The Merits of Practice as Research
In preparation for the next module of my part-time MA in Graphic Arts, I read the following chapter:
Nelson, R. (2013) Conceptual Frameworks for PaR and Related Pedagogy: From ‘Hard Facts’ to ‘Liquid Knowing’, in Practice as Research in The Arts London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 48-70.
I will summarise my interpretation of this chunky, challenging text and the basic principle through quotes and reflections henceforth!
“It is no longer tenable to take the methodologies of the sciences as the gold standard of knowledge” ... ‘scientism’, late 1800s
Useful for those of us who learn by doing.
“Positivism...the world which science describes is the world, and its method is the method of knowledge itself” ... “exclude most PaR”
A narrow school of thought, perhaps imposed by the self-superiority of learned theoreticians and scientists.
“science in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has become much more cautious about it findings” ... “methodologically more secure to challenge the truths we think we know by actively seeking counter-examples”
An open-mindedness to change and reform of traditional thought once deemed to satisfy the route to knowledge.
“I propose to depart from positivism and ‘the scientific method’...other ‘softer’ methodologies should hold at least an equally important place in academic culture”
PaR - Practice as Research - comes under the umbrella-term ‘softer’ methodologies.
“My argument...is...against the notion that ‘the scientific method’ is the only valid knowledge-producing methodology. ...the arts and their modes of knowing enrich lives in ways without which they would not be liveable.’
I’m particularly drawn to the bold text above. Personally I learn through some theory and a lot of mimicking and elaborating.
Marina Abramovic: “knowledge...comes from experience ... ‘liquid knowledge’”
A broad and open-minded acceptance to doing-thinking and its adaptability to shifting knowledge.
“untenable simply to assume the privilege of neutrality and objectivity”
Leavy “dismantling of the dualisms on which positivism hinges: subject-object, rational-emotional, and concrete-abstract” Nelson adds “theory-practice”
“Hard sciences” no longer assumed to benefit from neutrality and objectivity. Knowledge is a process and a matter of more than one perspective.
“an awareness of an inevitable interrelatedness between subject and object has modified the complete separation supposed between observer and observed in the classical scientific method and requires critical reflection”
Critical Reflection is key to PaR if separation between observer and observed is to be overcome.
“plurality of micronarratives”
Etherington: “postmodern era...all that has gone before... important ‘stories’... nothing is fixed” ... “reality is socially and personally constructed; there is no fixed or unchanging ‘Truth’”
“incumbent upon all disciplines, including the sciences, to offer a reflexive account of their methodology and the rigour of its internal methods”
Schön: “[w]e cannot readily treat [practice] as a form of descriptive knowledge of the world...but if it is acknowledged that the methodology of the sciences can no longer be taken as a wholly privilege truth language then adjustments of the perspective might be made to open up space for what might very well be interesting.
Haseman: “Practice-led researchers are formulating a third species of research, one that stands in alignment with, but separate to, the established quantitative and qualitative research traditions”
“artistic praxis is ‘performative’... impacts upon us, does something to us, changes us in all manner of ways”
The need for more diverse research and knowledge gathering.
“now argued...all thinking is inexorably embodied” ... “our concepts might shape the world as much as the physical world shapes our knowledge of it”
Nöe: “To perceive is not merely to have sensory stimulation. It is to have sensory stimulation one understands.”
Impossible to stop or prevent the embodiment of knowledge. Perception is comprehended sensory stimulation from doing.
“relation between arts practices and any accompanying writing to articulate and evidence the research inquiry involved more than a willingness, or otherwise, of practitioner-researchers to write complementary commentaries”
“PaR evidences that artists come better to understand their practices in context...enhance the artists’ work”
Can seriously critical reflection can aid comprehension and accelerate development?
Nagel: “no ‘view from nowhere’... A view or form of thought is more objective than another if it relies less on the specifics of the individual’s makeup and position in the world”
Active pursuance of knowledge and the vast spectrum between objectivity and subjectivity.
“PaR...know-how, seeks... to establish... an articulation of ‘liquid knowing’ and a shift through intersubjectivity into the know-what of shared and corroborated soft knowledge, in turn resonating with the harder know-that of established conceptual frameworks.” ... “tacit know-how and the explicit know-what”
These terms, ‘know-how’, ‘know-that’ and ‘know-what’ appear throughout the chapter. It took a few reads to understand the difference and what they represent. “We learn how by practice” (p. 63)
“The purpose of critical reflection in a PaR content is better to understand and articulate - by whatever specific means best meet the need in a particular project - what is at stake in the praxis in respect of the substantial new insights.”
A crystal-clear, almost water-tight argument for critically reflecting, analysing and evaluating on practice as a means to achieve greater, deeper comprehension.
Ryle “to be intelligent is not merely to satisfy criteria but to apply them” ... “efficient practice [i.e. intelligent doing-thinking] precedes the theory of it”
Applying principles and standards, i.e. doing, demonstrates intelligence more than knowing them.
“Ryle established... what... I call ‘doing-thinking’” ... “intelligent doing-thinking [i.e. efficient practice]... precede[s] abstract thought or articulation in words” “route to knowledge is through interactive, collaborative engagements based in doing” (Vygotsky 1934)
Ryle: “Truths can be imparted, procedures can only be inculcated, and while inculcation is a gradual process, imparting is relatively sudden”
“insights in PaR have proved to arise as much in the process as in the product... value of documenting the process and critical reflection... make the tacit more explicit” ... “some practices have a regulatory framework, [Ryle] is clear that they may be learned through observation and doing”
Doing-thinking and processual learning through persistent instruction/demonstration and documenting through crit. refl. makes tacit explicit and able to be disseminated.
“Critical reflection on moments which ‘work’ in the process of making or where innovation come into place can assist in the articulation ... to disseminate the findings of the research in a manner analogous to the requirement of scientific method.”
“Another argument against submitting the product alone is the inability of an artwork to take account of its own context” - Ryle: “’examiner cannot award marks to operations which the candidate successfully keeps to himself”
“heuristic approach” - Kozel: “the strength of the researcher is precisely the ability to give up the guise of detachment [intuition?] and to understand the source” “critical distance is required [but] not that of a neutral observer”
Dissemination is an important reason to be able to articulate tacit knowledge above accepting it as artistic ‘intuition’ or a ‘hunch’ (both generally learned through trial, error, and the attainment of it as a skill).
When asked what I design, I am rarely able to answer. I agree that a degree of unobstructive critical analysis and reflection (a balance must be struck if practice is not to suffer at the expense of overthinking) is important and may even lead to enlightenment of my own practice - “critical reflection...turning know-how into know-what” (p. 65)
Schön: “when someone reflects-in-action, he becomes a researcher in the practice context... not dependent on the categories of established theory and technique, but constructs theory of the unique case”
“rigour needs to be exercised... [demonstrating] coherence...across a range of discursive practices... multi-mode approach... likely to include different modes of writing”
Fine-tuning research and knowledge gathering to specific discipline.
“documentation and complementary writings... augment the articulating and evidencing of the research enquiry”