Processing Process: The Event of Making Art

Abstract

The article takes up the notion of process and artmaking as an event to be understood neither as a singular moment of forces (e.g., artist, artwork, viewer, and/or site) coming together, nor as the “end” of a productive process that is then superseded by another event. Rather, the authors suggest that the artmaking process can be understood as an event of movement through relationships between all things and people as they come into contact. Grounded in Gilles Deleuze’s philosophical concept of “becoming,” the artmaking process is conceptualized not as a predictable or identifiable aspect of change (i.e., becoming something else), but instead as a quality associated with the effects of art as a process-event. To demonstrate the efficacy of this conception of the artmaking process, the article explores the practice of two art education students engaged in dramatically different types of artistic practice.