Visual Research

Disseminating Visual Research

This paper explores the potential of different art practices to affect the field of visual research. The paper is written to researchers as a request for the incorporation of more creative ways of presenting information.

This paper explores the potential of different art practices to affect the field of visual research. The essay is formulated around Marquad Smith’s book “What is Research in the Visual Arts: Obsession, Archive and Encounter”, where he asks the question “How might other models of research from other fields and disciplines influence and shape the future of visual research?  Donal O’Donoghue provides examples by focusing on the works of artists Tacita Dean and Willie Doherty. In analyzing their works he ties to find understanding and meaning, and also discusses the strengths of their different approaches.

Starting with Tacita dean, O’Donoghue focuses on one of her works from 2005, Presentation Sisters. The documentary-style film follows the lives of the last five nuns in the Presentation convent of Ireland. Dean says that she was intent on recording and representing whatever decided to show itself on the three days in which she was recording. Her initial plan of documenting a story of one of the nun’s missing  graves turned out to be a misunderstanding and after this was when she decided to switch her focus to the nuns in the convent. The words used by O’Donoghue to describe the film are “organic” and “unplanned”. He notes that usefulness for her project being used for visual research for those interested in studying specific populations.  on the surface / many layers of meaning

The next piece, created by Willie Doherty, Same Difference, highlights a time in Irish history called The Troubles. O’Donoghue notes this time period as being a moment of an increasing divide of political identities along religious lines. Doherty’s piece focuses on icon Donna Maguire, allegedly a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. His installation piece consists of two projectors, positioned so that their screen and shown at opposite diagonals of the darkened room they are shown in. The screens depict a tightly cropped image of Maguire’s face where Periodically words appear on the screen taken from the press, adjective such as “misguided, pitiless, and evil appear on one, with words like “volunteer and honourable on the other. As interpreted by O’Donoghue, the work is a play on the divides in society as well as the uncomfortable and temporary space in between the two opposing sides. The benefits of this medium as listed by the author are that it, being installation art, is naturally immersive and has capability experience through all of the senses.  Similar to Dean’s work, the piece is neutral and lets the viewer draw their own judgement, making it an experience.

O’Donoghue concludes this paper with a an installation he created named “Safe Distance” where he plays with the juxtaposition of word and image as he documents the role of masculinity in the training of male college students. It is with this that the highlights how artists often call attention to thing that would normally go unnoticed. The examples he listed in this essay are to be seen as examples for researches in finding more imaginative ways to present their information while also promoting creative thinking.