In her essay “Lighting from the Side, Rhetoric and Artistic Research”[1], Aslaug Nyrnes suggests a model for discussing artistic research from a rhetorical point of view (Nyrnes, 2006). Adopting a position between classical rhetoric (you know what you say and why you are saying it) and new rhetoric (you know that you do not know what you are saying and why you are saying it), she points to language as being not only a communicator of findings, but also as being embedded in the entire research process.
It is important that rhetoric includes both logical and artistic language and recognises that there are no definite borders between or clear classifications of these different types of language. Nyrnes points to the fact that there will always be verbal language connected to the research process, but that verbal language and the “language of the art” could never be interchangeable (cf. Nyrnes, 2006, pp. 6-7).
In this perspective, the verbalising of an artistic research project is not primarily a way of presenting it, but also a means for understanding and developing it further. This has also been my experience, i.e. that language is a tool for me in this process.
[1] Nyrnes,Aslaug: Lighting from the side, Bergen National Academy of the Arts, Bergen 2006