Can grey ravens fly?: Beyond Frayling’s categories

Abstract

This paper analyses the effect of Christopher Frayling’s categorisation of artistic research ‘research into art and design, research through art and design and research for art and design’ on the debate surrounding the efficacy of studio-based artistic research as being valid within the university. James Elkins describes this as the ‘the incommensurability of studio art production and university life’. Through an exploration of the positive and negative responses to Frayling this paper explores the influence that these initial definitions have come to have on framing the scope of the debate. The paper presents a range of responses and analyses them; it focuses especially on the alternative frameworks that have been suggested and examines why they have so far not created a coherent and uncontested framework for practice-led research in the art and design field especially in relation to fine art.

Keywords

Art and design research Frayling methodology PhD practice-led research studio art

Introduction

Sir Christopher Frayling’s (1993) Research Paper no. 1 ‘Research in Art and Design’ has become a touchstone of university art departments as a framework for a coherent quasi-scientific methodology to apply to ‘practice-based’, or as it is more commonly referred to now, ‘practice-led’ research. It is my intention in this paper to examine some of the readings and mis-readings of his original paper and also to look at alternatives which have been suggested by successive scholars. In an increasingly market and research-led university education sector, the status and validity of artistic research has never been more crucial and yet also, it seems, never more contested. As Elkins (2009: 128) describes it we may be facing ‘the incommensurability of studio art production and university life’. It is my intention to show that not only are the original categories flawed but that the whole field has been over-dependent on this flawed framework from the beginning.

The on-going debate: 1993–2000

In Frayling’s (1993) words there are three clear categories, ‘research into art and design, research through art and design and research for art and design’. Of these the most contestable from the outset is ‘for’, which Frayling himself commented on as ‘research embodied in the artefact’. In other words, the artefact itself is not commensurate with the academic idea of creating ‘new knowledge’ in itself. This has been the Achilles heel of the categorisation from its inception onwards and the most closely examined, disputed and argued facet of his categorisation ever since.

Frayling had brought together two different methodologies in creating his categories. His first source was Read’s (1944) book Education through Art, whence he derived the ‘through’ category. Read proposed two categories ‘through’ and ‘to’ art. Frayling’s ‘through’ maps to Read’s definition of ‘teaching through art’ and closely defined the type of early post-doctoral activity at the Royal College which concerned itself as much with process as product. These early PhDs tended to be given in design-related fields rather than fine art. That the paper itself was ‘Research Paper No. 1’ shows how early in the process of establishing a post-doctorate arts education this was. The second and to me more significant and problematic source was Bruce Archer, a colleague at the Royal College of Art with a significant engineering background schooled in ‘scientific methodology’. Archer was not credited with the coining of the categorisation at the time but he did publish his version in Co-Design in 1995 (Rust, 2003). His re-definition is clearer than Frayling’s in its dismissal of practice as research:

Clearly, too, a great deal of practitioner activity entails some research, of orthodox or unorthodox kinds, in support of the main thrust of the practitionership. It is not quite so certain, however, that the practitioner activity itself is quite the same as research activity, however much research it may have been supported by. (Archer, 1995: 10)

Two different philosophical backgrounds, one pedagogic (Read) and one scientific (Archer) were bolted together in the new framework. After Frayling published his paper Ginsborg (1994) at Wimbledon College of Art highlighted the coming divorce between practice in which the verbal and explanatory are secondary, and the newer conceptual discourse-based practice, and realised that this would leave ‘non-verbalised’ practice in a weaker position in the field of post-doctoral study. Herein lies the ultimate demise of the term ‘practice-based’, as it suggests that knowledge could be implicit in the art object. Wider conceptualisation and explication of artworks – the famous ‘de-materialisation of the art object’ – fitted neatly into the new research landscape.

‘Designerly’ ways of knowing

Darren Newbury at the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design went further in stating that

Whereas an artist or designer can simply present his or her end product, and refuse further explanation, the academic art or design researcher is obliged also to map for his or her peers the route by which they arrived at that product. (Newbury, 1996)

By 1998 the fault lines were starting to show. ‘Design’ orientated praxis had little problem with the negation of the final artefact as it naturally allied itself to a design/engineering methodology. Process dominated areas such as graphic design, ceramics and textiles, for instance, took to Archer’s methodology. A need to create new markets post-1992 with the incorporation of polytechnics and the political dissolution of old independent art schools meant that not only a vibrant MA market but a PhD one had to be created and fine art was a growth area. Until the 1990s the Royal College had been one of the few institutions awarding PhDs. Mottram (2009) has analysed the fine art percentage of these degrees and from 1986 to 1995 only 40 PhDs were coded as ‘fine art’. Of these the majority were examining other practices and not the student practitioner’s own. From 1995 to 2005 the number doubled and the number incorporating practice and ‘self-reflective’ practice increased too (Mottram, 2009). As some institutions have not reported this accurately it is hard to gauge true numbers. Submission varied according to institution and could mean that an MA or a PhD involved submitting a substantial text or almost no document at all.

This problem was not just applicable to fine art, and design academics also started scrutinising and rewriting Frayling’s categories to suit when they found holes in his guidelines. Findeli (2001), Cross (2001) and Jonas (2007) all allied themselves with Archer’s original science-based approach but applied the thinking to design-related procedures. Schön’s (1983) ‘Reflective Practice’ was a key text in re-interpreting the categories into practical methods for students to use. By 2004 an operable Research Through Design was thought to provide an epistemological means for the development of a genuine design research paradigm (Jonas, 2007). Thus, designers felt confident that they had a specifically design orientated system based on Archer’s original. So confident was this approach that Zimmerman et al., (2007) published ‘Research through design as a method for Interaction Design in HCI’. This ‘designerly’ approach to knowing was comprehensively analysed in Saikaly (2003) ‘Design re-thinking: Some issues about doctoral programmes in design’ and Frankel and Racine (2010) ‘The complex field of research: For design, through design, and about design’, which was given at the 2010 DRS conference in Montreal.

The new millennium to the present: Beyond Frayling?

Fine artists however were increasingly frustrated by a busted ‘paradigm’ in their eyes. The more that practice-led and practice-based research were contorted to fit the ‘through art and design’ strait-jacket the less they seemed to fit the fine art situation. Glanville (1998) in ‘Challenging the Scientific Paradigm for research and design’ argued for a pro-design methodology separate to science. Candlin (2000a, 2000b, 2001) not only explored the historical roots of the fine art research ‘crisis’ (one which she identified very much with a UK system) but also suggested that both politics and the Research Assessment Exercise (now Research Excellence Framework, REF) and ‘professionalism’ of UK higher education management were key in driving the creation of more PhDs in fine art. The United Kingdom Council for Graduate Education report (1997) seemed to have only papered over the cracks over legitimacy and validity by defining ‘practice-based’ studio work as ‘distinct in that significant aspects of originality, mastery and contribution to the field are held to be demonstrated through the original creative work’. Ironically Christopher Frayling was one of that report’s authors. With this prompt the range of PhDs grew and the ‘studio-based’ practice proportion was usually set at 50% of the degree.

As an example of where fine artists were going by 2000 a case study is pertinent. Montag’s (2000) chapter one of his PHD thesis ‘Bioglyphs’ for Hertfordshire University ‘Research through creative practice’ is interesting in that he draws on Norman Peterson’s 1984 document, ‘Photographic art media and disclosure’, to suggest Heidegger’s concept of ‘aletheia’ as an alternative philosophical grounding. He also mentions Benedetto Croce and posits the artwork as being ‘intuitive’. Hertfordshire was coincidentally the setting for the 2000 ‘Research into Practice’ conference which developed into the Working Papers in Art and Design online journal edited by Michael Biggs and showcased a range of responses from the Research into Practice conferences of 2000 through to 2008 (Biggs, 2000, 2008).

This tack is developed throughout the next decade as art departments increasingly referred to specific philosophers such as Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida and Heidegger. All were mined to confer knowledge back into the art object, and tacit knowledge became a widely used term alongside the embodied knowledge from Merleau-Ponty’s theory of ‘bodily knowledge’. Biggs (2003) and Pakes (2004), citing Gadamer, urged a return to the work of art as an object of research (cited in Borgdorff, 2006). Embodied knowledge became something of a buzz word. This however made little impact on the way universities treated fine art research. At present a practice that is already ‘verbalised’ and therefore ‘communicative’ and capable of transferring knowledge to others can be seen as being favoured over traditional practice, although this requires further research to prove conclusively. Borgdorff (2006) asserts that practice is research in general including studio practice, as it articulates tacit knowledge, and is communicable if documented and disseminated to the research community and wider community. This presumes a ‘showing’ of work but does not state if this requires to be verbalised too. Herein lies the weakness of the argument as it does not clarify exactly what ‘document and disseminate’ may entail.

Another exponent of ‘Beyond Frayling’ categorisation is the work of Kathrin Busch (2009) who regards the present categorisation as too scientific and instrumental to cover the fine arts – which I would agree with. Drawing on Foucault’s (1996) description of art as ‘valid as an independent form of knowledge without obeying the criteria of scientific methods’, she suggests four categories. Art with research (artists using scientific knowledge, e.g. Constable’s cloud studies), art about research (art that depicts scientific progress, e.g. Joseph Wright of Derby, Turner), art as research (the work as the research, e.g. dialogic or performative, embodied in the practitioner) and finally art as science (art based in theoretical knowledge – the design/science model). Busch (2009: 3) rejects the notion that ‘art can only be considered a form of knowledge if it conforms to scientific standards’; however, her categorisation seems overly dependent on referring to the scientific paradigm.

Against practice as research

The two most extreme anti ‘practice is research’ positions have been taken by James Elkins and Kenneth Friedman.

Friedman (2008) was very clear about his position in an online response to Margolin (2010), who thinks ‘distinctions need to be made between the different kinds of design practice so that degree programs geared to one or another practice can be developed’. Friedman is solidly on Elkins’ side in believing practice is NOT research.

In many situations, education and learning proceed by practicing an art or craft. One can also learn the art and craft of research by practicing research. Nevertheless, one does not undertake research simply by practicing the art or craft to which the research field is linked. (Friedman, 2008; his emphasis)

Friedman goes on to define ‘drawing’ as a necessary part of research but not of itself research, just as writing or reading are not research. In other words, all forms of practice are constituent parts of a larger research enquiry but standing alone cannot declare themselves as compromising the research. This defines the fundamental ‘new knowledge’ position. As he says, ‘the problem I see with a great deal of research done by artists and designers is that they carry out their activities as artists or designers and re-badge it as research’ (Friedman, 2008).

James Elkins brought most of his objections to this ‘woolly’ thinking together in an essay ‘On beyond research and new knowledge’ in a collection of essays, Artists with PhDs, that he edited in 2009. Here he analyses the proceedings of the ‘Thinking through Art’ symposium which was published in 2005 (Elkins’ overview was originally rejected, then issued in edited form in the published volume). He was roundly rebuffed for that response by Biggs (2006) as representing ‘vested institutional interests’; such was the rancour produced by the differing opinions. Both volumes are key texts in trying to find a path forward in the debate.

The Grey Ravens?

Two recent symposiums have shown the progress made since the Hertfordshire research into practice conferences and reveal how fine artists are using or abusing the variety of new methodologies. In March 2011, the playwright Rebellato (2011) gave a paper ‘What if there is no such thing as practice as research’ (Rebellato, 2011) at Goldsmiths College, London. Then in September 2012 the ‘Practice makes Perfect’ Swansea conference had a variety of speakers offering variations on the ‘realignment’ described above and attempted in the past decade. A phrase used at that conference ‘the Grey Ravens’ – that is neither black nor white – suggested a useful term for the new ‘grey’ methodological areas that fine art PhD students are using to justify their practice-led approaches. A reference count during the conference revealed a surprising change in the range of cited philosophers. Most influential were the ideas of Deleuze and Guattari, then Benjamin and Derrida. Nelson Goodman, Judith Halberstam and Julia Kristeva were cited too alongside Ricoeur and Heidegger. Most interesting of all were the terms used to justify this new ‘grey’ theory and the terminology being used. ‘Scavenger methodology’, ‘unstable’, ‘liminal’, ‘inter-textuality’, ‘inbetween-ness’, ‘layered’, ‘evolving’, ‘contingent’ and ‘inter-language’ were all mentioned. This suggests a post-feminist, alter-theory or methodology (coincidental with but allied to ‘alter-modernism’) may be forming, but it is hard to see a coherent pattern at this juncture. None seemed strong enough to shake off the more conservative academic view of the field as ‘woolly’. There are some signs of more coherence arising from this area in the future. It may be too early to say that there is a consistent new approach to methodology yet, but the work coming out of Amsterdam (Borgdorff, 2006; Hoogenboom, 2010), especially in relation to how knowledge may be recorded or communicated, gives some cause for optimism. Maybe the groundwork is being laid there for a more coherent and stable framework for artistic research in the fine arts.

Future methodology?

In my opinion, the range and strength of debate suggests we may be at a turning point in regard to practice-based PhD level tuition in Fine Art. The struggle for research equivalence and worthiness within university systems means that fine art departments face a choice. They can continue to focus on ‘verbalised’ (in widest sense) student work and utilise the wide and varied range of ‘fine art methodologies’ which I term above ‘grey ravens’ and try and build a coherent methodological foundation not based on the scientific approach, if that is possible. Or, as Elkins seems to suggest, they can countenance other solutions. To evade the ‘REF’ trap and flourish, art schools could even seek greater or total independence from the Arts & Humanities Research Council system. UK political changes to funding do open up these possibilities, but they are viewed as almost treasonable to countenance in most art departments within university structures at present. Most art colleges have barely survived incorporation within bigger institutions as it is, and such ‘independence’ may threaten their existence at all in an increasingly market-led sector. However, tough times may force tough choices. For now the ‘grey ravens’ are the best we have as a future ‘Beyond Frayling’. What we do not know is how long they will last nor how far they will fly.

Footnotes

Author biography

Shaun D Belcher currently teaches web and graphic design in the School of Art and Design at the Nottingham Trent University. He is studying an MA by Registered Project in Fine Art investigating art and design pedagogy through visual thinking.

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