online journal

I thought this journal, e-flux, might be a possible place to publish our collaborative writing … Let me know what you think.

Filed under: cinzia cremona, tiip , collaborative writing, e-flux

Shaping Intuition

Genzuk´s Ethnographic Research describes the ‘traditional’ way Social Sciences (and other sciences) have followed when investigating a field; they have a previous hypothesis, they collect data (interviews, observation, documents) and they give it an interpretation that suites the hypothesis. The paradoxical aspect of applying this ‘Scientific Method’ in the Social Sciences, is that more then often, there is a tendency to ‘bend’ the information so that results fit the chosen theory. It is a methodology that has a ‘fixed eye’ so I believe it rarely discovers anything.

Dick’s Grounded Theory, on the other hand, seems to proceed with a ‘cleaner eye’, with almost nothing beforehand, and by observing and comparing (systematically) evidence and data, it unveils the theory that lies underneath. The emergent theory, thus, really matches the situation.

Concerning my practice, theory and knowledge actually emerge from my own investigation. First I move rather intuitively, I follow an ‘image’ that leads me to another stage, and so forth, until I find myself in a place where I can see more clearly. It is always the process that talks back to me, and helps me understand and shape my first inspiration/ intuition. And unlike any scientific method, I try to give memory enough time to forget,  I let things rest beyond my consciousness, I try to ‘run away’ from my ’sight of discovery’, and come back later (late as possible)  as if very indifferent, to see if what ever I found, still works for me, actually builds up with the piece, and allows me to move forward in a certain direction. Of course I take notes and draw lines that guide my thoughts and ideas, I may even have a couple of handbooks around the area, but it might also be a sudden erratic ‘flying paper’, that shows me there is always an effective way in which the back of my mind works.

Filed under: liliana garcia urmeneta, tiip

Emergent Methods

The two theories we have compared for this discussion – ethnography and grounded theory – both derive from social sciences. I have fond that this is considered the closest field art practice as research draws methodologies from. But this has at least one great disadvantage – artists’ methods do not often include ‘collecting data’ as such. My practice in particular is not focused onto observing a subject, but on acting as one and interacting with other subjects.

From this point of view, I find it quite difficult to derive ways of working from ethnographic methodology. Moreover, it seems to me that this approach to art practice as research might be more relevant for artists who believe that art is an autonomous field, as opposed to being integrated with everyday life. Perhaps an autoethnographic method – as an aspect of self-reflection – might be more useful in the context of my research, as I mainly ‘use’ myself in my works, and this encompasses a certain level of self-discovery.

Grounded theory offers the advantage of already being attuned with many artists’ way of working – mine in particular. Many works develop from a desire to ’see what happens’. I feel more comfortable at the idea of an emergent theory and methodology as a way of describing the growing conceptualisation of a body of work.

One sociological approach that I have found very fruitful is Actor-Network-Theory, particularly as developed by Bruno Latour. This approach shares with Grounded Theory the intent to “help the people in the situation to make sense of their experience and to manage the situation better.” (Bob Dick, grounded theory: a thumbnail sketch). In other words, I think that art making as research has a bigger constructive and performative function than ethnographic or grounded theories can account for.

Filed under: cinzia cremona, methodology, tiip, tiip-0809 , art practice as research, cinzia cremona, research methodology, tiip

weaving e2

etivity 2 (e2) posted last week had 2 objectives: firstly, to debate the model of art as knowledge production outlined by Graeme Sullivan in his text Artist as theorist; secondly, to develop critical reading skills that can be used towards critical writing as outlined by Deborah Knott in Critical reading towards critical writing. At its core was a double question related to (1) how to read critical theory and (2) how to apply this critical reading to the production of our own writing? As D. K presents in her intro,

“Most of the papers you write will involve reflection on written texts – the thinking and research that has already been done on your subject. In order to write your own analysis of this subject, you will need to do careful critical reading of sources and to use them critically to make your own argument. The judgments and interpretations you make of the texts you read are the first steps towards formulating your own approach.”

Both Cinzia and Liliana present their reading of Artist as theorist as a useful framework to elucidate their practice, claiming that it is in the intersection of the three sites of practice- systems, communities and cultures- that lies the potential for the transformative nature of art-based knowledge production.

It also appears that for both the cultural site is where their research is currently rooted. It may be worth then investigating the use of (postmodern) visual methodologies developed around theories of representation and interpretation that, as discussed in Sullivan’s chapter (from page 167), are at the core of working in cultures:

“The critical task is to determine the social impact of these different visions, and the creative task is to create forms of representation that have the capacity to reveal, critique and transform what we know. This is characteristic of making in cultures as artists who pursue a resistant art practice make full use of the potential of visual images to help reveal critical understandings about issues of human concern.” (P.168)

Filed under: e-tivity02-0809, paula roush , art practice as research, paula roush

the visual artist as a cultural agent

In Chapter 5- Artist As Theorist from Graeme Sullivan’s 2005 book Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in the Visual Arts.

The author starts by describing the artist’s work such as being expansive, creative and critical. He then subdivides the practice (concerning knowledge production) in Making in Systems, when related to structure and skills, Making in Communities, referring to negotiating and communicating meaning, and Making in Culture, when it focuses on challenging perception and prompting new ways of thinking.
Sullivan explores the expansive potentiality inherent in a digital era concerning these 3 areas, and points out the change that the artist’s role has developed in society. He says ¨The image of the artist as creator, critic, theorist, teacher, activist, archivist partly captures the range of art practice today¨, as he emphasizes the many functions of the visual artist in contemporary culture. And it is precisely this point that makes the text valuable to me, because it stands on the believe that artists (and their reflective path), when meeting their personal view with the public voice, can bring insight to the way human beings understand and deal with the world. Thus, it seems to me a result of adaptation, that in the current visual environment, the role of the visual artist has shifted, and has also become more that of the role of a cultural agent.

LiLITH`S EVOLUTION

Because my practice is founded in poetry, I have come a long way dealing with images (as metaphors), but it was not until a couple of years ago (maybe sensing the need to communicate), that I decided to materialize them, and so have shifted into the visual arts to continue my practice. In this way, the need of Making in Communities has influenced my Making in System practice. As for Making in Culture, I believe that it is in the visual and textual content of my play, where I intend to exhort the audience: LiLITH’S TRIAL is a play about otherness and what it offers (hopefully) is a new ‘apprehension’ to the way we articulate with reality.

Filed under: e-tivity02-0809, lili, liliana garcia urmeneta , art practice as research, liliana garcia urmeneta, lilith

Artist as Theorist – Making in the Contemporary World

Graeme Sullivan’s 2005 book Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in the Visual Arts is a good text for exploring ways of using the visual arts as research methods in a number of fields. I have found it less useful as a tool to understand how methodologies for specifically visual arts research can be theorized. Although I appreciate that visual art as practice-based postgraduate research is fairly new – therefore not yet clearly structured and conceptualized – I find Sullivan’s diagrammatic approach dissatisfying.

Chapter 5- Artist as Theorist subdivides the practice of artists concerned with knowledge production into three categories: Making in Systems, Making in Communities, and Making in Cultures. I find the separation of Making in Systems and Making in Communities particularly difficult, as the first definition includes collaborative practices and the second limits an understanding of community to indigenous community. I cannot find in this text an understanding of community that might be suitable for a twenty-first century connected urbanized reality, like the one many artists-theorists are part of.

On the other hand, this attempt to fix reference points makes the task of understanding my own way of working and thinking easier ‘by contrast’. Paula mentioned in our last meeting how artists tend to (I quote from my notes) “Absorb, hybridize and question methodologies from other fields in pragmatic ways.” I think that this might apply to methodologies developed within the field of visual art itself. Although generalizations are always dangerous (irony!), each artist tends, by definition, to re-invent a singular way of being an artist.

The third category of Making in Cultures as defined by Graeme Sullivan, echoes something I feel very strongly: “It is in relationships rather than images or objects where value is located.” In my practice, this applies to the relationships between me, the images of myself I produce, the individuals who encounter them, and the vast numbers of relationships we are all involved in. Therefore, according to Sullivan’s categorization, my practice is rooted into Making in Cultures, but is also embedded in ideas and methods that fall under the definitions of Making in Systems and Making in Communities.

Perhaps, you could try and make up your own mind by watching some of my video works on the Perpetual Art Machine on line video gallery …

Filed under: cinzia cremona, e-tivity02-0809, practice-based research , art practice as research, cinzia cremona

e2: theory of practice-based research

image from Graeme Sullivan’s 2005 book Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in the Visual Arts

This week we will delve deeper into the theory of practice-based research, using as main text Chapter 5- Artist as Theorist from Graeme Sullivan’s 2005 book Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in the Visual Arts. The objective is to deepen the debate on the model of art as knowlege production, whilst developing critical reading skills that can be applied towards critical writing.

Task:

Read Chapter 5- Artist as Theorist where the author argues on “the reemergence of the artist-theorists as important sources of vision and voice within the cultural politics of these times… and the approaches they use that require different ways of thinking about artistic enquiry” (p.150). He goes on to describe three areas of visual arts practice Making in Systems, Making in Communities, and Making in Cultures.

Firstly, identify the central claims of the text, examining the evidence used and how is this deployed to support the argument towards these three sites of practice.

Secondly, evaluate the argument, by positioning your practice within and/or outside this diagram. Can you argue along the author’s line of reasoning, that working within this site you are producing new knowledge? Or do you need to defend an opposing argument? In that case, what sort of (counter-) evidence are you presenting?

Respond
In this blog, follow your classmates posts and choose one to leave a comment on their analysis of Sullivan’s argument and on how they see their sites of practice.

Timeline:
Monday, December 1st (task),
Tuesday, December 2nd (respond)

Readings:

Sullivan, G. (2005). Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in the Visual Arts. SAGE.Chapter 5- Artist as Theorist

Deborah Knott: Critical reading towards critical writing

Filed under: e-tivity02-0809, paula roush, practice-based research

weaving responses to the art of produsage

We advanced a lot this week thanks to the wealth of information that has been exchanged in you reflective responses to etivity 1: from production to produsage“.

The task was double or had 2 objectives:

1-the first was to comment on the feasibility of the produsage model to reflect on knowledge production in the post-industrial age;

2- the second was to reflect on its implications for artistic practice and the way artist-teachers-students can work together in academic setting.

The following points have been raised:

1. -the narrowness of produsage’s theoretical scope, lacking the participatory characteristics of other theoretical projects, (counter example: Ethical Economy that uses a wiki to collect contributions) or the wider political scope of techno-based communities (ie, the free open software movement) [in produsage-a brief response]
2. -the problems of generalising ideal produsage conditions, whilst most groups are struggling with the real-life conditions of working together (critical practice as an example of collaborative project within the artistic community) [in produsage-a brief response]
3. -the revolutionary collaborative potential of the techno-social framework provided by the so called ‘web 2.0′ (in beyond utopia )
4. -the implications of meritocracy for an artists’ practice within this techno-social environment (in beyond utopia )
5. - the suggestion to separate the concepts of produsage and collaboration (comment 1)
6. -the need to learn from situated open organisations on their resolution-making tactics, like the use of rough consensus by critical practice (comment 1)
7. -a challenge to the meritocracy ethos, with the counter-suggestion that peripheral participation is as much valid as core contributions (comment 2)
8. -the survival of the industrial model of knowledge production, that will continue to develop side by side with the produsage paradigm (comment 2)

The simple weaving of these ideas suggests that the conversation has already started and the “connective debate” is bringing the classroom well beyond the harrow campus! And still such an exciting journey ahead of us!

I leave with the link to Communities of practice a text that outines Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger’s model of situated learning. Their concepts of communities of practice and legitimate peripheral participation are very relevant not only to our debate but also to the way we are working together as part of a teaching and learning project.

Filed under: e-tivity01-08/09, paula roush, produsage, tiip-0809 , art of produsage, paula roush

Beyond Utopia?

New terminology emerges only when new concepts have the need to be coined. In this sense, Produsage introduces an ideal (not totally unheard of) paradigm where the status of community and equality stand up again. Collaborative, user-led creativity through the web is a revolutionary way of conceiving work and knowledge, especially in an ever increasing individualist and competitive world.

As Alex Bruns says in Produsage: Towards a Broader Framework for User-Led Content when he is talking about a working definition: ”Participants in such activities are not producers in a conventional, industrial sense, as that term implies a distinction between producers and consumers which no longer exists…”
Because we now live in the so called informational era, that no longer deals with the prosaic procedures of industry and fixed products, but through web 2.0 moves more fluidly towards an endless intangible stream of information and knowledge, a continuous and progressive process of creation is made possible and everybody has the same chance to contribute and to share.

This new democratic paradigm brings a profound change into society, one could say that a new polis is addressed: Public participation and public domain are crucial issues on the table for discussion. Knowledge is no longer conceived of as the privilege of a few but more as a cooperative self regulated embodiment.
When describing the Key Principles of Produsage, Bruns expresses: “Leadership is determined through the continuous communal evaluation of participants and their ideas, and through the degree of community merit they are able to build in the process; in this sense, then, produsage heterarchies constitute not simply adhocracies, but ad hoc meritocracies.” Following this idea, artists too, are challenged to adapt to this meritocratic regime; surely they still undergo the same lonely mysterious encounter with their inspiring muse, but now, in a highly technological collaborative environment, they must assume that they are part of the ever changing whole in which no man stands on their own for their own purpose anymore. This does not mean that personal talents or efforts receive no rewards, the nature of a social web understands the importance of recognition and motivation, from the beginning, every participant is encouraged to go as far and as deep as they want (spontaneous leadership), and because they do, short sighted lazy contributors are automatically and naturally expelled. Meritocracy is the key word in this new model, it holds a magic power, and might be what guarantees this new paradigm’s success: No more rigid hierarchies in the academic field, no more arrogant structures in culture, instead, roles and boundaries become relative, more flexible, there is a new understanding, a true sense of collective work, a new conception of ownership and credit, more support, more efficiency, and the encouraging feeling that there is no such thing as Utopia, because it has been the lack of a fair scenario, that made dreams feel impossible, not some inherent condition of humankind.

Filed under: e-tivity01-08/09, liliana garcia urmeneta, tiip-0809 , liliana garcia urmeneta

Produsage – a brief response

I find it very interesting that Bruns attempts to conceptualise some of the practices of participation made more accessible by networked technologies, in particular the fact that participants can self-nominate, and choose at what level to participate. This seems to me the core challenge this field launches to methods of legitimizing culture and production through established forms of authority.

Nevertheless, there are two aspects of his work that I would like to criticise:

1. A narrow way of making theory?

I find it quite frustrating that Bruns limits the range of his conceptualization to such a narrow field. In the introduction to Produsage: Towards a Broader Framework for User-Led Content Creation, Bruns mentions economic and legal frameworks, and democratic society itself, but also expresses his intention to theorize and establish an analytical framework. Although I appreciate that a researcher is entitled to establish the boundaries of her or his own field of enquiry, this feels like a missed opportunity to link this academic conceptualization with a wider set of concerns.

I have recently come across a project for a book that, I think, complements Bruns work with a deeper analysis of the economical and political ramifications of what he describes as produsage. It is by Adam Arvidsson and Nicolai Peitersen and it is called Ethical Economy. The book itself is being edited through a wiki, which means we can all self-elect to contribute. Moreover, Bruns makes hardly any mention of the self-organised structures and political principles that have emerged in collaborative networked practices, particularly the free and open source software movement – e.g. rough consensus.

Rough Consensus at work - Critical Practice and guests working on the budget guidelines for Open Organizations at a ResourceCamp, part of Disclosure, Gasworks, 2008

2. Generalization

Bruns attempts to build a generalised discourse applicable to all forms of collaborations and participations. In my limited experience, particularly as a member of Critical Practice, the possible permutations of merged production and usage – to use Bruns’ terms – are varied and complex. Bruns uses expressions like Necessary Preconditions to define dynamics that, in my experience, are not as ubiquitous as it sounds in these texts. Many of Bruns’ descriptions apply only temporarily to only a handful of collaborative ‘communities’. Power struggles are as common as probabilistic or meritocratic dynamics, and hierarchical systems are woven with collaborative structures.

A large number of people – including the members of Critical Practice – have been contributing for several years to defining the best practices for Open Organizations. I feel that this is an important aspect of produsage that also needs to be mentioned.

One last note: collaborative practices also have gate-keepers, and some artists have delighted in highlighting these invisible processes. Here is an example: http://www.in-vacua.com/un_wiki.html

Filed under: cinzia cremona, e-tivity01-08/09, produsage, tiip-0809 , criticism of Bruns, ethical economy, produsage

e1: from production to produsage

In session 1 we initated the debate around the model of art as knowledge production, and argued for the need for a flexible concept to account for the multiplicity of thinking practices that develop in the artist’s work (Cinzia’s response Mahkuzine #5 – some thoughts elaborates well on this need for multiplicity rather than standardised programmes). For session 2, we move the debate into the model of art as produsage. This concept is outlined by Axel Bruns in Produsage: Towards a Broader Framework for User-Led Content Creation (direct link to download the pdf ) and further developed in the site produsage.org, companion to the book Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage

Task:

read

produsage: a working definition

produsage: necessary preconditions

produsage: key principles

and return here to post your comments on the author’s argument that we need to shift our way of thinking about knowledge from an industrial age product-centred model, into an information age user-led model, characterised by collaborative content creation. Refer to the extract quoted below on Creative Practice to Introduce your point of view on how the concept of produsage as a model of collaborative artistic creation and thinking practice has implications for the way artists work. What are the implications for an artist working toward the MA degree? In academic terms, what are the implications of a produsage environment for artists-lecturers working with artists-participants in the MA in Art and Media Practice? Suggest word cont: from 250 w

“Creative Practice
Sites such as Flickr for images, YouTube, Jumpcut, and Revver for video, and ccMixter for audio, as well as a plethora of blogs and collaborative publishing environments for text, now provide a rich and diverse range of user-submitted creative content. Further, legal frameworks such as the Creative Commons suite of licenses allow for the re-use and remixing of existing content into new artworks which are then able to be further reworked by subsequent generations of users. This opens up new avenues for creative work and publication beyond the traditional media industries, as well as undermining romantic notions of the artist as individual genius.”
inAxel Bruns 2007 Produsage: Towards a Broader Framework for User-Led Content Creation (direct link to download the pdf )

Respond
In this blog, follow your classmates posts and choose one to leave a comment about what they said on the topic of produsage.

Timeline:
Monday, November 17th (task),
Tuesday, November 18th (respond).

also of interest (submitted on the 12th of nov 1990)
WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a HyperText Project

The environments of produsage- also described as social software or web 2.0- may be traced to the initial project of the world wide web as outlined by Tim Berners Lee and Robert Cailliau in WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a HyperText Project.The document describes Hypertext and mentions two phases ( under the heading Project phases): the first related to information access; the second (under the heading Phase 2 — Target: 6 months from start) allowing the users to add new material, namely

“The creation of new links and new material by readers. At this stage, authorship becomes universal.” And “The automatic notification of a reader when new material of interest to him/her has become available. This is essential for news articles, but is very useful for any other material.” And,
“The ability of readers to create links allows annotation by users of existing data, allows to add themselves and their documents to lists (mailing lists, indexes, etc). It should be possible for users to link public documents to (for example) bug reports, bug fixes, and other documents which the authors themselves might never have realised existed.This phase allows collaborative authorship. It provides a place to put any piece of information such that it can later be found. Making it easy to change the web is thus the key to avoiding obsolete information. “

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Filed under: e-tivity01-08/09, paula roush, produsage, tiip, tiip-0809 , art of produsage, e1, paula roush

Mahkuzine #5 – some thoughts

Having read the texts from the on-line journal, I have a few thoughts I would like to share.

1. Willem De Greef writes in ‘Opening: A Certain MA-ness’: “Art students have to become academics or develop some basic competencies in research. Is there really a need for this?”

If we accept that art practices have differrent methodologies and forms of knowledge to offer, then it would be important to be able to translate these into academic language and formats in order, among other things, to exchange, compare and contrast qualities.

2. In ‘Posing Singularity’, Jan Verwoert discusses the issue of art as knowledge production in terms of ”intellectual provocation and the disruption of thoughts, ideas, words.” This reminds me of the way Liliana talked about her practice in our first session. Verwoert also equates artistic knowledge production to ”new forms of embodiment”, ways to “embody provocative ideas” and “produce novel forms of communication”. Perhaps Verwoert means that art practices offer ways of assembling and disassembling knowledge, i.e. organising ideas and thoughts differently, with a different logic. This is how I would like to think about it.

4. I find that some aspects of the ‘Research Report’ show an approach to art practice as one homogeneous field, clearly porgressing in one direction. It is because of the use of terms like “adequate”, “optimum location”, “best practice”, etc. These sound to me like value judgements. In relation to what system of criteria?

At this time in particular, there are so many ways of practicing art with rigour in relation to a variety of ideas. It seems to me a very rich landscape. It would be a pity to think that only a certain approach is the contemporary one, or the best one …

What do you think?

Filed under: cinzia cremona, tiip , Mahkuzine

introductions …

Hi, I’m Cinzia and it’s nice to be talking to all of you!

Looking forward to learning from each other.

My research page is here

Cinzia Cremona, 'Regardless', 2007

Filed under: cinzia cremona , cinzia cremona