What’s the difference between R+D and formal research?

In my work, R+D is a period of exploration of possibilities for an artistic concept, or very early-phase development of an artwork. Sometimes we are figuring out mechanical things; exploring digital options; or running exploratory workshops with performers, artists or test audience based on a first artistic hunch or idea. Doing this is a core part of my artistic process, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I am engaged in a more formal, academically-ready research-creation project. Rather, I am following my artistic intuition, and playing with possible processes for making, while helping myself (or our team) dream up and imagine artistic outcomes. Sometimes R+D ends up in an idea for a formal finished artwork of some kind, and sometimes it doesn’t - maybe because funding wasn’t achieved for the next phase, or maybe because the R+D generated such unusual and/or impractical possibilities that we can’t make a direct artistic product out of this phase. An example is the R+D for Touching the Voice Inside Out. These concepts for artworks did not get made, but they generated the whole further strand of artworks involved with the research strand Voice-Styling.

More formal practice-inclusive research processes, which I often call research-creation, or artistic research, involves linking this kind of R+D, the resultant artistic production, and evaluation of what the artworks ‘do’, with research questions that help me communicate discoveries and insights distilled from the artistic, audience engagement, or aesthetic process. Often, my formal research-creation processes generate seminars, publications, dissemination workshops, or other forms of communication of ideas in more academic contexts.

(image underlays: collaborator Kingsley Ash at work during the R+D phase of Curious Replicas)