Disorderly Methodologies
Responding to something that Doll wrote
Lindsay I also feel *my* work doesn't make an easy fit into TNL compared to what you and Armin and some others post, because your writings are well-argued and/or intrigueingly speculative whereas a lot of what i am putting up is more rambly and thought processes scrawled as they come to me, as i am afraid that if i dont write everything, and repeat my ideas in different ways within the 1 text a number of times, i will lose what few idea kernels that i have in the thesis fog that surrounds me
and bringing it together with something that I read currently (more on that below), I would like to try and generalise this a bit more. Dear Doll, you are saying such things as above quite often. There is a tendency somehow to put yourself down with references to 'rambling' or 'thought processes scrawled'. Please dont misunderstand this as a critique of yourself, as the intention is the opposite. What I would like to thematise is the tension between what is expected of a PhD thesis as a piece of theoretic writing which is expressed in a clear and rational language, and other styles of writing, such as literary, poetic or journalistic / essay-style writing. Thus, while in the case of Lindsay, Ms.static and me, as we are doing practice-led PhDs, the main methodological considerations probably have to be devoted to the relationship between our practice and the production of writing that can reasonably pass as theory, in your case, as you are doing a full on theoretic PhD, the process of writing and note taking itself deserves methodological attention. That means rather than considering the "rambling" or "scrawling" tendency to be merely an individual trait of your working style, an open question, which is in itself something very interesting.
Referring to an earlier posting here from last year, we are all the "criminals in the academy". Our lives and practices have not been shaped inside academy as for instance those of people who did an MA with 25, finished their PhD with 28 and then went on a career of teaching and research and never did anything else. Compared to that it is both our strength and weakness that mostly, we did 'else'.
One piece of reading which I found very helpful is Peter Buergers Theory of the Avant-garde. I think the German original came out in 1974 the english I forgot (it should be in biblio). In the introduction to the English version, the translator, Jochen Schulte-Sassen, I think is his name, clarifies a major point which is contained in Buergers book but not emphasised as strongly as in the introduction, namely the difference between Modernism and the Avant-garde. I am now reading a follow up by Buerger from 2000, called The Aging of Modern Art (unfortunately I think this only exists in German). Modernism or Modern Art is based on classicism, although it tends to deny this, and carries over from that a unity of form and content underpinned by the notion of the artwork as being a complete, self-contained unity. This is linked to an understanding of art as an autonomous sphere within bourgeois society. The asethetic theory of Adorno insists on maintaining that demarcation line that separates high (modern) art from trivial forms, folk art, the work of amateurs, children or the insane, etc. the focus is completely on the 'work of art' rather than on reception or processuality and it is insinuated that the artist is proceeding rationally, especially concerning the choice of the material, and the material is worked through 100% - there is nothing left in the art work which has not been touched by the artist and made complete, to contribute to the unity of the work.
Now compare that to the historic avant-garde, from Futurism to Dadaism and Surrealism. Those tendencies also belong to Modern Art of course, but they are a radicalisation of Modernism. The stated aim is to transgress the borders of the autonomous sphere of art and link art with life, with a perspective of social change. This goal can never be reached by creating a perfect work of art alone, but only if also society changes. Therefore the necessary failure of the avant-garde. While Italian Futurism regressed into fascism, Russian Futurism had its life-light blown out by Stalin's firing squads and Dadaism and Surrealism were adopted by the advertisement gurus of Madison Avenue, NYC, after WWII to create a fake unity of life and art in the realm of commercial branded realities. However, while Modernism emphasised unity of the art work, the avant-garde celebrated fragments, things broken, montage, collage, unfinished things. It also left open spaces for the work of chance, automatic writing, non-art (such as the dadaist's inclusion of advertisment slogans) and trivial or folk art, works of children, untrained working class artists and people with mental health problems.
Bringing this back to the realm of thesis writing, Modernism can be mapped onto the expectations to what a perfect thesis might be, based on clearly expressed premises, rational choice of material (or the research area) and a logical deduction of arguments which proceeds from an introduction to conclusions. As I have learned the hard way through my former second supervisor, a PhD is more than anything else a format. It took me three months of more or less waisted work to recognise that. As I have decided I simply want to pass, I did not put up a fight to defend my stance, which was somehow different. However, I think we all fall more into the second camp of sharing some of the concerns of the avant-garde. I would not become so hubristic to call my self an avant-gardist, I probably ceased to be ahead of my time in 1994, if I ever was. Yet there is this tendency for openness and for allowing other things to happen. Thus, coming back to the beginning, what staunch academics might consider 'regression' into poetic writing styles, circular thoughts, activities we find ourselves strongly drawn into which are not clearly related to the task ahead - such as for instance spending lots of time with p2p file sharing, cooking, or browsing websites which have nothing to do with the chapter I am supposed to be working on, all those together maybe are "disorderly methodologies" which should not simply be repressed but be considered constituent processes which also form part of the research. There must be ways of formulating those processes, by which I mean making them more explicitely part of the work. In this regard, I find it really interesting that in your MA, Doll, footnotes played such an important part. Understandably you don't want to repeat the same trick, but maybe it can be something else this time. I like the notion of three quarters of a chapter. In my case it would be 80 or 90 percent of an ordering system. Whenever I try to create an ordering system, i am completely unable to bring it to 100% - there is always a rest. For instance, the 'content' tag taxonomy on this site is evidence of that. the idea was that the 'content' taxonomy should describe formats such as abstract, article, notes, etc. yet it also contains terms such as 'voices' and 'waves' and that is of course completely unsystematic. For this reason I have created the new taxonomy "special tags" which so far contains no terms at all. but the idea was that rather than having overlapping and shared taxonomies, there could also be the possibility of creating unique terms which are applied more strictly, which would allow us later to group materials in a more stringent way. maybe somebody wants to start with that taxonomy ...
As you can see from this post i have developed a bit of a taste for art theory. the only problem is that most art is so bad. yesterday here the vienna art fair started, the city government has plunged more money into it and there are special shows by famous international curators, so I guess i will go to some openings tonight and hopefully find some thinsg which are interesting. last year it was all just conventional gallery stuff, lots of painting and photography.
later
a.
Groups:
Comments
successful upgrade
p.s. When uploading an image there are no choices of galleries or tags... !! ;-))
No... not another misunderstanding
Armin
i suggested that i could upload my notes (please look back to the forums on 'download area' ) over a year ago. you then said to me in an email that i was not to do so as TNL was for publishing original works. .. it may have been that you did not want book excerpts in the public eye. I will look out the mail if you wish as i'm sure i could find it. the copyrighted images were another more recent issue (Nov/dec 2008) that i mailed you and adnan about after another mail from you that expressed concern... as the images were for my own reference only, Adnan did not see an issue with this. i then suggested that we should have a facility that enabled image upload to stay private if we wished. at that time i was working on a 'storybook' (lit review) that was only open to you and doll, although because of the design of the site the images were public... this was a bit of a contradiction when one is trying to create a sketchbook on a publishing site. this is perhaps one area for future that you could look into/be discussed in a forum. this really would enable people to create 'work' without the worry of causing any harm to the publishing angle that you may wish to push. i also agree that the trust element has worked with the contributers, particularly on the front page, and that the relaxed atmosphere is best. you only ever do get well intentioned crit here, no matter how it is taken or concerned the intention was, we are all good folk...
i am not in the exhibition as at the moment i do not have any properly finished work. i am here because i am in the working group for two days with martin, martin, katie and otto. this is a geat opportunity and one i'm really focussed for. but don't worry, i will be in an exhibition of this magnitude one day, if not my own... i am an artist after all, not a theorist ;-) its all a strategy really, its just the ones that are not sycophantic or don't radically network just take a little more time...
congratulations on the successful upgrade.
doll thanks for a great ref to brits and their angst and art... will be picking away at that. armin thanks for the bauhaus.
adios
another minor misunderstanding
Lindsay
you wrote:
"i already asked you/suggested at the start of this site (in one of the original forums) if i could upload some of my public notetaking and you refused as this site was for proper publishing of original work (not very post-modern of you)... however they are now available as downloads on my blog for anyone to take. my blog will be back online in the next few weeks."
I am not sure what you are referring to but that must have been another misunderstanding. I only recall having said something once about using copyrighted images. I think I remember that we agreed it is ok if made clear it is a reference in a research project. regarding to notes from books i really do not remember having disencouraged anything like that ever. I also can not recall ever having said something about 'only proper writing' or any thing in that direction. and neither do I want to impose a policy or strict netiquette. I wish or would hope that feedback is largely of an encouraging and constructive kind. and as long as I remember it has always been fairly relaxed here on tnl as regard with what goes on frontpage or what not, those things were always left to participants own fine choices. and that seems to have worked well. so how I should ever have 'refused' public notetaking, I am unaware of that.
Also did not know you are in the latest HMKV exhibition, congratulations.
And who ever feels like can congratulate me as indeed I have taken the site into maintanence mode for a while and brought it back, and so far it seems to have worked. having doen that without anybodies help is a small step for humanity but a big one for me.
OK
a few points here though armin as i have only arrived in dortmund this morning and i am tired, after an early start at luton:-( i also have to focus on other things for a few days here, and also when i get home as i have my first marine science conference on scientific intstruments...
i think adnan would be a good choice to ask. i think we need more males here, gender dynamic is important also, but if you want to set up a separate group then its up to you.
my comments were not meant to hurt you, they are forthright and from a scottish presbetyrian sensibility :-) you should know that more than anyone here... however you are still suggesting that that the 'tone' was negative. if what you are actually meaning is that we now have a 'new' etiquette that is not based on how i might talk to you if you were here in the flesh, then that is ok.
i did not know/understand that you were not developing a new waves theme with your phd, but i do now. i had presumed that your laboral residency was linking into this...we discussed that when you were in dundee?
i already asked you/suggested at the start of this site (in one of the original forums) if i could upload some of my public notetaking and you refused as this site was for proper publishing of original work (not very post-modern of you)... however they are now available as downloads on my blog for anyone to take. my blog will be back online in the next few weeks.
i do want to be involved in this forum but will perhaps only do so as a satellite entity... i have not decided yet as once again i have been put off by harsh words and have retreated a little bit into my shell, boo hoo but i'll get over it (its my cancerian moon, scorpean mars and piscean venus... oh so watery and belied by the tough-nut capricorn that protects it. but this is personal classified information, maybe we could work some other form of collaboration/theory around celestial mapping?!)
are you really going to take the site offline now? do you not want a picture of the opening night at HMKV?
strategies and methods
tnl is an important part of my research strategy for my phd, at the same time it has values beyond that and is too complex initself to squeeze it into the PhD as an important part. so i have not writen about how tnl is part of my research methodology, maybe i should do so, yet at the same time it is all a question of time and there are other things to do, like developing that online archive or making the upgrade which i have been talking about for a day already;-)
I understand the aversion against the word policy, yet also strategy might be too militaristic. maybe it is more about goals and principles. have been recently involved with www.openspectrum.eu which is a very different world where you start with a mission statemnt.
sorry and hoping to move on
sorry if my posting asking for not making personal comments was upsetting you, but the last thing on my mind would be to turn you off from using this site. please stay and keep contributin g interesting reflections on your own and other people's ways of working. but please also accept that there are different methodologies and different practices. the make-write-make-write cycle is in my case maybe longer, especially as i do not have that many offers making new exhibitions on that scale. yet be assured that i am not just "archiving" the exhibition, by creating a networked database I get the overview of the materials which allows me to then write that chapter. and the reflection will for sure influence me when I curate exhibitions in the future - it has in fact already influenced me. these are all processes which go over longer durations, and I have explained already that I have a certain consistency in my life of research interests and themes, and these go beyond the limits of a PhD. so it is a difficult decision to be made which specific element than to raise onto the podestal of being reflected and contextualised as a written PhD. What I do not want to do is become defensive about this, which I meant by becoming 'unfree'. I am not feeling unfree about your presence but only the tone of some of the comments which, I maybe misread, carry for me negative assumptions. like everybody else i deserve the benefit of the doubt, that I carry this work out to the best of my knowledge or available means.
However, it is my honest belief that there are so many good ways of collaborating which do not involve personalised comments, such as public notetaking for instance, as doll has done with Latour and what I also did with the Bauhaus posting, but in slightly different form. this could also be linked with biblio, where we have better ways of sharing now as doll has uploaded her endnotes. Overal I think we are doing quite groundbreaking work and we should not have that spoiled by misunderstood comments.
this also is connected with some points i have raised about peer preview and my otherposting about maybe formalising some of the things that we do, looking at establishing a peer preevew policy, etc.
I hope you will continue your valuable contribution and not interprete too much into my maybe too clumsy attempt of asking for a more positive tone of criticism.
admin-armin
five is a good number
i am happy to invite adnan hadzi - if lindsay and ms.static feel good about shifting the dynamic
and if not,(and fair enuff if this is the case) armin perhaps u , or adnan, cd start this second group...for u anyway, this cd be interesting...to be involved in 2 parallel groups..and we cd experiment with cross-pollination somehow
i am happy either way....
re "formulate somehow our peer preview policy" === "policy" is perhaps putting the cart before the horse?? IMHO we might still be in that messing about stage ...exploring for ourselves how this platform can be used ... i don't know if i want to lock it down into a policy as such... not just yet anyway
but perhaps i am just getten stuck on that P word! i have an aversion to words that remind me of bureaucratic aussie arts orgs..policy, and worse, performance indicators
in an earlier post u talked about "strategies" which i find a more amenable word (dunno why)
and perhaps armin it is important to you..to move things along not always organically, becos of the role of TNL in your PhD? I am just guessing here, becos if u have written sumwhere how TNL connects in with ur research i have a complete mental blank, and if so, please point to where this is...
i guess i cd try the Search function at TNL for this tho!
towards peer-preview strategies
yes, exactly, you got it. what you describe above, the small working groups with member numbers from 3 to 7 or how they like, preview each other's materials. It is not so much peer review, in the traditional sense, where the papers are discussed at a much more advanced stage, but a review by peers who engage in disucssion not just of texts but also methodologies and other aspects involved. once material has been brought to a level of certain maturity it can be released with confidence.
through events and research which I have done recently I also learned more about academic publishing and think tnl become a recognised open access journal, which applies some methods of quality testing (peer preview), and so i think we should, as pointed out above, formulate somehow our peer preview policy, and then can offer people to get previewed. It is not uncommon for people to pay for this service, but we do it for free.
thus, i think we should maybe invite one more person to join this group, maybe adnan hadzi, who knows about the concept of peer preview. would also improve the gender balance. doll, would you like to invite him, would Lindsay and ms.static approve?
as announced already will take the site soon in maintainance mode for upgrade
peer nodes in amongst the layers
re "currently, I think the best strategy would be to have a few more users who engage seriously, rather than masses who engage hardly at all."
one thing i like about the discussion that ebbs (for months) then flows (for days or a few weeks) on our uncommons river/lake/marsh... is that we are small in number, and it is not so hard to give each post some attention, even if only in a "lurkative" way
and this number of 3 or 4 or possibly 5 feels like a little working group or affinity group
and it cd be nice at TNL if other ppl formed similarly-sized nodes/nodules....for intimate discussion and sharing within circles of trust (and occasional misunderstandings, shyness, etc!)
and then..with the critique and confidence that we exchange, some of our stuff that we have peer-previewed will feel confident enough to walk out of the node into the motherlode/motherlayer.... for all and sundry to admire/critique/lurk longingly at
with the sorts of things i am currently posting here..esp the attached texts...i prob would not post if it was a larger group..not sure why//my writing wd feel too naked with 10 pairs of eyes gazing at her perhaps...
perhaps TNL is like many other forms of creativity ..when we make something we have a preconception how it could/will be taken/used/interpreted, but in reality "the street finds its own uses for things"
ok..off to return bruno latour..had another quick read of him..he is not the man of my dreams, even tho his actor-network-theory is interesting..seems to be about not macro+micro, but local+connections..when looking at any sociological phenomenon...
a watery cave of information, and..why handwritng?
hi lindsay
if it will be a simple underwater labyrinth why don't you just code it yourself in HTML?
if it's a huge site then sure, dreamweaver, but for example i made my 2 biggest projects -dollspace, and los dias, hand-coding all the 100s of pages for each site...and i found it quite relaxing..like spinning and weaving wool (which i did a bit in the 70s!)
and u can get open source text editors that have macro's for all the tags..so u dont have to type in laboriously etc
..also..altho ive not tried this functionality myself, the OS program i use to write my thesis in, and also for doing slide presentations, OpenOffice, does have a web page writing fuvcntion..which is probably pretty good
i mean..dreamweaver is ok and i use it for the one commerciall site i maintain..but it makes lots of junky code, and sometimes its hard to spot mistakes becos th code is so full of crap
...
what is the rationale for "As I said earlier interviews and reports will be written and I am thinking of doing this by handwriting rather than type"?
intrigued!
i hope to pick up some other elements of ur very rich post next week to comment on, or ask more about....
peer preview
ths is a great phrase/notion! has it been floating around TNL for ages and i just didnt notice? i'd like to respond..but tomoro...now i'm yawning...
conclusions
hhm, maybe my complaint was too robust and i also misunderstood the intention of some of the criticism, yet in the end I am also just human and what is more important, I genuinly believe we should be as kind and as constructive as possible, as in text only spaces things can easily shake themselves and grow out of proportion. thus, maybe we should take some conclusions from this and formulate some sort of guidance as to what the goals of the exchange are and what is permissible, not as top down rules but somehow a self-defined netiquette.
this ties in with ideas to maybe focus a bit more on the aspect of peer preview, into which we seem to be engaging, as this is a very delicate thing. could we define what the peer preview proccess is? As we are becoming more maybe such a slight formalisation is benefitial. it is not about diminishing freedom of speech but saying what it is that we are trying to do when we engage in such exchanges. Currently, I think the best strategy would be to have a few more users who engage seriously, rather than masses who engage hardly at all. should we define some sort of light rules of self-regulation which state at the same time aims and purposes? a charta for the peer preview process?
i will try in the future also to be not so slack and use the adequate log-on when posting. admin, which is only me, unfortunately (would be great to have someone share that task) should be absolutely neutral and only about general site-related matters, whereas armin is just another thin-skinned pannickedout half-between success and absolute catastropy phd struggler.
doll, yes of course you can
doll, yes of course you can pass my ramblings (!) onto others. i am happy if it will clarify a certain position in research or create debate.
breathing, standing still
have just woken from a nano-nap all hazy
i feel i have loafed off with both writing chapter and writing/reading TNL for 2 days and much is going on!
lindsay your communication about praxis is really clear and fascinating, and has made me feel a wee bit sad that the path i have chosen does not offer such an engagement with the internal dialogue and self-reflection that your practice-led course in dundee has ... uve made me realise how rich this kind of thesis can be .. i guess its blown away a few of my mis-conceptions
cant say much else yet...i would like to forward it to a couple of friends just commencing phds this year if thats still ok (u did say disseminate!)
regarding the expression of some friction /mis-readings, mis-sayings ... maybe this indicates how sensitive we *all* are about our journeys ... and how we struggle to be understood, and to understand.....
and even with our closest and oldest of friends IRL we sometimes get surprised that we have inadvertently insulted or hurt each other ... when i was younger i didnt realise this, and i seems the older i get the more i have to tread lightly at times
right now we be a great day to have that cup of tea in the flesh..maybe a progressive dinner.... starting with some shopping in the vegetable market near ms.static!
X to all fellow travellers
moving out?
I'm sorry armin if you think i make negative comments, it is just how i see it and perhaps it was flippant of me to make the comparison of your phd structure and me not wanting to study consciousness ect. we all have to acknowledge existing frameworks at some point to save us doing ten phds...
your discussion to my concerns (it was a concern, i have known you for nearly two years and at one point i viewed you as a friend) over your comments about 'only wanting to pass' and other worrying statements, appeared to be defensive, but this may be my interpretation. this was instead of the expected detailed explanation of how you actually saw your (ongoing ) practice fitting in with your potentially unique phd structure. you did not mention how you were going to integrate current curatorial work and develop that, only work you had done before your PhD started, which now makes sense that you will archive only so this is the practice? i have scanned over your paper twice already before i posted in the first instance, and said that i plan to read it properly now that i have the time.
i cannot see anywhere that i have insinuated your insincerity toward your work, only questioned why you were not integrating your practice more, and i am sorry that my presence makes you feel inhibited... i also think that the word 'accusing' is a bit out of order and totally the wrong word to use. this sets your statement off as if i am persecuting you, but will put this language difference down to the fact that you are austrian;-)
i have no plans to change my tone or attitude as i have not done anything wrong, i have already apologised for my flippant use of words. if i was not positive i would not have continued to support your site for over 18 months. of course we are here to help each other... what else have i done????!!!!!!!!
if you really want me to 'move out' armin, you only have to say so and i will go quite willingly, no need to push me out...
best wishes
lindsay
please stop making negative comments
Dear Lindsay,
you keep accusing me of things such as this
"So I could say that everything I do is theory. However like Armin, who does not have time to waste discussing his PhD structure"
This is wrong, false, untrue. What I have said is I don't have time or the energy or the ability to challenge PhD structures at Goldsmiths. Rather than fighting a system I fulfill the norms of a format, because thats what it is in the end. This does also not imply that I am insincere in relationship to my work as you have insinuated elsewhere. You make such insinuations and at the same time admit having not even read my chapter 1 which is online since january. This negativity really spoils my happiness about an otherwise quite interesting emerging discussion about methodologies. it also makes me feel quite inhibited about what I can say, I feel now unfree in what I can write here.
Having said that now I hope you can change your tone and attitude. We are here to help each other and find positive ways of doing so
cheers
armin
The object and what I forget
Sorry, the all important objective of my study is to create a myth from data, a narrative of a form of truth, this links into a post postmodern look at truth, knowledge structures and time. i have only read a couple of papers which have alluded to this, but this is perhaps a diccussion for later?
anyway here is a further synopsis of my study which actually took me two weeks to think about, and a day to write!!! Please note that I have split my 'practice' (in general) from my 'PhD'.
My practice focuses on the wave systems of water and electromagnetism, which informs aspects of consciousness, space, acoustics or myth. For PhD, my thesis is a ‘scientistic’ study of a shipwreck that questions the validation of verification systems, whilst highlighting a cultural need to create narratives that explain phenomena in a way that rational science alone cannot.
baking theory with gas, art and translation
hello
I know that some of you may be unfamiliar with my PhD so for Ms. Static, a brief synopsis of my project before I answer some of the questions set by Doll...
Saucy Tales: Thinking Through Myth and Metaphor, Science and Art
I joined the PhD programme with initial interests in electromagnetism, water and the philosophy of the sublime, to look at how these could be combined to produce environments that were experientially immersive. As a practitioner, I encountered many problems in the understanding of methodology. To me, my methodologies were partly intuitive and were represented in the installations and objects that I produced. The need to understand this process has therefore become a meta-narrative of my study, encouraging me to integrate methods from other disciplines into my main research project Saucy Tales.
HMS Saucy is a war grave in the Firth of Forth. According to anecdotal evidence, divers on this wreck have experienced strange presences, lights and phantom sightings under the water. The vessel is a WW2 tug that exploded, causing large amounts of copper-based wire to surround the hull. With an awareness of the role of myth in both early electrical experimentation and sea-faring legend, Saucy Tales will will seek to enquire what effect the unique location, history and material substance of the artifact has on perception above and below the water.
This project will ask amongst other things:
Is HMS Saucy acting as a sub-aqua radio, and if so, what relationship does this have to anecdotal or experiential evidence gathered from this site?
How can the artifact and artistic process generate or uncover invisible, hidden or new knowledge that science or narrative alone cannot?
With reference to Mark Dion’s Systema Metropolis (2007) and "how a dominant cultural group constructs and demonstrates its truth about nature", I will assume the role of investigator as specialist in various guises. My will methods incorporate diving, underwater recording, the crafting of ’scientific’ measuring devices, scrying and the production of a series of reports charting a relationship to water. The thesis will take the form of a frame-tale (a literary structure), integrating creative writing and factual reports with sections containing measurements, graphs and interviews.
And so to Doll’s questions…
>lindsay you say that u "still do have this strange perception that I
>should be writing theory rather than making it."
This was wrong of me… there are other ways, it is just a matter of confidence and understanding a system thus how to work with/within/outwith it. It is also important to remember here that I am doing the PhD as a researcher, and am learning about research in general and where this fits with art/where art fits with it, so on this premis I can answer your questions… my answers may be different once I am no longer a researcher, but I acknowledge that too!!
>i am wondering if the "making theory" is the same as your making >art –
In short, for me the theory as regards my PhD is the production of things ‘other’ than critical text. I think the question that you asked Ms. Static about finding a way around doing two Phd’s, one written and one practice, was very apt. This is a trap that most of us (I am talking about my own institution) fall into, and one that I am trying to avoid, because that is not the point of doing an art phd, is it?!!! I do not want my thesis to be linear and I want to avoid the theoretical, reflective and critical text supported by a processual visual output, where the visual/acoustic/performative production is a method in this process rather than the driving force behind the theoretical investigation. This is the very unique key to practice-led/based research is it not? This however is not to say that the ‘art’ will be the thesis… not yet anyway and not in my time as a researcher, but I would hope that my contribution will add to the debate; rather the ‘art’ will be in the subjective translation of the theory by the viewer/onlooker/critic. Yes it holds onto the old adage that ‘the viewer makes the art’ … in this particular instance anyway.
In saying this, my thesis must have some sort of context explained and the only way that I can do this at the moment is through text, but I view this as a guidebook rather than a critical text and it will be minimal, perhaps only 5- 10,000 words. This will be backed up by ‘creative critical and hypothetical’ papers that I may have written (such as the one for the Waves book here on TNL) where I have looked at my subject matter through one specific text… off the top of my head some other texts may be Foucault’s ‘Order of Things’, ‘Thing Knowledge: a Philosophy of Scientific Instruments” or your choice Doll, ‘Caliban and the Witch. I will also have a series of interviews with scientists that back up my artistic process as regards the more intuitive aspects of my study such as the performative part of my practice. The lit review (by the way) will come at the end, and my supervisors are OK with this. I needed to make a list of texts to get me through my PhD transfer, but the lit review will be a website that links to my blog. The reason that I have chosen to do it this way, and not continue with the book format here, is that once again it can be non-linear and much like Dollspace, can create a watery cave of information that is hyperlinked together… I can also design it myself. My apologies now, as I am using Dreamweaver, unless someone can suggest an equally user-friendly OS version?!
>or is it something else - is it something that lies between and amongst your art >production/investigations and the critical reflection upon your art that will end >up being this document/set of materials called a phd?
In making art, I would say that the critical reflective process is part of the theory (please see my answer below for a better description), but for my PhD, although this reflection is acknowledged through my ‘notetaking’ on my blog, it will not be part of the PhD as a critical factor, rather anecdotal evidence will be in respects of my own observation and interviews. I like this word ‘evidence’ as it verifies a discussion just through the material act of it being itself…heard.
I view my PhD as being a collection of data that I have collated through methods such as measuring and comparing and perhaps placed together in graphs. As I said earlier interviews and reports will be written and I am thinking of doing this by handwriting rather than type. (I have pasted a description of my project at the top of this page for Ms. Static who may be unfamiliar with my work.)
or
>how is making theory different to writing theory?
This is a really good question, and one I am forced to ask myself ‘well what is theory?’, so in a quick look at Wikipedia…
“A theory, in the general sense of the word, is an analytic structure designed to explain a set of observations (receiving or recording of data through instrumentation or senses). A theory does two things
1) it identifies this set of distinct observations as a class of phenomena (an observable occurrence) and
2) makes assertions about the underlying reality (this word is too big to discuss) that brings about or affects this class.
The term is often used colloquially to refer to any explanatory thought, even fanciful or speculative ones, but in scholarly use it is reserved for ideas which meet baseline requirements about the kinds of observations made, the methods of classification used, and the consistency of the theory in its application among members of that class. These requirements vary across different fields of knowledge, but in general theories are expected to be functional and parsimonious: i.e. a theory should be the simplest possible tool that can be used to effectively address the given class of phenomena.”
So I could say that everything I do is theory. However like Armin, who does not have time to waste discussing his PhD structure and how this relates to his practice and thus the order of his lit review, I do not wish to make my PhD about consciousness, being, experience or tacit knowledge. I therefore acknowledge that my theory is a structured set of investigations that are practical in nature that result in the production of data within certain parameters that society/science/I have set. In saying that I have set parameters, I thus have to either set a precedent, or back this up with more evidential data… this is what the interviews that I am developing around the rather dubious word ‘creativity’ are about. It should perhaps be stated here that I really mean ‘production’ and how this can change through a process that is derived from personality and circumstance rather than methodological frameworks of set theory. This is where my art lies in this context.
>and is the methodology about the making art, or making theory, or the
>writing?
In this instance the methodology is about making the theory.
Please feel free to disseminate my comments, this has been really useful, thanks!
an institution for positive change
Doll thanks for your comments and I will answer them later, as for this post (to all of you) I wanted to give you more information about what is happening here at this institution, and as a research student who believes in the process and value of 'other' knowledge, i wanted you to know that we as students here do want to challenge existing structures as this is the only way forward. it is not just about a piece of paper for me and taking the obvious way out… so doll, it is really great to get these types of questions thrown at me, they are the type of questions that I have to keep working around because they are central to how I am proceeding in the phd as an artist, and actually central to ALL artistic research that is trying to move traditional (as in western) knowledge structures towards a different value. I have just realised how current this actually is, particularly after our seminar … some institutions in Europe (Stockholm/Vienna) are still in the process of putting into place policies in a language that will enable more freedom before they embark on the ‘artistic phd’... and for me, it is so important to be part of it as it is revolutionary.
As I said Dundee have been very careful over their policies to protect this and although we stipulate an understanding for methodology, the process of being an artist and art is one of the centralities of our thinking. We do not have the same clout as a London college and thus will not attract big names, or attract the same amount of students, so as the underdog they have instead played strategies that will, in the long run create a unique centre of innovation that will lead the way in verifying our other (artistic) way of proceeding in research. things that were speculated on 5 yrs ago are now coming to fruition. They appointed for example a professor that is working as a cultural intermediary in the Canadian arctic. Gavin is not a great theorist or a particularly interesting artist, but he is a politician, a negotiator and he gets funding. He is slowly moving indigenous knowledge into the main western structures in Canada and creating a base for the validation of ‘other’ knowledges through the UOD. His students are not artists, but practicing archaeologists, psychologists ect but study within the former ‘fine art’ dept as they have the freedom to persue a phd through ‘practice’.
the structure within the university is also changing. Just this year we got rid of all depts and are now left with two, ‘art’ and ‘design’. Yes you heard me right, this now means that (quite excitingly) fine art is at one with media art, as we are just art. Some of the stolwarts of the radical sect will not like this, as do not the stalwarts of the bourgeois, both of which predictably wish to keep their autonomous hold over their own territories… however the majority of us think that this merger is positive and we now will just waive the banner of ‘research’. we also have this great place called the visual research centre, which for a long time has needed a spokesperson and artist that is involved in research to really underline this questioning of knowledge structures, methodologies and subjective approach (as in artwork) and provide a cultural central point for discourse, networks and evaluation (exhibition/workshop/project space). We now have a potential candidate who starts his assesment in aug. This centre is hosted in dundee contemporary arts, so we are back to back with a municiple cultural centre…!!!
in saying all this, although we do have interesting and sharp minds here, what we do lack is a (potentially) sharp (well fucking read) cookie who will consolidate all of this collaborative positivity within a practice-led phd or even be a leader of a research group that does this, where theoretical texts would be interwoven with curatorial innovation and a support for the process of artmaking and change in research policy… as I would imagine like some places in Aus, Scotland is a great place to test out, gain support and be allowed the space to move. we are thankfully still small enough here to offer opportunity to innovative people...
best wishes from sunny dundee (yes it is sunny and bloody warm too!!)
other fish to fry
when I made that comment of only wanting to pass, that surely did not mean I am taking it easy or just want a piece of paper that says doctor on it. I referred to something more specific.
When I seriously started to work towards the transfer my first impulse was to do an evaluation of the work that I had done and develop it from there, so I started with a project review. I had decided my 'project' was the waves exhibition - thus the practical part here is curatorial practice whereby the project had a strong research component from the start - and that was long before I had begun the PhD. yet when I presented the first version of my project review I was basically told that I should start with a literature review and not a project review. This I found methodically strange as it would fit for a practice based thing better to put the work at the centre and not start with what other people had written. I recognised the inflexibility of the PhD format at Goldsmiths, but I decided that this is not the battle I want to fight. I cannot set out on an endeavour to reform Goldsmiths approach to Phds, or the overall British academic system. So I obliged and did the lit review and all in all it was a worthwhile experience and now I do the project review. rather than going into confrontation about formats with my supervisors i just went along doing my work.
my contribution to methodology is also this site and in this spirit i have began building this
http://www.thenextlayer.org/wavesworks
it is just the start but the idea is to build more like a database structure with artists, artworks as the two main tables, to which all available information is added. in this way all the information on waves artists, works and related media and information can be pulled together into one interlinked structure. I have spent three days or so on this sofar and there is much space for improvement, yet Iam quite excited by those possibilities. It is done by using cck (content types) and views. once I am more settled in with this way of working i am happy to share the fruits of this new knowledge.
thus, all in all, my project is defined in its outline and there is still lots of work to be done and I am sure hairy problems will creep up again, but by and large the direction is set and i hope i can rightly say that an end is in sight. this is also a way i function, i need to have this perspective on finishing something, deadlines, I love deadlines, otherwise its just infinite
cheers
admin-armin
i knew u meant it that way!
i'm on ur wave-length!
making art, making theory
hi
just a few thoughts...
lindsay you say that u "still do have this strange perception that I should be writing theory rather than making it."
i am wondering if the "making theory" is the same as your making art -- or is it something else - is it something that lies between and amongst your art production/investigations and the critical reflection upon your art that will end up being this document/set of materials called a phd?
or
how is making theory different to writing theory?
and is the methodology about the making art, or making theory, or the writing?
your dundee uni sounds perfect for what u (singular and plural) are doing...
regarding your observations on armin's comments .. i think it is really important u pointed this dejected/resigned trajectory out -- i guess i had read the same words, but took them more as more fleeting expressions of feeling glum/frustrated about the lack of (all kinds of) support from A's uni. Armin, wd u consider finding a better haven to pull into ??? it is a shame to have to compromise so much if there is another pathway you could take that would give something back to you besides the piece of paper at the end.
i dont mind my struggle with the theory-led, becos for me i think it wd be far far harder to look at my own stuff analytically...and in fact that's not what i want to do, especially since i am moving more and more to the margins of art-making, and probably will spend the rest of my life making zines and little videos just for my own pleasure...in terms of visual arts stuff... but yes, upon reflection, i cd have done something that wd have encouraged me to explore the mode of "ficto-critical" writing becos i think that is where my own natural home would be...
i also will read A's chapter! but a bit slowly...
perhaps its nice to read the whole thing and then take just a few excerpts to have a dialogue about..
take 1/8 of a 70% chapter, put in a hot oven. and bake for one hour.... cool on a wire rack, then dust with cinnamon, and decorate with rose petals and candied angelica
actually i think that's a reasonable question
most open publishing sites i have been involved with generally have more than one tech and/or admin person that has the keys to all the doors in the maze ..
so it is good to clarify/confirm that indeed admin=armin, esp IMHO because in some of our conversations we assume its just 3-now-4 uncommonsers who are reading!
admin
admin=armin, I thought that was pretty clear
usually when I post I do it with the Armin Medosch account, but sometimes when I just write a comment or something i am too lazy to log out from admin and log back in as armin and writes omething as admin, but it is always me
p.s.
just wondered... who exactly is the admin for this site, and exactly who has access under the admin logon?
...
i agree, i like the idea of a companion, but i know some of those already ;-)
before you respind to my comments tomorrow doll, i just wanted to say that
>If that is the case, look at doll, all that wonderful
>poetic energy for life struggling to fit in to a framework that has been
>set by another … as practice-led phd candidates, we really don’t
>know how lucky we are….
this was not to say that i think you are copping out... quite the opposite. a theory phd is a difficult thing to do if you are an artist. i am just lucky that i can incorporate much more 'data' into my study, including conferences, curatorial processes and being in the water...
enjoy your sci-fi tonight.
honouring the unkempt
i think i can only respond to the posts by armin and lindsay in fragments... a paragraph/theme at a time!
regarding the worth/value of what i have referred to as messy/scrawly writings - thanks A, and L, for pointing out that it is okay, and also what i see as tangled ramble has (not always, this much i know!) its own poetic or intuitive logic and / or sensibility that can be as fine as any conscious, rational writing
i guess in poetry and non-linear writing and experiemntal prose stuff i have done over the years, even the long pieces, have been so much shorter than this thesis monster, and so i probably am always in some low level of anxiety, not only about my intellectual ability to mount an argument for an idea(i HATE arguments!) but also about the time it will take to produce such a creature
anyway, i value your (plural - i wish we had a plural form of you and your in english) opinions, and encouragement. and i will try not to bang on about the rosy ramble anymore.
i guess my way of study-working in that way is the same as what i have done in my (especially private) creative life..i have a huge crate full of journals i have kept for nearly 30 years..i never look at them except when i am trying to find someting (a herculean task) and when i rifle thru them i am struck by how much i write and how much repetition within and between the journals exists, i'm like a dog, a terrier praps, gnawing at the same set of bones, trying to get to the marrow (of life?)
and i guess it is a personal methodology, but maybe something many of us share, but it might not be journals of writings, it could be any medium/set of juicy bones
armin..your comments about the contrast between modernism and avant-garde-ism are really useful... and i have just checked and see that the book u mention is in the library here so im gonna borrow it..i cant really say anything else on that...but i will ponder those comments more...
re the constituent processes of ... file-sharing, distracta-cats, bothy cook-ins, market wanders, etc .. i totally accept they are fundamental to art-making but when i engage in my own set when i am "meant to be studying" i feel anxious and guilty and defiant ...now i am going to experiment with embracing them as vital constituent processes for the thesis, and drop the negative attitude!
re 3/4 chapter, & 80% ordering system -- is this also a common feature of all creative endeavour? at least for some people? one reason i love working on collective art projects is that i know that i will finish the project, becos there are others in the group who are finishers and not prevaricators. i really hate finishing things, i love the open end... and that is a challenge for a thesis, as i am the one who has to carry it over the finish line, alone...
re this "For this reason I have created the new taxonomy "special tags" which so far contains no terms at all. but the idea was that rather than having overlapping and shared taxonomies, there could also be the possibility of creating unique terms which are applied more strictly, which would allow us later to group materials in a more stringent way. maybe somebody wants to start with that taxonomy ..."
i dont really understand.... can u pls explain some more
doll
ps im gonna respond to lindsay's comments tomorrow evening i think..i now feel some quality ep-watching coming on! this weekend's obsession is a shortlived sci-fi series called Firefly..created by Joss Whedon, the guy who did Buffy and Angel (neither of which i have ever seen)..he has some cool female characters in this one... including a woman who is a prostitute but in the new world order it is quite a matriarchal profession ..she is a Companion which is a very high status social position, and all companions get to choose who they spend time with (and they get a handsome fee for their favours) ..anyway..i like the notion of a Companion!
not really anything to do with disorderly methodologies
I have only just briskly passed over your comments here armin as my head is in a very tired fog after our day and a half of guest speakers, organizing and hosting a small but very productive conference here in Dundee. I would like firstly to echo the point armin has made about your writing doll, I do not view your writing as ramblings atall, but carefully considered poetic statements, this poeticness may be a subconscious act on your behalf, but that is how they are perceived nonetheless. Although you are ding a phd the more traditional way that is theory based, there is still room for the reflective processes… all producers must have this from scientists to musicians. even though I am supposed to be doing a practice-led phd, I still do have this strange perception that I should be writing theory rather than making it. This misconception is probably part and parcel (for me) of being part of an institution with such a historical anthropological/engineering backgound that was so steeped in tradition, and simply because I did not question anything else initially…
However what has come out of the conference again, is that there are no hard and fast rules as to what a practice-led PhD actually is, and every institution is different. One main point regarding methodology is the silly dichotomy that still exists in some universities is where an artist researcher is expected to both fit their study into some kind of existing methodological framework to tick a box, but somehow be also expected to develop ones own? This thankfully does not happen here in Dundee, as our university has quietly kept its numbers of candidates small, and in return it can concentrate on quality and awareness of methodological approaches, innovation and its own internal policy which strategically moves boundaries/staff/projects around to allow the notion of what an artistic phd actually is to be challenged consistently…. we are verified by a formalisation through layers of discourse, networks and culture…
As a last point through the haze of my quite exhausted mind this morning, armin I am actually feeling quite sad for you. Through many of the small snippets that I have picked up from your comments/writing like: one year-18mths to finish, did not want to make a stand and I only want to pass… you are giving up. You will pass through a large institution with a stamp after your name after not engaging with your study atall. I’m sure your writing will be great, as it always is when you drop the journalistic inflamitory style, but to me it is seeming like there is no engagement with your practice, your curatorial project or what you want to be as an artist… you say you are an artist in all the biogs that i read? A phd is a setting for future work/study/career plan and a chance to consolidate a step in a learning curve. Practice-led phd’s are unique and an amazing opportunity. Are you willing to let that go for the sake of an easier life? the phd is your statement, not goldsmiths. Perhaps if you changed institution you might get the support you need including fees, rather than copping out into theory alone. If that is the case, look at doll, all that wonderful poetic energy for life struggling to fit in to a framework that has been set by another … as practice-led phd candidates, we really don’t know how lucky we are….
Over the next weeks I will read your first chapter properly, as up until now I have not wanted to even look at it, sorry...