[iDC] Praxis-based Ph.D.s

Sun Jan 14 05:03:52 EST 2007

The situation in different countries can vary greatly.

The concept of a terminal degree in creative practice has never existed in
the UK, or many other countries. Yes, an MA was conventionally the highest
degree you could hold in Fine Art, but you could find ways to turn this into
a PhD by framing your work within a discipline that could account for it and
had the PhD option available. For example, a digital artist doing a PhD in
computer graphics, having already done an MA in Fine Art. Places like
Middlesex University (London) had this option setup in the early 90's so
that candidates could do a PhD whilst working within a creative arts
context. Ohio State offered similar possibilities, with its computer arts
program situated between its School of Arts and its Supercomputing Centre.
These initiatives prefigured the emergence of the practice based PhD by a
number of years.

The existence of degree inflation has been noted for years. It use to be you
could get by with a BA. Then an MA was a requirement. Now a PhD is becoming
the requirement, especially for jobs in academia. Of course you need none of
these, or any other qualifications, to be an artist, and we should try to
remember that. We are not talking about educating artists here but how
knowledge economies and their communities are created and validated.

Personally I have no idea how to educate an artist. I wonder if that is
possible.

Regards

Simon

On 13/1/07 20:28, "Christiane Robbins" <cpr at mindspring.com> wrote:

> I've been trying to find the time (!) to participate in this
> discussion for a few days now.... and, yes, this evokes the previous
> exchange!
> 
> This issue of the PHD in digital arts and experimental media is an
> area of administrative and pedalogical quandary that I have been
> working on for everal years now.  Both Maggie and Tara are familiar
> with my earlier proposals  which have addressed the challenges
> inherent in the realm of university wrangling for instituting ³new²
> degree programs in the territories of the interdisciplinary digital
> media arts.
> 
> In this discussion thus far, I have found it interesting that the
> issue of the increasing ( and accepted )  devaluation of the MFA has
> not been raised substantively thus far in our discussions.
> 
> Let me admit my self-interested concern in that in 1989 I received my
> terminal degree from a 3 yr. MFA program at CalArts.  At that point
> in time there were two discreet entities leading to graduate degrees
> in Visual Arts and/or Cinema  - the 2 yr. MA and the 3 yr. MFA.  I
> assume that these two distinctly different degrees remain obtainable
> in universities and colleges today and in other areas which may be
> regarded as ³professional studies²  or creative practices.   My
> understanding was that the MA was appropriate for those whose goals
> did not include university teaching positions.  On the other hand,
> the MFA  the terminal degree was initially intended to be held as
> equal to the PHD within the university hierarchy.
> 
> The problem is  the MFA  rarely functioned this way within the
> reality of a University environment.  It is well known in University
> administrative structures, such as funding ( including salary
> tiers )  that  an MFA degree simply does not hold the same currency
> ( in all senses) as a PHD.
> 
> Let me be clear,  I am not against the creation and institution of a
> PHD.  In fact,  I have been responsible for designing various
> curricula proposals for the creation of such a degree program for the
> past ten years.  However, it is incumbent upon us all to recognize
> the motivations for such implementationŠ which might include:
> 
> Why are these programs necessary to the careerism of today¹s world ?
> What does it means to be professionally sanctioned  digital artists
> whose seeming goal seems to be fully operative in the University
> teaching/research posts or corporate research environments?
> Is this a hyper-embodiment of 18th/19thc Beaux Arts Academy of Ingres
> and David?
> Is this a way to differentiate University ( primarily it appears to
> be instituted in Research I Universities ) programs from those of
> Arts Schools such as CalArts and or the Art Institute of Chicago?
> (APOLOGIES for privileging the US centric references.)
> Is this move a more accurate reflection of larger cultural and socio-
> economic values?
> How will this PHD be operative within the art market system  is it
> necessary?
>   This institutionalized bifurcation of research and practice  how
> will that be actualized within the PHD?
> 
> Maggie and Mary Anne  I¹m certain that you and your faculty have has
> these discussions and I Œd be curious as to your/their responses.
> 
> These are merely a few questions raised for me.  Further discussions
> as to what practices these programs may embody and, subsequently,
> produce Š or continue to reproduce in terms of academic legacies and
> the self-replication of research trajectories are necessary.  How
> does one reconcile this with the implicit underpinnings of creative
> practices  how does one redefine such a discipline via the
> mechanisms of an institutionalized infrastructure and ideologies ?
> Is the PHD to be considered  the same as the current MFA - with
> simply more time allotted to as necessary to the consideration and re-
> negotiation of 21st c  information overload?
> 
> A more on the ground and pragmatic example of issues raised at USC in
> the school of Fine Arts-  there is only a 2 yr. MFA.  A number of us
> had been attempting to change that into either a 3 yr. MFA or a cross-
> disciplinary PHD  for many of the reasons already proffered.  While,
> for the most part, the school¹s faculty felt that the current 2yr.
> MFA may be insufficient time necessary for adequate study, there were
> other issues which came to bear upon their considerations ( I know 
> there always are!)  Not the least of which were financial
> considerations of the costs borne by those who attend a private
> university.  At the School of Fine Arts, most, if not all, of the
> graduate students are offered a full package of financial aid.
> However, the challenge of raising additional funding for another year
> and keeping students in school rather than generating a livelihood
> seemed prohibitive.  In considering a PHD these issues were also
> raised. But, of course, with a PHD, a much wider range of employment
> options seems probable, no?
> 
> Going full circle here in academic considerations  we might ask if
> the MFA is even necessary any more, once we recognize it as somewhat
> of charade in the advent of a PHD.  Perhaps the field itself should
> align itself with the sequencing structural requirements of the
> University in general  an MA and then a PHD?  A relevant question
> here arises as to why this did not take place initially in the
> creative disciplines?
> 
> 
> 
> All best,
> 
> Chris
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Jan 12, 2007, at 11:06 AM, Mary Anne wrote:
> 
>> Some responses to the discussion.
>> 
>> Re, David's to Margaret: perhaps I didn't understand the response
>> but I would say, of course, and simplistically say yes:
>> the approach to creativity, research, art-making within an Arts
>> Ph.D. program,  and an M.F.A. Program, is to treat that "making
>> (media) art is itself its own way of knowing."
>> In a sense, such a degree is a critique of traditional hierarchical
>> notions of "knowledge," "academic value," "intelligence," and what
>> is of worth and supported within culture.
>> 
>> Regarding Tom's discussion, it is a huge challenge to achieve the
>> kind of development needed for serious work in a two year MFA.
>> I have been teaching since the mid 80s as a theorist in an art
>> department (previously at RISD), and the grads I am now working
>> with at Rensselaer are, in most cases, older, and I would say, more
>> developed as artists than I experienced during my early years of
>> teaching. This may be a difference in programs, but it may be part
>> of a "trend."
>> 
>> Also in the age of the corporate university, our business models
>> demand short, economically efficient terminal degrees.  Three years
>> is now recommended for a Ph.D.
>> 
>> Given the type of work so many artists are exploring, the time
>> needed to learn the tech or to get some background in another
>> field, like science and technology studies, or biology has been one
>> of the key factors leading to the development of the Ph.D.
>> 
>> To address the core question of the doors being shut or open?
>> 
>> If I have to choose either or, black or white, yes or no, open or
>> closed,
>> I choose open.
>> 
>> What would a Ph.D. offer?  I hope it would give artists some of
>> the opportunities available to other fields:
>> the opportunity, at least for several years, to work within a
>> creative community that
>> has resources, intellectual resources like libraries, technological
>> resources, and,
>> perhaps most important, time to focus on their work.
>> 
>> I hope it would not make the MFA obsolete, and it really couldn¹t,
>> not for decades, not for all situations, literally
>> generations of artists with MFA degrees would have to die out.....
>> but for many current university professorships, and administrative/
>> curatorial positions,
>> and some technical/interdiciplinary work, having more
>> than a two year degree (and previously a one year M.A. had been
>> enough) is
>> becoming "helpful," in some instances, necessary.
>> 
>> So all this is the positive side of this development.
>> 
>> Mary Anne
>> 
>> On 1/11/07 7:53 PM, "twsherma at mailbox.syr.edu"
>> <twsherma at mailbox.syr.edu> wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> Hi Mary Anne and iDCers:
>>> 
>>> Thanks to Mary Anne Staniszewski (and Margaret Morse) for getting
>> this
>>> thread started. I've been watching these interdisciplinary PhDs
>> develop
>>> over the past decade, first in the UK and then across North
>> America. As a
>>> practicing artist it has always struck me as odd that artists
>> would want
>>> to go to university for eight to ten years (BA or BFA, MA or MFA
>> and PhD)
>>> before beginning their practice full-time. Of course an artist's
>> practice
>>> is more synonymous than ever with information provision and
>> research in
>>> this era, so there isn't the same disadvantage being in a
>> university that
>>> there once was.
>>> 
>>> I suppose there will be phds and PHDs in art praxis, in the same
>> way there
>>> are different kinds of MFAs. For those of us who work with graduate
>>> students in three-year MFA programs, it is hard to fathom how people
>>> develop their work sufficiently in a two-year MFA. Young artists
>> rushing
>>> to Brooklyn or LA or Toronto or London or Prague, sometime worry
>> they will
>>> lose their street smarts in a three-year MFA. You know, they
>> don't call it
>>> the 'terminal degree' for nothing. Artists functioning in a critical
>>> academic environment often become so self-conscious and tentative
>> they can
>>> hardly go forward with their work (Marcel Duchamp said "art is a
>> disease;"
>>> and sometimes university-based art students are cured by the time
>> they get
>>> their diplomas).
>>> 
>>> With PhDs in studio we will have a greater diversity of types or
>> classes
>>> of artists: those who take their BFA to the city and start making
>> art;
>>> those who take their MFA to the city and start making art; those
>> few who
>>> take their MFA into a university where they balance their art
>> making with
>>> teaching and service; those who take their PhD into a university
>> to make
>>> art or conduct research and teach and provide service to a
>> university; or
>>> those who take their PhDs to Brooklyn or LA or Toronto or London
>> or Prague
>>> to start or continue to make art. (I guess most of them would be
>> called
>>> "Doc" at the neighbourhood bar)
>>> 
>>> Before becoming an academic I spent twenty years being an artist
>> with very
>>> little contact with universities. I conducted research and had
>> shows,
>>> made performances, published and interacted with other artists,
>> writers,
>>> curators, historians, scientists, business and government workers. I
>>> moved in and out of several sectors, producing television,
>> performing as a
>>> broadcaster, consulting for a broad range of organizations,
>> complementing
>>> my work as an artist and writer. What I learned was that there
>> were very
>>> few borders between disciplines outside of academia. I'm told
>> that this
>>> is even more true today. Digital technologies and networks have
>> knocked
>>> down so many doors. Interdiscipinary studies continue to try to
>> break
>>> down disciplinary segregation in universities.
>>> 
>>> The reason I'm working in a university is not to forge
>> interdisciplinary
>>> links (although there are opportunities to do so), but to teach
>> from an
>>> interdisciplinary perspective, to share what I've learned before
>> and after
>>> becoming a teacher. I wouldn't have the right to teach if I wasn't
>>> employed as a university professor. On top of the 25,000+ MFAs
>> issued in
>>> the USA and Canada over the past decade, we will now have
>> hundreds of PhDs
>>> in hybrid forms of art making on top of the composers already
>> holding PhDs
>>> scrambling for the right to teach. A PhD that can teach studio
>> and history
>>> classes and land research grants and commingle with PhDs across the
>>> university might do pretty well in competition with the minions
>> of MFAs.
>>> Job descriptions in university art and media programs are becoming
>>> impossibly complex.
>>> 
>>> The more degrees you have the more comfortable you are being in an
>>> educational institution.
>>> 
>>> While the boundaries between roles in a digital culture are fast
>>> disappearing, the gap between the street and the university is
>> certainly
>>> getting wider. My question is are these PhD studio programs
>> closing more
>>> doors than they are opening?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Tom Sherman
>>> 
>>> http://www.kunstradio.at/2006A/H5N1en.html
>>> 
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> 
> Christiane Robbins
> 
> J e t z t z e i t
> Los Angeles  l  San Francisco
> CA  l USA
> 
> ... the space between zero and one ...
> Walter Benjamin
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The present age prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to
> the original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence for in
> these days ILLUSION only is sacred, truth profane.
> 
> Ludwig Feuerbach, 1804-1872,
> German Philosopher
> 
> 
> 
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Simon Biggs

simon at littlepig.org.uk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
AIM: simonbiggsuk

Research Professor, Edinburgh College of Art

s.biggs at eca.ac.uk
http://www.eca.ac.uk/