[iDC] Praxis-based Ph.D.s

[dew.harrison at rgu.ac.uk]

Dear iDC people,

I haven't contributed to the discussions before but enjoy reading them and so thank you all for the stimulating thoughts and opinions you bravely share widely. 

Within in this topic of Praxis-based PhDs Margaret Morse has expressed an interest in hearing from someone from the University of Plymouth and (I think, therefore) CAiiA the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts, and has had a response from Jill Scott concerning her Zurich labs. I was one of the two initial doctoral researchers at CAiiA when it was based at Newport in Wales, Jill joined us a few months later. She was an online candidate while we were onsite. While I was there, 1994-98, the other 'online' candidates were from countries which didn't support practice within PhD research, mostly Americans. The Planetary Collegium continues as an international group of artist-researchers.

I am largely in support of the Simon Biggs understanding of a practice-based PhD through living and working in the UK, any PhD research is a rigorous academic exercise and gives an academic a leg-up the career ladder. However, I disagree with his opinion that 'this is not a degree for artists nor should it be', they certainly do not need one for enhancing their career prospects, but applying a long term of intense in-depth critical thinking to their usual working methods can be an enhancing and rewarding experience. In my own case, this is precisely why I did one, and I consider the time spent on funded doctoral research as a priviledge - I am not such a careerist even though I work as an academic. The discipline incorporated into doctoral research was particularly useful for me, enabling clarity of thought in areas of great complexity, and I don't think that a professional doctorate would allow for this to the same extent. 

PhDs in art are still relatively new and research methodologies are continually under development, we tend to poach them for adaptation from Sociology or proceed with philosophical investigations. PhDs in digital and new media have more cross-over with those from the science and technology fields and often remain as hybrids - neither art nor science. In the UK art schools, digital media is largely kept within the design field but is gradually being introduced to the fine art arena as part of 'contemporary media' and this is now beginning to impact upon PhD research. One of my own students is researching into action and interaction within contemporary media through a philosophical approach and, as with other theory-led PhDs, has reached a point where practice is the only way of investigating aspects of this research project (incidentally he is an artist and not a theorist).

I have to disagree with Myron Turner by saying that artists ARE intellectuals (particularly after Duchamp!), they are creative and critical thinkers who enjoy the rigour of a good debate - look at the postings on this list! Artists think their way through their work and read and contextualise in order to do this. Practice within the PhD however often results from a theorectical beginning, it is part of an investigation and is married absolutely to the academic exercise itself. It is to be considered and examined as part of the thesis and not valued and understood as art work in its own right, although it can, of course, be exhibited post viva as such if the artist wants.

In the UK we feel the form and structure of the PhD has been restrictive and ill-fitting, in that it was thrust upon us when our art colleges where amalgamated into the University system. Within this system doctoral research had been in place for centuries being first set by science and later the humantities. Artists articulate their understandings differently and it continues to be a challenge for us, this addressing of our issues through other means, but this is not necessarily a negative activity. Art praxis-based PhDs are evolving and it is up to us to determine our own methodologies within this new research area and make the PhD exercise fit our needs rather than the other way round. 

Thanks and kind regards,

Dew Harrison.

Dr Dew Harrison
Research Fellow
Grays School of Art
Robert Gordon University
Scott Sutherland Building
Garthdee Road
Aberdeen UK AB10 7QD
Tel: 01224 263649

> ----------
> From: 	idc-bounces at bbs.thing.net on behalf of Margaret Morse
> Sent: 	Wednesday, January 17, 2007 5:20 AM
> To: 	idc
> Subject: 	Re: [iDC] Praxis-based Ph.D.s
> 
> Dear IDCs, I have been following the exchanges between Chris and 
> Simon with admiration--to rich to summarize here.  Thank you! Thank 
> you!   I've am afraid my comment on Danny's post led to smiley 
> faces--I found his explanation of the social consequences of 
> practice-based research satisfying.  Thank you!  Robert, whom I think 
> of as a free spirit,  poses the question, why not a degree in 
> creativity and, for example, business management?  Chris had earlier 
> expressed the desire for a Ph.D. in different field than art--which 
> does nonetheless serve the art practice and teaching of several 
> artists whom she named.  Erin explained the MFA/Ph.D. program 
> situation in Canada and espoused an approach concerned with how art 
> produces thought.  I don't know what kind of texts to imagine in her 
> series with Massumi named Technologies of  Lived Abstraction, so I'll 
> check it out.   Lynette described a practice-based professional Ph.D. 
> program in Performance  and Practice. " The 'professional' PhD is for 
> people usually in their 50s-70s who want to take the opportunity to 
> reflect on their work, and document the creative insights and 
> contributions to knowledge that it has made."  Clearly, we are 
> dealing with many models that serve different constituencies in 
> widely varying institutional cultures.
> 
> We still haven't heard from someone experienced in the University of 
> Plymouth or similarly organized programs.  Jill Scott gave me some 
> interesting material about collaborations her students were making 
> with scientific labs in Zurich.  Maybe I can entice her to join us.
> 
> This makes me want to collect posts into a little handbook divided 
> into categories for my own and colleagues reference.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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