Ah, Simon I¹ve just sent something similar. H
On 9/1/10 12:00, "Simon Biggs" <[email protected]> wrote: > I am not wearing rose tinted spectacles here, particularly at a time when the > UK higher education sector is witnessing its resource base shrink by 25% over > the next three years. Even though these changes are only just beginning I¹ve > already witnessed brutal management tactics, at a number of institutions, > being implemented in order to save costs. That means people losing their jobs > and, ultimately, many of them losing their homes and the means to care for > themselves and their families. They can also lose their sense of value. > > The main problem in academia is not the academics. It is management culture. A > few institutions have sustained governance structures that are founded on > collegiality and transparency amongst academics. Most others have brought in > or created professional managerial layers in their organisations. This has > also happened at the critical interface between government and education, the > funding councils and policy institutes. The result of this is an > instrumentalisation of knowledge and creativity, which is arguably what is at > the core of Michael¹s critique. Knowledge or art for its own sake? No! We are > now required to evidence the social and economic value of everything we do. > How does an artist articulate this, or an astronomer or philosopher? In many > cases it cannot be... > > This has also happened in the art world. Want money from the Arts Council? You > will be required to justify the social and economic value of your proposed > activities. Want to make it without state support you will need to satisfy > the demands of the commercial market. There are those who think these are good > things, whether they be patrician socialists or free-marketers. Whatever, > instrumentalisation is not constrained to education it is a cultural trope. > > Academics are teachers and researchers. They have to be both if they are to > contribute to knowledge and be able to transfer it as it is developed. These > are highly creative activities, arguably as creative as the activities of many > artists (I know academics who are more creative and innovative that a some > artists I know). My experience of HE has been marred by management and also by > certain conservative forces that remain within the academy, who do not want to > see the role or value of knowledge change, who want to manage access to > knowledge and the means to creating knowledge as an arbiter of power. I have > observed this within the now largely defunct art school system and within the > university system that has consumed those art schools. However, I have also > experienced an intellectual fervour and openness to other ways of seeing that > is heartening in how it challenges the dogmatic and blinkered thinking that > underpins instrumental approaches to creativity and the making (and > destroying) of knowledge. > > Education is a good thing. It has been observed many times, in places of > conflict and suffering, that it is education that can make the long term > difference; not food aid, drugs or weapons. > > Best > > Simon > > > Simon Biggs > > Research Professor > edinburgh college of art > [email protected] > www.eca.ac.uk > > Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments > CIRCLE research group > www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ > > [email protected] > www.littlepig.org.uk > AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk > > > > From: Michael Szpakowski <[email protected]> > Reply-To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity > <[email protected]> > Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 02:46:06 -0800 (PST) > To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity > <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] Call for Submissions: Multichannel > VariableEconomies Screening Programme Deadline 28th January (Helen Sloan) > > * and by academia let me say what I mean -I don't mean "teaching" in whatever > context -like Renee I'm utterly in favour. Nor do I mean the art school > tradition at least up to the 70s. I'm referring particularly to developments > over the last 30 years or so. I'm amazed that people can be so sanguine about > the university research culture ( which has swallowed the art schools) when it > is being constantly more colonised by the market & market values - again there > are surely deep issues here in the way this affects what constitutes > "research" and indeed "art" as defined within the academy, which doesn't of > course float Zeppelin-like above the rest of society ( and I'm very grateful > to Rob for the Art and Language quotes which I previously knew nothing about > and which both made me laugh and struck me as enormously pertinent). And I'm > *not* trying to make some easy or pat argument - I'm saying there are > *unanswered and legitimate questions* and there is *room > for discussion*... > > Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number > SC009201 > > > > > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
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