Thanks Beryl for including me in the discussion for July's topic on
Formal Research. I've actually been a lurker on this list for a month
or so so it's nice to have an entry point.
To introduce myself, I've been working as a Research Fellow at Media
Lab Europe here in Dublin for about 2 years, and recently enrolled as
a PhD Candidate at Trinity College Dublin in the Networking and
Telecommunications Research Group of the Electronic and Electrical
Engineering Department under the advisement of Dr. Linda Doyle. I did
my Masters at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU and
spent two years there as an Interval Research Fellow creating
projects that focused on physical interfaces to networked systems. My
work at MLE and Trinity is focused on "Deconstructing Networks" -
shifting and subverting accepted norms and paradigms of network
relationships in both online and physical contexts by looking at the
human side of computing and interaction over fixed, wireless, and
ad-hoc networks. It covers a lot of territory but tries to address
the fundamental questions behind any technology - Why does it exist?
Why do we use it? How do we use it? My aim is to evalaute and develop
new ways of interacting, experiencing, and questioning technology by
deconstructing these relationships that exist.
Below are some answers to the questions poised by Beryl to the list.
I tried to answer them to the best of my ability in the time given,
but would definitely love to hear more feedback from people if you
have suggestions, corrections, alternative angles to look at these
questions.
Thanks Again,
Jonah
Projects URL: http://www.coin-operated.com/projects
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Are reports, dissertations and academic publications useful in the
professional world?
Responding to the first question poised, I think that any type of
validation of work by others is valuable. Whether this exists as
published reports, academic dissertations, or journal publications is
dependent on the type of work and its presentation, but overall this
type of recognition is extremely important from a research or
academic perspective. Even though most artists (especially digital
artists or designers who often argue that they don't need validation
from institutions) wouldn't admit their dependence on validation from
external sources, it's a known fact that without these types of
acknowledgements their careers as artists would stagnate.
On the professional research side of things, these types of
publications not only justify your work to a larger audience, they
also connect you with your peers - whether that's through presenting
your work at conferences or festivals or participating in online
forums and debates about the evolution of the field, they are often
the best medium to connect to others. This is key not only to
furthering the discussions and innovation in a field, but to also
allow for future collaborative opportunities between people working
in the same context.
I'm currently working on the border between academic research
(through my current PhD candidacy at Trinity College Dublin and my
work at Media Lab Europe) and digital art. I've found that the two
mesh well together as validating my work in the academic context,
especially through the user testing and user experience phase, helps
to not only inform me on my current projects and the directions they
could take, but also by gathering reactions and feedback I can
contextualize my audience and create work that is more directed and
tailored to specific contexts.
This might be where the departure between traditional art and
art/research occurs as in most fine art contexts (even digital
interactive art to some degree) simply justifying the work by
creating it and providing a theoretical grounding, explanation, and
base for its existence is often sufficient. In the research hybrid
it's less about the concept and framing of the work and more about
the feedback, analysis, and user studies from people either using the
work or experiencing it over time. The true test of whether the work
succeeded or failed comes from this type of evaluation and
discussion/publication of the results. This doesn't necessarily
stifle the process of making the work or the creative process in
general (although it might exclude the self-effacing artist who
doesn't care what people think about their work and just makes it),
but rather looks at the context and impact of the work as well as
audience and possible scenarios of use or interpretation before the
piece is formally realized. I find less of this evaluative type of
research done in pure art contexts than research/art contexts, but
since most of these types of works usually involve some technology
component, they lend themselves well to formal evaluation regardless
of context.
Does commercially-funded research effect the kind of media art produced?
I guess this depends on a few variables including the project in
question, the type of organization it's created for, the creative
control of the artist(s) in the project, and the main goal of the
work. Media Lab Europe for instance, is a non-profit company that
gets its annual budget through corporate partners as well as academic
institutions and government funding. Part of the agreement with
corporate partners here is that there are no "deliverables", meaning
the work we do is not for any specific product or pre-determined
goal. The research done here is more about the ideas in general and
how these ideas might inspire or change a sponsor or funder's own
model for their particular line of work or process. Maybe a simple
definition of MLE's (and similarly funded institutions) purpose would
be an "idea factory", where the product is ideas and the output is
creative (and hopefully innovative) interjections into society at
large, businesses, academia, and art contexts. So the funding doesn't
necessarily effect the kind of work done, but the structure of the
organization, and the agenda of the individual researchers ultimately
decides this relationship.
Is academic curation different from other institutions?
In the art context and my direct experience of being involved in a
few shows of this nature, academic curation does differ compared to
other types of art institutions. Mostly it comes down to evaluation
of the work, for instance from anything from its scientific
contribution to socio-critical dialogues it generates. I find that
there's a greater need for justification of work in these contexts:
ie. It's not only about the what and how - but it focuses more on the
why as the central question. "Why" tends to be left out of most art
dialogs I've come across where the why is usually brushed off as an
artist "obsession" or just using whatever tools were available. Not
that this is necessarily a bad thing, however it usually becomes the
curator's voice trying to justify the why, rather than the artist
themselves. In the academic/research side of things, the why is part
of the work from its inception and being able to tightly knit this
idea with the work ultimately becomes central to the work itself,
instead of an afterthought or mere justification. Overall the
evaluative aspect of institutions has been truly valuable to my own
work because of the iterative design process in creating projects,
where documenting and learning from the process of creating the work-
not only the finished piece - often gives me more satisfaction and
information to evaluate.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jonah Brucker-Cohen | Media Lab Europe
Research Fellow | Sugar House Lane
Human Connectedness | Bellevue, Dublin 8, Ireland
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(h) +353 1 4760375 (w) +353 1 4742853 (m) +353 1 (0)87 7990004
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.coin-operated.com
http://www.coin-operated.com/blog - new!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
