ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to address the methodological challenges emerging from the previous two chapters. What are the implications of our ‘dyadic’ theory of art for arts-based research practices and other transdisciplinary work with art? This brings us into the heart of an important debate within these fields: the difficult question of quality, the place of aesthetic merit within arts practices. Bluntly put, does art need to be good to be useful? Here we outline a particular position on preserving the priorities of aesthetic merit within transdisciplinary arts practices, an attempt, that is, to preserve the conditions by which art might still strive for quality even within its relations to other non-aesthetic interests and objectives.
