ABSTRACT
The immanent researcher is a concept found throughout the practice-asresearch approaches to research by this author.1 This is found particularly in experiential methods, which may include being a maker, performer, programmer, designer or artist. Immanence in this case refers to the researcher situated within practice-as-research, rather than an outside or transcending view of research. However, this position is not necessarily static or permanent throughout research. Within this position of the immanent researcher there is a spectrum of roles in which the researcher engages, particularly within arts practice-as-research. At one end, this spectrum reflects that researchers may have an external view to an artwork or creative process, and at the other the research is entrenched within the work with an internal view. Each has a valid relationship to the practice and rarely operates separate to another position taken up by the researcher. This chapter will briefly look at the philosophical concepts that support the immanent researcher, as well as explore a practice-as-research project around dance and video technology which utilises this concept as part of the research process. This range of relationships to the practice in the research relates to Deleuze and Guattari’s (1988) use of the word ‘plane’. In their discussion of the plane of immanence, their definition of plane refers to a geometric plane as well as a plan (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988, xvii). When considering a plane in geometry, many propositions may be used to describe relationships to the plane. The researcher may be in, on, around, outside or under the plane. Each position will allow new views of the relationships within the research. While one end of the spectrum allows for internal views of the research, the other end puts the researcher outside of the work. Because of the multiplicity of roles the researcher undertakes within the practical studies, the spectrum may be fully used throughout the research. Sometimes many roles occur at once in order to produce the understanding of how this arts practice may be created and received. A spectrum of positions of the researcher within art practice helps to define the potential viewpoints and assumptions within research, and may help to define the interrelations of viewpoints. These may include the relationships between creator, performer, audience or participant. When
working with complex interrelationships, there is a difference that cannot always be discovered through one static point of view. ‘The difference between two planes accounts for the fact that what cannot be perceived on one cannot but be perceived on the other’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988, 173). A multiplicity of views helps to account for the understanding of complex ideas, but also the relationships which may only be created from an internal point of view. Transcending research, particularly in the arts, does not necessarily allow for better understanding of composition or aesthetics. This understanding of composition from inside the plane of composition permits the researcher to further understand the concepts found in practice-as-research, such as time, movement or space. To experience these spaces and movements from a multiplicity of views may be valued over the external view in arts practice-as-research. The creation of composition within artwork that utilises technology reflects Deleuze and Guatarri’s plane of composition. This is at times best observed from the inside of the creative process or within the artwork. ‘But on the other plane, the plane of immanence or consistency, the principle of composition itself must be perceived, cannot but be perceived at the same time as that which composes it’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988, 310). Sometimes a significant moment within an artwork or practice-asresearch project happens whilst within an artistic process or work. ‘Everything is different on the plane of immanence, which is necessarily perceived in its own right in the course of its construction’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988, 313).
