Mike
I've got to say that I don't agree with you.
It seems to me that the things you are not happy about that you see
as a product of operating in a university are not about the research
context, they are just operation issues that operate across the
board. Time is spent on fund-raising and providing feedback to
funders and the system irrespective of what system we operate under.
For example I reckon that I spend 50% of my time fundraising and
administrating regardless of where i work. Arts funders are
obsessional about quantative and qualitative audience feedback, the
academic sector is almost hysterically fixated on RAE returns, and
Govt Offices (e.g. with ESF funding) are exhaustingly demanding about
users statistics and receipts. Frustrating or not, this is just in
the nature of raising money to make creative work.
I think the question to bear in mind is what are the extra qualities
to work that are gained by working in an academic research context.
Or those lost?
For me the issue about time spent on evaluation is that this is not
an unfortunate time constraint but is the decisive difference between
different ways of working. Creative research projects are very
rarely hypothesis driven examinations, they are explorations into new
ways of working or exploring the depth of meaning. What I was trying
to get at in my last posting was that it is exactly the
self-refection or the evaluation that makes them operate as research.
Otherwise they may be fabulous arts projects but they are not
research.
[Actually, Beryl, what do you mean by "formal research".? When is
research formal - or when is it not? Are you meaning academic, which
I guess I am taking this to mean?]
>Dear Crumb / Dear Mike,
>
>Just a very quick response to Mike and glad my posting released some
>controversy around the issue - as no doubt there are many of them.
>
>I acknowledge difficulties arising from the type of research Mike is
>describing and hence my earlier question about applicability of traditional
>methodologies to the specific field of research in new media curating - what
>Mike seems to be confirming below:
>>
>> their seems to be a fixation with empirical evidence and (mostly half
>> baked) rhetoric of research methodologies within Universities
>> (desperate for the kind of collaboration that benefits them)
>
>I also realise that there has to be distinction made for the purpose of this
>debate between RAE driven research with all its constraints - which Mike
>seems to be suggesting here
>
>> the realities of those actually involved in research seems to be that
>> half their time is spent researching research funding and that the
>> other half of the time is spent devising forms of evaluation and
>> separating processes out - the practice - be it curation or artistic
>> production potentially becomes something one never gets around to or
>> alternatively becomes a process reliant on fairly conventional forms
>> of hierachial employment and artsts/curators potentially become
>> managers
>
>and the type of research I had in mind - research driven by the framework of
>PhD which is - at least in theory - free from commercial, bureaucratic and
>institutional constraints and is set to include taking risks and challenges
>both in terms of outcomes (how one could define an outcome in relations to
>new media curating anyway? does the very process of critical inquiry count?)
>and a time scale involved.
>
>// however in practice very often distinction between these two types of
>research is blurred and one feeds into/off the other//
>
>>
>>equally the drift to alternative forms of methodology and evaluation
>>for the arts and culture (or is new media - technology ? - sorry!)
>>seems slow and where processes of self evaluation appear to put
>>control back in the hands of the pracitioner - this can be a double
>>edged sword in terms of workload and emphasis
>>
>>progressing your practice from past experiences surely is evaluation
>>in practice?!
>>
>>lets acknowledge different types of knowledge - not cave into to the
>>demands of pseudo commercial or empirical/scientific cultures, whilst
>>of course recognising that the 'market' has always been a great place
>>to trade - be it vegetables, art or knowledge
>
>
>Research as a practice of curating / curating as a discourse?
>
>Joasia
>
>Ps. more thoughts on I-dat will follow shortly when time allows
--
********************************************************************
Peter Ride
Co-Director & Senior Research Fellow
Centre for Arts Research Technology and Education (CARTE)
University of Westminster
70 Great Portland Street, W1N 7NQ
http://www.carte.org.uk
and
Artistic Director
DA2 Digital Arts Development Agency
http://www.da2.org.uk
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