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

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

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

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

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