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Artistic research suggests alternative methods for producing various kinds of knowledge, whether within or without the confines of academe. These methods may involve either the production of investigative artworks or the writing by the artist of a doctoral dissertation about his or her own work. For cultural researchers, the methods employed by artists engaged in these processes are both familiar and challenging, as conventional ethnography is mixed with more unpredictable experiments. This article presents several contemporary artworks, including sculpture, film, dance, installation and performance that explore various aspects of reality. What can be learnt from these works? And what could be achieved by an open exchange between artists and academic researchers? Four methodological approaches are highlighted as being of particular interest. The first relates to artists’ tendency to live experimentally, using themselves both as actors and as research objects. The second arises from the very tangible ways in which contemporary artworks approach the theme of materiality. The third relates to the emotional nature of much of contemporary art – even when it is categorised as conceptual – in its creation, forms of presentation, and influence on the spectator. Finally, many artists are gifted with the ability to find and communicate surprising meanings in ordinary life. How do they do this? Part of the answer seems to be that although artists are open to the implementation of “wild whims”, they exploit their spontaneity in a highly professional manner.

Two old houses by the sea have made me an enthusiastic do-it-yourself man, performing manual work of different kinds. Switching between writing and manual DIY can be experienced as moving between separate realities, where body and mind are employed in different ways. Using autoethnography as a starting point I observe myself performing manual tasks, using various tools. Being an acting subject as well as an observed object I then try to capture complex events in written words. In this process the differences as well as the similarities between building and writing become clearer. For example, the questions of involvement, troubleshooting and aesthetics are crucial in both activities. You have to be mentally present, think hard and be concerned about the look of your result. The reality of manual work is linguistically organized. It is symbolically constructed, learned and communicated. Accomplishing DIY-projects you also need to acquire a tacit knowledge residing in your body. This tension or cooperation between hands, tools and brain seems to be more evident in manual work than in writing. Another difference is that in DIY there are ready-made answers. While building, for example a wood shed, mostly is a linear process where you pretty well in advance know the result, writing can take you almost anywhere. But in the end, switching between these activities, using different tools and senses, has integrated them with each other in everyday life as repeated struggles to create something valid.

The Averted Woman – Subjectivity in Interpretations of Pictures

Having collected seventy-six photographs and paintings of women seen from behind the author is reflecting on the meaning of this motive. Why have the photographers and the painters, mostly men from four centuries, chosen to represent the women by their backs? Are the women just (secretly) observed from behind, or are they actively turning away from the gaze of the onlooker? The author decides for the second interpretation and makes a connection to experiences of averted women in his own childhood and marriages. The conclusive question is: How subjective may a cultural researcher be doing reflexive interpretations?