The role of 'the work' in research
"This is sometimes another stumbling block, particularly to the Romantic notion of the practitioner whose aim is the expression of the self. We need to differentiate between activities that are to do with the personal development of the practitioner and his or her creativity, and activities that are significant for others in the field. It is only an activity that is significant for others that can be regarded as research. Personal development does not make a contribution to the 'advancement of knowledge, understanding and insight', except in the most parochial sense, i.e. my advancement. To illustrate this let us consider the discipline of arts therapies. It is the purpose of arts therapies to improve the well-being of the client through an intervention involving the client doing some kind of arts activity such as painting, music or drama, etc. Whether the client produces art, in the sense of 'a work of art' mentioned above, is irrelevant to the process. The activity is aimed at the personal development and self knowledge of the individual and not at the advancement of knowledge, understanding and insight into some issue shared by others. Of course, the client's case may contribute to the advancement of knowledge in arts therapies, but this would be an outcome for the therapist and not for the client. In addition, the client's productions may subsequently achieve the status of 'works' but this would be incidental to their original function in connection with improved well-being. Thus I would distinguish between (1) art as therapy (for the individual), (2) art as cultural practice (the production of works of art), and (3) art as research (meeting certain criteria under discussion). It is my claim that (1) and (3), that is, art as therapy and art as research, are mutually exclusive. I should emphasise that this does not mean that I deny that there is such a discipline as arts therapies research!"
(Michael A. R. Biggs, 2003, Practice as Research in Performance)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Ars Electronica Festival: New Concepts for a New World
"THE BIG PICTURE is the theme of the [August 30 to September 3] 2012 Ars Electronica Festival ... Occupying the focal point is the effort to identify all-encompassing images that capture the world that's coming to be, Big Pictures that do justice to the progressive globalization and interrelatedness of our world, ones that capture its contradictions and flaws as well as ways in which people are coming together. By showcasing inspiring best-practice examples from art and science, this year's festival is a call for a new, open-minded way of considering the development of a viable vision of our future - how such a Big Picture ought to be composed and how it might become reality."
(Ars Electronica Festival, 2012)
Fig.1 work of Seiko Mikami "Desire of Codes"
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Ken Robinson: human ability and talent is highly diverse
"Yes you know there’s this view that only special people are creative and it's not me. It's not it's not anybody I really know. It's a very isolated sort of genius you know to be really creative. And you know people doubt their own strengths and their own capacities. So I meet all kind of people who don't really get much fulfilment from the work they do. You know they just get through it and wait for the weekend. But I also meet people who love what they do. And couldn't imagine doing anything else. You know if you set and don't this anymore they wouldn’t' know what you were talking about because this is who they are. You know I mean like I don’t know what else I would do. They are so to speak in their element. And so the book is about that. It's about the journeys people took to discover their own talents and what difference it made in their lives. And I talk to all kinds of people. It's not just interviews. But the book is seasoned as you know with interviews with people in science in business in the arts in sports in technology all kinds of different fields and what's interesting to me is of course it's different for everybody and this is really a key point you know that human ability and talent is highly diverse. You know what turns somebody on might totally turn somebody else off. What excites some propel does not excite other people and I know when I am signing the book these days I always ask people what they do. And when they tell me I ask them if they like it. And I always think it's great when people say I love it. Because you just never [inaudible].'"
(Ken Robinson, Conversations from Penn State)
Fig.1 Conversations from Penn State Episode 207: Sir Ken Robinson, Uploaded by WPSU TV/FM/Online on 6 Nov 2010, YouTube.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Death of the Author 2.0
"The user-producer is a concept that speak to the digital experience and the freedoms that this digital culture allow for ordinary people to become artist and producer. This model fundamentally challenges the traditional assumptions of author, it moves away from the idea of the romantic notion of authorship, which saw authorship and cultural production as an isolated activity of a genius sitting and creating something out of nothing.
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Some factors as the democratic diffusion of tools for create and for spread content, the explosion of economy of imagination, the sharing of intellectual products, the figure of prosumer and the social network of web 2.0, these have desacralised the figure of author, these have stripped its aura, it has been plunged in the Pangea of Knowledge, which is the only one creator of human culture, transversely in time and in place.
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Authorship becomes indistinguishable from the multiplicity of authors, this profusion transforms the culture and their creators in a unique body. It's the collective intelligence, it's the return of the rules of oral and folk culture. Collaborative creativity, influences, remix, sampling, reshaping and mesh of diffuse publications of intellectual products, from ideas and concepts, to arts and researches; these are the causes that have diminished the character of originally, individually and autonomy composition. Culture consists of multiple writing, indeed, everything is to be distinguished. This multiplicity is collected, united and this place is not the author, as we have hitherto said it was."
(Bruce Sterling, Wired Magazine, September 26, 2007)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
