[-empyre-] Practice in Research

[Adrian Miles]

ah, that is just sad, isn't it? At RMIT I've seen a successful Business PhD that was a box containing objects (I remember a teddy bear only), and loose sheets that was the exegesis. Concealed under a false bottom of the box was a huge archive of notes, quotes, additional free form writing. this was how the candidate got round the admonition to not go over the word limit, etc. In the honours program I work in we embrace mess, but in terms of creative research practices it is risky as the work has to be examined (and many examiners can be unsympathetic to such experimentation as being academics have gone through honours themselves and internalised the conservative values of what counts as research in the academy), and in honours a place in a PhD program (and a scholarship) rests on the outcome.   

--  
an appropriate closing
Adrian Miles
Program Director Bachelor of Media and Communication (Honours)
RMIT University - www.rmit.edu.au
http://vogmae.net.au/



On Tuesday, 22 January 2013 at 5:14 AM, Phi Shu wrote:

> @Anne-Sarah
>  
> they justified the removal of that and other critical/questioning content in terms of it not "adding to knowledge," it was an expression of subjective experience, so was irrelevant to the concerns of the PhD thesis. They were also, for the most part, less than enthused about ideas such as:  
>  
> ...Danykin (2004:6) cites Marcus (1998) in suggesting the use of “messy texts” as a means of avoiding “a suggestion of linearity and coherence where these may not exist”. Such a text can “engage with multiple meanings, conveying the whole without invoking totality. [It can] resist the dominance of the researcher, recognising that work is incomplete without readers' responses...”   
>  
>  “...poststructuralism suggests two important ideas to qualitative writers. First, it directs us to understand ourselves reflexivity as persons writing from particular positions at specific times. Second, it frees us from trying to write a single text in which everything is said at once to everyone. Nurturing our own voices releases the censorious hold of “science writing” on our consciousness as well as the arrogance it fosters in our psyche; writing is validated as a method of knowing.” Richardson (2000:962)  
>  
>  “...research within the creative arts suffers from an inferiority complex in relation to other established academic areas of knowledge. That inferiority complex is not the result of a less valuable knowledge or the novelty of creative arts research but the result of a constant need to justify that research/practice through aims, methods and outcomes that are external to the creative arts.” Santos in Biggs (2009:79).  
>  
> "The apprehension of musical content and structure is linked to the world of experience outside the composition, not only to the wider context of auditory experience but also to non-sounding experience. Approached from the multiple perspectives of life outside music, the materials and structure of a musical composition become the meeting-place of sounding and non-sounding experience.” (Smalley 1996:83)  
>  
> I tend to agree with Simon's last statement re:practice based PhD candidates:    
>  
> "It's debatable whether...critical enhancement would have happened if they didn't do 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."  
>  
> But, for some, critical enhancement can be a bit of a curse.
>  
> PS
>  
>  
> >  
> >  
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au (mailto:empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au)
> > [mailto:empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of aslemeur at free.fr (mailto:aslemeur at free.fr)
> > Sent: 21 January 2013 12:06
> > To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au (mailto:empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au)
> > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Practice in Research & odd methods, rude mechanics
> >  
> > Hi all !
> >  
> > I am bit drown in english so excuse me if I don't take part more often.
> >  
> > Phi Shu, about your fore last paragraph (before the note) you write 'I was
> > asked to remove it for the final version'.
> > It is incredible !!! How did they justify their request ?
> >  
> > About the struggle to keep on doing art while being an academic :
> > I want to testify that the 2 other practice-based phd persons (in 3D
> > artworks) that I know and that got a position are not doing so much and so
> > good art as before. But they are much 'higher' in the hierarchy than I am.
> > I was surprised to hear them both tell me that I do the right
> > thing/choice... ! (developing and protecting the creation practice.) Can't
> > they resist to the desire of being recognised as 'good' academic ?
> >  
> > ... research as justification (for an academic-artist) I am not sure I write
> > on my creation process to 'justify' it. For me it is a deep matter of
> > understanding it. I write because I don't understand it through and through
> > (if it is possible). And I try to question and understand the creation
> > process altered by programming language.
> > I put more the emphasize on the genesis of ideas, description and links
> > between elements than on the interpretation(s) of the piece itself. I guess
> > I feel it is not the core topic I have to deal from my position. (and
> > probably, according to this meaning desire I have just mentioned, it is the
> > easiest to analyse -from my position).
> >  
> > au plaisir !
> >  
> > Anne-Sarah
> >  
> >  
>  
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>  
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