Practice–Based Research Degree Students in Art and Design: Identity and Adaptation

The latest educational technologies and courses in art and design are the focus of this paper. Various practice-based graduate courses such as the practicebased Ph.D., the Art Ph.D., practice-based research, and practice-led research, and others, are of particular interest. The authors argue that traditional education is no longer capable of meeting today’s smart society’s needs with its focus on information, technology, and creativity. By establishing convergent teaching principles, these new graduate courses provide career-oriented education that fuses theory and practice. These innovative courses aim to reinforce practical/applied and research skills and bring together theoretical findings and practical representation forms. With today’s growing interest in projectbased and practice-based research, the authors examine the evolution of educational and academic standards and analyze the background of project-based activity in art and design education. Based on their in-depth study of international experience and postgraduate European art and design programs, they draw a range of conclusions and take a detailed look at practice-based research Ph.D. As Ph.D. programs become more diverse and the choice is continually growing, the authors feel that the traditional teaching and research role of a Ph.D. student is becoming outmoded. Becoming a key resource for creating innovative Ph.D. programs, today’s practice-based Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in art and design focus on applied research, the effectiveness of which is beyond question. Practice-based Ph. Ds, which are increasingly becoming the subject of academic debate, clearly show the shift taking place in views on graduate study standards. In today’s educational and academic learning models, the dichotomy between theory and practice is erased with practical research bringing together methodologies based on academic and practical results. The development of integrative methodology is greatly advanced through practical research cases, the effectiveness of which largely depends on the educational establishment’s management’s dedication to updating traditional learning formats. The paper offers a brief review of the leading practice-based Ph.D. discussion platforms while also introducing a wide variety of foreign-language sources, in which this new phenomenon and various practical research models are analyzed, into the academic field.

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Practice as ‘Research’ Within The Context of Art and Design Academia: A Brief Excursion Into Its Philosophical Underpinnings

Humaniora ◽

10.21512/humaniora.v6i3.3357 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 6 (3) ◽

pp. 325 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Dominique Rio Adiwijaya ◽

Anita Rahardja

Keyword(s):

Academic Research ◽

Modern World ◽

Positive Contribution ◽

Academic Context ◽

Art And Design ◽

The Arts ◽

Academic System ◽

Practice Based Research ◽

Research Findings ◽

The Difference

Integration of many fields of human endeavor including art and design into academic system is not at all surprising in our modern world that continues to modernize itself in the quest for ever increasing welfare of humanity. The backbone of modern welfare is unmistakably techno-scientific academic research, explaining current expansion of its ‘standardized’ paradigm, regulation and infrastructure without exception into the field of art and design. This is where the problem precisely arises, since their own nature, art and design as ‘creative’ fields, are incompatible with scientific paradigm which emphasizes a uniform reproducibility of research findings. ‘The heart of the arts’, in contrast, is its singularities. The industry actually has recognized the difference by assigning ‘patents’ to technological invention and ‘copyright’ to singular artworks. The question is then how to incorporate such creatively plural fields into uniform academic research system. Fortunately within the past 20 years, there were developments within international art and design academia that came up with a keystone principle called practice-based research. It relies upon philosophical underpinnings of phenomenology and hermeneutics which has been critically acclaimed in showing inadequacies of positivistic (natural science-based) paradigm in understanding cultural phenomena exemplified by art and design. It is the intention of this article to briefly explain this new principle and its philosophical underpinnings in order to let us appreciate its positive contribution for our understanding of art and design. This understanding in turn would allow us to cultivate those creative fields within academic context in a more appropriate way.

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Process and experience: Theory and practice considered from an art-researcher/educator’s perspective

International Journal of Education through Art ◽

10.1386/eta.14.3.275_1 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 275-292

Author(s):

Michael Croft

Keyword(s):

Process Philosophy ◽

Point Of View ◽

Theory And Practice ◽

Art And Design ◽

Visual Material ◽

Practice Based Research ◽

Material Process ◽

Educational Methodology

The article discusses three projects of artwork. The first two projects are the author’s own and that of a 2015–16 fourth-year BFA advisee student concerning the question of relationship between visual/material process and one’s sentient experience. From a researcher/educator’s point of view, the process philosophy of A. N. Whitehead is considered in relation to the student’s work and aspects of the metapsychological theory of Lacan form the basis of consideration of the author’s work. Whitehead’s theory has a generative role in the article. Such theory provides articulation of the process of feeling and is cited in relation to an art-educational methodology for conducting projects. The artwork of a 2017 advisee student is then discussed in illustration of a point concerning time in the Lacanian context, as well as providing another example of the methodology in practice. The author explains his own artwork in support of an idea that links it with each of the students’ concerns, where the process preferences the developmental ambiguity of practice-based research. The article may be of relevance to art and design educators and their students working at the intersection of theory and practice.

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