Abstract
Writing has often been seen as giving an explicit verbal account of the implicit knowledge embodied in both artistic practices and products, while art seems to remain outside of what can be expressed by words. This article claims to strengthen new approaches toward writing in order to understand artistic research as a demand for a double reading in which one engages rationally as well as affectively with the research one is conducting. Thus, artistic research can never be “objective,” because it perspectivizes the world from our bodily existence, not from the spiritual bird’s-eye view of a purely observing subject. Such a deconstruction of the body/mind duality has been discussed in poststructuralist discourses for decades now. This article argues that we implement this kind of discourse within the context of artistic research, and calls for a writing practice of a trans-sensible exposure. This argument will be unfolded by means of references to the circulation of sense between matter and the intelligible, as outlined by, for example, Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva and Jean-Luc Nancy. Finally, writing as artistic research will be demonstrated by drawing upon two examples of writing as a performative and subversive practice-those of Hélène Cixous and Didier Eribon-capable of establishing new perspectives for the invention of styles of writing. The article further aims to show that the deconstruction of academic language games remains necessary and should be especially enriching for the field of artistic research.
