A special Issue of TEXT
http://www.textjournal.com.au/
Editors: Scott Brook and Paul Magee
Practice-led research has come to dominate the discussion and practice of research in the university-based creative arts. It is hard to imagine that landscape without it. At the same time, serious questions about its viability have been raised. In the recent Routledge Companion to Research in the Creative Arts, Søren Kjørup notes that even after decades of institutional commitment, the field ‘has not developed any generally known classics and no stars (while the names of a small group of theoreticians have become quite run-of-the-mill).’ Meanwhile Michael Biggs and Daniela Büchler argue that ‘[a]lthough these actions conform to the conventions of academic research, they do not result in a significant research activity.’ Such statements suggest that it is time to move beyond an advocatory stance on practice-led research, to assess its strengths and limits, and to ask whether there are alternatives.
For instance, does the fact that practice-led research has not been taken up by stakeholders in the cultural sector (arts funding bodies, curators, reviewers, audiences) undermine its claim to represent practice? Why are so many artists reluctant to provide exegetical comment (“What does it mean?”) on their own work? What do we make of this practice of not-speaking? And if the rise of an extensive discussion of method in the creative arts reflects the new regimes of research accountability, can practice-led research be defended on other grounds? Further, what are the alternatives? Have we forgotten previous presentations and discussions of the relation of art and knowledge, for instance, those which focus on the role of art in instigating inquiry in others? Are there disciplines, movements and genres outside the university-based creative arts (e.g. cultural studies, Théâtre du Soleil, feminism, ethnography, generative art, postcolonial studies, Dada, Third Cinema, Forum Theatre, culture jamming . . .) that have broached the arts/knowledge divide according to other paradigms?
We are open to papers that are sensitive to institutional pragmatics no less than papers that argue that there is something uncompromising about creative work. And we would like to raise the same possibilities for the discussion of scholarship more generally, including that it involves a commitment to what the late Foucault theorised as parhessia, or ‘fearless speech’. Papers are sought on these and any related themes. The editors are open to artworks that resonate with this topic. They are open to papers that break the mold.
Abstracts and expressions of interest for artworks: Dec 31 2011
[This is optional, but recommended]
Deadline for papers and artworks: April 1 2012
Publication date: October 2012
Email: Paul.Magee@canberra.edu.au & Scott.Brook@canberra.edu.au