The document discusses research processes in visual arts. It notes that visual arts research is non-linear and encompasses various practices like fieldwork, workshops, and writing. Researchers gather heterogeneous data including notes, sketches, interviews, and physical materials. The research process blurs boundaries between process, output, and data. Factors that support research include social communities, resources like libraries, and integration of different roles. Challenges include digital storage, archiving, and organizing physical materials.

1. KAPTUR
The Goldsmiths assessment
White, Laura. 2011. For living, for loving, for Walsh, Roxy. 2011. Yellow Girls. Oil and w/c on Lubna, Arielle Gem and Mabb, David. 2011. Art and
loathing... Pollen, France, 4 February - 4 March 2011. gesso panel, 250mm x 330mm. In: Second Sex, Appropriation – when does artistic freedom become
[Show/Exhibition] Galerie Peter Zimmermann, Mannheim, Germany, copyright infringement?. [Film/Video]
Jan 14th - Feb 12th 2011. [Show/Exhibition]

2. The visual arts research process
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“Rather than seeing it as a linear
notion of researching (…) it’s a fairly various
process.”
Designer
Fieldwork; data gathering; putting materials
together; presentations; discussions; sketchbooks;
workshops; building protoypes; placing prototypes;
repeat (fieldwork; data gathering etc);
Art historian
Research trips; archive visits; exhibition and talks;
libraries; interviews; reading across disciplines;
writing; presentations; discussions; re-writing;
publication;
Fine art researchers
Reading; exhibitions and talks; visit and
“measure” space; workshops; writing; sketches
Home and studio of Swedish artist/designer Carouschka
and notes; discussions; model-making; Streijffert. Images Sköna Hem.

3. Visual arts research data
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“There is nothing that isn’t part of the things that you are grabbing.”
Art historian
Interviews (sound files and transcripts);
notes; collected PDFs of articles;
images; printed articles; ephemera;
print-outs (e.g. websites)
Fine art researchers
Notes; sketches; videos; books;
photographs; models; stories; diaries;
screen grabs;
Designer
Interviews (sound files and transcripts);
notes; photographs; questionnaires; Cultural probe, Interaction Research Studio, Goldsmiths, 2011.
postcards; diaries; stories; emails;
videos; workshop notes and data;
sketchbooks; workbooks; prototypes;
manuals

4. Provisional findings
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Research does not take place at
the institution
Difficult to separate research
process, research output
and research data
Research process encompasses
many different practices, e.g. social
Research data is not subservient
to process nor output
The Warburg Institute’s Photographic Collection
Research data is heterogeneous
Everyone uses paper files

5. Things working well
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“There is space here, there’s a really
nice community here of artists and
people who think really critically about
things (…).”
The social environment
Colleagues, networks and students
The material environment
Library, space, fast internet connection,
wide-ranging equipment provisions
Integration Britt Hatzius, Proposal for a show in 3 years or so, Limoncello, London, 2008.
Different roles and practices integrate
with each other and inform each other

6. Things that could be better
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“I can’t store my material here because I
don't (…) want to have it on the one hard
drive on the computer I work at in the office
that only works if there’s an accessible server.”
“We want to put a lot of process material on
the website (…). What would be nice would be
somewhere between the way we are using
Dropbox and the way that we use a website
so that we can (…) move stuff into a public
folder and for that folder to be accessible (…).”
“…how to archive digital material (…) that’s something I don’t really have a strong handle
on.”
“We have stacks of flip chart paper with all the different ideas from all the different things,
we have email stacks, we have stacks of evidence in bags that people brought, we have
about 8 hours of video recording that we are working on gradually.”