Some of the topics that I will be covering in this article are related to conversations I have had with my supervisor. I am also including other important information about my thought process, artistic decisions, and artistic direction. I will begin with a quotation from Clive Cazeaux’s book Art, Research, Philosophy, which succinctly encapsulates what artistic research entails:

“[…] As Kjørup has argued, the idiosyncratic dimension of art practice is one of the most valuable sources of novelty in artistic research because it can produce forms that display an unconventional mode of thinking. If the artist is not allowed to follow their own intuition in the production of work, no matter how idiosyncratic (singular, unique) their judgement might be, but has to adhere to external decisions, a compromise must be made between intuition and epistemology, with the result being a work that does not fully display the artist’s vision. […] Whether one is working with a research question or with materials, both introduce ideas and properties to the project. As work proceeds, an account must be made of the fact that new facets of enquiry emerge from manipulation. The issue here is what the artist-researcher chooses to allow into the artistic research process and what they decide to exclude on the grounds that it is not part of art. […] In response to the critics who assert that enquiry itself is antagonistic to art practice, I would say that the matter hinges upon the extent to which the artist wants their art practice to be open to the challenges, methods, and technologies that take the artist beyond their conventional or preferred working practices. A lack of openness is driven primarily by assumptions that whatever research methods are introduced will be antithetical to the artistic process or to the poetic possibilities it can generate. But this can be challenged.”

It can be difficult, as a researcher, to define Fine Art as a subject, as it encompasses many art movements, each with its own paradigm. Therefore, for a while, it was challenging for me to define my subject of research. However, I knew from the start that a purely practice-based research approach would not be sufficient on its own, and I wanted to incorporate elements of philosophy and art history into the project. Because I strongly consider my work to be academically driven, it was important not to focus too heavily on the final outcome of the research. I am making art in response to a chosen enquiry, which will generate new epistemologies. Indeed, art is a mechanical tool for the experimentation of intellectual ideas and concepts—a source of new knowledge and theory. One of the main reasons for using art in academic research is to benefit and expand art itself. This was quite a difficult concept for me to grasp initially.

In contrast to more physical media (clay, wood, drawing, etc.), which have inherent properties, CGI is a less well-known and less defined medium. Another parameter of my research was to understand queer studies and theory as separate ideologies that laid the foundation for a new era in queer culture: homonormativity.

Inquiry:

The project enquiry is to identify existing artefacts that (1) exist in their own archaeological context and are not explicitly related to queer history—I will refer to these as objects from the “real world.” (2) However, due to their strong aesthetic qualities, the challenge is to justify that they belong in a contextualised queer discourse. I refer to this interpretative process as queer filtering, since it inherently involves subjectivity. Therefore, the aim is to discover as many artefacts as possible and to filter (or cover) them with my own subjective interpretation. I have also refined the inquiry to include artefacts that convey meanings beyond the purely physical or sexual—such as love, respect, passion, torment, and lust.

An important point that I discussed with my supervisor was the difference between real artefacts and imitations. As an artist, I will choose to generate metaphors through the use of materials, whether representing real artefacts or replicas. Thus, it was important to clarify my intentions: if I were dealing with authentic artefacts, the materials used in the exploration should be coherent with that intention—e.g., terracotta, wood, metal, etc. If the purpose of the research were to educate the general public about queer history, I could instead use plaster casts, painted maquettes, or archaeological-style sections.

In a previous meeting, we also discussed the reinterpretation of queer history using queer materials. For instance, the most obvious visual language associated with queer art is camp. Materials that best express camp include gold lamé, glitter, bright colours, and kitsch patterns.

It was difficult to make a definitive decision on whether, as an intellectual, I am creating art to expand the legacy of a specific queer study (history of art), or whether, as an artist, I am contributing to the expansion of art itself (Queer Art). The issues are as follows:
(1) The artefacts from the "real world" that I selected for this investigation were sourced from books written by queer art historians, e.g., Christopher Reed, James Smalls, Dominique Fernandez. It would therefore make sense that if knowledge is expressed through these artefacts, the 3D replicas should be as faithful as possible to the originals. A coherent metaphor, then, would be a reinterpretation of historical artefacts as filtered through the lens of queer art historians.
(2) However, these still-living postmodern art historians used their own subjectivity to analyse the artefacts—they are expressing personal views in their justification of why these artefacts belong in a queer discourse.
(3) I am studying Fine Art, and that is also an important criterion for this investigation. I do not think that using CGI alone is sufficient to expand and benefit art. I thought I could merge different visual languages, such as curated exhibitions (a source of knowledge) with CGI (another form of knowledge). Museums, for instance, have borrowed elements such as mise-en-scène, lighting, and the effect of curated exhibitions from the art world.
(4) Materials (mediums) are very important in Fine Art—they are the site of knowledge—and this is something I could not ignore. I came to the conclusion that investigating a queer visual language (camp) through artefacts will serve as a bridge between art and queer history. Like the queer art historians before me, I am using subjectivity to analyse these artefacts. Therefore, altering and transforming these artefacts is how I will contribute to the expansion and benefit of art.

Activists, through learning, excavate information during the research process—information which includes context. As we saw in my research, in archaeology, the site is the context, and the stratum that archaeologists analyse and study is also context. If I were to draw a parallel with my own practice, throughout this long research process—nearly two years—I have gathered a tremendous amount of data concerning queer identity and history. These 3D images, in a sense, have come to embody all the historical knowledge I have uncovered. Ultimately, this becomes a statement: a legitimate claim to the title of queer researcher.