Practice As Research’
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Notes 1 Introduction: The What, Where, When and Why of ‘Practice as Research’ 1. Bella Merlin points out, however, that, since a doctorate is now an essential requirement for most university posts, PhDs are often ‘primarily undertaken for pragmatic reasons’ (2004: 40). 2. As some of the narratives in this book testify, institutionalized binary divi- sions between theory and practice still obtain. 3. The various artforms have different histories. Sullivan (2005) recounts the interplay of visual arts in the Enlightenment project. 4. Sullivan notes that ‘parallels between the artworld of contemporary culture and the academic artworld of institutional culture are seen in particular with the introduction of studio art into debates about doctoral degrees in higher education’ (2005: 27, n. 1). 5. The Accademia degli Intronati, formed to promote theatrical presentations in Siena in the 1550s, is an early exception and the conservatoire tradition in dance and theatre as well as music is a later, indeed mainly twentieth- century, exception, though typically UK conservatoires prepare people for the profes- sions rather than engaging in academic research. 6. 2001: 18. 7. See, for example, Bartos (1990); Denzin (2003); Rodaway (1994). 8. The RAE is the acronym of the Research Assessment Exercise as conducted in the UK in 1986, 1989, 1992, 1996, 2001 and 2008. The REF stands for the revised version of the national research audit scheduled for 2014 in the UK, the Research Excellence Framework. Other countries have undertaken similar national audits with similar titles. RQF (Research Quality Framework) is a similar process in Australia. 9. The AHRC- funded initiatives were PARIP and AVPhD. 10. Some esteemed theatre/performance scholars are known to decry PaR; some film studies departments eschew the idea of film- making; some visual arts theorists and historians hold that arguments cannot be made – indeed that research cannot be undertaken – through practice. However, despite my actively seeking counter- arguments against PaR as a methodology in the preparation of this book, none has been forthcoming. 11. Kershaw in Allegue et al. (2009: 02). 12. In Allegue et al. (2009: 15). 13. A notable exception is Borgdorff, whose writings and presentations have recently been collected and updated in the aptly titled The Conflict of the Faculties (2012). Alison Richards’s detailed account of the painful and protracted process of establishing PaR in Australia is also an exception (in Allegue et al., 2009: 164–78). 14. Following Heidegger, I use this term as do others (see for example, Carter, 2004; Bolt, in In Barrett and Bolt (2010 [2007]) to indicate a mode of knowing 188 Notes 189 which arises through doing- thinking (practice) prior to any articulation in propositional discourse (theory). 15. Simon Jones in Allegue et al. (2009: 31). 16. In Allegue et al. (2009: 25). 17. See Allegue et al. (2009: 35–49). 18. In Allegue et al. (2009: 06). 19. In Allegue et al. (2009: 46). 20. 2006. My model resonates with and, in significant ways extends, Haseman and Mafe’s ‘six conditions of practice- led research’ with an emphasis on ‘emergence’ and ‘reflexivity’ as key aspects of a PaR process as set out in Smith and Dean (2009: 211–28). 21. In Allegue et al. (2009: 29). 22. For a discussion of recent developments in practice- based degrees in music in the Netherlands and in Queensland, Australia, see, respectively, Schippers (2007) and Draper and Harrison (2011). Pakes (2003) makes the case for new dance. 23. 2007: 02. 24. Pears (1971: 26–7). 25. Following Bergson, and drawing specifically upon Deleuze’s notion of ‘differ- ence and repetition’, Cutler and MacKenzie (2011) similarly consider what is involved in learning to swim. They challenge the conventional distinction between the ‘physical’ bodies of swimmer and water understood as qualita- tively different from the ‘ideational’ body of knowing how to swim. 26. For example, ‘artistic research’ (in the Nordic countries); ‘research-creation’ (in Canada) ‘studio art’ and Performance As Research (in the US). The last is expounded in Riley and Hunter (2009). 27. It is also currently preferred by the AHRC as in the research grants practice- led and applied route (RGPLA); http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundingOpportunities/ Documents/RGPLA%20Pamphlet.pdf. 28. Barrett and Bolt (2010 [2007]: 147). 29. Haseman and I agree on the primacy of practice in PaR. He writes: ’The ”practice” in ” practice- led research” is primary – it is not an optional extra; it is the necessary pre- condition of engagement in performative research’ (2006: 103). It is just a matter of the most appropriate verbal formulation to articulate the idea. 30. For an illustration, see Borgdorff (2012: 108–10). 31. For additional information on John Irving’s project, see http://music.sas. ac.uk/news.html and www.johnirving.org.uk. 32. As, for example, in John Irving’s book Understanding Mozart’s Piano Sonatas; http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9780754667698. 33. In a seminal contribution, Frayling (1993) distinguishes ’research for art, research into art and research through art’. 34. Freeman uses the terms differently in respect of performance as research: ‘We would probably agree that when practical performance, in its most inclusive sense, forms the core of the contribution to knowledge then that research can most logically be described as practice- based [or PaR]. Conversely, when the research undertaken is likely to lead primarily to new and/or advanced understandings about practice, we can say that this is practice-led’ (2010: 62–3). 190 Notes 35. It is the thread which in classical mythology led Theseus out of the Cretan labyrinth (designed by Daedalus for King Minos) after he has slain the Minotaur. 36. In Barrett and Bolt (2010 [2007]: 33). 37. Throughout the book I place key terms in italics to highlight their significance. 38. With Petra Kuppers, I convened the first formal symposium on PaR in the UK at Manchester Metropolitan University in 1993, though it was emergent well before then. 39. For accounts of the emergence of PaR in Australia, France and Canada see, respectively, Alison Richards, Ludivine Allegue and Henry Daniel in Allegue et al. (2009). 40. There are strong pockets of ‘artistic research’ in the arts academies (Hogeschoole voor de Kunsten, for example) in continental Europe but equally strong pockets of opposition in the university sector, particularly in theatre and performance studies where Theaterwissenchaft dominates. See Borgdorff (2012) for a nuanced account. 41. In Elkins (2009: 100). 42. A thorough account of ‘Researching Research in Art and Design’ to which I am indebted is given by Judith Mottram in Elkins (2009: 03–30). Freeman (2010: 37–8) offers a succinct history of the emergence of the PhD and of theatre studies in this context. See also Gislén’s diagram in Kershaw (2009b: 105–06). 43. See, for example, Blain (forthcoming, 2013). 44. vii. 45. See Elkins (2009: viii). 46. i. 47. ix. 48. 2009: xi. 49. 2009: 130. 50. Jones notes that the College Art Association of America determined that the MFA should be the terminal degree award in 1977 (in Elkins, 2009: 37). 51. In Elkins (2009: 32). 52. See also Borgdorff (2012: 57–73) for an account of the ’uneasy relationship’ between artistic research and academia. 53. The Deleuzian rhizome (see Deleuze and Guattari, 1987: 21) has been invoked by others in developing models for Practice as Research (see Smith and Dean, 2009: 21). In broad terms, emphasis is placed upon intercon- nectedness and the dynamics of process, a state of ’always becoming‘ or ’ in- between-ness‘ rather than arrival or closure. 54. In Elkins (2009: 81). 55. In Elkins (2009: 81). 56. In Elkins (2009: 84). 57. Jones also notes that, both in the UK and the US, art schools emerged in a crafts and design tradition and offered ‘a vocational education’ (in Elkins, 2009: 37). 58. CNAA is the abbreviation for the Council for National Academic Awards founded in the 1960s in the UK to be the awarding body for higher degrees offered in the non- university, polytechnic and college of HE sector until its status was upgraded into what is known as ‘post-1992’ university sector. Notes 191 59. In Elkins (2009: 10). 60. See Bougourd et al. (1988 appx: 4). 61. See UNESCO (1979: 27). 62. OECD (2002: 67). For a full discussion of the history of such exclusions to which I am indebted, see Borgdorff (2012: 76–101). 63. In Elkins (2009: 12). 64. This transformation process, announced by the Sorbonne Joint Declaration of the Ministers of Higher Education of France, Italy, Germany and the UK in Paris on 25 May 1998, and launched by the Joint Declaration of European Ministers of Higher Education in Bologna on 19 June 1999, has been dubbed ‘The Bologna Process’. 65. http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/hogeronderwijs/bologna/pcao/index.htm. 66. On the impact of Bologna, see also Borgdorff (2012: 25ff.). 67. Elkins’s emphasis (2009: 145). 68. The development of ‘professional doctorates’ seems to me to have clouded the issues. Although deemed to be the equivalent of a PhD, formulations somehow imply they are not quite as good. See for example, UK Council for Graduate Education (1997: 16). 69. ix. 70. Carlson (2011). 71. 2011: 119. 72. 2011: 119–20. 73. 2011: 123. 74. 2011: 123. 75. In the UK, the drama schools – the conservatoire sector – are accredited by the National Council for Drama Training. The council’s website explains that, ‘this essentially means that the students applying for it can be reassured that this particular course is recognised by the drama profession as being relevant to the purpose of their employment, and that the profession has con- fidence that the people they employ who have completed these courses have the skills and attributes required for the continuing health of the industry’; http://ncdt.co.uk/guidetotraining/courses/coursesfaqs/.