Text reading seminar at the course – Aesthetic-Based Qualitative Research – which I follow at Stockholm University (see also Archives/January 2009).

Is there really a difference between art and research? I bring the question to the course.

– Art appeals to feeling, is one answer I get. Oh, I’d love to have it that way… but I cannot really hold it to be simple like that. Art  is largely conceptual, and has always been – at least visual arts, ever since cave paintings.

– Research is systematical,  is another answer. Well, that sounds convincing at first. But then – what about (for instance) the work of Claude Monet? There are artists just as dedicated as the best of researchers in the pursuit of one theme.

– Art is mediated by sensual experience, would be my first attempt to answer myself. As if not research – or any kind of message – is… Tricky one, this.

“Ethos anthropoi daimon” (Heraclitus; and here I will not even attempt to choose a translation among the infinite number of possible ones)… I’ll try another approach; how does my inner attitude change, from making art to doing research? Or, does it?