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2001
Archive of provocative art-research comments
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- last updated Dec 2001
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- These are 2001's past
months' 'provocative comments', along with selected
responses including those from the RTI
mailbase discussion
list. Please
contact Beryl
Graham with
responses to any month's comments, as views can
be added at any time.
Index:
2001 Jul-Dec: Making a 'Research Culture'
2001
Apr/May/Jun: Supervising: Blocks and
tips
2001 Mar: What
are art research ethics? PhD
specific
2001 Jan/Feb:
What are art research ethics? RAE
specific
< To
1998/1999 archive
<
To 2000 archive
Provocative
comment of the semester: Jul-Dec '01
Making a 'Research Culture'
At the conference The Enactment of Thinking: creative practice research degrees (July 5/6 2001, University of Plymouth, Exeter) there will be a panel on "Building appropriate research cultures".
What are the problems and possible solutions?
You can respond on the RTI discussion list, or email Beryl Graham about any current or past comment. If you wish to respond anonymously, email me, and state that you don't wish your name to be used. From now on, there will a new provocative comment every six months, and several people whose field is particularly relevant will be personally invited to respond.
Some excerpted responses so far (all from the RTI discussion list):
[...] "The enormous growth of universities in the 20th century and the attending explosion of research programs and doctoral programs mean that the formerly intense and highly selective relationship between doctoral mentors and their candidates has shifted.
As a result, many aspects of research formerly transmitted by oral tradition and close relations between apprentice researchers and the senior researchers who guide them have been lost. In many cases, doctoral candidates graduate with significant gaps in the knowledge and skills connected to research.
These gaps have given rise to a new body of literature that seeks to render formerly tacit knowledge explicit.
Attempts to remedy these gaps take many shapes. Some seem to work better than others. One remedy is the development of special classes and course for research students and for their supervisors. Many of these are good, though this is the risk of such classes becoming too programmatic and therefore rigid. A program that is to rigidly structure is nearly as problematic as a program that leaves too much to chance.
One remedy is entirely helpful. While it is incomplete, it is useful and benevolent.
There is a growing body of literature outlining and explaining the craft, guidelines and traditions of research." [...] [Ken goes on to list some useful references].
Ken Friedman <ken.friedman@BI.NO> 10 Jul 2001
..." Within our academic fields there would still seem to be a major problem that needs to be dealt with before we can develop the strategies suggested by Ken.
There is a growing volume of activity, by academics from within and outside art & design, that is emphatically research in art and design, but is not art and design practice. The discussion of practice as a form of research would not appear to have a very clear place for such activity. I would welcome the comments of colleagues!" [...]
Judith Mottram <j.mottram@LBORO.AC.UK> 26 Jul 2001
"In response to Judith's comment. Without wanting to deny the significance of the debate around practice as research, I agree that there is much research in art and design that does not, and should not, fall under that heading.
This in itself is not problematic unless practice as research becomes seen as 'the' approach for researchers in art and design. Is there is a real danger of this?"
Darren Newbury <Darren.Newbury@UCE.AC.UK> 27 Jul 2001
Apr/May/Jun
2001:
Supervising: Blocks and
tips
"They get blockages in
their practice, and they learn to get over them.
That's their experience, so I point out the
similarities with writing. I point out there is a
parallel process ..." Supervisor quoted in Hockey and
Allen-Collinson (2000, p.351).
Hockey's recent article points out
some specific difficulties and solutions in supervising
art-practice students. Would anyone else like to share
their experiences of useful tactics?
Hockey, John and
Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson (2000) "The supervision of
practice-based research degrees in art and design."
Journal of Art and Design Education, 19 (3).
345-355.
Responses for this
month:
This month,
the invited respondent was John Hockey:
It seems to me that
research supervision is a 'craft' - so its learning by
doing. Essentially its a practical endeavour albeit
informed by knowledge drawn from theoretical sources
at times. Art and design supervision is particualrly
complex, as supervisors need knowledge about 'making'
& 'seeing', and then knowledge about communicating
what is new in those dimensions, in another plane -
the written (in some form or another), so as to help
the student. In the middle of all this is the
relationship between the student and the supervisor,
so whilst there are general devices or tactics
supervisors use , when to use them and with who to use
them, depends on how the supervisor evaluates the
biography of the student. For example some students
you have to let go down a dead-end, before supervisory
advice becomes recognised as sound ...
John Hockey
<JHockey@chelt.ac.uk>
Mar
2001:
What are art research ethics?
PHD specific
Responses to Nov 2000's comment
about ethics mentioned structural factors affecting both
RAE and PhD values. This comment I'd like to concentrate
on the latter.
In art-practice PhD research, what might be specific
ethics? During a Viva, is the presence of the physical
art objects optional, desirable or essential? If peer
review is used during the research process, what are the
ethics of who and how? How might practitioners 'falsify'
their practice research 'findings'?
There were
several responses to this comment: See
RTI
mailbase discussion list
March.
Jan/Feb
2001:
What are art research ethics?
RAE specific
Responses to last month's comment
about ethics mentioned structural factors affecting both
RAE and PhD values. This comment I'd like to concentrate
on the former, and next comment (March) on the
latter.
Concerning RAE ethics, a past
response suggests that one
ethic might be "Don't 'play
the game'
by
buying in researchers on
minimal contracts in the hope of RAE points"
What other ethics might apply to the art research
RAE?
Sorry, no
responses from this comment - [RAE panic or
paranoia perhaps? Ed. ]
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