Further reading into a part-practice research method as a reflection on the style of research I intend to take.

 

Through the dictates of the method I am using, the website, this document has had to be constructed using different conventions from a normal written paper. Because work is being placed on pages within the website I am sometimes constrained by the size of pages or blocks of text that can be used. Therefore at this point I have had to add an extra page, not to add a new point of view, as I have with other sections, but to conform to the data structures of the website. Thus I am continuing to explore the use of a part-practice methodology to research the possibilities of a digital pedagogy within a vocational fine art curriculum.

 

Fiona Candlin wrote on: Practice-based doctorates and questions of academic legitimacy, in the International Journal of Art and Design Education (2000). In this paper Candlin tries to establish where the part-practice doctorate is set within the structure of how a PhD is created and written. She see’s the difficulties that academics have with practice and their need to create validation by asking those who create practice to also write in terms of theory. Candlin also proposes that others seek to use this theory to clarify and judge the work created. For Candlin, this sets up the written theory to be the academic practice and sublimates the art to be practice that is not academic thus somehow suggesting that art is the lessor partner. In my experiment of writing this upgrade onto a website I am trying to break this divide of theory and practice by making the practice an integral part of the practice. As Candlin finishes the paper she says:

 

In effect, it does not open out the boundaries of academia to acknowledge different ways of thinking and working, but reduces art practice to the convention of academia.

 

In response, I wonder exactly what these conventions are and whether they can be subverted. Candlin seems to see these conventions as the writing and talking in an academic style as established through convention. Which in itself is rather circular coming to no conclusion but that at present the positioning of the part-practice is sublimated to a support position within the research.

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My reading so far has predominantly sought to point out the difficulties that part-practice may bring to the researcher. Therefore it was a relief to read, Heidegger Reframed by Barbara Bolt. Although the book discusses a wide range of the writings of Heidegger, it was his discussion of practical research that I found most relevant. When Barbara Bolt reframes Heidegger’s thinking she seeks to define the essentials of his discussion. From this we perceive that Heidegger is at odds with the practical research in science as ‘truth’ and therefore art based research as having no ‘truth’.

 

Heidegger returns to the foundations of our research practice, this he defines as ‘The Greeks’, and defines the rules that exist for the Greek concept of ‘truth’. This he then compares with a modern concept of ‘truth’, as seen as the starting point for any scientific research. Heidegger suggests, that this scientific truth is not as proven and indisputable as it at first seems. He also challenges the idea of what Plato saw as ‘truth’.  For Heidegger the Greek concept of research and experiment was to look, and in looking to seek to understand the thing itself. This contrasts with what he see’s in modern science, which begins with the setting down of laws that will then control the experiment. Heidegger, as quoted by Bolt, outlines his concept of scientific experiment as:

 

To set up an experiment means to represent or conceive the conditions under which a specific series of motions can…. be controlled in advance by calculation.

 

Thus the suggestion is that scientific research is set up to receive specific answers by the manner in which the ‘experiment’ or question is framed and constructed.

 

As I have questioned the methods of research that I might use alongside or in tandem with, part-practice research, a form of scientific style experimentation had seemed previously, to give validation to the research. On reading Heidegger Reframed, I now question whether scientific research is the ‘gold standard’ of research. Nevertheless, I am now questioning how I express my research questions. Am I setting questions that truly seek to find a new pathway, or have I set a question, with a set of rules, to which I know an answer. Have I already used a scientific, and to Heidegger, an invalid or unfounded form of research process, to frame my research? At present this is an open question, which I will return to later.