Seventeenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

This paper is based on an article to be published in the 2022 Summer edition of Arts Research International (ARi). The subject matter arose out of my PhD study Entanglement Matters where I combined autoethnographic accounting with visual arts practice. In the PhD study I set out to explore geometry through visual art practice for ways to contribute to interdisciplinary knowledge, with geometry acting as a bridge between art and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Visual arts practices favours non-linear exploration in research, whilst autoethnography offers self-reflection. I discovered that writing an autoethnographic account for an artwork has the potential to generate a wealth of data, some of which is visible, some of which is not. The invisible data becomes available only when the artist speaks to/writes about the artwork. If some content/context of a visual artwork is only visible through background information provided by the art maker, this discovery troubles another issue concerning our notions of what a good visual artwork is. Finally, I test this article’s autoethnographic authenticity against Adam’s four characteristics of autoethnography.