From Instrumental Research in Art to its Sharing: Producing a Commons, Respecting the Singular

P ractice-based research in art and design, or “Research & Creation” (“Recherche & Creation” in French-speaking countries), is developing rapidly. Questioning the new relationships between artistic practices and academic research (as well as industrial) also leads to rethinking methods of cooperation and sharing between the arts and scientific disciplines. Based on an instrumental and even “organological” (after Gilbert Simondon and Bernard Stiegler) approach, research in art is examined here through the prism of “allographic” principles borrowed from Nelson Goodman, and then illustrated through several works. Subsequently, the fundamental as well as practical scope of such an instrumental and allographic model is demonstrated. Such a model in fact offers a solid base for the organization of a multidisciplinary team (which requires a redistribution of egos); for publishing and economic development strategies of various forms; as well as for a rethinking of the production of a commons whose methods of construction are based above all on the development of means that make the sharing of practices possible.