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I think that the dichotomy between science and art applies to most fields. In Financial Management we teach that it is the art and science of controlling cash, but very quickly both the text and the student focuses on the science rather than the art. The same tends to be happening to education after Nixon's managerialism took hold. One has to look very carefully at what actually happens in the interaction between the teacher and the taught. It is something that is not capable of being captured completely in the qualitative sense by numbers and reports, but that is where we seem to be headed. I looked at two universities in Perth while I was there last year and the one was very much a qualitative operational system while the other was artistic. They were both business schools that I looked at but the one on the one side of the river had a very rigid structure with people busy filling the structure with numbers and meetings. The other on the opposite side of the river had people working at desks and there was time to actually see me and talk. At the time I had picked up a book entitled "How the Mighty Fall" which had just hit the shelves and what a wonderful read it was at that particular time. It led to a ten page piece of work which just sits now on a memory stick but it gave me great insight into this "feeling" that rules the one and the Process that ruled the other. I did not have the time to go back and see if my ideas had substance but perhaps there is someone on that side of the world who works in one of these Universities in Perth who can start a dialogue and I will send what I did and we can take it from there. The editor that I sent this article to replied that it needed integrating into the existing theory. Perhaps when the present projects are finished............. Graham Myers Senior Lecturer:Taxation Durban University of Technology Tel: +27+31+373 5380 From: Practitioner-Researcher [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jack Whitehead Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2010 7:37 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Design as Research On 27 Apr 2010, at 21:28, Brian wakeman wrote: I wondered how interested Jack might be in Art as research? I'm fascinated by art as research as practiced by Andy Henon, as a socially engaged artist in 'Creativity Works' at http://www.actionresearch.net/writings/henon/creativityworkslowah.pdf I'm also fascinated by research influenced by Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving and to aesthetic responses to Foucault's and Fromm's point that human beings in the West appear to have lost the art of living. My own focus in relation to art as research is focused on the art of the educator. I see educators as artists who are seeking to give form to life itself in relation to their own lives and the lives of their students. I've just agreed to participate in Andy's latest project (I'm hoping that Andy will write something about this soon) and should be able to provide a more developed answer to the question of Art as research in a few months. The brevity of the answer is because the gate has just opened for my flight from Heathrow over to Chicago for AERA - a 3.00 am start from Bath ! Love Jack. ________________________________ "This e-mail is subject to our Disclaimer, to view click http://www.dut.ac.za"