Research Based Artwork

 That's a fantastic topic! Given your background in Digital Multimedia Design and your skills in painting and drawing, exploring research-based artwork is very relevant to how you can develop your own creative practice.

Research-based artwork (often called Arts-Based Research or Artistic Research) is a diverse field, but it generally refers to artistic practices grounded in a rigorous process of inquiry. The art itself is the outcome and/or the means of research, rather than just being a decorative representation of existing knowledge.

Here is a breakdown of the key elements, methodologies, and connection to your studies:

🔍 Core Concepts of Research-Based Artwork

| Feature | Description |

|---|---|

| Art as Inquiry | The artistic process (making the art) is a primary way of understanding, examining, and creating new knowledge about a subject. |

| Methodology | Artists often borrow methodologies from academic fields like history, social sciences, or science (e.g., archival research, interviews, fieldwork, systematic observation, experimentation). |

| Outcome | The research findings are transformed into an artwork (painting, installation, digital media, performance, etc.) that communicates complex ideas, rather than a formal written paper. |

| Subjectivity | It seeks to understand and articulate the subjectivity of human experience, often dealing with complex truths that connect the experiential with historical or objective knowledge. |

🎨 Methodologies and Approaches

Research in this context is broad and can take many forms:

 * Practice-Led Research (PLR): The art practice itself is a method of inquiry. For example, a drawing series created with specific constraints to investigate perception.

 * A/R/Tography: This methodology blends Art, Research, and Teaching (or Theory). It focuses on the transformative relationships between making, research, and theory to inform the public on various issues.

 * Archival/Historical Research: The artist delves into archives, historical documents, or specific cultural phenomena and transforms those findings into a visual, digital, or physical output.

 * Scientific Collaboration: Artists work with scientists or use scientific concepts and tools (like biology, physics, or data) as the material or inspiration for their work.

 * Community-Based Participatory Research: The artist engages with a community to explore their lived experiences, using the art-making process as a way for participants to generate and communicate knowledge.

💡 Connection to Your Digital Multimedia Design Major

In your field, research-based artwork can be incredibly powerful:

 * Data Visualization as Art: You could research complex social or environmental data (like water quality, migration patterns, or local history) and create an interactive multimedia installation or a series of digital paintings that make that data visceral and understandable to an audience.

 * Experiential Design: Researching user behavior, psychology, or specific cultural narratives to design an immersive digital experience (AR/VR, interactive web piece) that communicates a new understanding.

 * Historical/Cultural Projects: Given your hometown of Lower Burrell PA and current residence in Leechburg PA, you could conduct research into the local industrial history, forgotten narratives, or community memory and translate that into a digital storytelling project or short film.

🖼️ Examples of Artists

While "research-based" describes a process, many notable artists use it:

 * Katie Paterson: Works with scientists and philosophers to create conceptual pieces that deal with deep time, geography, and astronomy. (e.g., Future Library).

 * Mark Dion: Often functions as a quasi-scientist/naturalist, conducting "fieldwork" and creating installations that resemble museum-style cabinets of curiosity to critique scientific methods of display and knowledge.

 * Allora & Calzadilla: Their work often involves extensive geopolitical or historical research, turning complex issues into large-scale, often performative, sculptures and films.

Would you be interested in exploring some digital media artists who use a strong research component, or would you like to focus more on how research applies to painting and drawing?