Practice-based Research: Informing Theory & Methodology

•Playful Research Design for Games•Aristotelian Approaches to Knowledge•Interpretive Inquiry•Hermeneutics•Iterative Design

Prepared for Game Design, Montana Tech

A Definition of Practice Based Research

• A form of research that aims to advance knowledge and understanding partly by means of practice.

• Includes the invention of ideas, images, performances and artefacts including design, where these lead to new or substantially improved theories and methodology

• Practice-based research is research where some of the resulting knowledge is embodied in an artefact.

• Whilst the significance and context of that knowledge is described in words, a full understanding of it can only be obtained with reference to the artefact itself.

• Artefacts in practice-based research can range from paintings and buildings to software, poems, and games.

UTS Sydney

Provided by

[ ]PIXEL PUSHERS EXHIBITION OF ORIGINAL DIGITAL ART (1994)

MY WORK Live/Digital PlaySpacesBuilding Critical Literacy Through Practice

Artificial Intelligence (Messaging in the Noosphere)

Pushing the post-modern in visual art and music

[ ]MESSAGING IN THE NOOSPHERE (2002)

Performance Media and

Human-Computer Interaction

2

Part 1

1

Live/Digital PlaySpaces Part 2

Pipeline Pinball Energy Thrill Ride Game.

VR iCentre, 2005.

Application of multi-textual creative dramaturgy and

gamaturgy

Spies in the Oilsands

Pumphouse Theatre, 2006.

3

1 2

Sanctuary for Resisters Game

Examples of application of multi-textual creative dramaturgy and gamaturgy

The Booze Cruise, Drinking and Driving

1 2

Serious Games/Interactive Cinema

Oilsands Watch Interactive Cinema

3

Interactive Cinema Forensics Game

4

Part 3

PLAYFUL RESEARCH METHODOLOGYEpisteme Pinball

Aristotelean Approaches to Knowledge• Episteme.  Scientific knowledge.  Universal, invariable, context-

independent.  Based on general analytical rationality.  The original concept is known today from the terms "epistemology" and "epistemic."

• Techne.  A Practical Activity. Craft art.  Based on practical instrumental activity governed by a conscious goal.  The original concept appears today in terms such as "technique," technical," and "technology."

• Phronesis  A Moral Activity. Ethics.  Prudence. Deliberation about values based on experience.  Oriented toward action.  Based on practical value-rationality.  Analogous to “common sense.”

Interpretive Inquiry – A Practical and Moral ActivityReferences the reading by John Smith from Theory into Practice, Spring 1992

• Smith draws upon the work of Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature and Richard J. Berstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism.

• Believes it is time to drop preoccupation with theories of knowledge and reassess the role of methodology in research.

• Interpretivists see research as a practical and moral activity contiguous with journalists, novelists, painters, poets, and ordinary people in their day to day lives.

Referencing the Smith reading .

• “Nonrealism.” Our world or our reality is something we make, not something we discover of find (Rorty).

• Subjectivity and bias defined in contrast to objectivity – objectivity meaning that the investigator’s ultimate role is to remain detached.

• Goal of interpretive inquiry – inquiry must focus on the interpretation of meaningful human expressions – be they written, oral, visual or physical (or emotional!).

Referencing the Smith reading

WRT “Procedures” or “Methods,” similarities with qualitative research are interviews, observations and analysis. Differences however include:

1.Self-reflection in form of a diary or self-history. Much can be learned through review of reasons, motivations, spontaneous ideas.

2.Acknowledgment that one does not need to do things in any particular order – varies setting to setting and from researcher to researcher.

3.Procedural choices link with choices of a moral nature – self imposed values. Our judgments of goodness are practical accomplishments, undertaken within the context of dialogue and persuasion that we work out as we go along.

Referencing the Smith reading (and Shyba insights too).

How to? Given that procedures are not set in stone. Remember:

1.Inquiry serves to broaden and deepen our understandings of ourselves and others.

2.Write-ups include not only one’s interpretation but also a discussion of how and why that interpretation was arrived at – a discussion of Process.

3.Remember you are in the middle of the discoveries and your personal insights are vital. Keep your confidence up and don’t be afraid of valuing intuition, imagination, and common sense. Let go of perfection. Take some risks!You are the ME in MEDIA. Here is a possible model…

Hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer

“We can reach the truth only by understanding or even mastering our experience. Experience according to Gadamer isn’t fixed but rather changing and always indicating new perspectives. The most important thing is to unfold what constitutes individual comprehension.”

The Lori Shyba hermeneutic cycle.

Iterative DesignReferences the canon of “design” in the field of Human-Computer Interaction

• Iterative design is a design methodology based on a cyclic process of prototyping, testing, analyzing, and refining a product or process.

• Iterative design is commonly used in the development of human computer interfaces. This allows designers to identify any usability issues that may arise in the user interface before it is put into wide use.

• Other benefits to iterative design include: a) Serious misunderstandings are made evident early in the lifecycle, when it's possible to react to them. b) It enables and encourages user feedback, so as to elicit the system's real requirements.