Unconventional Phds

8/2/2019 Unconventional Phds

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How can structural film expandthe language of experimental

ethnography?

PhD.

Brad ButlerUniversity of the Arts, London


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Instructions:

Read yourself into a position of crisis

Start your film from there


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Abstract

Sets out overriding question

Gives some context

Suggests relationship between theory andpractice submitted

Suggests point of arrival

Flags up the future work in the making


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Research methodology

This thesis was written over a four year period

during which I visited India three times and

Pakistan twice.

Throughout this time my research question

remained the same, but I did pursue many different

strategies, approaches and experiments in order toevaluate what this question meant for my practice

and what my practice meant for this question.


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It has been my method to attempt to document

the process of my ideas evolving in time in order

to assess and profile the potential in this cross

fertilization.


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It is my argument that The Exception and the Rule

developed out ofThe Autonomous Object?

influenced by my ongoing reading that was also

challenging my practice.

This is recognized in a text entitled INTERMISSION,

which occurs between Chapters 3 and 4 as a

self-critique of my ideas drafted before, during

and after my two main field trips. This personal

and subjective diary documentation of cul de

sacs and ideas caught in time is a practice notebook

that stands in contrast to the academic

authoritative tone of the other Chapters in this

thesis.


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These notes present my grappling with theories

and ideas before travelling on my first trip to India

(hereinafter: FIELDNOTES A) interwoven with a

critique of these ideas before traveling to Pakistan

(hereinafter FIELDNOTES B). My actual field diaries

are not quoted here because it is the contention of

this experiment that the INTERMISSION is the gapbetween field trips and not the experience of being

abroad.


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I have left uncorrected any navet in this early

theoretical writing.

This INTERMISSION is being submitted here as

practice.

The INTERMISSION allows the reader to experience being lost

in ideas, confluences and unfinished thoughts as well as feeling

narrative agency. Feeling lost is a juxtaposition to the authoritative

nature of the rest of the the writing in this thesis, a parallel process toThe Exception and the Rule which starts in documentary narrative

structures and ends in abstraction.


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Fieldnotes B

I have just read back over my first ideas and

have come to recognize that I need to take a

step backwards before I can think about

Pakistan. This is in recognition of the fact that

my written thoughts before going to India are

fragmented, lateral and full of imaginary even

though at the time those lateral jumps felt to melike a clear and coherent strategy


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Fieldnotes A

Reflections on Fieldwork (Rabinow, 1977) begins

with the authors troubled state of mind in Chicago

and ends with a critique of his relationships with his

participants in the field in Morocco.

This book was written years after this fieldwork took

place by memory and field notes. Still Rabinow

frequently profiles interruptions boredom andmiscommunications as a core context of this

enquiry.


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Collaboration

Intermissiondifferent genre of writing withargument that this brings the logic of the

practice into the written part of the thesis Further red text in chapter 4 when describing

scenes in films

Clear directions to reader about whatdecisions have been made and why e.g.instruction to view film now


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Curating the Farm

Georgina Barney

MPhilRobert Gordon University, Aberdeen


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Introduction

What is agriculture (pp. 8-25) is an essay from

the inside of practice. It proposes methods of

asking what it is we mean by agriculture, and

why it is important.

I am a visual artist and writer. Project and map

Farming Fiction, event What is my Apology for

Poetryand exhibition Curating the Farm: Exchange

and Value are the spine of my practice element of

research.


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Poetry constantly provided an access point into the

protocols of academic research. In the first section

ofWhat is agriculture (From the beginning)

writing about Ted Hughes enabled me to grapple

with artwork in a form at ease with its own

condition of being in words. I was likewise able to

make suggestions in the text in combination with

photographs and scanned drawings of how we

can think of farming [in a way] that acts I hope in relation

to this documents requirements.


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I write about Jen Hadfield and Seamus Heaney,

poets for whom agriculture is a concern.

Hadfield lives in the Shetland Isles. Its remote

language and landscape penetrates her work

and experiences. The return of Seamus Heaney,to rural Ireland from Belfast formed the basis of

1979 publication Field Work. In particular, the

Glanmore Sonnets chronicle this move through the

memories of the farm where he grew up in NorthernIreland. Reading their work informs and creates

opportunities to understand mine.


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I have also drawn into the work of this whole

document artwork that creates interventions in

the text, including the script forA Play. My

appendices demonstrate attempts to create

other kinds of linkages between artwork; the

experiences that made artwork; and the

experiences of reading with(in) the expectationsof research.


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Please continue


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No methods chapter

Bare minimum of explication

substitution of poetic text, exegesis and poeticpractice

Multi-layered documentvideo, photographic

and archival documentation becomes material

part of thesis

Unusual beginning to viva


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the experience of being inside practice marks thewriting

explication is reflected on and reduced

form of PhD is questioned/reworked

cul de sacs and moments of understanding arerevealed

carefully edited

the reader is addressed in intimate ways

the alternative form is noted and to some degreetheorised

Writing from the inside out

Documents

Unconventional Phds