From its inception, practice-based or artistic research has relied on—and indeed thrived on—first-person research methodologies, since the individual and personal creative practice of the artist-researcher functions as the primary site of knowledge-production, constituting the methodological core of this mode of systematic inquiry. In practice-based research, the subjectivity that the artist brings to a research project is not regarded as compromising the rigour of the undertaking; on the contrary, it nourishes the inquiry by grounding it in lived experience, and hence in an authentic way of being-in-the-world and making art. Indeed, practice-based research methods prioritise experiential content arising from creative practice, and treat it as the object of critical reflection within the research process. There are well-established methods for documenting, critically reflecting on and communicating the subjective and experiential dimensions of practice-based research. These include autoethnography, narrative inquiry, heuristic research, phenomenological inquiry, reflective journaling, video essays, as well as embodied and somatic methods that attend to the nonverbal, implicit, tacit dimensions of the practitioner-researcher’s lived experiences.

Despite substantial literature on these methods, the identification of the experiential content that the practice-researcher reflects on has received far less attention. Even less has been written about the problem of awareness of or access to personal, subjective experience in the context of artistic research. What exactly does an artistic researcher reflects on in relation to her lived experience of art making? How does she identify and select experiential content? What does she discover within this material? Does she begin the process with pre-conceived notions and pre-defined terms? How can one “let” experiential content surface without imposing learned schemas onto experience as part of a meaning-making reflex? While it may seem surprising, it is quite difficult to become aware of the phenomenal details of what is, intuitively, the most immediate and intimate dimension of one’s consciousness, namely one’s subjective experiences: “Living an experience does not necessarily amount to knowing it, being fully aware of it” (Petitmengin and Bitbol 2011: 146), and “A particular effort is necessary for the person to gain access to his or her experience itself, which lies underneath his or her representations, beliefs, judgments and comments” (Petitmengin 2006: 235).

The research project I propose aims to explore the subjective, inner processes of artistic research through which experiential data are gathered, and asks what aspects of our creative experiences may have remained hidden in the literature. For example, how does inspiration arise, and what exactly is it like to feel creative? How does intuition guide artistic processes? What is the experience of creative uncertainty like? How does the artist-researcher move between thinking and feeling? How does one’s creative self “show up” in one’s consciousness in the process of making music? To address these kinds of fundamental questions, I propose to engage robust first- and second-person contemplative methodologies and practices, such as microphenomenology, microphenomenological interview, focusing, somatic inquiry, mindfulness, descriptive experience sampling, heuristic inquiry, phenomenological analysis, systematic introspection, etc. Through this project, I aim to bring into scholarly discourse the largely unarticulated process by which artistic researchers identify and select experiential content for use in their research, and to generate teaching and learning tools for the education of artist-researchers in music, supporting them in developing awareness of — and the ability to articulate—the affective and embodied textures of their creative experiences with greater clarity and accuracy.

References:

Petitmengin, C. (2006). Describing one’s subjective experience in the second person: an interview method for the science of consciousness. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 5: 229-69.

Petitmengin, C. and Bitbol, M. (2011). Coming into contact with experience: a reply to Jesse Butler. Journal of Consciousness Studies 18/2: 146-9.