A Dog's Guide to ART RESEARCH

WOOFISM and beyond

Category: Research (Page 5 of 7)

Container or contained? Unpacking the ‘art object’

February 13, 2013 / / 0 Comments

suitcase

I have about 24 hours to pull together a reasonable attempt at a PhD bursary application. No pressure there then.

For the purposes of this application I am rehearsing what may be the research ‘question’ that I would interrogate and keep coming back to the same, to me key question, of where ‘knowledge’ may be said to reside.

 

James Elkins in a draft of a new chapter in his second edition of ‘Artists and Phds’. Provisionally titled ‘ Fourteen ways to mistrust the PhD in studio art’ touches on this in a subsection devoted to the question of ‘knowledge’ and most pertinently for me categorises it as the following two options:

C. How is this knowledge extracted from, read into, or interpreted in, visual art?

 

If “artistic knowledge” is partly outside of language, then it presents a problem for assessment and what are called in the UK “learning outcomes.” The fundamental choice here has to do with how the “artistic knowledge” is imagined to be related to the art object. There are fundamentally two choices here:

 

(i) “Artistic knowledge” inheres in the visual object or practice, so that the object or practice is itself a form of knowledge, or

 

(ii) “artistic knowledge” is interpreted to exist in the object or practice, so that discourse reveals the art’s contribution to knowledge.

In a separate facebook posting he also said the following:

Is art research? Is it knowledge?
Bruce M. Mackh asked me these two questions:
1. Is “Arts Practice” research?
2. Can the products of “Arts Practice” be original contributions to knowledge?

At the moment I am revising all those posts from earlier this year, for the new edition of the book “Artists with PhDs.” So these questions were timely. He made it necessary for me to try to answer in a very succinct way. Here are my answers — any thoughts?

1. Is “Arts Practice” research?
It hasn’t been until the 20th century. It’s important to bear in mind the relatively recent development of the notion that art is research: it comes from post-war academic pedagogy, and especially the structure of UK universities, which require new fields to present themselves as being aimed at “new knowledge” by way of “research.” This isn’t to say some art practice is not research: it’s to say the great majority isn’t.

2. Can the products of “Arts Practice” be original contributions to knowledge?
If you can give me one example of art research that is comprehensible as knowledge, I’ll say yes. Until then, I’ll say that art can often be understood as if it were producing knowledge: but that “knowledge” is insight, expression, understanding, feeling, affect, constellations of objects, unexpected juxtapositions, new sensory configurations. Note that your question asks if artworks can be knowledge. The other option is that the lead to knowledge, or can be interpreted as constituting knowledge. That leads in entirely different directions.

 

 

Research profile NTU updated

November 28, 2012 / / 0 Comments

This reflects where I am now hopefully.

belcherpixellab-291x300

Online at : http://www.ntu.ac.uk/apps/staff_profiles/staff_directory/123934-0/26/profile.aspx

ACADEMIC ROLE:

Shaun currently teaches web and graphic design and research across the Multimedia B.A. and Foundation Media Creatives Courses.

He’s working by Registered Project in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University investigating art and design pedagogy through visual thinking.

CAREER:

Shaun is a published poet (‘Last Farmer’ – Salt Publishing 2010), exhibited painter, songwriter and cartoonist. He has designed record sleeves for WEA Records and Creation Records, released Americana recordings as his alter-ego ‘Trailer Star’ and his ‘Moogee the art dog cartoons’ have been featured on the web and at academic conferences.

For more info : https://shaunbelcher.com

RESEARCH:

Shaun is currently investigating Frayling’s Art and Design Categories especially the notion of ‘Art FOR Research’ in relation to new knowledge and the art object through the medium of ‘Graphic Research’ his name for using cartoon imagery as a research ‘tool’.

He is also interested in art and design pedagogy and research in the fine arts in higher education especially at MA and PhD level.

 

M.A.Choice: It was always Fine Art

November 3, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Guston4

I have decided that the area I wish to continue my M.A.in is FINE ART.

I would like to rename my M.A. as a Fine Art M.A. instead of Multimedia for the reasons detailed below.

I currently have two separate ‘reflective journals’ documenting my ideas and thoughts and research over the last two years.

The first could be described as the ‘DIGITAL’ blog and the second as the ‘NON-DIGITAL’. (Using Digital as a descriptor preferred by
Lev Manovitch in his recent article ‘After Software’as opposed to the less well used ‘new media’, ‘interactive’ or ‘multimedia’.)
http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2012/11/new-article-by-lev-manovich-media-after.html

The DIGITAL enquiry focussed to start with on GPS and locative notions of landscape (originally called TRACK) and tied in with the original intent of the M.A. to link directly via CPLD to my Trent teaching. With the closing of the Multimedia Course in 2013 and my own frustration and lack of interest in the ‘web and mobile apps’ field I would like to take this opportunity to move back to my preferred original nomenclature of the degree as ‘Fine Art’. As a title this far more appropriate to the actual content which I exploring which is fine art painting and film/photography. I have realised that a significant part of the ‘DIGITAL’ that did interest me and still does is the representation of landscape in digital photography and cinema. So this blog will continue to investigate this area. I am hoping that instead of an either/or situation that the Digital and Non-Digital representation of landscape and the tension between these areas will become the focus of my M.A. enquiry from now on.
Reflective Journal ‘TRACK’: https://shaunbelcher.com/fineart

The NON-DIGITAL enquiry is explicitly concerned with what one could describe as ‘hands-on’ practice – drawing, painting and writing. In this area I have created artworks for over 30 years much of it related directly to a specific location (one of the reasons for the GPS/Mobile focus of the original proposal). I have been operating in a new studio in Nottingham since May 2011 and I will be creating large paintings and a series of drawings over the next year. Material created and thoughts on this process are being assembled in the BLANK CANVAS BLOG.

https://shaunbelcher.com/canvas

 

ART HISTORY RESEARCH

FINALLY the third area I have been exploring through papers, cartoons and conferences is more theoretical and is really PhD rather than M.A. material in my opinion: This is contained in this blog.

https://shaunbelcher.com/rpt
(Theoretical research as a precursor of PhD)

 

This is where I think the work displayed in this blog is leading…..

The analysis of Frayling and cartoons which constituted this summer’s ‘research’ and the subject of this blog belong to a critical practice which really situated within a FINE ART PEDAGOGY and FINE ART THEORY field. As such they are relevant to the PRACTICE as supporting material but do not directly engage with my fine art practice. Rather it acts as a frame and exploration of that practice’s political and theoretical situation in the modern university. I can see it developing into further research and possibly a PhD related entirely to the theoretical problems of attempting a fine art PhD. In this I draw heavily on James Elkins’ recent publications and have been involved in many recent threads which James has started on facebook and online.
http://jimandmargaret.wordpress.com/

Visual Writing?

October 29, 2012 / / 0 Comments

maplan2

I have been asked to look into the possibility (nothing more at this stage) of developing a VISUAL WRITING M.A.

This interesting especially as I not sure if it actually exists!!!!! (I can find no trace of such an animal in the wilds of academia). It also interesting as I not sure where such an animal if found would be caged…..Fine Art or Graphics?

A web search of VISUAL THINKING came up with only one related PhD studentship at Duncan and Jordanstone:

Visualisation & the Application of Visual Thinking
Visualisation & Simulation, Mediating technology, information design, Applying design thinking, Public engagement, Identity cultural & sense of place, Design in Public, Policy, Society, Business-Service Design, Design in new contexts (health etc) Exploring the economic / social impact of new practices

http://www.dundee.ac.uk/djcad/programmes/postgraduate/phdmphil/

VISUAL THINKING is a generic term which covers any method of displaying information graphically from business seminars to infographics made for the web. I cannot see how it strong enough to form an M.A. unless situated firmly within GRAPHIC DESIGN. It could however be a cross-disciplinary role helping from a pedagogic point of view which how it employed at the RCA where the post recently advertised ‘taught into animation and graphics’.
Wikipedia defines thus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_thinking

VISUAL WRITING is a much narrower term that basically refers to art books which contain a lot of visual information but are not GRAPHIC NOVELS or COMIC STRIPS.
http://www.visual-editions.com/visual-writing

GRAPHIC RESEARCH (my term) is using convention of Graphic Novel/Comic Book to reinterperate/re-present academic research.

My subject matter for my M.A. is FINE ART and practice-led. The blog related to it is called Graphic Research and stands outside of that M.A. and could lead to PhD level enquiry. I am interpreting FINE ART THEORY and PEDAGOGY in traditional research documents and comic book format. In this I am imitating a traditional PhD ‘practice-led’ approach but with both written (verbalised) and drawn analysis. I see the ‘graphic’ elements as being outside the traditional text/practice split and to some degree challenging Frayling’s notion of Research FOR art and design not being embedded in the art object (if you accept the drawings as art objects and not text).

Finally, and to address the new M.A. possibilities discussed above. I could happily posit the following options instead which we do not at present cover.

(I have not included ‘Interactive Arts’ or ‘Digital Arts’ because I think all Fine Art/ Graphic Design is digital/non-digital these days and it a false nomenclature  anyway and we would have to have a culture change and move towards the Glasgow model of ‘Digital Culture’ and ‘Communication Media’ to allow this to happen.)

1. GRAPHIC NOVEL AND COMIC. (Presently none exist in UK could be a USP?)

2. ART WRITING (CRITICISM)
similar to Goldsmiths course
http://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/mfa-art-writing/

3. DRAWING
Wimbledon College of Art have just re-launched their Drawing M.A. and there are also similar courses at Falmouth and Oxford Brookes (just validated)

http://www.brookes.ac.uk/studying/courses/postgraduate/2013/fine-art-drawing-practice

This a very strong possibility and something I would like to work with Terry and Deborah Harty on developing.

4.REGISTERED PROJECT
This the area I currently studying in and when I finish I believe I would be best suited to run this as course leader. A post that has not been treated as a separate entity since Carry Welling left and one that I think requires a stand alone course leader to promote and run effectively due to the nature of the provision which more akin to blended or open university curricula. I think it also one of the most exciting parts of our provision at Trent and should be made more of.

 

CODA

If these M.A. ideas do not develop I can see myself moving wholly into research / PhD as the Multimedia Course closes as my only option as I will have no teaching into Fine Art at B.A. (rejected by Fine Art representatives at consultation phase) or M.A. level as things presently constituted. Equally I am not considered worthy of teaching practice into Graphic Design….too graphic for fine art too fine art for graphics…marvellous…

 

Cartoon map of output to date: The Road Not Taken?

October 15, 2012 / / 0 Comments

As part of re-planning my M.A. by registered project I was asked to ‘draw’ out my ideas. By chance I had already done it a few weeks ago as part of process of seeking ‘re-alignment’.

The image is complex but for me the most interesting outcome was the realisation that the ‘four-leaf clover’ actually boiled down to two distinct and separate ‘pathways’ going in different directions but both could equally be followed and examined as an M.A.

 

PRACTICE AS RESEARCH?

The first pathway is practice-led and focusses on drawing and painting as both studio-based and like most fine art PhD’s one that can interrogate itself during ‘process’. i.e. self-reflection on practice within M.A. and an analytical tool to examine the process of submitting for M.A from an institutional point of view. This amalgamates the ‘graphic research’ and ‘painting’ threads of my work in one. I will attempt to analyse the studio practice through cartoon diagrams and reflective analysis.

Possible output: Paintings and drawings and conference presentations/research papers.

 

‘MULTIMEDIA’

The word that has no meaning again applied to a very diverse range of ‘praxis’ that includes poetry, film, photography, oral history, social intervention, music and sound.

The mopping up of ‘everything else that I do’.

Possible output: Book, Cd, exhibition, graphic design, ‘deep mapping’, live performance.

 

What will win …..or maybe do both and make this the most disjointed M.A. ever?

The four-leaf clover below now has two leaves….

maybe should listen to Robert Frost

The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

Planning M.A documents

October 15, 2012 / / 0 Comments

 

As part of an interview for course leader of M.A. Fine Art at Nottingham Trent ( the proverbial snowball in hell chance as they say). I prepared the following course structure ‘plans’. The reaction was a little bemused but the thinking embedded within has already been corroborated by information on trends developing at other M.A. courses.

The traditional M.A. is now an expensive additional outlay on top of three years and approximately £100K of debt for a home student so unless there a viable and necessary reason for having one the market doomed to collapse. That reason could be academic progression (the traditional bridge between B.A. and PhD) or it could be cheapness (the international student who chooses a course because not as expensive as London based institutions).

Either way the outlook is for a radically different postgraduate landscape sometime soon.

The first  document explores viability for both an M.A. and M.F.A. which matched courses to expectations of consumers geared to ‘practice’ or ‘research’ outcomes. The others map ‘student expectations’ (a core mantra of the institution) and possible reorganisation of the whole structure from a new foundation through to PhD.

Needless to say I over-pitched the whole thing and should have kept this all back until the head of M.A. post becomes available…..and as usual I am too quick to spot trends…By the time thie institutional supertanker starts to change course I will probaby be long gone. I am posting so I can have the limited satisfaction of looking back in due course and saying ‘I told you so’….

It also interesting as a part of my investigations into course structures and could be seen as ‘action research’ even if as I expect I do not get the job ….

 

Royal College Research Series

October 9, 2012 / / 0 Comments

In addition to Frayling’s first document the RCA published more in the series – here all the ones available online through http://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/

Volume 1, Number 1 1993/4

Sir Christopher Frayling: Research in art and design

http://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/384/3/frayling_research_in_art_and_design_1993.pdf

Volume 1, Number 2 1993/4

Roger Coleman: Design research for our future selves

http://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/404/1/coleman_design_research_for_our_future_selves_1994.pdf

Volume 1, Number 3.

Alex Seago : Research methods for Mphil and PhD students

http://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/403//seago_research_methods_for_MPhil_and_PhD_students_1995.pdf

Volume 2 Number 1 1996/7

Alex Seago and Anthony Dunne: New methodologies in art and design research: The object as discourse

http://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/401/1/seago_dunne_new_methodologies_object_as_discourse_1997.pdf

Thinking Practices: University of Westminster

October 5, 2012 / / 0 Comments

A useful page of lnked resources (mostly google books) from course at Westminster.
http://thinkingpractices.wordpress.com/theories-of-art-practices-as-research/

N.B. a good few of the links given are broken and the Google Docs links are to limited view documents.

Cut and pasted here as useful source material in building new bibliography for amended proposal.

http://books.google.com/books?id=F3uGZeBpnUgC&dq=practice-based+research+art&lr=&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0

Graeme Sullivan, 2006,  Artefacts as evidence within changing contexts. Working Papers in Art and Design 4. Available online http://sitem.herts.ac.uk/artdes_research/papers/wpades/vol4/gsfull.html

“A central feature of art practice is that it embodies ideas that are given form in the process of making artworks. Irrespective of the informing sources, media preferences, or image-base, the artist exercises individual control over the creation and presentation of artefacts as forms of knowledge. Further, the images and ideas created have the capacity to not only change the artist’s conceptions of reality, but also influence the viewer’s interpretation of artworks. Consequently art practice can be seen as a form of intellectual and imaginative inquiry, and as a place where research can be carried out that is robust enough to yield reliable insights that are well grounded and culturally relevant. This paper argues that artefacts created as a result of visual arts research have the capacity to be interpreted as evidence in a range of robust ways.”
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Interesting (almost complete) sections available via google books include Introduction; Very useful: Appendix. Developing and writing creative arts practice research: a guide.

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Barbara Bolt, 2006, A Non Standard Deviation: Handlability, Praxical Knowledge and Practice Led Research. In  Speculation and Innovation: applying practice led research in the Creative Industries. Available online http://www.artsresearch.brighton.ac.uk/links/practice-led/Bolt2005.pdf

“Martin Heidegger’s notion of handlability builds on the assumption that our understanding of the world is predicated upon our dealings in the world. According to this perspective, we come to know the world theoretically only after we have come to understand it through handling. Through such dealings, our apprehension is neither merely perceptual nor rational. Rather, such dealings or handling reveals its own kind of tacit knowledge. This
paper investigates the operations of handlability in creative arts research.”

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Barbara Bolt, 2006,  Materializing pedagogies. Working Papers in Art and Design vol4. Retrieved November 30, 2008

‘Theorising out of practice, I would argue, involves a very different way of thinking than applying theory to practice. It offers a very specific way of understanding the world, one that is grounded in (to borrow Paul Carter’s term) “material thinking” rather than merely conceptual thinking. Material thinking offers us a way of considering the relations that take place within the very process or tissue of making. In this conception the materials are not just passive objects to be used instrumentally by the artist, but rather the materials and processes of production have their own intelligence that come into play in interaction with the artist’s creative intelligence.”

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Estelle Barrett, 2006, Foucault’s What is an Author: Towards a critical discourse of practice as research. Working Papers in Art and Design, 4. Available online: http://sitem.herts.ac.uk/artdes_research/papers/wpades/vol4/ebfull.html

“A problem confronting many artistic researchers is related to the need for the artist to write about his or her own work in the research report or exegesis, The outcomes of such research are not easily quantifiable and it can be difficult to articulate objectively, methods processes, and conclusions that emerge from an alternative logic of practice and the intrinsically subjective dimension of artistic production. Moreover, conventional approaches and models of writing about art generally fall within the domain of criticism, a discourse that tends to focus on connoisieurial evaluation of the finished product. How then, might the artist as researcher avoid on one hand, what has been referred to as “auto-connoisseurship”, the undertaking of a thinly veiled labour of valorising what has been achieved in the creative work, or alternatively producing a research report that is mere description (Nelson 2004)?”

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Estelle Barrett, What Does it Meme? The Exegesis as Valorisation and Validation of Creative Arts Research. Available online: http://www.textjournal.com.au/speciss/issue3/barrett.htm

“In the arts, conventional modes of valorisation such as the gallery system, reviews and criticism focus on the artistic product and hence, lack sustained engagement with the creative processes as models of research. Such engagement is necessary to articulate and validate studio practices as modes of enquiry. A crucial question to initiate this engagement is: ‘What did the studio process reveal that could not have been revealed by any other mode of enquiry?’ Re-versioning of the studio process and its significant moments through the exegesis locates the work within the broader field of practice and theory. It is also part of the replication process that establishes the creative arts as a stable research discipline, able to withstand peer and wider assessment. The exegesis is a primary means of realising creative arts research as ‘meme’.”

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Linda Candy 2006 Practice Based Research: A Guide. Sydney: Creativity & Cognition Studios, University of Technology.

http://www.creativityandcognition.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/PBR-Guide-1.1-2006.pdf

Read:
Differences between the two types practice related research: practice-based and practice-led.
Essential distinction: “If a creative artefact is the basis of the contribution to knowledge, the research is
practice-based. If the research leads primarily to new understandings about practice, it is practice-led.” (p.3)
The role of the artwork/ creative artefact in reporting the research results
” The artefact is not an explanation in itself:  it requires linguistic description that relates the development and nature of the artefact to understandings about creative process; the text describes the innovation embodied in the artefact but cannot be fully understood without reference to and observation of the artefact.” (p.9)
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Scrivener, S. (2004) The practical implications of applying a theory of practice based research: a case study. Working Papers in Art and Design 3. Retrieved November 16, 2008

Scrivener, S. (2002) The art object does not embody a form of knowledge. Working Papers in Art and Design vol2. Retrieved November 16, 2008

Pakes, A. (2004) Art as action or art as object? the embodiment of knowledge in practice as research. Working Papers in Art and Design vol3. Retrieved November 26, 2008

Biggs, M.A.R. (2004) Editorial: the role of the artefact in art and design research. Working Papers in Art and Design 3. Retrieved November 16, 2008


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Kathrin Busch, 2009, Artistic Research and the Poetics of Knowledge Art&Research vol 2 (2) [available online]

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Balkema, A.W. & Slager, H. (2004) Artistic Research. Rodopi.

full chapters available via ingenta (free PDF download)
Methododicy
pp. 12-31(20)
Author: Slager, Henk
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Henk Borgdorff, 2010: Artistic Research as Boundary Work, pages 4-11. In How does Artistic Research Change us? Proceedings of CARPA 1 – 1st Colloquium on Artistic Research in Performing Arts. Theatre Academy, Helsinki November 19.-21., 2009 Performing Arts Research Centre, Theatre Academy 2010. ISBN 978-952-9765-59-1. Previously published in: Corina Caduff, Fiona Siegenthaler and Tan Wälchli (Eds) Art and Artistic Research / Kunst und Ku?nstlerische Forschung Zurich Yearbook of the Arts / Zu?rcher Jahrbuch der Ku?nste, vol.6, pp. 72-79 Zu?rcher Hochschule der Ku?nste (ZHdK) and Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess, 2010.

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Michael A R Biggs “Learning from Experience: approaches to the experiential componenet of practice-based research” in: Forskning, Reflektion, Utveckling. Stockholm, Vetenskapsrådet, 2004, 6-21. Online version.

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Corina Caduff, Fiona Siegenthaler, and Tan Wälchli, Eds. (2010)

Art and Artistic Research: Music, Visual Art, Design, Literature, Dance.The University of Chicago Press

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Michael Biggs, Henrik Karlsson, Eds. (2010)

The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts. Routledge

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Leavy, P. (2008). Method Meets Art: Arts-Based Research Practice. Guilford Press.

Download the sample chapter Social Research and the Creative Arts An Introduction from the editors’ site.

Another interesting chapter available via google books include

The Visual Arts

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Gray, C., & Malins, J. (2004). Visualizing research : a guide to the research process in art
and design. Aldershot, Hants, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

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Miles, M. ( 2005). New Practices, New Pedagogies: A Reader. Routledge.

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Macleod, K. & Holdridge, L. (2005) Thinking Through Art: Reflections on Art as Research. Routledge
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Hesse-Biber, S. N. & Leavy, P. (2008) Handbook of Emergent Methods. Guilford Press

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Kester, G.H. 2004) Conversation pieces: community and communication in modern art. University of California Press.

[ chapters available in Google Books]

Dialogical Aesthetics

See also:Grant Kester Conversation Pieces: The Role of Dialogue in Socially-Engaged Art.

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Journal Studies in Material Thinking

selection of relevant papers:

Miles, A.(2008) Virtual Actual: Hypertext as Material Writing. . Studies in Material Thinking 1 (2). Retrieved November 30, 2008.


Ross, T.(2008) Material Thinking: the aesthetic philosophy of Jacques Rancière and the design art of Andrea Zittel Studies in Material Thinking 1 (2). Retrieved November 30, 2008.
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