[iDC] Praxis-based Ph.D.s

[Christiane Robbins]

Suffice it to say that this has been a  much-needed and stimulating  
discussion - these incisive posts are coming in faster than I can  
keep track ...!

This debate  has revolved around questions/responses such as:   What  
is the purpose of a PhD within the context of the arts and the  
university structure? Why is ithe PHD only being considered for  
digital media artist sand not for artists in general?  What research  
or “practice” will create the expertise required for a PhD? And, will  
this be the only benchmark of future professors of art who are deemed  
experts in their field of research and inquiry?  How does this PHD  
allow for an artist to evolve throughout a career that is constituted  
by a diverse body of determinate factors other than the University?    
As such, I now find myself going back to Trebor’s initial suggestion
“ that thinking about media education might proceed from specific  
examples to larger questions.”  I have been trying to craft a  
cohesive post, but I have to admit to the complexity of the issues  
tests my abilities and reinforces my ambivalence towards the proposed  
MFA and PHD.

My interest in the sites and practices of art is not only personal …  
it is professional in that I have long been fascinated by the system 
(s) by which the arts are offered:  the compilation of  
representations, values, beliefs that are embedded into curricula,  
class assignments, studio crits, visiting artists, panels/ 
conferences, and role models (otherwise known as faculty,)…. how the  
identity of the artist is constructed by the discourse of the  
University system.  In this case it is the implementation of the PHD  
– in which I clearly see merit as well as some reasons for concern.   
This may ring true for a number of us.

As we know, we are staring in the refracted mirror of art histories  
with this online debate.  This is not only true for the discussion of  
administrative concerns, quandaries and larger university  
directives.  It is a debate that touches upon most of the discursive  
contestations and art “movements” which have evolved during the 20thc  
– primarily in the States and the EU.  These would include the  
introduction of the arts onto campuses in the early 20thc in keeping  
with the goal of the University to “advance knowledge,” the “born”  
artist as opposed to the professional trained artist, the  
introduction and posturing of sciences, engineering arts and  
humanities to the University systems, the scientization of art  
practice, and, and it goes on.   I think it helpful to consider the  
implementation of the PHD in digital media arts as one that is  
impacted by the larger questions posed by the histories of art  
education itself.

In dusting off and revisiting the echo chamber of arts education, I  
found that in the 1930’s Walter Gropius (founder of  the influential  
art school - the Bauhaus) admitted that educating artists was a  
dilemma “ art is not a profession which can be mastered by study; it  
“cannot be taught and cannot be learned “ even if “ the manual  
dexterity of the craftsman can and must be.”  This sentiment has had  
a resonance in arts education throughout a good deal of the 20thc.

Gropius goes on to say that “…. the artist has been misled by the  
fatal and arrogant fallacy “… that art is a profession which can be  
mastered by study.  Schooling alone can never produce art!”.”  This  
bifurcation of art and technique is a “moment frame” of 20thc arts  
education and practice.  Of course, the 30's were followed by the mid- 
late period which reflected the Duchampian notion of readymades and  
the birth of conceptual art practices -what Donald Kuspit termed “  
the look of thought.”  Both movements are pivotal to our  
understanding of where art practices are today, specifically when  
firmly situating the intellectual within the academy and  
acknowledging the role of de-skilling ( for lack of a better term)   
in art practices.  With the emergence of digital media art practices  
we now see a resurgence, equivalency and hopefully, a productive  
tension held by intellectualism, research and skill-set.

In a notable article published in the CAA Journal, 19, #4, in 1960 “  
The PHD for the Creative Artist, ” Kenneth E. Hudson ( then Dean of  
Washington University)  in response to Allen S. Weller states  “  
There just isn’t enough to teach - enough that can be taught – to  
justify six years of an artists’ life.”  (Of course, as Mary Ann  
earlier stated this 6 year stint may no longer be the PHD requirement  
due to administrative concerns.)

What becomes a salient point in our current debate is that we are now  
confronted with a relatively nascent arts discipline ( digital media  
arts ) which harkens back not only to the notion of  “manual  
dexterity of the craftsman” as currently epitomized by programming,  
digital imaging, etc.,  but also to notions posited by  Meyer Shapiro  
with his writings on  the social function of art as a directive of an  
art for the public – an artist as a socially responsible citizen  
( albeit a machismo one, ) contributing to the “good of  
society” ( however that is externally defined .)  Of course, the  
public space – now includes the virtual realm perhaps even more so  
than the material realm.

This stands in opposition to the cliché of the hyper-individuated  
artist flying solo in the studio.  Of course, the argument could also  
be made that the artist in the garret is simply the flip side of the  
artist in the academy – both somehow isolated from society.   In this  
debate, it could be said that the stereotypic artist, once isolated  
in his/her studio, is now reborn as the popularly rendered,  
stereotypic networked geekster.   This isolation ( engendered by  
physical individual placement in front of the machine)  is  
(arguably)  socially accepted and, indeed, is almost seen as a  
prerequiste for what is regarded as creative output by a digital  
media artist . This isolation also serves as an apt metaphor for much  
of our technologically advanced societies these days and thus is more  
easily understood and valued.

Now the popularly rendered image of artist is no longer that of a  
driven, alienated, “born” artist ( indeed, it has been grist for  
satirical performance)  – it appears that we are now proposing that  
it be partially replaced or supplemented by a credentialed  
professional PHD artist – who represents the socially sanctioned  
presence of language and production of knowledge and who actually  
makes viable, easily recognized contributions to society – a ”  
university professor who sets up the standards of good art and bad  
art … “ returning us once again to the embattled terrain of quality.

Is this any different that a credentialed MFA artist?  Well … , the  
definition of an MFA is so confused theses days its difficult to  
respond,  but I don’t think so.  However, with the advent of the PHD  
we hear the overpowering thud of the easily understood university  
professional credential of expertise.  What impact might this have on  
the field at large is crucial.

“Artists in Offices” by the sociologist Judith Adler is a 1978 study  
of CalArts which articulates a misplacement of artists in  
universities.   She reiterates the positions taken in the earlier  
60’s academic debates and sees this placement as fundamentally flawed.

“A subculture which grows out of highly atomized, “loose”  
occupational structures and exalts qualities of anarchistic  
individualism (eccentricity, the apostasy and the advertisement of  
personality through flamboyant, spontaneous, and outrageous behavior)  
confronts the culture and imperatives of a bureaucratic work  
organization with its stress on certified and universalistic  
credentials, routinized procedure, formally designated domains of  
authority and expertise, the subordination of the person to the  
office, and the use of formal and hierarchally significant titles.   
People who may have been drawn to the arts in the first place  
because, like Marcel Duchamp, they “ did not want to go to the  
office,” now squirm slightly in their university offices.”

Of course, her framing of an artist is grounded in a 70’s typology,  
courtesy of central casting.   However, it is an image that has had a  
long life, is still widely accepted and, perhaps, serves as a model  
for those who wish to become artists.

To go full circle here, my point is that we are presented with this  
relatively nascent discipline, which now fits neatly into the  
prescriptions of the Universities’ quest for the “advancement of  
knowledge.” The quantitative basis may then be realized within this  
virtual realm of technical mastery, research, study, and future  
employment.  In other words, in terms of the University strictures it  
has become easy to see how the field itself now fulfills its  
qualifying role as demanding enough of a students time (labor, skill  
and research) and then offering adequate compensation on the other end.

Of course, this mirrors a larger cultural and societal-economic shift  
that is running full circle to the early-mid-20thc ’’Teachers of the  
arts realize more and more that their work is not half done if they  
do not enable their students to fit into actual, industrial  
commercial world.”  R.L. Duffas The American Renaissance, 1928.  This  
can easily be seen in the privatization of the university via  
corporate funding not only for the arts but also for the universities  
and colleges – in all schools and departments.  In media I don’t  
believe that I am alone in having the carrot of funding dangled in  
front of me for (replacement) programs at the undergraduate level,  
which are basically vocational training.  As public funding decreases  
( other than for military research which appears to be increasing in  
the US,)  how do these funding mechanisms operate at the graduate  
level of doctoral research in the digital arts?   I am uncertain and  
it is that uncertainty which gnaws at me.

I, myself, have long felt the desire to secure a PHD but not one  
necessarily in art.  It has to do with expanding my own knowledge  
base to build upon my art practice.  By way of example, I offer two  
sucesful practicing artists:  Sergio Munoz-Sarimento,  who, after  
obtaining an MFA, attended the Whitney Program, is now pursuing a law  
degree at Cornell while teaching Visual Art at Harvard … or Dorit  
Cypis, MFA, who returned to Pepperdine University to receive a degree  
in mediation and has now thoroughly incorporated an analysis of the  
mechanisms of law and mediation in her own and her student’s work –  
harkening back to ‘70’s conceptualist practices. Other examples  
include Trevor Plagen.  What these artists evince is an expansive  
vision of how an artist might inhabit many roles and make use of them  
to formulate their own subjectivity as opposed to those of external  
mechanisms and formulations replete with inscribed academic  
conventions.  As Bruce Robbins has stated in Secular Vocations, 1993,  
it is important for the professionalization of the intellectual and  
the arts in the university to be considered outside of the narrative  
of loss and decline. And further to note, Bourdieu's remark in The  
Production of Belief:   " The production of work which is always in  
part its own commentary is also always the artist working on himself  
as an artist."

I’ve said more than my share – thanks so much for your patience and  
indulgence.

All best,

Chris

P.S.  Simon, when I speak of utopia, I do so with respect and  
appreciation - I think of it within the concept of the utopian  
narrative as both vision and practice, as participating in "real"  
worlds,  a force for change rooted in the social world "as it is" and  
as it is becoming and is "imagined," .


On Jan 15, 2007, at 12:35 AM, Simon Biggs wrote:

> It might be that it is more and more difficult to succeed as an artist
> without the official stamp of approval a degree or other qualification
> allows you. I can see how hegemonic these things are and accept the
> arguments that it could all be more open and transparent. I also  
> accept the
> arguments that people place too much value upon formal qualifications.
>
> However, I can think of a number of artists doing really  
> interesting (and
> recognised) work who do not have art degrees (they may have degrees  
> in quite
> different subjects or no degrees at all).
>
> In my own case I left school at 15, had my first solo gallery show  
> at 21,
> continue to be an active practitioner (within both the digital art and
> general fine arts communities) and have also been active as an arts  
> educator
> since I was 29 (including in the US). As an autodidact I have  
> accrued no
> qualifications. I take this to indicate that the system (both the  
> art system
> and the academic system) is open enough to accept diverse routes  
> through it.
> I have found that both communities can be highly responsive to, indeed
> hungry for, different perspectives on things and that when you  
> offer this
> then things become possible.
>
> As I mentioned in an earlier email, although I sometimes struggle to
> comprehend things from the point of view of a student (because I  
> never was
> one) I find personally having no qualifications is useful as I can  
> argue
> that formal education need not be the only way. I think it is  
> healthy for
> art students to recognise that being an artist is not a function of  
> going to
> art school. Most people with art degrees never practice as  
> professional
> artists but, as Beuys (perhaps cheaply) pointed out, anybody can be an
> artist if they choose (although no career is guaranteed).
>
> I don't think my position is utopian.
>
> Regards
>
> Simon
>
>
> On 14/1/07 20:15, "Christiane Robbins" <cpr at mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>> But in looking at the second paragraph of your text, I do not share
>> the certainty of your statement - "Of course you need none of these,
>> or any other qualifications, to be an artist, and we should try to
>> remember that."
>>
>> While I applaud that notion of thinking, unfortunately, I believe it
>> may be more of a nostalgic, utopian yearning. Please understand that
>> I believe that one can be self-identified as an artist and not engage
>> with the external educational realm.  Certainly, that is an option –
>> an honorable one - and perhaps a more incisive one at that.
>
>
> 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/
>
>
>
>

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