An Inaudible Dialogue

A peer-reviewed paper first presented at the Research into Practice conference 2006 and published in the journal, Working Papers in Art & Design. The paper reflects on the relationship between an artwork and its environment, and considers if the process and methods that are characterised as ‘research’ can be identified with art making. It explores the extents of an artwork, questioning where it begins and where it ends, and exploring the extent to which practice and research are entwined as relational objects of thinking. Texts enable different ways of seeing or framing practice and the approach to practice, thereby affecting the nature of practice. The directions of and motivations behind the practice may likewise affect the nature of the research (those activities that aren't characterised as practice). A dialogue takes place between them. This may never be audible but might remain internalised. Crucially, the work's internality is directed outwards to the external world. The paper posits the notion of a ‘distributed’ artwork, whereby the significance is not only in the form of the work but in the relation between it as a singular thing or event, the questions it poses, and the experience it engenders