Transcript Practice-Led Research - Researcher Education Programme

Practice-Led Research
Dr. Kathleen Watt
“Professional practice qualifies as research when it
can be shown:
 to be firmly located within a research context;
 to be subject to interrogation and critical review;
 to impact on or influence the work of peers,
policy and practice…”
(1996 Research Assessment Exercise)
Design and Research: Parallel Processes
Imaging/Proposition
Presenting/Argument
Testing/Evaluation
Reimaging/Revision
The Role of Practice in Research
 To investigate the content of one’s own creative activity in order to advance or
innovate.
 To make explicit the practitioner’s tacit knowledge.
 To discover new methods/processes/techniques and/or materials by
experimentation.
 To reconstruct artworks/artefacts to bring about new understanding or insight
through making/remaking.
 To be a catalyst in creative participatory practice which actively involves, informs
and inspires others.
 To use art/design skills to visualize and understand complex processes – making
the invisible visible.
Practice-Led Research:
Relativist Ontology
 Realities exist in the form of multiple mental
constructions
 Socially or experientially based
 Local and specific
 Form and content of realities depend on those
who hold them
Practice-Led Research:
Subjectivist Epistemology
 The practitioner is the researcher
 Subjectivity, involvement and reflexivity is
acknowledged
 The interaction of the researcher with the
research material is recognised
 Knowledge is negotiated – inter-subjective,
context bound, a result of personal construction
Practice-Led Research:
Naturalistic Methodology
 Methodology is explicit and transparent
 Pluralist approach with hybrid methodologies
tailored to the individual project
 Use of multiple media to integrate visual,
tactile, kinaesthetic, experiential data into “rich”
information
 Responsive - driven by the requirements of
practice and its creative dynamic
Naturalistic Enquiry:
Takes place in the artist’s studio/workshop
Naturalistic Enquiry:
Emphasis on intuitive, tacit knowledge
Naturalistic Enquiry:
Emergent methodology
Strategies for problem
solving emerge through
immersion in the
research problem and
become focused through
action.
Naturalistic Enquiry:
Idiographic interpretation
Research outcomes are
interpreted in terms of
the specifics of the case
and presented as a
unique study to the field
of practice.
Cilla Eisner, “Grids 11, Garden”
Naturalistic Enquiry:
Negotiated outcomes
Validity of research findings are negotiated through peer review:
critiques, exhibitions, workshops, seminars or published papers.
Multiple Methods of Artistic Practice
Observation/Notation
Concept Mapping
Sketchbooks/Notebooks
Photography/Video
Digital databases
Collaboration/Participation
Metaphor/Analogy
Drawing/Visualization
3D Modelling
Flow Charts
Modelling/Simulations
Visual Diary/Journaling
Story Boards/Narratives
Multimedia applications
Triangulation
Method 1
Method 2
Complex
Research Issue
Method 3
1 Method: singular set of
information – unreliable?
subjective? biased?
2 Methods: two sets of information
– more reliable, inter-subjective,
less biased
3 Methods (or more): multiple views
- more reliable, corroborative,
critical
The “Reflective Practitioner”:
Uniting Research and Practice
Reflection-on-action (past) – retrospective reflection
Reflection-in-action (present) – “reflective conversation
with the materials of a situation” (Schön, 1983)
Reflection-for-action (future) – reflection for future
action
The Reflective Journal:
Experiential Learning and “Off-Loading”
 A repository for a range of information in a range of media, which is added to
and consulted on a regular basis.
 A tool for describing, evaluating, summarising and planning.
 Contains activity and development logs, a diary, documentation of work in
progress, contextual references, information about the pace and progress of
work, and key points from evaluation and analysis.
 “Off-loading” allows the learner to take stock, evaluate and “deposit” ideas
and feelings about the learning process.
Reflective Journal:
“Collage: Politics and Aesthetics”
Reflective Journal:
“Collage: Politics and Aesthetics”
Outcome of Reflective Practice
Cilla Eisner, “Collage: Politics and Aesthetics” - Cut Collage with Found Objects 2”
Outcome of Reflective Practice
Michael Lent, “Experiments Toward a Phenomenology of Place: A practicebased enquiry into the epistemology of spaces of indeterminacy”
Selected Reading
Gray, C.and J. Malins (2004) Visualizing Research: A Guide to
the Research Process in Art and Design. Ashgate.
Schön, D. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner. Basic Books.
Sullivan, G. (2009) Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in Visual
Arts. Sage Publications.
Elkins, J., Ed. (2009) Artists with PhDs: On the New Doctoral
Degree in Studio Art. Academia Publishing.
Barrett, E. and B. Bolt (2010) Practice as Research:
Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry. I.B. Taurus Co. Ltd.