Tag Archive for 'project-based research'

reframing

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seth.keen
on August 16, 2010
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I made a connection with Jon Kolko’s ideas on ‘reframing’ taken from Schon’s ideas on framing. Used in Abductive Thinking and Sensemaking: The Drivers of Design Synthesis: Overview: Making Sense of Chaos’ in relation to design, I linked reframing with a practitioner making a shift in their practice. Framing a problem as part of moving that practice into new territory. Following Kolko’s discussion on the design process, he refers to Schon’s idea of framing in relation to scoping a design problem. Framing a problem he argues is set up pragmatically and intuitvely from what is known. Reframing in contrast alters the frame by introducing a different or unusual point-of-view:

Thus, reframing is a method of shifting semantic perspective in order to see things in a new way. The new frame “re-embeds” a product, system, or service in a new (and not necessarily logical) context, allowing the designer to explore associations and hidden links to and from the center of focus.

Multilinear writing

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seth.keen
on June 21, 2010
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I have been thinking lately about how I could bring writing closer to my documentary practice. Some notes I made in a forum recently on project-based research for my GRC presentation. This is in regards to writing the exegesis.

This week I attended a forum discussion on writing up project-based, research in which Peter Downton described (the exegesis) as potentially being a project. This has got me thinking about how the writing could be developed in terms of it having connections with the practice. One idea is that the themes could become categories and the paragraphs tags were the exegesis is formed in the same way I would construct a multilinear documentary. The writing is seen as being a documentary – a story of my practice and the research inquiry being made through my practice.

So this got me thinking about a few things including what tool I could use to write in a multilinear way. I have been working towards getting to know (tinderbox) lately (and I am only scratching the surface). If I see paragraphs as being like (video shots) each one could be tagged and categorised with the idea to bring the writing together later on under specific conceptual themes. In tinderbox you would use agents to cluster these paragraphs. In tinderbox I need to figure out how to bring the chunks together into a linear document. Of course the writing could be developed in tinderbox then published in a blog.

BM showed me Scrivener which really suits the film and TV writer in terms of thinking about things in shots and sequences. This is useful because the chunks can be assembled at the end into a linear document. It is also works with endnote.

The other idea I had was to go back to wordpress and produce a blog as the exegesis itself. This is interesting because the research blog could be tied into this including the previous reflective writing. Working live online means the work can be really intertextual, with loads of external links to references and other notes etc. The drawback here is assembling the chunks which is covered in Scrivener. This would have to be done manually. The blog could be used to draft the exegesis which is then edited from that draft. Another advantage is that video works could be linked to directly which bears all those tedious pdf images in mac word. Maybe the final exegesis could be a blog instead of a hardcopy pdf? Or it could be both? I need to do some tests. The other consideration is referencing – zotero works nicely online.

GRC feedback notes

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seth.keen
on November 1, 2009
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wall shot homestead

Following is notes from the verbal feedback given by the GRC panel of Laurene Vaughan, Adrian Miles, Jeremy Yuille and Linda Daley. The quotes are taken from the panel and an audio record of the feedback and have not been assigned to any particular person.

Theory with a small ‘t’ and propositions

My understanding of the theory with a capital ‘T’ and looking at propositions.

‘What propositions are [the projects/practice] making about documentary, networked practice…they might be making propositions that are not theoretical…how do I understand and contextualise these propositions…?’

Scrutiny of the projects and propositions in relation to the projects/practice that eventuates…are used to ‘create an understanding’ that becomes the contribution to knowledge (the field)… Avoid using theory in this instance to write a theoretical essay (in the conventional sense).

‘…this is the proposition…this is what they are…this is how I contextualise these propositions…this is why they matter’

‘…your work is not about making theories it is about making propositions about practice…’

Theory as a concept is changed to knowledge (an epistemology) were knowledge is created through an engagement with practice. This approach avoids folding the analysis back into abstract theoretical concepts. ‘Scrutinising the practice internally and positioning it externally…’

This type of analysis considers the implications for documentary practice and how it may be changed and improved in some way.

The propositions come from the practice and theory with a (small ‘t’) is used to explore and test those propositions. In comparison to theory with a (capital ‘T’) being used to fit and shape the theorising of the practice. Instead the idea is to use the practice to create propositions and concepts. Theory/multiple theories are then used to clarify the proposition that has been raised in the practice. This means you are using theory on your terms, ‘ to make sense of what’ you have raised. The work (the thinking) lies in the process of synthesis how a number of theories are brought together to explore a proposition. A process that requires being clear about the proposition as a starting point and then managing that synthesis.

‘Think of it as commentary…rather than hegemonic big’T’ theory. How have I come up with [the proposition]…how could it be better explained? Better understood more clearly articulated by making references out to others…for the purpose of solidifying and creating nuances with your own ideas’

Propositions are there to ‘agitate to tweak…disrupt’ assumptions in relation to documentary practice.

The methodological readings can be used for this as well.

In relation to the concept of propositions references include Dunne and Raby and Richard Buchanan’s ideas on ‘placements’.

Interface and closed systems

Other notes included thinking about the analysis of interface as an entity on its own. This is where the mistake is to collapse the interface into the network and see the concept of working with the affordances of the network as being totally utilised.

The issue of closed networks or types of networks in terms of how these works as discrete media objects as closed systems operate compared to open systems on the Internet. Thinking about the content and how it operates outside the works that are being produced. (quote) ‘It is not network art’. What does it mean to close WordPress off? This is along with using existing products to do other things or for other purposes.

Documentary knowledge

The term ‘documentary knowledge’ as mentioned in the review notes needs to be framed in terms of how it will be applied in this context.

‘Knowledge gained from the documentary? Knowledge about documentary practice? claims to knowledge that documentary practice makes? is it all three?’ This just needs to be stated were there is no necessity to read countless books on this field to create that framework.

‘Shifting the frames of how people understand documentary’ Work from previous industry experience and state this up front in the exegesis.

Locative Painting

The panel struggled to make a connection between the previous projects and this final project. Interface was seen as being a significant part of this difference. Spatial montage is lost in this iteration were in the current version at this point returns to one frame of video.

Writing up creative research

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seth.keen
on June 3, 2009
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This morning after my phd supervision meeting this week, I took time out to reflect on where things are heading with the approach being taken towards writing up theory on the key WVA project. I returned to Paul Carter’s book Material Thinking for some guidance. An issue that is emerging in the current writing is a tendency towards being descriptive. This is not that surprising, as I have been working off interviews as a way to understand the perspective of the other collaborators involved in the project and also learn more about the process that took place. But, on top of this, what has emerged is a lack of focus in terms of what the key research inquiry objectives are overall, which means this writing/chapter for the moment lacks a key argument. In other words, it is exploratory like pre-production research to determine what a documentary might become. Caught up in the detail of the process I have also lost sight of the underlying theoretical influences which are needed to support the theorising of the completed projects.

Looking at Material Thinking (p.10), he writes about an issue that occurs in a lot of writing that examines in this context, art:

The language of creative research is related to the goal of material thinking and both look beyond the making process to the local reinvention of social relations. This is not achieved by more poetic writing about art, which merely perpetuates the process/study split identified by Feyerabend. Writing of drawings of Rodin, the German poet Rilke observed, ‘As always when I fall into the error of writing about art, it was valid more as personal and provisional insight than as a fact objectively derived form the presence of pictures.’ This is a typical error of artists and plastic-makers generally: called upon too talk about what they do, they rationalise its internal logic instead of gauging its social effect. Rather than account for the work as a structure for reinventing human relations, they explain the ideas behind the work. As a result they dematerialise the process that produced it, creating a two-dimensional text so self-explanatory, so easy to interpret’ as Rilke found that one is ‘limited precisely by what ordinarily seemed to open up all sorts of vistas’.

…to document the making of a new social relation through a concomitant act of production

Then I went onto look at how Carter approaches writing up a project which has a reasonably set framework across the number of varying projects discussed in the book. The unifying thread across all these projects no matter how varied is an inquiry into a specific type of ‘social relation’, namely his concept of ‘place-making’.

Reflecting back over my own trajectory of practice a reoccuring theme that I would identify in connection with the concept of ‘social relations’ is gravitating towards documenting people in a way that reveals simplistically, how they are effected by where they live and what they do. This ties in with the environmental portraiture theme that I have taken up. ‘Place-making’ in this instance becomes ‘environmental portraiture’, a term that could easily be named something else. For example, I do not think this term has to necessarily be defined in relation to ‘environmental portraiture’ as a practice/genre. Instead like ‘place-making’ it becomes a concept to explore and define this specific creative research and the projects that are produced.

Another thought when thinking about ‘…than as a fact objectively derived form the presence of pictures’ is Roland Barthes’ pivotal work Camera Lucida.

References:

Carter, Paul, Material Thinking, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2004. p. 10

Rilke, Ranier Maria, Letters on Cezanne, trans J Agee, Jonathan Cape, London, 1988.

Action Research and Reflection

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seth.keen
on January 7, 2009
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I am in the process of drafting my exegesis at the moment (in the quiet time that is the beginning of the year) The introduction is drafted and now I am moving onto summarising the research methods, which is useful as this will set up a clearer framework for reflecting on the projects. At the moment aspects of action research seem to be where things fit into place, looking back at the process retrospectively. I started with AM‘s summary on the Labsome wiki. This led to an excellent article titled ‘Understanding Action Research’. In this article there are a number of valuable points like:

The best question is the one that will lead you to look at your practice deeply and engage in cycles of continuous learning from your everyday practice of your craft. These questions come from a desire to have practice align with values and beliefs. Exploring these questions helps the researcher to be progressively more effective in reaching their personal goals and developing professional expertise.

Also, these notes for the reader in the introduction are useful:

The reader needs to be invited to think about the problem at the widest level. This should answer the question –Why should a read this, why should I care about this study? This is not about the context but about the problem and how it is linked to your visions for a different future.

In terms of evaluation and reflection there are these pointers:

EVALUATION: How will you/did you evaluate the outcomes of your action?…..(Indicate your plans for your analysis in a paragraph or two).

REFLECTION: Looking back on my action with the benefit of data, I now think… and if I were to do this again I would have…. The thing that worked best was… What most surprised me from the data was…

With a overarching reflection as part of extended and detailed overview:

FINAL REFLECTION: This is where the action research really takes stock of what was learned. It might be helpful to think of a reflection as a set of connections between the past, present and future. If this section is only a summary of what was happened, it will fail as a reflection. A reflection provides a deep understanding of why things happened as they did and how those outcomes help you address your overarching question. At the end of writing a good reflection, you will know more than you did when you started it. If you haven’t gained some new insights about the problem and your actions to solve it, it is likely that you are only summarizing what happened. Reflection is a powerful learning experience. It is an essential part of action research.

The point about knowing more than when you started is important!

Another part of this evaluation is revisiting notes on the UTS Creativity and Cognition website and the section on Practice Based Research (PBR) which have been updated since my last visit including the PBR bibliography which has action research links.

There is also some useful notes on reflection in varying places. In the Questions and Answers section notes from Ross Gibson:

Ross Gibson’s view is ‘the text is not an explanation of the artwork; rather, the text is an explicit, word-specific representation of processes that occur during the iterative art-making routine, processes of gradual, cyclical speculation, realisation or revelation leading to momentary, contingent degrees of understanding. To this extent the text that one produces is a kind of narrative about the flux of perception-cognition-intuition. The text accounts for the iterative process that carries on until the artist decrees that the artwork is complete and available for critique, ‘appreciation’, interpretation, description, evaluation. All these particular practices can entail other particular texts.’

I like the “narrative” angle here. In this FAQ a number of question are posed as part of the reflective process:

Good questions to ask yourself are

  • what was proposed, discussed, decided and carried through,
  • what stumbling blocks arose and how they were addressed….,
  • whether the ideas were workable, interesting, challenging….
  • whether the collaboration worked well or not
  • reasons for success or otherwise,did the solutions work well, if not why not?
  • whether there were different viewpoints between you and your collaborating parties
  • whether lessons were learnt from failures.

    • Web 2.0 Studies // Critical Internet Theory

    Published
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    seth.keen
    on December 15, 2008
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    mc
    Image by David Holmes the missing attendee.

    I am in the middle of attending a master class with Geert Lovink at Melbourne University titled ‘Web 2.0 Studies // Critical Internet Theory’. The summary of the workshop:

    In relation to the current Internet, there is an obvious need to move beyond cultural studies approaches to fandom, where active consumption is simply recast as participatory culture without any assessment of the economic and technological forces driving usergenerated content. Rather than relying on the Jenkins-style models of convergence and the notion of collective intelligence, this workshop will encourage participants to consider the alternative possibilities and theoretical problems facing a materialist understanding of network culture.

    For instance, to what extent can software studies move from engineering issues and technologically-focused specifications to outline a broader analytics of power? What sort of creative concepts are available for understanding the everyday practices of blogging? How can organized networks transform their dependence on free labor to reach greater economic sustainability?

    Readings:

    Geert Lovink, ‘The Society of the Query and the Googlization of our Lives’, Eurozine, September 2008, originally published in German, in Lettre International 81, Berlin, 2008, translated into Italian, Swedish, Dutch, Danish.

    Geert Lovink, ‘Blogging, the Nihilist Impulse,’ Eurozine, January, 2007, originally published in German, in Lettre International 73, Berlin, 2006, translated into French,Swedish, Italian, Danish, Swedish.

    Geert Lovink and Anna Munster, ‘Distributed Aesthetics, Or, What a Network is Not’, Fibreculture Journal 7 (2005)

    Geert Lovink and Ned Rossiter, ‘The Dawn of Organised Networks’, Fibreculture Journal 5 (2005).

    Matteo Pasquinelli, ‘The Ideology of Free Culture and the Grammar of Sabotage’ (2008),

    GRC November 2008

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    seth.keen
    on November 5, 2008
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    I have not written much about a project that myself and the VD collective have been working on for the last few months with an International NGO. Mainly because it involves the applied commercial development of the VD system. But with another School Graduate Research Conference (GRC) looming in a week, I think it is time to break the drought. Funnily enough, without reflection on my blog I have also been slipping behind in the documentation of this project.

    Last semester my June, GRC panel provided the following feedback to consider for this GRC:

    “…who is the audience of your research and what is the contribution you are making to them.”

    “Your work touches on a lot of technology issues that are here or on the near horizon, yet this is only one aspect. You also engage with different forms of narrative construction, temporality and user experience as well. What is the priority and how will you work with all of these?”

    These are key points that I am now considering amongst a busy time of marking and more project production within the next couple of weeks. This is a new project on top of the NGO gig. I have been reflecting on these pointers and recently revised the research summary as one step towards beginning the process of writing up this research towards submission. Taking into consideration the development of the projects, particulary VD the following evolved:

    //non-video/new-video/net-video Online video is a growing phenomenon on the Internet that has predominately involved the distribution of televisual and cinematic content on this system. I would argue that this is an approach that fails to respond to the materialities of the Internet as a media form. A practice-led, poetic research model is used to determine how online video can be utilised to articulate and disseminate knowledge on the Internet. Design is used to invent online video systems that explore the affordances of the Internet and Social Media technologies. These systems are developed collaboratively through an iterative process of content production and evaluation. Situated within the field of Media, I examine both the formal and cultural issues that the Internet poses for independent online video practitioners.

    I think this is moving in the right direction with another 1-2 steps to go to finalise this towards being an abstract for the exegesis. Supervision work with Labsome Honours students really helped me clarify more and more, the practice-led research process and introduced me to some of AM’s notes on poetic research. Nothing like thinking through a process when you are teaching it to others. The poetic research concept started for me with Terrance Rosenberg’s article. A concept I plan to tease out more in my exegesis for this research.

    Another phase of re-writing this summary is also revising the research questions. It was interesting to work hard on the clarfication of some research questions with the Honours students this semester. In such a short timeframe this helped us both understand what was being undertaken, on the premise that they could be revised and tweaked towards the end of the research.

    Picking up on the point of how I plan to work with all of the themes mentioned above I picked up on the need to locate a framework that brings all these themes together around one point of inquiry. Something I noted in an earlier post around an mcd presentation. It is not really an issues addressing all these themes as long as they are handled from one unifying perspective. I also picked up or reminded myself that the theory, this framework and the dominating themes being explored emerge from the practice. This is all about reflecting on projects which brings me back to the current NGO project. I have been thinking about what this project is bringing to the surface and what a number of blog posts would cover.

    A quote form Rosneberg’s article on poetic research.

    In the case of the “poetic” the focal territory is found through a process. It is iterative, working in the space between substantiation and deviation. Backgrounding and foregrounding happen in a dynamic process and this produces a research context. Poetic enquiry evolves its field of focus whereas conventional research sets in advance its focal channel. (See figures 3 and 4). The focal territory in poetic research is established in open water.

    practice-based and practice-led research

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    seth.keen
    on March 27, 2008
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    The Creativity and Cognition studios (@ UTS) write about what they see as the differences between practice-based and practice-led research. From the summary:

    If a creative artefact is the basis of the contribution to knowledge, the research is practice-based

    If the research leads primarily to new understandings about practice, it is practice-led.

    expanded overview

    Three key areas to consider in practice-related research referenced by C&C studios from the UK, the Arts and Humanities Research Board (now Council) (AHRB, 2000 ):

    1. It must define a series of research questions or problems that will be addressed in the course of the research. It must also define its objectives in terms of seeking to enhance knowledge and understanding relating to the questions or problems to be addressed.

    2. It must specify a research context for the questions or problems to be addressed. It must specify why it is important that these particular questions or problems should be addressed, what other research is being or has been conducted in this area and what particular contribution this project will make to the advancement of creativity, insights, knowledge and understanding in this area.

    3. It must specify the research methods for addressing and answering the research questions or problems. In the course of the research project, how to seek to answer the questions, or advance available knowledge and understanding of the problems must be shown. It should also explain the rationale for the chosen research methods and why they provide the most appropriate means by which to answer the research questions.

    vidgets

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    seth.keen
    on December 21, 2007
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    David Wolf has made his MA exegesis available online as a pdf download. It is titled Vidgets: The Development and Use of Interactive, Network Based Video Works.

    critical practice insights

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    seth.keen
    on November 12, 2007
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    Terry Rosenberg in his recent article ‘Designs on Critical Practice?’ from the Reflections on Creativity Conference held at the University of Dundee provides an accessible framework to consider as part of formulating and contextualising critical practice. Quote, p 12:

    1. Critical engagement (stimulus): with the world and its
    discourses as active ground for practice.

    2. Critical process: considering critical reflexes in practice and
    critical reflection in and on practice (à la Schön).

    3. Critical re-engagement (reception): delivered in the critical
    programme of the practice (what it means and what it influences and
    how it is used/consumed).

    One must appreciate that these slices overlap each other in practice.

    Terry Rosenberg, Designs on Critical Practice?’ Reflections on Creativity: Exploring the Role of Theory in Creative Practices, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, 2006