[-empyre-] practice as a means towards academic self-criticism / research as a curatorial enterprise

[Magda Tyzlik-Carver]

Hi Menotti, Magnus et all, 
Thank you for your comments and questions. 

I wouldn't wish anyone the torment of academic self-criticism through their
practice. I hope I am not guilty of that, but I can almost picture it
represented in some medieval style and hanging above my desk as a warning. 

> Considering the role these aspects play in a research project (from
proposal to the publicization of results), 
> is there any particular way you relate academia and the curatorial?
(Menotti)

The obvious relation is the 'institutional', understood in this context as
institutionalisation of practice. A useful reference for me is of course the
tradition of 'institutional critique' which developed in 60s and 70s as a
form of artistic practice which investigated forms and conditions of art
field and art institutions in order to break out of and subvert them. Since
then and as proposed in a publication Raunig, Gerald and Ray, Gene (eds.)
Art and Contemporary Critical Practice. Reinventing Institutional Critique,
London: MayFlyBooks (2009) http://mayflybooks.org, institutional critique is
no longer associated with artistic practices only and is developing towards
what has been termed as a 'transversal practice' and as such suggesting a
political dimension to institutional critique. 

For me as a curator this is important because my research is concerned with
the practice of curating that uses various online tools and social
technologies, as well as participatory and collaborative forms of engagement
that in the result generate artefacts, conversations, poetry, knowledge,
data, and of course affects and relations. Here the curatorial role focuses
on facilitating the creation of socio-technological networks where
participation of the public in generating those resources and relations is
recognised as form of commons or more specifically as a form of commoning.
It is this relation between curating and commoning that I am investigating
in my research.  By extending the concept of the commons to curatorial
practices I want to examine forms and results of those practices as
resources and relations that are produced in common and not as activities
that need to be managed by a curatorial control. So by situating curating
and commoning within the context of 'institutional critique' I am hoping to
explore these two activities in relation to the forms of instituting. The
idea is not necessarily to see how my curatorial project such as common
practice
(http://automatist.net/deptofreading/wiki/pmwiki.php/CommonPractice) might
be or is a part of the institution of art, but it is more concerned with the
tactics and strategies used in common practice, which undermine the
processes of institutionalisation. 

I suppose it is this trajectory of investigation that also makes me think of
what a healthy relation between practice and research might be?  

Best, Magda 

-----Original Message-----
From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
[mailto:empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Gabriel Menotti
Sent: 21 February 2012 22:06
To: soft_skinned_space
Subject: [-empyre-] practice as a means towards academic self-criticism /
research as a curatorial enterprise

>regardless if the question of artistic practice and research method and 
>their in/compatibilities take place within an institutional or more 
>personal and subjective context, it is, nevertheless, an administrative 
>issue which involves bureaucratic processes and forms of 
>communication/communicating those processes [MAGDA TYZLIK-CARVER]

I tend to agree with this administrative perspective, or at least I feel
that it is perfectly able to overarch / make the case for the other two (of
"ontological separation" and "methodological confluence"?).

I wonder if this implies that what is specific to academic work is just a
particular way of accounting for anything - coming down, precisely
(purely?), to an issue of language and form. Could it be?

And going back to a question from previous weeks: how do we preserve what
could not be written down in the first place, and will inevitably get lost
in the bureaucratic translation?

Is part of the work of the researcher to make more graspable the less
visible structures s/he tackles and employs? Should one provide to his/her
examiners the means for his/her own assessment? What about the posterity?

More generally, how much of a reflexive endeavour within academia (or a
meta-research) must a practice-based PhD be?


>the managerial, administrative and communicative aspects are some of 
>the defining elements of what is considered to be a domain of so called 
>'curatorial' (along many others, of course) [MT]

Considering the role these aspects play in a research project (from proposal
to the publicization of results), is there any particular way you relate
academia and the curatorial?

Best!
Menotti
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