2013 Conference Proceedings

26 – 28 November 2013
Adelaide, South Australia

The Frontiers of Artistic Research: The

challenge of critique, peer review and
validation at the outermost limits of
location-specificity

Sean LOWRY & Nancy de FREITAS

This paper deals with the complexity of critique in the context of contemporary artistic
practice that challenges conventional spatial/temporal notions of exhibition. In an academic
context, contemporary artists working in this genre face unique difficulties when it comes
to the critique and validation of their work as artistic intervention or as a practice-based
research outcome. For example, a public space intervention by an art activist, designed to
disrupt the quotidian experience of its viewers, may be reduced through documentation
to a skeletal, digitally packaged concept with significant depreciation of its artistic and
aesthetic quality. Similarly, works that exist in remote geographical locations, or works that
are designed and intended to transcend physical locations or to occupy space for very brief
or very long periods of time provide similar challenges for critical and archival access. With
specific reference to a new exhibition project space, Project Anywhere, a website devoted
to this genre of work, the authors examine the difficulties and possibilities associated with
critique in this context. PA has differentiated its core function by replacing the usual role of
curator with a peer review model. The significance and potential value of this experimental
model will emerge over time as more artworks are submitted, critiqued and archived in this
open-access forum where modes of critique, artistic claims and methods of documentation
can be reconsidered. The authors consider key areas for further development of this
research initiative and suggest that new methods of documentation and combinations of
documentation formats could better represent the work and facilitate the process of critique
and validation for this rising form of contemporary artistic practice.

Keywords: critique, peer review, artistic research, exhibition

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 The roots of these developments can be traced back to the 1960s, when movements such
as the Situationist International (SI)3 and Fluxus4 began to challenge conceptions of the
Introduction
way in which viewers are involved in the process or ‘situation’ of artistic production.
Drawing upon ideas that had originated in early twentieth century avant-garde
This paper discusses key issues underpinning the conception and development of an
movements such as Dada, this ‘second horizon’5 of post war ‘neo-avant-garde’6 tendencies
exhibition model specifically dedicated to the validation and dissemination of artistic
was however far more explicitly concerned with the creation of art experiences that
practice situated outside conventional exhibition environments. Given that much 3 The power of mass media
offered active viewer participation. The outcomes of these interventions were not objects was the target of Guy
contemporary art is relatively ill-suited to the spatial and temporal limitations of
but rather experiences, and resulted in a blurring of boundaries between art and life. With Debord and the Situationist
traditional exhibition contexts, and given that the idea of the curator as gate-keeper is out International. In The Society
aesthetic experience transformed from passive to active, both art and the conditions of the Spectacle (1967),
of step with forms of peer validation typically used to validate academic research, Project Debord characterises the
of its production and dissemination became a subject of critique. Such developments
Anywhere was conceived as a potential solution for artist academics whose practice- reified ‘spectacular’ image as
would open the way for even more radical challenges to the idea of place and spatial symptomatic of capitalistic
based research faces this double bind. To this end, Project Anywhere is specifically alienation and, moreover,
location. This tendency is perhaps most explicitly demonstrated in the institutional
designed to meet the challenge of defining and implementing a new concept for the that the spectacle actually
critique performed by artists such as Hans Haacke, Marcel Broodthaers and Andrea conceals this estrangement.
critique, peer review and documentation of artistic practices that fall outside of the forms (Guy Debord, The Society of
Fraser. For Miwon Kwon, one the best reasons for expanding the idea of site specificity
and structures accommodated by conventional exhibition and publishing modes. Far the Spectacle, trans. Donald
is ‘the epistemological challenge to relocate meaning from within the art object to the Nicholson-Smith (New
from being an online gallery, the Project Anywhere website1 is instead a contextualizing York: Zone Books, 1994), §
contingencies of its context; the radical restructuring of the subject from an old Cartesian
framework for a project space that potentially encompasses the entire globe, and in 10). For a comprehensive
model to a phenomenological one of lived bodily experience; and the self conscious desire introduction to SI, see
which the role of curator is replaced with an adaptation of the type of peer review model Tom McDonough, ed., Guy
to resist the forces of the capitalist market economy.’7 Accordingly, many recent forms
typically associated with a refereed journal. Significantly, Project Anywhere endorses a Debord and the Situationist
International: Texts and
of art are relatively unbounded by the physical limitations of conventional exhibition
rigorous two-step peer review process to address lingering bias toward the journal-based Documents (Cambridge: MIT
contexts, and can include work in remote geographical locations, technically specialized Press, 2004).
paradigm for assessing the quality of research outcomes. This paper will assert the value
contexts, and even imagined spaces. Project Anywhere, the subject of this paper, is 4 In the late 1960s, George
of peer validation as an alternative model of critique to curatorial selection, and also Maciunas’s insistence upon
specifically dedicated to the validation and dissemination of art at the outermost limits of ‘concretism’ (materiality) in
discuss difficulties that arise when the material or experiential conditions of an artwork fluxworks and his criticism of
location-specificity.
are translated into documentation in the form of text, image, links or video. ‘illusionism’ (representation)
aimed to problematise the
spectacular reification of
During the 1990s participatory practice was famously reframed by Nicolas Bourriaud reality. For Maciunas, the
Background context: Changing practices, disciplinary disobedience (1998), who argued that audience involvement made work political, since the space of irreproducibility of material
contextual conditions marks
interaction created fleeting communities whose inter-subjective relations and concrete out all representation as
Various iterations and combinations of site specific, nomadic, social, participatory, communications could be politically affective. The political, he suggested, could emerge inexorably illusory. For an
introduction to Fluxus, see
virtual, ephemeral, performative, interventionist and expanded installation-based artistic within and through the aesthetic experience without the art or the artist engaging directly Ken Friedman, ed., The
practices, many of which unfold outside of conventional exhibition circuits, have become with politics. Laying claim to the term relational art to describe ‘a set of practices which Fluxus Reader (Chichester,
West Sussex and New York:
more common during the last few decades. Much of this often dematerialised2 and post- takes as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations Academy Editions, 1998).
object practice is specifically concerned with critiquing traditional exhibition systems. In and their social context’8 Bourriaud’s influential ideas were also roundly criticized. 5 See Peter Bürger, Theory
of the Avant-garde, trans.
particular, such practices challenge the idea that art only functions through its reification Claire Bishop, in particular, has critiqued the lack of critical antagonism, loss of aesthetic Michael Shaw (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota
into an object such as a painting or sculpture. Accordingly, discrete paintings on walls, criteria, and assumption of democracy she sees evidenced throughout much the work Press, 1984).
films screened in theatres, and conventionally staged theatrical performances are no and ideas championed by Bourriaud. For Bishop, the aesthetic antagonisms presented 6 See Hal Foster, The Return of
the Real (Cam`bridge, Mass:
longer necessarily a primary focus for many artists, critics, curators and institutions. in the work of artists such as Santiago Sierra and Artur Żmijewski contain more critical MIT Press, 1996), xi.
As a consequence of this rethinking of artistic practice, many artists have attempted to potential. Bourriaud’s ideas have also been critiqued by Owen Hatherley9 for their 7 Miwon Kwon, ‘One Place
after Another: Notes on
transcend the discrete exhibited and distributable object by producing ephemeral works, alleged ignorance of the persistent political ramifications of advancing neoliberalism, Site Specificity,’ October, 80
or using their bodies, or by framing networks of social and political relations as sites for declining socialism, and an expanding mass media, and Adam Geczy for being a sanitized10 (1997): 91.
1 ‘Project Anywhere: a global 8 Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational
peer reviewed space for art artistic expression. Such practices have also restructured relationships between spectator Situationism. At any rate, in the academic/research environment in which many artists Aesthetics (Paris: Presses du
at the outermost limits of and artist. The spectator is no longer a passive and detached but rather an intrinsic are working today, this contested terrain and its inherent defiance of traditional location- reel, 2002), 113.
location-specificity,’ accessed 9 See Owen Hatherley, ‘Post-
October 12 2013, http:// element, and by extension, a whole aesthetic experience that attempts to experientially specificity is presenting a new series of challenges. Here, it could again be argued that Postmodernism?’, New Left
projectanywhere.net/. consider such things as relationships between conditions of production and networks of a political dynamic is inherent, since this kind of work sets up a distinctive ambiguity, Review 59 (Sep/Oct 2009):
2 See Lucy Lippard and 160.
John Chandler, ‘The reception is implicated. This radical reorientation of art’s perceived purpose has had a particularly in terms of academic expectations for peer review and critique. Responses 10 See Adam Geczy, ‘Sanitised
Dematerialization of Art,’ Art Situationism,’ Broadsheet:
International (February 1968):
profound (and still unfolding) impact on modes of critique. This impact has extended to are often remarkably similar to the skepticism that earlier artists faced when they Contemporary Art + Culture
31–6. 10. academic research culture. abandoned medium specificity. 37:2 (2006): 127-127.

138 139
 New circuits the surrounding historical, subjective and cultural contextualizing information bound
up in its structural determination as art, an aesthetic object can potentially be anything
Within this expanded approach to art, it is no longer realistic to expect all art and
that directs aesthetic contemplation and interpretation toward this idea of network.
artistic research to fit within the physical and material constraints of established public
For David Davies, the physical model accompanying a conceptual work of art should be
art institutions or other public viewing spaces such as theatres, libraries, community
considered its vehicular medium in the sense that: ‘the product of an artist’s manipulation
centers, universities and art academies. Clearly, some contemporary artists are
of a vehicular medium will ... be the vehicle whereby a particular artistic statement is
positioned to critique the institutional spaces in which they are expected to present
articulated’.15 Thus, the morphological instantiation or physical performance of a creative
their work and ideas. Others, however, are simply unable to fit their concepts into such
work makes no exclusive claim to an art condition in itself, but is instead designed to
spaces. In widely divergent ways, many artists eschew such spaces in favour of dynamic
symbolically represent the aesthetic experience as network.
exhibition environments, ever expanding in their physical and temporal parameters.
An exhibition can now be anything from a ‘Silent Dinner Party’11 to the performative
Once we regard the supporting apparatus of art history and the political, social and
ascent of a mountain12 to a modular eco structure in the Kalahari Desert.13 Significantly,
economic contexts that underpin the production and reception of art as artistic elements,
such practices invariably disrupt established critical processes of review insofar as they
it soon becomes possible to argue that the art condition (a cultural projection) is
make direct access to the artwork difficult. Established models of critique and review
something that is always dematerialised. This art condition, i.e. the structure that hosts
typically require direct, physical access and a comprehension underpinned by full sensual
aesthetic comprehension (as distinct from other languages of comprehension) can
experience of the physical work. Consequently, the challenge for artists who create work
therefore be understood as something potentially built in the mind of the interpreter
in defiance of location-specificity is that their works are often situated outside of quality
via both direct experience and documentation, and moreover, that it is problematic to
assurance processes that define value within the academy. Critical peer validation of
separate these elements. Most of us, for example, did not directly experience the seminal
practice-led research output is of course fundamental for artist academics. But if the
performance works of the 1960s and 1970s that continue to inform our understanding of
direct experience of an artwork is potentially inaccessible to a reviewer or critic, what
contemporary art. Although our understanding of the ideas carried within these works is
kind of assessment can be made? What purpose is served by a critical review of artwork
dependent upon documentation, they are nonetheless interpreted aesthetically; that is in
based upon selected documentation?
a manner fundamentally distinct to other forms of knowledge.
In the 1960s, when Michael Fried and Clement Greenberg famously argued for medium
Much contemporary art is deliberately framed to implicate structural relationships within
specificity, they were arguing from within a modernist position that emphasised
the spaces (both physical and social) in which it is situated. Working within the systems
disciplinary integrity and the purity of the medium. The situation is very different today.
and symbolic languages of the host context, such work invariably produces meaning
Rosalind Krauss has more recently described a post-medium condition that re-presents
and experience contingent upon that host context (again both physical and social). A
the idea of the ‘medium as an aggregative ‘network’ or ‘complex’ of media.’14 At any
creative work is a dynamic collection of signs, concepts, myths, traces, objects, sensations
11 See Honi Ryan, ‘Silent rate, although purity and disciplinary integrity are no longer critical priorities, peer
Dinner Party’ (from Project
and contradictions all intertwined with its surrounding contextualising apparatus of
assessment certainly is.
Anywhere’s pilot program, documentation, versions and network of interpretations. Thus, fuller comprehension of a
2012), accessed 12 October 12,
creative work often demands a combination of aesthetic experience and contextualising
2013, http://projectanywhere. One counter argument to the presumption that the morphological instantiation or
net/archived/silent-dinner- information. The central question at play within this paper is whether this relationship
party. physical performance necessarily constitutes the primary text (and therefore the only
12 See Mark Shorter, can be adequately extended across time and space via documentation, facilitating
means by which to adequately access full comprehension) is found in the idea of the
‘Schleimgurgeln: Song authentic access to both aesthetic experience and critical comprehension. This, as we will
For Glover’, (from Project aesthetic object as something expanded and unfolding within a network of relations
Anywhere’s pilot program, discuss later, is Project Anywhere’s raison d’être.
2012), accessed October 12,
that includes both sensory and non-sensory information. This idea of a creative
http://projectanywhere.net/ work as something inhabiting a network of both material and immaterial elements
archived/schleimgurgeln-
song-for-glover. (such as historical and social context, multiple forms of documentation, critiques Distinctions between art and artistic research
13 See Hans Kalliwoda, ‘WiaS and interpretations) can accommodate the possibility that the thing that is critiqued,
(The World in a Shell)’ (from
Project Anywhere’s inaugural discussed and experienced via its mediated dissemination is still an aesthetic object It is important to remain mindful that communicating a research hypothesis through
peer-reviewed program, insofar as it can still be distinguished from other forms of human cultural and intellectual art is not the same activity as creating art. Given the possibility that a research topic
2013), accessed June 30, 2013,
http://projectanywhere.net/ expression and activity by virtue of its dependence upon the structural idiosyncrasies may reflect a focus other than art as aesthetic experience, it is finally the originality 15 David Davies, Art as
project/wias. of the art condition. Moreover, with physical spaces and materials now inextricably of the research claims rather than the art that are at stake. Because research typically Performance (Oxford:
14 Rosalind Krauss, A Voyage on Blackwells, 2004), 59.
the North Sea: Art in the Age intertwined with expanded structural conceptions of what constitutes a creative work, demands that the implicit be made explicit, in the case of art, that which is implicit is 16 Adam Geczy, ‘Art Is Not
of the Post-Medium Condition Research,’ Broadsheet:
(London: Thames & Hudson,
it no longer makes sense to pinpoint a single fixed and immovable location or moment not necessarily clear to reasoning. As Adam Geczy puts it, ‘art is not research’.16 Art Contemporary Art + Culture,
2000), 56. for a creative work. Given that we cannot simply behold a work without bearing in mind can, however, in concert with other paratextual and exegetical information, provide a 38:3 (2009): 207-9.

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 means of experiencing new knowledge. What is at stake is finding an appropriate way to
making. For Richard Shiff, the artistic process of thinking through making (in which the
validate the way in which art can communicate new forms of knowledge. Irrespective as
artist affects the work and in turn the work affects the artist) can reveal itself through
to how dry and theoretically based an artistic concept might be, art is dependent upon
hitherto unexpected turns.20 To lose sight of the generative value of this process within
aesthetics. For Elizabeth Schellekens, even conceptual artists ‘instantiate’ ideas by turning
the demands of academic validation is to lose sight of the potential for art to exercise a
a dry theoretical proposition into something experiential, or as Schellekens describes it,
point of difference within the academy.
‘experiencing the idea.’17

Just as distinctions between artistic outcomes and documentation are often (and Academic context: Institutional influence/documentation/validation
sometimes deliberately) blurred, and given that exegetical elements are sometimes
included alongside or within creative works, approaches toward the framing of artistic There is currently much debate across university sectors surrounding non-traditional
research can also vary enormously, especially given the potential for reflexive recursion outputs; i.e. anything that is not a book, chapter, journal or paper, and which uses time,
in projects that emphasise dynamic, participatory, or unfolding outcomes. Generally sound, image, space or gesture as part of its presentation of new knowledge. The issue is
speaking, although an accompanying text need not literally explain a creative work, it can often not the creative work per se but an ability to somehow explain, validate and transfer
in a limited sense provide a form of explanation or analysis typically designed to work its findings in a manner that is institutionally acceptable. Many institutions now employ
in concert with the aesthetic experience itself. In the words of Robin Nelson, a champion tenuous metrics such as attributes based on venue, duration etc. Many universities in
of practice-based research, perhaps ‘it is time to speak less of practice-as-research and Australia attribute 1 HERDC point for a major creative work as opposed to 5 HERDC
to speak instead of arts research (a significant methodology of which just happens to be points for a peer reviewed book. Addressing this imbalance is a difficult battle that many
based in practices)’.18 In this sense, an aesthetic experience can be regarded as something artist academics consider worth waging. Explanation, critique and credibility are crucial
that can assist in unlocking insight and understanding that is potentially elusive in a in the university context and moreover, they are essential to the task of nominating a
theoretical proposition. For David Pears, ‘practice nearly always comes first’ in knowledge creative work as research. Project Anywhere is designed to play an active role in meeting
production, for a discriminatory response typically precedes an ability to codify that this challenge.
response.19 Despite the seemingly defensible nature of this argument, the validation of
thinking through making still finds itself on shaky ground, especially with university Despite the radical transformations that have occurred over the last century of artistic
research increasingly measured against economically determinable key performance practice, institutional agendas continue to have a disproportionate, conformist influence
indicators. Notwithstanding the challenge that embodied forms of knowledge pose to the on artist academics, many of whom are dependent upon university and residency
locus of knowledge and power, we are still drawn back to a perceived need to justify the programs for financial support to produce work. Some of these conditions and
value of practice in words. requirements have contributed to an environment in which particular, assumed limits
are set on artistic processes and outcomes. Consider for example, the typical requirement
Not surprisingly, there are widely differing conceptions as to what constitutes research for artistic research to include: documentation and analysis as research evidence; quality
quality in the arts. It is generally regarded as important to reflect upon whether the assurance through academic peer review; public programme collateral for institutional
researcher is communicating the intent and realisation of the project effectively. Although use (museum or public gallery); media and social network friendly publications as well as
some argue that peer reviewers should be able to ‘read’ the art alone, context is usually public funding justifications.
manifestly unclear without well-articulated supplementary materials. Given that aesthetic
judgment is already a subjective union of sensory, emotional and intellectual responses, The documentation and reproduction of artworks can duplicate many recognisable
it is clear that the position of using sense perception (such as visuality) as the only characteristics of an original aesthetic experience except for the essential reality of a
criterion for forming an aesthetic judgement is potentially problematic. One option is to particular presence in time and space. Typical documentation that consists of a series of
employ functional analysis—i.e. to look at how the work functions to convey meaning—as reproduced stills or moving images of a complex site-specific artwork, for example, or one
17 Elisabeth Schellekens, ‘The an additional criterion for judging success. Another is to consider the artist’s apparent that changes over time or entails audience interaction is unquestionably an ineffective
Aesthetic Value of Ideas,’ awareness of the social and cultural contexts of the work’s production and reception. substitute for the unique material existence of the artwork in the designated place in
in Philosophy & Conceptual
Art, ed. Peter Goldie and Yet once we introduce such forms of evaluation, we are already looking outside of the which it is designed to be experienced. What is communicated through legitimate or
Elisabeth Schellekens (Oxford work and back toward the domains of speaking and writing. At any rate, without a informal traces of documentation comprises a different kind of experience altogether. For
University Press, 2009),
80–81. good contextualising argument, it can be very difficult to determine a specific context reasons already discussed, this secondary experience can often contribute, alongside or 19 David Pears, What is
18 Robin Nelson, ‘Practice-as- and contribution to knowledge. Although artistic context is often fuzzily determined, instead of the original, to the whole aesthetic experience as network. Accepting that the knowledge? (London: Allen &
research and the Problem Unwin Ltd, 1972, 29.
of Knowledge,’ Performance a suitable context within which to frame a specific research question is usually more knowledge and comprehension gained from a direct experiential encounter with artwork 20 Richard Shiff, ‘Every shiny
Research: A Journal of the object wants an infant who
Performing Arts, 11:4 (2006):
sufficiently limited. Underpinning the value of artistic research within the academy is the is not the same as the knowledge gained via artistic documentation, the important point will love it,’ Art Journal 70:1
105-116. value of the artist as consciously informed through the feedback loop of thinking through to stress within the context of the academy is that new knowledge can be communicated (2011): 7-33.

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Fig. 1. A conceptual live art Fig. 3. I Wanted to See All of the
performance event across News From Today (2007)
the London Underground An online artwork by
& Disused Eurostar Martin Callanan, which
Terminal at Waterloo continuously collects the
Mainline (Remembrance front pages of over 600
Day Sunday, November 11, newspapers from around
2012) the world, as and when
http://www.no-mans-land. they are published.
me/#!charing-cross-under- http://greyisgood.eu/
ground-tube/c1dfy allnews/.

Fig. 2. Sculptures, musicians,

poets and filmmakers
converging at Waterloo Fig. 4. This Progress (January to
Eurostar entrance. March, 2010) Tino Sehgal,
http://www.natashareid. Guggenheim New York
co.uk/no-mans-land--- http://www.terminartors.
london-underground---- com/artworkprofile/
november-2012.php Sehgal_Tino-This_Progress

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 and extended through both art and its documentation. documentation and critique and new approaches to the validation of new knowledge.

Ultimately, the fact that contemporary artists are increasingly engaged in the making No man’s land, (Figs. 1, 2) was an artwork/event conceived and curated by John
of works that are designed and intended to transcend physical locations or evolve over McKiernan with live performances, sculpture and installations across 10 London
long periods of time increases the likelihood that many audiences will only experience Underground stations. Described as deliberately complex and bureaucratic, with the
the work as a form of documentation. In the extreme, some artistic interventions are involvement of nearly 200 people, the project adapted and adjusted as new people
impossible to distinguish as art without a designed, corresponding presence on the joined and left. Circumstances changed and each person affected the project direction.
Internet, as a website, in a blog or perhaps as an on-going e-mail network. We are now Consequently, to declare that any single direct experience of this work is directly
less likely to expect artworks and their documentation to exist in a singular destination, comparable to any other direct experience is absurd. Meanwhile, the project’s website
but rather, to be situated and understood within an unfolding process of formation. went through several different phases as the event evolved from a planning site to a live
Consequently, adequate artistic documentation for the task of communicating new documentation of events and finally into an archive that the organisers hope will ‘prove a
knowledge also needs to be able to incorporate the kinds of open-endedness and rich source of information for researchers and makers of live performance and any major
contradiction that art itself can experientially manifest. Otherwise, any understanding (or minor) event involving many people who do not know each other.’21 The complex
produced between the complexities of the creative work (which cannot be other than site remains as a multi-media testimony to the event; a collection of explanatory texts,
itself) and parallel, contextualizing elements (i.e. documentation, reflection, analysis, recordings, analysis and links with a connection still open for donations.
interpretation etc.) will never hold.
In another example, Martin Callanan’s online continuous collection of newspaper front
These contemporary developments demand new ways of introducing, curating, linking, pages (Fig. 3) is a work that accumulates data in constant on-going relationship to the
recording, documenting and connecting audiences with the work. The following examples international press. Presenting an example of the hyperreal as famously described by
of artistic interventions illustrate the growing complexity associated with this genre Baudrillard, Callanan’s digital collection and replication process collapses the reality of
in relation to the documentation, critique and validation of interconnected material, world news into a dislocated and impoverished duplication of the reported, duplicated
conceptual, temporal and virtual components where formal and informal traces of the ‘real’, and breaks down the concept of information from one reproduced medium into
work exist in parallel. another, downgraded reproductive medium. Baudrillard’s theory of destruction through
simulation, from one medium to another is the destruction of the real; no longer an object
One example of the way in which artistic documentation can play a role in the of representation, but only ritual extermination: the hyperreal. Documentation, critique
development of new knowledge is found in the example of a project that inspired the and peer review of this genre of work is difficult unless the work itself is reduced to the
initial concept for Project Anywhere. This work, Invisible-5 (2006), is a self-guided audio core conceptual idea that instigated the making of the work. Yet the work, in its live and
tour located on Interstate 5 (I-5) between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Invisible-5 evolving form creates ever more complex intersections with world events.
combines traces of natural, social, and economic history associated with the route.
The collaborative partners made use of a typical museum audio tour format to guide A third example points to the way in which artistic documentation or technical
listeners along the highway at their own pace. It includes analytical stories of people reproduction can become problematic for some artists, particularly when a copy or part
and communities in the area who were fighting for environmental justice along the I-5 copy is made available at times and in locations unimagined by the artist and therefore
corridor. The listener experience includes recorded music, oral histories, field recordings, potentially beyond direct control. For many different reasons, some artists distrust and
local sounds and archival audio documents accessed online at a website or downloaded even oppose the documentation or recording of their work. For example, a workplace or
for iPhone or Android apps for GPS-enabled mobile listening. public space intervention by an art activist that disrupts the quotidian experience of its
viewers is reduced in documentation to a skeletal, digitally packaged concept with visuals.
The elements that make up this work all exist within a network of relations that together Significant artistic and aesthetic qualities are inevitably depreciated.
constitute the entirety of the cultural object that is Invisible-5. It is unlikely that anyone
involved in making or encountering the work will have experienced its entirety and it is Anyone who experienced Tino Sehgal’s 2010 work, This Progress at the Guggenheim
impossible to determine the extent of the aesthetic impact on any local or global audience in New York (Fig. 4.) will understand the impossibility that any documentation can
since there is no evidence available. Nor is it possible to measure the quality of the new communicate the core experience of a participatory, social work of this type. Although it
knowledge produced by this intervention. Despite this, the Invisible-5 project was an was a shared experience between the ‘interpreters’ working for the artist and the visitors
inspirational model for Project Anywhere. The rich layers of documentation, interpretation to the museum, it remained, for each person, a unique distillation of prior knowledge,
21 ‘no man’s land, November
and other web-based contextualizing that exist around the concept are regarded as a expectation and personal engagement. Visitors were ushered up the vast empty spiral 2012,’ accessed August 4,
strong indication that ‘new knowledge’ was nonetheless communicated. Project Anywhere ramp of the museum by a series of guides, first a child, then a teenager, then an adult 2013, http://www.no-mans-
land.me/#!how-the-event-has-
has been set up as an experimental platform that can develop and test new forms of and finally an older person each of which ‘disappeared’ without trace as the transition unfolded/c5eo.

146 147
 took place leaving the visitor and the new guide in command of a unique, embryonic and
writing style, web format, image choice and quality).
ongoing conversation related to the idea of progress. Although this work appeared to have
a physical location, it was unquestionably without specific place or form—a quality that Artistic research practice and exhibition practice are the two interconnected frameworks
22 Project Anywhere Steering Sehgal understood implicitly. under examination here. Project Anywhere is a critical response to both of these
Committee (2012): Professor problematic contemporary issues—art AS research (artistic research) and the notion of
Brad Buckley, Associate Dean
(Research), Sydney College New and strangely expanded forms of symbolic territory, can, in some contexts, be the exhibit or exhibition as the primary product of artistic practice. Many practical and
of the Arts, The University of implied by the artistic object that questions the boundaries of the institution that contains theoretical questions have arisen in the process of designing and managing the launch of
Sydney, Australia; Professor
Su Baker, Director, Victorian it. Such art no longer adheres to any particular content that is necessarily distinctive from the project, which has opened up a valuable site for research and experimental methods
College of the Arts, Faculty of ordinary, everyday experience. What changes the commonplace into art is context and the
the VCA & Music, University
to be tested in the future as the project is consolidated.
of Melbourne, Australia; internalisation of the experience. This requires an inclination to be affected on the part of
Professor Richard Vella,
the audience; a willing appreciation of something experienced. Art’s alterity from non-art
Head of School, Drama, Fine
Art & Music, University of has been rejected in this process and the critique of these new distributed, networked Moving forward
Newcastle, Australia; Dr. Sean
Lowry, School of Drama, Fine
forms is also in a state of adaptation. Three lines of enquiry in particular will be drivers of research and development
Arts & Music, The University associated with the site. The first relates to the concept of distributed project
of Newcastle, Australia;
Associate Professor Nancy documentation. This is the relationship between official and informal material and the 24 Project Anywhere Advisory
de Freitas, School of
The challenge of new practices: Project Anywhere is born Committee (2013): Professor
Art and Design, AUT
opening out of archival and documentary environments and structures accessible as Su Baker, Director, Victorian
University, Auckland, New Project Anywhere was conceived and developed as one possible solution to some of the part of the aesthetic experience of contemporary work. There are implications for the College of the Arts, Faculty
Zealand; Mr. Ilmar Taimre,
Executive Consultant,
challenges presented in this paper. As Project Anywhere prepares for a second round maintenance of any digital archive that is expected to be true to the form and complexity of the VCA & Music,
University of Melbourne;
Independent Researcher/ of peer review toward the selection of its 2014 program, Nancy de Freitas and Sean of the work being produced. The second line of enquiry will focus on the quality of Mr. Ilmar Taimre, Executive
Virtual Musician, Consultant, Independent
Brisbane, Australia. Dr.
Lowry (the authors of this paper) have looked to the parallel task of documenting and documentation produced by and for artists working in the new genre. Project Anywhere Researcher/Virtual Musician;
Jocelyn McKinnon, School philosophically contextualising the evolution of its unique peer validation system. Prior is poised to play a significant, forward-looking and experimental role in the development Dr. Jocelyn McKinnon,
of Drama, Fine Arts & School of Creative Arts, The
Music, The University of to the development of this system, and based initially upon the founding concept of of new approaches to visual/textual documentation of contemporary practice. The third University of Newcastle;
Newcastle, Australia; Dr. Sean Lowry in 2011, Project Anywhere’s Steering Committee (2012)22 was formed with line of inquiry, and perhaps the most far-reaching, is reconsideration of the function and Associate Professor Nancy de
Andre Brodyk, School Freitas, School of Art and
of Drama, Fine Arts & a view to developing appropriate policy for the task of validating artistic research at the impact of critique in this new environment. Design, Auckland University of
Music, The University of outermost limits of location-specificity. After much consultation and debate, a unique Technology, New Zealand;
Newcastle, Australia; Dr. In recent years, tertiary art education and the artwork associated with higher education Dr. Sean Lowry, School of
Angela Philp, Deputy Head two-stage peer review process was developed. Accordingly, it was decided that a blind Creative Arts, The University
of School—Research, programmes (and graduates) has become a ‘product’ dominated by research paradigms of Newcastle, Australia;
peer review of project proposals would be used to determine which projects would
Drama, Fine Arts & and objectives with quantifiable, verifiable end results. The institutional requirement Professor Brad Buckley,
Music, The University of be hosted, whilst an open peer review of project outcomes would better suit the task Professor of Contemporary
Newcastle, Australia; Dr. Tony for documentation and evidence of research, and scientific models of peer validation, Art and Culture, Sydney
Schwensen, School of the
of deciding which projects would be finally archived as ‘validated research outcomes’. College of the Arts, The
has undoubtedly introduced a political dimension and a homogenizing effect on artistic
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, In concert with this task, a comprehensive set of evaluation criteria was developed. University of Sydney,
U.S.A. activity. Distinctive parallels emerge with marketing attitudes and productivity agendas Australia.
23 Project Anywhere Editorial
It was also emphasised that Project Anywhere should retain verification materials 25 1st Tbilisi Triennial, Offside
as we witness the loss of unfettered, open-minded, value seeking creative action.
Committee (2013): Professor to demonstrate that all evaluation criteria are met (these materials are archived for Effect, curated by Henk Slager
Brad Buckley, Professor Socially oriented, critical processes and work towards self-enlightenment or pure and Wato Tsereteli, Center
of Contemporary Art and external auditing). Once this two-stage peer-review policy was formulated, an Editorial of Contemporary Art, 10
experimental, speculative thinking may be in decline. In 2012, an interesting examination
Culture, Sydney College of Committee23 was formed to review all proposals that had successfully navigated the Dodo Abashidze Street, 0102
the Arts, The University of of this phenomenon took place at the 1st Tbilisi Triennial, Offside Effect,25 which was Tbilisi, Georgia, October19
Sydney; Professor Bruce peer-review process and select the final four projects for the 2013 program. Meanwhile, –November 20, 2012. Contact:
focused on the conceptual development of educational platforms that challenge the
Barber, Director MFA, School an Advisory Committee24 was formed in order to oversee the overall strategic direction of tbilisitriennial2012@gmail.
of Graduate Studies, Nova current prescriptive influence of the Bologna process in Europe. Artists and lecturers, com.
Scotia College of Art and Project Anywhere. 26 The Triennial exhibition
Design; Associate Professor, collaborating with groups of students from several selected experimental academies, included documentation from
Simone Douglas, Director, The first review and critique round resulted in a selection of works to be hosted on the attempted to open a window on their creative orientations and strategies for making Unitednationsplaza, by Anton
MFA Fine Arts, Parsons The Vidokle and Martha Rosler,
New School for Design, New site. With four projects and a live web presence, the site and its conceptual framework work. Much of the visitor experience of these works entailed: encounters of a discursive, an ‘exhibition as school’
York; Dr. Adam Geczy, Sydney was finally open to the scrutiny of the Project Anywhere committees. The digital critical or archival nature; interpretations of artistic freedom; collective, experimental, project intended to start as a
College of the Arts, The biennial (Manifesta 6, 2006),
University of Sydney; Dr. conditions of each art project’s web presence (text descriptions, image quality and links) bohemian and squatter action, and the idea of an exhibition functioning as a school in but eventually realised as
Sean Lowry, School of became the focus of the committees’ attentions and evaluative discussions are continuing an independent temporary
Creative Arts, The University
turn framed as a work of art.26 school in Berlin (October,
of Newcastle, Australia; Dr. on the value of: (1) higher quality visual and textual information on hosted works; (2) 2006). The work had a later
Les Joynes Visiting Associate
Professor of Art, Renmin
more comprehensive artist statements; (3) supportive texts by invited writers and/or In asserting that the art itself is not directly presented on the Project Anywhere website, reincarnation under the name
Night School at the New
University of China, Beijing. comments from external critics; and (4) advice for artists on quality documentation (good the idea that the art is to be somehow apprehended as existing elsewhere in space and Museum in New York, 2008-9.

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 time is implicated. To this end, the indexical information made available via the website In conclusion
functions to direct attention to a work existing somewhere else in space and time. The
potential remoteness or transience of some hosted projects will invariably mean that it is The conditions under which Project Anywhere was conceived are underpinned by a
difficult, and in some cases impossible, for all subjects in the intended audience to directly series of now long standing debates concerning the paradoxical conditions of artistic
apprehend the work. This raises the question of whether mediated apprehension is production, display and consumption. From the historical avant-gardes through
somehow a second-best experience. Given the ‘post retinal’ nature of much contemporary conceptualism and institutional critique, to new modes of exhibition, display and
practice, philosophical questions have arisen in a range of institutional contexts. In some performance across the global contemporary art spectrum, artistic researchers are
cases, these theoretical uncertainties have been developed into an artistic or curatorial increasingly aware of what Sabine Folie recently described as ‘the paradoxical insight that
premise. To cite one recent example, the artistic director of Documenta XIII (2012) total comprehension is impossible.’29 Engaging with this notion of incomprehensibility
Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev directly addressed the necessity of the relationship between has become a defining characteristic in the framing of artistic research. Moreover,
aesthetic and sense perception: ‘What does it mean to know things that are not physically the difficulty of adequately determining the edges of a creative work has meant that
perceivable to us through our senses? What is the meaning of the exercise of orienting in exegetical and paratextual elements are increasingly considered as necessary parts of a
thought toward these locations?’27 Accordingly, some Documenta XIII sites included in the creative work’s orbit. Expanded forms of symbolic territory are in many cases implied by
Kassel catalogue were actually located elsewhere on the globe. artistic objects and strategies that aim to problematise the boundaries that contain them.
The ongoing challenge that faces Project Anywhere is the question of how the veracity of
Other social experiences reinforce this notion that it is possible to build an aesthetic artistic documentation might accommodate these paradoxes in a way that is sympathetic
experience in the mind of an interpreter who does not directly sense a creative work. We to the contradictions characterizing much contemporary artistic practice, whilst also
sense many things vicariously, without direct experience. For example, many humans somehow being accountable to the institutional expectations of university-based
who have not experienced life in the wilderness may still hold strong political opinions research culture. Ultimately, perhaps what we are really proposing here is an institutional
about the value of an unvisited wilderness and have a personal attachment to the idea of acknowledgement that more and more contemporary artworks now appear to function
it. In this sense, simply knowing that it is there offers an experience profoundly different as a conduit for connecting the beholder to extra-perceptual networks of textures,
to a theoretical proposition. Consider, for example, the description of the six hundred events, meanings and associations—as opposed to simply evoking the more specific
thousand hectares of wilderness that constitute Southwest National Park (part of the phenomenological relationships that more orthodox forms of modernism once claimed to
Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area) provided on the Tasmania Parks and instantiate.
Wildlife website:
Within an expanded conception of art, it no longer necessarily makes sense to pinpoint
The park, the largest in Tasmania, epitomises the grandeur and spirit of wilderness a single fixed and immovable location or artefact as constituting the primary text 29 Sabine Folie, ‘unExhibit-
in its truest sense. Much of the park is remote and far removed from the hustle and underpinning a creative work. It is within these expanded conceptions of artistic practice Display and the Paradoxes
of Showing by Concealing’,
bustle of the modern world. For many, just the fact that such a place still exists brings that Project Anywhere seeks to offer a point of difference by simultaneously encouraging unExhibit, exhibition
solace.28 artist researchers to push against the edges of artistic practice and the specificities of catalogue, trans. Gerrit
Jackson (Wien: Generali
exhibition location whilst maintaining the specificities of ‘art as research’ via the process Foundation, 2011), 169. Folie
There are of course many other lived examples of things that we can potentially sense of peer validation. Project Anywhere enacts this point of difference using a website that concludes this catalogue
essay with a claim toward art
without resorting to direct experience. We do not, for example, necessarily need to directs attention toward an expanded conception of exhibition space that effectively that restitutes ‘imaginative
directly witness events ranging from sexual impropriety to genocide in order to be encapsulates the entire globe and beyond,30 whilst at the same time maintaining an space by a concealment that
paradoxically ‘shows’ while
reasonably convinced of their existence. Extra sensory information in the form of appropriately rigorous contextualizing framework for validating artistic practice as leaving behind a vestige that
research though a unique two-step peer validation model.31 As a new exhibition model, cannot be differentiated, that
substantial documentation can provide forms of validation that come close to (and in is neither entirely transparent
some cases supercede) direct sense experience. Continuing with this train of thought, Project Anywhere attempts to connect the phenomenological and aesthetic experience of and comprehensible
nor utterly opaque and
one of the reasons that Tehching Hsieh’s work arguably remains compelling is the way in apprehending art with the communication of new knowledge that comes from artistic comprehensible.’, 173.
which systematic documentation has enabled interpreters who did not directly witness activity framed as research. As a research platform, it promotes new and experimental 30 In 2013, Project Anywhere
27 Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, received its first proposal for
‘Introduction’, The his five One Year Performances in New York between 1978 and 1986 to build his works methods and combinations of documentation with a view to accommodating better a project designed to take
Guidebook, dOCUMENTA (13), aesthetically in the mind. Hsieh’s Time Clock Piece, for example, is validated by 366 time representations of artworks. As an academic publication, it facilitates the process of place in space (in this case
Catalogue 3/3 (Kassel: Hatje in lower earth orbit). This
Cantz, 2012), 7. cards, 366 filmstrips, signed witness statements, a record of missed punches, and a 16mm critique and validation for this rising form of artistic practice. How this experimental proposal is currently awaiting
28 ‘Southwest National Park: time-lapse film. Consequently, Hsieh’s performances arguably provide a profoundly project serves the artistic/research community of the future will depend on the openness peer evaluation.
Introduction’, Tasmania 31 Project Anywhere ‘Peer
Parks and Wildlife, accessed different kind of comprehension of concepts central to the mechanics of capitalism, of the researchers involved and the care taken to manage the development of the project Evaluation Policy,’ accessed
November 14, 2012, .http:// within a robust and ethical framework. 12 October 12, 2013, http://
www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.
surveillance, production, control, discipline and submission than might be possible within projectanywhere.net/peer-
aspx?base=3801. a more traditional theoretical or philosophical argument. review.

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