Rethinking Practice as Research and the Cognitive Turn

S. May

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781137522726
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137522733
• Topic: Medien & darstellende Kunst
• Subtopic: Darstellende Kunst

The last 15 years has seen an explosion of studies that use cognitive science to understand theatre, whilst at the same time theatre-makers are using their artistic practice to address research question. This book looks at the current discourse around these emerging fields.

1

Introduction

Abstract: This chapter introduces the reader to the terrain of the book to follow, specifically discussing what is meant by ‘the cognitive turn’ and ‘practice as research’ (PaR) and how the project of this book relates to the existing literature in the field. It also discusses the methodology of this book – what we might call, following Wittgenstein, ‘conceptual clarification’ – and David Saltz’s suggestion that performance theory needs philosophy.

May, Shaun. Rethinking Practice as Research and the Cognitive Turn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. DOI: 10.1057/9781137522733.0003.

In this book I will attempt to answer a deceptively simple question – what, if anything, can philosophy contribute to current debates around practice as research (PaR) and what McConachie and Hart (2006) call the ‘cognitive turn’ in performance studies? My conception of philosophy here is broadly congruent with the ‘analytic’ tradition and methodologically it might be called conceptual analysis. Put another way, my central aim here is to critically examine the conceptual foundations of these two emerging sub-disciplines within performance studies. Moreover, I’m doing so not because I find them to be unpromising but because of the exact opposite. In my view, they constitute two of the most exciting areas of development in theatre scholarship in the past 15 years. However, I will suggest that there are some conceptual knots in their foundations that need to be disentangled. Drawing heavily on the Wittgensteinian conception of philosophy, whereby the central task of the philosopher is to untangle the conceptual knots that lead to misunderstandings and confusion, I will set out to do just that. I will suggest that Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Mind provides a great toolkit for critically examining these foundational knots and provides alternative ways of viewing things that avoids them. It is my hope that by the end of the book the foundations of these sub-disciplines will be more solid than when we started and, therefore, they have better grounds on which to continue developing.

1Why performance theory needs philosophy

In his excellent essay ‘Why Performance Theory Needs Philosophy’, David Saltz makes two important observations regarding the relationship between performance and analytic philosophy that are worth considering here. The first concerns the nature of the dialogue within the analytic philosophy tradition, which tends to proceed through a series of propositions, then rebuttals, then critical responses and so on. Detailed criticism is not just tolerated but welcomed, as often it is through a rigorous engagement with critique that the position develops. By contrast, Saltz suggests, performance scholars tend to view such detailed and trenchant criticisms as attacks (Saltz 2001:152). Although it might be the case that Saltz’s view is overstated, it should be noted that there is something in this suggestion. When I have presented my ideas at philosophy conferences in the past I have noticed a marked difference in the tone and detail of criticism received, and whilst teaching an undergraduate drama course looking at analytic philosophy of theatre my students have remarked on a difference in tone. I suspect that in channeling the spirit of analytic philosophy in my critique I have also brought along with it some of the tone. This is why I wanted to be explicit from the outset that my criticisms are meant to be constructive, and ultimately I will consider the project of the book successful not if the reader agrees with it wholeheartedly (although this would be nice, it is also highly unlikely) but if it generates similarly critical discussion about the points addressed.

A second point Saltz makes about performance theory is the tendency of scholars in this field to argue through citation – using phrases such as ‘philosopher X has demonstrated ...’ (and I would add ‘scientist Y has shown that ...’) without rehearsing the arguments or outlining the empirical evidence that led to the conclusion. On this point I wholeheartedly agree, and I would suggest that there is a problem with scholarship that does this. The philosopher’s conclusions are only as valid as the premises he builds them on, and the scientist’s findings are only as good as the evidence she produces to support them, so it’s a peculiar habit of the theatre scholar to omit these things from their account. In the second chapter I will suggest that, in places, scholars within the cognitive turn both draw inferences that do not logically follow from the evidence they cite and inherit conceptual errors from the scientists they reference. In such cases, I would suggest that these issues would be more clearly evident – and thus more amenable to productive critique – if the workings were signposted more effectively. Similarly, in his account of practice as research Robin Nelson suggests that Gilbert Ryle’s conclusions support his account, but that the arguments Ryle makes for those conclusions needn’t detain his reader. As I address in the third chapter, I completely agree that Ryle’s philosophy has a valuable contribution to make in these debates but, as the conclusions are only as valid as the premises they are supported by, I’d suggest there is a value in interrogating them.

Although this book might be the first that explicitly states that its aim is to apply philosophy to the literature on the cognitive turn and PaR, I’m not suggesting that this is a novel approach. Regarding PaR, Nelson (2013), Kershaw (2010) and Borgdorff (2012) reference the works of Ryle, Wittgenstein and Heidegger respectively, and those philosophers have had a marked influence on the project of this book. Similarly, McConachie (2007) explicitly relates the cognitive turn to the philosophy of Karl Popper and defines his project negatively in relation to post-structuralist philosophy. In this way, I’d suggest, the literature is already grounded in philosophical ideas, or at the very least conceptions of intelligent performance that tacitly presuppose a philosophical position. Whether or not they state it explicitly, scholars who make statements about the distinction between know-how and know-that are putting themselves in the middle of an active debate within philosophy. Whether or not they explicitly acknowledge it, scholars who ask questions about how the spectator’s mind make sense of a performance of Waiting for Godot are assuming a certain conception of the mental which is debated in the philosophical literature. Given this fact, my suggestion is that addressing these debates and conceptions head-on will be a fruitful enterprise for scholars working in these areas. However, before we do that it might be worth outlining the terrain into which I’m going to be wandering, and in doing so defining my terms.

2Mapping terrain and defining terms

2.1Practice as research

Perhaps the first thing to note about practice as research is that the term itself is rather contested. A brief survey of the literature will indicate an array of alternatives offered, and distinctions made, which can surely only serve to confuse the reader. Practice-led research, for example, seems to be used in Australia to mean what in a UK context is called PaR, and similarly Artistic Research is preferred in Nordic countries. In the hope of simplifying matters, I’ll use the following definition from Robin Nelson:

PaR involves a research project in which practice is a key method of inquiry and where, in respect of the arts, a practice (creative writing, dance, musical score/performance, theatre/performance, visual exhibition, film or other cultural practice) is submitted as substantial evidence of a research inquiry. (Nelson 2013:9)

Moreover, I agree with Smith and Dean’s two key suggestions about PaR (although they seem to prefer the term practice-led research), specifically that (1) ‘creative work in itself is a form of research and generates detectable research outputs’ and (2) creative practice ‘can lead to specialised research insights’ (Smith and Dean 2009:5).

Regarding the development of the idea, Nelson suggests that the notion of PaR may have originated in Finland in the 1980s, and in the United Kingdom around a similar time (Nelson 2013:11). However, Piccini (2002) and Riley and Hunter (2009) suggest that the Research Assessment Exercise in 1992, which audited the research activities of university departments across the United Kingdom, was a decisive point that led to more focused dialogue about the relationship between practice and research. I would suggest that scholarship on PaR really started to gain traction around the early 2000s. In 2001, PARIP (Practice as Research in Performance) was launched and ran for five years funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board, and from that a number of books and articles appeared. Piccini (2002), Trimingham (2002) and Thomson (2003) articulated some of the initial responses to the dialogue this project started and 2009 saw the publication of an edited collection by some of the key voices within those discussions (Allegue et al. 2009). This was preceded by an edited collection by Estelle Barrett and Barbara Bolt (2007) and followed by collections from James Elkins (2009), Hazel Smith and Roger Dean (2009) and Shannon Rose Riley and Lynette Hunter (2009). Clearly it is beyond the scope of the present chapter, and indeed the book as a whole, to provide an extensive review of the wide range of perspectives represented in these pages. Although such a project might be interesting I suspect it would take us away from the central task of the book – to interrogate the conceptual foundations of these ideas. I would suggest that, perhaps because their views are developed in book-length rather than article-length pieces, Freeman (2010), Borgdorff (2012) and Nelson (2013) delve into these foundations more explicitly than some other scholars in the field, and as such their work will appear more here than some of the other notable scholars.

Moreover, whereas Nelson (2013), Freeman (2010) and others have what one might call a pragmatic orientation – a sense that their books are, at least partly, ‘how to’ guides – this book does not. It seems unlikely that the reader will have a better sense of how to do PaR at the end of reading this, but I would like to think that this work sheds light on what they are doing when they do PaR. In other words, my project in this book, like Borgdorff’s, ‘may be roughly described using the terms clarification, justification and positioning...I try to create some terminological and conceptual clarity regarding the phenomenon of [practice as research]’ (Borgdorff 2012:7). Before I turn to the topic of practice as research in the third chapter, though, I will first address the literature on the ‘cognitive turn’ in performance studies so it might be worth briefly mapping out that terrain too.

2.2The cognitive turn

In the introduction to their 2006 edited collection Performance and Cognition: Theatre Studies and the Cognitive Turn, McConachie and Hart state that one of their goals is to ‘invite performance scholars to incorporate many of the insights of cognitive science into their work and to begin considering all of their research projects from the perspective of cognitive studies’ (McConachie and Hart 2006:ix). They argue that cognitive approaches are not ‘just as good as any other’ conceptual framework, but in fact better (ibid.). McConachie develops this point further in his essay ‘Falsifiable Theories for Theatre and Performance Studies’, which was part of a special issue of Theatre Journal on the topic of ‘Performance and Cognition’ in 2007, and then in his book Engaging Audiences published in 2008. This book was one of the first in a Palgrave series, Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance, co-edited by McConachie that features monographs from several noted scholars in this emerging sub-discipline.¹ Outside of this series, a number of other researchers followed McConachie and Hart’s call for a ‘cognitive turn’, including Stephen Di Benedetto (2010), Rick Kemp (2012) and Nicola Shaughnessy (2012, 2013).

As Evelyn Tribble and John Sutton note, cognitive science is not a monolithic entity, but rather ‘an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary field, riven by internal tensions and disagreements, and encompassing a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, many of which are not obviously compatible with each other’ (Tribble and Sutton 2013:28). As such, whilst it might be helpful to refer to the ‘cognitive turn’ as a movement, and ‘cognitive approaches to performance studies’ as a singular entity, we should not lose sight of that fact. Within the literature mentioned, authors disagree about fundamental things such as the nature of the mind, the extent to which cognition is ‘embodied’, ‘extended’ or ‘enacted’, and what methodologies are the best suited to understanding performance. Nevertheless, I will suggest in the second chapter that there are certain conceptual problems in some – perhaps not all, but a substantial chunk – of that literature. I will focus my critique on the work where the conceptual problems are most evident, in large part to make my position as clear as possible, and I will focus on the more influential work such as that of McConachie (2008) because I’d suggest that these are the main texts that people turn to when they are first approaching this literature. I will begin by looking at a fundamental premise of the cognitive turn, that it rests on falsifiable theories, and the claim by McConachie and Hart that this falsifiability makes cognitive approaches better than other conceptual frameworks for understanding performance. Ultimately, I’d like to resist this slightly imperialist suggestion, and instead prefer a sort of ‘methodological pluralism’, in which cognitive approaches to performance studies co-exist peacefully, and indeed productively, with other critical frameworks. Indeed, I hope to show that philosophy has a great deal to contribute to such accounts through careful critical analysis of their conceptual foundations.

3Methodology and motivation

3.1Conceptual knots and clarification

In a passage that is unlikely to endear him to any psychologist reading, Wittgenstein wrote over 50 years ago that, ‘in psychology there are experimental methods and conceptual confusion’ (Wittgenstein 2001:197). Given such passages it is rather unsurprising that Wittgenstein has been viewed as an anti-science philosopher. Similarly, neuroscientist Max Bennett and philosopher Peter Hacker have more recently caused uproar through their criticisms of contemporary neuroscience, suggesting that discipline is also troubled by ‘conceptual confusions’ (Bennett and Hacker 2003). Although I disagree with the tone of their critiques, which in both cases I would suggest have been perceived as obnoxious and led to scientists disengaging from and ignoring their points, I woul...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Introduction
• 2  Rethinking the Cognitive Turn
• 3  Rethinking Practice as Research
• 4  Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index