[-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 98, Issue 15
wendy kirkup
wendykirkup at btinternet.com
Tue Jan 22 04:17:58 EST 2013
Many thanks for inviting me to be part of this developing and
fascinating discussion. And apologies in advance if I am making points
that have already been made but have missed through my skim read of
the postings made over the last two weeks.
I am currently a little more than half way through a practice based
PhD at Edinburgh university, and have undertaken the study for what
Sarah Jane identified as its 'reflective, intellectual value' - to
become more alert to my own 'ways of
making and thinking through making, and on ways these might relate to
other artefacts (of knowledge, of practice)'. This is in part a
response to my own previous practice of working site specifically on
multi-media installations which necessitated that I and the
commissioner hire in assistance at every level to help me realise the
work. Along with the increasingly instrumental criteria for raising
(often public) money needed for production, I felt increasingly
distanced from any real material investigation, or to find productive
points of real reflection in and of the practice as a whole. The PhD
is helping to address this balance bringing me much closer to the work
and its positioning within larger theoretical and contextual
frameworks. I agree and identify with Simon's comments regarding his
part-time practice based students for whom 'the PhD process itself is
often integrated into the studio practice of the candidate, with an
enhanced role for critical reflection and contextualisation within
that'. I also agree with him and others who suggest that this route is
not useful or helpful for all artists.
I was recently reading a Practice as Research document given to me by
a friend at Glasgow University, which makes the distinction between
'practice as research' and 'practice as research MPhils and PhDs'. The
paper makes the point, as Sarah Jane does so well as do many other
contributers to this discussion, is that the debate is not about the
validity of the practice but of the validity of the practice as
research as defined by the academy - and really the key term is
perhaps not really practice but research. As the main funder of
University arts and humanities activity in the UK the AHRC has a
specific definition of research which is concerned with research
processes rather than outputs - practice as a methodology, and for
this to be communicable to others within the discipline or related
disciplinary areas. Like Anne -Sarah I write about the work to
understand it better, which then helps to make the next work, as an
ongoing process. How I am able to make this clear for others is still
something I am working out, but its important for me to let the
practical work be more than anything I might say about it too.
To pick up a different point - although I no longer regularly teach in
art schools, in the days when I did hold tenured teaching positions
and the University research exercise loomed, I would watch, often
aghast, at the construction of a departmental research profile made
from the top down for the purpose (I can't remember anyone ever
discussing my work with me, although I was included on each round). In
my more recent teaching experiences, I don't think things have changed
much (and I hope I'm wrong), with really problematic and lasting
effects.
BW
Wendy
On 21 Jan 2013, at 14:23, Simon Biggs wrote:
> To echo Sally Jane's comments on financing PhDs...
>
> Most PhDs I have worked with are self-financing and thus often
> register as part time. As most of these candidates are practice
> based the PhD process itself is often integrated into the studio
> practice of the candidate, with an enhanced role for critical
> reflection and contextualisation within that. It's debatable whether
> this critical enhancement would have happened if they didn't do the
> PhD. I think, in many instances, it was already happening in their
> practice and that is why the candidate then chose to work within the
> framework of the PhD. If the candidate doesn't wish to work in such
> a critical and contextualised manner then a PhD is probably not the
> right solution for them.
>
> A small number of my PhDs are financed through research grants,
> which allows them to work full-time on their research. However, they
> do not get much money to live on (about half the average UK salary)
> and when working on a project their research has to serve the aims
> and objectives of that project. In that respect they are not free to
> follow their own agenda and so this is often not a very attractive
> route for artists to whom conceptual autonomy is important. Of
> course, many artists are interested in specific topics and wish to
> work with the challenges such constraints bring with them... this is
> the topic this month's discussants are engaging.
>
> In a very small number of cases some students receive an open
> stipend, meaning that their fees are paid and they receive a small
> grant for living costs. The only constraints on their research are
> those they agree with their supervisors - which, in turn, will be
> partly determined by what the institution requires a candidate to
> achieve in order to be awarded a PhD. With Research Councils in the
> UK no longer directly funding PhDs, and devolving the funds to Block
> Grant Partnerships and Doctoral Training Consortiums, it is easier
> for those supervisors who work in institutions with such
> infrastructure to support students in this way (although the money
> available is less than was previously the case). But these are rare
> instances. Where there is a BGP in place, that covers the subject
> area and topic of a potential PhD, it will be valid for many
> potential supervisors within the institution, so a particular
> supervisor may only get to work with a very small number of such
> students in their entire time in the institution, if any. At the
> same time supervisors receive numerous unsolicited emails from
> potential PhD candidates asking if there are funded opportunities
> available for them to apply for. It's difficult to respond in the
> negative.
>
> At the moment PhD fees in the UK look like good value. Undergraduate
> fees in England are around £9000 per year - only partially covering
> the real cost of study. PhD fees are £3400 or thereabouts so these
> students are heavily subsidised by the institutions (who receive no
> core funding to cover PhDs). In Scotland we are lucky in that
> undergraduate fees remain at £0, although for how much longer we
> will see. This depends on the electorate voting for a party that
> supports such a policy. Of the four main parties in Scotland only
> one supports this policy (happily for students, the party currently
> in government). But they will not be in power forever and the other
> parties wish to institute student fees as soon as they are able. If
> I was considering studying in the next few years I'd do it sooner
> rather than later...
>
> best
>
> Simon
>
>
> On 21 Jan 2013, at 09:14, sally jane norman wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> To pick up on some points and nuance others: does the "practice"
>> we're
>> talking about mean pragmatic engagement with materials (which might
>> include "conceptual materials" as a kind of media, over and above the
>> conceptual basis of any human production), i.e. forms of craft
>> (inherited from Greek "techné" - which tended to be secondary to
>> liberal arts grounded in epistemic thinking/ power enjoyed by the
>> upper classes)?
>>
>> The "justification" question is crucial: for me, "justification" can
>> constitute or be offered by (part of) the context in which work is
>> presented. Places for presenting art - whether dedicated or
>> re-appropriated - contextualise it, and thus to a certain degree
>> afford its defence, its "justification" (they are "power-conferring"
>> in framing activity as art). So for me, if I wish to experience an
>> art
>> work in a place that publicly labels it as art (performance or
>> exhibition place, whether inside closed walls or "in the wild" but
>> "framed"), I'm not necessarily going to seek further "justification"
>> of its status as art. I'd hope it would "speak for itself", though in
>> some cases this entails some quite explicit "justification" by the
>> artist, which is perfectly legitimate and sometimes appreciated.
>>
>> The university context comes with its own values and ethos, and for
>> me, these have to do with optimising the sharing and further use of
>> knowledge and insights, relayed through careful structuring of
>> research materials to this end. So it requires a different kind of
>> justification. If you choose to work within this system/ context,
>> this
>> implies recognising its codes. Other people have very different
>> definitions of the university, but I think it's important to try and
>> identify and defend the values we each associate with it,
>> particularly
>> if/ when we work within it.
>>
>> My earlier reference to the "stitched together portfolio without
>> accompanying critical reflection" botches what for me remains an open
>> question. Last year I examined a DocFA that might have been entirely
>> seen as a portfolio, but where the critical edge and spelling out of
>> reflective and methodological processes were absolutely in-your-face
>> as integral to the work. It was playfully, intelligently effective -
>> work on re-appropriation that couched itself in art theory mash-ups
>> to
>> spell out the means it used and creatively criticised. So I guess
>> this brought home, again, the fact that the biggest danger is
>> generalisation in the face of art as essentially, vitally
>> idiosyncratic. I'm usually diffident about practice research
>> validated
>> by universities that doesn't entail specific, independent reflection
>> on its making but in this case was enthusiastic (the validation
>> question - who assesses and in keeping with what criteria - is
>> determinant too). Interestingly, this was a DocFA and universities
>> under league table and research profile pressure are often trying to
>> replace these with more "serious" PhD qualifications. DocFA's tend to
>> take a lot longer and have poor completion rates, precisely because
>> they offer footholds for artists in the academy without their going
>> the whole PhD hog. Another open question. As are various "alternative
>> formats" to PhDs for artists (e.g. Norwegian Arts Research Fellowship
>> programme).
>>
>> PhDs in US or Europe as "an adventure reserved for the riches"?
>> whoops, that to me is a questionable generalisation. There are many,
>> many PhD students and would-be students who are entirely self funding
>> under extremely arduous conditions and who are far from rich. They're
>> taking it on because they are deeply committed to the reflective,
>> critical distance it might give them from their work. And that
>> "might"
>> is a big one they assume knowingly. That's why I get angry with the
>> flippancy and undermining sometimes in evidence amongst their or my
>> peers, and feel that I owe it to them (and to my own long gone
>> supervisors) to defend the values of free thinking and intellectual
>> sharing I continue to associate with a university - admittedly
>> against
>> increasingly high odds.
>>
>> Best
>> sj
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 1:00 AM, <empyre-request at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> > wrote:
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>>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
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>>>
>>> Today's Topics:
>>>
>>> 1. Re: Practice in Research & odd methods, rude mechanics
>>> (Johannes Birringer)
>>> 2. Re: Practice in Research (Adrian Miles)
>>> 3. Re: Practice in Research & odd methods, rude mechanics
>>> (Adrian Miles)
>>> 4. Re: Practice in Research & odd methods, rude mechanics
>>> (Adrian Miles)
>>> 5. Re: Practice in Research & odd methods, rude mechanics
>>> (Adrian Miles)
>>> 6. Re: Practice in Research & odd methods, rude mechanics
>>> (Cecile Chevalier)
>>> 7. open questions - art and the university as (still, in spite
>>> of it all...) a knowledge commons (sally jane norman)
>>> 8. Re: Practice in Research & odd methods, rude mechanics
>>> (Simon Biggs)
>>> 9. Re: Practice in Research & odd methods, rude mechanics
>>> (Monika Weiss)
>>> 10. Re: Practice in Research & odd methods, rude mechanics (Phi
>>> Shu)
>>> 11. Research in Practice, week three, January 21-28 (Simon Biggs)
>>>
>>>
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Message: 1
>>> Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 06:18:49 +0000
>>> From: Johannes Birringer <Johannes.Birringer at brunel.ac.uk>
>>> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Practice in Research & odd methods, rude
>>> mechanics
>>> Message-ID:
>>> <DF657B70CB20304DB745D84933F94B1E03AE35067B at v-exmb01.academic.windsor
>>> >
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>>
>>> dear all
>>>
>>> the small post I sent a few days ago was meant to interrupt the
>>> conversation, and I am sorry for that.
>>>
>>> The messages that appeared before here were quite illuminating, in
>>> many respects, and also deeply, very deeply saddening, when
>>> I felt I read about the experiences described, artists becoming
>>> academics, teaching, defending their Phds,
>>> embroiled in bureaucracy of management, pedagogy, teaching studio?
>>> teaching academic practice & theory? preparation for teaching,
>>> administering, writing essays and theses, and all this, yes. And
>>> all this "knowledge production."
>>>
>>> The practice of the now so-called "practitioners" in the
>>> university environment. What
>>> is this, a practitioner? What are we? what knowledge, Miles?
>>> whose knowledge criteria? what kind of knowledge are you defending?
>>> and what would be the difference between art (non-
>>> instrumentalized?) and art (instrumentalized) and "output"?
>>> what is an "output"? what are your key problems?
>>>
>>> (I read Sue Hawksley's last post with great interest, as she is
>>> describing a dilemma
>>> of space and time to create.....and her work as a " a dance
>>> artist ...work[ing] with new media, for example
>>> within digitally-mediated interactive immersive performance
>>> environments".....
>>>
>>>>> .
>>> - these grand claims for developing skills of interactivity feel a
>>> bit hollow right now. I notice with irony that I'm finding it
>>> difficult to complete this thought....
>>>>>
>>>
>>> So now I feel even more confused, as no one has ever yet, here,
>>> mentioned an artwork produced in the university and submittted for
>>> review (evaluation,
>>> knowledge attesting, confirmation of output, impact?), influence,
>>> signfiicance? meaning? so where are these practices, and how do
>>> they matter? how come this is never addressed"?
>>> what work is generated?
>>>
>>> (mind you, I have failed completely to understand/appreciate the
>>> quotation offered to us about " research bricolage" ...
>>>
>>>>>
>>> of multiperspectival research methods...... diverse theoretical
>>> traditions are employed in a broader critical theoretical/critical
>>> pedagogical context to lay the foundation for a transformative
>>> mode of multimethodological inquiry. Using these multiple
>>> frameworks and methodologies researchers are empowered to produce
>>> more rigorous and praxiological insights into socio-political and
>>> educational phenomena. Kincheloe theorizes a critical multilogical
>>> epistemology and critical connected ontology to ground the
>>> research bricolage......
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> This multimethodological stuff, to me this is unintelligible
>>> verbage, I guess, academic lingo, probably about uninspiring and
>>> unwitnessed art.
>>> To what audience or reception or knowledge context is this
>>> language directed? who would bother to read/see/experience this
>>> "critical connected ontology"?
>>>
>>> so I am just wondering aloud about the "practices", that's all.
>>>
>>>
>>> Having just read an article in Art in America [http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/features/sensibility-of-the-times-revisited/
>>> ]
>>> about artists back then responding to a questionnaire asking to
>>> describe the sensibility of the ?60s, and the same questions posed
>>> to artists now in 2012-13,
>>> i found Carolee Schneemann's reply about dentists quite interesting:
>>>
>>> <<
>>> Current ideological language uses ?practice? to define art
>>> concepts at the expense of process. Practice implies
>>> perfectibility, strategy, products: dentists have a practice,
>>> violinists practice, yoga is a practice, elephants practice for
>>> the circus. Process invites risk, uncertainty, vision,
>>> unpredictability, concentration and blind devotion.?? Yes, the
>>> current situation is more academic. >>
>>>
>>> But surely Schneemann, and the other artists who responded, had
>>> much to say about knowledge production, but their production is
>>> not defensible, if I understand Adrian Miles correctly.
>>>
>>> That was my whole point. What are you defending, then?
>>>
>>>
>>> regards
>>>
>>> Johannes Birringer
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>> Message: 2
>>> Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 21:58:06 +1100
>>> From: Adrian Miles <adrian.miles at rmit.edu.au>
>>> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Practice in Research
>>> Message-ID: <24FF9997CC3C49009EAC35944650B5D8 at rmit.edu.au>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sunday, 20 January 2013 at 1:18 AM, maria mencia wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Another thing, I would like to bring up is practice PhDs which
>>>> are only PRACTICE, has anybody in the list done one of these
>>>> PhDs? What makes this practice research? How do you defend it?
>>>> What is the difference between this practice and an artwork/
>>>> creative work, as it could well be a piece of creative writing
>>>> for instance?
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Practice based research is one of those things that in the context
>>> of this discussion gets made more complicated than it perhaps is.
>>> Education PhDs, for instance, are very commonly practice based and
>>> have been for years as the basis of education research in many
>>> PhDs that are about teaching is the practice of teaching. Here you
>>> are expected (usually) to write a thesis that indicates what you
>>> have explicitly investigated in your practice, and the changes in
>>> your practice that have occurred as a result of this. For a PhD it
>>> would also require a looking 'outwards' from the implications of
>>> my practice to demonstrate its significance for others in the
>>> field (other practicing teachers).
>>>
>>> In my area (media studies etc) practice based research is
>>> reasonably common, though often confused with project based
>>> research. In project based research you do a project.The project
>>> is expected to be any/all of an enquiry/response/investigation/
>>> analysis of a significant research question realised through the
>>> doing of the project. In practice based research there may not be
>>> a specific project (or projects) but the key research question
>>> investigated relates very specifically to your practice. As with
>>> the education example it is defended by evidencing the
>>> significance of the change to practice for the practitioner and
>>> potentially the field.
>>>
>>> to use creative writing as an example. Project based research
>>> would be to write something. This artefact is the project
>>> component and usually an exegesis/viva/thesis/presentation
>>> accompanies it to demonstrate how and why it is research (and not
>>> just literature). Practice based research you might write
>>> something, you might write several things, but the research
>>> question is not about artefact that is produced but about the
>>> activities and actions of creating or making in itself. (In
>>> education you can't bring in a class as evidence, nor necessarily
>>> changes in students results, as it is about the change in your
>>> practice, not theirs.) Here people like Donald Sch?n often figure
>>> prominently. At RMIT where I work the architecture school has a
>>> very strong practice based history so the emphasis falls less on
>>> an analysis of the buildings or designs as artefacts than on the
>>> 'thinking-in-action" that they express and explore.
>>>
>>> Finally, in honours in creative writing a project would be to
>>> write a creative nonfiction travel book where the research problem
>>> might be "how can the contemporary memoir be used as a basis to
>>> write a travel guide?". A practice based one could be "While
>>> writing a creative nonfiction travel memoir I want to examine the
>>> relation of my practice to constraint to learn about the role of
>>> constraint to me as a writer."
>>>
>>> --
>>> an appropriate closing
>>> Adrian Miles
>>> Program Director Bachelor of Media and Communication (Honours)
>>> RMIT University - www.rmit.edu.au
>>> http://vogmae.net.au/
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>> Message: 3
>>> Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 22:07:42 +1100
>>> From: Adrian Miles <adrian.miles at rmit.edu.au>
>>> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Practice in Research & odd methods, rude
>>> mechanics
>>> Message-ID: <5C39F6D121CE4E13837DF148A14A7015 at rmit.edu.au>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sunday, 20 January 2013 at 1:32 AM, Simon Biggs wrote:
>>>
>>>> Nice we are in agreement, but ...
>>>>
>>>> ... I wonder. For art to be recognised as art (which might not be
>>>> the same thing as it being art) it does have to satisfy certain
>>>> objective criteria (art world opinion). The argument that art is
>>>> anything an artist calls art is only true in so far as the artist
>>>> is recognised by the art world as an artist. In that sense it is
>>>> no different to how you have portrayed the instrumentalisation of
>>>> pure science. Perhaps there is scientific research happening that
>>>> does so outside the consensual world that is science, just as
>>>> there might be art that happens outside the art world's orbit? I
>>>> would argue this is the case and that we all know of excellent
>>>> examples.
>>> absolutely and would have thought this has always been the case?
>>>>
>>>> But then we are simply talking of creative activity and
>>>> intellectual inquiry, which anybody can do anytime, if they wish,
>>>> without having to worry about what it is. The implication of this
>>>> train of thought is that art and science are similar in that they
>>>> exist as identified domains of human activity only in so far as
>>>> they are objectively (socially) recognised to do so. If this is
>>>> the case then an anthropological approach to the understanding of
>>>> their respective value is likely to be more productive than an
>>>> epistemological approach.
>>> again, absolutely. What counts here is defined by the players in
>>> these games, and putting aside the very legitimate questions about
>>> power and ideology and so on for one moment, as any one who plays
>>> a game knows, you have to get into the game before you can contest
>>> its terms. (I can stand outside of the soccer field and point out
>>> how pointless it all seems, but those on the field playing will
>>> simply shrug as clearly "he doesn't get it". If I want the soccer
>>> players to listen to me as soccer players, I've got to get
>>> 'inside' soccer in some manner.)
>>>
>>> I would have thought then this is where anthropology fits, as it
>>> provides ways to explain the nature of the games, their rules
>>> (implicit and explicit) and the consequences of these. However, it
>>> is these rules that largely define what counts epistemologically.
>>> But at the moment for this conversation I'd say it's games all the
>>> way down, and yes, anthropology is very useful for this :-)
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> an appropriate closing
>>> Adrian Miles
>>> Program Director Bachelor of Media and Communication (Honours)
>>> RMIT University - www.rmit.edu.au
>>> http://vogmae.net.au/
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>> Message: 4
>>> Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 22:35:02 +1100
>>> From: Adrian Miles <adrian.miles at rmit.edu.au>
>>> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Practice in Research & odd methods, rude
>>> mechanics
>>> Message-ID: <9E7A44CF5BF441B29860849ED6EA0682 at rmit.edu.au>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sunday, 20 January 2013 at 5:18 PM, Johannes Birringer wrote:
>>>
>>>> But surely Schneemann, and the other artists who responded, had
>>>> much to say about knowledge production, but their production is
>>>> not defensible, if I understand Adrian Miles correctly.
>>>>
>>> not quite :-). Art is perfectly defensible as art. In the context
>>> of research as a contribution of something new to knowledge (and
>>> not experience or even understanding) then some art can do this,
>>> of course. But it is not a condition that all art has to do this.
>>> I am suggesting though that all research has to do this.
>>>
>>> So, in a *university* context if I make art and argue that I've
>>> done enough and that's my research, then I think you misunderstand
>>> research, and possibly art. As Ross Gibson (I think reasonably)
>>> pointed out in an essay scientists *practice* research all the
>>> time in labs, field work and so on, but culturally accept that
>>> they have to express the practice of their research in other forms
>>> to turn it into research and not just practice. (The big
>>> difference I see between these research cultures is that the
>>> sciences historically privilege clarity and the denial of
>>> ambiguity when they write up their research, the humanities toy
>>> with ambiguity and clarity, but its pretty faux and tame as any
>>> PhD candidate or academic trying to work outside of scholarly
>>> 'norms' knows only too well.) I think in the university context
>>> when I make art if I also want to claim it as research then I need
>>> to do something more.
>>>
>>> I realise this freaks everyone out, but I think this is only
>>> because an entire complicated architecture has been falsely built
>>> that mystifies 'project' and 'practice' based research into
>>> something particularly special that only refers to a small group
>>> of creative 'practitioner researchers'. My blue collar upbringing
>>> bridles at this self granting of 'specialness' which seems
>>> dubious, if not rather tautological. All good research involves
>>> error, chance, intuition, creativity. All good research needs to
>>> be communicated in a manner that allows it to be understood by at
>>> least some part of the relevant community of peers. Whether
>>> artists, scholars or scientists I"m not sure is a game changer.
>>> (And I completely agree with Simon that this community is partly
>>> self defined, establishes its norms and this is what lets some
>>> things count and others not.)
>>>
>>> Similarly whoever it was that I read recently (in a book) that
>>> argued that science research begins from known hypotheses that are
>>> then tested, versus creative research that begins with ambiguity
>>> is playing precisely that language game that sends me spare. It
>>> turns hypothesis into the thing you read in the scientific report
>>> and ambiguity into the artefact that is produced. Any scientist
>>> knows that in their *practice* ambiguity abounds. That's why they
>>> frame questions to test. Any creative researcher knows that in
>>> their creative making they are responding to any number of
>>> hypothesises, we just don't call them that ("how do I film
>>> narrative fiction with one continuous take to?.", "what would it
>>> be to write a novel without the letter e?", "what is colour"?
>>> "what happens if?.?") Ambiguity is not the opposite of a
>>> hypothesis ("I intend to write a poem that is ambiguous to see if
>>> it could be understood as a love poem, and as an elegy").
>>>
>>> Sorry, didn't really answer your question Johannes. In a nutshell
>>> I"ve been in too many university meetings where creative
>>> practitioners insist that what they do is 'research' all by
>>> itself. Yet seem not to recognise that the whole 20 minute
>>> discussion explaining how their art is research is necessary
>>> precisely because their art *by itself* can't communicate all that
>>> (it communicates other things) which is why if they want their
>>> stuff to be 'research' and not only art they need to talk, write,
>>> etc about what it does.
>>>
>>> --
>>> an appropriate closing
>>> Adrian Miles
>>> Program Director Bachelor of Media and Communication (Honours)
>>> RMIT University - www.rmit.edu.au
>>> http://vogmae.net.au/
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>> Message: 5
>>> Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 22:51:46 +1100
>>> From: Adrian Miles <adrian.miles at rmit.edu.au>
>>> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Practice in Research & odd methods, rude
>>> mechanics
>>> Message-ID: <8FA8DDF4-4E0A-4D6B-B385-44E623681939 at rmit.edu.au>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>>>
>>> Please don't apologise for that. Was a needed interruption.
>>> Perhaps simple answer is that for me research needs to be
>>> evidenced based and contestable. Art by itself - the art thing -
>>> might do this but doesn't have or need to. What is the evidence
>>> based, contestable claim made by Monet? Joyce? Cage? For me, and I
>>> stress I'm often on my Pat Malone here, this is not the point of
>>> their work. On the other hand as a researcher I can make evidence
>>> based contestable claims *about* their work. But that is different
>>> to and outside of the works in themselves.
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>
>>> On 20/01/2013, at 17:18, Johannes Birringer <Johannes.Birringer at brunel.ac.uk
>>> > wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> the small post I sent a few days ago was meant to interrupt the
>>>> conversation, and I am sorry for that.
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>> Message: 6
>>> Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 15:27:59 +0000
>>> From: Cecile Chevalier <C.Chevalier at sussex.ac.uk>
>>> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Practice in Research & odd methods, rude
>>> mechanics
>>> Message-ID:
>>> <15F3F8EFCEAAD14891EF22174F5804C012ACCD11 at EX-SHA-MBX2.ad.susx.ac.uk
>>> >
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>>
>>> <So now I feel even more confused, as no one has ever yet, here,
>>> mentioned an artwork produced in the university and submitted for
>>> review (evaluation,
>>> knowledge attesting, confirmation of output, impact?), influence,
>>> significance? meaning? so where are these practices, and how do
>>> they matter? how come this is never addressed"?
>>> what work is generated?> <Johannes>
>>>
>>> To amend the balance in a small way.... VIva Viva exhibition in
>>> 2008... where work and thesis were accessible, the exhibition was
>>> open and advertise to the general public as well as academics...
>>>
>>> http://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/vertigo_magazine/volume-4-issue-2-winter-spring-20091/viva-viva-an-exhibition-at-p3-gallery-london-december-2008/
>>>
>>> ...The works displayed clearly showed different approaches to
>>> practice-based research - some works were clearly dominant in
>>> their practice, other seems to use practice as a method to access/
>>> present knowledge. This may have reflected their percentage of
>>> practice.... can a practice-based PhD be 80% practice? what is the
>>> minimum percentage that practice can be in practice-based research?
>>>
>>> I was truly excited by the exhibition (at the time I had not
>>> started my PhD), although it had similarities with a traditional
>>> art exhibition in its format (allocated/curated space and
>>> documentation) the content of the work and documentation was not
>>> 'art' but 'research art' (in its dominance of knowledge over
>>> aesthetics). But what I valued was its access to the general
>>> audience that I was then part of, it made research accessible.
>>> Sadly there were no Viva Viva in 2009 or any other year after
>>> that, which in some aspect reinforces Johannes's questions as
>>> opposed to answer them.
>>>
>>> C?cile
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au [empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> ] on behalf of Johannes Birringer [Johannes.Birringer at brunel.ac.uk]
>>> Sent: 20 January 2013 06:18
>>> To: soft_skinned_space
>>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Practice in Research & odd methods, rude
>>> mechanics
>>>
>>> dear all
>>>
>>> the small post I sent a few days ago was meant to interrupt the
>>> conversation, and I am sorry for that.
>>>
>>> The messages that appeared before here were quite illuminating, in
>>> many respects, and also deeply, very deeply saddening, when
>>> I felt I read about the experiences described, artists becoming
>>> academics, teaching, defending their Phds,
>>> embroiled in bureaucracy of management, pedagogy, teaching studio?
>>> teaching academic practice & theory? preparation for teaching,
>>> administering, writing essays and theses, and all this, yes. And
>>> all this "knowledge production."
>>>
>>> The practice of the now so-called "practitioners" in the
>>> university environment. What
>>> is this, a practitioner? What are we? what knowledge, Miles?
>>> whose knowledge criteria? what kind of knowledge are you defending?
>>> and what would be the difference between art (non-
>>> instrumentalized?) and art (instrumentalized) and "output"?
>>> what is an "output"? what are your key problems?
>>>
>>> (I read Sue Hawksley's last post with great interest, as she is
>>> describing a dilemma
>>> of space and time to create.....and her work as a " a dance
>>> artist ...work[ing] with new media, for example
>>> within digitally-mediated interactive immersive performance
>>> environments".....
>>>
>>>>> .
>>> - these grand claims for developing skills of interactivity feel a
>>> bit hollow right now. I notice with irony that I'm finding it
>>> difficult to complete this thought....
>>>>>
>>>
>>> So now I feel even more confused, as no one has ever yet, here,
>>> mentioned an artwork produced in the university and submittted for
>>> review (evaluation,
>>> knowledge attesting, confirmation of output, impact?), influence,
>>> signfiicance? meaning? so where are these practices, and how do
>>> they matter? how come this is never addressed"?
>>> what work is generated?
>>>
>>> (mind you, I have failed completely to understand/appreciate the
>>> quotation offered to us about " research bricolage" ...
>>>
>>>>>
>>> of multiperspectival research methods...... diverse theoretical
>>> traditions are employed in a broader critical theoretical/critical
>>> pedagogical context to lay the foundation for a transformative
>>> mode of multimethodological inquiry. Using these multiple
>>> frameworks and methodologies researchers are empowered to produce
>>> more rigorous and praxiological insights into socio-political and
>>> educational phenomena. Kincheloe theorizes a critical multilogical
>>> epistemology and critical connected ontology to ground the
>>> research bricolage......
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> This multimethodological stuff, to me this is unintelligible
>>> verbage, I guess, academic lingo, probably about uninspiring and
>>> unwitnessed art.
>>> To what audience or reception or knowledge context is this
>>> language directed? who would bother to read/see/experience this
>>> "critical connected ontology"?
>>>
>>> so I am just wondering aloud about the "practices", that's all.
>>>
>>>
>>> Having just read an article in Art in America [http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/features/sensibility-of-the-times-revisited/
>>> ]
>>> about artists back then responding to a questionnaire asking to
>>> describe the sensibility of the ?60s, and the same questions posed
>>> to artists now in 2012-13,
>>> i found Carolee Schneemann's reply about dentists quite interesting:
>>>
>>> <<
>>> Current ideological language uses ?practice? to define art
>>> concepts at the expense of process. Practice implies
>>> perfectibility, strategy, products: dentists have a practice,
>>> violinists practice, yoga is a practice, elephants practice for
>>> the circus. Process invites risk, uncertainty, vision,
>>> unpredictability, concentration and blind devotion.?? Yes, the
>>> current situation is more academic. >>
>>>
>>> But surely Schneemann, and the other artists who responded, had
>>> much to say about knowledge production, but their production is
>>> not defensible, if I understand Adrian Miles correctly.
>>>
>>> That was my whole point. What are you defending, then?
>>>
>>>
>>> regards
>>>
>>> Johannes Birringer
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>> Message: 7
>>> Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 16:14:21 +0000
>>> From: sally jane norman <normansallyjane at googlemail.com>
>>> To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> Subject: [-empyre-] open questions - art and the university as
>>> (still,
>>> in spite of it all...) a knowledge commons
>>> Message-ID:
>>> <CAL1BTimuPZv=nVZZD5iH66A-SfX4-DvFSaojjGZ-3+-Ymvz-3Q at mail.gmail.com
>>> >
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>>>
>>> Dear Simon et al,
>>>
>>> Thanks for fascinating exchange; a few haphazard, subjective
>>> comments
>>> - with apologies if update skim of postings glosses over related
>>> points already made -
>>>
>>> - doctoral qualifications are awarded in principle for research
>>> knowledge and insights communicated in ways that allow others to
>>> dialogue and build with them. This means attempting to forge terms
>>> and
>>> conceptual scaffolds that help make one's work understandable -
>>> whatever the field - and setting it in context, in keeping with
>>> notions of the commons (that used to be and for me still are)
>>> underpinning the university's traditional remit as an academy geared
>>> towards the public good. So maybe it IS a kind of
>>> instrumentalisation,
>>> insofar as the university's role is to constitute shareable, usable
>>> work for the community. Dropping the more specific and questionable
>>> kinds of instrumentalisation where businesses engage students in
>>> "confidential" application-driven projects by paying symbolic
>>> contributions to tax-payer backed research environments.
>>>
>>> - in the arts, articulation of context and processes doesn't mean
>>> killing work through systematic and ultimately futile dissection
>>> (ambiguity and potential for open-ended interpretation often being
>>> key
>>> to artistic practice and works), but formulating reflection on
>>> ways of
>>> making and thinking through making, and on ways these might relate
>>> to
>>> other artefacts (of knowledge, of practice).
>>>
>>> - some work lends itself to this process, and some artists derive
>>> real
>>> value from honing their visions thus (reflective, intellectual
>>> value,
>>> and socio-economic/ professional value related to academy status),
>>> as
>>> indicated by several contributors here; some clearly doesn't/ don't.
>>> Unfortunately, there seems to be a widely held assumption that any
>>> artistic work can be pulled out of a magically transformational PhD
>>> mortar board - this undermines both art and the academic
>>> institution.
>>>
>>> - questions of instrumentalisation/ instrumentality loom over any
>>> "free thinking", in different ways and degrees, in the institution
>>> or
>>> "ek-stitution" (Florian Schneider's term). There are countless
>>> scholars, as well as artists, wrestling with original PhD projects
>>> receiving zero support from the academy, even if they've managed to
>>> get enrolled to benefit from supervision and dialogue, who self-fund
>>> through irrelevant drudgery, often without any future
>>> possibilities of
>>> institutional integration. This is frequently overlooked by some
>>> artists who see themselves as the hardest hit in a hard world.
>>>
>>> - many academics, including artists, are prevented from developing
>>> original research projects by having to focus on tedious
>>> institutional
>>> tasks and politics. These can totally disrupt creative thinking of
>>> all
>>> kinds. In fact, this is probably the most generalised gripe amongst
>>> academics but it's inherent to institutions. How to have your cake
>>> and
>>> eat it too.
>>>
>>> - art has a unique contribution to make in the (constant)
>>> reframing of
>>> research practices and concepts within and outside the academy. It
>>> can
>>> make this contribution all the more incisively through awareness of
>>> the wider scene in which it operates, and of the constraints facing
>>> others engaged in research, in order to better identify and defend
>>> its
>>> own specificities.
>>>
>>> - growth of PhD gravy trains in universities keen to boost research
>>> profiles and resources (eg UK bean counting for higher education
>>> funding bodies), unhelpfully aggravates the confusion, if not
>>> "mystique", surrounding creative practice doctorates. Another "star
>>> academy": you're an artist, make the leap and become an academic?
>>> Job,
>>> security, institutional recognition?
>>>
>>> - in some places creative portfolios stitched together for
>>> submission
>>> as research are devoid of accompanying critical reflection; in
>>> others
>>> superficial text collations are validated by institutions wishing to
>>> confer respectable doctoral titles on potentially "impact-strong"
>>> individuals who can boost strategic links to "real world activity".
>>>
>>> - such situations are problematic because they undermine the
>>> painstaking, sometimes inspiring work being undertaken by deeply
>>> engaged creative practitioners and free thinkers, like many on this
>>> list, working inside and beyond the academy walls.
>>>
>>> OK, I'll stop there. Hopefully these points don't come across as
>>> dogmatic because in my mind they're a bunch of open questions.
>>>
>>>
>>> best
>>> sj
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>> Message: 8
>>> Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 16:19:40 +0000
>>> From: Simon Biggs <simon at littlepig.org.uk>
>>> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Practice in Research & odd methods, rude
>>> mechanics
>>> Message-ID: <8B518829-853D-4D6A-AAE8-9A9B754C57F5 at littlepig.org.uk>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
>>>
>>> A review of the outputs for the units of assessments in art and
>>> design, the performing arts and music, for the UK's 2008 Research
>>> Assessment Exercise, would deliver many examples of practice based
>>> work that were submitted and reviewed within a framework focused
>>> on research value, most of which was considered to be research by
>>> definition (and a proportion excellent in that respect).
>>>
>>> There were around 70 higher education institutions submitting
>>> research active staff to the unit of assessment for art and design
>>> (largely practice based work) and over 40 for performing arts,
>>> also many practice based. A further 50 or so institutions
>>> submitted to the UoA for music, which would probably consist of
>>> 50% practice based work. I've not counted how many individual
>>> artist/academics this represents, but it will be around a
>>> thousand, with each submitting three or four outputs. We can
>>> therefore assume there are thousands of practice based outputs
>>> documented in the RAE database.
>>>
>>> http://rae.ac.uk/submissions/
>>>
>>> Music is an interesting case here. It has been a convention in
>>> music for 100% practice based PhDs to be submitted for many years.
>>> Music has long occupied a privileged position in research-led
>>> universities, whereas the other creative arts have, in most
>>> instances (at least in the UK), come to this in only the last two
>>> or three decades. My main experience of academia as a student was
>>> working in the electronic music studio at Adelaide University,
>>> which was almost exclusively used by PhD students in composition
>>> (that was in the 70's). Obviously this was not a rock'n'roll
>>> environment - the Professor who ran the studio smoked a pipe and
>>> had leather elbow patches on his tweed jacket, representing the
>>> cliche of the senior academic of the time. But it was a highly
>>> creative environment dedicated to music practice and the sort of
>>> place where technologies and practices were developed that
>>> facilitated more popular musical forms (eg: the Professor in
>>> question developed the synthesisers used
>>> by Pink Floyd on Dark Side of the Moon, a few years earlier).
>>>
>>> We have a music school within Edinburgh College of Art (part of
>>> Edinburgh University) and there is little debate there about
>>> whether music practice can be research. It clearly can be, and
>>> 100% practice based! However, music is distinct, at least when
>>> considering the main tropes of music within academia (contemporary
>>> classical, experimental and electronic music dominate), as much of
>>> it exists as writing, in the form of the score. For the PhD the
>>> score, along with its performance, is often considered sufficient
>>> for the submission. There need not be any further
>>> contextualisation of the work, other than that required for the
>>> viva. That said, knowing a number of PhDs in our music department,
>>> they go to great lengths to contextualise and justify their work,
>>> historically, theoretically and technically (often all three at
>>> the same time). They are artists and they consider it default that
>>> they intellectually justify their work. As an artist myself I've
>>> always assumed I have to justify
>>> my practice intellectually, whether in argument, in writing or in
>>> practice. So, I disagree with Adrian when he states that art does
>>> not have to justify itself. I think it does, and always has had
>>> to, just like any other human activity. Art is not special. An
>>> anthropologist like Tim Ingold writes insightfully about the value
>>> of creativity in culture and points out how this is core in social
>>> formation, not a special form of human activity.
>>>
>>> To give an example of a music PhD, a professional jazz musician
>>> submits a number of scores for ensemble pieces and music for
>>> dance. This has been contextualised in relation to jazz history
>>> (both traditional and modern - eg: Miles Davis, but also working
>>> James Brown into the mix) and modern classical music (eg:
>>> Stravinsky to Cage), looking at very specific aspects of each of
>>> these musical traditions and how they inform one another. This has
>>> then been reflected upon in the compositions the student has
>>> prepared, which function as exemplars of the hypothesis. The main
>>> evidence are the scores. This is considered quite conventional as
>>> a PhD submission. I am also aware of similar forms of PhD in the
>>> area of creative writing.
>>>
>>> best
>>>
>>> Simon
>>>
>>>
>>> On 20 Jan 2013, at 15:27, Cecile Chevalier wrote:
>>>
>>>> <So now I feel even more confused, as no one has ever yet, here,
>>>> mentioned an artwork produced in the university and submitted for
>>>> review (evaluation,
>>>> knowledge attesting, confirmation of output, impact?), influence,
>>>> significance? meaning? so where are these practices, and how
>>>> do they matter? how come this is never addressed"?
>>>> what work is generated?> <Johannes>
>>>>
>>>> To amend the balance in a small way.... VIva Viva exhibition in
>>>> 2008... where work and thesis were accessible, the exhibition
>>>> was open and advertise to the general public as well as
>>>> academics...
>>>>
>>>> http://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/vertigo_magazine/volume-4-issue-2-winter-spring-20091/viva-viva-an-exhibition-at-p3-gallery-london-december-2008/
>>>>
>>>> ...The works displayed clearly showed different approaches to
>>>> practice-based research - some works were clearly dominant in
>>>> their practice, other seems to use practice as a method to access/
>>>> present knowledge. This may have reflected their percentage of
>>>> practice.... can a practice-based PhD be 80% practice? what is
>>>> the minimum percentage that practice can be in practice-based
>>>> research?
>>>>
>>>> I was truly excited by the exhibition (at the time I had not
>>>> started my PhD), although it had similarities with a traditional
>>>> art exhibition in its format (allocated/curated space and
>>>> documentation) the content of the work and documentation was not
>>>> 'art' but 'research art' (in its dominance of knowledge over
>>>> aesthetics). But what I valued was its access to the general
>>>> audience that I was then part of, it made research accessible.
>>>> Sadly there were no Viva Viva in 2009 or any other year after
>>>> that, which in some aspect reinforces Johannes's questions as
>>>> opposed to answer them.
>>>>
>>>> C?cile
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ________________________________________
>>>> From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au [empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>>> ] on behalf of Johannes Birringer [Johannes.Birringer at brunel.ac.uk]
>>>> Sent: 20 January 2013 06:18
>>>> To: soft_skinned_space
>>>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Practice in Research & odd methods, rude
>>>> mechanics
>>>>
>>>> dear all
>>>>
>>>> the small post I sent a few days ago was meant to interrupt the
>>>> conversation, and I am sorry for that.
>>>>
>>>> The messages that appeared before here were quite illuminating,
>>>> in many respects, and also deeply, very deeply saddening, when
>>>> I felt I read about the experiences described, artists becoming
>>>> academics, teaching, defending their Phds,
>>>> embroiled in bureaucracy of management, pedagogy, teaching
>>>> studio? teaching academic practice & theory? preparation for
>>>> teaching,
>>>> administering, writing essays and theses, and all this, yes. And
>>>> all this "knowledge production."
>>>>
>>>> The practice of the now so-called "practitioners" in the
>>>> university environment. What
>>>> is this, a practitioner? What are we? what knowledge, Miles?
>>>> whose knowledge criteria? what kind of knowledge are you defending?
>>>> and what would be the difference between art (non-
>>>> instrumentalized?) and art (instrumentalized) and "output"?
>>>> what is an "output"? what are your key problems?
>>>>
>>>> (I read Sue Hawksley's last post with great interest, as she is
>>>> describing a dilemma
>>>> of space and time to create.....and her work as a " a dance
>>>> artist ...work[ing] with new media, for example
>>>> within digitally-mediated interactive immersive performance
>>>> environments".....
>>>>
>>>>>> .
>>>> - these grand claims for developing skills of interactivity feel
>>>> a bit hollow right now. I notice with irony that I'm finding it
>>>> difficult to complete this thought....
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> So now I feel even more confused, as no one has ever yet, here,
>>>> mentioned an artwork produced in the university and submittted
>>>> for review (evaluation,
>>>> knowledge attesting, confirmation of output, impact?), influence,
>>>> signfiicance? meaning? so where are these practices, and how
>>>> do they matter? how come this is never addressed"?
>>>> what work is generated?
>>>>
>>>> (mind you, I have failed completely to understand/appreciate the
>>>> quotation offered to us about " research bricolage" ...
>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>> of multiperspectival research methods...... diverse theoretical
>>>> traditions are employed in a broader critical theoretical/
>>>> critical pedagogical context to lay the foundation for a
>>>> transformative mode of multimethodological inquiry. Using these
>>>> multiple frameworks and methodologies researchers are empowered
>>>> to produce more rigorous and praxiological insights into socio-
>>>> political and educational phenomena. Kincheloe theorizes a
>>>> critical multilogical epistemology and critical connected
>>>> ontology to ground the research bricolage......
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> This multimethodological stuff, to me this is unintelligible
>>>> verbage, I guess, academic lingo, probably about uninspiring and
>>>> unwitnessed art.
>>>> To what audience or reception or knowledge context is this
>>>> language directed? who would bother to read/see/experience this
>>>> "critical connected ontology"?
>>>>
>>>> so I am just wondering aloud about the "practices", that's all.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Having just read an article in Art in America [http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/features/sensibility-of-the-times-revisited/
>>>> ]
>>>> about artists back then responding to a questionnaire asking to
>>>> describe the sensibility of the ?60s, and the same questions
>>>> posed to artists now in 2012-13,
>>>> i found Carolee Schneemann's reply about dentists quite
>>>> interesting:
>>>>
>>>> <<
>>>> Current ideological language uses ?practice? to define art
>>>> concepts at the expense of process. Practice implies
>>>> perfectibility, strategy, products: dentists have a practice,
>>>> violinists practice, yoga is a practice, elephants practice for
>>>> the circus. Process invites risk, uncertainty, vision,
>>>> unpredictability, concentration and blind devotion.
>>>>
>>>> Yes, the current situation is more academic. >>
>>>>
>>>> But surely Schneemann, and the other artists who responded, had
>>>> much to say about knowledge production, but their production is
>>>> not defensible, if I understand Adrian Miles correctly.
>>>>
>>>> That was my whole point. What are you defending, then?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> regards
>>>>
>>>> Johannes Birringer
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> empyre forum
>>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> empyre forum
>>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>
>>>
>>> Simon Biggs
>>> simon at littlepig.org.uk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ @SimonBiggsUK
>>> skype: simonbiggsuk
>>>
>>> s.biggs at ed.ac.uk Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh
>>> http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/edinburgh-college-art/school-of-art/staff/staff?person_id=182&cw_xml=profile.php
>>> http://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/simon-biggs%285dfcaf34-56b1-4452-9100-aaab96935e31%29.html
>>>
>>> http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ http://www.elmcip.net/ http://www.movingtargets.org.uk/
>>> http://designinaction.com/
>>> MSc by Research in Interdisciplinary Creative Practices
>>> http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgraduate/degrees?id=656&cw_xml=details.php
>>>
>>> -------------- next part --------------
>>> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
>>> URL: <http://lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/attachments/20130120/f4dc35f9/attachment-0001.htm
>>> >
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>> Message: 9
>>> Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 10:34:07 -0600
>>> From: Monika Weiss <gniewna at monika-weiss.com>
>>> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Practice in Research & odd methods, rude
>>> mechanics
>>> Message-ID: <8DDBE0D3-B9AE-47B3-B39B-092C937BBECF at monika-weiss.com>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
>>>
>>> dear All,
>>>
>>> I have only now began to read through some of the posts on this
>>> highly contested/defended today subject (art and research, art as
>>> research) and this quote came across as something I wanted to
>>> write towards and perhaps "oppose" it a little:
>>>
>>> "art is non instrumental because it does not have to refer to
>>> anything outside of itself, if it desires, its use value is to
>>> itself only."
>>>
>>> I think when Carolee talks about process as opposed to practice
>>> (thank you JB for that artforum quote by the way), and the way I
>>> understand the process as well --- it leads us, pulls us, away
>>> from [and towards] strangely familiar and unfamiliar places, both
>>> at the same time. Both familiarity and recognition as well as
>>> strangeness and unknown territories, create a productive place for
>>> the work and its reception. Thus I disagree profoundly with the
>>> idea of complete independence of art from life (as referent) which
>>> the above sentence implies, I think. There is always some type of
>>> a connecting tissue, a link with real event, which is why a
>>> dialogue is even possible. Of course the question arises how to
>>> "defend" that inner and connecting-with-outer tissue. Critics and
>>> historians are "practicing" answers to this question in what
>>> Edward Shanken I believe calls MCA (main stream contemporary art)
>>> -- this "defense" (or de-fence) is practiced by dealers, critics
>>> and historians on our b
>>> ehalf, while in the NMA (new media art) we are more often writing
>>> or exposing our thinking directly as theory and making it visible
>>> first hand.
>>>
>>> This apparent conflict between "art" and "research" has many faces
>>> -- again something even Shanken agrees in one of his recent posts
>>> on Rhizome -- that a lot of new media work is not great (if we
>>> assume that new media means it is work that comes automatically
>>> with theory and research and writing etc.) but he also states that
>>> a lot of MCA is equally not interesting or equally not relevant
>>> (also true). Thus, if we take the "power" of the work "itself"
>>> aside for a moment, I want to ask whether a profound research done
>>> by an artist along side the "work of art" that " stands on its
>>> own" takes anything away from the 'art"? -- or, perhaps, it
>>> becomes part of it , at least in the best case scenario...
>>>
>>> I recently had a conversation [following a screening of my work]
>>> with an important artist from the MCA world whom I mutually adore.
>>> However his complaint was that I spoke as part of my screening,
>>> especially that I spoke of the issues or histories and places that
>>> I researched and that it took away some of the "magic" or mystery.
>>> He said - "let THEM do it".
>>>
>>> This, this strange division between "us" and "them" seems to be as
>>> relevant in the conversations about research and art or "practice"
>>> as is the context of academia. The sometimes still lingering
>>> bourgeois notion of an artist as always a priori "other" and as an
>>> outcast, comes to mind. The non-intellectual, the mute genius,
>>> hidden in HIS studio (and then sold by Gaugosian). And, as we all
>>> well know, it was the first wave feminist artists and writers
>>> that, among others, brought to the fore the notion that ideology,
>>> politics, social issues, economy, the body and the biography, all
>>> can be explicitly discussed in and alongside the work itself. Of
>>> course since then, we have grown both into commercialization of
>>> the ideology (and even/especially of the process itself--enough to
>>> just take a walk through Basel etc.) which is now commodified
>>> (again thanks to MCA machine) but we have also developed systems
>>> of questioning values such as this assumption about the "non
>>> instrumental art" --
>>> and, in a bright utopian universe, PhD for artists could offer
>>> that place of questioning. [here, I need to also state that only
>>> in places like Australia, where the government pays for PHDs, not
>>> in the US and nor in Europe where it is an adventure reserved for
>>> the riches] -
>>>
>>> Is our production defensible? By "THEM"? By us? Who has a right to
>>> stand by it in language, in theory, in public forum and how, why?
>>> [Interestingly, Schneemann is a very good writer - I recommend
>>> especially her conversation with Thomas McEvilley in the book
>>> accompanying her tremendous retrospective in the Museum of
>>> Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto from few years back.]
>>>
>>> --
>>> So, there are just my few thoughts before I dig deeper into the
>>> past posts in this conversation---
>>> regards,
>>> Monika Weiss
>>>
>>> On Jan 20, 2013, at 12:18 AM, Johannes Birringer wrote:
>>>
>>>> dear all
>>>>
>>>> the small post I sent a few days ago was meant to interrupt the
>>>> conversation, and I am sorry for that.
>>>>
>>>> The messages that appeared before here were quite illuminating,
>>>> in many respects, and also deeply, very deeply saddening, when
>>>> I felt I read about the experiences described, artists becoming
>>>> academics, teaching, defending their Phds,
>>>> embroiled in bureaucracy of management, pedagogy, teaching
>>>> studio? teaching academic practice & theory? preparation for
>>>> teaching,
>>>> administering, writing essays and theses, and all this, yes. And
>>>> all this "knowledge production."
>>>>
>>>> The practice of the now so-called "practitioners" in the
>>>> university environment. What
>>>> is this, a practitioner? What are we? what knowledge, Miles?
>>>> whose knowledge criteria? what kind of knowledge are you defending?
>>>> and what would be the difference between art (non-
>>>> instrumentalized?) and art (instrumentalized) and "output"?
>>>> what is an "output"? what are your key problems?
>>>>
>>>> (I read Sue Hawksley's last post with great interest, as she is
>>>> describing a dilemma
>>>> of space and time to create.....and her work as a " a dance
>>>> artist ...work[ing] with new media, for example
>>>> within digitally-mediated interactive immersive performance
>>>> environments".....
>>>>
>>>>>> .
>>>> - these grand claims for developing skills of interactivity feel
>>>> a bit hollow right now. I notice with irony that I'm finding it
>>>> difficult to complete this thought....
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> So now I feel even more confused, as no one has ever yet, here,
>>>> mentioned an artwork produced in the university and submittted
>>>> for review (evaluation,
>>>> knowledge attesting, confirmation of output, impact?), influence,
>>>> signfiicance? meaning? so where are these practices, and how
>>>> do they matter? how come this is never addressed"?
>>>> what work is generated?
>>>>
>>>> (mind you, I have failed completely to understand/appreciate the
>>>> quotation offered to us about " research bricolage" ...
>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>> of multiperspectival research methods...... diverse theoretical
>>>> traditions are employed in a broader critical theoretical/
>>>> critical pedagogical context to lay the foundation for a
>>>> transformative mode of multimethodological inquiry. Using these
>>>> multiple frameworks and methodologies researchers are empowered
>>>> to produce more rigorous and praxiological insights into socio-
>>>> political and educational phenomena. Kincheloe theorizes a
>>>> critical multilogical epistemology and critical connected
>>>> ontology to ground the research bricolage......
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> This multimethodological stuff, to me this is unintelligible
>>>> verbage, I guess, academic lingo, probably about uninspiring and
>>>> unwitnessed art.
>>>> To what audience or reception or knowledge context is this
>>>> language directed? who would bother to read/see/experience this
>>>> "critical connected ontology"?
>>>>
>>>> so I am just wondering aloud about the "practices", that's all.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Having just read an article in Art in America [http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/features/sensibility-of-the-times-revisited/
>>>> ]
>>>> about artists back then responding to a questionnaire asking to
>>>> describe the sensibility of the ?60s, and the same questions
>>>> posed to artists now in 2012-13,
>>>> i found Carolee Schneemann's reply about dentists quite
>>>> interesting:
>>>>
>>>> <<
>>>> Current ideological language uses ?practice? to define art
>>>> concepts at the expense of process. Practice implies
>>>> perfectibility, strategy, products: dentists have a practice,
>>>> violinists practice, yoga is a practice, elephants practice for
>>>> the circus. Process invites risk, uncertainty, vision,
>>>> unpredictability, concentration and blind devotion.
>>>>
>>>> Yes, the current situation is more academic. >>
>>>>
>>>> But surely Schneemann, and the other artists who responded, had
>>>> much to say about knowledge production, but their production is
>>>> not defensible, if I understand Adrian Miles correctly.
>>>>
>>>> That was my whole point. What are you defending, then?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> regards
>>>>
>>>> Johannes Birringer
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> empyre forum
>>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>
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>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>> Message: 10
>>> Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 18:46:25 +0000
>>> From: Phi Shu <phishu at gmail.com>
>>> To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Practice in Research & odd methods, rude
>>> mechanics
>>> Message-ID:
>>> <CAJFY5_1yshrZf=-seP9nj3OP_RFTUSA9AzVAHj9oCjB0JAXVJQ at mail.gmail.com
>>> >
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
>>>
>>> I'm guessing that neoliberal economic policies can be blamed for the
>>> problems we are seeing both in universities and in the arts more
>>> generally.
>>> Where are all these creative practitioners with doctorates going
>>> to get
>>> relevant academic jobs? If they chose to work independently after
>>> a PhD,
>>> where is the arts funding going to come from? How long can this
>>> neoliberal "creative industries"
>>> economic exercise continue before people wake up to the fact that
>>> there
>>> simply are not enough jobs, there is simply no way every "educated"
>>> creative practitioner can make a "career" out of doing art/music/
>>> whatever.
>>> So what's the point? Why bother doing a PhD at all? Sure, if you
>>> can get
>>> paid to do it, great, but don't expect to find an academic job
>>> afterwards,
>>> unless you are prepared to start jumping through all of the
>>> "research
>>> excellence" hoops from the get-go.
>>>
>>>
>>> And in terms of having perhaps found an academic job, what about
>>> the myths
>>> of the academic labour<http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/1300/653
>>> >
>>> market <http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/1300/653>?
>>>
>>>
>>> *Myth 1: There Is a Job Market For Which You Must Be Competitive *
>>>
>>> *
>>> *
>>>
>>> *Myth 2: There Is a Ladder to Climb*
>>>
>>> *
>>> *
>>>
>>> *Myth 3: The Liberal Arts Are Less Valuable Than Other Fields*
>>>
>>> *
>>> *
>>>
>>> *Myth 4: We Are Not Workers*
>>>
>>>
>>> But what's going to change? How many creative practitioners within
>>> academic
>>> institutions are actually challenging the status quo?
>>>
>>>
>>> And finally, some material taken from the conclusion of my
>>> doctorate thesis
>>> (a practice based thesis by the way). I was asked to remove it for
>>> the
>>> final version.
>>>
>>>
>>> ....On one side there is an institutionally based infrastructure
>>> that
>>> supports the activities of a specialist community, on the other, a
>>> culture
>>> industry that commodifies music, dictates trends, and establishes
>>> the
>>> market value for all music based goods. The audience for
>>> experimental music
>>> is minuscule,[2]<file:///E:/Desktop/Desk/Research%20Library/PDF%20RESEARCH/PHD/CORRECTIONS/DRyan%20-%20Thesis%20Corrections%2027-01-12.doc#_ftn2
>>> >
>>> and
>>> even mainstream music has been commercially devalued to such an
>>> extent that
>>> the independent producer cannot hope to make a reasonable income
>>> from "unit
>>> sales" alone; unless they are somehow capable of providing a
>>> product that
>>> has mass appeal in the popular domain. Within the institution,
>>> though it
>>> may offer a means to sustain a compositional career, the duties
>>> that come
>>> with upholding an academic position can place great pressures on the
>>> individual; often to the detriment of "creative output". It also
>>> forces
>>> creators to justify the worth of their compositional activities in
>>> relation
>>> to its value as *music research*; research, that in accordance
>>> with the
>>> institutions administrative regime (and its overarching ethos), must
>>> somehow equate with ?excellence.? In this climate, worryingly for
>>> some,
>>> free creative expression may perhaps be unsustainable. Arguably, the
>>> combined forces of the market economy (driven by popular notions of
>>> artistic worth) and institutions that are obsessed with producing
>>> *excellent
>>> * research (concerned also with the market as they try to move up
>>> the
>>> league tables) may in fact be stifling genuine "innovation"...
>>>
>>> [2]<file:///E:/Desktop/Desk/Research%20Library/PDF%20RESEARCH/PHD/CORRECTIONS/DRyan%20-%20Thesis%20Corrections%2027-01-12.doc#_ftnref2
>>> >
>>> Landy (2009:521) cites Maurice Fleuret's observation that concerts
>>> of such
>>> works are comparable to Kleenex: ?use once throw away ? thus
>>> suggesting
>>> that a work?s *premiere* is also its *derniere*. Such remarks
>>> typify the
>>> odd situation known to many late 20th century contemporary music
>>> composers:
>>> few performances, few recording opportunities, and even fewer
>>> broadcasts.?
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>>> >
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>> Message: 11
>>> Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 22:30:37 +0000
>>> From: Simon Biggs <simon at littlepig.org.uk>
>>> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>>> Subject: [-empyre-] Research in Practice, week three, January 21-28
>>> Message-ID: <664DD090-775F-42B4-B60E-B64722903B80 at littlepig.org.uk>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
>>>
>>> The third and last week of our discussion on Research in Practice
>>> begins. I would like to thank our invited discussants during week
>>> two, C?cile Chevalier, Laura Cinti, Talan Memmott, Maria Menc?a
>>> and Anne Sarah Le Meur, as well as everyone who has contributed to
>>> the week's debate as it has developed into new terrain,
>>> considering how creative practitioners can also be PhD students
>>> and academic researchers. Adrian Miles and Johannes Birringer's
>>> emails have been especially insightful as questions concerning
>>> difference in value between creative practice and research have
>>> been debated. We hope that all the participants will sustain their
>>> engagement as the discussion develops further.
>>>
>>> We would like to welcome the invited discussants for week three,
>>> the last week of our discussion, January 21-28. They are:
>>>
>>> Keith Armstrong has specialised for 18 years in collaborative,
>>> hybrid, new media works with an emphasis on innovative performance
>>> forms, site-specific electronic arts, networked interactive
>>> installations, alternative interfaces, public arts practices and
>>> art-science collaborations. His ongoing research focuses on how
>>> scientific and philosophical ecologies can both influence and
>>> direct the design and conception of networked, interactive media
>>> artworks. Keith's artworks have been shown and profiled
>>> extensively both in Australia and overseas and he has been the
>>> recipient of numerous grants from the public and private sectors.
>>> His work Intimate Transactions (with the Transmute Collective) is
>>> held in the permamnent collection of ZKM. He was formerly an
>>> Australia Council New Media Arts Fellow, a doctoral and
>>> Postdoctoral New Media Fellow at QUT's Creative Industries Faculty
>>> and a lead researcher at the ACID Australasian Cooperative
>>> Research Centre for Interaction Design. He is curr
>>> ently a part-time Senior Research Fellow at Queensland University
>>> of Technology Brisbane, and a practicing freelance new media artist.
>>>
>>> Wendy Kirkup is an artist and PHD candidate at the University of
>>> Edinburgh. Her past work has been exhibited both nationally and
>>> internationally, including Tate Modern, London, ZKM, Karlsruhe
>>> Germany and Princeton University Art Museum, USA. Her current PHD
>>> study investigates, through the methods and methodologies of
>>> drawing and filmmaking, notions of place-making, considered as a
>>> set of temporal, material and sensual practices.
>>>
>>> Mike Leggett has been working with moving image across the
>>> institutions of art, education and television since the late-60s.
>>> He has film and video work in archives and collections in Europe,
>>> Australia, North and South America and has curated exhibitions of
>>> interactive multimedia, including for the Museum of Contemporary
>>> Art in Sydney. He writes and lectures about computer mediated art,
>>> contributes regularly to journals (Leonardo; Continuum) and
>>> magazines (RealTime, World Art). He has a PhD from the Creativity
>>> & Cognition Studios, University of Technology Sydney and an MFA
>>> from the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales and
>>> is currently a Fellow in the School of Creative Arts at the
>>> University of Wollongong.
>>>
>>> Daniela Alina Plewe received a PhD from the Sorbonne on a thesis
>>> introducing the concept of ?Transactional Arts? referring to art,
>>> where interactions become transactions ( http://transactional-arts.com
>>> ). Previously she acquired a B.A. in Philosophy (Aesthetics,
>>> Philosophy of Science, Artificial Intelligence) and a M.A. in
>>> Experimental Media Design from the University of Arts, Berlin.
>>> Since 1992 she developed media art projects which were
>>> internationally exhibited and have won several awards. Exhibitions
>>> and collaborations include MIT Media Lab, Harvard Law Lab, Ars
>>> Electronica, Canon Art Lab Tokyo, ZKM Karlsruhe, University of
>>> California LA, School of Visual Arts NY, ISEA, Transmediale, ACM
>>> Multimedia, Fraunhofer Institute and others. In 2010 she was
>>> nominated for the Transmediale Vilem Flusser Theory Award.
>>>
>>> Miguel Santos is a transdisciplinary artist and researcher, born
>>> in Portugal and living somewhere out there. He is interested in
>>> intersecting perspectives in Fine Arts, Philosophy and Cognitive
>>> Science and employs those findings in the production of
>>> installations, videos and photographic works that have been
>>> exhibited across Europe. In 2011, he received a PhD in Fine Arts
>>> from Sheffield Hallam University for the research project: ?
>>> Poetics of the Interface: Creating Works of Art that Engage in
>>> Self-Reflection?. The project's main objective was to understand
>>> the value of artists employing noise (disturbances) in the
>>> formulation of interfaces (i.e. films, videos, photographs,
>>> sculptures, etc.) and its implications for the observer?s
>>> interpretation.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Simon Biggs
>>> simon at littlepig.org.uk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ @SimonBiggsUK
>>> skype: simonbiggsuk
>>>
>>> s.biggs at ed.ac.uk Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh
>>> http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/edinburgh-college-art/school-of-art/staff/staff?person_id=182&cw_xml=profile.php
>>> http://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/simon-biggs%285dfcaf34-56b1-4452-9100-aaab96935e31%29.html
>>>
>>> http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ http://www.elmcip.net/ http://www.movingtargets.org.uk/
>>> http://designinaction.com/
>>> MSc by Research in Interdisciplinary Creative Practices
>>> http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgraduate/degrees?id=656&cw_xml=details.php
>>>
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>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre mailing list
>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>
>>> End of empyre Digest, Vol 98, Issue 15
>>> **************************************
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>
>
>
> Simon Biggs
> simon at littlepig.org.uk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ @SimonBiggsUK
> skype: simonbiggsuk
>
> s.biggs at ed.ac.uk Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh
> http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/edinburgh-college-art/school-of-art/staff/staff?person_id=182&cw_xml=profile.php
> http://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/simon-biggs%285dfcaf34-56b1-4452-9100-aaab96935e31%29.html
>
> http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ http://www.elmcip.net/ http://www.movingtargets.org.uk/
> http://designinaction.com/
> MSc by Research in Interdisciplinary Creative Practices
> http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgraduate/degrees?id=656&cw_xml=details.php
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
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