Hübner, Falk. 2024. Method, Methodology and Research Design in Artistic Research: Between Solid Routes and Emergent Pathways (Routledge), doi:10.4324/9781003188841

 

The language of artistic research can sometimes feel slippery to grasp, given the ongoing generation of epistemologies, methods, metaphors, forms and methodologies operating within and across art practice and academic work. Readers of JAR may identify a kind of consolidation emerging, especially in terms of methodological and ethical issues, yet at the same time understand how artistic research is marked more by multiplicity and friction than consensus and clarity. Falk Hübner’s book offers an interesting map and model of this slippery terrain, especially if you agree with a key premise of the book: that the field of artistic research sits uneasily between methodological rigour and intuitive ‘emergence’. For Hübner, emergence and unpredictability are key elements of artistic inquiry and, in short, the aim of this book is to facilitate this.

The book will be useful for students, specifically postgraduates, who can benefit from the focus on language, the defining of terms and the colourful, visual illustrations of key ideas. It is particularly suited to those who have a broad understanding of the artsFor me, a strength and a vulnerability of this text lies in this openness, a reflection of the broad church that is artistic research, defined here as stretching from music to design research. This sheer scope can feel a little overwhelming, but the author’s ambition to translate rich theoretical frameworks into practical applications is admirable. 

The book is structured into six chapters, with two interludes. Following the Introduction, Interlude 1 addresses ‘Terminology’ in depth and Chapter 2 turns to ethics, while Chapter 3, ‘Crafting Methods’, makes what I think is one of the most important contributions. It offers a useful model for thinking about how, in artistic research, methods can be shaped in response to specific contexts, allowing research ‘methods’ to emerge organically from the creative process, unlike other disciplines where established methods and forms of documentation are more rigidly held. Methods and methodologies not only determine how knowledge is produced and communicated (often in written form), but also shape what the knowledge is and does. Artistic research, as articulated here, allows for a greater openness when form and outcome emerge in relation to the question, the problem or the place. The model offers a flexible, context-responsive approach that encourages researchers to let methods arise from within the process, rather than impose them from the outset. This resonates with experimental practices in contemporary art, where the process not only precedes, but can actually reconfigure, the research (and its questions).

But before we get to this, indeed right from the start, Hübner situates his book in relation to existing literature on artistic research by clearly identifying the two dominant, opposing strands that address methods and methodologies. These strands, while often entangled in practice, are laid out clearly in their full conceptual tension. As an academic with a background and training in artistic research, anthropology and the humanities, I find this articulation of the implicit friction between disciplinary differences helpful. Although I won’t unpack this thoroughly here, the argument points us to a much deeper disciplinary debate. Hübner’s text only gestures toward this, but offers a strong starting point to begin thinking about this friction. 

The first approach, Hübner notes, is conceptually rich but practically sparse: epitomised by theorists like Bolt, Manning, and Hannula, these approaches provide philosophical frameworks but give limited concrete guidance for practitioners. The second strand is rooted primarily in social science methodologies. They offer detailed and practical method descriptions, let’s say the how-tos, but often lack deeper philosophical engagement. In his words: ‘The problem that I seek to address here is that these two types of literature hardly connect; although both are designed to address the same area of expertise, they rarely overlap’ (9). Hübner draws on Dutch methodologist Adri Smaling to support a redefined methodology that better connects theory with research design. He argues that:

The reasons for the lack of literature in artistic research that actually merges these two strands proba­bly lies in the fact that the discipline is still relatively young and that the actual research projects of artists are so immensely diversified that suggesting one coherent approach towards methodology rather misses the point, as Henk Borgdorff (2012), for example, rightly remarks in his argument towards a methodological pluralism. This is precisely the context in which I aim to offer a model with a flexible approach that embraces emergence as one of its key mechanisms and as a common ground to start from when designing research projects (9).

He names this the ‘Common Ground’ model, which he positions as a shared methodological starting point, one that can support emergent, context-responsive research while still giving structure and clarity to design. Whether or not we think a shared language is possible, for me, one of the book’s most significant contributions lies in its advocacy for flexible and inclusive language around research. Artistic researchers, of course, often move through inter-, trans-, and even anti-disciplinary spaces, where shared terminology can be helpful, but this is neither always possible, nor necessarily the goal. Personally, I don’t think consensus is essential, but I find it helpful how the book dismantles some of the barriers that get in the way of collaboration and understanding across fields. This feels relevant for emerging researchers in art and design, who may find themselves grappling with unfamiliar or rigid terminologies. I see this too in my own work, where language often needs to be re-negotiated in each of the settings I find myself in, and where translation becomes part of the research itself. An example of this is the careful delineation between the terms ‘method’, ‘methodology’, and ‘research strategy’ (all too often bamboozling for some), which are here unpacked in a detailed manner. He defines method as ‘specific practices or procedures’ (e.g., artistic techniques, interviews, experimental practices); methodology as encompassing broader philosophical, ethical and theoretical considerations, which ‘guide’ the research; and research strategy as the ‘overarching framework’ that links methods to methodologies. This is useful for practitioners operating at the intersection of multiple disciplines; it offers some clarity but keeps conceptual fluidity. 

The chapter on ethics helps us in this, and it has a brilliant title: ‘How ethics are everywhere and what this actually means,’ furthering the conversation by insisting that ethical considerations be integrated into research design from the very beginning. This is good advice. It also offers a strong example of how academic discourse and artistic practices, individually and organisationally, can inform each other, clarifying this by introducing five key ‘elements’ (entities, activities, documentation, reflection and learning). Hübner pushes ethics beyond the procedural checklists of institutional review boards. Referencing Uwe Flick’s five ‘ethical’ behaviours (being inquisitive, informed, accurate, fair and confidential), he emphasises the importance of having a proactive and empathetic mindset, rather than merely complying with rules or institutional norms. This resonates with my own research practice and with distinctions I’ve made elsewhere and for a while (Clarke 2014, 2015) between ethics and morality, though that’s a digression for another time.

While all this work on language and definitions and ethics is commendably thorough, it raises further complex questions, especially in contexts where artistic researchers occupy dual roles as both artist and researcher, collaborator and observer; tensions present even before we get to contested terms and practices like ‘co-creation’ and ‘participation’. The Common Ground framework offers one possible way to navigate, yet remains somewhat abstract, perhaps necessarily. Its value will fully emerge through practice; testing it in situations where practice research unfolds.

My point is that in the world of artistic research, where researcher and participant roles can blur, and the politics of representation are constantly at stake, greater critical attention is needed to the ethical dilemmas that arise in contemporary creative practice and artistic research. How do artist-researchers navigate shifting power dynamics, when they are simultaneously facilitating, observing, creating and collaborating? What happens when when participants’ desires for recognition or action clash with assumptions around confidentiality or consent? These questions are fundamental and I think they remain underexplored in Hübner’s text While his emphasis on ethics is welcome, the framework could benefit from deeper engagement with the lived, situational complexities of contemporary practice, where accountability, care and negotiation unfold in real time.

The book offers rich questions and useful frameworks, but I was left wanting a little more. There is clear potential for deeper engagement with communal, situated, environmental and decolonial ethics, yet the text stops short of showing how such perspectives might concretely shape artistic practice.

To take an example, what would it mean, practically and ethically, to account for non-human agency within artistic methods? This is a question I grapple with in my projects about landscape and ecology. Encouraging researchers to move beyond anthropocentric models and recognise the agency of things, whether objects, environments or materials in their work, is not a new theoretical turn, yet the implications remain unresolved. How might such thinking re-shape power dynamics, not only between researcher and participant, but also between artist, artwork, community and their broader environments? Hubner briefly gestures towards Indigenous ethics, hinting at relational approaches that radically challenge Western assumptions about objectivity, agency, and knowledge production, but these ideas are addressed only lightly.  Here again, the question remains whether Hübner’s approach goes far enough in accounting for the implications of such perspectives for artistic research in/and practice.

A related, and equally substantial, area concerns the role of time and care in artistic research. Hübner introduces these ideas, but the treatment is necessarily brief and for me leaves significant questions open. I agree with the need to attend to time and I think there is more to do to unravel this, particularly around slowing-down processes that allow room to breathe, for delay, reflection and iteration. Here, however, the depth and references are limited to brief mentions, such as the nod toward care in curatorial practices (e.g., references to care in the root of curation, or curare as popularly referenced). These ideas are not new; they are central to ongoing ethical and methodological debates in contemporary artistic research. The dimensions of what we might call temporal care, how artists and researchers navigate institutional pressures for productivity and measurable outcomes, deserve more rigorous analysis and a critical lens. I would point readers to a fantastic series on ‘Art for the Sake of Care’ in the International Journal of Education and the Arts, edited by Merel Visse and Elegna Cologni in 2025, which I was fortunate to contribute to.

Hübner’s Common Ground model emphasises flexibility, responsiveness and adaptability to emergent conditions. His treatment of documentation is a strong example of how these ideas can operate methodologically as a generative or performative act, and it deserves particular praise. His discussion prompted me to reflect on the shifting boundaries between documenting and creating, especially when documentation functions as both a research tool and an artistic practice in its own right. Here, documentation is neither merely reflective nor solely archival; it invites deeper reflection, for example, in the context of shifts from and between analogue and digital media. Hübner’s treatment of reflection is similarly nuanced, integrating ideas of reflexivity and ‘diffraction,’ the latter drawn from Donna Haraway. The differentiation he makes between ‘critical reflection’ (evaluative and analytical) and ‘reflexivity’ (acknowledging researcher positionality) is insightful, recognising that reflexivity demands a heightened awareness of the researcher’s own position and influence on the research process, underpinned by all the work on ethics.

Throughout the book, Hübner remains aware of the tensions produced by these issues and frames them as a way of working between structure and openness, planning and ‘emergence’. In the end, what he leaves us with is a balanced approach, encouraging methods to emerge from practice, structuring research strategies and methodologies enough to guide inquiry while leaving space for unforeseen developments. The book offers careful distinctions and yet, as I have discussed above, it feels at times incomplete. It is best used, I think, as a tool, a dictionary and an invitation to dialogue. 

It is little wonder that researchers in adjacent fields remain sceptical about artistic research in general, as it is hard to even begin to agree on the terms of reference. Where and what is art, when and what research? What forms of art are research outcomes and what’s the difference when things resist such readings? What happens when the terms are not clearly demarcated, but rather drawn together? When does the wish to connect the two terms become too complicated or overloaded with theory? On the one hand, artistic research methods rely on and produce personal forms of research, and these can be too personal for fields that continue to validate judgement as a key mode or marker of expertise, and insist on writing in the third person. On the other hand, artists can be reticent to engage with, or simply reject, what they see as the elitism of research, seeing it as marked by money and competition. What I’m trying to say is that by referring to types of work as ‘artistic research’, we point to hybrid practices with inherent tension. These are, I would say, the terms within which I work, work around, and use to explain the temporalities and politics of my own artistic research. 

Hübner’s book is commendable because it begins here, with a recognition of tension within the fields that artistic researchers work across. Method, Methodology and Research Design in Artistic Research: Between Solid Routes and Emergent Pathways may not address these politics directly, but it does offer a comprehensive, conceptually generous mapping of the field’s broadest methodological landscapes, foregrounding classic but under-identified tensions and offering a language that can help ground these. Hübner’s effort to articulate a shared yet flexible methodological language reflects both the potential and the limitations inherent in this evolving field. 

 

References

Bolt, Barbara. 2016. ‘Artistic Research: A Performative Paradigm’, PARSE Journal, 3 (1), p. 129, doi:10.70733/0axrkvoqb26w

Borgdorff, Henk. 2012. The Conflict of the Faculties: Perspectives on Artistic Research and Academia. Leiden: Leiden University Press.

Clarke, Jen. 2014. ‘Disciplinary Boundaries between Art and Anthropology’Journal of Visual Art Practice, 13(3), pp. 178-191

___. 2015. ‘Working Between Art and Forestry: Collaborative Research and the Production of Ecological Knowledge’ (Unpublished Doctoral Thesis, University of Aberdeen)

Flick, Uwe. 2014. An Introduction to Qualitative Research, 5th ed. (Sage)

Haraway, Donna. J. 2004. ‘The Promises of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others’ in The Haraway Reader (Routledge), pp. 63–124 

Hannula, Mika, Juha Suoranta and Tere Vadén. 2005. Artistic Research: Theories, Methods and Practices(Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts)

Manning, Erin. 2016. The Minor Gesture (Duke University Press)

Visse, Merel, and Elena Cologni (eds). 2025. Art for the Sake of Care. International Journal of Education and the Arts, 25, Special Issue

 

Biography

Dr Jennifer (Jen) Clarke is an artist-anthropologist and Associate Professor at Gray’s School of Art, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. Her practice-based research explores multimodal anthropology, image work, and collaborative methods across ecology and environmental futures. Jen leads artistic research for the UKRI-funded Agroforestry FuturesTreescapes project, with recent outputs including the exhibition Grounding Truths at The Sill and workshops with the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL). She has exhibited and collaborated internationally and is developing two book projects on ecological imaginaries and feminist hospitality. Jen teaches across MA and PhD programmes and convenes interdisciplinary research on the environment, energy, and sustainability.