The artist as researcher

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Can art be demonstrated?
The artist as researcher
A two-day international conference on artistic research
and the PhD in visual art and design.
Royal Academy of Arts (KA BK)
The Hague, 5-6 February 2010
For more information www.lectoraatkabk.nl and www.phdarts.eu
Contact: [email protected]
The conference is organised by PhDarts in collaboration with the Institute for Practice-based Research
in the Arts (IvOK) of the K.U. Leuven Association.
PhDarts
- Leiden University Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
- Royal Academy of Arts
Prinsessegracht 4
NL 2514 AN The Hague
Contents:
James Elkins. The Three Configurations of Studio-ArtPhDs. James Elkins (ed.).
Artists with
PhDs – On the new Doctoral Degree in Studio Art. New Academia Publishing,
Washington
DC 2009, pp. 145-164.
Kristin Baxter, Hugo Or tega López, Dan Serig and Graeme Sullivan. The
Necessity of
Studio Art as a Site and Source for Dissertation Research. JADE 27/1 (2008), pp. 418.
Stev en Scrivener. Reflection in and on action and practice in creative-production
doctoral
projects in art and design. Working Papers in Art and Design 1 (2000)
Mick Wilson. Four Theses Attempting to Revise the Terms of a Debate. James Elkins
(ed.).
Artists with PhDs – On the new Doctoral Degree in Studio Art. New Academia
Publishing,
Washington DC 2009, pp. 57-70.
Die ter Lesage. Whoʼs Afraid of Artistic Research? On measuring artistic research
output.
Art&Research – A Journal of Ideas, Contexts and Methods 2/2 (Spring 2009)
Henk Borgdorff. Artistic Research and Academia: an Uneas y Relationship. Autonomi
och
egenart - konstnärlig forskning söker identitet (Autonomy and Inividuality - Artistic
Research
Seeks an Identity), Yearbook for Artistic Research 2008. Swedish Research Council,
pp. 8297.
Kathrin Bush. Artistic Research and the Poetics of Knowledge. Art&Research – A
Journal of
Ideas, Contexts and Methods 2/2 (Spring 2009)
Mika Hannula, Juha Suoranta, Tere Vadén. Chapter 5: The Meaning of Artistic
Research.
In: Artistic Research – theories, methods and practice. Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki
2005,
pp 151-162.
Tom Holert. Art in the Knowledge-based Polis. E-Flux. Journal #3 (February 2009).
Die ter Lesage. A Portrait of the Artist as a Researcher. Vector. arta si cultura în
context/art
and culture in context 04/07, pp.168 – 171.
The Necessity of Studio Art
as a Site and Source for
Dissertation Research
Kristin Baxter, Hugo Ortega López, Dan Serig and Graeme Sullivan
Abstract
The issue raised by the authors in this article question why studio art continues to be ignored as a
site and source for research in art education. The
necessity of the field to be able to participate
within the research community in addressing
cultural, social, educational and political concerns
is acknowledged. It is argued, however, that the
exclusive use of methods of inquiry that align with
the conventions of social science research has
been done at the expense of fully appreciating the
capacity of artistic research undertaken in studio
contexts. This tendency is especially prevalent in
doctoral research in higher education. Three
accounts of dissertation research are given that
incorporate studio activity as a central agency of
inquiry in conceptualising and theorising issues.
Each highlights the capacity of art practice to
reveal insights that are a consequence of what the
researcher did in the studio setting as issues,
ideas and interpretive stances emerged, and
problems were re-conceptualised. What is different in these accounts from more mainstream
approaches to research is the readiness to accept
that constructing new knowledge is a creative
and critical process.
JADE 27.1 (2008)
© 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 NSEAD/Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Introduction
A common call heard across email listserves, in
conference corridors, within seminar sessions
and among an increasing number of graduate
students, is to question how it is that studio art
has become so estranged from art education
research. Yet there is a perception that approaches
to inquiry favoured in art education has moved far
from the core experience that has long informed
the field, namely, studio art. For a discipline to be
able to participate effectively in educational,
cultural and political discourse, the necessity of
knowledge of prevailing theories and practices is
well understood. The history of art education as a
discipline mirrors most fields in its transition from
a domain that was mainly practical, professional
and often provincial, to one that by the latter part
of the last century, was grounded in a range of
theoretical orientations. Yet, art has always been
theoretically robust; it is just that the philosophical and historical traditions did not quite measure
up to the powerful theories of the human
sciences, which dominated educational research.
To become part of the community of disciplines
fledgling fields such as art education had to show
that research practices could be just as rigorous
and clinical as the best social science. This was
not too difficult to do because operationalising
concepts and exploring effects and relationships
under controlled conditions could be done with a
similar level of abstraction (some would say precision) as most artificial interventions.
What was missing in this early effort to formalise the research basis of art education was a valid
connection to reality because experience could
not always be defined in incremental measures.
Consequently a more expansive attitude to the
purposes and practices of research surrounding
qualitative inquiry offered more interpretive flexibility in studying the lifeworld of individuals and
communities. Seeing the classroom or community as a contextually rich ensemble of complex
phenomena and a diverse world of human understanding meant that it had to be understood on
its own terms. And this the arts did well. A difficulty arose, however, when the logical outcomes
of increasing the range of ways of representing
reality as forms that could be identified, explored,
analyzed and interpreted as plausible accounts of
experience remained wedded to empirical strategies located in the social sciences. The research
content certainly expanded, and the narratives
became grounded in real life experience, but the
procedures stayed well within the analytical traditions that characterised inquiry that was inherently iterative, instrumentalist, bounded by
convention, and conceptually rigid in dealing with
uncertainty, intuition and imagination.
Those in the arts knew that any inquiry undertaken within a framework of constraints could be
undertaken quite successfully for limits provide a
necessary set of contrasts against which difference can be highlighted. Consequently many
practitioners have infused the arts into research,
or used the arts as a basis from which research
can originate. This is based on the premise that
art practice forms a central core of research practice (Sullivan 2006) and has given rise to an
expanding repertoire of approaches that serves
several purposes. For instance, arts-based
research has a clear educational focus (Barone
and Eisner 1997), arts-infused research responds
to broader social and educational interests (Cole
et al. 2004) and practice-based, or practice-led,
research is expanding the domain of research
practice at the doctoral level in higher education
(Macleod & Holdridge 2006).
Common to these initiatives is a reconsideration of the role of the artist within the research
process. Graduate students in particular are questioning the frameworks that inform the research
methods they are being introduced to and are
looking to more expansive means to achieve their
quest to create and construct new knowledge.
This article highlights three such cases. All feature
a rethinking of the artist-as-researcher where the
domain of inquiry that is missing from the traditional research methods class is found within the
art studio. Driven by a desire to identify the most
appropriate ways to open up questions and problems, the critical and creative inquiry these examples illustrate are no less rigorous or conceptually
taut than more conventional approaches. But they
do reconfigure ways to invigorate inquiry with
fresh perspectives that have long been associated with studio exploration. These accounts have
JADE 27.1 (2008)
Kristin Baxter,
Hugo Ortega López,
Dan Serig and
Graeme Sullivan
Kristin Baxter,
Hugo Ortega López,
Dan Serig and
Graeme Sullivan
purposefully been presented in the first person to
ensure the vision and voice of the researchers is
maintained.
Hugo Ortega López: The ‘&’ Dilemma in Art &
Art Education
Negotiating commonalities among individual practices in art and art education, and the institutional
activities these generate, creates a polarity of sorts
between those of us labelled ‘artists’ and ‘art
teachers’. This is particularly apparent within
academic settings. Based on the perceived nature
of the art activities, the relation among identity
claims, and the cohabitation within an institutional
landscape, implies and denies a tacit integration of
the realms of practice of both the artist and the art
teacher. Materials, tools, techniques and objects
are similar, but one claims art as its nature, based
on an evolving search through practice, while the
other uses art as a means with specific procedures
towards pre-established outcomes. It is clear that
both are constituted upon the same small units
(materials, tools, techniques), but their procedures
and processes may differ greatly (acts, events,
practices). While the integration of both identities
of practice seems to be mutually beneficial, in
actuality, their academic cohabitation and professional recognition and branding generates a
dichotomy of difference and otherness. Therefore
there is a need to understand and locate intrinsic
educational knowledge that emanates from art
practices within existing institutional procedures in
art education. As Fernand Braudel notes in On
History (1980, 25) ‘the wish to affirm one’s existence in the face of others is necessarily the basis
for new knowledge: to deny someone is already to
know him’. Reflecting in those terms, what is
behind the studio artist’s instinct to not label its
activities as art education and follow different
paths of inquiry in research?
JADE 27.1 (2008)
In considering the dichotomies facing art practitioners who undertake doctoral research several
tensions are encountered – some of these are
identified in Figure 1. Reading the diagram from
the top in the manner of a flow chart, the initial
dilemma faced is the need to reconcile individual
expectations and institutional demands. This
sharpens the focus because personal conceptions and self-interests, which are the primary
motivation for inquiry, sometimes compete for
attention with academic settings. Yet the unending desire for personal investment in the process
of creating new knowledge that is believed to
reside within one’s art practice often has a hard
time finding a place within academic agendas
and actions. Yet conceptual confusion can be a
creative spur in its own right as the space
between art and art education is opened up.
‘And’, ‘or’, ‘versus’ or any other preposition that
could replace the ampersand, clearly establishes a
commonality of sorts around art. There is a clear
proximity between both activities, whether of
form, content, structure, product, technique,
history or institutional scaffolding. But, their interaction within an act, event or practice varies greatly.
Therefore the initial inquiry into the art and art
education divide, within an art education academic
paradigm, sets up polarities of a professional practice that involves studio art on one side and art
education on the other. Both parts have distinct
languages – but build upon the same ‘alphabet’ –
yet produce diverse perspectives surrounding the
investigation within, about, or on art; what needs
to be known; how it may be understood; and the
structures used to implement findings as educational implications and strategies.
Dilemmas and dialectics
An initial stance of this reflection is to assert that
the clarification of the proximal relationship
between art and art education is more complex
than that which can be captured by a mere preposition or an ampersand. The interactive relation of
the parameters, within a gradient of practice,
should be described, explained and represented
through an assemblage of ideas. In my work this
can be likened to a set of gears that implements
a cycle of practice whereby my individual eye
serves to re-vision things in an institutional
setting, and this draws on opportunity and
improvisation as much as insight and understanding. Cycle, Gear, Eye, Vision, a conceptual
dynamic generated from the 1996 New York solo
exhibition of assemblages How Many Times …
Briefly (Figure 2), has become a conceptual model
that guides my philosophy of professional practice and has been extended to strategies used in
my doctoral research.
Within the academic environment the assemblage practices transfer the materiality of found
objects on to fragments of written texts. The
rapid assimilation of these concepts, as key
components of my methodological perspective,
was due to their appropriate ‘fit’ into the rules and
regulations of my studio practice. The first theoretical objects were ‘cross-contextualisation’
(Schank 1999) and ‘proximity’ (Bruns 1999).
These two concepts expanded the explanation of
implemented strategies through immediacy
(proximity) and assimilation/appropriation of
random material (cross-contextualisation). I never
went ‘too far’ to look for materials, the found
objects were always around me, and once
chosen their modification was always kept to a
minimum: only acknowledging their current state
as an element of a new work with a new history.
Roger Schank, in Dynamic Memory Revisited
(1999), explains cross-contextualisation as a
simple content transformation with the purpose
of borrowing similar dynamics that aid reflection
and understanding, through reminders that in the
broadest sense become alternative explanations
of the original concern. As a found object, ‘proximity’ starts to define the interaction of an assemblage of ideas that may be symbolised by the
JADE 27.1 (2008)
Kristin Baxter,
Hugo Ortega López,
Dan Serig and
Graeme Sullivan
Opposite page:
Figures 1
Locating Art Practice
in Graduate
Research: Inclusion
or Differentiation?
This page:
Figure 2
Cycle, Gear, Eye,
Vision: A Sequence
of Art and Research
Practice
Kristin Baxter,
Hugo Ortega López,
Dan Serig and
Graeme Sullivan
ampersand (&). Gerald Bruns, in Tragic Thoughts
at the End of Philosophy (1999), looks at the intersection of literature and philosophy where the
attention shifts from universals, spectators, structures and the morality of rules, to particulars,
inhabitants, events and the ethics of responsibility. This privileges practice over theory within the
limits of language and its mediated form (Bruns
1999). This is what I foresee to be the divide
between art and art education – the individual
versus the institutionalised intersection between
art and art education. The redefinition of this interaction is intended to generate new lines of inquiry,
changes in theoretical sources and strategies of
how, or what art practices – beyond the art
objects – ‘feed’ into art education.
For Bruns, proximity is the third component of
his philosophical perspective –the first two being
theory and practice. The concept of proximity
acknowledges the interaction of two factors, the
location of the professional and its impact on the
surrounding environment. First, he addresses the
engagement of the philosopher within the local
context. As a result, the philosopher is relocated,
not as an outsider, but as a serious and profound
inhabitant at ground level of their domain (Bruns
1999, 14). This can be likened to the artistresearcher’s activities within the academia of art
education.
The second factor that underlies Brun’s notion
of proximity comes from the French philosopher
Emmanuel Levinas, who acknowledges the
impact of the philosopher – due to its new location at ground level – through an exposure that
overturns the sovereignty of the philosopher’s
former position of ‘privilege’ while retaining the
responsibility. Here, proximity, as an ethical
concept, is both an event as well as a relation. It is
an intervention in the existing order that follows
no rules and in a sense it is lawless. It is not a relation that is fostered, or predetermined, it just
happens. It ‘is anarchically a relationship with a
singularity without mediation of any principle or
ideality’ (Bruns 1999, 16). Is this the relation of art
and art education in the current paradigms of
practice and research? Does art education in the
proximity of art happen within the dynamic processes of studio practice?
The interaction of these two ‘engines’ with studio
practice ‘gears’ allows random findings in other
disciplines to provide a visual metaphor to work
with and adapt to new forms of explanation for
doctoral research within studio art and education.
In other words the meaning found in texts, when
used as theoretical objects through artistic strategies, can readily be ignored as they stand for a
structure of relationships in a new context that
invests meaning through proximity and crosscontextualisation. The ‘&’ dilemma and the
specific dialects of both parts serve as a reminder
of the intrinsic conflict of knowledge structure
and communication strategies of an individual
and an institution. The challenge is how the intrinsic knowledge structure and language of an art
practitioner, as it happens, is accepted as
evidence and valid testimony of a research event
for academic standards. Could it be that the voice
and vision of the artist and his or her studio practice has been altered, even ‘mutated’ by the
standardised practices of the academy and the
prevalence of verbal/written languages dealing
with art related activities? If this is the case, then
the way artist-researchers create opportunities,
strategies, and make use of forms of inquiry that
explore alterity and differentiation (Taussig 1993)
needs to be acknowledged.
Kristin Baxter: Family Photographs as
Organisers of Experience
Considering art practice as research can be
looked at in two, seemingly opposing, ways. On
the one hand, the identification of an inquiry or a
problem is the fuel generating one’s art practice.
On the other hand, one’s art practice generates
an area of inquiry or a problem within the field. In
short, one can look at art-practice-as-research as
an area of inquiry or problem solving that generates ideas for making things, or as a process of
making things that identifies an area of inquiry. In
my experience, however, there is often a bit of
both. During the writing of my dissertation, my
studio practice allowed me to probe areas of
inquiry until I could clearly identify research questions. As I returned to the studio, it provided
further insight into additional questions, research
methods and limitations, as well as possibilities
JADE 27.1 (2008)
Kristin Baxter,
Hugo Ortega López,
Dan Serig and
Graeme Sullivan
for analysis. The reflexive process characteristic
of my art practice yielded research questions and
the making of a specific art installation allowed
me to work through research design problems,
and provided insights into my methodology.
Re-searching problems
Through my art practice, I re-collect found objects
from the home, such as old letters, souvenirs,
diary entries and photographs, and create installations and assemblages. The reflexive creation
of meaning in works of art and research practice
first became evident to me as I viewed hundreds
of family slides from the 1960s. The content and
composition of many snapshots and slides beg
for deeper understanding, such as family snapshots from the 1920s (Figure 3), 1960s (Figure 4),
and 1970s (Figure 5). Similarly, the slides I viewed
with my parents triggered stories about the
objects contained in them: the dinner plates,
cars, bedspreads, jewellery, shoes and so on. The
meaning of the images appeared limitless, yet
they were ordinary pictures of ordinary people
doing ordinary things, surrounded by ordinary
objects. Furthermore, a review of the literature on
family snapshots and family albums pointed to
gaps in knowledge about privately held meanings
that photographs hold for family members. The
question that emerged as my dissertation focus
was, ‘What evidence is there that family photographs and their associated narratives organise
experience?’
Contextualising research issues through
art practice
Clearly, as I spoke with my parents about their
slides in the early months of 2001, I witnessed the
stories and meanings of my parents’ slide collection, created forty years earlier, and how these
stories gave shape to lives that were lived. This
appeared a rich area of exploration for my art practice. Therefore, the search for understanding
multiple layers of meaning of family-created
images was the purpose of the installation entitled Imagine a posterity that would know your
face. This installation was part of my doctoral exhibition entitled Recollections presented in Macy
Gallery, Teachers College Columbia University.
The issues that emerged from building the
research design for this dissertation were similar
JADE 27.1 (2008)
This page:
Figure 3
Evan Blomkvist Sr.
1926, unknown
location
Figure 4
Kay Baxter. 1964.
Bermuda
Figure 5
Glenn Baxter and
his cat. September,
1974. Queens,
New York
10
Kristin Baxter,
Hugo Ortega López,
Dan Serig and
Graeme Sullivan
issues addressed in this installation. The first
concerned how to select and exhibit family slides
as sites of research and artistic inquiry. The second
concerned the use of the stories associated with
family photography given the range of personal
meanings associated with images. A final issue
related to the impact of intersubjectivity and
reflexivity in forming meanings from images.
The installation included a white box, measuring approximately 0.9 metre square and 1.2
metres high in the centre of a room in Macy
Gallery. The box contained three slide projectors
that displayed images on three walls of the gallery.
The projectors were programmed to run on a
continuous loop so that when a viewer entered
the room, he or she met three simultaneously
running slide shows depicting images from my
parents’ collection of weddings, babies, tourist
locations, scenery, homes, pets and the like, taken
during the 1960s through to the early 1970s. Each
slide carousel contained 140 slides that were, in
their original context, part of my parents’ collection of more than 900 slides.
In selecting the slides for this installation, I
avoided creating a linear, chronological narrative
about certain experiences depicted in the slides.
Instead, I was interested in including a representa-
tive sample of images, from posed wedding
shots, for instance, to ‘mistake’ images, where
the slide was entirely black, out of focus, or the
content was almost indecipherable, such as the
image of my father looking down the end of a
cannon (Figure 6). Moreover, groups of slides that
shared content were not necessarily placed next
to one another in the carousels. This reflected the
experience I had discussing the images with my
parents: the slides were sometimes out of order
in the boxes in which they were stored; the narratives associated with the slides often did not
proceed in a linear way, but instead branched off
into related (or seemingly unrelated) narratives
triggered by the slides. I wanted the installation to
reflect the range of content found in the slides and
the experience of sharing narratives about them.
In creating the installation, I was the artist, the
researcher, as well as a family member engaging
with other family members who also helped me
create the work of art. During the installation the
slide projectors advanced images at different
intervals, so the experience involved the viewer
continually shifting his or her attention among the
slides projected on the three walls of the room.
Moreover, each slide appeared on each wall for
only several seconds. The cumulative effect of the
JADE 27.1 (2008)
11
Kristin Baxter,
Hugo Ortega López,
Dan Serig and
Graeme Sullivan
installation involved the sound of the projectors
clicking as they advanced, their fans humming,
the movement of the images, and the intervals of
light and darkness this created in the room. The
physical arrangement of this installation engaged
layers of senses. This interactive relationship
between researcher and participants is framed by
intersubjectivity and also explores the reflexive
ways in which an image shapes a viewer’s meaning and, at the same time, how a viewer’s meaning also changes the image.
One intention of the installation was to engage
the individual’s senses while at the same time
invoke personal meanings. One viewer remarked
that she was moved by the experience of this
installation because although she did not know
any of the people pictured in the slides, she felt,
‘They still could have been my photographs. It’s
like I have the same photographs at home of my
parents’ wedding and all.’ Even if a viewer did not
make a personal connection to the images, it
opened up a line of questioning, consciously or
unconsciously, such as ‘How do other families
live?’ ‘How do they represent themselves doing
the things they do in photographs?’ ‘How do these
“ways of living” relate to my own experiences?’
The slides asked viewers to imagine the identity of
the people in the images, what they were doing
and where they were. Simultaneously, the images
nested into the viewer’s prior experiences as he
or she related the people, events, locations and
experiences that were photographed. Thus, in
this reflexive interaction, the image shapes the
viewer’s meanings which emerge from various
contexts, and the viewer’s meanings changed
how the image is viewed from that point on.
Hinging narratives that re-contextualise
experience
The reflexive relationship between the slides and
the viewers creates meaning in a continual interplay of images and ideas. As a result of interview
data and visual data from family photographs, I
concluded that there are unique types of narratives I call, ‘hinging narratives’ (Baxter 2005, 156),
which have reflexivity as a key component, and
through which one remembers and conceptually
organises life experiences. Although the slides
indeed depicted particular moments and
recorded specific places at specific times, the
slides, like all photographs, were not static.
Photographs remind us of a past (Figure 7) but
they also imply a future. For instance, when viewing a recent family photograph a viewer may
imagine what future generations might think of
the image. Or, when viewing an old photograph in
a family’s collection a viewer might imagine what
life was like generations ago, imagine details
about the people and their homes and imagine
what the children were like and who they grew up
to be (Figure 8).
The title of my installation Imagine a posterity
that would know your face comes from Hirsch’s
(1981) insight that family photography has democratised the ability for individuals to create,
preserve, and collect images of them. Until the
introduction of popular photography in the mid
nineteenth century, only the rich enjoyed this
opportunity through painted portraits, miniatures
or sculptures. As a result of the innovation of print
photography, Hirsch (1981, 44) observes that a
broad range of people could capture images of
their families ‘to see before them their own gene-
JADE 27.1 (2008)
Opposite page:
Figure 6
Cannon’s view.
September 1964.
Bermuda
This page:
Figure 7
Evan and Jean
Blomkvist, Glenn,
Tom, and Kay Baxter
at the funeral of Ruth
Isakson. September,
1996. Long Island,
New York
Figure 8
Evan, Sr. and Agot
Blomkvist and
friends. c.1930.
New York
12
Kristin Baxter,
Hugo Ortega López,
Dan Serig and
Graeme Sullivan
alogy, and to be able to imagine a posterity that
would know their faces’. On the one hand, family
photographs allow viewers to see their ‘own
genealogy’, their own ancestral links. On the other
hand, family photographs allow viewers to imagine how they will be portrayed to their descendents. This conceptual movement in time and
space is a key feature of photography and was
one of the central themes explored of the installation. Using art practice as research allowed me to
identify valuable areas of inquiry, to interrogate
methodological issues, and ultimately to understand how images and narratives are continually
re-collected and used to organise life experience.
Dan Serig: A Conceptual Structure of
Visual Metaphor
As with the research of Kristin Baxter and Hugo
Ortega López, my art practice weaves through
several processes, from developing research
questions to forming findings. This case study
focuses on how my studio practice influenced
and impacted my data analysis and the transition
from results to findings. In doing so, I illuminate
how artistic practices can transform a critical
point in conducting research.
My dissertation explores how artists create
visual metaphor (Serig 2005; 2006) [1]. The voice
of the artist seemed absent from the literature on
this topic despite the multi-disciplinary interest in
metaphor. There are cognitive ideas about visual
metaphor appearing in the arts (Efland 2002),
philosophical ideas (Aldrich 1968; 1971; Hausman 1989) and psychological ideas (Dent 1987;
Dent & Rosenberg 1990), but the voice of the
artist was missing. Since I am interested in cognition and patterns of artistic behaviour and artistic
thinking, this seemed like an appropriate area for
my inquiry.
I organised a group of artists for an exhibition
at the Pearl Street Gallery in Brooklyn, New York
[Resonance 10/04], and conducted a series of
interviews exploring this central research question: Is there a conceptual structure to the creation of visual metaphors by artists that closely
aligns with the cognitive view of metaphoric
thinking? A consortium of four artists was identified through an opportunity sample to plan and
undertake an exhibition at the gallery. These
primary artist-participants were engaged in developing the gallery into an artist-run space for exhibitions, and I knew them through previous collaborations. The artists met to collaborate and
explore connections to the research question.
Part of the process was the recruitment of other
artists for the exhibition and study. The resulting
group of artists worked in various media, processes and content. My assumption was that the
relationships between the artists would enable
the differing works of art to be integrated in a
group exhibition.
Data analysis and conceptual structures
The analysis of data during this study involved
continual reflection in which many components
occurred simultaneously. These critical moments
were facilitated by a phenomenographic
approach whereby information in all of its forms
was analysed. This analysis included two major
divisions outlined by Ference Marton (1986): first,
data was selected through emerging criteria of
relevance; second, data was analysed to create
conceptual categories used to frame the
phenomenon. These two steps were repeated in
that the categories and data resulting from the
first analysis underwent a second round of iteration in creating more finely tuned conceptual
categories. The repetition clarified data and categories, as well as allowed for a checking of the
first-round decisions. These processes were
organised and the information treated using
NVivo data analysis software. These steps in the
treatment of the information also provided means
for checking the accuracy of the findings and,
thus, increasing the validity of the study.
Arrival at the resulting conceptual structure
emerged from a coalescence of qualitative data
analysis methods with methods from my art practice. The results led to a conceptual structure of
how the artists create visual metaphors that took
the form of one of the sculptures from the exhibition (Figure 9). Metaphoric thinking was thus seen
to involve the reorganisation or blending of
concepts. This is the essential ingredient for thinking metaphorically, which is grounded in sensory
experience and leads to conceptual blending,
JADE 27.1 (2008)
These knowledge claims set the stage for a
phenomenographic approach to the research.
Tesch (1990, 49) summarised phenomenography
as ‘describing conceptually perceived qualities of
a phenomenon through contextual analysis’.
Marton (1986, 34) felt that the goal of phenomenography was to ‘discover the structural framework within which various categories of understanding exist [which] should prove useful in
understanding other people’s understandings’.
This approach flowed directly from the research
question that regarded the study of visual metaphor from the perspectives of others and myself
as the researcher in relationship with others within
a specific context. Several aspects of my research
questions led me to phenomenography:
representing mind–body interconnectedness
(Serig 2005; 2006).
The sculpture also represents a conceptual
structure of visual metaphor.
Phenomenography as method
The qualitative approach to this inquiry included
phenomenography using opportunity sampling
based on theoretical criteria derived from the
review of literature. My intent was to understand
the conceptual structure of visual metaphor
through the perspectives of others and my interpretations. As a participant-observer, the study
served as an example of art practices as socially
constructed. This involved socially constructed
knowledge claims as summarised by Creswell
(2003, 9):
Humans engage with their world and make sense
of it based on their historical and social perspective – we are all born into a world of meaning
bestowed upon us by our culture. Thus, qualitative researchers seek to understand the context or
setting of the participants through visiting this
context and gathering information personally.
They also make an interpretation of what they find,
an interpretation shaped by the researchers’ own
experiences and backgrounds.
13
Kristin Baxter,
Hugo Ortega López,
Dan Serig and
Graeme Sullivan
• The study focused on the perspectives of
artists as the main source of information.
• Studying visual metaphor in this setting
required multiple, interactive and humanistic
data collection strategies.
• Meaning emerged during the study: Transcribed interviews were coded. Initial coding
was based on variables established from the
literature reviews and reflections. Transcripts
underwent multiple coding rounds. Variables
changed and were generated as my interpretations evolved. Meaning also emerged from
my continued artistic practice. Another source
of emergent meaning was the ongoing
dialogue between the primary participants.
• My interpretations of the data were central to
the findings of the study, and my reflective
practices were an essential process of doing
the research.
Since I am an artist as well as researcher, phenomenography allowed me to be reflexive, using my
insights as relevant to the findings. The aspects
of my inquiry that led me to use phenomenographic methods occurred principally because
they resonated with processes from my art practice. People’s perceptions of phenomena become
the focus of study allowing for the construction
of a conceptual structure. In my study the
phenomena were visual metaphors and their
uses within the practices of artists. The context
JADE 27.1 (2008)
This page:
Figure 9
Boris Curatolo,
Sweet Spot, 2004.
Courtesy of the artist
14
Kristin Baxter,
Hugo Ortega López,
Dan Serig and
Graeme Sullivan
for analysis involved structuring the exhibition
process as a common framework within which
individual interpretations would be observed. Yet
there can be difficulties in drawing clear distinctions between what was a phenomenographic
method in my research and what was my art
practice as method. After all, doing art is a humanistic process of data collection, analysis and interpretation where perspectives of others can influence how phenomena are understood and the
expressive forms they take through text and visuals. In the next section I explore the methods that
may be more closely associated with my art practice as research.
Art practice as method
I spent extended periods of reflective time in the
gallery with the artwork to enable description of
the works for interpretations. I also used the time
to reflect on the study as it progressed to continually refine the research questions. As an artist, I
continued to make art and reflect on my own
artistic practice as it related to the study (Figure
10). These procedures allowed for the exhibition
at the Pearl Street Gallery to emerge from the
interactions of the participants while also allowing for the study of visual metaphor creation.
Use of the sculpture as a model for the conceptual structure occurred over the course of this
study. During one of my extended visits at the
exhibition, I began sketching the sculpture from
various angles paying particular attention to how
the negative spaces changed depending on the
angle. The spaces remained in concert with each
other because of the delimiting line, but also
created spaces that opened to the surrounding
gallery. On another gallery visit I photographed the
exhibition for documentation. That process led
me to take a series of photographs with the sculpture in the foreground and the other artworks in
the background, appearing through the negative
spaces (Figure 11). Only after struggling with more
conventional diagrams and layered modelling
using NVivo software did I return to my sketchbooks and photographs to develop this conceptual structure.
Arrival at the resulting conceptual structure as
sculptural form emerged from a coalescence of
qualitative data analysis methods with methods
from my art practice. The results led to a conceptual structure of how the artists create visual
metaphors that took the form of one of the sculptures from the exhibition (Figure 9).
Reflexivity as ongoing dialogue
Reflecting on my research process, the central
question that I developed led to new understandings and those understandings led to more questions. While this may be a typical trajectory in
doctoral research, this cycle evolved in this
instance from methods associated with my art
practice and phenomenography. A pattern of
reflexivity emerged that became the process
through which the research study emerged. The
reflexive cycle involved making, reflecting and
acting on the reflections – and often a messy
combination of these. This reflexive pattern so
prevalent in my art practice served my research
as I contended with multiple processes and
layers such as data collection, analysis and interpretation that interacted simultaneously as an
ongoing exchange. The reflexive cycle seemed to
be a central component, not only in my own practice, but in the artists that I was studying as well.
Reflexivity also seemed to be the cycle of action
and reaction that enabled my art practice as
research method to work in concert with other
research methods.
Discussion
The three accounts presented above highlight
different domains of inquiry of the artistresearcher. What is common, however, is that
they all involve encircling art making as a research
practice so as to explore issues and problems in
creative and critical ways, as well as reaching out
to adapt analytical and interpretive strategies
from the research methods literature as needed.
As a form of research, art practice can subsequently be seen in these examples to extend the
conventions of inquiry, but in a way that privileges the creative and critical processes that
artists use as agencies, actions and structures in
their explorations. When designed within institutional contexts such as dissertation research,
these inquiries offer a distinctly different way to
JADE 27.1 (2008)
15
Kristin Baxter,
Hugo Ortega López,
Dan Serig and
Graeme Sullivan
This page:
Figure 10
Left: Dan Serig,
October 13, 2004 and
right: Boris Curatolo,
Gist, 2004. Courtesy
of the artists
Figure 11
Three views of
Sweet Spot, a
conceptual structure
of visual metaphor.
Courtesy of the artist
JADE 27.1 (2008)
16
Kristin Baxter,
Hugo Ortega López,
Dan Serig and
Graeme Sullivan
address important research issues in the field
(Figure 12).
In the first case study, The ‘&’ Dilemma in Art &
Art Education, Hugo Ortega López contemplates
the intrusive ampersand – & – that is often placed
between ‘art’ and ‘education’. Even when
compressed as ‘art education’ there is an implied
fusion that historically has seen education taking
the dominant role. This is understandable to the
extent that becoming legitimised within educational settings means that art has had to be integrated into existing theories and practices. Further,
as a primary educational end is to excite others
about the value of art, the message and the means
needs to be expressed in ways that others understand and appreciate. What is at odds, as Ortega
López points out, is the lack of opportunity for
artist-researchers to make use of forms of inquiry
that emphasise difference rather than conformity
in conceptualising research practices and
outcomes. In this case, the domain of inquiry that
Ortega López opens up is dialectical in nature as
personal agency and creative action is seen to
contrast with the more conventional practices of
the academy. His goal is to reinvigorate both the
research community as well as the practices of
artists so as to achieve a more open interpretive
community that is responsive to the demands of
ongoing change.
In her case study of Family Photographs as
Organisers of Experience, Kristin Baxter mines the
depths of meaning found in the ubiquitous but
multi-layered narratives bound up in individual and
family snapshots of the past, which she sees as
visual hinges that locate changing perceptions
and contexts for understanding. Crucial to her
inquiry was the re-working of ideas and issues
through her art practice as she negotiated the
accounts of generations of photographs with
family members and friends; a circle within which
she was quite clearly embedded. Yet Baxter
explored these relationships through her artistic
explorations and her ethnographic inquiries as
she pursued the role as artist-researcher. In this
case, the domain of inquiry that Baxter opens up
is a quest for meaning whereby personal agency
JADE 27.1 (2008)
and structural elements found in collections of
photographs are explored in discursive and nondiscursive ways through art making and empirical
inquiry. Rather than archaeological fragments that
represent meanings and purposes lost in time,
family photographs for Baxter are seen as indices
of ever-changing content and meaning.
In his search for a Conceptual Structure of Visual
Metaphor, Dan Serig was prompted in part by the
missing vision and voice of the artist in research
accounts of metaphor. In supporting the cognitive
argument that sees metaphor as a powerful form
of human understanding and knowing, the lack of
conceptual scope beyond figurative language
was seen by Serig as a severe limitation in considering the significance of metaphor. When used as
a structuring element within artistic actions, Serig
saw that practitioners such as artists made use of
metaphoric thinking in a range of ways that helped
visualise the dynamics of metaphoric processes.
In this case, the domain of inquiry that Serig opens
up is a search for an explanatory system whereby
the actions, decisions and structures evident in
the work of artists uncover a conceptual structure
of visual metaphor. This is a deconstructive process that uses the creative and critical processes of
the artist as sites that can be interrogated in search
for plausible interpretations of how visual metaphors are developed.
Conclusion
The premise framing the arguments presented in
this article centres on the dissatisfaction felt
among the authors about the way that studio art
practice continues to be ignored as a necessary
site and source for research in general, and
dissertation research in particular. These views
echo the sentiments expressed by Keys and
Guyas (2006, 124), who complained that the
rejection of artistic production as a viable form of
inquiry ‘absurdly suggests to us a denial of visual
art creation as a vivid and valid learning modality
for arts educators and likewise our students’. The
argument presented in this article draws on three
brief accounts of dissertation study that used the
art studio as a central element in the research
process. Each highlights the capacity of art practice to reveal insights that are a consequence of
what the researcher did in the studio setting as
issues, ideas and interpretive stances emerged,
and problems were re-conceptualised. What is
different in these accounts from more mainstream approaches is the readiness to accept
that constructing new knowledge is a creative
and critical process that often resists easy labelling, simple resolution or elegant summary. As a
process, research outcomes often have to
accommodate messy and mobile ideas and
concepts, yet like artworks, these can be forged
into defensible representations and approximations. As a flexible but robust form of inquiry, art
practice is a vital and viable area of research that
generates new lines of inquiry, offers different
theoretical orientations, and encourages ways to
continually question the adequacy and accuracy
of the knowledge we create and construct.
17
Kristin Baxter,
Hugo Ortega López,
Dan Serig and
Graeme Sullivan
Note
1. The creation of visual metaphor is argued in
Serig’s dissertation (2006) to be a cognitive
process of conceptual blending that can derive
from artistic practice and may be applied to the
resulting art objects.
References
Aldrich, V. C. (1968) Visual metaphor, The Journal
of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 73–86
Aldrich, V. C. (1971) Form in Visual Arts,
The British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 11,
No. 3, pp. 215–26
Barone, T. & Eisner, E. W. (1997) Arts-based
educational research, in R. M. Jaeger [Ed.]
Complementary Methods for Research in
Education, 2nd edn. Washington, DC: American
Educational Research Association, pp. 73–116
Baxter, K. (2005) Recollections of family
photographs from five generations: the role of
narrative and reflexivity in organizing experience.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Teachers
College, Columbia University, New York
Braudel, F. (1980) On History, trans. S. Matthews.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press
JADE 27.1 (2008)
Opposite page:
Figure 12
Domains of Inquiry
in Dissertation
Research
18
Kristin Baxter,
Hugo Ortega López,
Dan Serig and
Graeme Sullivan
Bruns, G. L. (1999) Tragic Thoughts at the End
of Philosophy: Language, Literature, and
Ethical Theory. Evanston, IL: Northwestern
University Press
Cole, A. L., Neilson, L., Knowles, J. G. & Luciani,
T. (2004) Provoked by Art: Theorizing Artsinformed Research. Halifax, Nova Scotia:
Backalong Books
Creswell, J. W. (2003) Research Design:
Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods
Approaches, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage
Dent, C. H. (1987) Developmental studies of
perception and metaphor: The twain shall meet,
Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, Vol. 2, No. 1,
pp. 53–71
Dent, C. H. & Rosenberg, R. (1990) Visual and
verbal metaphors: Developmental interactions,
Child Development, Vol. 61, No. 4, pp. 983–94
Schank, R. (1999) Dynamic Memory Revisited.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press
Serig, D. (2005) A conceptual structure of visual
metaphor in the practices and exhibition of a
consortium of artists. Unpublished doctoral
dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia
University, New York
Serig, D. (2006) A conceptual structure of visual
metaphor, Studies in Art Education, Vol. 47,
No. 3, pp. 229–48
Sullivan, G. (2006) Research Acts in Art Practice.
Studies in Art Education, Vol. 48, No. 1, pp. 19–35
Taussig, M. (1993) Mimesis and Alterity: A
Particular History of the Senses. New York:
Routledge
Tesch, R. (1990) Qualitative Research:
Analysis Types and Software Tools. New York:
Falmer Press
Efland, A. D. (2002) Art and Cognition: Integrating
the Visual Arts in the Curriculum. New York:
Teachers College Press
Hausman, C. R. (1989) Metaphor and Art.
New York: Cambridge University Press
Hirsch, J. (1981) Family Photographs: Content,
Meaning and Effect. New York: Oxford
University Press
Keys, K. & Guyas, A. S. (2006) Commentary:
What we can’t say: ain’t we artists? Studies in Art
Education, Vol. 48, No. 1, pp. 123–8
Macleod, K. & Holdridge, L. [Eds] (2006) Thinking
through Art: Reflections on Art as Research.
New York: Routledge
Marton, F. (1986) Phenomenology: A research
approach to investigating different
understandings of reality, Journal of Thought,
Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 28–48
Resonance exhibition (2007) (online). Available
from URL: www.pearlstreetgallery.net/index.
html [As of January 1 2008 to be found at
www.boriscuratolo.com]
JADE 27.1 (2008)
Reflection in and on action and practice in creative-production doctoral projects
in art and design
Steven Scrivener
Having now supervised to completion nearly twenty PhD students and examined a
similar number, I have experience of a relatively wide range of projects. Most of these
can be best described as technological research projects. Technology and design share
a common concern for generating artefacts that are intended to transform the world
from what it is to something better: both are concerned with intervention, innovation
and change. Design research that is intended to effect change (which is the kind of
design research that I am concerned with here) is closer, in my opinion, to
technological research than it is to scientific or humanities research. From my
experience, technology research projects share a number of common features (see
Table 1). First, the product of the research is usually an artefact 1 of some kind. For
example, it might be the design of a robot arm that can pick up an egg without
breaking it. Second, the resultant artefact is one that either didn’t exist before or is an
enhanced variant of an existent product. Third, the need for the new or variant product
is justified (e.g., there is a need for robots that can pick up eggs): that is to say that a
solution to a problem is needed. Fourth, it can be demonstrated that the solution
resolves the problem, thereby satisfying need. Fifth, the solution to the identified
problem is of general interest to the domain (e.g., robot designers, manufacturers and
users). Sixth that the outcome of the research is useful. Seventh, that the knowledge
embodied in the artefact (e.g., how to pick up an egg without crushing it) can be
described separate from it (thus offering the potential for reuse). Eighth, that
knowledge embodied in the artefact is applicable to other contexts (e.g., picking up a
glass) and, ninth, transferable to the construction of other artefacts (e.g., a different
kind of robot). Tenth, that the beyond-the-single-case applicable and transferable
knowledge embodied in the artefact is more important than the artefact, which is
merely a demonstration of its existence.
artefact is produced
artefact is new or improved
artefact is the solution to a known problem
artefact demonstrates a solution to problem
the problem recognised as such by to others
artefact (solution) is useful
knowledge reified in artefact can be described
this knowledge is widely applicable and widely transferable
knowledge reified in the artefact is more important than the artefact
Table 1 Norms of Technology Research Projects
In my experience, most students’ and supervisors’ interests can be accommodated in
design research projects, which like technological projects, exhibit the features
identified in Table 1. What characterises this type of project, whether technological or
design, is that it is focussed on problem solving. Nevertheless, I have encountered,
supervised and examined students whose projects, while being concerned with the
production of artefacts, exhibit few of the other features identified in Table 1. What
characterises this latter kind of project is that its is focussed on creative production. In
the remainder of this paper, I will explore these differences and how they are reflected
in problems of process, form and presentation. Finally, I shall explore ways of doing
and documenting that I believe offer a way forward - at least for me.
Creative-production Projects and Problem-solving Projects Norms
Having supervised many students in what I have characterised as problem-solving
projects, when working with a new student my natural tendency is to try and frame
the student’s project in such a way that it offers the potential to exhibit the features
listed in Table 1. As noted above, in some cases I have found that the proposed work
could not be straitjacketed into this mould. Here, I shall call these creative-production
projects.
Typically, the candidate researchers, whether artists or designers, are experienced
practitioners who want to engage in research that will contribute directly to their ongoing practice. Furthermore, they wish to conduct the research through art- or designmaking, or, put another way, they do not wish to suspend their creative work or allow
it to become separate from, or sub-ordinate to, the research activity. This in itself is
not a problem, as moulding a through-practice research project that meets the criteria
listed in Table 1 is straightforward. Problems seem to arise when the candidates’
primary interest is in producing artefacts, i.e., in creative production, and when their
practice is closely associated with their self-identification as creators. For these
candidates, the artefacts arising from the research cannot simply be conceived as byproducts or exemplification of "know-how". Instead, they are objects of value in their
own right. Typically, the candidates involved are artists or studio/craft designers,
focused on producing work that will stand up in the public domain (e.g., be worthy of
exhibition). For them, doctoral study is mainly seen as an opportunity to develop as
creators and to produce more satisfactory work.
In problem-solving research projects, judgement as to whether an artefact is novel or
an improvement on an existent product depends on the identification of weaknesses in
existing products or needs that are not yet fulfilled by any product: in other words, on
the identification of a problem. With some PhD candidates it proves virtually
impossible to identify a problem as such. For example, one of my research students, a
photographer, was interested in producing work that dealt with the subject of breast
cancer. Among other reasons for undertaking the work, it was his hope that
photography could contribute to awareness and understanding of how breast cancer
affects the sufferer, the family, etc. However, the primary purpose of the project was
not to test photography’s contribution to understanding but to produce photographs
dealing with the subject of breast cancer, or rather to discover, or learn, how to
produce them. Hence, while the programme could have been framed as a hypothesis
testing project this would have been of little practical interest to the candidate. Nor
was the work concerned with generating a new or improved artefact whose novelty or
enhancement could be recognised in the fact that it provided a solution to a known
problem. A number of photographers had already dealt with breast cancer in their
work, so new work could only add to this body of work. However, had this project
been the first to deal with the topic, this, of itself, would not have provided a
justification for undertaking the work. There would have been no value in
undertaking the work if the only reason for doing it was the fact that it had not been
done before. Nor would the fact that it had been done before have been a reason for
not doing it. The justification for undertaking the work was that the photographer was
motivated to undertake it. Similarly, the student would have had little interest in
taking identified "weaknesses" in the work of other photographers as his starting
point, as the resolution of those "weaknesses" would not necessarily have related at
all to his underlying interest in undertaking the work. It was what the photographer
learnt, realised, or found that mattered. The work would be original in the sense of not
being derivative or imitative, but not necessarily in the sense of new-to-the-world or
an improvement on existing works, or of satisfying an identified need.
In such a situation, what one is dealing with is a topic of interest (e.g., breast cancer)
and creative objectives (e.g., work dealing with breast cancer) that resist, throughout
the programme of work, reduction to single problem and its solution. Furthermore,
the selection of topic and goal are made on the basis of personal rather than collective
judgement. 2 This is not to suggest that the selection is self-indulgent. Of course, it
can be, but, while individually unique, every person has much in common with
others, sharing with them a social space. As such, what interests one person is likely
to be of interest to others. Nevertheless, although artefacts are produced, their novelty,
shared interest and usefulness may not be easily demonstrated or assessed.
Another problem with this kind of work (which we will explore in more detail later)
is that the project’s topic of interest and goal may change as the work progresses. This
occurs for a number of reasons: first, the student is usually exploring manifold
interests and goals and the priorities given to them may change as the work
progresses; second, new issues and goals may emerge in response to the work in
progress. In my experience, something similar occurs in problem-solving projects and
comprises what might be called the problem finding phase of a project. Normally,
however, there comes a point in such a project when a problem is found, defined and
followed through to the realisation of a solution. In contrast, in projects where the
work is progressed through the creation of and interaction with artefacts, issues,
goals, and priorities may change throughout the project resulting in a stream of
outcomes, thereby never settling on a specific problem or yielding a "final" solution.
Perhaps the main reason for this is that the artefact matters as an object of experience.
If it is not "working" in this sense then something has to be done about it.
While in a typical problem-solving project the "know-how" exemplified in the
artefacts is of central interest because it can be reused, in creative-production projects
there is no general interest or utility in this "know-how". For example, even if one
knew how to, why should one want to reproduce the photographs produced by a
particular artist or the ceramics of a particular ceramist. For the same reason, there is
no obvious merit to this knowledge being widely applicable and transferable
(however, later I shall argue that it does provide examples, images, understandings
that others may adopt for, or adapt to, their own purposes). Furthermore, as noted
above, the artefacts are not exemplars of the project outcomes, they are the project
outcomes. Table 2 illustrates how creative production projects relate to the norms of
problem-solving projects.
artefact is produced
artefact may not be a new or improved version of an earlier artefact
artefact is not a solution to a known problem
artefact doesn’t demonstrate a solution to a problem
the topic of interest and creative objectives may not be of obvious relevance to others
artefact may have no obvious use
there may be no value abstracting knowledge for reuse
"knowledge" reified in the artefact is unlikely to widely applicable or transferable
the artefact is more important than any "knowledge" reified in it
Table 2 Relating Creative-production to the Norms of Problem-solving Research
Although I stress what seem to me to be fundamental differences between creativeproduction and problem-solving projects, its important to recognise that this is not a
black-and-white distinction. A creative-production project may comprise some
problem solving and, indeed, it may involve cultural theory, cultural history and
scientific research, inter alia. Where this is the case, it is important that the outcomes
of this activity are reported. Nevertheless, it is inappropriate to view the contribution
to knowledge made through these activities as the primary goal of the activity, or for
the fact of this knowledge or these activities to be used to obfuscate, i.e., to claim that
one is the same as the other. In a creative-production project this knowledge is a byproduct of the process rather than its primary objective. One reason for seeking to
distinguish this form of project from the problem-solving form is to establish a
framework of ideas and concepts that will prevent the former from becoming
subsumed under the latter, which has a longer doctoral tradition and well-established
norms.
Assessing Problem-solving Research Projects
The outcomes of a problem-solving research programme can be tested against the
norms identified in Table 1. For example, we can ask, has the research student:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Demonstrated that there is a problem to be solved?
Shown that the solution to the problem will result in a new or improved
artefact?
Shown that the problem is one that the World would like to see solved?
Demonstrated the usefulness of the solution?
Demonstrated that the knowledge exemplified in the solution can be
abstracted (i.e, described and/or formalised)?
Considered the general applicability and transferability of this knowledge?
Proved this knowledge (i.e., demonstrated that the problem has been
eradicated or ameliorated by the solution)?
However, it is important to note that a student would not be awarded a PhD for
merely producing a new or improved artefact, even if all of the above questions had
been answered positively. The PhD candidate would have to show that they arrived at
the problem and its solution in a self-conscious and reasoned way. In other words, if
the decision-making involved in framing a problem and arriving at its solution were
not evident, then the work would not be satisfactory. This is why a problem-solving
project is presented as an "argument", which is usually, in fact, a post hoc justification
for the decisions that were made. So, we can add one further and crucial test to those
listed above: Has the research student demonstrated that he or she is a self-conscious
and systematic problem-setter and -solver?
In my experience, there is no generally agreed methodology for this demonstration.
The primary research methodology is problem-solving itself, which often, in practice,
cannot be fully explicated. There are, of course, methods, techniques and tools that
can assist the researcher, but in many cases, the problem finding and solving
processes retain an element of the black arts. Consequently, the student is not required
to describe in detail the problem-setting and problem-solving processes. Rather, the
student is expected to provide a persuasive case for the worthiness of research
problem, the rationality of the steps taken to solve it and their execution. In short,
although there is no overarching methodology there is an overarching ethic of selfconscious, informed and systematic problem selection and solution.
Earlier, it may have occurred to you that the problem-solving research norms are
characteristic of technological and design problem-solving in general. This being the
case, what makes one everyday design or engineering, say, and the other research?
One part of the answer to this is that not all of the norms need to be satisfied in
everyday practice, e.g., a problem may not be worth solving; neither is it is necessary
for the problem-solver to pass all the tests identified above. The additional
requirements imposed on the student in the context of a doctoral programme take the
activity beyond everyday problem solving.
The Norms of Creative-production Projects
While a creative-production project may not exhibit the norms of a problem-solving
project, this does not mean that norms cannot be indentified, quite the contrary. First,
whilst one may not wish to describe creative outcomes as new, in the sense of having
no precedent or being an improvement on a precedent, one can describe work as
being original, i.e., not derivative or imitative of others’ work. Second, while the
"problem" and "solution" may be inappropriate descriptors, the work can be described
as a response to a set of on-going issues, concerns and interests expressed through one
or more artefacts. Third, while these issues, etc., may not be understood as framing a
problem and although they may originate in a highly personalised way, they are
usually rooted in the cultural context, i.e., they reflect culture. Furthermore, these
issues, concerns and interests should be manifested through the creative-productions,
i.e., the artefacts produced. Fourth, whether useful or not, the important attribute of
the artefact is that it should contribute to human experience. The main difficulty
comes in talking about knowledge; which I am coming to believe is inappropriate in
this context. Instead, as implied above, the criterion to be met is that the work makes
a contribution to human experience. This being the case, the creative production, as
an object of experience, is more important than any knowledge embodied in it.
artefacts are produced
artefacts are original in a cultural context
artefacts are a response to issues, concerns and interests
artefacts manifests these issues, concerns and interests
the issues, concerns and interests reflect cultural preoccupations
artefacts contribute to human experience
artefacts are more important than any knowledge embodied in them.
Table 3 Norms of Creative-production Research Projects
Using these norms, Table 3, a creative-production research programme can be tested
by asking, for example, has the student:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Described the issues, concerns and interests stimulating the work, i.e.,
something that will contribute to human experience?
Shown that the response to these stimulants is likely to be original?
Shown that the issues, concerns and interests reflect cultural preoccupations?
Shown the relationship between the artefact and those issues, concerns, and
interests?
Presented original, high-quality and engaging artefacts that contribute to
human experience?
Communicated knowledge, learning or insight resulting from the programme
of work?
Shown themselves to be a self-conscious, systematic and reflective creative
artist or designer?
The Underlying PhD Process in a Problem-solving Project
Hence, specific norms projects (against which outcomes can be assessed) can be
established for creative-production which differ in a number of respects to the norms
and tests of problem-solving projects. The question is how do these differences
impact on the PhD process and the nature of "argument" in a creative-production
project? In the search for an answer to this question, I will first consider the nature of
the underlying the problem-solving PhD process.
If one were to take a typical problem-solving PhD thesis as representative of the
problem-solving process then it would appear highly rational, deliberate and clinical.
However, this is rarely how the researcher experiences the project, especially when
the work is highly original. Typically, the experience for much of the programme of
study is one of false starts, readjustment, redefinition and uncertainty, inter alia.
Indeed, in my experience, the problem-solving PhD process is much closer to that
characterised in Schön’s theory of reflective practice (1983).
In everyday action, Schön (ibid.) argues, our knowledge is ordinarily tacit, implicit in
our patterns of action and in our feel for the stuff with which we are dealing - our
knowing is in action. Similarly, the professional depends on tacit knowing-in-action.
On the other hand, we often think about what we are doing. Usually reflection on
knowing-in-action goes together with reflection on the stuff at hand. As the
professional tries to make sense of it, he also reflects on the understandings which
have been implicit in his action, understanding which he surfaces, criticises,
restructures, and embodies in further action. According to Schön it is this entire
process of reflection-in-action which is central to the "art" by which practitioners deal
with situations of uncertainty, instability, uniqueness, and value conflict. In my view,
the process by which the problem-solving researcher arrives at research outcomes is
very similar.
Reflection-in-action has a characteristic structure. Typically, the practitioner finds
that problem cannot be solved as it has been initially set, so the framing of the
problem must be surfaced and criticised, and the problem reframed: a way of shaping
the situation to a new frame must be found. The reframed problem becomes the basis
for experimentation to discover what consequences and implications follow from it,
and the situation is made to fit the frame through moves that adapt the situation to the
frame. But moves generate unintended changes that give new meaning to the
situation: the situation talks back and the problem is reframed. New discoveries call
for new reflection-in-action. The process spirals through stages of appreciation,
action, and reappreciation, whereby the unique and uncertain situation comes to be
understood through the attempt to change it, and changed through the attempt to
understand it.
Schön (1983) asks further questions of this process. If the practitioner conducts a
reframing experiment how is it evaluated? Accepting the uniqueness of a situation,
how is the accumulated experience of practice made use of? If reflection-in-action is a
kind of experiment, in what sense is such on-the-spot experimentation rigorous.
Given that the characteristic research stance is that of objectivity, control, and
distance, how might the stance of the practitioner be described?
The answer to the first question is that evaluation is grounded in a frame experiment’s
ability to keep things moving and the practitioner’s appreciate systems, i.e., that
knowledge which the practitioner draws on to establish whether changes and
unintended changes are liked or disliked. Schön views the practitioner’s experience as
a repertoire of "examples, images, understandings, and actions". According to Schön,
when a practitioner makes sense of a situation that is perceived to be unique, she sees
it as something already present in her repertoire. "Seeing this situation as that one,
one may also do in this situation as in that one", continues Schön (1983:139). It is this
capacity that allows practitioner to bring past experience to bear on new cases.
Schön (ibid.) defines several types of experiment in practice. Exploratory experiment
is when an action is undertaken only to see what follows, without accompanying
predictions or expectations. A move-testing experiment is when an action is
undertaken in order to produce an intended change. Such a move can be affirmed or
negated. A hypothesis-testing experiment succeeds when it effects an intended
discrimination among competing hypothesis. He argues that experiment in practice is
different from research in a number of ways. First, the practitioner is interested in
transforming the situation from what it is to something better. Second, when a
practitioner reflects-in-action, experimentation is at once exploratory, move-testing,
and hypothesis testing. The three functions are fulfilled by the very same actions.
Third, in hypothesis-testing the practitioner is in imperative mode, "Let it be the case
that X....", and shapes the situation so that X becomes true. Phenomena is changed to
make the hypothesis fit. Fourth, the practitioner violates the canon of controlled
experiment, which calls for objectivity and distance. The practitioner’s relation to the
situation is transactional. The situation is shaped, but in conversation with it, so that
his own models and appreciations are also shaped by the situation. Fifth, the
practitioner/experimenter need discriminate among contending hypothesis only to the
point where moves are affirmed or yield new appreciations of the situation. In the
practice context the experimental logic is one of affirmation not confirmation. The
sequence initiated by the negation of a move terminates when a new theory leads to a
new move that is affirmed. Sixth, hypotheses must lend themselves to embodiment in
a move. Only hypotheses that can immediately translate into action are of interest.
However, although this process might resemble the experience of undertaking a
problem-solving PhD the student would not be encouraged to write it up; indeed, the
student would be actively discouraged from doing so. I doubt that there is a problemsolving PhD project supervisor who, when encountered by a student with writing-up
problems, has not responded by saying, "You need to distinguish doing the PhD from
writing it up". And what does this mean? Well, in the first place, the problem finding
phase of the project is rarely written up (i.e., the cycle of problem framing, action,
consequence, and reframing). The experienced supervisor knows that, with guidance,
there will come a point when the student will frame a problem that will become the
primary research focus. In the thesis, the student is expected to justify the existence of
the problem rather than to explain how it was found. Hence, the problem is usually
presented as if it were the natural consequence of rational analysis of past work in the
field. The experienced supervisor also knows that the research problem, once set, will
change as the work progresses and may only be properly defined in the writing up of
the thesis. Here again, the student would be discouraged from describing this process.
Similarly, the student will be discouraged from reporting much of the problemsolving process, the often-faltering steps from problem identification to solution.
Instead, the student will be encouraged to focus on describing the "know how" reified
in the solution (i.e., the destination rather than the journey) and on demonstrating,
rationally and empirically, that this knowledge solves the research problem. In so far
as the problem-solving process is described, this will tend to take the form of a
means-end analysis: that is to say, a technical procedure, a "calculus of decision"
(Schön, 1983:47), to be measured by its effectiveness in achieving pre-established
goals.
One reason for leaving out this material is that its inclusion makes the thesis both very
difficult to write and to read. However, the most important reason is that it doesn’t
usually matter how the problem was arrived at or how the solution was found. What
matters is the existence of a valid problem, the demonstration of its solution and the
abstraction of the reusable "know how" embodied in it. All the same, because the
writing up of a problem-solving doctorate may comprise a significant element of post
hoc rationalisation, students often find writing up a difficult process, even feeling that
they are being dishonest. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the potential for actual
dishonesty, what matters from the supervisor and the examiner’s point of view is that
the thesis is in a form which can be challenged using tests such as those presented in
Section 4. While challenging the thesis may sometimes reveal dishonesty,
considerable trust is placed in the basic honesty and professionalism of all of those
involved in the PhD programme.
Reflective Practice and Creative Production
Clearly, although Schön (1983) presents a theory of practice that is very different to
Simon (1969), practice is nevertheless conceived in terms of problems and solutions.
Furthermore, Schön’s scientific language of theory of action, logic, experimentation,
hypothesis and experimental rigour is at odds with my sense of creative-production.
While I do not have adequate alternatives to put in their place, I would emphasise that
I do not see creative production in these terms. Nevertheless, in my experience, the
things onto which these words are attached, the process and its characteristics, seem
to capture much of that which I have also observed in the actions of my creativeproduction project students.
For example, Schön’s (1983) theory stresses the role of tacit knowledge in competent
practice, i.e., knowing-in-action and -in-practice. Second, he puts store on problem
setting as something that recurs throughout the process in response to difficulty or
uncertainty encountered during a task. Dialectic occurs between the situation and the
practitioner’s conception of the task in hand which stimulates a parallel dialectic
between problem setting and problem solving. Third, reflection is the primary
conceptual tool for handling the unexpected. Fourth, creative action is a way of
keeping things moving. Then there is the notion that past experience provides
examples, images, understandings and actions, rather than generalised theories,
methods, techniques or tools. Sixth, there is the recognition that the creator’s interest
is in transforming the situation (i.e., psychological, emotional and created) to
something better (e.g., equilibrium between intention and realisation). Seventh, there
is idea that action seeks to shape the situation to intentions, rather than to test
understanding. Eighth, there is the recognition that the process is subjective. Ninth,
there is the insight that the creator seeks affirmation, not confirmation, of the
appropriateness of a course of action. Then there is the idea that only those things that
lend themselves to embodiment in creative action are worth exploring. Finally, Schön
shows that the practitioner’s response to the situation demands a certain kind of
rigour; there are appropriate and inappropriate ways of responding (see Section 8 for
further discussion of this point).
However, because a creative-production project is not concerned with and does not
reduce to a problem and its solution it is not possible to separate formative processes
from outcomes and to specify a "calculus of decisions" (i.e., that relates means to
ends). The relationship between issues, concerns and interests and outcomes in a
creative-production project is one that changes throughout the entire process. Thus,
unlike a problem-solving project, where we can largely ignore the actual problem
setting and solution processes, I am of the view that description of the creativeproduction process should be the principle means by which students demonstrate that
they are self-conscious, systematic and reflective creators. In the following sections, I
will argue that Schön’s (1983) theory of design as reflective practice provides us with
concepts which help to characterise creative production, e.g., to identify what should
be attended to in the process, its form and documentation.
The Importance of Reflection in Creative Production
Schön (1983) describes how practice is an exploration in which the practitioner seeks
to come to terms with a given creative task. This exploration involves the formulation
and testing of ways of proceeding. Generally, all thinking in this activity is directed
toward action. Occasionally, when ways of proceeding don’t work or when they
produce unintended consequences, the practitioner is forced to reflect on implicit
knowledge and strategies. At such points, the practitioner steps out of action
momentarily and past action and outcomes become objects of conscious attention.
When a practitioner reflects on knowing-in-practice they reflect on knowledge and
ways of working automated over an extended period (cf., Figure 1, reflection-inaction and -practice, RIAP). Practice is made up of projects lasting days, weeks or
months. Whenever work is suspended, at the end of the day, at weekends, during
project suspensions and upon project completion, the opportunity exists to reflect on
the current project, the approach taken to it, and on its relation to past projects. (cf.,
Figure 1, reflection on action and practice, ROAP). In contrast to reflection-in-action
and -practice, reflection on action and practice is not driven by the unexpected per se
but by the desire to learn from experience: it is a discipline rather than a necessity for
further action.
Figure 1 Reflection in and on design episodes and projects
According to Schön (1983) reflection is central both to the practitioner’s ability to
successfully complete projects and to their professional development. However, such
reflection is unremarkable to and unmarked by the practitioner. Hence, the
importance of such events or how they have changed the practitioner may not be
consciously registered. As noted earlier, Schön sees reflection as the primary
cognitive mechanism for dealing with the unexpected and, through the resolution of
the unexpected, for learning. There is, then, an argument for suggesting that the
practitioner could benefit if reflection was recorded and then reported more
systematically.
Table 4 shows the full range of outcomes arising from on-the-spot experimentation,
i.e., those meeting the practitioner's expectations or not, together with the desirability
of intended and unintended consequences.
Consequences in relation to intention Desirability of all perceived consequences
intended or unintended
1 Surprise
Undesirable
2 Surprise
Desirable or neutral
3 No surprise
Desirable or neutral
4 No surprise
Undesirable
Table 4 The outcomes of on-the-spot-experimentation (from Schön, 1983: 153)
In the first case, the move is disaffirmed and the practitioner’s theory of action is
refuted; here the practitioner is obliged to reconsider its relevance and
appropriateness. In the second case, although the theory of action is refuted, since the
result is desirable there is no obligation, in the logic of reflective practice, for the
practitioner to surface and reflect on the underlying theory of action. In the third case,
the move is simply affirmed and design can continue without any need for reflection.
Finally, in the fourth case, although the theory of action has produced the expected
result the outcome is undesirable. This will necessitate reflection, not some much
about the truth of the theory but its scope of relevance, thus promoting a search aimed
at extending the theory of action to cover the observed case. Consequently, only
outcomes 1 and 4 demand reflection-in-action and -practice, but demand it they do
and to ignore such demand is a failure of rigour in on-the-spot experimentation.
I am suggesting that if we are to give greater attention to the process of creative
production, then this should focus on the recording and reporting of these moments of
reflection, including intended and unintended consequences and responses to them.
The systematic recording of making and reflection-in-action and -practice would play
a crucial role in supporting the practitioner’s reflections on action and practice and in
making the whole creative-production project more accessible, both to the researcher
and those to whom the project is communicated.
While systematic, relevant and practical methods of recording need to be developed
for creative production, useful schemes can be appropriated from other research
realms. In the appropriation and application of such techniques to describe and
interpret activity, a balance will have to be struck between rigour and action. I am
proposing to introduce an additional layer of activity into creative-production. This
layer is in the service of action, i.e., it is intended to inform and enhance action.
Consequently, it must not become so burdensome that action is impeded or stopped.
Rigour in reflection-in-action and -practice must be the maidservant of effective
action, yielding to action’s inherent structural integrity.
Reflection on Action and Practice
The record of creative-production is the starting point for its documentation. At the
very least, this should record reflection (i.e., reflection-in-action and -practice). This
will provide the material for reflection on action and practice. As noted above, this
latter process is more a matter of discipline than necessity. Given a record of creative
production, reflection on action and practice amounts to reflection on a description of
creative-production. Given that it is likely to be rich, elaborate and extensive, how
should reflection on the description of creative-production be approached? The
answer, I propose, is that the focus should be on moments of reflection-in-action and practice. Each surprise during working, together with its associated frame, refuted
theory of action, surfaced tacit knowledge, revised theory of action, revised frame and
subsequent action, should be reflected on both with regard to its contribution to the
project and its implications for future action and practice. Like reflection-in-action
and -practice, the designer’s reflection on action and practice will need to be
evidenced.
The Shape of a Creative-production Project
A creative-production project will be grounded in a practitioner’s current practice and
realised in future projects. Consequently, it should begin with reflection on past
practice and appreciative system. This will generate issues for further investigation,
goals for future practice and a reappraisal of appreciate system (e.g., a designer might
choose to put a higher value on sustainability or user involvement in the design
process, while a painter might choose to explore narrative in static imagery). This
reappraisal is likely to stimulate a search for information and knowledge relevant to
the identified issues, goals and appreciation.
Only superficially does this resemble the preparation stage of more typical forms of
research. First, the goal isn’t to draw a boundary separating what is inside and outside
the focus of study as a starting point for identifying an unanswered question that lends
itself to expression in a single problem or hypothesis that through solution or
confirmation will make an original contribution to knowledge. Instead, in creativeproduction, multiple issues and goals may be appropriate and it should be
acknowledged that these may change, grow, and be given different emphasis as the
work proceeds. While the literature review in traditional research puts emphasis on
the logic of problem or hypothesis selection, preparation for creative-production sets
out to provide a valid rationale that affirms the direction of making, at the moment
that making commences. Second, while information and knowledge should be
systematic and rigorous, because issues and goals are manifold this process will be
necessarily broad in scope and lacking in depth. Furthermore, knowledge acquisition
and information gathering activity will be stimulated when progress becomes
difficult. Thus, breadth and depth of relevant knowledge and information is likely to
widen, deepen and accrue with work.
Following the initial preparation stage, further opportunities to reflect in and on action
and practice will arise at the completion of work episodes. Here the artist or designer
should reflect back on the issues, goals and appreciation surfaced in the preparation
stage, and subsequent stages. At the end of the project there should be a final
reflective stage. Here, the researcher should reflect both on the project as a whole in
relation to the issues explored, the work produced, development in appreciative
system, and the reflection on action and practice itself. Pre-, within- and post- project
reflections will provide the primary material for communicating and sharing
experience with peers, together with descriptive records of the work and decisions
made.
Reporting a Creative-production Project
Research can be normally described as a process that narrows down to the
consideration or testing of one or a few primary research propositions. Hence, its
makes sense to begin the thesis by setting out all the knowledge relevant (and
irrelevant) to the project to bound the research question. Having established the
question or problem, one can proceed to describe the method of testing or solution,
the application of this method, the results, and, finally, the discussion of the results which may involve some examination of theory and knowledge additional to that set
out in the review. As noted earlier, this thesis format will not work for creative
production project: multiple and changing issues are explored, theory and knowledge
is accrued, and different strategies employed to further the work.
Given the underlying structure of the creative-production PhD described above, I am
suggesting that a creative-production project report 3 would more properly take a form
something like that show in Figure 2.
Main body
• Pre-project reflection on practice (including identification of issues, concerns
and interests to be worked with in the project)
• Review of theory, knowledge and information (relevant to identified issues,
concerns and interests)
• Reframing of issues, concerns and interests (in response to material found in
the review)
Cycles of:
•
•
•
•
summary of a work episode (i.e., to place subsequent description into
context, e.g., when it occurred, what the objectives were, who was involved,
how long it lasted, what the outcomes were, etc.)
reflection on the work episode (i.e., focussing on moments of reflection-inaction and practice, supported by records of working)
Post-project reflection on action and practice (i.e., on the project as a whole)
Reflection on reflection on action and practice (i.e., critical reflection on
one’s work-focussed reflection)
Appendices
• Accumulated theory and knowledge
• Description (records) of designing
• Analysis of reflection-in-action and -practice
Figure 2 Suggested Basic Structure of a Creative-production Project Report
From Figure 2, it is clear that greater emphasis is placed on the process and in
particular, how the process changes as the work progresses. This cyclic process of
reflection draws upon theory, knowledge, records of designing and analysis of
reflection-in-action and -practice as appropriate, and hence this material will be
described in the context of this process, rather than separate from it. At the end of
productive project work, all the work should be reflected on. Here, the focus should
be on reporting the learning acquired through the project, together a description of
one’s current position as an artist or designer. The final reflective cycle is concerned
with an analysis of how one approached the project (see Section 12 for further
discussion).
In Figure 2, the elements described above are presented as comprising the main body
of the report, meaning that this material is essential to a third party wishing to make
sense of the project. In contrast, the appendices contain material which, while
underpinning that reported in the main body, need not be read. Here, I’m suggesting
that there might be a need for an appendix which presents knowledge and theory
accumulated throughout the project.
A creative-production project is commenced in the context of relevant theory and
knowledge. There is, for example, the practitioner’s personal knowledge base: the
repertoire of personal ideas, beliefs, and appreciation, etc., derived from actual
experience and shared theory and knowledge acquired during education and from
books, journals and the like. It is this personal knowledge base that contributes to the
practitioner’s framing of the issues, concerns and interests at the outset of the project.
If, as is likely to be the case, personal knowledge is insufficient for immediate
creative production, then a search will be initiated for relevant theory and knowledge
which will be written up in the primary review (second element, Figure 2)
When reflection-in-action and -practice force the practitioner to reconsider the theory
and knowledge informing the work in progress, it is likely, first, that the designer will
search his personal knowledge base and, second, external sources of knowledge and
theory when his personal resources prove inadequate. These secondary searches
should be written up as part of the action-reflection cycle.
While reflection may be the primary mechanism for drawing on known-to-thepractitioner theory and knowledge and for initiating the search for new (to-thepractitioner) theory and knowledge the latter may be brought into the process by a
quite different route. In general, practitioners are not simply focused on practice: they
look at and read about the work of others, they read professional and (sometimes)
academic journals and monitor social, cultural and scientific development. In other
words, they try to keep up with the times, to have a grasp on the state-of-the-art in a
range of human affairs. This activity, which runs parallel to practice, may uncover
new theory and knowledge that is recognised as relevant to the task in hand and
which functions in ways comparable to that "earmarked" through reflection. That is to
say, when the practitioner’s progress is blocked it may contribute to a reframing of
the situation that clears the way ahead. It may also act to transform the practitioner’s
theory of action, which may promote new frames and moves during a task. Where this
background information gathering can be seen to have contributed directly to making,
it too should feature when reporting action-reflection cycles. Given that it is only
necessary, and possibly meaningful, to report that information contributing to the
affirmation of a move, it is highly likely that accumulating wisdom will be drawn
upon in an ad hoc and partial manner. It may therefore be necessary to document
separately the true breadth and depth of theory and knowledge acquired during the
project. However, since the role of this theory and knowledge is only meaningful in
context of the actions to which it contributed, then emphasis should be on reporting it
in order of use, not acquisition. For this reason, I’m suggesting that it may be helpful
to report the acquisition of theory and knowledge during the project in a separate
appendix.
Rigour and Reflexivity
We have described above the consequences of on-the-spot experimentation and their
implications for the practitioner’s subsequent actions, e.g., when a move is
unsuccessful and yields undesired consequences requiring reflection back on how the
task has been framed and the associated theory of action. Rigour in on-the-spot
experimentation demands that these events are acknowledged and handled.
Another aspect of rigour relates to the stance of the inquirer. According to Schön
(1983) the inquirer must impose an order of his own rather than falling into his
transaction with the situation. At the same time as trying to shape the situation, the
inquirer must be open to the situation’s talk-back. Also, he must depend on relative
constant elements that he may bring to a situation otherwise in flux: an overarching
theory, an appreciative system, and a stance of reflection-in-practice.
A third aspect of rigour relates to the researcher’s engagement and contribution to the
activity of study. Reflexivity is the name employed in qualitative research for the
cyclic process whereby the way we describe a phenomenon changes the way it
operates for us, which in turn changes our perception, which changes our description
of it, and so on. The term is used both to describe the process and the researcher’s
attempts to acknowledge its effects and impact on her research. Tindall (1994) argues
that in this latter sense, reflexivity is possible the most distinctive feature of
qualitative research. She goes on to say that, "It is an attempt to make explicit the
process by which the material and analysis are produced" (1994: 149). In essence it is
an on-going and disciplined self-reflection in which the research topic and process,
together with the experience of doing the research, are critically evaluated. Like
qualitative researcher, the artist and designer is central to the sense that is made and is
engaged in a process in which reflexivity dominates. Hence, reflexivity must be seen
as a central feature of research-in-design.
The Value of Research-in-design and Doctoral Degrees
Why bother to undertake a doctoral education in creative-production? This can be
answered in a number of untested ways. First, the process should yield more
reflective practitioners: the assumption being that reflective practitioners will produce
better results than their unreflective peers will. Second, these benefits will be reflected
in innovative artefacts and the explication of overarching theory, appreciative system
and the norms used to evaluate the unintended and unexpected. While it is not
assumed that this will lead to generalisations, the communicable outcomes of the
activity will provide, "examples, images, understandings" (Schön, 1983:138) and
strategies for action that other practitioners may employ to extend their own
repertoires.
It should be remembered that the PhD is a relatively modern phenomenon. In 1870
the PhD was exclusively a German phenomenon developed within the German
scientific positivist school of thought, as a preparation for the scholastic life. After
1870, the PhD changed dramatically when adopted in the USA, where it took the
form of a distinct cycle of formal education, differing only in terms of its level from
those preceding it. In the USA the PhD quickly became a passport into teaching (as it
is today in many disciplines in the UK) prompting some commentators to note that in
practice it is now a qualification for teaching rather than research. Similarly, a
doctorate in creative-production might be seen as appropriate training to teach others
to become reflective artists and designers.
Conclusions
This paper is essentially a personal manifesto which sets out the ideas I hope to
explore in working with future PhD students undertaking what I have called, for want
of a better term, creative-production projects. I have written the paper from a personal
perspective - my experience as a supervisor and examiner of PhD students. Much of
this has been acquired through involvement in problem-solving projects. However, I
have recognised that some students’ interests, intentions, and ways of working,
although concerned the creation of artefacts, cannot be moulded into a problemsolving project and that to do so would somehow be a failure of imagination. I have
called this form of project creative-production, because it is inventive and
imaginative, and realised through and in artefacts. Given the personal nature of this
dilemma, what is problematic for me may not be so for others with a different
research background. Even so, the on-going debate about the nature of research in art
and design suggests that others are experiencing similar problems, and this has
encouraged me to review my own uncertainties.
My approach has been to consider why the norms and tests of problem-solving
research are not appropriate to creative-production, before framing what seem to me
to be appropriate ones. However, I have concluded that this in itself isn’t sufficient:
the relationship between the issues, concerns and interests explored and the artefacts
produced is so tied up with act of making that this can only be revealed through
description and reflection on the underlying creative-production process. I am
persuaded that Schön’s (1983) theory of reflective practice provides us with ways of
thinking about the nature of the creative-production process, the way past experience
(both personal and collective) is brought to bear on it, the assessment of action, rigour
in creative-production, and the stance of the practitioner.
I have proposed that reflection should be central to the discipline of creativeproduction. This will involve recording creative production in a way that captures
moments of reflection-in-action and -practice (i.e., material for reflection on action
and practice). This emphasis on the underlying experience of creative production has
implications both for the shape of the research programme and the form of its
reporting, and I have sketched out patterns for each that I hope to work from in future
projects.
Earlier, I considered what distinguished the problem-solving research project from
everyday problem solving. Of course, the same question can be asked of creativeproduction, how is it different to everyday art and design making? Here, the former
answer suffices: the additional requirements imposed on the student in the context of
a doctoral programme take the activity beyond ordinary art and design making. But, is
it right to call it research? Implicit in this question is the assumption that research is a
well-defined concept that has a clear and unequivocal meaning to all disciplines that
employ the term. However, what technologists do in research is different to what
psychologists do, and what psychologists do is different to what anthropologists do,
and so on. While recognising that the activities are different, we might wish to argue
that each shares a set of underlying criteria which determine the shared meaning of
the term research. However, attempts to frame these criteria (cf., Cross, 2000) usually
end up producing general principles which seem equally applicable to a range of
activities that would not be regarded as research. Alternatively, we could argue that
the term research is not an absolute: that it is socially constructed and its meaning
shifts depending on the community using the term. From this standpoint, both activity
and meaning differ from one discipline to another.
I tend towards the latter persuasion and think, for example, that technology has
become comfortable with using the term research to describe an activity which
satisfies specific norms and tests and which, in being designed to meet these criteria,
contributes systematically to the development of the discipline. The use of the term by
one discipline is accepted by a second when the latter recognises that research is to
the former as research is to it. This being the case, the answer to the question must
start with the discipline using the term research. If it is becomes accepted that
creative-production is different to art and design making, that it contributes to their
development, and that it is to them as research is to other disciplines, then we will
stop asking the question and simply use the term without discomfort. Therefore, at
this point in term I cannot answer the question. However, I am convinced that
creative-production is different to art and design making, is distinguishable from
bachelor and master education, and has a value, both to the student and to society. It
is this conviction that sustains my interest in supervising and examining creativeproduction students.
Endnotes
1 Here I am taking a very broad view of what is meant by an artefact. For example,
it could be a tool or technique for doing something, e.g., picking up fragile objects, or
a tool, technique or method for designing such tools and techniques.
2 In a problem-solving project, one would normally be concerned that a topic of
interest that was recognised by one’s peers as being worth investigation. Usually,
such topics can be found in the suggestions for future work reported in writings of
one’s peers.
3 Report or dissertation may be more appropriate than the term thesis, given the
definition of the latter as "a proposition to be maintained or proved", which is often
that ascribed to the PhD thesis rather than the more general definition of a thesis as "a
dissertation, especially by a candidate for a degree" (cf., The Concise Oxford
Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1992).
References
Cross, N. (2000) Design as a discipline. In: Durling D, Friedman K (eds.) Doctoral
education in design: foundations for the future. Staffordshire University Press,
Staffordshire, pp 93-100
Schön, D.A. (1983) The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action.
Basic books, New York
Simon, H.A. (1969) The sciences of the artificial. MIT Press, Cambridge
Massachusetts
Tindall, C. (1994) Issues of evaluation. In: Banister P, Burman E, Parker I, Taylor M
(eds.) Qualitative methods in psychology: a research guide. Open University Press,
Buckingham, pp 142-159.

The artist as researcher

Transcription

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