Spencer Lecture: The Art-oriented Critique of the Application of Design Research- Methods & Generic Research - Methods to Art-oriented Context
This lecture explores the develop of more fully art-centric forms of research that operate outside of a British/American discourse, but which have been present since the inception of the debate (Henk Slager, Barrett and Bolt, Graham Sullivan and more recently Robin Nelson). It will attempt to identify some overlaps between these positions with respect to assembling a contemporary art research model that is in keeping with the historical context of art education. It also seeks to develop some contrasts between such art-centric positions and the more strongly design-led approach of Gray and Maulins that tend to emphasise traditional research methods and seek to minimise the use of art practice as a method in a research context.
Frayling’s paper was originally published in 1992-
Frayling delineates/ constructs the problem of artistic research (as distinct form the area of design research which arguably has a clearer teleological focus and a more established tradition of unified research- methods)
responses: Negative- positive
Negative:
A wave or strong criticism directed at practice-based research in the context of fine art, which began around the years 2000, and took place largely design- centric research forums, along with a more sympathetic, pro-active response that built more slowly between over the course of the first decade of the 21st century.
Doctoral education in design conference- Design issued journal
We can link this position to the idea of research quantification/ adjudication
RAE research
Success in is ref determines university research funding bodies and university administration
Griselda Pollock
Pollock, speaking in an ontological register suggests that a particular material practice may: “set in motion the processes by which, eventually, the necessary terms of critical interpretation may emerge” …and that as a consequence, it may only be “in retrospect” that the critical vocabulary for describing such an event may emerge. When she switches to an epistemological register, however, a familiar, communicative, tension arises: “But if creativity may be considered thought it is not necessarily, critical, reflective and other-oriented thought. So how can we think about art as thought, as capable of producing knowledge rather than its own vital, creative and significant event?”
Positive:
The proactive response to artistic research emerged slowly in the form of a series of practice
Graeme Sullivan: Art Practice as Research
Barrett and Bolt: Practice as Research
Henk Slager: Artistic Research
Robin Nelson: Practice as Research
Borgforff and actor network theory
Invokes the idea of a paradigm- shift but only in a university infrastructural sense
as building a framework of infrastructural of an institution, organisations publications, conferences, government bodies and funding agencies.
Actors in ant - human and not human
What is important is their connection to order actors and their performance dimension
An actor might be a human being, a microbe or a speed bank machine- or a university
In ant relationally constituted, performative objects come to the fore.
Frayling’s paper was originally published in 1992-
Frayling delineates/ constructs the problem of artistic research (as distinct form the area of design research which arguably has a clearer teleological focus and a more established tradition of unified research- methods)
responses: Negative- positive
Negative:
A wave or strong criticism directed at practice-based research in the context of fine art, which began around the years 2000, and took place largely design- centric research forums, along with a more sympathetic, pro-active response that built more slowly between over the course of the first decade of the 21st century.
Doctoral education in design conference- Design issued journal
We can link this position to the idea of research quantification/ adjudication
RAE research
Success in is ref determines university research funding bodies and university administration
Griselda Pollock
Pollock, speaking in an ontological register suggests that a particular material practice may: “set in motion the processes by which, eventually, the necessary terms of critical interpretation may emerge” …and that as a consequence, it may only be “in retrospect” that the critical vocabulary for describing such an event may emerge. When she switches to an epistemological register, however, a familiar, communicative, tension arises: “But if creativity may be considered thought it is not necessarily, critical, reflective and other-oriented thought. So how can we think about art as thought, as capable of producing knowledge rather than its own vital, creative and significant event?”
Positive:
The proactive response to artistic research emerged slowly in the form of a series of practice
Graeme Sullivan: Art Practice as Research
Barrett and Bolt: Practice as Research
Henk Slager: Artistic Research
Robin Nelson: Practice as Research
Borgforff and actor network theory
Invokes the idea of a paradigm- shift but only in a university infrastructural sense
as building a framework of infrastructural of an institution, organisations publications, conferences, government bodies and funding agencies.
Actors in ant - human and not human
What is important is their connection to order actors and their performance dimension
An actor might be a human being, a microbe or a speed bank machine- or a university
In ant relationally constituted, performative objects come to the fore.