Inventing Methodologies is a series of conferences designed to provide a platform for the discussion of the novel and highly-contested notion of practice-based research in art practice.

Practice-based researchers are faced with a dual challenge. The first is the intrinsically bifurcated nature of a research project composed of a written element in conjunction with a practical element. The second is the interdisciplinarity inherent in writing art. These structural complexities are also an enduring characteristic of the practice/theory relationship.

What constitutes research in the context of practice-based PhD? What is the relationship between research and art practice? Is the written element also a practice requiring its own set of competencies? Indeed, how many practices are involved in practice-based research?

Can the tension between theory and practice provide one way to unravel methodological processes? Does the reflexive monitoring of empathic or ‘obsessive’ research strategies in fact generate the discourse and criticality of the project? Is it possible to outstrip the criteria of legitimation by setting tailor-made criteria for research objectives?

Inventing Methodologies provides the opportunity to unravel these processes and the incentive to articulate these personal avenues by encouraging discussions on the possibilities of practice-based research.

For further information please visit http://www.gold.ac.uk/visual-arts/im/