The enactment of thinking: the creative practice Ph.D.

Abstract

The article is concerned with the relatively new culture of creative practice Ph.D. research in Fine Art and the precise nature of such a degree. The authors contend that the creative practice Ph.D. is revealed through the dual submission of writing and artwork, and that the two are interrelated objects of thinking. In order to introduce the artist/researcher's speculative enactment of thinking, they present selected excerpts from a completed Ph.D. submission. This offers a live and intense scrutiny of the processes of creative practice research and an ironic reflection on the higher research degree culture. As such, it fits well with the visual conceptual thinking of Marcel Duchamp and Pierre Bonnard, which are discussed in terms of providing useful historical precedents through which to demonstrate more fully what the authors have come to term the visual enactment of thinking.

Keywords:

• art practice
• Ph.D
• research methodology
• Marcel Duchamp
• Pierre Bonnard
• art education