The known world

Abstract

This essay examines the dual consciousness that needs to be activated when the creative artsare used as the basis for scholarly research. In an academic tradition that has alwaysprioritised analysis and critical distance, how and why should we generate, value andcommunicate the intimately involved and embodied knowledge—the tacit knowledge wonfrom active experience—that often develops in the experimental and iterative practicesdeployed by artists? How can tacit knowledge be usefully explicated and communicated?And is there any chance these two cognitive modes can inform and enrich each other—theimplicit and the explicit?