The AHRC treats everyone like a nobody, really. It is the way the system is
setup. With a 14% success rate and a peer review system that rewards the
recognisable over the unconventional it is not surprising that an artist
like Armin feels dejected. He is also right in his comments on what a
metrics based system would do for practice based research. It would be
devastating.
The question of IP ownership in this economy is a good one. Very little
research in academia is done by one person. Even artistic practice based
research, over recent years, has seen a move to collaborative team based
working. In the sciences it is quite normal for the university to claim IP
rights over new knowledge or to develop shared ownership models if ideas and
inventions are spun out into industry. As yet I am not aware of this having
happened in the creative arts...but I can see it coming. Why should the
creative arts be treated any differently? Is there any difference in the
nature of authorship, and thus ownership, between physics and sculpture?
I guess this brings us back to the original theme of the month.
Simon Biggs
Research Professor
edinburgh college of art
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www.eca.ac.uk
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www.littlepig.org.uk
AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
From: Armin Medosch <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Armin Medosch <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 14 May 2008 09:13:49 +0100
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] New Models of Academic Publishing
However, the turn the discussion then took, recently being about
citation metrics, shows a problem which remains unsolved even if
magazines like Leonardo commited themselves to a dual strategy. In the
eyes of the academic establishment only those texts count as 'published'
which have been published in those 'enclosed' peer reviewed journals. If
you are not publishing there you don't exist. This has real consequences
when you have to deal with funding bodies such as the AHRC with whom I
had only the worst kind of experiences. I have been making media art
work, curated shows and written and published for 25 years but in the
British academic system I am a nobody, an unwashed central european who
writes awkwardkly shaped sentences.
The introduction of a formal citation metrics would only make things
worse and the moment my personal validation and wellbeing depends on
sharks such as Thomson Reuters I am out of here.
Extending such a system to artistic production would be an absurdity.
Who measures what in which way? For instance, in media art very often
the artists do not possess the necessary skills to carry out a work,
they need to hire technical people. If such a work gets exhibited now,
who gets the points? Often the technical people dont even get mentioned.
the golden Nica for Carnivore should maybe have been given to the
authors of tcpdump (command line network sniffer)
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