Word and Whetstone: Perspectives on Writing at the Intersection of Art and Academia
This research of Maya Rasker in only available in Dutch. The English version will be ready later in 2023. The position of writing within the domain of artistic academic research is not self-evident. In academia, standard practice is to use writing for the transfer of knowledge: it is a means of communication. In the practice of (nonlinguistic) artistic research, the outcome is also often contextualized in a written argument. This leads to the paradox that, if writing as an art form is to be relevant in and for artistic academic research, it must relate discursively to itself in its own medium in order to achieve that relevance. This paradox has been embraced in this dissertation and research.'Word and Whetstone. Perspectives on writing at the intersection of art and academia' is the outcome of inquiry into the epistemological possibilities and characteristics of writing. The question is whether and how writing as a communication vehicle and as an art form can also serve as a knowledge generator. To investigate this, the practice of writing is thought of as an experimental system, analogous to the scientific experiment. Processes of narrating and annotating generate a dialogical encounter for new insights as well as providing a structure. The material is both the object of research and method.
Author: Maya Rasker
