[iDC] Re: Praxis= Ph.D=criteria

[R Labossiere]

I love this thread and kudos to everyone who is contributing... truly, it's 
very meaningful to me, personally and professionally....

my post is too long, sorry... but if you can, skim this first...
http://www.webheaven.co.yu/spiritart/beuys_social.htm

for me,the penny drops here: where do "results" figure into the discussion? 
for surely the
point of all this is not, like religion, to pepetuate 'the church,' but to 
promote results. What are the practical results of a PhD that cannot be 
achieved otherwise, elsewhere and better?

Indeed, my underlying misgiving here is that the institutional framework is 
so laboured that it cannot produce the results it professes to desire?

WHO: I hold an MFA from NSCAD (1985) and a law degree (a misadventure if 
there ever was one) ((1989)) and have worked in and out of the artist-run 
centres in Canada for several decades. Notwithstanding damage suffered 
during my MFA, am a practicing artist; I cling, however vaguely, to what 
inspired me in the first place, a certain disposition to 
anti-institutionalization, creativity, integrity, ingenuity and compassion.

To cut my particular chase... I would argue that the BFA should be the 
"terminal" (what a dreadful term!!!) degree. It should be all students need: 
exposure and an opportunity to work in a 'protected' environment for a 
relatively brief period, their most formative years.. during which, if 
properly mentored by faculty, they will sort out who they are, where they 
are and what to do... beyond that, academe is a refuge not a force of 
development... and you (meaning "we" really) are a bunch of 'placeholders', 
not that I begrudge you your much deserved salaries (you are all certainly 
more disciplined and more knowledgeable than a guff like me who flies by the 
seat of his pants, fueled by mostly illicit substances), but, in terms of 
culture and movement or even what's just interesting, ha ha, you are kidding 
yourselves if you think you are moving the culture one way or the other, or 
even more than a blip in the course of history.

The wheels of institutionalization, within which many of you (and me) seem 
to be caught up, i.e. the movement towards the "research' model is 
problematic. I confess to having been part of that movement, early 90s when 
funding agencies were desperate for arguments to legitimize funding... I was 
among a few who said, "fine, whatever... consider fine art as a kind of 
research..." I knew at the time that this was wrong fundamentally, but also 
believed, 70's flower child (optimist, idealisti) that I am, that it didn't 
matter how you legitimize it, the point was to keep the money flowing so 
that art could at least have a chance to "win out in the end." WRONG WRONG 
WRONG (it turns out)

Margaret wrote:
>It is especially possible at the cusp of a cultural change
>in what is needed and shifts in qualifications or after one is
>well-known.  May such "loopholes" never end.

Margaret's starting point is right... we are changing, and some of you (us) 
are embracing change more than others.. not that it matters, it all works 
out in the end, but for the sake of argument, if you want to "know" what's 
going on, either you are a luddite or you are a champion of change... really 
is there an option other than the latter?

Mary Anne wrote:
>But, as I said previously, the degree context can provide studio resources;

exactly! The issues with 'praxis' are, um, hello? practical... If you are 
not connecting your students to the backstory of art and the people they 
need to know then you are failing. Anything else belongs to a different 
discourse, not art, but art history, theory, philosophy, all very 
interesting, I'm not saying otherwise, but not, in the end, art, after all.

Kevin wrote:
>I'll humbly confess to applying to
>college out of high school based on colleges I knew of from watching
>Basketball on television.

Kevin,  dude! you rock! the confessional always work for me (ex-Catholic 
don't you know!) (btw your post is WAY too long! geez, get practical here 
please,  this is not a discourse like in the journals where one gets 
published and the retort four years later in another university journal... 
we need bite sized chunks to debate:)

So, Danny's point that the decline of the dissertation (defended) as the 
authenticating benchmark of achievement is right. Either it is about 
endorsement, or it isn't... and if you want to go down the road of it isn't, 
then why stop at "sort of."... you folks, I take, are mostly academics... 
it's up to you to rock the firggin' boat!

I offer the following:

a) university must be free.. we have to lose the debate that education is 
related to 'bums in seats', how most universities justify their programs; 
more students = more salaries = more institution = good.

b) students need to be 'delimited'... we cannot continue to support the 
power relationship of "I have the degree, and you don't"; and that is up to 
you, front line workers.

c) expect that the best will exhaust the university before you have a chance 
to 'qualify' them.... I know this invokes the myth of genius, but really, is 
it so hard? when you get that really remarkable student, give your class 
over to them! send them to your faculty meetings! I'm not kidding. Otherwise 
you lose them, and every single bit of your credibility.

d) creativity in management: it is very ironic that there is this whole buzz 
in business management circles around creativity, Daniel Pink being the 
best/worst offender. I emailed him. He knows nothing about art! Isnt' that 
amazing?
You, me, this whole group, imho, needs to seriously mount an approach/attach 
on what the corporate world thinks creativity is. That said, if it isn't 
going on at Apple, then it probably isn't happening at all...


Robert Labossiere
www.robertlabossiere.com
www.yyzartistsoutlet.org
www.klooj.net/never
www.klooj.net/hmv






I should say that I strongly believe the "big bad world out there" is worth
avoiding and if PhDs, praxis-based or otherwise, provide some refuge, good
on them, but isn't the reason we think of that world out there as "bad" that
it is so inadequate... it's not just that money drives almost everything,
but that the institutional/heirarchical framework of the workplace does not
well support creativity, with it's often long "down" times, false starts,
diversions, or the flashes of  insight that come without a legacy of
stepped, steady progress.

There are concurrent streams of thinking on this issue, e.g. creativity in
business management;

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Danny Butt" <db at dannybutt.net>
To: "IDC list" <idc at bbs.thing.net>
Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2007 7:43 PM
Subject: Subject: Re: [iDC] Praxis-based Ph.D.s


Thanks Margaret for the summary and leading the discussion. There are
many insightful points made by all here and I wish I had time to
acknowledge each of them/you in more detail within the temporal
constraints of the mailing list format.

Ultimately I share the view put forward by Simon and Margaret that
creative practice makes a contribution to a field of knowledge/
experience and should ideally be recognised as such within
institutional hierarchies. But I think Simon makes a very important
point about the ultimately conservative nature of academic
institutions and the very idea of authenticating contributions to
knowledge, and that this is in tension with the creative
practitioner's approach to knowledge, particularly the artist, for
whom (to quote NZ critic Jon Bywater) "eccentric and catachrestic
readings of work... are not only common but arguably productive".
Here I value Pamela's excellent distinctions between the PhD/MFA
educational genres.

This tension is constitutive of the artist/museum relationship as
well of course, but I think there is a different kind of political
problematic at work for people such as Margaret and Mary Anne when
initiating creative-practice PhD programmes. From my point of view,
the practice-based PhD will inevitably contribute to the corrosion of
various mechanisms of disciplinary authority embodied in the
dissertation. We would then expect a push-back effect from
disciplines that are threatened by these developments  and I think it
would be good if, collectively, we were able to speculate on some of
the effects of this political struggle on the institutional power of
art departments located within research universities. To bring
practice into the research game will bring with it certain levels of
managerial oversight and accountabilities to institutional bodies
outside the art environment, and I have to remain agnostic about the
overall benefits from such risky moves, even as I suggest that some
experimentation with these is necessary. Perhaps we will eventually
look back with fondness to the idea of the MFA as the terminal degree
for the artist/educator?

In that last paragraph I'm thinking through a potential homology with
Spivak's account in "Death of a Discipline" of the institutional
trajectory of cultural studies in relation to comparative literature
and area studies. It's an account I find compelling in its
articulation of how difficult the baby/bathwater dynamics are with
interdisciplinary work, and how full of unintended consequences the
short-term pressures for institutional change can be.

Warm regards,

Danny

On 14/01/2007, at 1:38 PM, Margaret Morse wrote:

> Dear IDCs,
> We need more models of the practice-based Ph.D., including more  from
> myself.  Thanks to Mary Anne and the on the art-practice Ph.D.  degree
> within a polytechnical institute and Simon on the  British  Ph.D. model,
> plus more summary approaches to other programs by  Chris and Mark.
> Danny raised the professional school model; I wonder myself  whether the
> profession of artist is akin enough to the guilds of  engineers, lawyers,
> doctors, public health officials, academic  administrators, etc. to make
> the professional degree an option.   The art market plays out more
> selectively and differently than the  market for the services above.  In
> the US, professional school  students often owe significantly higher
> tuition, paid by their  corporation or through loans recouped through
> later earnings.  On  the other hand, would the Plymouth model, CiAA and
> other  instantiations be an example of an existing, successful
> professional model of the practice-based Ph.D.?
> I am wondering why it is taking me so long--other than my health-- 
> to get down to business and describe my department's Ph.D.  proposal.  On
> one hand, I am worrying about how much to reveal of  what is a 107 page
> formulaic (format mandated for Ph.D. proposals  in the California system)
> and not entirely processed proposal.  I  am not sure how truly a public
> document it is yet.  Furthermore,  the emails keep coming (thank deity)
> and I don't want to get behind  in something I am (very light- handedly)
> moderating.
> So, I will share my take on the posts. Then I need to prepare  highlights
> of the proposed UCSC Film and Digital Media Ph.D.-- 
> obviously another day's work.  Two things are different about it  than
> what has been discussed so far below:  1-rather than having to  choose one
> possibility in the mix of academic and creative research  offered by Danny
> Butt, we have allowed for all three.  One option  is indeed an art project
> itself as creative research without an  additional thesis.  Furthermore,
> academic research itself may be  expressed in media format. I will copy
> the section on this and our  rationale in the Ph.D. description.  2- We
> envision the MFA as one  possible gateway to the Ph.D. Would this satisfy
> Tom or Mark? I  believe Mary Anne's Ph.D. also envisions this possibility.
> (Our MA  would be the default degree for those who do not qualify to
> proceed  to the dissertation project.)
>
> In the meantime, provocative questions have been posed and  positions
> taken.  I'll identify and compile three of the areas of  discussion raised
> so far below:
>
> 1.  The MFA versus the Ph.D.
>
> Tom Sherman: "While the boundaries between roles in a digital  culture are
> fast
> disappearing, the gap between the street and the university is  certainly
> getting wider. My question is are these PhD studio  programs closing more
> doors than they are opening?"
> Mary Anne  answered with positive contributions a practice-based  Ph.D.
> can make.
> Chris raised the problem of the devaluation of the MFA again  fairly
> vehemently in a later post, posing a barrage of questions  around:
> --careerism and the "professionally sanctioned digital artists" who  seek
> academic and corporate positions
> --whether the practice-based Ph.D is a model of academic art akin  to 19th
> institutions?
> --is this a mean of differentiating art in the research university  from
> art schools? (marketing?)
> --How will this PHD be operative within the art market system - is  it
> necessary?
> --"Is this move a more accurate reflection of larger cultural and
> socio-economic values?"
>
> The issue of 2 year/3 year MFA came up earlier (Mary Anne)-the 2  year
> inadequate for anything but a breathless learning project but  mandated
> economically by both institution and students, the 3 year  preferred as
> providing a more adequate creative/academic  foundation. Should the MFA--
> never accepted at equivalent value to  the Ph.D. in academia-- be enhanced
> in value or abolished in favor  of the MA-Ph.D. system?  Chris: "But, of
> course, with a PHD, a much  wider range of employment options seems
> probable, no?"  Mark's  suggestion, a Ph.D.-M.F.A. dual degree.
>
> Both Tom and Simon question the motives and necessity for most Ph.Ds.:
> --Simon: "If the [Ph.D. applicant] candidate answers that they wish  to
> establish a new approach to
> creativity, where academic research becomes a central element in  their
> working practice and they wish to contextualise significant  aspects of
> what they do in that environment then I assume they  appreciate what a PhD
> is for."
>
> 2.What body of knowledge does this practice-based Ph.D. signify or  draw
> on? Is there a contradiction between academic and creative  practices?
>
> --David raises a question about knowledge claims of a practice- based
> Ph.D.
> --Danny's first question brought up the research/practice  relationship
> with a degree program,  reiterated in Chris's question  "institutionalized
> bifurcation of research and practice - how will  that be actualized within
> the PHD?"  Danny posed three options:
> "1) The PhD is fundamentally a research training qualification, and  in
> different countries and institutions the research/creative  practice
> homologies are more or less developed. Is the practice  component seen as
> i) research in itself, ii) somehow equivalent to  research but not exactly
> the same, or iii) not research but a  reflexive form of practice which
> requires academic writing to  secure its contribution to knowledge (or
> transferability)? In my  view, there are no right answers to these
> questions but they are  more or less determined by the institutions
> responsible for the  money, with governments taking a much stronger role
> in the  Commonwealth countries than in the US, and a range of different
> approaches among the non-English speaking countries which others  will
> know more about than me. The point is that one needs to have a  viable
> definition of research, and be prepared to make a strong  case for the
> role that practice plays in the research qualification.
> --Danny's subsequent question on how  practice should be evaluated  and
> the url of a Ph.D. design list.  Simon notes the importance of
> benchmarks.
> --Chris:  Further discussions is necessary as to what practices  these
> programs may embody and, subsequently, produce Š or continue  to reproduce
> in terms of academic legacies and the self-replication  of research
> trajectories.  How does one reconcile this with the  implicit
> underpinnings of creative practices - how does one  redefine such a
> discipline via the mechanisms of an  institutionalized infrastructure and
> ideologies?
> --Mark: Beyond the sociopolitical effects of devaluing an MFA, Mark
> questions "imposing inherently wrong academic models, which  effectively
> snuff out what is in fact, not just a series of courses  and academic
> thresholds, but a culture of knowledge making  practices that as with all
> cultures, are constituted by informal  modes of producing themselves."
> Furthermore, he is constructing "a genealogy for a specific
> epistemological practice that has emerged since then, but has not  yet
> been recognized as a coherent discourse network ( roughly in   Foucault's
> sense)... Artists, traditionally, have objects but not  knowledge." He,
> like Chris, sees this as  19th c as the  epistemological model. Meanwhile,
> " The post-1840 discourse  network for which my work establishes a
> genealogy, constitutes a  counter-tradition. It does indeed exist, but has
> not been  recognized as a coherent discourse, in part because its elements
> lie scattered about and have never been collected.
> historical contexts that need to be addressed, and on which to  build and
> make the case for constituting structures, curricula, and  evaluative
> strategies for praxis-based knowledges, at a theoretical  -
> epistemological - level. I think this would be pragmatically  useful for
> program proposals, along the lines of including a  "history" section. And
> I think it is imperative to do so. My point  is that there is a need to
> historicize these projects of curricula/ structure design, that the
> genealogy i've extracted is but one  among many, and i would like to see a
> taxonomy of such genealogies  developed." I welcome Mark's project and
> await news of more of his  findings in his book or when he is ready to
> share them.  Note that  both Danny and Simon could be cross-referenced
> here.
>
> 3. This area of question that is more diffuse and harder to  formulate
> having to with whether the world and /or media art have  changed in a way
> that makes the practice-based Ph.D. more plausible  and useful
> Mark notes "The higher status that literary knowledge has, is a
> historical problem."  Does print and  literature indeed still  possess
> higher status? Have more styles of learning and modes of  communication
> become part of the ground of everyday life and academia?
> --Robert suggests that there is something different about studying  new
> media--mentioned in my previous post.  Digital arts certainly  elide the
> legitimacy of borders based on medium.
> --Tom: Digital technologies and networks have knocked down so many  doors.
> Interdiscipinary studies continue to try to break down  disciplinary
> segregation in universities.
> --Simon: In the case of practice based PhD's this process is still  in
> development. It will probably never stop if such PhD's are of  value, but
> as a new approach to formal research this PhD model is  in an intense
> period of discovery and uncertainty. Evaluative  methodologies are in flux
> and debate over what is
> and isn't appropriate rages (as well as any academic debate can  rage?).
>
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Suma Media Consulting | http://www.sumamedia.com
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