some initial thoughts on performative social science

The reason for starting this blog is to explore issues around my PhD in Performative Social Science. Possible I need to start by explaining how I became involved in this particular line of research.

I trained as a fine artist at Derby University from 1998-2001, then an MA in Fine Art at Northumbria University, finally returning to the real world in 2002. If I can find some slides (no digital cameras then…) I may put some images of my work up. While at Derby, myself and 4 other artists founded disco artists’ collective, which was really an attempt to annoy the other students. I think they just thought we were pretentious idiots. We wrote a manifesto and I thought I’d share it with you, as it seems to still have some relevance in a strange way (it was meant to be inflammatory and pretentious, honest). Here it is in all its glory:

The First Disco Manifesto of Intent
9 October 2000

We the undersigned feel it necessary to state, for the clarification of our aims and objectives, what must be done to break apart art’s current stagnation, self-satisfaction and obsession with commercial values:

The Idea must generate the Form. It is clear to us that to start from within the traditional disciplines is already to have decided on the works’ final form and hence to have restricted and indeed predicted its possible outcome. It is also to have limited the work’s reception and distribution to the gallery and museum. Whilst dealing with these institutions is unavoidable, it can only be to the artist’s detriment to accept these as given parameters for the conception of works. Whatever form is used, it must be for the express purpose of conveying the idea of the work in the simplest and most economical way.

The Idea does not stand for a purely intellectual concept. Quite the opposite. The intention of the artists should always primarily be to elicit an emotional or instinctual response to the work, which will precede any need for unnecessary intellectualisation. However, the current fad for shock, outrage and candid exposure is to be rejected. We reject this not due to any ethical considerations, but because it has become stock-in-trade of those who think that any reaction is a good reaction, and the easy route to notoriety and fame.

The work shall not be about ourselves. What we mean by this is obviously not that the work is somehow divorced from the histories and proclivities of those who make it, but that the work shall not be explicitly about the individual and their life. This should be left to soap operas and agony aunts. Also, although the work is created by the artist, its aim should not be the edification of the artists and a massaging of their creative ego. The artist who wakes every morning to find new forms for their own enlightenment and enrichment is engaged in a narcissistic circle of self-congratulation. Instead, the work should be geared towards the participation of the viewer and their active emotional and intellectual engagement.

It follows that the viewer can never be secondary to the work. Without the audience there is no work. Art made solely for the Artworld and not the ordinary individual is again ensnared in its own trap and has no merit. The Artworld’s current obsession with a few overrated and overpriced artists sets this trap, concentrating cash into a few hands, attracting sensationalist press coverage, which ultimately leads to a negative view of artists in the public mind. This in turn leads to the arts being under funded and under appreciated. Validation for the Artworld is not a factor in our work.

This is a current expression of our beliefs and intentions.

End

I have resisted the temptation to change things I no longer agree with.

Anyway, needing to pay the rent, I began a long string of jobs in curation, project management, teaching, exhibition building etc. following my interests (which by this time were mainly video and live art) within these roles wherever possible. I found, however, that unless I was in complete control of a project I was pretty much doing little more than glorified administration. So I began to look for a more challenging path, and came across a callout for what was to become my present PhD.
At the time I was working for an arts organisation that placed artists in residence with minority or disadvantaged groups, older people, looked after youngsters, young offenders etc. and although I had initially been sceptical about this, hoping it wasn’t just busy work to keep individuals occupied. I saw that with the right intentions and the right artist, the histories, memories and aspirations of individuals and social groups could be expressed, and that they could do the expressing, facilitated by a professional artist. Individuals could also be inspired to carry on with new-found creative opportunities to engage with the world.


So I began the PhD and realise it’s going to be a lot of work. No real surprise there. I began the literature review and wondered where to cast my net, and how wide to cast it.
I will talk about a couple of semi-notions about current research and dissemination practice in a minute. Firstly, I’d like to run mention some workshops/masterclasses that I have attended since October. (I maybe should have mentioned that I only started last October. So any opinions I do have are probably half-formed. But then any opinion any of us hold is formed to a greater or lesser degree, there always being more to experience).
I have attended a couple of creative workshops, focussing on how to access inner creativity and how to apply this to research and dissemination techniques. These have been fascinating. Most (but not all) of the attendees are more comfortable forms of data collection and representation, and one of their reasons for attending is to ‘get’ what creativity ‘is’ and how they can apply it methodologically. The realisation that this is not the way it works could be discouraging but the intention is, I assume, to give people a ‘eureka’ moment where they see the possibilities of an arts-based dissemination. A taster then. For me, I find myself applying knowledge from the arts to the exercises and simultaneously trying to note the (legitimate and understandable) cautiousness of others towards the practicality of such an approach. I share their concern.
I share their concern because I believe the most powerful, transformative art does not represent something definite (i.e. research findings), but suggests a way of seeing that leaves interpretation to the viewer. Hmm, that’s not very well put but will do for now.
Art and Science
A little quote:
‘The answer is Phaedrus’s contention that classic understanding should not be overlaid with romantic prettiness; classic and romantic understanding should be united at a basic level. In the past our common universe of reason has been in the process of escaping, rejecting the passions, the emotions, in order to free the rational mind for an understanding of nature’s order which was as yet unknown. Now it’s time to further an understanding of nature’s order by reassimilating those passions which were originally fled from. The passions, the emotions, the affective domain of man’s consciousness, are part of nature’s order too. The central part.’
‘At present we’re snowed under with an irrational expansion of data-gathering in the sciences because there’s no rational format for any understanding of scientific creativity. At present we are also snowed under with a lot of stylishness in the arts – thin art – because there’s very little assimilation or extension into underlying form. We have artists with no scientific knowledge and scientists with no artistic knowledge and both with no spiritual sense of gravity at all, and the result is not just bad, it is ghastly’ Robert M. Pirsig, The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. P.297

It seems to me that some of the most effective demonstrations of artistic dissemination come from those that have the two systems of knowledge to draw from, or who collaborate closely with others. It also seems reasonable to say that the arts can say things that written work cannot, and visa versa. So what is it that the arts can say that cannot be said in words - emotion, sensuality, trauma?
But what do we do when collaborators move away from us professionally or geographically? And what if they want paying for their services? Realistic in the short-term, relying on others expertise may hamper sustainability – and researcher’s creativity - in the sector.
The political nature of art is something that shouldn’t be ignored either. If we are to use the arts for social change, we should look at how the arts themselves do it. Examples are limitless, but artists such as Joseph Beuys show that an engagement with art and life can have a real impact. Performance artists such as Yoko Ono, Adrian Piper, William Pope L. and Franko B to name but a few engage with issues of discrimination, sexuality, aggression etc. and in doing so subvert or posit an alternative to the dominant ideology.
Anyway, I digress slightly but I think my point is that work within the social sciences needs to be embedded within the context of the larger world of artistic production, not separated by its sector and only looking at other instances of artistic representations within social science. In the same way that a researcher will study the relevant existing work done in a particular field before commencing a study, so a more in-depth understanding of existing artistic practice may be desirable in the long term. More work to be sure, but not if it’s seen as a natural extension of the domains that need to be engaged with. There can be no innocence!
I’m sure there are many researchers who are deeply involved in the context of their artistic dissemination so please don’t get annoyed with me if you are one!
I didn’t intend this to be quite as long as it has turned out – I was only really introducing myself. If you’ve got this far, thank you and well done!