Towards New Grammars of Knowledge

In this article we argue that art- and design-based research hold a potential for proposing new knowledge models that are much needed in contemporary society. By taking this approach, we aim to contribute to the current contestations of the value and scientific status of practice-based art and design research. Taking our point of departure in a friction between scale-based metrics for validating new knowledge and the experience-based, imaginative foundation of art- and design-based practices, we look further into the modes of knowing that are specific for art and design research. By employing John Dewey’s notion of primary experience and Donna Harraway’s concept of ‘worlding practice’ we propose that what art and design research contributes to an established territory of academic research is the capacity for engaging with ‘the possible’ as a way of configuring the relation between time, space and event.