Dear David

Resending this as I think I had become 'deregistered'

Best wishes

Martin

-----Original Message-----
From: Salisbury, Martin
Sent: Mon 8/10/2009 3:36 PM
To: Eduardo Corte Real; [log in to unmask]
Subject: RE: Structure for practice based PhD
 


Apologies for a late contribution to this discussion.

It is heartening to hear of forward thinking approaches to doctorates in
Portugal. A month or two ago, Jose Luis Casamayor raised the issue of PhD
qualifications being increasingly valued more highly than advanced
professional practice in art & design faculties. He rightly pointed out the
gulf that is opening up between student expectations of lecturers continuing
to be engaged in professional practice, and institutional expectations of
PhDs (for new appointments and existing post holders if they are to advance
their careers). This seems to me to be the ‘elephant in the bedroom’- perhaps
one of the most important issues facing Art & Design higher education in the
UK. At present, it is virtually impossible for an artist-lecturer to maintain
the highest level of practice and also study for a PhD. So we are heading for
a situation where leading practitioners in applied arts are only available to
students as occasional guests, wheeled out now and then, while most teaching
is delivered by theorists or lapsed practitoners. It is a particular problem
where the 'expressive' arts coincide with the applied arts such as my own
area of illustration. A colleague who is an internationally recognized
practitioner was recently advised to undertake a PhD in order to safeguard
her position in a fractional post. As things stand, this would be impossible
if she were to maintain her level of practice, which is so important to her
teaching.

There seems to be an almost deafening silence about this situation. No one
seems to want to talk about it. I too had been alarmed by David Durling’s
comment that “I undertook a design masters to understand professional
designing. I undertook a PhD to learn how to be a professional researcher.”
David was kind enough to respond in depth, off list, to my concerns about
this ‘never the twain shall meet’ philosophy. But I sense that art schools
are in a situation where those involved in research, many of those who
contribute to this list, have 'bought into' a definition of research that
does not serve art schools well. While high level practitioners have been
used to boost departments' research ratings, the practitioners themselves are
encouraged to abandon their practice to take a (traditionally structured)
PhD if they wish to further their academic careers. Whenever discussion on
this list returns to the practice-led doctorate, it seems to get no further
than an affirmation of traditional definitions of 'scholarliness' rather than
debate about how to move forward in defining research in/through creative
practice as distinct from research 'into' creative practice, now that our art
schools have been absorbed into universities. I put this down to that
understandable feature of human nature that could be described in terms of
'what we have, we hold'.

Ken Friedman describes a practice-led PhD in terms of “inquiring into issues
related to creative practice and partly using the results of creative
practice as evidence for an argument.” He asserts that, “The enquiry and the
argument must be made in words.” He continues, “… the whole itself must take
some kind of “logic-based structure.” At least it must be so unless we
actually give a PhD for creative practice itself.” A little scornfully
perhaps, he adds, “If there is a university out there that does this, please
let me know.”

There have been many spurious or tenuous analogies but perhaps the most
apposite is that of the PhD in mathematics, submitted on an A4 sheet of paper
containing a complex equation, its meaning being comprehensible to those
familiar with the language and the subject at that level.

No one would argue in favour of “awarding a PhD for practice” in the sense of
“What wonderful work- here’s a PhD.” What is at issue is creative practice as
a mode of inquiry and as a language for disseminating knowledge.

It is over fifty years since Ben Shahn foresaw and examined these issues so
eloquently in 'The Shape of Content'. He explored the culture clash between
creative and scholarly preoccupations. It seems extraordinary that we have
not moved on if we want art schools to be part of universities. Here are a
couple of passages:

"I think that it is highly desirable that such diverse fields as, let us say
physics, or mathematics, come within the purview of the painter, who may
amazingly enough find in them impressive visual elements or principles. I
think that it is equally desirable that the physicist or mathematician come
to accept into his hierarchy of calculable things that nonmeasurable and
extremely random human element which we commonly associate only with poetry
or art.”

Warming to his subject, he goes on:
"The artist who is only a painter may well become intimidated by his
degree-bearing brethren. Under the charmed light of their MAs, their PhDs,
their accumulated honours and designations, the scholars speak of art in
terms of class and category, and under headings of which the artist may never
have heard… his interest has been a different one; he has absorbed visually,
not verbally."

And:
"It is this kind of knowing also – the perceptive and the intuitive - that is
the very essence of an advanced culture. The dactyl and the spondee, the
strophe and the antistrophe may be valuable and useful forms to the poet; but
the meaning of the poem and its intention greatly transcend any such
mechanics."

Shahn also identified the misguided perception of the creative practitioner
as a mad genius, someone who simply ‘does’, and the perception that “… it is
the viewer who really accounts for the meaning of the work, and even he would
flounder about hopelessly if it were not for the theorist, or critic.”

I think you are correct, Eduardo, in identifying the word 'philosophy' as
being at the root of the problem here in the UK. However, the creation of a
separate title for a doctorate in or through creative practice in the UK
would lead to it being perceived as a second class award, perpetuating the
undervaluing of creative practice in the ‘academy’.

Returning to lurk mode with best wishes from Cambridge

Martin Salisbury
Reader in Illustration
Anglia Ruskin University












































-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design on behalf of Eduardo Corte Real
Sent: Thu 8/6/2009 10:28 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Structure for practice based PhD
 
Dear Chris, Gavin, Ken

Recently the Portuguese Law about Higher education diplomas was changed
in order to be adapted to the Bologna Process for the creation of a
European Higher Education System. This area includes more than 40
independent states with different, similar and utterly different systems.

In the 2006 Law, the Portuguese Government defined the conditions for
awarding doctorates very similar to the "classic" PhD that Ken describes.

This year an independent commission hired by OECD visited the country to
produce a report about Higher Education in Art and Culture.

One of the conclusions was that a key factor to pull up, or push forward
Higher Education in Art and Culture would be awarding doctorates by
practice.

Obviously, the past month our government issued an annexe to the Law
allowing this kind of doctorates.

Since we don't suffer from the anachronism of calling Philosophy Doctors
to anyone that conducts research sufficiently according to peers in any
area (we only call Philosophy Doctor to the ones that achieved it in
Philosophy Departments or Philosophy programs) we don't have the anguish
that devours Ken's intellectual guts.

We simply call Doctors to people. For instance, I'm a doctor in Visual
Communication in Architecture, my wife is a doctor in Communication and
Language specialized in Theory of Culture, my colleague next door Carlos
is doctor in Production Engineering. (of course that we had to do
research and a dissertation very similar but nicer to a Anglo-Saxon PhD)

Apart from these curious Latinisms, and since I was interviewed by the
OECD committee and defended elegantly the importance of awarding
doctorates by practice, I will give you my arguments:

*"The importance of a specific Doctor of Arts*

- Like the scientific PhD a DA should be sponsored by cultural agents
interested in the human resources outcome. Institutions like Fundação
Gulbenkian and Fundação da Colecção Berardo among others, or Television
Producers and Publishing Companies would more easily be involved in
financing doctoral students of high artistic abilities.

- The Society expects a creative outcome from the A&C institutions, so
the higher degree awarded should result from creative artistic work.

- If the publication in refereed journal would be substituted by other
forms of dissemination and peer approval like exhibitions and
performances, the general cultural activity would be enhanced.

- Specific Doctors in Arts strengthen the Academic Value of the A&C
institutions."

I agree with Ken especially because he runs a Design School in a
University of Technology, but, I don't know why there is this resilient
notion (at least in Latin countries) that Design is part of Art and
Culture and that design products are cultural goods.

So if the God of Bureaucracy will give us the right to award doctorates
this year we will consider the possibility of awarding it based on
project work.

Sorry for the long post,

Soon I'll write something on how we are planning to structure it.

Cheers from the western shores of Europe,

Eduardo



Ken Friedman escreveu:
> Dear Chris,
>
> The way this question is framed puzzles me. I am not sure what sort of
structure a "logic-based structure" is, especially given the fact that there
are many kinds of logics.
>
> For a PhD -- practice-based or classical -- one expects to answer a
question, interpret or challenge prior knowledge, or in some way make an
original contribution to the knowledge of the field. How else might we do
this than through some form of organized inquiry, and how might we present
what we develop, discover, or learn other than through some kind of logical
structure?
>
> If by "practice-based PhD" one means awarding a PhD for practice, that's an
old debate, and there have been many robust contributions on this list, in
conference proceedings, and in special journal issues. I'm not going to
repeat those argument except to say that I still don't see why one would get
a PhD for practice -- one gets an MFA or a DFA or a DDes for creative
production.
>
> If by "practice-based PhD" one means awarding a PhD to a research scholar
who problematizes aspects of practice, inquiring into issues related to
creative practice and partly using the results of creative practice as
evidence for an argument, I don't see how this would be different to awarding
a PhD for research into the practice of surgery, law, or pharmacology -- or,
for that matter, maths, physics, or chemistry. We undertake a practice, and
the results of our practice constitute both the object of inquiry and
evidence for the result. The PhD is given for the quality of inquiry and
argument.
>
> The inquiry and the argument must be made in words. The practice and the
practical result constitute part of the whole, but the whole itself must take
some kind of "logic-based structure." At least it must be so unless we
actually give a PhD for creative practice itself. If there is a university
out there that does this, please let me know. This September, Stendhal
Gallery in New York will mount a solo exhibition of my event scores. I
suppose there are at least three ways of looking at it. One way might just be
that it's art. A second would be to call it a relic of my misspent youth as a
Fluxus artist. The third would be to call it "creative practice as research."
If someone is giving out doctorates for this kind of thing, I'll be happy to
submit evidence of my creative practice for a PhD.
>
> Yours.
>
> Ken
>
> Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS
> Professor
> Dean
>
> Swinburne Design
> Swinburne University of Technology
> Melbourne, Australia
>
> Telephone +61 3 9214 6755
> www.swinburne.edu.au/design
>
> --
>
> Chris Kueh wrote:
>
> There have been some discussions on structure for practice based PhD at
Curtin University. Many supervisors/lecturers in Design and Art have voiced
their concerns over the appropriateness of logic based structure for PhD with
creative production component. I am just wondering what are the structures
that other universities are having for practice/creative based PhD. Have
there been such discussions/arguments at your universities and how did you
solve it? What are the main differences between PhD and practice based PhD,
in terms of the process and credibility?
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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