The Reflective Practitioner

My colleague Chris Barker is next, and begins with a reflection on his reflective work as a practitioner. Reflection enables unfocused intention, soul-sustaining idle activity, focused action in 'the craft', and novelty in practice. Chris has worked in animation in various roles, and now reflects on the changes in animation which have influenced his experience. His aims in reflective practice have been to introduce a methodology that was more like his previous creative practice, to allow for the emergence of surprising, new, and innovative content, to facilitate higher-order reflective behaviours, to have fun in the process through exploring the unknown, and to use the process to interrogate the idea of reflection-in-action.

In the process, Chris privileged working speed in order to keep the process fresh; also there was no script or story board, and mistakes were allowed. As a result, the practice became more alive, vivifying, and sustainable; an archaeology of the image emerged and Chris watched as much as he authored. Chris now shows an excerpt from the film, Bullet Point - very interesting work which of course I can't do justice here.

Chris now follows on from this by discussing the changing nature of practice in a networked society, using Donald Schon's work on the disappearance of a 'stable state' - a conservatively governed society - in favour of fluid and changeable environments and institutions as 'learning systems'. There is a crisis of confidence here, especially in the professions; there is an increasing pressure to find adequacy and validity in professional practice. It is now possible to discuss the emergence of a professional self. There is a need to accept a procedural unknown, which allows for surprise and uncertainty where we may think about doing something while doing it. This opens a site in which the process and technique of reflective practice can be made specific and a priori valuable.

Reflection, in this context, can be a joyous and rewarding practice, which moves away from an obsession with ends that produces a form of projective knowing. We might find that which is useful, rewarding and fresh in our own as well as others' practice, even as reflection sometimes traces through difficult and painful parts. Also, problem-centric approaches seem to include something of a nostalgia for simplicity and resulution, while reflectve practice does not necessarily seek such end points.

Critics of Schon's work point to the remaining hierarchical, paternalistic governmental structures within his work, which do not move completely towards a more networked, equitable structure. Chris now introduces th work of Manuel Castells on the network society to balance this; for Castells the network is an automaton without a single purpose or meaning. In this context, then, Schon offers a path of interaction within the network, where (with Castells) labour is present but not strategically positioned within the network. It is interesting to connect this work with the emergent behaviours of informational systems. Thus, the behaviours of the reflective practitioner become more and more like those of the network itself; the reflective practitioner becomes more like the dominant model of the network, while the network itself becomes a machine for reflection. The language of the network is the language of access, distribution, speed and virtuality.

What is interesting, then, is the intersection and cross-pollination of processes of reflection and the life of the network. Networks allow for the emergence of novelty much as does reflective practice (and Chris points to information technologies' speed here, which allows new forms to emerge before they can be policed or reined in). The process is the driver here. Rather than lamenting the loss of order and sovereignty, then, engagement with the process allows for satisfying participation in the processes which determine our daily reality. Exemplary works will occur, and new dreams and myths will emerge, but not from preconceived notions of problems that must be solved.

Phew - plenty to take in here; not sure I got all of it...