they use drawing as a thinking tool. A typical example of this I would have thought would be the economist Kate Raworth’s interest in drawings that she highlights in the podcast on Donut economics. The drawings Mendes collects become part of the project and are shown on her blog and exhibited.

I was particularly interested in her readings in neuroscience, whereby activities such as drawing are seen to actually shape the brain. Mendes quotes Dr. Luis Lacerda, researcher from the Natbrainlab (UK): ‘There is a process called pruning, in which the neurons that are not being used are pruned… But, the volume of the brain is limited; therefore if one part becomes bigger, another one needs to diminish.’ Another study she quotes states that,

‘observational drawing ability relates to changes in structures pertaining to fine motor control and procedural memory, and that artistic training in addition is associated with enhancement of structures pertaining to visual imagery’. Thus, drawing may influence the composition of the brain, as well as increasing long-term memory.

Mendes reflections on Clark and Chambers’ work on the ‘extended mind’ was really useful to me as it has helped me think about how objects outside of us help us think. Clark and Chambers argue that external objects when we use them to think, become in effect part of our mind. Therefore as we draw, we are extending our mind into the drawing. This is something I will have to return to, they refer to this as the parity principle. In ‘How do we think’, Katherine Hayles also suggests that the mind extends itself into the environment.

You will need to read the full account of these things in Mendes blog, but as drawing research, what is interesting here is the big difference between her approach and the one suggested by the Tate. Mendes is interested in how we use drawing to think and as part of this research is wanting to show examples. She wants to provide us with ostensive definitions, i.e. defining by direct demonstration or example, which is why she is showing the selected work of others. Her artwork now embodying research that is designed to throw light on how drawing works as a thinking tool. I'm a little sceptical as I think she is wanting to have her cake and eat it. The research that all artists do is in my mind at its best when transcended and embedded into the final work. We have become used to having to show the workings behind what we do because of the rise of learning outcomes and we are often forced to value these what used to be behind the scenes activities, more than we used to. I find foregrounding the research gets in the way of seeing the artwork as a totality, it takes me out of the Gestalt of experiential understanding, but I do understand how important research has become and therefore why some practices foreground it. 

I'm rambling again and drifting off the point, which is why I would make a very poor academic, the point is that there are various ways to think about drawing research. Sometimes it will be primary exposure to the world and research drawing will be the means by which you record this. (In the past this would have been through objective drawing, but we have a host of alternative ways of using drawing to collect data now, for instance taking rubbings or collecting the results of drawings made by technology, such as a cardiogram). At other times the research may be into more theoretical understandings of drawing and in undertaking this research you may well turn to the work of other professionals and look at drawing through different lenses. An optician will think about drawing in a very different way to a psychologist, who will think very differently to a philosopher. However you may want to compare and contrast how others use drawing in order to highlight how you yourself use drawing and in doing this you might want to look at the work of non artists as much as or more than those who consider themselves artists who draw. 

As an artist how you research will be I believe particular to you and your art practice. My research is done mainly by walking through the area I live in and drawing and as I do this I talk to people. I also research by drawing in the studio, I watch images arrive and then see whether or not they are useful as carriers of the sort of poetic sensibility I'm aiming at. Sometimes I can help them form into what I think is a certain 'rightness' and at other times I can't. The links between what I experience directly of the world, what I read, what I see, what I hear, what I feel, what I think, what I dream and what I imagine are all tangled up and that is very important to my way of thinking. A research project that meant I had to untangle my thinking process would I believe destroy it, so I approach research with a certain amount of trepidation. But, if you want to pursue a career in art education you will have to undertake research in some form, so perhaps now is the time to begin thinking about what it could mean to you. 

References

Clark and Chambers’ work on the ‘extended mind’ Published in Analysis 58:10-23, 1998.

Hayles, Katherine, How do We Think (2012) Chicago and London : The University of Chicago Press

Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Félix. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (Brian Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 

Books on practice based research 

Barrett, E. & Bolt, B. (2010) Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry London: I B Tauris

Macleod, K & Holdridge, L (2009) Thinking Through Art: Reflections on Art as Research (Innovations in Art and Design) London: Routledge

Mcniff, S (2013) Art as Research: Opportunities and Challenges London: Intellect

Nelson, R (2013) Practice as Research in the Arts: Principles, Protocols, Pedagogies, Resistances London: Palgrave Macmillan

Smith, H & Dean, R. (2009) Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice in the Creative Arts Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press

Sullivan, G (2009) Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in Visual Arts London: Sage

See also:

A useful collection of thoughts on methodology and methods