A/r/tography

A/r/tography as a Form of Inquiry

A/r/tography resides in the practices of artists and educators whose forms of inquiry are similar to an understanding of action research that does not follow a prescribed plan or method but rather pursues an ongoing inquiry committed to continuously asking questions, enacting interventions, gathering information, and analyzing that information before asking further questions and enacting more living inquiry. Although these acts might seem to be linear, they are usually intertwined acts of meditative, even contemplative, inquiry. The creative and artistic inquiry practices of poets, dancers, musicians, performers, visual artists, and other artists resonate with these educative acts of inquiry and also inform a/r/tographical practice. A/r/tographers envision artistic and educational practices as enacting dispositions to knowledge creation as they begin to appreciate how inquiry is a commitment to understanding through acts of theorizing. The practices of artists and educators are situated within complex environments. Inquiring in these contexts requires a commitment to an evolution of questions within the living inquiry processes of practitioners. For a/r/tographers, this means an ongoing quest for understanding that is timely, emergent, generative, and responsive for those involved. After all, artists seek challenges that interrupt taken-for-granted ways of knowing so as to see, hear, and experience the world differently. In this way, a/r/tographical practices are not comfortable habits but rather the challenging practices of learning to question differences and perceive differently in and through time. A/r/tographers understand that who they are is embedded in what they know and do. Theory and practice are no longer divided but rather folded together through lived experiences and lived inquiry.

Methodological Practices of A/r/tography

A/r/tography is different from many other research methodologies that identify specific research problems to be solved through methodological protocols that lead to specific research findings. A/r/tographical inquiry may identify foreshadowed problems, but the intention is to engage in inquiry over time so as to come to deeper understandings of the issues that have been raised. Graeme Sullivan addresses this idea by moving away from the language of probability and plausibility to possibility. A/r/tographers are committed to artistic forms of engagement that help them to create, interpret, and/or represent new forms of knowledge. Knowing (theoria), doing (praxis), and making (poiesis) are folded together in a/r/tography to form rhizomatic ways of experiencing the world and creating the circumstances to produce knowledge and understanding through inquiry-laden processes. Furthermore, knowledge is always in a state of becoming, meaning that there is a need to be continuously committed to inquiry over time.

A/r/tography involves self-inquiry and collective inquiry. Artists and educators recognize that relationality permeates our existence. The work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jean Luc Nancy underscored this concept by maintaining that meaning is constituted between beings. According to Nancy, this betweenness is both unity and uniqueness, the singular plural of being. Each identity is created through encounters with others, and it is the with that demonstrates the contiguity and distinctiveness of each entity. The relations between these entities and other entities show how the in-betweenness can metaphorically be conceived as a fold. In a fold, the material is simultaneously exterior and interior with no sides. Gilles Deleuze translated un/folding as dividing endlessly—folds within folds existing side by side. Un/folding performs in the in-between spaces, and in a/r/tography relational inquiring is un/folded between the identities and forms of engagement for the artist/researcher/teacher.

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