0. guide 1. introduction 2. method as field of discussion
3. practice 4. theory 5. conclusion and further discussions

  

 

 

 

 

 Practice-based Method. Exploring Digital Media through the Dynamics of Practice, Theory, and Collaborative, Multimedia Performance. Idunn Sem, May 2006  

4. theory
Practice-based Method and Digital Media Studies


4.1 the dialectic of “reading” and “writing”
Media Education

4.2 the novelty and distinctiveness of digital media forms
Digital Media Research

4.3 multimodal digital media and visualised culture
A matter of method?

4.4 “artifacts of expression” and “expressive artifacts”
Exploring theory through practice

4.4.1 Artifacts of Expression. Production

4.4.2 Theory altered by practice

4.4.3 Expressive artifact. Post-production reflection

4.4.4 Theory altered by critical inquiry. The double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy, post-structuralism and performance theory

4.4.5 Recap section 4.4 . Exploring theory through practice

Practice-based method may inform studies of digital media by practice-based refinement of theory or knowledge of that theory. Covering the adaptation and inversion of the concept “the double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy” (Bolter & Grusin [1996] 2001) for constructive purposes, it becomes apparent how this perspective or strategy of authenticity was not only applied to digital media but non-digital means of expression. I have termed such discovery “theory altered by practice” under the heading “Artifacts of Expression. Production”, separating such discovery or expanded knowledge from “theory altered by critical inquiry”, under the heading “Expressive artifact. Post-production reflection”. The separation corresponds with how digital media or any cultural artifact may be approached by practice-based method as both artefacts of expression and expressive artefact, as both manufactured object and conceptual work. They are however interrelated, as the practice-derived suspicion towards, for example, the double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy may be further articulated and contextualised in a post-production critical inquiry.

Theory altered by practice. Considering artifacts of expression
Notions of theory altered by practice may be informed by how contradictions may generate innovation (Engström 2001:137) and new knowledge, as discussed in my introduction to the production process behind "New Media Education" (see the already discussed examples of such contradictions in this process, section 3.2.4). Through the collaborative interdisciplinary production Extended we adopted live performance activity to media studies and visa versa. Such contradictions may lead to “aggravated secondary contradictions where some old element collides with the new one. Such contradictions generate disturbance and conflicts, but also innovative attempts (…)” (Engeström 2001:137). Through interdisciplinary practice, my perceived knowledge of the double logic as analytical tool in 2-dimensional media context, adopted a new element: 3-dimensional staging and dance. A secondary contradiction arose between my perceived knowledge of the double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy and my practice-based experience of the production.

The strategies of immediacy and hypermediacy where not only inverted as digital artefacts of expression, but applied in our creative process towards solutions of space and even audience. This questioned the “technological mediatedness” of these strategies - a reading of Remediation partly caused by the authours themselves (see next note on considered reading of Remediation), and partly caused by my previous object of study, digital media and web-media in particular, directing my previous readings and thus perception. In the succeeding post-production reflection (present thesis), my altered perception or practice-based suspicion towards “the double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy” became more explicit, as the written academic format made the “contradiction” pressing, difficult to ignore and involved a historical and theoretical contextualisation.

Theory altered by critical inquiry. Considering the expressive artifact.
When reading performance theory, the practice-driven association between “the double logic of immediacy/hypermediacy” and more general post-modern strategies of communication becomes clearer. This explain perhaps why knowledge from media education focused on web so easily adapts to performance-practice and why the “double logic” seem to slip away or refuse to respond to any categorising. As I have suggested, the “double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy” might be said to reveal both less than an understanding of how media communicates, and, more than this, as a cultural-theoretical backdrop suggesting why or for what response diverse media, communicate as they do (or rather, we, by employing them ) [79. considered reading of Remediation].

The double logic might be said to embody a genealogy of poststructuralist literary theory. To situate the interlinked theoretical influence briefly, one might say that I adapted the double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy from my earlier web-oriented education into a performance context and then analysed the applied strategy of immediacy and hypermediacy, in retrospect, through performance theory and the broader tradition of post-structural theories, from which Bolter and Grusin derive the double logic of Remediation.



The intersection of what might be considered multimedia theory and performance practice might be the collaboratively agreed, everyday-language translation of the double logic in the interdisciplinary production as looking through/looking at. This articulation appears in Remediation derived from Richard Lanham (1993), who sees precisely “the tension between looking at and looking through (…) a feature of twentieth-century art in general and now digital representation in particular (3-28, 31-52).” (Bolter & Grusin [1999] 2000:41)

Artifacts of expression and expressive artifacts
How may the interplay between practice and theory be conceptualised? To get at the intersection of practice and theory, I have introduced the possibility of approaching both material tools and conceptual theoretical tools as artifact to be used and understood as artifacts of expression in making expressive artifact. My perceived knowledge of the “double logic” had an impact on the activity as immaterial artifact or conceptual tool, and was in turn altered by the activity, a dynamic corresponding to the concept of artifacts in historical cultural activity theory: “The tools alter the activity and are, in turn, altered by the activity.” (Jonassen & Rohrer-Murphy 1999:63). Expressive artefacts like both performances and theory (or cognitive, tertiary artefacts in terms of Wartofsky, abstracted from their direct representational function and thereby potential agents of change for current practice (1997:209)) may in turn become artefacts of expression – point of references and refined theoretical knowledge in subsequent education and research. Liestøl et al., coming at this dynamic of theory and creative, innovative practice from digital media studies, articulate the positive relation in a corresponding way, arguing that “Innovative work together with analysis may lead to innovative theory, which again may inform development” (Liestøl et al. 2003:11).

Influenced by the double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy, digital media in Duskalplasjon, at play with the unorthodox performance- and audience-space, may be said to redefine the boundaries between performer and audience, making people look at the phenomenon staged performance and their own role in such as audience or participants. The intangible, ephemeral, and for us, innovative work of Duskalplasjon where no individual could experience the whole work, resonates with conceptual art. That is conceptual art, that dematerialises the artistic object, questions the polarisation of subject/object, viewer/performance, and invites the viewer to reflect on her phenomenological position (e.g. Rush (1999) 2001) [80. the link between performance art and interactive installations].

In a subsequent practice-based research project at InterMedia, Tapet, I had the opportunity to explore the dematerialised artistic object and the questioned relation of viewer and performer/performance further, through the composition of an interactive, screen-based installation-piece (Sem et al. 2006/7:forthcomming). The double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy was very much part of this production as refined immaterial artifact of expression.

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Though the double logic may cause a “muddle” in an analytical context, notions of transparency, immediacy and hypermediacy may offer strategies towards the perceiving subject in a constructive context, or at least ways to articulate such strategies, in lack of others.

I have tried to represent or picture the the process of performing practice-based method, and the interplay and positive relation between theory and (creative) practice of practice-based method in particular, in a model. The model may be more familiar to constructive research environments of software design and development, emphasising the iterative nature of the prototyping design process (e.g. the learning cycle presented by Smørdal & Kaasbøl 1996 or Bohem´s spiral model of software design and development in Denning & Dargan 1996:110). My modified version visualises a process of how artifacts, such as theory, may be refined by practice, that is, how theory may be adapted, inverted , altered by practice and finaly altered by critical analysis in practice-based learning-and research designs.

In the model, the outer cycle represents how the object of practice-based humanities may be approached, i.e. both perceived and articulated, as both tool and artifact, as both tangible manufactured objects or artifact of expression (stipple line) and expressive artifact to be inquired by critical theory as a whole (even line). The inner cycle represents the practice-based process – here, the translations and refinement of theory, as my theoretical perception of the double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy has been the case in this thesis.


The dynamic of artifacts and tools in practice-based method:

"The dynamic of artifacts and tools in practice-based method", is a highly tentative representation of the process of performing practice-based method, and serves here to ease or facilitate the subject matter of foregoing sections. Its touching points to hermeneutic cycle or notions of prejudices and horison (referring to Gadamer and Husserl respectively as put forward by Kjørup 1996:277, 278), are topics that will not be pursued further in this already lengthy thesis.

The straightforward model of tools and artifacts may embody the interplay and positive relation between theory and practice relating to other refined immaterial artefacts or tools, such as skills (e.g. skills of Flash software), or material artefacts, such as digital media (e.g. technical set for multimedia dance performance). The duration of each iteration may vary accordingly, from short and frequent, as the iterations of improvisational settings, to that of longer length iterations, as series of productions.

My practice-based refinement of the double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy through practice adds up to three “iterations”, that is three separate, but following productions, or practice-based academic projects, that were all informed by the double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy as creative tool: The visually structured, vintage web-store Beauty parade (2002), the multimedia performance series Extended (2002) and the interactive, performance installation Tapet (2005).

Lifted to my overall discussion on method, these itarations of practice-based academic projects have refined my perspectives on the issues of practice-based method and digital media.


5 . conclusion and further discussions >>>


 

Practice-based Method. Exploring Digital Media through the Dynamics of Practice, Theory, and Collaborative, Multimedia Performance
Hovedoppgave i mediavitenskap for cand.filol graden, Universitetet i Oslo, Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon, Mai 2006, Idunn Sem