A few thoughts about artist's research

Kara Walker: “Katastwóf Karavan”

I'm often asked questions about artist's research. What is it? Why is it important? How do you do it? I suppose the answers to these questions are many and varied but when you see it in practice then you begin to understand it. For myself a variety of approaches to research are important, I can then bring them together in such a way that the process of an artefact's construction emerges from the various aspects of the research activity, without being compromised by the research itself. I need to do this to avoid the work becoming sterile or a series of moves in a logical sequence, rather than a process which is for myself more like sympathetic magic. What is important to me is that research prepares the ground for a moment of poetry, that sudden something that seems to arrive out of nowhere after a period of gestation, when ideas begin to flow out of the air and the materials of making. 

Research can consist of several different approaches and aspects and it doesn't necessarily have to all be undertaken at once. In fact sometimes an old interest that at the time led nowhere, re-emerges, so never worry about an interest not leading directly to ideas, sometimes the unconscious has to take information on a journey before its ready for use. 

In support of my own work, a couple of weeks ago the implications for two dimensional material metamorphosis and transformation were being explored. In particular I was looking at the way that watercolour type washes could be made, exploring how their granularity could be changed by adding various substances into the mix. As I did this I was also exploring the way that different paper surfaces buckle and warp as they were wetted, so that the liquids and their granular deposits I was making could be seen at their most effective. I was also finding metaphoric relationships between landscape and bodies. The flow of liquids being at one time suggestive of rivers and streams and at another time suggestive of blood flow or the scum of dirty water left on a body as it emerged from a dirty pool of water. I was also thinking of the body as a type of amoeba or jellyfish, therefore some of the research involved looking at how these creatures look and how they thrive in liquid environments. I was also reading geological texts, looking at microscopic views of tiny creatures, as well as manipulating fluids and drawing shapes and forms that were suggested by the intermingling of all the information coming in. In particular I was beginning to look at edges between forms and how they could be suggestive of permeability, this included drawing lines of various types of dots and dashes, as well as using felt tip pens to draw edges and then wetting one side, so that the 'bleed' could be explored and used as a way of suggesting diffusion of one form into another. 

Because of the implications of what I was doing, I began thinking more about inner body sensations and so last week I was doing a lot of reading about interoception and how scientists are now thinking about consciousness. In order to assimilate this new information I had to write about it and begin to draw simple diagrams, which help me 'own' or assimilate something that can eventually be integrated into a growing image base. I'm also thinking more about the political consequences of 'sustainability' and as I do so, I become more aware that sustainability is not just about the physical environment, it is about how we treat each other as human beings. Therefore I've found it important to look at how other more clearly political artists have dealt with this issue. (I think what's important here is that when I begin to look at and research other artists it is rarely because I think their work 'looks like' mine, it is usually because an approach or underlying philosophy is of interest). 

I decided to look back at an artist that I have posted about before; Kara Walker, but this time to look at her work in more depth, in particular by exploring the gestation of one of her works, 'Katastwóf Karavan'.

Perhaps the most important thing about Kara Walker's approach for myself was that she has a long history of practice and 'owns' a body of work that is clearly recognisable as hers. So how does she continue to open out her approach and add new things? 

The 'Katastwóf Karavan' body of work began with Walker hearing a sound and being inquisitive about it. This was for me the most important thing, this piece had its initial gestation by her simply listening and asking, "what was that?" This is where research often needs to begin, somewhere unexpected and sensed as something magical or that evokes a sense of wonder. I suppose it is also about spotting potential, that sound of a steam driven organ/whistle is very evocative of old steam driven river boats and she was experienced enough to realise that it could be used as a focal point. However she then had to do the 'grunt' work. She had to academically find out about the history of these things and then to locate people who could 'realise' her idea of reconstructing a steam organ that could play the sounds she wanted. But without that initial moment of intuition, the journey wouldn't have been so interesting and wouldn't have tapped into what were for Walker new territories of sound exploration. 

The construction of the wagon also of course demanded research but of a more straightforward kind and her long history of image making allowing her to tap into a strong existing image bank, but she would still have to test the figures out as to their ability to structurally work in relation to the shape of the wagon. 

Finally there is research in relation to the siting of the work. What has happened there, what associations does it have with history and how is it used now? Also she would need to research how its arrival would effect the site. How would people be able to see it/ hear it? How far would a sound travel, how safe would it be? 

The final form of a steam-powered calliope housed in a parade wagon, was installed and activated outside the Whitney Museum of American Art for a one-day-only presentation. Walker had collaborated with Jason Moran on the playing and composition of sounds on the steam powered calliope. Her choice of collaboration with a musician would also have involved research and she would no doubt have been aware of Moran's work for some time as he is a well known musician and he had worked with artists before. His 'Artist in Residence' release included a number of selections taken from different works commissioned by art museums, such as "Milestone" a reflection on a visual work by Adrian Piper and "The Shape, the Scent, the Feel of Things" which was incorporated into an art installation by Joan Jonas. 

The custom-fabricated calliope was programmed by Walker with a compilation of jazz, gospel, and songs that represented Black protest and celebration. During the activation, the calliope played at set times throughout the afternoon, whilst Moran himself played the calliope live at six o'clock in the evening.

Calliopes are associated with nineteenth-century New Orleans riverboats and their construction evolved from the technologies of the steam engine and other Industrial Revolution-era inventions such as the cotton gin, the work’s layered references revealing connections between the history of the area's cultural landscape and slavery in the American South.  Algiers Point, where the work was presented, was a former holding site where enslaved Africans were abused and quarantined before transportation to slave markets across the river. The more Walker found out about these things the more the siting of the work was confirmed. Titled to incorporate the Haitian Creole word that in English translates to “catastrophe,” Walker's Katastwóf Karavan weaves together text, image and sound, Walker and Moran stating that the “music is a bearer of our emotional history.” Walker would have had to research Mississippi river boats, the history of slave trading, as well as the types of wagons that would evoke the time period referred to. Each aspect of the research has to somehow be capable of proper focus and then eventually all being capable of being brought back together into some sort of coherent and also poetic whole. 

This is a very good 'Art21' video on the whole process. 

The constant changing of focus as you research is an important issue, as this very process ensures that a degree of serendipity enters into the situation, i.e. this 'browsing' around feeds thoughts without necessarily detailing how they can be finally realised. Scientists work in a similar way, and I have pointed out before (here) how Bruno Latour's detailed examination of a process of soil analysis in his book ‘Pandora’s Hope’ helped me understand how thoughts can be generated about possible ideas and forms that connect or link or illustrate different aspects of my own research, without feeling that I have to prove how my thinking links up. Each bit of research I do can be seen as autonomous and something I can focus on until I’m satisfied I have found something interesting. I'm also very aware that my idea of research is also not at all like the idea of research as recommended by academic research theorists. I don't begin by setting out my methodology, I don't define a research question, I don't conduct any quantitative or statistical analysis, I just do stuff and follow my intuition, but I still see this as 'research', an activity that feeds the soil out of which things grow. 

However research as an experience is different to the artwork as an experience. Of course you can make an artwork that is all about the process of research, but the bigger issue is for myself the fact that worldly experience is so much bigger than the tiny amount that I can grasp with my limited perceptual tools. But I can intuit the bigger picture and it can be in looking for ways of bringing together these bits of research that I get a glimpse of something else; that something else you could call a sense of magical order or enchantment. Put something together in one way and it can look ok but just that, the same elements put together in another way can surprise and give a sense of wonder to something that was previously hardly noticed. You can fertilise the soil to promote plant growth, but if you don't water growing seedlings they will fail to flourish. 

See also: 

Drawing as research

Articulated collage and shadow play

The vignette 

Drawing and politics

Theory and research

Reflections on Kara Walker at the Tate

An excellent Art21 link to an index of artists all cross referenced under different subject headings