Greetings all

Firstly, apologies to Gunnar Swanson for the misquotation, but  
hopefully it was one in spirit of the original impulse behind the  
statement in his excellent article :)

I'd like to extend Luke's excellent formulation below:

> design research may be diagnosed as currently experiencing a period  
> of expansion where by the problematic approach of 'creative  
> practice' is pushing change and the theorematic approach is working  
> hard to codify it into 'scientific' knowledge


by proposing a conclusion he leaves implicit: that it is in the very  
attempt to incorporate "creative practice" into knowledge that the  
shift in the discourse of scientific knowledge occurs. In other words,  
at some level, it is the very way that creative practice is defective  
for "normal science" that becomes the source of its ability to alter  
our frameworks of knowledge. This is why it is important to take our  
own knowledge about the difference between practice and practice-based  
research with a grain of salt: in drawing the boundary we may be  
missing the very material that creates the change we are hoping for.

Of course, as Luke also notes, this is not a one-way street and the  
dangers accompanying the academicisation of creative practice should  
be held forward and discussed. I think it is not going to far to  
suggest that some of the dynamics of recognition here echo some of the  
questions on this list raised by Norm Sheehan last year around the  
recognition of indigenous knowledge by an enlightenment/colonial  
knowledge system. Fanon can help us think through this - to protect  
the ability of creative practice in the academy to generate its own  
value even as we understand that a lack of recognition from the  
broader system is not possible or desirable.

I agree with Paul and Ken that the work on nursing research is very  
frutiful here, as we deal with knowledge that becomes generalisable  
through the development of a professional capability in the recipient  
of that knowledge. The nurse with extensive experience in a particular  
health issue is able to gain a great deal of value from hearing of a  
single case, whereas the significance of that case may not be apparent  
to another nurse. In that case, it is the development of the  
capability of the *researcher* which is the prerequisite for the  
efficacy of the research, and this dynamic is definitely the case in  
the creative disciplines. Gary Rolfe's work on nursing research is  
excellent for anyone looking in this field.

As the discussion has moved into the sociology of science, I'd like to  
recommend an excellent book by John Law called "After Method: Mess in  
Social Science Research." An accomplished ethnographer of science, Law  
has a lot to say about method that speaks to the creative  
practitioner. From the Intro:

"If we want to think about the messes of reality at all then we're  
going to have to teach ourselves to think, to practise, to relate, and  
to know in new ways. We will need to teach ourselves to know some of  
the realities of the world using methods unusual to or unknown in  
social science.

For example? Here are some possibilities. Perhaps we will need to know  
them through the hungers, tastes, discomforts, or pains of our bodies.  
These would be forms of knowing as embodiment. Perhaps we will need to  
know them through 'private' emotions that open us to worlds of  
sensibilities, passions, intuitions, fears and betrayals. These would  
be forms of knowing as emotionality or apprehension. Perhaps we will  
need to rethink our ideas about clarity and rigour, and find ways of  
knowing the indistinct and the slippery without trying to grasp and  
hold them tight. Here knowing would become possible through techniques  
of deliberate imprecision. Perhaps we will need to rethink how far  
whatever it is that we know travels and whether it still makes sense  
in other locations, and if so how. This would be knowing as situated  
inquiry. Almost certainly we will need to think hard about our  
relations with whatever it is we know, and ask how far the process of  
knowing also brings it into being. And as a theme that runs through  
everything, we should certainly be asking ourselves whether 'knowing'  
is the metaphor that we need. Whether, or when. Perhaps the academy  
needs to think of other metaphors for its activities - or imagine  
other activities."

All the best,

Danny


On 20/09/2008, at 6:49 PM, Luke Feast wrote:

> Dear List
>
> The issues surrounding the academisation of 'design as research' and
> the problems of the "presentation of creative practice as research…
> under the label of practice-based or practice-led research" (Niedderer
> and Roworth-Stokes, 2007, p.1), are IMHO not simply communication
> problems based on a lack of explicit statements but part of a
> discourse which can have effects on people which can be both
> repressive as well as enabling. The process of academisation and the
> necessary transformation required by, as Gavin put it, the "shift from
> the street to the academy", may also be seen as an instance of a more
> general relationship between two modes of formalisation and their
> differing methods of deduction; a relationship between two poles of
> the science of problems (dialectics), which is not purely
> epistemological but whose roots are arguably also social and
> pedagogical.
>
> The two poles of the field of the science of problems reflect a fairly
> familiar tension within the history of mathematics. Proclus, in his
> 'Commentary on the First Book of Euclid's Elements' had already
> formulated a distinction in classical Greek geometry, between problems
> and theorems (Smith, 2006, p. 148). Theorems concern the
> demonstration, from axioms or postulates, of the inherent properties
> of a figure, whereas problems concern the actual construction of
> figures, usually using a straightedge and a compass. At the
> theorematic pole, deduction moves from axioms to theorems, and the
> figure is defined statically in Platonic fashion, in terms of its
> essences and its derived properties. At the problematic pole, by
> contrast, a figure is defined dynamically by its "capacity to be
> affected" – that is by the events that can befall a figure;
> sectioning, cutting, folding, bending, rotating etc (Smith, 2006, p.
> 149). For example, a circle is defined theorematically as a fixed
> essence, whereas roundness is a problematic figure that is inseparable
> from the dynamic process of rounding it undergoes.
>
> While both methods of deduction produce the same solution, over time,
> theorematics has become more visibly associated with the 'rigor' of
> the famous royal scientific societies whereas problematics exists only
> in the capacity of 'technologies' or 'applied science'. This is
> because problematics does not claim an autonomous power like
> theorematic royal science, due to the fact that problematics
> subordinates its operations to the sensible and sensitive conditions
> of intuition and construction. Problematics is concerned with
> inventing problems whose solution is tied to a whole set of
> collective, non-scientific activities (such as metallurgy, surveying,
> stonecutting and perspective) but whose 'scientific' solution depends,
> on the contrary, on the codifying 'law and order' of theorematic royal
> science (Deleuze and Guattari, 1980/1987, p. 373-4).
>
> What is crucial is the interaction between the two poles and the
> richness and the necessity of the process of translation between them.
> Problematics is the cutting edge which continually enriches
> theorematics, while theorematics gets rid of the superfluous and puts
> the house in order. Theorematics, no less than problematics, is an
> inventive and creative activity; it prevents problematics from
> escaping in all directions and lays down the official policies of
> science. According to Deleuze and Guattari (1980/1987 the translation
> of problematics into theorematics is not only inevitable but
> scientifically necessary, "What we have, rather, are two formally
> different conceptions of science, and, ontologically, a single field
> of interaction in which royal science [i.e. theorematics] continually
> appropriates the contents of vague or nomad science [i.e.
> problematics] while nomad science cuts the contents of royal science
> loose (p. 367)." In other words, while 'progress' can be made at the
> level of theorematics, it is at the level of problematics that, in
> Deleuze's terms, 'becoming' occurs.
>
>
> The debate between 'creative practice' and 'scholarly research' in
> design may reflect the general description concerning the relationship
> between the two modes of formalisation presented above. If this is the
> case, design research may be diagnosed as currently experiencing a
> period of expansion where by the problematic approach of 'creative
> practice' is pushing change and the theorematic approach is working
> hard to codify it into 'scientific' knowledge.
>
>
> Best
> Luke
>
>
> Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and
> Schizophrenia
> (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
> (Original work published 1980)
>
> Niedderer, K. and S. Roworth-Stokes. 2007. The Role and Use of
> Creative Practice in Research and its Contribution to Knowledge. IASDR
> International Conference 2007. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Polytechnic
> University. Available at http://www.niedderer.org/IASDR07SRS.pdf (date
> accessed 19/09/08)
>
> Smith, D. 2006. 'Axiomatics and Problematics as Two Modes of
> Formalisation: Deleuze's Epistemology of Mathematics'. In S. Duffy
> (ed.). Virtual mathematics: The Logic of Difference (pp. 145-168).
> Manchester: Clinamen Press



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