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Artistic research is a field that bridges creative practice and academic inquiry. It is where the processes of making art are not only ends in themselves but also methods of generating knowledge. Rather than simply illustrating ideas developed elsewhere, artistic research uses the act of creation as a means of exploration, questioning, and discovery. It treats art-making as a form of thinking, allowing questions to be pursued through materials, movements, sounds, or images rather than through words alone.

The roots of artistic research can be traced back to shifts in higher education and arts training during the late 20th century. As universities began to include fine arts, design, performance, and media programs, the need arose to articulate how creative practices could be understood as legitimate forms of research. This challenged traditional notions of knowledge production, which historically privileged written text and empirical methods over the experiential and intuitive modes favored by artists.

At the heart of artistic research is a tension between theory and practice. Artistic researchers often move between critical reflection and direct engagement with their materials. This reflexivity — thinking about what one is doing while doing it — is central. It means that process becomes as important as the outcome. Documenting experiments, iterations, and failures becomes an integral part of the research, offering insights into how artistic knowledge emerges over time.

Artistic research often questions established hierarchies of knowledge. It asks: what counts as evidence? How do we validate forms of knowing that are embodied, intuitive, or aesthetic? In doing so, it offers a counterpoint to scientific and humanities-based research traditions. Artistic research embraces subjectivity, acknowledges complexity, and values ambiguity — qualities that are often minimized in more conventional academic work but are vital to creative practice.

One of the key methods in artistic research is practice-led inquiry. This means that the questions arise from within the artistic process itself, rather than being imposed from the outside. For instance, a choreographer might explore how memory shapes movement, not by writing a treatise but by creating a performance that investigates memory through embodied gestures. The artwork itself becomes both the method and the outcome of the research.