writing and the Phd in fine artof the decision as a locus of argument, self- identity, fiction, surmise or speculation.
like the first example, it is the result of sustained and exacting thoughtfulness about
how to formulate a phd in Fine art, what and how it might be. it also provides a
kind of ‘synergy between the philosophical concerns and the form of their explication’
(Bowden 2006: 1) and refuses any separation of theory and practice because it pursues
a theorizing principle, that is theory put into action as it were, within the art work (cf.
‘material ontology’, Chapter 12).
The theorizing principle was proposed early in our researches into phds in Fine art
through the work of an artist whose phd proposed an ethical praxis of reconsidering
and re- envisioning relationships across racial and cultural difference within a sexualized
and gendered subject identity (mooney 1999). This study had the potential to provoke
an exacting response from its readership who is called to understand the limits we
impose on how we acknowledge and communicate with the ‘other’ – that is, with those
who do not share the same racial, sexual and/or national identity and attendant value
systems. in other words, it was a call to ethical action. hannula has raised the question
of ethics insistently (Kiljunen et al. 2002; hannula et al. 2005; hannula 2008). in our
view there is both a strength and weakness in this approach in relation to arts research
because while there is the need to justify what artists produce as research within the
broader research and bureaucratic arenas, we must remember that there is an ethics in
intellectual and artistic integrity itself.
one of the seminal phds which macleod has studied at length, proposes its central
thesis as both a ‘terse economy’, that is, the appropriate functioning of an art work as
intellectual and political aspiration and hoax, for instance (price 2000). although this
thesis should not readily be subsumed within its related histories of duchamp- ism and
surrealist playfulness, what it does do is to assert the disinterestedness of art when
it comes to its own purposes. We do not intend to dwell on the well- documented
flirtations of key artists and movements with the current political climates of the day,
but if we think briefly of surrealists’ endless provocations to new thought, we must
recognize that much of this achievement was precisely because they ensured that
their work was never overtaken by ideological or political niceties. it was always in
pursuit of the new. again, this is an idea which has been very little understood in the
literatures on research in the arts. one useful source, however, is Outside “The True”:
Research and Complexity in Contemporary Art Practice by peter dallow (2005). in his
essay, dallow carefully proposes that if artists wish to continue challenging practices
they are dependent on the anticipation that what they produce will be ‘new’ in the
cultural environments within which they work, that there is indeed some continuum
between what is produced as art research and the arenas of both contemporary arts and
sociality. price’s phd was submitted and awarded in 2000, and yet is still in progress.
Within this period of time it has been transformed through the deployment of different
media and presentation in group shows. This is important to note because there is so
little understanding of the necessity of artist researchers being able to go on producing
and presenting art subsequent to the production of the phd. indeed, we would say it
is absolutely vital that research cultures provide support for this requirement. if phds
are to substantiate claims for the production of more challenging art, then they will
need arenas in which to be shown and some of them will be outside the existing gallery
system because the most exacting phds do change the contexts within which they are