"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts;
but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties."
—Francis Bacon (1605) The Advancement of Learning, Book 1, v, 8
What about a woman? What will she begin with, and what shall she end in?
In art, if you know what the outcome will be, it’s like useless science—repeating experiments you know will turn out a certain way. It doesn’t have a genuine question. It doesn’t advance anything—it doesn’t advance you as an artist. I think it was Neil Postman who said that when you teach, you should never ask your students a question to which you already know the answer (
Teaching as a Subversive Activity, 1969).
Art begins with a question. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like a question.
Why does this clock gear fit exactly into that particular key of a saxophone? Is there any meaning to it at all, or is it simply coincidental? What if the pattern isn’t random? Is there a sort of Fibonacci sequence in the world of manmade objects, such that certain shapes and sizes appear in different places? If so, what’s its origin? Does it all trace back to natural limitations that are shaped by things like whatever causes the Fibonacci sequence? The size of a human hand, for example. How heavy a bucket a person can carry. If there is an extension of natural laws and patterns into the mechanical world (which there must be), what is it’s shape? If I were to draw it, what would it look like? Would it be beautiful? I don’t know enough to trace it backwards to its origins, but I find the data about correspondences interesting and full of questions. I am a bad scientist, though. I collect the data randomly, unsystematically. Through intuition, blind trial.
Is bad science better art? If you stick with a very narrow question and plan your experiments coolly to collect small bits of data—if you stick narrowly with one style, medium, method—does it advance art? Or is it the leaps that seem strange, that you resist even though they pull you, that may turn out to be terrible mistakes—is it those leaps that the “front” of the brain can’t quite explain or even follow that move you forward? If you think to yourself, “What was I thinking! I must be completely insane to think this could ever get anywhere!” is that an indication that you’re on the right track?
But if you leap without reflection, where do you get? If you enshrine the incomprehensible leaping of the “back” brain, the nonlinear brain, do you just end up with alienation and chaos?
So the question is important, even if it is never articulated. It sets, however vaguely or opaquely, the direction of the leaping dance. It’s very difficult to ask a really good question. You have to question the question. Is it worth asking? Does it have any relevance to anyone but you? Are you willing to question deeply and question your methods, your integrity?
Qualitative research, research to collect data that goes beyond counting (quantifying) things, involves subjectivity, the unacknowledged currents running underneath every bit of science. What are my desires and compulsions? What has shaped them? Can I possibly understand how they shape my every action? And the confusion sometimes is in returning to the world after pursuing subjectivity (or perhaps in pursuing subjectivity deeply enough to reach the larger issues and patterns), because it’s not all about me. It’s not about self-indulgence. I’m simply an instrument of the research, however imperfect, however exquisite. How do I understand myself as an instrument of research? How do I learn to use myself, like a paint brush or a printing press, or a centrifuge, or a distillery? I know I am an instrument that cannot use all its working parts if it is strictly controlled or limited to what is linear. I know if I trust the darkness, it will bring light, just like the raven in the tale. Question more deeply, and then more deeply. Part of the research process is to enter the chaos and not give up until you get to the other side. Which doesn’t always look like the land of answers.
