Basic Research in Art: Foundational Problems in Fashion Design Explored through the Art Itself

Thornquist, C. (2014) . Fashion Practice, 6(1): 37–58.

This paper explores foundational problems in art and design in order to understand the theoretical levels of art as a practice where art is un- derstood as the function of technê and mimesis in an Aristotelian sense. This definition of art is here used as the principal category for design. As an alternative to applied research in art and design, e.g. through integra- tive studies of social science, the aim of the paper is to present basic research problems and principle research results in art based on exam- ples from fashion design relating to issues of body, dress and space. The motive for the exploration is to develop art and design as a particular and independent field of practice in the sense of art research resulting in theoretic propositional knowledge for its own domain through the finite formation of concrete material itself (e.g. acts and artifacts). As such the aim of the paper is neither to continue to expand on the past fifty years of design science, nor is it to develop new perspectives on the past two centuries of developments in aesthetics as a social construct. Instead the aim is to explore fundamental principle issues that are overlooked in the dominant theoretic discourse in fashion design as an art form inde- pendently from notions on design science (methodology) and socially constructed aesthetics (contexts).

In order to explore and define a number of fundamental principle issues in art and design a number of contemporary and historical works in clothing and fashion design that concern the functional and expres- sional relationship between body and dress are explored from funda- mental ontological and logical perspectives. Some of these examples are more particular to fashion design (e.g. exploring definitions of garments or developments of new constructions systems for new expressions), while others are more general to expressional issues in relation to body and dress (e.g. exploring form, material and substance, structural prin- ciples or systems interaction in relation to body and dress). Together, they indicate principle research issues in art that are necessary for the theoretic development for the field itself as an academic discipline. As an alternative to art and design research outcomes in the form of descriptive and generalizing aesthetic contextualizations, and independ- ently from validating design methods, the paper demonstrates both the possibility and the significance of constructing formal, syntactic and logic in art and design for the field’s own theoretic development. Moreo- ver the ontological and logical challenges explored also demonstrate the importance of basic research in art and design in order to explore and define fundamental a priori principles, models and methods to develop the different fields of art and design themselves, instead of merely using processes and artifacts of art and design to supplement research which is primarily for the benefit of other academic fields.

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