week 5 lecture abertay

Lecture Week 5 notes

Practice based and practice based research is more creative.  The nature of research is pretty much practice based. Research is a means of making this explicit.

Practice will a little p is seen as practicing doing something that you know all the time.

Practice with a big P is more of a professional practice where as we practice in our field as a professional not just doing something over and over again.

“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”

Practice based – designing and making something that comes out of it. Designing a app for a phone, something that has a artefact from a practice based.  THE ARTIFACT IS WHAT THE FOCUS IS.

Practice led – This can general be with music as even though there is a end result it will be different from a solid one object. Practice led will explore such as a painting as it is led by the practice of getting to the end result.

It doesn’t need to be an art project to be practice led. It can be journalism it can be in care. Practice led can be in any field.

The In-De-welling state 

 The state that you get into when research that your so focussed on what your researching that the rest of the world drops away. This state of mind is really when you can be at your most creative.

Framework of visual arts research has three headings:

Ideas and agency – Making in communities

Communication

Connection

Interpretive

Textual

Forms and structure – making in systems

Situation and actions – Making in cultures

Serious play works for research Tim Brown did a talk for TED where he explored different ways to do research:

He discusses breaking rules to be more creative. Exploring and following what is interesting to yourself and developing ideas.

Building proto types is an important way to develop the idea. Children take part in constructive play and this is know as thinking with your hands. This is very common for musicians when writing music, running through ideas and letting your hands do the work.

This allows you to quickly get something’s together and allows you to get your objects into the real world.

If the object is not tangible then it’s important to act it out. This could take shape as role-play in a scenario. Kids learn from role-play and will copy adults with the script they use so this is a valid way of learning. We lose this when we turn to adult however running trough the scenario is important.

Going out an playing, though it may seem weird of contrived, it can bring some serious results. Constant experimentation and evaluation is also important.

Document everything

Go back through what you have documented

Reflect and evaluate

Patterns will emerge

Keeping a diary – field notes are an important way of keeping evidence, exactly what I’m doing right now with this blog. These can be technical journal, which shows the literature process, it shows the works in progress.

Observations – could I be watching other people? Photographs, video, audio and others field notes.

Participant observer – When you are part of the process as well as watching and observing. In this scenario you need to be aware of how you may influence the data. How can you be mindful of this and minimise it.

What is your role here? Stepping in someone else shoes. Do you want others to know that you are doing this?

Participatory design approach – Designing with your users, rather than just for them. Working with societies that may require the research could help you get your answer.

Elicitation Techniques – more of an informal approach. This is a way that you can plan before you go on what you want to get out of people. This is a great approach if you are a people person. It lets you tell stories around the artefacts rather than an interview. This is a personal approach and an easy way to communicate.

ETHICS – when working with people the ethics in working with people is really important.

 

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