Methodology
This research adopts a practice-based methodological framework in which artistic production functions as a primary mode of inquiry into the ontological and perceptual status of time, with particular focus on the proposition that the present moment does not exist as a stable entity. The methodology is situated at the intersection of visual art, philosophy, phenomenology, and scientific models of temporality, operating through an iterative, reflexive, and experimentally driven process. As Linda Candy and Ernest Edmonds argue, “research in the arts seeks to generate new knowledge through creative practice” (Candy & Edmonds, 2018). Within this framework, artistic practice is understood not as illustration but as an epistemological system capable of generating forms of knowledge unavailable through purely discursive or analytical methods.
The project is grounded in a practice-based research paradigm in which knowledge emerges through the reciprocal interaction between artistic production and critical reflection. The artworks function as epistemic instruments that investigate temporal instability through material and perceptual operations. Henk Borgdorff suggests that “artistic research seeks not only to interpret the world, but also to reveal what cannot be disclosed in any other way” (Borgdorff, 2012). This principle is central to the methodology, particularly in projects documented in the research journal, including the slow-motion video of a performative painting action, in which a red horizontal line is gradually applied across a canvas, and the longitudinal photographic documentation of a fixed site (“Danger Soft Mud”), repeatedly captured over extended durations. In both cases, the works do not merely represent time but intervene in its perception, transforming artistic practice into a form of experimental investigation.
A crucial aspect of the methodology is the recognition that practice-based research is not unidirectional. The researcher does not remain external to the research process; rather, the subject of investigation actively reshapes the perception, decisions, and conceptual framework of the researcher. This reciprocal structure aligns with Donald Schön’s theory of reflective practice, in which “the practitioner allows himself to experience surprise, puzzlement, or confusion in a situation which he finds uncertain or unique” (Schön, 1983). In this sense, the artworks themselves generate methodological feedback, influencing subsequent actions, interpretations, and theoretical developments.
The methodology therefore assumes a dynamic interaction between observer and observed. The research process becomes a temporal exchange in which the act of investigating time alters the researcher’s own temporal consciousness. This reflexive structure resonates strongly with Brad Haseman’s concept of performative research, where “practice is both the method and the outcome of the research process” (Haseman, 2006). The artistic experiments do not simply produce results; they transform the conceptual conditions under which the research continues.
This reciprocal interaction is especially evident in the slow-motion painting video. Initially conceived as an investigation into duration and continuity, the work gradually altered the researcher’s own perception of temporal flow. Through repeated viewing and manipulation, the filmed gesture ceased to appear continuous and instead fragmented into micro-temporal intervals. The research process therefore generated a perceptual feedback loop in which the investigation itself transformed the phenomenological experience of time. Robin Nelson emphasises this condition in practice-as-research methodologies, arguing that “knowledge emerges through an iterative process of doing, reflecting, and re-doing” (Nelson, 2013). The methodology of the present research operates precisely through this cyclical structure of action and reflexive transformation.
The research follows a non-linear and iterative structure in which each artistic experiment generates new conceptual problems. The line-painting video initially explores duration and continuity, yet through temporal dilation the action becomes perceptually diffuse, making it impossible to isolate a singular “present” moment. This instability leads to further investigations in the fixed-point photographic series, where repeated captures of the same location reveal that every image is already temporally displaced from the moment it attempts to record. Maurice Merleau-Ponty observed that “time is not a line but a network of intentionalities” (Merleau-Ponty, 1962), a concept reflected in the methodological structure of the project, where each work emerges from the temporal incompleteness of the previous one.
The methodology employs artistic strategies as controlled experimental systems. Slow-motion video reveals micro-temporal structures that remain imperceptible in real-time experience, while sequential photography produces temporal differentiation through repetition and accumulation. Performative gestures, such as the act of drawing a line, function simultaneously as measurable actions and unstable temporal events. This approach resonates with Gilles Deleuze’s argument that “repetition changes nothing in the object repeated, but does change something in the mind which contemplates it” (Deleuze, 1994). Repetition in the project therefore becomes not a reproduction of sameness but a mechanism through which temporal instability emerges both in the artwork and in the consciousness of the researcher.
This reciprocal methodological condition can also be understood through Tim Ingold’s conception of making and material engagement. Ingold argues that “to make is to join with the flow of materials” (Ingold, 2013). In the context of this research, the artist does not impose fixed meaning onto time-based processes but enters into a responsive interaction with temporal phenomena themselves. The work evolves through negotiation between intention, material resistance, duration, recording technologies, and perceptual transformation.
Time itself is systematically manipulated as an experimental variable. The temporal stretching of the painting action destabilises the perception of simultaneity, while fixed-interval photographic recordings expose discontinuities between recorded moments. Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology of internal time-consciousness is particularly relevant here, especially his assertion that “the now is always surrounded by horizons of retention and protention” (Husserl, 1991). The methodology tests this proposition empirically by demonstrating that the present cannot be isolated without immediately transforming into memory or anticipation. Every recorded image becomes structurally retrospective.
The practical work is continuously interpreted through a theoretical framework drawing on philosophy of time, phenomenology, cinematic temporality, and physics. Henri Bergson’s distinction between measurable clock time and lived duration is fundamental to the project. Bergson writes that “pure duration is the form which the succession of our conscious states assumes when our ego lets itself live” (Bergson, 1910). This conception informs the slow-motion video works, where temporality ceases to function as measurable succession and instead becomes experiential density. Similarly, Carlo Rovelli destabilises conventional notions of temporal continuity through the proposition that “the world is not a collection of things, it is a collection of events” (Rovelli, 2018). This idea directly supports the methodological proposition that the present cannot exist as a stable entity because reality itself is event-based and relational.
A particularly important influence on the methodology is the cinematic philosophy of Andrei Tarkovsky. Tarkovsky’s concept of “sculpting in time” provides a crucial theoretical and methodological parallel to the project’s investigation of temporal instability. In Sculpting in Time, Tarkovsky argues that “the image becomes authentically cinematic when not only does it live within time, but time also lives within it” (Tarkovsky, 1986). This understanding of temporality as materially embedded rather than externally measured directly informs the structure of the slow-motion painting video and the longitudinal photographic series. In both cases, time is not represented symbolically but materially inscribed into the work itself.
The epistemological position of the research is therefore fundamentally relational. Knowledge emerges through interaction between artistic action, temporal processes, recording systems, perception, and reflection. Erin Manning’s writings on movement and relational process are particularly relevant here. Manning argues that “research-creation is not about objects but about modes of relation” (Manning, 2016). The methodology of this project similarly understands artistic research as a process in which the artwork, the researcher, and the temporal phenomenon under investigation continuously affect one another.
A key methodological component of the research is the Work in Progress Exhibition presented at Bath Spa University (Locksbrook Campus). Within the practice-based PhD framework, the exhibition functions not as a final presentation but as an active research environment in which hypotheses concerning time and perception are materially tested. The installation integrates longitudinal photographic data, affective recordings, infographic visualisations, moving image works, and a parallel flip-book machine presenting synchronised yet divergent visual and emotional sequences. The perceptual misalignment generated by these parallel structures exposes the impossibility of a unified present. In this sense, the exhibition itself becomes a performative temporal experiment.
Ultimately, the methodology constitutes an iterative, reflexive, and practice-led experimental system in which artistic processes do not merely investigate time but actively transform the researcher’s own temporal consciousness. The projects therefore function simultaneously as artworks, experiments, and reciprocal epistemological encounters through which the instability of the present moment becomes perceptually and conceptually observable.
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