Researches 3: Researching Anxiety through Material and Method

How can art research something as intangible as anxiety? Unlike medical science, which measures hormones or scans brain activity, art must work with materials, images and atmospheres. Yet this difference is not a weakness. It is a form of knowledge in itself. Through practice-led methods, artists can explore how anxiety feels, how it shapes perception and how it might be externalised into shared space.

Practice-Led Research

Practice-led research has become widely recognised in art and design education. As Gray and Malins explain, the studio can be understood as a laboratory, where making is both method and outcome (Gray and Malins, 2004). This kind of research does not separate theory from practice but allows each to shape the other. An experiment with colour or texture can become a way of testing a psychological hypothesis, just as reading a phenomenological text can open new directions for painting.

The challenge, however, is to avoid circularity. Critics such as Sullivan (2010) warn that practice-led research risks becoming too insular if it only validates the artist’s own perspective. This is where triangulation is crucial: combining personal reflection with scholarly frameworks and audience response ensures rigour.

Autoethnography and Vulnerability

One strategy often used in researching emotion through practice is autoethnography. This involves drawing on personal experiences as primary data, linking them to wider cultural and theoretical structures (Ellis, Adams and Bochner, 2011). For artists working with anxiety, this means acknowledging how panic, fear or disorientation are lived and then exploring how they might be translated into form.

Yet autoethnography is not without problems. It risks solipsism, where the artist’s individual story overshadows broader significance. The key is to balance personal honesty with critical framing. In this sense, phenomenology provides a useful bridge. If perception is always embodied, then describing personal anxiety is not simply individual testimony but a way of revealing how bodies encounter space under strain.

Insights from Psychology

Scientific research on anxiety can inform and sharpen artistic experimentation. For instance, Cole and Wilkins (2013) demonstrated how images with clustered holes provoke discomfort in many people, a phenomenon termed trypophobia. This suggests that certain visual patterns are neurologically primed to trigger vigilance. Similarly, Han et al. (2022) used neuroimaging to show how anxiety disorders correlate with altered connectivity in networks responsible for attention and salience, meaning anxious brains are predisposed to perceive threats.

While art cannot replicate laboratory conditions, these studies provide a rationale for experimenting with visual triggers. Introducing clustered motifs, unstable figure-ground relations or compressive spatial cues in painting becomes more than an aesthetic decision. It becomes a way of testing how perception itself can be modulated to reflect states of unease.

Case Study: Anicka Yi, In Love With The World (2021, Tate Modern)

Anicka Yi’s installation filled Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall with floating biomorphic “aerobes”, balloon-like forms that drifted unpredictably through the vast space. Accompanied by subtle scents released into the air, the work created an atmosphere that was at once playful and uncanny.

For some viewers, the aerobes evoked curiosity and wonder. For others, their resemblance to microorganisms or surveillance devices provoked unease. The shifting smellscapes heightened this sense of uncertainty, disorienting the visitor’s body in space. Yi described the work as a way of exploring how humans might co-exist with artificial life forms, but phenomenologically it functioned as a sensory test of vulnerability. The viewer’s comfort zone was unsettled through vision, smell and movement, producing anxiety not through representation but through embodied experience.

Balancing Methods and Ethics

The central challenge in researching anxiety through practice is ethical. Is it responsible to induce discomfort in others? Some argue that provoking fear risks exploitation. Others suggest that discomfort can open empathy, allowing audiences to recognise emotions they might otherwise ignore (Bolt, 2007).

The task, therefore, is to use methods that are affectively powerful but not gratuitous. Triangulating autoethnography, psychology and phenomenology ensures that outcomes remain rigorous, contextualised and critically accountable.

Conclusion

Researching anxiety through material and method demonstrates the unique contribution of art practice. Rather than measuring the brain, it stages situations where anxiety can be felt and reflected upon. Collage, digital modelling, painting and installation all become ways of asking: how does fear live in space, and how can that space be reimagined?

By combining practice-led research with autoethnography and psychology, artists produce knowledge that is embodied, affective and critical. The result is a form of enquiry that not only represents anxiety but actively investigates its dynamics, making the invisible visible and the intangible tangible.

References

Bolt, B. (2007) The Magic is in Handling. In: Barrett, E. and Bolt, B. (eds.) Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry. London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 27–34.

Cole, G.G. and Wilkins, A.J. (2013) ‘Fear of holes’, Psychological Science, 24(10), pp. 1980–1985.

Ellis, C., Adams, T.E. and Bochner, A.P. (2011) ‘Autoethnography: An overview’, Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1), Art. 10.

Gray, C. and Malins, J. (2004) Visualising Research: A Guide to the Research Process in Art and Design. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Han, L., Dai, W., Wang, Y., Yang, X., Li, T., Chen, H. and Wang, Y. (2022) ‘Separable and overlapping functional connectome architecture for impulsivity and anxiety’, NeuroImage, 246, p. 118775.

Sullivan, G. (2010) Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in Visual Arts. 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Yi, A. (2021) In Love With The World. Tate Modern, London.

Zumthor, P. (2006) Atmospheres: Architectural Environments, Surrounding Objects. Basel: Birkhäuser.