[-empyre-] January at empyre - Research in Practice

[Mike Leggett]

Thank you Simon

Dear empyrecists - I too have been attempting to follow the discussion. (It is not made easy when great screeds of previous posts are included for no apparent reason - etiquette required please!)

I don't think there has been a moment since the early 1970s when my arts practice and research have not been closely allied. In a Co-operative workshop we made 16mm films that required an advanced understanding of every stage of the technical process, including the practical printing and processing of shot material. The Co-op was in effect an independent post-graduate research department, looking into the aesthetic of structural-material film (as it happened, then…..). It was reliant on volunteer or underpaid labour for the presentation and distribution of completed works. 

Subsequently, the same principles of research applied to production and reception modes in the new media of low-band video, then later still, the desktop computer. These communities of enquiry were/are not often invited into the galleries of the collector /  trader, but quite often in the halls of academe. I guess this was because we were/are attempting to use language in order to grapple with knowledge and its social context. And of course back then, film and photography had just been acknowledged by academe as art forms worthy of study. However, we as pipers, were not paid to play particular tunes. That is different now; we have 'research priorities.'

I am convinced that the practice we all pursued in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s would have benefitted from a more precise use of language - there was certainly no shortage of wordage, but too often it was side-tracked by what someone in the list has already called playfulness, to the point where knowledge was not being consolidated and distributed but retained within the discipline. An advanced degree, had it been more widely available, could have improved the quality of written thoughts; the regular process of supervisor and in particular anonymous peer reviewers providing feedback for the expression of ideas, as I subsequently found, leads in that direction. Knowledge in our current culture, is embodied in language, and if it is used well - tehkne - it embodies experience (but will never replace it).

Many realisations emerged from completing a PhD relatively late in my career, as an artist/scholar working in a science-based faculty, and here are a few:
 
- As a rule the sciences rely on language more so than the performance / time-based arts, in order to convey the significance and substance of their practice; most often papers and reports are the only deliverables, so they have to be clear if not precise, for further funding to flow, mainly.

- I observed that creativeness is not confined to the arts; though it was sparsely evident in the IT sciences, where much doggedness seems to rule. There was clear evidence that rigid approaches to research were being loosened by what our interdisciplinary research group brought to the Faculty. In fact a kind of respect grew; as one of the IT scientists observed, practice-based interdisciplinary PhDs are like a double degree. I agree, it's a high price to pay for 'sharpening the axe'!

- Evaluating interactive installations, (the kind of observation that previously was informal), introduced the ETHICS of practice, initially resisted until it was realised that comprehending different aspects of the experiential led to a greater respect for the participant and a better understanding of the development of the artwork itself. This became visible in the work and the subsequent writing about it. As Anne-Sarah observed: 
"I write in order to deeply understand what I do…...And I am always surprised to see how deep I can go." 
Following from my "PhD experience", I am applying this currently to understanding better what it was we were doing forty years ago!

- Maria M asks: How do we set up methodologies for practice-based research students? 
This can only be done on a case-by-case basis, working with a reliable supervisor who understands how a methodology is constructed. Artists who are used to the idea of a Studio or Workshop, or scientists who use a Lab, both employ a Toolbox, from which ideas, theories, methods, strategies, objectives, approaches, etc. are removed and assembled for the particular research task about to be undertaken. So a year of the PhD research needs to be spend scoping this Toolbox!

- The idea of "defence of the thesis" is only just being introduced to Australian universities, mostly by academics from overseas. At the moment, where it happens, it takes the form of a 40-min lecture followed by questions. The cathartic affect helps to draw a line under the "PhD experience" as well as inform the rest of the Faculty and the world what you have been doing. It is a continuation for me, of the public performance of the 16mm films, when dialogue with audience members was a priori. Research outcomes today might well facilitate this as a continuous process.

PS
I'm distracted by the plethora of question marks (?) that proliferate all over this list. Or maybe it's designed like that ?: actually I think the problem is the apostrophe's character - it creates catastrophe! It is definitely not a well designed list to navigate and encourage careful reading.


Regards All
Mike

Michael Leggett PhD, MFA
Senior Honorary Fellow
School of Creative Arts
University of Wollongong
NSW Australia

+61 (0)434996211

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