Subject: Re: [iDC] Praxis-based Ph.D.s
Danny Butt
db at dannybutt.net
Sun Jan 14 19:43:35 EST 2007
Thanks Margaret for the summary and leading the discussion. There are
many insightful points made by all here and I wish I had time to
acknowledge each of them/you in more detail within the temporal
constraints of the mailing list format.
Ultimately I share the view put forward by Simon and Margaret that
creative practice makes a contribution to a field of knowledge/
experience and should ideally be recognised as such within
institutional hierarchies. But I think Simon makes a very important
point about the ultimately conservative nature of academic
institutions and the very idea of authenticating contributions to
knowledge, and that this is in tension with the creative
practitioner's approach to knowledge, particularly the artist, for
whom (to quote NZ critic Jon Bywater) "eccentric and catachrestic
readings of work... are not only common but arguably productive".
Here I value Pamela's excellent distinctions between the PhD/MFA
educational genres.
This tension is constitutive of the artist/museum relationship as
well of course, but I think there is a different kind of political
problematic at work for people such as Margaret and Mary Anne when
initiating creative-practice PhD programmes. From my point of view,
the practice-based PhD will inevitably contribute to the corrosion of
various mechanisms of disciplinary authority embodied in the
dissertation. We would then expect a push-back effect from
disciplines that are threatened by these developments and I think it
would be good if, collectively, we were able to speculate on some of
the effects of this political struggle on the institutional power of
art departments located within research universities. To bring
practice into the research game will bring with it certain levels of
managerial oversight and accountabilities to institutional bodies
outside the art environment, and I have to remain agnostic about the
overall benefits from such risky moves, even as I suggest that some
experimentation with these is necessary. Perhaps we will eventually
look back with fondness to the idea of the MFA as the terminal degree
for the artist/educator?
In that last paragraph I'm thinking through a potential homology with
Spivak's account in "Death of a Discipline" of the institutional
trajectory of cultural studies in relation to comparative literature
and area studies. It's an account I find compelling in its
articulation of how difficult the baby/bathwater dynamics are with
interdisciplinary work, and how full of unintended consequences the
short-term pressures for institutional change can be.
Warm regards,
Danny
On 14/01/2007, at 1:38 PM, Margaret Morse wrote:
> Dear IDCs,
> We need more models of the practice-based Ph.D., including more
> from myself. Thanks to Mary Anne and the on the art-practice Ph.D.
> degree within a polytechnical institute and Simon on the British
> Ph.D. model, plus more summary approaches to other programs by
> Chris and Mark.
> Danny raised the professional school model; I wonder myself
> whether the profession of artist is akin enough to the guilds of
> engineers, lawyers, doctors, public health officials, academic
> administrators, etc. to make the professional degree an option.
> The art market plays out more selectively and differently than the
> market for the services above. In the US, professional school
> students often owe significantly higher tuition, paid by their
> corporation or through loans recouped through later earnings. On
> the other hand, would the Plymouth model, CiAA and other
> instantiations be an example of an existing, successful
> professional model of the practice-based Ph.D.?
> I am wondering why it is taking me so long--other than my health--
> to get down to business and describe my department's Ph.D.
> proposal. On one hand, I am worrying about how much to reveal of
> what is a 107 page formulaic (format mandated for Ph.D. proposals
> in the California system) and not entirely processed proposal. I
> am not sure how truly a public document it is yet. Furthermore,
> the emails keep coming (thank deity) and I don't want to get behind
> in something I am (very light- handedly) moderating.
> So, I will share my take on the posts. Then I need to prepare
> highlights of the proposed UCSC Film and Digital Media Ph.D.--
> obviously another day's work. Two things are different about it
> than what has been discussed so far below: 1-rather than having to
> choose one possibility in the mix of academic and creative research
> offered by Danny Butt, we have allowed for all three. One option
> is indeed an art project itself as creative research without an
> additional thesis. Furthermore, academic research itself may be
> expressed in media format. I will copy the section on this and our
> rationale in the Ph.D. description. 2- We envision the MFA as one
> possible gateway to the Ph.D. Would this satisfy Tom or Mark? I
> believe Mary Anne's Ph.D. also envisions this possibility. (Our MA
> would be the default degree for those who do not qualify to proceed
> to the dissertation project.)
>
> In the meantime, provocative questions have been posed and
> positions taken. I'll identify and compile three of the areas of
> discussion raised so far below:
>
> 1. The MFA versus the Ph.D.
>
> Tom Sherman: "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?"
> Mary Anne answered with positive contributions a practice-based
> Ph.D. can make.
> Chris raised the problem of the devaluation of the MFA again
> fairly vehemently in a later post, posing a barrage of questions
> around:
> --careerism and the "professionally sanctioned digital artists" who
> seek academic and corporate positions
> --whether the practice-based Ph.D is a model of academic art akin
> to 19th institutions?
> --is this a mean of differentiating art in the research university
> from art schools? (marketing?)
> --How will this PHD be operative within the art market system - is
> it necessary?
> --"Is this move a more accurate reflection of larger cultural and
> socio-economic values?"
>
> The issue of 2 year/3 year MFA came up earlier (Mary Anne)-the 2
> year inadequate for anything but a breathless learning project but
> mandated economically by both institution and students, the 3 year
> preferred as providing a more adequate creative/academic
> foundation. Should the MFA-- never accepted at equivalent value to
> the Ph.D. in academia-- be enhanced in value or abolished in favor
> of the MA-Ph.D. system? Chris: "But, of course, with a PHD, a much
> wider range of employment options seems probable, no?" Mark's
> suggestion, a Ph.D.-M.F.A. dual degree.
>
> Both Tom and Simon question the motives and necessity for most Ph.Ds.:
> --Simon: "If the [Ph.D. applicant] candidate answers that they wish
> to establish a new approach to
> creativity, where academic research becomes a central element in
> their working practice and they wish to contextualise significant
> aspects of what they do in that environment then I assume they
> appreciate what a PhD is for."
>
> 2.What body of knowledge does this practice-based Ph.D. signify or
> draw on? Is there a contradiction between academic and creative
> practices?
>
> --David raises a question about knowledge claims of a practice-
> based Ph.D.
> --Danny's first question brought up the research/practice
> relationship with a degree program, reiterated in Chris's question
> "institutionalized bifurcation of research and practice - how will
> that be actualized within the PHD?" Danny posed three options:
> "1) The PhD is fundamentally a research training qualification, and
> in different countries and institutions the research/creative
> practice homologies are more or less developed. Is the practice
> component seen as i) research in itself, ii) somehow equivalent to
> research but not exactly the same, or iii) not research but a
> reflexive form of practice which requires academic writing to
> secure its contribution to knowledge (or transferability)? In my
> view, there are no right answers to these questions but they are
> more or less determined by the institutions responsible for the
> money, with governments taking a much stronger role in the
> Commonwealth countries than in the US, and a range of different
> approaches among the non-English speaking countries which others
> will know more about than me. The point is that one needs to have a
> viable definition of research, and be prepared to make a strong
> case for the role that practice plays in the research qualification.
> --Danny's subsequent question on how practice should be evaluated
> and the url of a Ph.D. design list. Simon notes the importance of
> benchmarks.
> --Chris: Further discussions is necessary 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. 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?
> --Mark: Beyond the sociopolitical effects of devaluing an MFA, Mark
> questions "imposing inherently wrong academic models, which
> effectively snuff out what is in fact, not just a series of courses
> and academic thresholds, but a culture of knowledge making
> practices that as with all cultures, are constituted by informal
> modes of producing themselves."
> Furthermore, he is constructing "a genealogy for a specific
> epistemological practice that has emerged since then, but has not
> yet been recognized as a coherent discourse network ( roughly in
> Foucault's sense)... Artists, traditionally, have objects but not
> knowledge." He, like Chris, sees this as 19th c as the
> epistemological model. Meanwhile, " The post-1840 discourse
> network for which my work establishes a genealogy, constitutes a
> counter-tradition. It does indeed exist, but has not been
> recognized as a coherent discourse, in part because its elements
> lie scattered about and have never been collected.
> historical contexts that need to be addressed, and on which to
> build and make the case for constituting structures, curricula, and
> evaluative strategies for praxis-based knowledges, at a theoretical
> - epistemological - level. I think this would be pragmatically
> useful for program proposals, along the lines of including a
> "history" section. And I think it is imperative to do so. My point
> is that there is a need to historicize these projects of curricula/
> structure design, that the genealogy i've extracted is but one
> among many, and i would like to see a taxonomy of such genealogies
> developed." I welcome Mark's project and await news of more of his
> findings in his book or when he is ready to share them. Note that
> both Danny and Simon could be cross-referenced here.
>
> 3. This area of question that is more diffuse and harder to
> formulate having to with whether the world and /or media art have
> changed in a way that makes the practice-based Ph.D. more plausible
> and useful
> Mark notes "The higher status that literary knowledge has, is a
> historical problem." Does print and literature indeed still
> possess higher status? Have more styles of learning and modes of
> communication become part of the ground of everyday life and academia?
> --Robert suggests that there is something different about studying
> new media--mentioned in my previous post. Digital arts certainly
> elide the legitimacy of borders based on medium.
> --Tom: Digital technologies and networks have knocked down so many
> doors. Interdiscipinary studies continue to try to break down
> disciplinary segregation in universities.
> --Simon: In the case of practice based PhD's this process is still
> in development. It will probably never stop if such PhD's are of
> value, but as a new approach to formal research this PhD model is
> in an intense period of discovery and uncertainty. Evaluative
> methodologies are in flux and debate over what is
> and isn't appropriate rages (as well as any academic debate can
> rage?).
>
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--
Danny Butt
db at dannybutt.net | http://www.dannybutt.net
Suma Media Consulting | http://www.sumamedia.com
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