***ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS***
RESEARCH INTO PRACTICE CONFERENCE 2008

The fifth biennial international Research into Practice will be held on 31
October 2008 at the Royal Society of Arts, London, and will explore the
theme of "interpretation" in research in the visual and performing arts.

We are pleased to announce that one of our keynote speakers will be the
eminent British art historian Griselda Pollock

ABSTRACTS ARE INVITED ON THE CONFERENCE THEME.

It is characteristic of research outputs, reports and theses in traditional
disciplines that they are expressed in unambiguous language. One reason for
this is to establish the grounds and argument from which the conclusions
derive. Another reason is to be quite clear and explicit about what is being
claimed as original by the author for the research. This characteristic has
the effect of reinforcing the dominant knowledge models such as "the
scientific method", "empirical methods", etc. However these models come from
disciplines whose aims and objectives may differ from those in the arts and
humanities. There has been much discussion about the suitability of such
models for the visual and performing arts, which seem to rely on a more
pluralistic approach to interpretation which values the fact that different
generations and different cultures find their own value in the artefact.

Does this difference of explicitness between traditional disciplines and the
arts mean that their research outputs cannot be compared? What is the status
of the outcomes of research in the visual and performing arts in terms of
what is known or discovered? Is research in these areas actually trying to
achieve something quite different, and if so what? Is the value of research
something constructed by the receiver, and if so what would that mean for
knowledge-models in the arts? Are its outcomes more contingent than those in
other disciplines because of this difference in the role of interpretation
by the reader/viewer? Does the scientific method really result in
unambiguous interpretation, or conversely is interpretation really so
subjective in the arts?

The conference will focus on the theory of interpretation in research in
traditional disciplines and on the emerging theory of interpretation in
research in the visual and performing arts.

Conference topics that might be considered include, but are not restricted
to:

    * are unambiguous research outputs in the arts possible or desirable?
    * are the problems of interpretation in the arts different from other
disciplines?
    * do the interpretational problems in arts stem from its media or from
its aims?
    * can anything be learned from studies in interpretation in other
humanities subjects?
    * in the historical past were issues of interpretation viewed
differently?
    * do the arts have special advantages that compensate for any perceived
disadvantages with respect to interpretation of outcomes?
    * how does the author/reader problem affect research?


FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT THE CONFERENCE WEBSITE AT
http://www.herts.ac.uk/artdes1/research/res2prac/confhome.html

Research into Practice is the leading forum for scholarship on so-called
practice-based research in the visual and performing arts, hosted biennially
by the University of Hertfordshire, UK.

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