Perverse Research Practices

Finally for this session we're on to Allison Richards from the University of Melbourne, speaking on 'perversity as method' in practice-led research. She suggest that the advent of such research is an inherently paradoxical activity for universities, and follows on from some other paradoxes and historical accidents in the field. While some disciplines (e.g. music, art history) have been represented in universities for a long time, others have only recently joined arts programmes, and not all of these have traditionally had an active research culture, so that the pressure to engage in research has in some cases been an external rather than an intrinsic one. The scramble to engage in research has led to some interesting positional shifts, then - and have occasionally also led to the wholesale importation of existing modes of discourse into newly established university discourses (e.g. dance disciplines which are placed in applied science departments).

Practice, as a result, has been dis-privileged in the university system, while capital-T Theory has become triumphant (even though Wittgenstein described even philosophy as an activity, not a theory). In overcoming this problem, it is important to address the question of method for such creative practice and activity. How do we go about what we are doing - how do we start? Method itself is by no means neutral, of course - it is productive of particular outcomes and already to some extent determines its results and the positions adopted by researchers. Practice research in arts and culture, Allison suggests, is in fact 'meth/odd'.

She presents a model of various axes of perversity in practice as research. First, there are perverse systems: they are complex, porous, ungainly, and unpredictable rather than well-behaved and nicely organised as is usually expected in disciplinary research. Events such as the 'match' event in South Australia (see Collaboration in Architectural Practice) or this very conference must be constructed to provide a gathering-place in this porous environment. Second, problems themselves are perverse: they change according to perspective, are dependent on interactive dynamics, may not be susceptible to traditional notation, rely on processes and results which are difficult or even impossible to replicate, and involve input from observers and researchers which is itself transformative. Third, epistemologies are perverse - knower and known are enmeshed, and (ex)change over time, while knowledge is situated and fluid. Fourth, technologies are perverse: they are never reliably inert or reliably neutral, and take the focus away from the practice itself. Fifth, truth relations are also perverse in a multiplicity of ways.

Therefore, practice research creates cultural value, destabilises the product/process binary, and destabilises subject/object relations. It continues to pervert its own environment almost as in a feedback loop, spiralling further and further out of control. What looks obvious may neither be the easiest or most interisting aspect to research! Ultimately, Allison suggests that we at least acknowledge this perversity as a first step towards learning to operate in this enviroment.