• Semester 1 (Day)

Synopsis

The  notion of research in the visual arts is a contemporary  cultural
issue  which deserves serious attention. Yet many artists  claim  that
research involves problem solving which is the essence of practice  in
the  visual  arts.  Therefore, they argue, visual  arts  is  research.
However,  the  visual  arts  are  being  challenged  to  justify   and
demonstrate  this  nexus.  This unit develops  and  explores  research
methodologies and processes which are relevant to visual  arts  theory
and  studio  practice.  It  is  designed  to  introduce  and  identify
appropriate processes for research in visual arts theory and  practice
which  are to do with discovery, and which can be used to elicit  data
to do with personal ideas, observations and interpretations. In visual
research  this  data  might  bear on practical  issues  or  underlying
theories, on matters of intention (like the imaginative concepts  that
lie behind the work), ways of assessing what is done, or the processes
of   actually  handling  materials  and  techniques.  Its  methods  of
collection may be quantitative and qualitative.