Research and Creative Practice Linda Candy Research and Practice Research, as an integral part of creative practice, is the centre ground of this chapter. It is explored through the experience of practitioners in the interactive arts. The practitioners are artists, musicians, designers and curators as well as teachers, museum organizers and software developers, often combining these roles in their professional life. Within creative practice, the role of research is first to enhance personal effectiveness through conscious individual reflection and second, to provide a more systematic understanding of how people interact with artworks. Whether the research is carried out formally through an academic programme or not, the part played by the creation and evaluation of an artefact is a critical element in interactive arts research where audience participation is fundamental to the full realisation of the work. The term ‘creative practice’ combines the act of creating something novel with the necessary processes and techniques belonging to a given field of endeavour, whether art, music, design, engineering or science. In the life of an individual person, it involves conceiving ideas and realise them in some form as artefacts, installations, compositions designs or performances. It can be an everyday or intermittent activity and a life’s work, during which there are many transformations in thought and works. Practice that is creative is not only characterised by a focus on creating something new, but also by the way that the making process itself leads to a transformation in the ideas, which in turn leads to new works. This form of practice does not necessarily require repeated effort to make perfect, in that sense of the word, although to achieve anything truly novel usually requires considerable effort over many years. Research differs from creative practice: we do research when seek to augment our knowledge. The word is frequently used to denote both a process and a product: the process of seeking out new knowledge and the outcomes of that, the knowledge itself. For something to be perceived as genuine research, as distinct from simply gathering information of personal value, we expect it to produce something insightful, useful or indeed, ground breaking: in other words, the main focus is to add knowledge where it did not exist before. Research of this kind offers the prospect of achieving something new in the world and both its outcomes and methodology are expected to be available to anyone wishing to scrutinise or even challenge it. Deciding what is genuinely new usually falls to the gatekeepers of our knowledge culture. Traditionally, when people challenge existing theories and propose new ways of thinking, the
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Research and Creative Practice
Linda Candy
Research and Practice
Research, as an integral part of creative practice, is the centre ground of this chapter. It is explored
through the experience of practitioners in the interactive arts. The practitioners are artists,
musicians, designers and curators as well as teachers, museum organizers and software developers,
often combining these roles in their professional life. Within creative practice, the role of research
is first to enhance personal effectiveness through conscious individual reflection and second, to
provide a more systematic understanding of how people interact with artworks. Whether the
research is carried out formally through an academic programme or not, the part played by the
creation and evaluation of an artefact is a critical element in interactive arts research where
audience participation is fundamental to the full realisation of the work.
The term ‘creative practice’ combines the act of creating something novel with the necessary
processes and techniques belonging to a given field of endeavour, whether art, music, design,
engineering or science. In the life of an individual person, it involves conceiving ideas and realise
them in some form as artefacts, installations, compositions designs or performances. It can be an
everyday or intermittent activity and a life’s work, during which there are many transformations in
thought and works. Practice that is creative is not only characterised by a focus on creating
something new, but also by the way that the making process itself leads to a transformation in the
ideas, which in turn leads to new works. This form of practice does not necessarily require repeated
effort to make perfect, in that sense of the word, although to achieve anything truly novel usually
requires considerable effort over many years.
Research differs from creative practice: we do research when seek to augment our knowledge. The
word is frequently used to denote both a process and a product: the process of seeking out new
knowledge and the outcomes of that, the knowledge itself. For something to be perceived as
genuine research, as distinct from simply gathering information of personal value, we expect it to
produce something insightful, useful or indeed, ground breaking: in other words, the main focus is
to add knowledge where it did not exist before. Research of this kind offers the prospect of
achieving something new in the world and both its outcomes and methodology are expected to be
available to anyone wishing to scrutinise or even challenge it.
Deciding what is genuinely new usually falls to the gatekeepers of our knowledge culture.
Traditionally, when people challenge existing theories and propose new ways of thinking, the
relevant scholarly communities assess the worth of the claims and due course, they are either
rejected or accepted into the canon of knowledge. The contribution of artists to culture is generally
recognised to centre on the creation of novel works. That artists might contribute to knowledge per
se is a less familiar notion, and the idea that creating such works is an integral part of generating
new knowledge might appear to be fanciful to some. However, as we will see, there is an emerging
form of research founded in creative practice that is making claims of novelty, not only to culture,
but also to knowledge.
This chapter explores some of the ways in which research and practice is being undertaken in the
emerging field of the interactive arts. The chapter begins by providing a frame of reference for
practice-based research including variations in scope on the basis of the role of the artefact. This
kind of distinction, whilst useful, is not, however, central to the discussion that follows about
research into how audiences respond to the interactive experience and the rising popularity of PhD
programmes in advancing research and practice in this field. The second half of the chapter is
concerned with the development of methodologies for reflective and evidence based approaches in
practitioner research and the necessity for adaptation to this context. A model of the relationship
between these practitioners’ theory, practice and evaluation is then proposed based on a study of
practitioner researchers. Finally, the question as to whether research in creative practice can
contribute to knowledge is addressed in relation to the artefacts and textual outcomes generated by
the practitioners in this book.
Practice-based Research: A Frame of Reference
Research undertaken in tandem with practice is usually referred to as ‘practice-based research’. I will
begin by briefly characterising practice-based research and then move on to differentiate between
two types on the basis of the role of the ‘work’ or artefact in research. Practice-based research has
played a formative role in the interactive art that is the subject of the chapters by practitioner
researchers in this book.
In 2008, ten practitioner researchers undertaking PhDs agreed to be interviewed as part of a study
into practice-based research in the interactive arts (Candy, 2009). It is interesting to observe what
the term ‘practice-based research’ implied to them.
Practice-based research has allowed me to:
“ … ask questions that would not have surfaced any other way. It has enabled me to connect to audience experience of the work; my own experience of the work (in a systematic way)
“..create artworks, come up with conclusions that have practical relevance to the creation of interactive artworks.”
“ … follow a methodology closely related to the professional practice as an artist I have been following over many years.”
“ …address my research questions through practice and to create new knowledge through practice.”
“ … be more creative and address issues that were of relevance to creative practitioners.”
“ … expand upon all my skills and expertise in the design concept and build of a new artefact.”
“ … investigate the broader implications of (this) earlier work: why that research was of interest to my arts practice.
Practice-based research as perceived by these practitioners embraces practice as its central focus. Not
only is the practice itself embedded in the research process but the research questions arise from
practice and the outcomes are directed towards enlightening and enhancing practice in whatever
form it takes. As the quotations above indicate, the attraction of this form of research is that by
connecting closely to existing practice, it provides a means of exploration that extends that work in a
personal sense, as well as contributing to the larger picture. This form of research is usually set in a
specific context and yet it must also reach out if it is to be perceived as contributing to knowledge in
any way. That contribution is fundamental to the value placed on practitioner research by the wider
community whether academic, public or private. An emphasis on the contribution of research
outcomes to improving practice distinguishes practitioner research from pure or basic research
where the aim is to increase our understanding of fundamental principles without regard for utility
or application to solving a particular problem.
Variants of the term: practice-led research, practice as research, research as practice, have different
shades of meaning in different contexts. There are a number of perspectives and interpretations
available to the reader wishing to explore the subject in more depth and which are listed in the
general bibliographyI. A differentiation on the basis of the degree of focus on making artefacts is
discussed in the next section.
Practice-based and Practice-led Research and the Artefact
In practitioner research in universities, the terms ‘practice-based’ and ‘practice-led’ are often used
interchangeably. Differentiating between the terms practice-based and practice–led can be useful
especially where the creation of artefacts materially affects the way the process is carried out and
the kinds of outcomes that emerge. If the research process is primarily based around making an
artefact, the research could be said to be practice-based. If the research leads primarily to new
understandings about practice, it is practice-led (Candy, 2006).
In the context of interactive art, the term ‘artefact’ is used to denote an object, installation,
exhibition or performance, in any given creative field, that is made by the practitioner during the
research. The role of the artefact in the research process may differ according to the practitioner’s
primary focus of attention. For practice-based researchers, making an artefact is pivotal and the
insights from making, reflecting and evaluating may be fed back directly into the artefact itself. For
practice-led researchers, whilst artefacts play a role, the understandings from the research are
directed primarily towards the evolution of new practices in a given field or organisation.
In practice-based research, any claims of originality and contribution to knowledge may be
demonstrated through artefacts created during the research process such as artworks, musical
compositions, performances and interactive new media installations. A full understanding of the
significance of the research can only be obtained with direct reference to the artefacts in whatever
form they take. In other words, the textual description is not enough in itself to convey the true
import of what has been achieved. In this form of practitioner research, the artefact becomes a
basis for exploring ideas through making. Thus, the research is dependent upon the creation of an
artefact and it is also difficult, if not impossible, to understand its significance without direct
experience of the artefact itself. From this process, both new artefacts and new understandings
emerge. Brigid Costello, Andrew Johnston, Jen Seevinck, Ian Gwilt and Sarah Moss, whose work is
presented in the chapters to follow, exemplify the central role that making artefacts has in practice-
based research.
Practice-led research, on the other hand, does not depend upon the creation of an artefact by
practitioner researchers but is, nevertheless, founded in their practice. It can refer to a situation
where a teacher researcher, seeking to understand how to develop better teaching techniques, first
carries out studies into the nature of her classroom practice which produce results that indicate the
relative effectiveness of her existing methods from which she generates a new set. In this case, the
practice leads the direction of the research and the outcome is something the practitioner can use
and also hand on to others by making it generally available. The outcomes may be communicated
to other practitioners in the form of case reports, principles and guidelines, or curriculum designs.
This kind of research characterises the approach of Lizzie Muller who, in ‘Learning from
Experience - Reflective Curatorial Practice’, describes how she used practice-based research to
transforming her personal curatorial practice in the interactive arts. In ‘Prototyping Places: the
Museum’, Deborah Turnbull and Matthew Connell also describe the role of practice-led curatorial
research but from a perspective that advances organisational, as distinct from individual, practice.
Whilst these curatorial practitioners did not themselves make artworks, their role in the
development of the exhibition and evaluation of such works was a pivotal aspect of their practice.
The artefacts that practitioners create are an integral part of their practice, whether or not there is
a formal research process, as for example, described in the chapters ‘Visual Explorations’ by Chris
Bowman and ‘Art, Interaction and Engagement’ by Ernest Edmonds. These artists show how their
creative practice is inherently one of experimentation, driven by personal frameworks that are
continually being renewed, transformed and even abandoned as a result of their experiences with
new works. The making process provides opportunities for reflection and evaluation but,
interestingly, in a departure from traditional forms of research where research questions are
established in advance, new questions arise during the process of making works. A distinctive
aspect of practice-based research is the interplay between making and reflecting and generating
questions that are addressed, in turn, by further making, reflecting and evaluating, including
systematic studies.
Practitioner research is primarily directed towards understanding and improving an individual’s
practice and its outcomes. What is learnt is not necessarily intended for wider applicability in the
sense of confirming or challenging existing theories or principles. In that sense, practitioner
research differs from what might be termed ‘professional’ research. This term is not ideal but is
used here in order to differentiate research that is carried out from a disinterested (in the sense of
impartial or neutral) standpoint. The professional researcher typically adopts an external or
independent position in relation to the domain of concern and carries out investigations designed
to contribute to the general corpus of knowledge. Within certain domains, a professional
researcher who seeks a closer involvement with the subjects may adopt a participatory or
embedded stance.
Researchers can, of course, wear the different hats of practitioner or professional research,
according to the needs of the situation. In ‘Designing for Audience Engagement’, Zafer Bilda
carried out studies across a range of interactive art projects, a field outside his own, by inhabiting
the space in which the work was taking place in order to understand it better. The outcomes from
his research have given rise to a new model of creative engagement that can be applied to studies of
interactive works more widely (Bilda et al, 2008). At the same time, he also shows how the same
research can yield principles for design that have value for his personal practice as a designer of
interactive systems. In his case, professional and practitioner research have been combined
successfully to meet the different requirements of generally applicable knowledge and personal
practice.
Yun Zhang is also a ‘professional’ researcher whose interest centres on the way that people from
different disciplines collaborate in the making of interactive art. In ‘Collaboration in Art and
Technology’, she shows how she went about seeking evidence from conversations and events that
provided the basis for understanding interdisciplinary collaboration. She drew upon techniques
developed in the Social Sciences (Richards, 2010) in order to develop a coding scheme for
analysing collaborative dialogues. Whilst her research stance was neutral, over time she became a
part of the creative team and they came to value her presence in providing an independent
viewpoint, as Chris Bowman observes in his chapter, ‘Visual Explorations’.
Bilda and Zhang had different goals to the artist researchers for whom making, evaluating and
exhibiting artworks was integral to their research. At the same time, all the practitioners were
engaged in the business of ‘research’. Research is the defining activity here but the word can have
quite different interpretations depending on the context in which it takes place, in this case, the
emerging area of interactive art.
Research and Interactive Art Practice
Since the late 1960s, artists have been creating new forms of art that exploit the power of digital
technologies and have the potential to engage audiences in exciting and unexpected ways. Audience
engagement depends upon the nature of the interaction between people and the artwork, or ‘art
system’, as defined in Chapter 1. To succeed, the art works must be designed and constructed in
such a way as to meet the demands of serious artistic intentions. Artists venturing in this direction
often find themselves in previously unchartered waters where the mysteries of the technology can
present formidable barriers to realizing their visions. Wishing to be able to enhance the full power
of the digital has drawn many into seeking new paths to knowledge, knowledge that often requires
deep levels of understanding that can only be achieved through systematic and prolonged research.
In the interactive arts, practice-based research by creative practitioners is similar to other forms of
research but with some distinguishing features. Different needs are brought about by the nature of
the digital medium and the interactive nature of the form itself. The particular research need in
interactive art falls into two interrelated areas: first, research required about how to design and
implement the technologies involved, where often no existing method or tool exists; and second,
research about understanding how audiences respond to the interactive experience. The second
type of research may lead to insights that require new tools and techniques in the technology. It is
this second type of research that is the main focus of the work referred to this chapter: but first, a
few words about digital technology and interactive art research.
Interactive Art is an emerging art form that increasingly depends on digital technology. Creative
practitioners who seek to exploit the potential of that technology for their art are often faced with
considerable obstacles that have to be overcome. Many go down the route of collaboration with
experts in computer technology whilst others become expert themselves. Whichever route is
chosen, practitioners face the problem of knowing which of the many options they should chose, or
whether or not there is anything readily available that meets the task they have set themselves.
Indeed, do they have to design and build it themselves in order to achieve the desired effect?
The status of digital technology is continually evolving as new software and devices appear on the
market. Nevertheless, the software and hardware available rarely does exactly what the creative
practitioner requires. Emerging forms of art are breaking new ground on a number of fronts and,
making something new technologically, is often as much a part of the creativity as the concepts and
visions that drive the creative process in the first place. In interactive art research, innovation in
the art and the technology are intertwined. The search for new interactive art forms drives
innovation in the technology and, conversely, new technologies facilitate the creation of novel art
forms.
The second research need in interactive art arises from the very nature of the form itself. We have
previously discussed how the essence of such art lies in its interactivity with the audience (Main
introduction page $$). Building interactivity into art inevitably raises uncertainties for the artist as
to whether or not the work enables the envisaged experience. The degree of audience engagement
with an interactive ‘art system’II is a significant issue for those who are intent on involving people
in the realisation of the artwork. The art system is designed to create a framework for interactive
possibilities by many different people; their interactions generate images, sounds and other
realisations of the art systems’ responses that are unique to that situation. In effect, the interactive
experience itself becomes a ‘work’. This means that audience engagement is not judged merely by
how long people look at a work, but, more importantly, how well they develop a sustained
interaction with it and going even further, a ‘relationship’ with it that brings them back time and
time again. Direct observation of an art system in action with people is the only way to understand
what actually takes place and whether or not it is ‘successful’ from the artist’s point of view. For this
reason, artists are incorporating systematic observation of some kind into creative practice. This is
where research becomes important.
Research within creative practice is inextricably bound up with creating works and investigating
the implications of them. How to find out what matters in terms of the way an art system functions
often requires more than intermittent, casual observation. The artist may be searching for deeper
insights into the nature of audience experience that can only be achieved by studying the
interactive experiences at length. This might require learning new methods for gathering
information and analysing its significance. Where this work is taking place in formal research such
as a PhD, it is also necessary to make the new knowledge available to the community at large.
For the practitioner researcher, creating a work and then reflecting on the process and outcome, is
a pathway to understanding some of the underlying questions and assumptions (we might call
them ‘working hypotheses’ or ‘theories in use') that have not been articulated beforehand. The
process of making something can facilitate a form of 'thinking-in-action' that is needed in order to
move towards a clearer understanding. The role of ‘reflection-in-action’, first proposed by Donald
Schön (Schön, 1983), has proven to be effective in supporting this personal process and is
described in more depth later in this chapter.
Separately, and for some practitioners equally important, is how the artefact can play a role in
empirical studies. The interactive scenario provides an opportunity to observe and record events
over time with many people. However, it is important to note that for most artists doing research,
the artefact is not purely 'instrumental' in the process, i.e. a convenient device for gathering
information and thereby secondary to the goal of deriving evidence. Seen this way would be to
diminish its essential ambiguity. An artwork has multiple meanings and although it is possible to
deploy it in the search for understanding through empirical means, this does not suggest that it
embodies a particular kind of knowledge (Scrivener, 2002a). The artwork stands for itself and
there is no single recipe for interpreting or responding to it. On the other hand, for the practitioner
researcher, being able to explore how people respond and behave when interacting with the work
can be an invaluable way of moving the development of the work forward.
Bringing creative practice and research together has reciprocal effects and usually implies changes
in perception about both. In the interactive arts, research is proving essential for artists to be able
to meet the challenges of a complex and difficult form. At the same time, the research itself is likely
to demand new knowledge and skills either on the part of the individual concerned or by way of
collaboration with experts. Art practice that depends upon research for its innovative outcomes is
in itself changed by that research. In the interactive arts research that underpins this book, the
place of formal research through doctoral programmes has been critical to the development of
research methodologies that drawn upon evidence-based approaches.
Creative Practitioners and the PhD
A practice-based PhD is an original investigation undertaken by means of practice and the
outcomes of that practice. Contributions to knowledge may be demonstrated through outcomes or
artefacts in the form of physical designs, musical compositions, installations and performances.
Where university rules permitIII, artefacts may form part of the PhD submission, and (with rare
exceptionsIV), they must be accompanied by a written thesis that describes the significance and/or
context of the claims. Where the artefact plays a role in the development of the thinking,
experiments and investigations surrounding the making of the work, it is expected that a full
understanding of the candidates’ claims for an award can only be obtained with direct reference to
the artefacts. That implies that the PhD submission must include the means to observe, hear and
experience the artefact in whatever form it takes. Access to the full experience of an interactive
work is of course, especially problematic where it is intended to be a sensory or immersive
experience. Audio and video recordings and printed material are poor substitutes for the real thing
and can only achieve a limited sense of the work. It can, therefore, be all the more important to
have contextual material and empirical evidence to support the viewers’ understanding.
The outcomes of doctoral level practice based research constitute claims for originality and novelty
and ideally, these claims are underpinned by a clear methodological position that includes methods
and techniques for revealing and substantiating those claimsV. All of the normal quality standards
of research in the humanities, mathematics and science, apply to practice-based research for the
PhD. It is important to understand that including the role of making and evaluating artefacts
contributes to a broadening of the definition of research, not narrowing the definition of practice.
The decision to undertake a PhD is not for all creative practitioners but increasingly it is becoming
a path of choice for many. The emergence of practice-based doctoral programmes in universities in
the UK, Australia, Scandinavia and in the USA, has come about partly as a result of organisational
restructuring which has driven changes in the way the arts are assessed through research
performance. However, the rise in numbers is also demand led. In the interactive arts, practice-
based PhD research has grown partly because it can be a means of obtaining resources but more
importantly, because it provides access to a community of like-minded people with relevant
expertise.
Many of the contributors to this book have undertaken PhD research and thereby have brought a
systematic approach into their practiceVI. Practice-based methodologies, developed within research
programmes, often become an integral part of practice and continue to develop during a
practitioner’s creative life. These methodologies also contribute to the ongoing research by
practitioner researchers in the interactive arts.
Methodologies for Practitioner Research
Practitioner research in the creative arts is still emerging as a discipline and hence, the question of
which methodology to adopt can be an issue. It means that practitioner researchers, especially
those submitting for a post-graduate award, have to explain their methodology and the legacy of
concepts and ideas that have informed their approach. This is not to say that other research
disciplines do not debate methods and, certainly in the sciences, for example, whether or not a
particular experiment has been executed properly can often be a matter of considerable debate. In
research areas, such as those associated with the natural and life sciences: chemistry, physics,
biology, pharmacology, psychology etc., experimental research design and the techniques needed
to generate reliable results have been established according to tried and tested formulae. These are
shared within the research community, scrutinised along with the results of any experiments, but
are not necessarily explained in detail in research reports. Nevertheless, the validity of claims may
be disputed on the grounds of the misapplication of methods and when researchers find their
results challenged, they usually have to justify whether or not they have applied them correctly.
Outside the Art and Design traditions, in disciplines such as Human-Computer Interaction, having
to establish a new methodological framework is familiar ground. Because the interactive arts are
fundamentally inter-disciplinary and practitioners are continually exposed to alternative
perspectives, there is a tendency to look more widely for inspiration in other disciplines. This leads
to a more flexible attitude to drawing upon the rich store of existing methodologies in other fields.
As Beryl Graham and Sarah Cook point out, because doing new media art demands crossing
"boundaries between technical and behavioural knowledge", its practitioners are capable of
"translating across these barriers" (Graham and Cook, 2010:p. 184). However, the translation
process requires more than a passing acquaintance with the methodologies of both fields. Whilst
art making for audience experience using high-end technological capability means that interactive
artists are well placed to explore and develop new knowledge on the behavioural and technical
front, this does not happen without considerable effort to identify and learn methodologies that
will work for a particular practitioner context.
The methodologies which have shaped the interactive art research described in this book, are
indebted to a number of approaches that have been active in field research for many years.
Disciplines such as management science, marketing research, design science, educational and
health action research, anthropology and recent manifestations of the ethnographic research in
HCI research (Crabtree, 2003) have provided a rich source of inspiration and practical ways
forward. There are two distinct pathways in the research process which inform the methods
employed: first the practitioner’s own reflections upon the creative process and the artefact
outcomes, and second, the search for understanding about the nature of audience experience with
the artworks. In most cases, practitioners combined the approaches and often customised existing
methods or created new ones in response to the demands of the situation.
Reflective Practice and Research
Whilst it is generally acknowledged that Donald Schön’s first introduced the term ‘reflection in
action’ and proposed a relationship between this and the development of practitioner knowledge
(Schön, 1983), the underlying concepts go back much further to John Dewey and his exploration of
reflection and thinking through experience (Dewey, 1933). The period leading up to World War II
and afterwards was a time when new theories of learning and experience were emerging, driven in
part by a desire for change in society and education (or training as it was referred to then), and
also, by a growing awareness of the limitations of knowledge generated by traditional forms of
research, for taking action and improving practice.
Kurt Lewin, known for his development of ‘field theory’VII, coined the term ‘action research’ to
describe a process where the research uses:
“a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle of planning, action, and fact-finding about
the result of the action” (Lewin, 1946:)VIII.
This process relies on taking action in order to understand how to change a given situation from
which the insights derived may be used to make improvements. The initial impetus for the new
thinking about the nature of research came principally from education and social psychology and
was later extended to organisational learning and professional practice by Donald Schön and Chris
Argyris (Schön and Argyris, 1978).
Action research has been successfully used to underpin a stream of research dedicated to
improving practice (Elliott, 1991IX) and has, in combination with Schön’s concepts of reflective
practice (Schön’s, 1983), become an invaluable feature of practitioner research.
The basic concepts of action research and reflective practice bring an action-based form of research
together with a focus on practitioner knowledge. These ideas have endured into the 21st century
and continue to be explored and extended further in a range of disciplines from Health and
Management to Architectural Design and Information Technology. Moreover, they have proven to
be critical in the development of practice-based research methodologies.
The concept of ‘reflective practice’ has had a significant influence on the methodological
foundations of practice-based research. Reflective practice involves a process of reflecting on one’s
actions and learning how to act differently as a result. The starting point of reflective practice is the
lived-experience of a practitioner. Donald Schön’s ideas on reflective practice have been influential
because he located research enquiry within practice itself and asserted the value of practitioner
knowledge as having distinctive contributions to make to professional capabilities. He recognised
that what he referred to as ‘technical rationality’ was inadequate for improving professional
development and thereby challenged the existing orthodoxies in research traditions. His concept
of ‘reflection-in-action’ provides a plausible explanation for how the practitioner makes explicit
some of the tacit knowledge (Polyani, 1966) embedded in action and, thereby, learns how to act
differently. The notion that practitioners themselves are capable of bringing tacit understandings
to solving problems in hand, which can then be used to produce well-founded insights, rather than
drawing upon the lessons from external sources of knowledge, was a radical idea at the time.
Graeme Sullivan points out that reflective practice viewed as a form of problem solving that
involves a cyclical process of learning from actions, may in fact lead to an awareness of the
limitations of existing approaches to providing solutions. (Sullivan, 2010:67). Stephen Scrivener
argues from a research supervisor’s position, that to impose a problem solving and solution finding
approach on practitioner researchers in the visual arts and design, is to risk damaging both the
artists’ practice as artists and the culture to which their works and understandings contribute. He
goes on to describe how the norms of a “creative production research project” developed in order to
differentiate between the visual arts and technology have been reframed as questions to be asked of
the material submitted for PhD examination. Does the material “show the candidate to be a self
conscious, systematic and reflective practitioner?” is one of these questions (Scrivener, 2006:173).
Our previous research on practitioner strategies for conducting research has revealed that the
problem-solving paradigm is indeed an inappropriate representation of the creative practitioner
research process (Edmonds and Candy, 2010). In the context of interactive arts research, a central
feature is that of the reflective practitioner’s role in the identification of the questions, issues and
frameworks that emerge from the process of making artworks. A key feature of the patterns we
identified was the almost universal need to create an individual framework that could be used to
structure reflections and actions. Making artefacts whilst adopting a consciously reflective mode of
research, leads to the emergence of questions and issues almost ‘naturally’ from the practice and it
is often a relatively small step to articulate the context and methods associated with practice.
The impact of reflective practice on creative practitioners doing practice-based research, is turning
out to be an important contribution to the methodological grounding of the field. It has been a key
pillar in the research of Dave Burraston, Jen Seevinck, Andrew Johnston, Brigid Costello, Mike
Leggett and Lizzie Muller, all of whom created personal conceptual frameworks that informed the
making and evaluation of the outcomes of their practice-based research. Lizzie Muller explores the
contribution that Donald Schön and Stephen Scrivener have made to her research as a practising
curator in interactive art. Faced with the question as to how curatorial practice might produce new
knowledge, she turned to Schön’s ideas about knowledge developed through action. She observes
that he was not proposing a formal research methodology but aiming to throw light on the way
professional practitioners generated knowledge in their daily work. Her methodology combines
Schön’s thinking with Scrivener’s on the documentation of creative processes. She anticipates that
other curators and artists might value the insights she gained from developing a structural
framework based on conscious reflective practice and the way this continues to inform and shape
her professional practice (see Muller’s chapter ‘Learning from Experience-A Reflective Curatorial
Practice’). Equally, Dave Burraston found Schön’s ideas pivotal in guiding him towards an effective
way of moving his thinking forward because, in adopting conscious reflective practice, his enquiry
could remain open to the discovery of new phenomena, rather than be constrained too heavily by
the initial questions and problems he had identified (see the chapter ‘Creativity, Complexity and
Reflective Practice’).
Reflective practice, as a strategy for challenging existing practice and at the same time generating
new understandings, is a pathway of choice being followed by practitioner researchers in the
creative interactive arts today. One of the most appealing aspects is that it validates their intuitive
instincts within a framework of reflective enquiry. Moreover, it also provides an opportunity to
document the process of reflecting in action as it takes place. Documentation can then be returned
to later for further reflection. How to document reflective practice and use it effectively is a skill
that has to be learnt and practical advice is needed (Candy, 2006). The introduction of structured
documentation using diaries, weblogs and other recording methods is an invaluable innovation
that makes the process more transparent and, at the same time, sharable in those cases where
collaboration is involved.
Reflective Practice and Creativity
There are notable differences to the way ‘reflection-in-action’ has been incorporated into creative
practice compared to professional practice more generally. This is because a major part of the
creative process involves taking actions towards creating an entity that stands separate from the
insights gained from the reflections themselves. This entity or artefact has its own integrity and
value quite apart from the insights. The development of an artefact may draw upon, even embody,
the insights gleaned from the reflections but it is, nevertheless, part of an externalized reality that
invites a different kind of response.
Schön describes the design process in terms of ‘seeing->drawing->seeing’. The act of drawing
enables the designer to recognise or appreciate the meaning of what he or she ‘sees’, and through
the identification of patterns, constructs a meaning beyond the patterns themselves. Thus, by
creating something it becomes possible to design “as a reflective conversation with the materials of
the situation” (Schön, 1992:5). In a similar sense, when an artist creates something and reflects
upon it, the process is a form of ‘seeing’ again. Reflective practice in creativity involves multiple
iterations, which can be summed up as: ‘creating -> reflecting-> creating again-> reflecting again’.
There is, moreover, an important extra dimension to reflective creative practice when the
practitioner researcher chooses to take an empirical route to new understandings. By adding a
principled enquiry stream to reflective practice, based on gathering and analyzing observations of
interactive works live with participating audiences, the process becomes one of ‘creating-
>reflecting->creating again-> investigating->creating again …’.
There are of course, likely to be a number of iterations throughout the development of a complex
interactive art experiences. This iterative process takes practitioner researchers into perspectives
beyond those derived from individual self-reflection. Many of the practitioner researchers
represented here have taken the empirical route in addition, and sometimes in parallel, to the
reflective path. Practitioners who take steps to consciously reflect on their practice and learn from
what they have done, and then go on to act on those new understandings in the form of making art
works, are engaged in ‘reflective creative practice’. For the most part, reflection-in-action
contributes directly to enhancing an individual practitioner’s understanding and working method.
A different stream of practice-based research is that which relies on obtaining evidence from
empirical studies: here, the focus is on audiences and the impact of interactive art on their
experiences. Whilst enhancing one’s practice through reflection-in-action is an inward focus,
carrying out systematic studies turns the lens outwards towards the value of what other people can
reveal.
Evidence-based Research
We seek ‘evidence’ when we wish to provide more substantial grounds for believing something
rather than simply relying on individual opinions or anecdotes. There are, of course, many degrees
of evidence and if we wish to base our actions upon reliable information, we need to carry out
research into what others have found out or, if that is not available, do it ourselves. When a
research area is new, there may be very little existing evidence to draw upon. In the area of
audience experience with interactive art, this is largely the case at this point in time.
Methodologies that represent counterviews to standard scientific experimental method have
proven to be a rich source for researchers investigating complex human behaviour (e.g. Argyris et
al, 1985). In Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), which was, at first, dominated by experimental
methods inherited from Psychology and Cognitive Science (e.g. Card et al, 1983), ethnographic and
qualitative approaches were adopted in order to explore what became known as ‘situated action’
(Suchman, 1987) in research into human uses of technology (Preece et al, 2002).
Investigating audience experience in interactive art requires a research process that draws upon
actual events or what we might call ‘in vivo’ situations, as distinct from 'in vitro' or laboratory based
scenarios. Audio and video data is gathered in such a manner as to provide as accurate a picture of
events as can be obtained. The data analysis that follows must also be carried out in a manner that
affords genuine insight into the nature of the raw picture that has been obtained. All this is critical
to how soundly based the findings are, as researchers into complex human processes are all too
aware.
The information gathering and analysis methods used by the practitioner researchers in this book
were drawn mainly from ethnographic research and HCI research (Crabtree, 2003) as well as
strategies and methods for qualitative research (Richards, 2010), such as grounded theory (Glaser
and Strauss, 1967). Learning which methods are best for observing and recording people’s
interactions with art systems, and then making sense of it in ways that can be applied to interactive
works and experiences, is a significant challenge in itself. Many studies involved observing closely
and asking the right questions. At times, they needed to watch the audience without interruption
and at other times, usually immediately following first interactions with the work, they needed to
engage them in recalling what they did and how they reacted to their experience. To be able to do
this successfully required an understanding of appropriate research methods and how to apply
them.
Identifying well-tested methods for eliciting audience views about their experience of interactive
art is only the first step, however. Learning how to adapt and customise to suit the particular
context is a necessary second step. In audience studies conducted in Beta_SpaceX, asking people
what they were doing and thinking, using simple ‘think aloud’ techniques (Lewis and Rieman,
1994), even immediately after the interactive experience, did not always provide sufficiently rich
information. This was partly because of the difficult nature of capturing the complexity of
everything that was going on but mainly because of the (understandable) inability of the
participants to recall everything in sufficient detail to satisfy the need for a rich, detailed picture of
events. And so, video-cued recall was introduced into interactive art audience research (Costello et
al, 2005). Playing back video recordings of participant interactions to them and eliciting their
comments proved to be a very much more effective method for acquiring such information.
The question inevitably arises, why would a practitioner choose to embark upon a lengthy process
of gathering data, devising analysis frameworks, implementing coding schemes and analyzing
many examples across different cases? This involves learning new skills and being sure to be
rigorous about how the data is collected and analysed and how the results are interpreted at all
times. It bears a resemblance to scientific research with all the attendant expectations of being
reliable and repeatable that is a little too close for comfort for some. An alternative approach is for
an artist to observe audience interaction with an artwork casually and to respond instinctively. If
the evaluation is part of a formative process, the effect could be to alter particular aspects of the
developing artwork in response to the way the artwork performs or the way the audience responds.
What kind of justification is there for the employment of evidence-based research conducted in a
systematic manner by practitioner researchers? Let’s consider the negative viewpoint first. Many
practitioner researchers are naturally cautious about this form of research because it is often
perceived as being overly ‘scientific’ with potential to exert a negative influence on creative work.
Even if we say ‘systematic’ rather than ‘scientific’, the connotations remain of a highly rational
process that is an anathema to many artists. It is not unreasonable to doubt the value of systematic
research purely on the basis of its effect on the creative process. Being a creator, a maker of
artworks, does not sit easily with the business of scientific research. Not only does it require time
and effort to learn the skills, but involves a radically different way of thinking and that in itself
could have a distorting effect. Balancing the amount of effort needed on all fronts is a difficult one
to achieve. That said, there are good reasons to adopt a more structured and systematic approach
to understanding audiences and interactive works as the examples below indicate.
Mike Leggett, a practising filmmaker, came to empirical research with an expectation that he
would acquire confirmation of his initial working hypothesis that when people interacted with
his Mnemovie system, they would reveal their personal knowledge about the organisation of a
moving image collection; from that he expected to be able to compare the types of knowledge in
use. He worked with Zafer Bilda on the analysis and interpretation of the data, from which
graphical representations of the results of the questionnaires and recorded observations were
generated. The initial user-based approach revealed instead, other patterns among the sample
group and a ‘persona’ based view was identified, based upon the individual's interaction
style during an interactive experience. This evidence supported Leggett’s belief that creative rather
than functional approaches to interacting with movies was possible and could be encouraged by
making the design of each system specific to each video collection. It is clear from his experience
that the results of carrying out systematic studies were not only valuable in confirming his initial
assumptions but perhaps more importantly, they identified patterns of user types that influenced
his future designing. Being able to have confirmation of a belief through systematic studies is
helpful but when an unanticipated insight emerges as well, then the value for creative practice can
be far reaching. (see the chapter 'Memory, Schema and Interactive Video')
Brigid Costello, as an artist looking to make interactive works that encouraged audiences to ‘play’
carried out ‘formal’ or even ‘systematic’ evaluation studies of participant interaction in order to
explore whether or not she had achieved her aim. She used observational techniques to study
several of her own artworks, gathering data using video-cued recall and interviews and analysing
the data using qualitative analysis methods and software analysis software in combination with
mind-mapping software. The figures that resulted from the surveys were used to pinpoint trends
and preliminary findings. These were then tested and refined during the analysis of the interview
data. However, that process led to doubts about the value of systematic studies. She expresses her
initial reservations thus:
“I was concerned that the multiple opinions produced by a formal audience evaluation process might
confuse or muddy the artistic aims of the artwork and produce the poor results usually attributed to the
‘trying to please everyone’ effect of ‘design by committee’. I was also concerned that the process of
conducting and analysing audience evaluations might take precious time and focus away from my creative
practice.” (Costello chapter page $).
She found that the results of the audience studies yielded divergent opinions, which needed to be
carefully considered; however, in the end, she found the process “surprisingly rewarding and
creatively inspiring.” Most important, she was able to understand her audience more clearly and
design ways of interaction that were more effective on her own terms.
Andrew Johnston, whilst also acknowledging the considerable effort required by applying
systematic ways of generating results from interview data using grounded theory XI nevertheless,
found it achieved a high degree of immersion in the material:
“The grounded theory methods were useful in improving my awareness of the video material and my
sensitivity to the experiences of the musicians. I don’t think I could have achieved the necessary
degree of familiarity with this material with less labour-intensive methods” (Johnston chapter
page $).
For Zafer Bilda, the value of systematic research is clear. Without the kind of quantifiable results he
obtained from studying several artworks with many different people, he would not have been able
to discern patterns of audience behaviour. By identifying the existence of patterns he was then able
to capture an overall picture in his model of creative engagement. The model represents the
processes that people go through when they interact with different types of art systems and could
be interesting both to artists and to designers as well as researchers in the field of experience
design. For a designer such as Bilda, having reliable evidence is a pre-requisite for constructing a
model of creative engagement with confidence. On this basis, he was then able to devise design
principles for use in other system designs. This might well be the defining difference between the
interactive artist and the interaction designer. Whilst the first is seeking ways to create something
uniquely personal and distinctive, the second is seeking ways to create something with attributes
that serve a range of purposes.
A general point to note is that in developing systematic ways of investigating audience experience,
practitioner researchers were able to draw upon existing methods from other fields and apply them
to their own purposes. However, this is only a first step in the quest for developing a methodology
for practice-based research in interactive art. If artists decide they need evidence about audience
interaction beyond what they can observe casually, this introduces a new imperative into their
practice: you could say a new ‘norm’ of systematic evaluation. On the face of it, this is similar to the
norm in HCI of ‘knowing your user’. However, it would be unwise to assume that the HCI norm, or
that of any other discipline, is likely to satisfy the needs of interactive art. The experience of
practitioner researchers in the interactive arts indicates that, for the most part, developing a
methodology involves adapting and reformulating existing approaches in such a way as to address
the art context. In a certain sense, this requires the creation of new ‘norms’ out of old, existing
ones.
Methodology Creep: from Appropriation to Adaptation
As the discussion above indicates, there are different pathways to articulating a personal
methodology in practice-based research in interactive art. What becomes clear is that it is not
enough to identify an approach and simply appropriate it wholesale from existing sources in other
disciplines: adapting and tailoring to meet one’s own particular requirements is essential. Thus,
adopting reflective practice might prove useful, but of limited value, unless it is adapted to the
particular context through consciously applied documentation of the thoughts and actions vital to
the making and evaluating of artefacts. Similarly, empirical studies conducted using standard
methods for data gathering might produced results with less value than expected if there is
insufficient attention paid to the commitment of the participants to the research.
Instead of simply appropriating research methods from other disciplines and contexts, an
alternative approach is to find out what best matches artistic aims and knowledge and the creative
process itself. This is highly significant when it comes to involving audience participation in the
research process. In seeking to understand whether or not a particular work engages with an
audience in a particular way, it is vitally important that the participants in the research are treated
appropriately. This means not only selecting people with particular abilities and expertise, but also
designing situations that are most effective for keeping them active and interested. Brigid Costello
describes how important her ‘peer group’ participants were to her for acquiring responses and
opinions that revealed unanticipated consequences of the interactive experience. For her, designing
artworks for engagement meant also designing for an engaging evaluation experience. In effect, the
relationship between the research situation and the interactive one was, for the participant
audience, closely intertwined (see Chapter 'Many Voices, One Project').
In Andrew Johnston case, because he was working with expert musicians, all of whom had tight
schedules and were giving up valuable working time to participate in the research, it was especially
important to provide them with opportunities for creative exploration of the virtual instruments he
wished to evaluate. Like Costello, he was mindful of getting the best out of his ‘subjects’ and
therefore, giving them plenty of latitude to explore and experiment for themselves was essential to
keeping them engaged in the research activities.
These kinds of considerations are at odds with studies where ‘subjects’ are given tasks and directed
to follow a prescribed route without regard for whether they are interested in what they are doing
or not. In audience research, there is no point setting up situations that turn the participants into
subjects without regard for their scope for initiative and autonomy. This only leads to boredom and
can have a negative impact on their ability to give their responses in a genuine way. Moreover, if
the participants in the research have some kind of expertise in the field or a vested interest in the
outcomes, this will mean ensuring they have opportunities for developing a personal connection
with what is happening. It is important, of course, to be able to distinguish between the research
situation that is inherently negative for the participants or cases where the interactive experience in
itself is poorly conceived and executed. This is an issue that is affected by a number of factors
including: the design of the environment in which the research takes place, the relationship the
researcher builds up with the participating audience, and the level of skills with which the data
gathering is carried out. This last factor is not inconsiderable: having opportunities for training is
needed and the chances of doing things well are enhanced by the presence of other researchers
with experience from whom the practitioner can learn.
In addition to the above factors, the role of the environment for conducting is critical in this field
where the development of the artworks and audience research are parallel activities. The
establishment of Beta_Space, an experimental ‘living laboratory’ for audience interaction studies in
a public museum, was to prove a critically important development for many of the practitioner
researchers writing in this book. (See introduction to the book and chapter 'Prototyping Places: the
Museum, by Turnbull and Connell.
Interaction between Practice, Theory and Evaluation
Most of the practitioners in this book were based in a co-located research group that provided
support for learning new techniques and often collaborated with one another in the gathering and
analysing of information for the evaluation studies. Having a peer group of practitioner researchers
working together, with similar goals, is a significant advantage to conducting practice-based
research that employs a range of methods from reflective practice to evidence-based research. It
also afforded us an opportunity to study the patterns of practice-based research that evolved over
time. From these observations and interviews, it was possible to describe some features of the way
practitioner researchers develop theoretical frameworks that inform and guide the making and
evaluation of the outcomes of their practice.
The relationship between practice, theory and evaluation in practice-based research can be
represented as a model in which the practitioner follows a ‘trajectory’ or route, influenced by
individual goals and intentions. Each of the three elements: practice, theory and evaluation
involves activities undertaken by the practitioner in the process of making artefacts, developing
conceptual frameworks and performing evaluation studies. In summary:
Practice is a primary element in the trajectory providing as it does the activities of creating
artworks, exhibitions, installations, musical compositions and creative software systems, which
provide the basis for conducting research.
Theory, as it is understood in the context of practice-based research, is likely to consist of different
ways of examining, critiquing and applying areas of knowledge that are considered relevant to the
individual’s practice. Practitioner theory may consist of a working assumption that the artwork will
elicit certain emotions or qualities of experience in an audience; this will remain a personal theory
until it is subject to a more rigorous form of study that involves investigation as to whether or not
the opinion has any truth beyond an individual viewpoint.
Evaluation has a particular role that is defined by practitioners in order to facilitate reflections on
practice and a broader understanding of audience experience of artworks. It usually involves direct
observation, monitoring, recording, analyzing and reflection as part of a semi-formal approach to
generating understandings that go further than informal reflections on personal practice.
Fig. 1a General Trajectory Model Fig 1b Theory led model Fig. 1c Practice led Model
Figure 1 about here: Three Trajectory Models of Practice and Research
Figure 1a shows three trajectory models of practice and research. The first 1a, the General Model of
Practice and Research shows the three main elements: Practice, Theory and Evaluation. Each
element has outcomes and involves various kinds of activities. From Practice, the main outcomes
are Works [W], i.e. artefacts, installations, exhibitions, performances etc.; from Theory, the main
outcomes are Design Criteria [C] and Conceptual Frameworks [F]; from Evaluation come Results
[R]. Under theory, the outcomes are differentiated in respect of whether they arise from
practitioner theory or knowledge sources from research literature. The practitioner ‘framework’ is a
conceptual structure that is used to inform evaluation and the development of practice. Equally,
practice may inform the development of the framework and hence, theory.
WORKS
DESIGNCRITERIA
CONCEPTUALFRAMEWORKS
EVALUATIONRESULTS
Practice
Theory
Evaluation
WORKS
DESIGNCRITERIA
CONCEPTUALFRAMEWORKS
EVALUATIONRESULTS
Practice
Theory
Evaluation
WORKS
DESIGNCRITERIA
CONCEPTUALFRAMEWORKS
EVALUATIONRESULTS
Practice
Theory
Evaluation
The trajectories of practice and research can work in a number of different ways. Where the
primary driver is theory, a framework is developed that draws on theoretical knowledge and is used
to shape the Evaluation process and the creation of works (Figure 1b). A second type of trajectory is
one where the practice drives the development of theory (Figure 1c). In this case, research
questions and design criteria are derived through the creation of works and this leads to the
development of a theoretical framework which is used in the evaluation of the results of practice. In
both cases, the process is cyclical, and there is often a tighter iterative sub-process in which the
framework and practice develop together. This model represents how research and practice
interrelate in the process of developing practitioner frameworks. The trajectories represent
different kinds of relationships between theory, practice and evaluation as exemplified in the cases
described in Edmonds and Candy (2010). In each case, the interplay between practice, theory and
evaluation involved many iterations and much interaction between the elements as the creative
process drove a continuous process of change
Smith and Dean propose a model of creative arts and research processes: an iterative cycle web of
practice-led and research-led practice (Smith and Dean 2009: 20). It is intended to be a
representation of practitioner processes (including collaborative ones) taking different forms with
an overall ‘web-like’ characteristic. This includes, for example, process-driven or goal driven
orientations that may interact and lead to transformations and multiple outcomes at different
points. The stages within each large cycle of activities (ideas generation, investigation etc.) involve
many iterations during which the practitioner makes choices as to which results from the task in
hand are useful or which are best discarded. As they correctly point out, selection processes are
central to most models of creativity. Selection is a key task but it is not only vital to the
development of ideas and artefacts: selection is essential to the process of theory testing and
crucially, as we found, the evaluation process (Edmonds and Candy, 2010).
Practitioners, such as those referred to in this chapter and whose work is presented further in the
book, discovered that developing an interpretative framework is an integral part of the reflective
creative process. A critical question for people making interactive works is how to understand the
nature of audience engagement. In order to progress, practitioner researchers are developing
methodologies for evaluating audience experience and interpreting the nature of that experience in
relation to the characteristics of the works themselves. The research process and its outcomes are
bound to have implications for the individual’s practice and indirectly, therefore, the artefacts that
arise from that practice in the future. In this way practice-based research becomes an integral part
of the creative process and can have life-long durability. However, contributing to personal
effectiveness is not on its own enough to justify the label ‘research’ in its full and formal sense. For
that, the making a clear contribution to knowledge must be evident.
The ‘Language’ of Knowledge
Research is expected to contribute to the generation of new knowledge. Knowledge arising from
practice-based research is embedded in a range of outcomes: understandings about audience
experience, strategies for designing engaging art systems, taxonomies of emergent behaviour and
models of collaboration to take a few examples. And of course, there are the works themselves: the
made objects, the compositions, the performances, the exhibitions and installations.
If designing and making artefacts forms an integral part of the practice-based research process,
then sharing the results of the research may be impossible to do without reference to the relevant
artefacts. However, the creative work exists within a context: an artwork alone, without text,
cannot be seen as a research outcome (Biggs, 2003). As a minimum, a commentary is needed
which frames the context in which the work is to be understood, including the research norms and
tests. The context is seen to be physical, social or cultural but there is another aspect to consider. In
research, the context of a work needs to include the framing of its perception. We need to know
how to look or listen in a very direct sense. We need to know more than which cultural glasses to
wear. The expression of knowledge and whether or not it is communicable in a generally agreed
sense is an important issue when it comes to being able to judge whether or not there is a genuine
contribution to knowledge. In order to evaluate the knowledge, we need a common ‘language’.
Whether or not there is a commonly understood language that is embodied in an artefact, is a
contentious issue.
Smith and Dean discuss different forms of research and their relationship to the generation of
knowledge. ‘Knowledge’ is seen as verbal or numerical in expression and something that can be
generalized to other processes or events that are outside those that gave rise to it. It is also
considered to be transferable (and for that, verbal expression is paramount). However, they argue
that visual or sonic forms transmit knowledge in non-numerical or verbal forms and this form also
needs to be acknowledged if it is to be given sufficient weight in practice-based research outcomes
(Smith and Dean, 2009).
The nature of the particular form used to ‘transmit’ knowledge is an important issue. Some argue
for conducting empirical studies, the results of which are readily expressed in linguistic or
numerical forms by way of explanation. This ‘evidence’ can be understood unambiguously, it is
argued, whereas an artefact cannot stand on its own without an explanation of context. In many
ways, this is fundamental to the whole question of the role of the artefact in research and
knowledge generation. If the import of a painting has to be explained in words, it assumes that the
viewer does not have access to the ‘language’ of painting. However, not everyone can read
mathematical proofs and yet these are considered to be sufficient explanations for those who do. If
enough people know the language of painting to understand what the creator is claiming to be new,
why is there a need for linguistic explanation as well?
The question of ambiguity is central here. Explanations expressed in mathematical form use a
universal notation that is unambiguous to those that have learnt it. Likewise, musical scores have
similar characteristics with, perhaps, more room for interpretation. Without an unambiguous
‘language’ for all artefacts whether visual forms or interactive installations, there is room for
multiple responses and interpretations. That ambiguity is after all fundamental to the nature of art
and its complex relationship to our capacity for appreciation.
The role of words and the role of the elements of art are differentiated by Ernest Edmonds in his
chapter 'Art, Interaction and Engagement'.
“it is sometimes helpful to have a language of words to help one think about and discuss the art. For example,
although the key issues about an understanding of colour are embodied in artworks exploring colour, it is
also good to be able to name hue, saturation and intensity.” (Chapter page *)
For this artist and others like him, having a framework that takes linguistic form is an aid to
thinking that supports the art making. Indeed, as Scrivener points out the generative potential of
ideas themselves is important to the creativity in art practice: "Edmonds then goes on to describe
how he made these ideas be, by creating artworks embodying the postulated properties" (Scrivener
chapter part 2 p$). Thus, theoretical frameworks work in parallel with the creation of artefacts and
contribute to the artist’s longer-term creativity (Candy and Edmonds, 2011).
Research within practice is concerned with the nature of artefacts and the processes used in their
development. The role of the artefact in research is a contentious aspect of the practice-based
research debate especially where the artefact is seen as a significant part of the research
methodology and is implicated in the kind of knowledge that is generated. Practitioner research
may use artefacts as the object of study or as experimental apparatus. However, in many cases, the
actual creation of an artefact can be central to the research process and within a doctoral
programme may well represent the core of the new knowledge generated by the research. However,
whether that knowledge is communicated directly through the artefact is questionable. Whilst art
in itself is not directly concerned with ‘communication’, research that involves an artefact may
produce claims for new understandings that require some form of ‘justification’. The tradition of
presenting an exhibition of works towards the end of a research project is on its own insufficient
for this. If we accept that the artefact can, in some sense, represent new knowledge, the problem of
sharing that knowledge implies a need for a parallel means of communication, in effect, a linguistic
one that can help to frame the way that we view the artefact and grasp the knowledge.
There can be a tension between the practice driven view of research and the requirements of a
university doctoral award. Sometimes the written text and the artefact outcomes do not appear to
connect in an explicit way. This is not desirable in my view: a PhD should, I believe, represent a
unified piece of research in respect of the written thesis and the artefacts. The thesis illuminates
the artefacts and places them in context. The textual element is vital to completing the contribution
to knowledge that the artefact may represent. A doctoral submission should also include a
substantial contextualisation of the creative work. This critical appraisal or analysis not only
clarifies the grounds for the claim of novelty and location of the original work, it also provides the
basis for an independent judgement as to whether general scholarly requirements are met. The
submission is judged as a contribution to knowledge that shows doctoral level powers of analysis
and mastery of existing contextual knowledge, in a form that is accessible to and auditable by
knowledgeable peers.
Contributions to Knowledge
How can research in creative practice contribute to knowledge?
Research in its different manifestations is usually expected to lead, at one end of the spectrum to
better information, and at the other, to new knowledge that challenges existing theories and
assumptions. Researchers everywhere seek to verify hypotheses or prove that existing theories are
wrong. However, research in creative practice has particular characteristics that do not necessarily
conform to traditional norms about the nature of knowledge and how it is generated.
For one thing the practice that is so central to practice-based research is primarily directed towards
making things, whether they be visual or sound objects or installations, exhibitions or
performances. Nevertheless, for many practitioner researchers, whilst the ‘works’ are at the centre
of the research, there are also other kinds of outcomes. As discussed previously, for doctoral
research, outcomes must be shared with others so that a claim of novelty can be scrutinised and
accepted as such.
The outcomes from the practitioner research described throughout this book could be said to
contribute to knowledge in different ‘languages’. There are, of course the artworks themselves:
these are visual and sound artefacts such as ‘Sprung!’ by Brigid Costello, Shaping Form and Cities
Tango by Ernest Edmonds, ‘Plus minus NOW’ by Jen Seevinck, Spring and Asura.02 –
Disturbance and GEO: Narrative Landscapes by Chris Bowman, Save_as (2007/8) by Ian Gwilt
and PEGASYS by Sarah Moss. These works were created, evaluated and exhibited in public in
Beta_Space: the chapter ‘Prototyping Places: the Museum’ by Turnbull and Connell gives an
account of how these cases were handled.
What is important to understand about the creation of works within practice-based research is that
the practitioner is typically investigating new artistic forms and that they are likely to make their
claim to novelty explicit, often in textual form. This goes well beyond creating new content for old
forms. This second kind of outcome, running in parallel with the artworks, is a vital part of any
claims of novelty for practice-based research. These outcomes fall into three main categories:
1. Models, taxonomies, frameworks
2. Strategies, criteria for action/design
3. Exemplars, case studies.
Most outcomes are based on the results of studies carried out using socio-technical methodologies
drawn from HCI and Social Science. They are made possible by the considered use of documented
reflective practice as well as different types of observational studies, questionnaires and interviews.
Dave Burraston, who created experimental music, also made a contribution to the field of
generative processes using Cellular Automata (CA). Andrew Johnston, who made virtual
instruments for live performances, also developed a model of interaction that contributes to the
field of HCI and strategies for designing conversational interactive systems. Brigid Costello created
art systems for playful interaction and, from her research into audience behaviour, developed
design strategies and a model for classifying different kinds of play that contributes to Games and
HCI fields. Jen Seevinck created interactive art systems, as well as devising a theoretical taxonomy
of emergence in interactive art and from her audience studies, was able to validate her approach
and derive understandings about emergence and interactive experience. Zafer Bilda’s drive to
understand the general characteristics of audience engagement led him to observe different forms
in action from which he was able to derive a model of creative engagement. As with Johnston,
Seevinck and Costello, he was not content with modelling the phenomena he observed, but also
took what he learnt a step further by drawing out principles for interaction design from the results
of his studies.
Whilst the above examples, were mainly based upon empirical studies of audiences and art
systems, others were more speculative and exploratory in their way of working. Ernest Edmonds,
for example, devised a framework for proposing new interactive forms, and a taxonomy for
classifying interactive art well in advance of these ideas being realised in future works. Chris
Bowman’s visual explorations were inspired by the relationship between video images of the
natural world and Kenji Miyazawa’s poem, Spring and Asura and the influences of ancient
Buddhist sutras. Ian Gwilt explored the history and potential of mixed reality for creating
augmented art forms and exhibited works that exemplify this. Mike Leggett created a new
interactive video form and explored its implications prior to actually making works with the ideas
that arose from the making and exploring.
These outcomes from research in creative practice represent a wide variety of contributions to
culture and knowledge. The artworks and interactive art systems stand for themselves of course,
but also in practice-based research, they are placed in context through written theses and
disseminated in published papers. Some artworks will continue to be exhibited whilst others will
rest in personal and museum archives until the art historians of the future uncover and reinterpret
them. Inevitably, what is perceived as novel today in the artworks that have been so painstakingly
created, will in a relatively short time lose their sense of novelty as newer works emerge and
command attention. Some interactive systems will act as inspiration to others and become
transformed again in new forms. Other practitioners, as well as researchers in different fields, may
also find the models of interaction and creative engagement enlightening whilst the strategies and
criteria for design may be applied in different contexts. Moreover, it is worth remembering that
this research, with its focus on personal practice, plays a role in documenting the individual
creative process and interpreting the insights gained from it. In that way too, research in creative
practice can influence the ideas and actions of others who come afterwards and inform the general
area of creativity research.
In the chapters that follow, practitioner researchers explore the varied dimensions of their creative
work and how research has played a part in expanding their knowledge of how to reflect, observe
and evaluate as an integral part of making interactive works. But first, Stephen Scrivener presents
us with his reflections on the question of what is practice in art research and how the creation of
works relates to the generation of knowledge. He also takes us on a journey through his career as
an artist researcher who ventured into the world of computer science and came back into art and
design, feeling confident of his familiarity with practice-based research only to find, much to his
surprise, that his assumption about the requirements of research were not generally shared. He is
seeking answers to puzzles about “the incongruence between problem solving and projective modes
of new knowledge production” and, in the final chapter of the book explores the kinds of answers to
his questions derived from the chapters by practitioner researchers.
Notes
I A number of publications have attempted to characterise the nature of practice-based research and to take account of differing perspectives in the context of arts research. A selection of readings is provided in the bibliography for anyone wishing to explore further (see for example, Macleod and Holdridge, 2006, Barrett and Bolt, 2007, Sullivan, 2010, Smith and Dean, 2010, Biggs and Karlsson, 2011). II ‘art system’ is defined in chapter 1 as a system that changes within itself and where that change is apparent to an observer. The physical art system ...includes the audience. III In Candy and Edmonds, 2011, we discuss how the university rules are important and essential vehicles for giving the artefact a legitimate role in practice-based research. These developments have required changes to existing organisational rules and are relatively recent in the history of knowledge production. The opportunities for including artefacts in formal research remain limited on a world wide scale, and those that exist can only be seen as the beginning of a longer transformational process, the consequences of which we are still working through.
IV Even amongst those universities that accept the artefact for a PhD or Masters submission, most require an accompanying thesis, a written text that provides a linguistic dimension to the claims for originality. A notable exception is with notable exceptions- e.g. Music at York University, UK. Where a text is required, the actual form and content of this text varies enormously: from the exegesis that provides a parallel discourse to the exhibition or artwork expounding theoretical influences and cultural context, to the scientifically rigorous argument based upon empirical evidence, usually the results of the investigations undertaken by the practitioner that attempt to resolve a research question arising from the creation of artworks. These differences of approach to the written texts and the relative value of the exegesis versus the thesis in a PhD submission continue to be a matter of debate in some universities. V In the UK, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC, 2011) defined research primarily in terms of research processes rather than outputs. This definition is built around three key features of any doctoral research proposal:
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. http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/About/PeerReview/Documents/Definition%20of%20Research2.pdf
The third element, describing methods, does not restrict creative practice to systematic procedures. The research must have a describable method but the practice may not. Whilst creative practice is often highly structured, the use of the word ‘method’ would often be limited to the less creative parts of the process. This is no different to research in mathematics, for example. A mathematician is not expected to explain how they came up with a proof but they must explain the method used within the proof. VI PhD theses: authors, titles and examiners may be found at: pages ** here VII In Kurt Lewin’s field theory, a ‘field’ is defined as ‘the totality of coexisting facts which are conceived of as mutually interdependent’ (Lewin 1951: 240).
VIII This is how Lewin describes the initial cycle: The first step then is to examine the idea carefully in the light of the means available. Frequently more fact-finding about the situation is required. If this first period of planning is successful, two items emerge: namely, “an overall plan” of how to reach the objective and secondly, a decision in regard to the first step of action. Usually this planning has also somewhat modified the original idea. (ibid.: 205) IX Elliott (1991) develops an interpretation of action research as a form of teacher professional development which has affinities with 'reflective practice'. Chapter 6, 'A practical guide to action research' builds a model based on Lewin's work.
X Beta_Space: Exhibiting and evaluating space at the Powerhouse Museum Sydney: http://www.betaspace.net.au/content/view/12/36/ XI Grounded Theory is the systematic generation of theory from systematic research. It is a set of rigorous research procedures leading to the emergence of conceptual categories. These concepts/categories are related to each other as a theoretical explanation of the action(s) that continually resolves the main concern of the participants in a substantive area. http://www.groundedtheory.com/what-is-gt.aspx