Edition 2, 2016 – The Creative Art of Research: An Ongoing Quest for Equality

From The President

President’s Welcome

By Su Baker, President, Australian Council of Deans and Directors of Creative Arts — Over 2 decades the creative art academic community has grown and matured as a sector - so have the questions of method and purpose of publically funded research, that influence the processes of evaluation. Discussions around impact and ‘end-user’ value is a live issue at the ARC and we look forward to the new thinking that will shortly emerge. The creative arts depend almost entirely on end-user experience, and the impact of these experiences aspire to have real and meaningful impact on peoples lives.

Artistic Research, Contribution, European Higher Education Policy

Artistic Research: In Conversation with Henk Borgdorff

By Dr Jenny Wilson. DDCA’s Research officer Jenny Wilson caught up with Henk Borgdorff in Amsterdam in April 2016, hot on the heels of his recent speaking tour of European and UK universities, art and music schools, to find out more about artistic research and European experiences of the politics of art and higher education.

Contribution, cultural capital, Studio practice, Visual Arts

Art is Useless, Edgeless and Homeless

By Professor Graeme Sullivan Visual arts has no singular function because it can be called on to do just about anything. Arts’ usefulness is because it is edgeless and homeless—art is masterful at shape shifting and form fitting

2016Highlight, Artistic Research, Contribution, Knowledge, Theory

The Creative Arts and New Knowledge – Do We Aim For Questions or Answers?

By Professor Jeri Kroll Since the Strand report (1998), scholars have been unpacking the manifold ways in which creative works can be research. Explaining the usefulness of questions to doctoral candidates not only keeps supervisors honest, but also keeps at the forefront of everyone’s mind why theory is unavoidable.

Artistic Research, Contribution, professional doctorates

Beyond a Doctorate in Music

By Professor Paul Draper and Professor Scott Harrison Communities of profession, the old academy and the new academy, intimately rub up against each other and while some research may still be considered ‘more equal’ than others for now – this evolving mix can only positively impact on the rise of artistic research, its acceptance in society and its measurement by governments and universities.

Artistic Research, Contribution, Dance, Research Students

Dancing Elusive Knowledges Across the Research Terrain

By Associate Professor Cheryl Stock AM — The narrative of knowledge is almost always underpinned by the cognitive but how we know the world is often through the experiential. Whilst we have moved a long way in redefining knowledge in research terms to include the processes and outcomes of our practices (artistic, creative, professional) and importantly have privileged the artist’s voice as the expert in this recasting of what a knowledge claim might look like, some art forms prove more problematic than others in this endeavour.

Amalgamation, Change Management, Contribution, Higher Education

Towards a State of Equilibrium

By Professor Margaret Sheil — On my last outing in an ACUADS conference, I was described by Flinders University’s Julian Meryick as the “artist’s ideal of a scientist… impatient with the reduction of everything down to short term utility.” So as I venture once again into the creative arts domain, I draw on a scientific analogy. The principle of chemical equilibrium refers to a system in which the rate of consumption of inputs is the same as that at which outputs are produced so that the system is in a stable state of consumption and production.

Contribution, ERA, Evaluation, Research

NTRO: A Model for Change

By Professor Ross Woodrow — The decision by the Australia Research Council (ARC) to achieve the long-mooted merging of the Higher Education Research Data Collection (HERDC) and the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) exercise by adeptly disappearing the HERDC has been welcomed by many discipline leaders, and not just those in the creative arts. With the inclusive ERA becoming the singular evaluation of research quality across Australia, there couldn’t be a better time to rethink the classification of research in universities.

Artistic Research, Contribution, Music, Symposium

Perspectives of Artistic Research in Music

By Associate Professor Robert Burke and Dr. Andrys Onsman — Criticism of the scientific methods of doing research has increasingly pointed out that all experimental research involves some sort of creative leap. In the performing arts such creative leaps are fundamental to artistry.

Editorial

Editorial – The Creative Art of Research: An Ongoing Quest for Equality

By Dr Jenny Wilson As many in creative arts grappled with the amalgamation challenges of the 90s, few were aware that the Dawkins reforms also had increased the centrality of research to university funding. This ‘blissful ignorance’ was not to last.

NiTRO Creative Matters