I dont disagree at all with what Peter says. The only thing needed to change something from not-research to research is to wrap a narrative around it that tells the wider world what the practice, artwork, craft item, design or whatever, brings that is new or newly-reknown.
Regards
Dr Nina Baker
Research Support
Room AR332/F25 [1st floor]
Department of Architecture
131 Rottenrow
University of Strathclyde
Glasgow G4 0NG
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Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Thomas Edison, inventor (1847 - 1931)
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http://personal.strath.ac.uk/nina.baker/
http://www.constructionhistory.co.uk
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From: The UK drawing research network mailing list [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of McBurney, Peter [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 25 July 2011 14:49
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Drawing (on) Riverside
Nina said:
> " Some art, in its widest sense, is purely about the end result/display/performance and that is absolutely fine and demonstrates the esteem in which the maker is held. But
to call it research, some form of new knowledge has to be explicit. "
A common error (an error made IMHE by many scientists and many scholars in the humanities) is to believe that only factual statements about the world can be knowledge, a type of knowledge we might term "know-what". But there are entire classes of human activities where knowledge comprises an ability to do something, in other words "know-how". Modern western universities are in general not good at recognizing, assessing, or rewarding research into know-how knowledge, except perhaps in traditional engineering disciplines. Medieval western universities, which often focused on imparting skills of rhetoric and argument to students who would enter the law or the church, were far better at assessing and rewarding know-how. It is not only drawing that has this problem in academia, but also other practice-based disciplines, such as performing music, managing businesses, and writing computer software. This bias against know-how is part of a larger modern western cultural bias in favour of text (and against other forms of knowledge representation and of knowledge).
-- Peter McBurney
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-----Original Message-----
From: The UK drawing research network mailing list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Nina Baker
Sent: 25 July 2011 13:15
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [DRAWING-RESEARCH] Drawing (on) Riverside
Marianne,
Your point about why drawing isnt seen as research is EXACTLY where my original question to DRN came from. I think, based on my observation of what happens here (in, admittedly, the slightly more utilitarian field of architecture) and of the fascinating discussions on DRN about this, that those artists in academia who find themselves under pressure to demonstrate research will have to face up to the reality that art/drawing CAN be research but not always.
Some art, in its widest sense, is purely about the end result/display/performance and that is absolutely fine and demonstrates the esteem in which the maker is held. But to call it research, some form of new knowledge has to be explicit. So some art can be used in more than one way, both as the end result in the exhition sense and also as a route to discovering new knowledge. Some art may, even, not have been conceived as art at all in the normal sense but be considered ONLY as a research tool along that research route.
Regards
Dr Nina Baker
Research Support
Room AR332/F25 [1st floor]
Department of Architecture
131 Rottenrow
University of Strathclyde
Glasgow G4 0NG
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