Practice-inclusive research or: art as research

...to coin a term... which then acts as an umbrella phrase, to include the terms 'Practice-based research' and 'Practice-led research'. I want to propose that, in art as research, the term 'practice-inclusive research' refers to all research that involves the production of art at some stage in its process.

Most - if not all - practice-inclusive research entails the production of a written text. Hence one of the immediate issues is the role of this writing in the Thesis as a whole. As the entry for Research proposes, the relation between the thesis' two parts - writing and art - may be thought of as an issue of 'poetics'; of the shaping of a text, with especial reference to that text's formal aspects, and the affects of those.

While there are many ways of thinking about how this shaping might take place, the issue that has dominated the debate to date is the question of their inter-relationship as functional entities.

• Table showing some of the ways in which the function of ‘practice’ and ‘writing’ have been conceived in practice-inclusive research and consequentially, their role in the final submission.

a.  ‘We [the AHRB] do not believe that a creative, performance, or practice-led output should be allowed to stand on its own as a record of research activity.  Rather, we believe that any research output submitted to the RAE [‘Research Assessment Exercise’] should have associated with it a record or route map of the research process.  We further believe that researchers in the creative and performing arts should, like their colleagues in other subjects and disciplines, regard it as a scholarly obligation to reflect critically and review their research processes in this way, covering the four areas set out in the AHRB specification. (See research as a technology.) This would play the same role as the scholarly apparatus and contextual analysis by which conventional text-based research outputs enable the research to be situated and the research process to be understood.’ ‘Research in the creative and performing arts “The RAE and Research in the Creative & Performing Arts. Review of Research Assessment” – an AHRB Paper’ re-printed in the Journal of Visual Arts Practice Vol 3 No. 1 (2004)

Technically, the 'scholarly apparatus' only describes the research process. However, the paper also argues that the 'apparatus' enables 'other researchers in the [creative] discipline [...] to assess the value and significance of the results of the research' - which assumes that the process describes the product and even more contentiously, that the creative work cannot be assessed without this apparatus.

b. University of Technology Sydney - definition of 'Differences between Practice-Based and Practice-Led research' - link - which are discussed below. The idea that the writing 'clarifies the basis of the claim for (the practical work's] originality' seems to imply a role for writing as 'explanation'.

c. Macleod, K & Holdridge, L ‘Practice-based research: a new culture in Doctoral Fine Art practice'. Commenting on the functional relationship of the thesis’ two parts, Macleod & Holdridge write: ‘Research evidence has shown that the relationship between the written and visual work can be extremely productive.  It is about the tension between the two, as each visits the other and constantly revises, rethinks and (re)presents each to the other.’ This is the 'tradition' of theory and writing informed practice that I encountered as a BA student, and which readily dispels the 'problem' of art as research. Writing, and theorising both for and in response to practice (but not 'explaining the latter, nor offering writing as a diary of the process) are simply things that artists do as aspects of their practice.

d. ‘Critical Fine Art Practice’ – the title of several degree courses in the UK - that regards the relationship between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ as symbiotic.  Ultimately, however, what distinguishes the CFAP take from Macleod & Holdridge’s, is that for CFAP, the students write to sustain an art-practice.  As a teacher on this course, I would like to argue that not only are both elements harnessed for the other, but are also ends in themselves. But I think this would impose my reading of the course over the institutional one, located as it is in a Fine Art programme.

e. '[...]an accompanying written thesis is no longer a requirement of a practice-led Ph.D at Leeds Metropolitan University' - 'Recent Developments in Practice-based / led Research in Art and Design'

• 'Practice-based research' and 'practice-led research'

Most people in my experience use these terms to distinguish between types 2 - 5 (as above) and type 1, respectively. However, this is a conventional agreement, rather than one encouraged by the semantic distinction between the two phrases. Research that is 'practice-based' could well be 'based in practice' but end up in writing. Likewise, research that is 'practice-led' could well be seen to refer to research that is advanced through practice and for practice with writing taking an ancillary role, if any. We need a mnemonic to remember the community-specific distinctions!

The University of Technology Sydney's paper defines 'Practice-based Research' as 'an original investigation undertaken in order to gain new knowledge partly by means of practice and the outcomes of that practice.' One of the defining features of 'Practice-led Research' on the other hand is that its 'results' 'may be fully described in text form without the inclusion of a creative outcome.'

Note that the AHRC uses the term 'practice-led' where others use the term 'practice-based'. This preference seems tendentious, in view of the Council's insistence on wrapping (up) research in a 'scholarly apparatus'.

Rather than distend this gloss even further with discussion of more models and more detail, it seems more useful to propose a bibliography of texts on research. Or in other words, an entry on research on research on research.

• Other issues for the practice-writing structure of Practice-inclusive research

- relative 'weighting' of the two parts i.e. the length of the written text; the 'volume' of the 'exhibition'

- the form of the writing - see 'What is an artist's writing?'

- the location of the exhibition (in the non-research art-world?)

back to glossary of terms

PhD thesis:
The artist as a multifarious agent: an artist's theory of the origin of meaning

journal papers, book articles, edited books, editorial roles, and conference papers

see also 'What is an artist's writing? (In research)'