Achieving quality in artistic research must be a key concern. In academia, quality is often assessed with regard to the content of a research project, e.g. how novel and substantiated findings are; how those findings are presented usually does not matter. In art, however, both form and content are crucial; hence, the notion of quality must apply to more aspects of a project and in particular to the relations between them.

JAR is invested in the mediality and non-verbal articulation of artistic research. The journal’s creation was linked to the development of the Research Catalogue (RC) and with it came the possibility to publish media in ways not controlled by a preconceived layout or styling. Having worked with rich-media submissions of artistic research for a while, it has become clear that technology matters insofar as it enables certain modes of articulation, but that it will not determine how practice is exposed as research and what understanding is gained in the end.

JAR has always been careful to invite ‘expositions of practice as research’ rather than just ‘expositions.’ The reason lies in one aspect of the term ‘exposition’, which suggests that ‘to expose’ is to explain something or make it public. While not incorrect, this reading is not sensitive enough to a central idea in JAR: that in the act of exposition, that which is seemingly exposed is also constituted.

Say, you come across JAR for the first time perhaps during a search for a journal to publish your research. You might ask yourself: what is this journal after? You may browse our website and submission guidelines and find the expression: ‘to expose practice as research,’ which doesn’t give you much of a clue what precisely it is that we ask you to do to make a submission. In fact, you might think that our guidelines are cryptic to a degree that makes you question whether there is any way of telling if the work you invest is worth it.  Does the beginning need to be so difficult?

An abstract is a very important element of a journal article. Next to the title and author name(s) it is among the first items of information a prospective reader encounters. It primes readers for what is to come. However, it also functions as a gateway, since many readers will not proceed to the article if the abstract fails to raise sufficient interest. In particular, this includes potential peer reviewers: as the full article remains inaccessible at this stage of decision-making, the abstract needs to convince them to take on the work.