[-empyre-] Practice in Research

Tue Jan 22 19:18:34 EST 2013

Within the UK it is quite normal for examiners to request alterations to PhD thesis's. This might be minimal and practical, such as minor corrections of spelling errors or grammar. It might be major, such as the deletion of whole chapters, if the examiners feel they are not salient to the core research.

One of the criteria for a thesis to be considered PhD level is that it is publishable in an appropriate journal or as a book, at least in large part. If it isn't, but the research is of sufficient quality then, as with peer review of journal or book texts, the examiners, functioning as peer reviewers, can require extensive changes to the work. We are familiar with this when we submit texts for academic publication so perhaps it isn't surprising that this also happens to PhDs. The PhD is being expected to perform as an academic would. In academia, as opposed to the art world, one has to swallow one's ego a little and exercise compromise.

For artists this can be problematic as the creative art disciplines value individuality, originality and uniqueness more than they value rigour, contextualisation and clarity. It has been argued that it is novelty, and how it is valued, that is the most problematic issue when seeking to work between the worlds of art and academia. However, research is not the property of academia, just as creativity is not the property of the arts. We can forge our own disciplinary criteria. Having them accepted is, of course, another matter, whether by our peers in academia or the arts.

best

Simon

On 21 Jan 2013, at 18:14, 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] On Behalf Of aslemeur at free.fr
> Sent: 21 January 2013 12:06
> To: 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
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 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/20130122/090b3315/attachment.htm>