Inherently interdisciplinary: Four perspectives on practice-based research

I review four book-length studies of practice-based research: Carter (2004); Gray and Malins (2004); Hannula, Suoranta and Vadén (2005); and Sullivan (2005). I outline the positions adopted by each of the books on the nature and scope of practice-based research and assess the extent to which they present clear, coherent and applicable accounts. A thesis present in all four books, I argue, is that art is uniquely placed to generate research on account of its being inherently interdisciplinary, that is to say, art in and of itself involves combining different subjects and methods. However, while all four books set out perspectives and methods relevant to this view, none provides a fully worked-out theory. Carter (2004) and Sullivan (2005) offer the most explicit and sustained studies of interdisciplinarity, but omit to say precisely how it generates knowledge. Interdisciplinarity is hinted at by Hannula, Suoranta and Vadén (2005) and by Gray and Malins (2004) as being crucial to artistic research, but the idea is not pursued. I demonstrate briefly how Kant's theory of knowledge can go some way towards filling the gap left by the four books in the interdisciplinary debate. On his view, concepts determine the content of experience, and the interdisciplinary tension between concepts creates occasions for reality to surprise us and new observations to be made.