Developing the formal structures of artistic practice-as-research

In this article I discuss a topic that is emerging as a valuable paradigm for creative practitioners - practice-as-research. There is some controversy over this term that, I believe, goes to the heart of our understanding of the nature of knowledge. The controversy relates to the idea that practice and research are two inherently different types of activity and therefore that it impossible to engage in one ‘as’ the other. Tim Ingold’s (2011) work on the anthropology of knowledge and skill alongside a broader stream of work on cognition and perception (see for example Lakoff & Johnson 2003 and Gibson 1979) suggests that both artistic practice and academic research involve ‘puzzle-solving… carried on within the context of involvement in a real world of persons, objects and relations.’ (Ingold 2011, p.419). The argument revolves around the notion that there is no such thing as disembodied or abstract knowledge and that all knowledge is both embodied and personally related to the world one inhabits. As such, the written word provides a schematic system for representing the much richer communication processes of speech and bodily experience. The written word, however, can only be understood through reference to our lived experience. Lave (1990, p.310) has termed this ‘understanding in practice’ as a knowledge ‘based on rich expectations generated over time about its shape’ (Lave 1990, p.323). Scholarly research outputs and their modes of publication are still firmly entrenched in the printed word. I will explore strategies for communicating the non-verbal knowledge that forms the basis of much practice-as-research

Creative Relations

Through reporting about a project with male home carers, I’m going to present some of the interactions which took place between myself (as the artist) and the participants as we got to know each other, and became part of each other’s lives. The text takes the form of a series of extracts taken directly from my own personal journals followed by a commentary on each. These have been selected to highlight the similarities between Ingold’s descriptions of creativity and Kester’s model for a dialogical aesthetic, which highlights key points in the engagement processes of a socially engaged artist. These reflective notes, made while the experiences were still fresh in my mind, help to illustrate the impact not only on the participants but also upon the artist as a participant in the social process

Amazing shapes : chirality

The use of songs to help learning of content is consistent with multi-sensory models of learning. Here, a song to the tune of “Amazing Grace” can be used in the classroom to enhance the learning of chirality and the Cahn-Ingold-Prelog priority rules

The construction of skill in contemporary experimental theatre

A concern with ‘skill’ – the embodied process of becoming accustomed to, and getting better at, particular practices – underpins the work of a range of recent experimental theatre-makers in the UK. While Tom Cornford has proposed that the theatre has not experienced a ‘turn to the crafts’ to match the concurrent one in the visual arts, I argue that theatrical practice is caught within this turn. The encounters that occur in theatrical auditoria become sites for the construction of skill, where the skilled practice of performers and audiences can be developed and celebrated, but also where the implications of what that means can be interrogated. Rather than illustrating Richard Sennett’s and Tim Ingold’s theories of skill, these performances develop a critical dialogue with them. Chapters 1 and 2 compare the plays of Martin Crimp and Tim Crouch. Taken together, these chapters reveal how each author negotiates between two different understandings of playwriting within contemporary British dramaturgy: as a distinctive craft producing material with and on which other crafts work, and as one component of a more fluidly collaborative theatre-making ecology that the text documents. I associate these understandings, respectively, with the anthropological models of the trap and the gift. In the indeterminate worlds of these performances, a skill that is both regulated and spontaneous is as feasible as a gift which is both freely given and socially conditioned. Chapter 3 focuses on productions by Forced Entertainment since Bloody Mess (2004), as the company have attempted to reconcile their commitment to avant-garde convention-breaking with a reliable, recognisable set of practices. I argue that they rigorously negate skill, by sustaining a practice in which the coupling of abstract reflection with embodied action continually breaks down. Their performances critique Ingold’s phenomenological approach to skill, by drawing attention to those practices and atmospheres that humans are unable to understand through immediate participation. Chapter 4 offers an analysis of METIS Arts’ World Factory (2012-17), and the challenges of making an interactive performance about the unequally deskilled labour conditions of global capitalism. A dialectic of deskilling and reskilling operates across the labour conditions that the production explores, the company’s production process, and actor-audience interactions within the performance. This dialectic offers a critical alternative to much contemporary immersive theatre, figuring performance as rehearsal for action within a networked, postcapitalist society. My conclusion explores the political opportunities that the troubling, or the refusal, of a ‘turn to the crafts’ in the contemporary theatre might offer in the face of systemic financial and ecological crisis. In particular, I consider how a strain of modernist dissidence within my examples might come to be identified and enabled in a wider variety of theatre-making contexts.Arts and Humanities Research Counci

Examination of Electron Transfer Mechanism of Cyanidin

Cyanidin, as one important plant pigment, was theoretically (at M05-2X/6-311+G(d,p) level of theory) investigated for its ability to scavenge potentially, highly damaging hydroxyl radical. Free radical scavenging of cyanidin was studied through electron transfer mechanism – ET (the second step in SPLET mechanism) in water and ethanol, as solvents. Examination was performed using density functional theory (DFT) and Marcus theory. Based on the thermochemical and kinetic data, it is clear that O‒H group of cyanidin in position 3` is the most suitable for reaction with hydroxyl radical through mentioned antioxidant mechanism

Superconductor-Insulator Transition in a Capacitively Coupled Dissipative Environment

We present results on disordered amorphous films which are expected to undergo a field-tuned Superconductor-Insulator Transition.The addition of a parallel ground plane in proximity to the film changes the character of the transition.Although the screening effects expected from "dirty-boson" theories are not evident,there is evidence that the ground plane couples a certain type of dissipation into the system,causing a dissipation-induced phase transition.The dissipation due to the phase transition couples similarly into quantum phase transition systems such as superconductor-insulator transitions and Josephson junction arrays.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

ROP of vic-disubstituted lactones: A diastereoselective way to polymerize

For this work, at first we have studied the acid catalysed lactonization of several γ-hydroxyesters, bearing methyl substituents at different positions. A 1H-NMR kinetic study of this set of monomethyl and/or gem-dimethyl substituted esters in CDCl3 was carried out. We evaluated the effect of the leaving group (ethyl vs. i-propyl ester) and the catalyst efficiency. We found that i) a monomethyl substitution produces a lowering of the energy barrier similar to that of a gem-dimethyl substitution (Thorpe–Ingold effect), ii) the ring closure of i-propyl esters is slower than that of ethyl esters, iii) strong acids are more efficient than weak acids according to the Brønsted relationship, and iv) the Thorpe– Ingold effect is not just an intrinsic feature of the linear precursor but it depends on the catalyst as well.[1,2] FASTER Now, we would like to give an explanation and clarify three issues: i) how is the cyclization affected by the vicinal substitution? ii) is the effect stereospecific, that is to say, dependent on the diastereomeric relation (syn or anti) between the two vicinal substituents? iii) is it possible to observe a stereospecific effect in the Ring Opening Polymerization (ROP) of lactones as well? Preliminaries studies on model compounds indicate that the vic-disubstituent effect is not only stereospecific, since the anti linear precursors undergo to the cyclisation reaction much faster than the corresponding syn diastereoisomers, but it is more efficient than the above mentioned Thorpe-Ingold effect. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

The Meservey-Tedrov effect in FSF double tunneling junctions

Double tunneling junctions of ferromagnet-superconductor-ferromagnet electrodes (FSF) show a jump in the conductance when a parallel magnetic field reverses the magnetization of one of the ferromagnetic electrodes. This change is generally attributed to the spin-valve effect or to pair breaking in the superconductor because of spin accumulation. In this paper it is shown that the Meservey-Tedrov effect causes a similar change in the conductance since the magnetic field changes the energy spectrum of the quasi-particles in the superconductor. A reversal of the bias reverses the sign in the conductance jump