state of play catalogue hr

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STATEOFPLAY...

07.2011


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INTRODUCTION

State of Play is an exposition of practice-based research in progress by seven PhD students atManchester Metropolitan University. It is linked to and coincides with the Practice As ResearchConsortium (PARC) Nor th West Carnival event at MIRIAD, MMU.Practice, Process and Reection (PPR) is an alliance of MIRIAD art and design practice-basedPhD students exploring strategies, methods and opportunities for conducting, testing, presenting,and disseminating our research. We are particularly interested in the possibility of extending therepertoire of approaches used to present practice-based research and the network of venues,environments and situations used to do this, for ourselves and future PhD cohorts. Through thisexposition and its accompanying dialogues, along with other activities foregrounding and sharing thepractice aspect of our research, we intend to add to a growing awareness of the potential of creativepractice for generating new conceptions of research, appreciation of diverse kinds of knowledge andmethodologies derived from and appropriate to the practices in question.

PPR intends to make a proactive contribution to the spectrum of PhD training offered by theUniversity, encouraging the discussion of practice research issues amongst postgraduate art anddesign students and the wider creative community.

The work displayed in this exposition is representative of our current, individual research trajectoriesand therefore exploratory rather than resolved. On a basic level bringing this small but diverseselection of research material raw into the same public space indicates the tentative, cross-subject conversations that are beginning to occur amongst members of the PPR group itself. Moreimportantly it presents oppor tunities for more focused discussion, about similarities and differencesof research experience for example, across and beyond the group and for critical dialogue andreection catalysed by the material presence of emergent research output.

Ana Luisa CruzCj ONeillClinton CahillDavid PennyEmily StrangeLewis SykesMike Chavez-DawsonJuly 2011

STATE OF PLAY...PART OF THE ACTIVITIES OF THE PROCESS, PRACTICE & REFLECTION (PPR) GROUP

www.ppr.miriadonline.info


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ABOUT THE WORK

Wrapping paperfrom a folder titled: (immediately) after the literature review work in progressConsidering practice and theor ys inseparability, the work intends to reect about the entanglement

of gestures and weaving lines within the research act itself. It consists of a summarized descr iptionof the contents of the folder I have been using every day after having written the literature review,

to le and revisit the journey of the research.

A work about a fragrant tree: lemon tree(Collaboration Ana and R) work in progressA few weeks ago I wrote to R (Tel Aviv, Israel) to ask her if she would be willing to make visible tome (us) a fragrant tree from her country. Although we had only exchanged a few e-mails in the past,R. accepted, letting me know she has a lemon tree outside her window in Tel Aviv. Due to personalreasons, R decided to leave the project, but has agreed that I take it further with her in mind. Thenal work will consist of a series of written texts along little portions of the branches reproducedin porcelain. However, this piece will be presented at the PPR event still unnished, as work in

progress.

ON PRACTICE AS RESEARCH

My research approaches photographic practice as an event, and searches for possibilities that writing,as a practice, can reveal the event of the photograph. Aiming to explore a view of the photographas unxed, and photography as movements towards described by gestures towards, my study looksfor a position within notions of affect by questioning what can a thing do, rather than what [a thing]is, and follows Derridas suggestion to question what comes before the question?.

Writing is part of my practice, and intrinsic to, indistinct from, thought as a search for knowledge.My research looks for a view of photography from a movement of (un)folding away from thephotograph via writing, to see it anew.

In aiming to account for the un-sayable in language, and language as a subjective trajectory, bothevocative and nourishing, I have come to realise that the intention to look for a view that, fromaffect, envisages an entanglement with academic discourses, is also to extend formative processes,

2 ANA LUSA CRUZTHE EVENT OF THE PHOTOGRAPH:

A PRACTICE-LED INVESTIGATION INTO PHOTOGRAPHY THROUGH WRITING,

Note left onto books in the library, during absence (December, 2010);coming to stand (as) for a space between (May, 2011)


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5CJ ONEILLRE*PRESENTING HEIRLOOMS:ARTISTIC INTERVENTIONS INTO THE VALUE OF EVERYDAY CERAMICS

www.cjoneill.co.uk

Un Soutien Pour Japon Papercut, postcard, pencil, CJ ONeill, 2011

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thinking and making, subjectivity and precision, along an intention to re late with others; my projectseeks growth from a multiplicity of gestures through social interaction, but also from the interactionof things the angle of the viewnder and the windows opened, the bread and milk in her coffeeand a photograph, a formula and the ball he used to play with, my sons shoes and an 8 secondsexposure photograph, a telephone placed in a gallery and the possibility of a moment being capturedwhen someone, far away, makes some-thing sayable at the other end. To my research I am bringingmyself extended through writing, and inviting others through evocative things, in a conversation thatremains opened from gestures towards.


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The following are excerpts from an ongoing practice journal.

Doorways as transitional points, escape routes, entry to other places. The doorway, and the stepsleading to it (the Otla) in the Pol project was so key. In this community, life is centred around this area,and the threshold to a home is open, welcoming. Being invited into homes to meet family, drink tea(Chai) eat and chat was an incredibly humbling experience. The generosity of the families in the Pol was

endless. This transitional crossing the threshold felt quite symbolic, and using the symbol of the doorwaywithin the pieces was a natural step. I am intrigued by what lies beyond closed doors, imagining lives

and stories that are contained behind them.

Making provides a different way of clarifying thoughts for me. I can read and write about a subject, but

until I actually make something, the ideas are never concreted, or fully formed.

Invited to submit work for un soutien pour japon, an exhibition in Deux Dimanche gallery, Japan, toraise funds for disaster victims, I am immediately drawn to reproducing the pair of children sat on the

doorstep from India. Something changed in the piece being cut from a uorescent post it. The use ofluminous orange is key in introducing the contemporary, industrial, otherness of the work.

Layering, collage and combinations are central to my process of making. Working with layout andplacement, papercutting, photography, tracing, scanning, reworking, adding this works better for me

than drawing with paper and pencil.

BIOGRAPHYBorn in Belfast in 1978, Cj lives and works in Manchester combining practice , research and teaching.She is under taking PhD (by practice) research at MIRIAD, with a thesis working title Re*presentingheirlooms: artistic interventions into the value of everyday ceramics and is a member of the craftresearch group. She is also MA route leader for Contemporary Craft Practice at MMU, working onlive projects to support students in developing professional craft practices.

Graduating from MMU in 2000, Cj has worked and exhibited internationally including; The Pol Project,part of Ahmedabad International Arts Festival, India; Picnic, a collaborative project with Alice Kettle;Non-Object-Ive, part of the Lodz Design Festival, curated by Marek Cecula; Object Factory, Museumof Art and Design, New York; Wesley Meets Art project, Special Collections Gallery, Manchester;Kirkens Collection, invited ar tist in residence project, Guldagergaard, Sklskr, Denmark.

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ABOUT THE WORK

Inspired by memories and everyday ceramics, I create a visual language of silhouettes. Re-interpretingexisting objects, adding a new layer of pattern over the old, I hope to embed a new story, provokeconversation and inspire new ways of seeing objects. I use industrial production processes, butalign myself more closely to the individual craftsman and am interested in the balance between thehandmade and the industrially produced. By punching old, manufactured everyday objects with anewness which refers to current mass production, new technologies and materials, but in a moreunique or one off fashion, the objects are placed in the spotlight, their value brought into question.How has the value of these pieces changed with this new narrative?


Practice-based research (in particular for a PhD) is research where some of the resulting knowledge is

embodied in an artefact. Whilst the signicance and context of that knowledge is described in words, a fullunderstanding 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 and poems. 1

How do we, as makers, articulate the knowledge we produce through the artefacts or otherproducts of our making process in words? Is a reective narrative produced after the practice,

enough to full the requirements of the PhD thesis? Embarking on a practice based PhD I felt likeI was drowning in a sea of reading. Writing. Thinking. Wr iting. Reading. Writing some more andnally getting to a point where I needed to, had to, would simply curl up in a corner and give up

entirely, if I didnt make something. Practice . Produce. Process. It is a part of me. An essence ofmy being to touch materials, to interact, to layer, to cut up and re model materials that I gather from

the world and re*present them in a new format. Accepted outside of academia, a beautiful artefactor piece is accepted, bought, and exchanged. A narrative is sometimes provided by the c reator.Reections on these objects often come in the form of critique, review and inclusion in writing by

others on the world of craft/art/design. What is my role in this? Reection on my own practice iskey to the development of my own work, but how this is perceived and interpreted once publishedis unknown. Does the publication of this reection alter the value in the work? Does it affect theability of the viewer to bring an outside perspective to the work? Can the artefact itself embodyall of the knowledge?

1 2011 Creativity and Cognition Studios http://www.creativityandcognition.com/content/category/10/56/131/


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My practice research is concerned with Illustration as visual adaptation. It explores ideas aboutrelationships between drawing, writing and reading arising from the following hypothesis:

Inherent in James Joyces Finnegans Wake is a movement away from conventions of linear narrativetext towards the condition of an image.

Though widely referenced by writers on subjects as diver se as semiotics, mass communication, raceand technology, Finnegans Wake itself though r st published as a single volume in 1939 - remains

largely unread and unappreciated outside academia. My own reading of The Wake and the visual/imaginative response I derive from it has prompted my curiosity about the peculiar nature of this

text and, more generally, about the interaction of printed word and visual imagination.

A distinctive aspect of this research is the attempt to read, imagine and visualize the Wake to create avisual adaptation of it informed by the lineage of illustrative practice. Consequentially it explores theextent to which the application of creative visual practice can offer an alternative mode of reading

this kind of text.

Adopting the premise that the peculiarity and difculty of The Wake arise in part from its

indeterminate state between word and image, my practical research methods are meant to identify,foreground and explore aspects of visuality i n the text, and realize more fully its latent image form.

Contesting the nature of the Wake as a purely literary object this trans-disciplinary practice maycontribute to the understanding of illustrative visual adaptation and its functions, potential andrelationship to reading and drawing. It may also widen the appreciation of Finnegans Wake and,implicitly, other similarly problematic works, by proposing and testing an alternative, image-basedapproach.

Practice methods used so far include an initial page-by-page narrative mapping of the Wake,providing a summary text form and a kind of proto image and navigational aid; a sketchbook basedpage-by-page visual reading/drawing notational response; developmental images and artists bookexperiments of key strands, narrative nodes, themes, events, consciousnesses, environments etc.;larger drawings re-visiting selected reading/drawing notations. These latter drawings exploit thehighly responsive, mutable and unstable medium of charcoal. This is intended to broadly equate with

8 CLINTON CAHILLILLUSTRATING THE WAKE:

A VISUAL READING OF JAMES JOYCES FINNEGANS WAKE

FW p5, charcoal on paper, Clinton Cahill, 2011


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11DAVID PENNYwww.davidpenny.info

Outside of the Walls, David Penny, 2011

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the way that the language of Finnegans Wake holds in surface play divergent possible readings ofpassages, phrases and words until the reader commits emphasising a particular meaning or nuance,whilst remaining sensitive to traces of alternate possibilities.

BIOGRAPHY

Artist, designer and educator, Clinton Cahill is a tutor on the BA (Hons) Graphic Design courseand co-ordinator of the taught MA in Design and Art Direction and also a part time PhD studentat Manchester Metropolitan University. His creative practice incorporates painting, illustration andgraphic design. He has a strong interest in the relationship between image, text and illustration and

the phenomenology of image, particularly in relation to drawing. His practice-based PhD research isan investigation of visuality in James Joyces Finnegans Wake through processes of visual adaptation.

CONTACT

[email protected]


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time of the new departure . Onto the ship, the researcher carries with them the specialist skills andknowledges or processes of making required for the uncer tain journey ahead. Once the ship has setout towards the horizon, initially using a known practice to gather momentum to be sufciently freefrom the comfort of land, the subject context can be framed uidly penned in/out (see diagram)

providing a theoretical, historical, conceptual and personal framework within which the individualpractice takes place.

This provides a period of academic time (often three years) to investigate the dened researchenvironment and the researchers individual art practice.

I see the research eld as a medium that initially penetrates the hull of the ship and the artistspractice is a means to periodically repair the damaged vessel. Through the process of repairing aleaky ship, in the ships depths, the artist might come across an object that had always been there,(perhaps the incoming water has washed away the dirt covering it) but could not be discoveredwithout embarking on this journey and the different practices required to keep the ship aoat.

COESSENS, K., CRISPIN, D. & DOUGLAS, A. 2009. The Artistic Turn - A Manifesto, Ghent, Orpheus Instituut.

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Practice as Research is a term that I have heard being used in relation to ar ts practice since I nishedmy undergraduate photography degree six years ago. It can often be found within a set of quotationmarks, which might denote a lack of condence in what the combination of these words mightactually mean when adopted to dene academically posited research. Similar phrases with various

additional, omitted, or alternated words tend to creep into use, which could also suggest a lack ofspecic certainty regarding what an artist should be doing when their naturalised practice functions

as research.

The difcultly arises through the misjudged opposition between the words used to describe practice

and theory, particularly when in an institutional environment where undertaking research and thepursuit of knowledge is synonymous with theory, and theory is misconstrued as being empiricallydened knowledge that can only be gained through time spent reading in the library, throughanalytical writing or by carr ying out experiments in a controlled laborator y situation (ironically, these

too are practices). Instead theory can be more simply dened as a system of ideas, or a means inwhich to explain the way something works.

Practice as Research in the arts should prioritise action, or doing as an investigative methodology.This should have two functions. Firstly, to provide an institutional framework for artistic practices

that serve to re-frame existing knowledges or provide new knowledges about different social andcultural experiences, as well as developing and disseminating knowledges of the specic but varied

and often idiosyncratic ar tistic practices and process used when involved with ar tistic research. Andsecondly it should seek to counterbalance positivist approaches to research that remain dominant

throughout the wider academic eld.

Kathleen Coessens et al use a ship sailing out as a metaphor for ar tistic research. The ship embarkingon a journey epitomises a purposeful trajectory towards an experience, yet unknown (Coessenset al., 2009). Unlike a journey across land, moving across water cannot rely on a map of charted

territory; the surface of the sea has unxed reference points that shift through the ux of the bodyof water. No two journeys can be the same, even if the start and end points are.

This metaphor of the ship can be further developed to incorporate the relationships betweenpractice and theory within PaR approaches to research practice; the territory or research eldis initially dened by a personal trajectory, the experience of previous journeys taken before the


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EMILY STRANGEMANIFESTATIONS OF UTOPIA THROUGH DRAWING

www.eestrange.wordpress.com

www.rogueartistsstudios.co.uk

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no title, transcript paper collage and ink, 40cm x 40cm

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BIOGRAPHY

David Penny is an artist based in Manchester and has been involved with teaching and researchwithin academia since 2006. Davids practice is located within the eld of photography and specicallyfocuses on still life, or that which can be described more broadly as the photographic representationof objects. Inevitably this practice strays into works that identify with sculptural gestures as well asmoving image, as a means to question the ontology of the photograph and associated practices.

David has widely exhibited his work and disseminated his research practice at conferences; mostrecently at the Liverpool Biennial, Castleeld gallery Manchester, The Holden Galler y Manchester

and Parsons New School for Design New York.

CONTACT

[email protected]


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BIOGRAPHY

Born UK, Lives and works in Manchester

EXHIBITION PROFILE:

2011: September, Patricia Frost Museum, Florida University, USA2010: 19th July 7th August: Surface Gallery, Nottingham UK, http://surfacegallery.org/2010 July 20th August: Repton residency solo show, Derby2010: TraLa Curatorial, St Pancras , London2009: Fremantle contemporary arts, Perth, Australia2008: New court studios, Derby2007: Trinity Buoy Wharf, Art in process, London2007: Bezalel Academy of Art, TelAviv Biennale, Israel2006: Roskilde Museum of contemporary art, Copenhagen, Denmark2006: Tramway contemporary art , Glasgow, UK2006: Emerged collecti ve, Glasgow, UK2005: Emerged collecti ve, Glasgow, UK2005: Bezalel Academy of Art, TelAviv2005: Macintosh and newberry projects, Glasgow School of Art2005: Bezalel Academy of Art, TelAviv/Jerusalem, Israel

PROJECTS, COMMISSIONS AND RESIDENCIES:2011: September, Frost Museum drawing project, Florida International University, USA2009: Fremantle Arts and Edith Cowen University, Perth, Australia. Supported by Repton school residency,

Derby UK. With thanks: Batavia archives and museum, Perth Australia2006: Hikkaduwa documentation and regional development, Colombo/Galle/Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka.

Funded by UZ events, Glasgow. With thanks: Hikkaduwa Area Relief Fund2005: Bezalel Academy of Art, TelAviv. Urban borders; Funded by Glasgow School of art2004: Bezalel Academy of Art, TelAviv. Exchange projects; Funded by British Council

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When trying to formulate a mindful denition to determine what research through practice actuallymeans, I recalled something Simon Starling once said about his art making process. My approach

to research is very un-academic...there is a degree of rooting around in libraries but mostly its aconfusion of verbal information, storytelling, things picked up in the pub and things stumbled uponby accident...its about identifying somethings signicance. Perhaps the most interesting aspect ofresearch in the ne arts is that it necessarily involves collecting and re-modelling fragments of

things that already exist in the world in order to identify their actual shape, reveal a truth that mayotherwise remain concealed. For Starling this practice (method) of foraging is latent within the visualand textual records he keeps throughout his process. Records which ultimately form the basis of

the art work, determine its wider social meaning and (in terms of research) the new knowledge itpromotes1. Practice by research, practice as research, practice led research are sounds that havelong permeated the culture of higher education. One of the concerns of this exposition is thisinterrelationship of art and research and how the research methods involved in the practice ofne art might contribute to and expand the traditional denition of institutional research. I amworking with diagrams as abortive and corrosive devices. I am attempting to disrupt comfortable(comforting) and harmonized associations of drawing as notation, a method of nding form. A

Utopia that is mindful of its own discrepancies.

Notes:1) A conversation between Ross Birrell and Simon Starling for Starlings Autoxylopyrocycloboros project atCove Park in Scotland, recorded for Art and Research Journal, V 1, Number 1, 2007.


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ABOUT THE WORK

The Augmented Tonoscope is an artistic study into the aesthetics of sound and vibration throughan analog of music in visual form - the modal wave patterns of Cymatics. Key to the researchis the design, fabrication and crafting of a sonically and visually responsive hybrid analogue/digitalinstrument that will produce dynamic and aesthetic visual music based on the physics, effects andmanifestations of sound and vibration.

With the instrument so central to my study, Ive sought a meaningful framework that will positionthe Analogue Tonoscope within a genealogy of similar devices as well as inform its developmentthrough discreet stages - and have found a parallel in the historical evolution of instruments arguedby Hankins & Silvermans (1995) - from the devices of wonder of natural magic circa C16th, to

the instruments of demonstration of experimental philosophy of the C17th & C18th and onto thedevices of entertainment, art and culture of the modern era.

For this exposition I plan to showcase selected outputs and analogue prototypes from the rst stage- reproducing the wondrous effects of natural magic by creating realistic images where there is nosubstance, drawing analogies between the senses and revealing natures secrets.


I have both an artistic bent and an aptitude for science , so Im interested in that area of interdisciplinaryactivity commonly termed Sci-Art where these practices intersect and interplay.

The scientic experimental method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena

and of gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specic principles ofreasoning. It is such an established and acknowledged means of acquiring new knowledge that itsdevelopment is inseparable from the history of science. In fact m.any would argue that Science is

the experimental method.

Im intrigued by whether its possible to develop a creative counterpoint to this perspective - andso Ive attempted to formulate my own research methodology - a robust, investigative yet creativeresearch technique and critical reection tool - an artistic exper imental method.

1918 LEWIS SYKESTHE AUGMENTED TONOSCOPE:

AN ARTISTIC STUDY INTO THE AESTHETICS OF SOUND AND VIBRATION

www.augmentedtonoscope.net

Experiment called Cymatics by Opiumble + ZIZIZIC - http://www.triangulationblog.com/2011/01/cymatics.html


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Lewis is Director of Cybersonica - an annual celebration of music, sound art and technology (nowin its ninth year) - and between 2002-07 was Coordinator of the independent digital arts agencyCybersalon - founding Artists-in-Residence at the Science Museums Dana Centre and formerlybased at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA).

Lewis is in his r st-year of a practice as research PhD at MIRIAD, Manchester Metropolitan Universityexploring the aesthetics of sound and vibration.

Monomatic: www.monomatic.netCybersonica: www.cybersonica.org

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My approach is to source germane and concise denitions for a set of artistic paradigms - beauty,

aesthetics, authorship, process, serendipity and technology misuse - and then apply these as a frameworkof systematic measures to gauge, reect on and draw effective conclusions from the outputs of a rollingseries of artistic experiments - gathering this evidence to help drive the research forward.

While Im still a little way off a nal set of denitions I have made progress, for example:

Serendipity-theartofmakinganunsoughtnding;theartoflooseblinkersi.e.thetalentandability

tocombinesystematicapproachwithintuition,surveillanceandhunch;atypeofexplorativescientic

method, a category that may be called abductive.

Hankins & Silverman (1995) assert thatInstruments have a life of their own they do not merely followtheory often they determine theor y because instruments determine what is possible and what is possibledetermines to a large extent what can be thought.

While I hope that my research methods contribute new thinking and an emerging terminology tofuture practice as research initiatives I aspire to demonstrate that a decidedly artistic experimentalmethod can indeed help to determine what is possible and... what can be thought helping to validateartistic practice alongside scientic experimental method as a means to enhance insight and developknowledge.

REFERENCES

Hankins T.L. & Silverman R.J. (1995), Instruments And The Imagination, New Jersey: Princeton University Press

BIOGRAPHY

Lewis Sykes is a musician, interaction designer, digital art and media curator and producer and aqualied Youth & Community Worker specialising in the Ar ts.

A veteran bass player of the underground dub-dance scene of the 90s he performed and recordedwith acts such as Emperor Sly, Original Hi-Fi and Radical Dance Faction; was a partner in theunderground dance label Zip Dog Records; and more recently composed for and performedwith the award winning, progressive AV collective, The Sancho Plan. He is currently one-half ofMonomatic - a collaboration, experimental playground and halfway house alongside the work ofNick Rothwell - exploring sound and interaction through physical works that investigate rich andsonorous musical traditions.


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ABOUT THE WORK

A practice-based investigation of the borders between documentation and performance in contemporaryvisual art

My consideration of the borders between documentation and performance stem from observinga shift of usage of performative modes of activity (performance) and documentation (recorded &archived material/artworks). The shift observed is how current visual artists use live/performancemethods as extensions to their object based practice.Using both practice and theory (reection) these will mutually inform each other. Physicalising the

project will provide direct experience of the concept to allow me to gain insight into its dynamics,which will further inform future practice.David Davies proposes an ontology of ar t that takes works to be process-li ke rather than product-like entities. [Davies, 2004] Here the process-like nature is re-enacted in the mind of the viewer

thereby becoming performances. Philip Auslander also points out that, perhaps the authenticity ofthe performance document resides in its relationship to its beholder rather than to an ostensiblyoriginary event: perhaps its authority is phenomenological rather than ontological. [Auslander, 2006]Whilst Davies adheres to an ontology of art Auslander suggests one based more in intentionalityand its the dichotomy of these positions that I see occurring within my practice that I hope toresolve through further interrogation.In terms of establishing a cohesive critical framework from a contemporary visual art perspective, thesediffering positions will be the focus of my current research concern. By testing and correlating theseviews by practice and reection the project will seek to establish a new transparent (critical) position.

ON PRACTICE AS RESEARCH [W]e are able to invent and explore new methods and approaches to research that are directlyrelevant to our disciplines. Mike Press, Visualising Research, 1990.Grafting incongruent material and approaches together seems to be endemic for creativepractitioners. This dynamic sets for th a challenging yet qualied position to formulate new methods

for research, in this case a chosen mode o f practice.

2322 MIKE CHAVEZ-DAWSON

Re-Trans-Informer 2, imagining what went through the mind of Michael Craig-Martin,whilst he drank his rst glass of water after creating An Oak Tree, (1974, the year

I was born). Digital Video Still, Mike Chavez-Dawson, 2011


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BIOGRAPHY

Mike Chavez-Dawson graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University, Interactive Arts BA(Hons) in 1997 and MA (Art as Environment) in 1999; he is now currently a PhD (by practice)research fellow at MIRIAD. He was the Visual Arts Editor for Flux Magazine and founding curator forFlux Space for just over a decade. Chavez-Dawson works crosses an interesting path of disciplines,such as ne art & design, performance, music, curating and publishing. To date hes ran a gallery ina publication, utilised alter egos as living portraits, ran a club night as an artwork, formed a band toexplore the relationship between visual presentation and its audio, interviewed dead artists througha spiritual medium, created a cinema using hypnotism and gave gallery tours as estate agents andcrime solving detectives.

RECENT/FORTHCOMING SHOWS/PROJECTS INCLUDE:Memory Flash, Carter Presents, London. Magda Archer: Crazy Mad Cornerhouse, Manchester.Re-Covering, Untitled Gallery, Manchester. Network Aesthetics The Reading , Castleeld Galler y,

Chinese Art Centre , Cornerhouse, Cube, Manchester Art Galler y, John Rylands Librar y, The ReadingRoom Collection MMU Librar y, Manchester. Nigh Revolve-Lution (Live Text Performance), British Ar tShow 7, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham. Re-Motive View(s) (Live Text Performance), TheSurreal House , Barbican, London. Unrealised Potential Cornerhouse, Manchester, NGCA, Sunderland,

VOID, Derry, N.Ireland. Involved Socially, Base Gallery, San Francisco, USA. Title Murdered, StrangeDays & Some Flowers, The Storey Galler y, Lancaster. Selling the Psycho-Geographical Breakdownfor Afterhours Subversive Spaces, The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. A bANdA dA Late at

the TATE, TATE Bri tain, London

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We measure our experiences through the practice process and this becomes enriched byreecting upon knowledge gained by the act of doing. The empirical act of doing allows for clarity

and sensitivity in ar ticulating the represented, thereby enabling a renement and furthering of amethodology in practice.As practitioners we map and survey terrains where we shift between subjectivity and objectivity;we take the political and make it per sonal or vice-a-versa. To rene a point by artist/researcher LeeCampbell we utilise a bricolage of improvisation and intuition as methodological survival tactics butare not limited by it, at present we seem to straddle a post-positivist and constructivist hybrid, asCoumans explains the artists/designerother than the art and design processis a transparentprocess in which conscious steps are taken, in which knowledge is used, or knowledge is searchedfor and articulated in the process [Coumans, 2003]This is akin metaphorically to drawing a line from A to B to see where it goes - var iability is inevitableand becomes dependent upon the parameters set.

REFERENCES

Auslander, P. 2006: The Performativity of Performance Documentation. Performing Arts Journal, 84, September,2006.

Coumans, A. (2003). Practice-led research in higher arts education. In T. Ophuysen & L. Eber t (Eds), On themove: Sharing experience on the Bologna Process in the arts (pp. 62-67). Amsterdam: European Leagueof Institutes of the Ar ts (ELIA). Retrieved May 5, 2007, from http://www.encatc.org/downloads/ELIA-BolognaProcess&Arts.pdf

Davies, D. 2004: The Artwork as Performance: An Argument from Artis tic Intentions. In: Art As Performance,2004. Blackwell Publishing, Malde, USA, Oxford, UK, Victoria, Australia

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PPRP r a c t i c eP r o c e s sReflection

http://ppr.miriadonline.info

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