In recent years, the rise of research-creation-a scholarly activity that considers art practices as research methods in their own right-has emerged from the organic convergences of the arts and interdisciplinary humanities, and it has been fostered by universities wishing to enhance their public profiles. In How to Make Art at the End of the World Natalie Loveless draws on diverse perspectives-from feminist science studies to psychoanalytic theory, as well as her own experience advising undergraduate and graduate students-to argue for research-creation as both a means to produce innovative scholarship and a way to transform pedagogy and research within the contemporary neoliberal university. Championing experimental, artistically driven methods of teaching, researching, and publication, research-creation works to render daily life in the academy more pedagogically, politically, and affectively sustainable, as well as more responsive to issues of social and ecological justice.

This book focuses on the performance art of Marilyn Arsem, an internationally acclaimed performance artist known for her innovative and experimental work. Arsem's work addresses women's history and myth-making capacities, the potency of site and geography, the idea of the audience as witnesses and the intimacy of one-to-one works. One of the most prolific performance artists working in the United States today, Arsem performs carefully choreographed durational actions that are developed site-responsively and range from deceptively simple interventions to elaborately orchestrated actions. This edited volume seeks to extend Arsem's legacy beyond the audiences of her live performances and enter her work into the lexicon of the art world. Accompanied by 200 images, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of performance studies, feminist performance, feminist art history and performance history. It will also contribute to the history of alternative spaces and galleries, which is only now being written. I have had the privilege of knowing Marilyn for over 30 years. Her work has given me so many epiphanies about live art, time-based art practice and durational performance practice. How and why do you choose a single action and enact it over an extended period of time? How do you respond to site and create a sacred meditational zone; a reflexive space about the human condition? And most importantly, how do you teach future generations about the importance of living while making art as a spiritual and philosophical practice? This book is yet another example of Arsem's legacy. Fundamental, I'd say. Guillermo Gomez-Pena Watching Marilyn Arsem perform can be a slow, careful, vulnerable and heart-stoppingly profound experience. To see her is to know better the complex, intermingling particularities of body, space, time, being and action. Reading this comprehensive, lucidly written and deeply insightful book - the first significant publication on Arsem's practice as a performance artist - will enable new perspectives on a major artist's work. It also sheds vivid light upon enduring themes for the critical encounter with art: duration and doing, materiality and nothingness, truth and representation, commitment and experiment, togetherness and solitude, experience and endurance. Dominic Johnson, Queen Mary University of London

In recent years, the rise of research-creation-a scholarly activity that considers art practices as research methods in their own right-has emerged from the organic convergences of the arts and interdisciplinary humanities, and it has been fostered by universities wishing to enhance their public profiles. In How to Make Art at the End of the World Natalie Loveless draws on diverse perspectives-from feminist science studies to psychoanalytic theory, as well as her own experience advising undergraduate and graduate students-to argue for research-creation as both a means to produce innovative scholarship and a way to transform pedagogy and research within the contemporary neoliberal university. Championing experimental, artistically driven methods of teaching, researching, and publication, research-creation works to render daily life in the academy more pedagogically, politically, and affectively sustainable, as well as more responsive to issues of social and ecological justice.

Knowings and Knots presents a range of interdisciplinary perspectives on the methodology of research-creation and asks how those who make knowledge think about and value it. Not just a method but a site of ongoing experimentation around what counts as knowledge, research-creation is a meeting place of academia, artistic creation, and the wider public. The contributors argue that academic institutions and funders must recognize research-creation as innovative knowledge-making that leaps over the traditional splitting of theory from practice while considering how gender/feminist studies, Indigenous practices, and new materialism might inform and develop the conversation. Through this book, readers can transform the way they experience both art and education. Contributors: Carolina Cambre, Owen Chapman, Paul Couillard, T.L. Cowan, John Cussans, Randy Lee Cutler, Petra Hroch, Rachelle Viader Knowles, Natalie Loveless, Glen Lowry, Erin Manning, Sourayan Mookerjea, Natasha Myers, Simon Pope, Stephanie Springgay, Sarah E. Truman