Michael Biggs

Verified

Michael verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

Verified

Michael verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

University of Hertfordshire | UH · School of Creative Arts

The project investigates innovation, and how novelty, originality, or “the new” can be facilitated, especially in interdisciplinary research. At a philosophical level the project problematizes how originality is even possible, given the conceptual and expressive constraints of existing modes of thought. The research presented here addresses the not...

This chapter offers a sketch theory of notation in response to the problem of linguistic relativity presented by Boas, Sapir, and Whorf. Wittgenstein also addressed this problem of habitual ways of seeing the world which he called aspect-blindness. We conclude that a therapeutic break in conceptual habits can be achieved by a change of register or...

This paper discusses innovation and notation for interdisciplinary research. The diversity of writing systems, and the existence of specialised mono-disciplinary notational systems, invites inquiry into the relationship between what can be said, what can be annotated, and what can be thought, known as linguistic relativism or Whorfianism. Interdisc...

This is a piece of experimental multi-perspectival writing in which four different personae adopt different methods and intellectual relationships to writing as a means of research, by using the topics of fiction, counterfactual history and not-being. The narrative line is provided by a novelist who retells Saramago’s The History of the Siege of Li...

This paper reports on Wittgenstein’s use of pictures and diagrams undertaken through an analysis of the surrounding co-text in the published works. It is part of a larger project to develop tools for the integrated semantic analysis of images and text in Wittgenstein’s original manuscript and typescript sources. The textual analysis took keywords,...

This paper uses structure-mapping to bridge the divide between the analytical and visual culture traditions of image interpretation. Wittgenstein’s analytic ‘picture theory of meaning’ from his early period, and his cultural theory of ‘meaning as use’ from his later period are used to show that the terms similarity, analogy and metaphor can be appl...

Link to the open-access volume: https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/en/edizioni4/riviste/the-journal-for-the-philosophy-of-language-mind-an/2021/1/

Social robots have the potential to problematize many attributes that have previously been considered, in philosophical discourse, to be unique to human beings. Thus, if one construes the explicit programming of robots as constituting specific objectives and the overall design and structure of AI as having aims, in the sense of embedded directives,...

Graphetics is the study of how one recognizes text, and how one differentiates it from other marks and drawings, for example when one views a manuscript and has to decide ‘is this writing or just scribble?’. This article focuses on the pragmatics of graphetics and on the (philosophical) complexity of differentiating graphs into linguistic and non-l...

The paper uses the form of an interview with editorial comments to take a multivocal approach to discussing creativity in research. This allows interrogation, statement and intertextuality to occupy the same dialogic space. Aspects of creativity in research are compared to traditional notions of creativity in studio art and more contemporary claims...

Using activity theory this article argues that intentional activities are central to knowledge-production and may be compared to methods in research, and the worldview within which these activities are perceived as meaningful by the actors who deploy them may be compared to methodologies. Accordingly, research activities are dependent on their cont...

Our aim in this chapter is to discuss the potential of different types of exposition of artistic research. In order to do this we will first challenge the myth that there are subject-specific output formats, or in other words, the idea that exhibitions are particularly suited for the exposition of artistic research or that journal articles are part...

This article examines output types as manifestations of different concepts of research. We compare the UK academic scene to that of Brazil, identifying the former as responding ‘bottom-up’ to researcher needs and the latter determining ‘top-down’ what researchers can do. Taking the UK model as indicative of what researchers think they need, we unde...

Using a model of kinship from Cohen, we describe our interaction with other arts research communities and examine our lived experiences with them over more than a decade. We refer to objective "evidence" in the form of documentation and production, encounters and conversations, told through our own perception of our community and of the other commu...

How do we learn about the objects that surround us? As well as gathering sensory information by viewing and using objects, we also learn about objects through the written and spoken word - from shop labels to friends' recommendations and from magazines to patents. But, even as design commentators have become increasingly preoccupied with issues of...

This article presents an investigation that was funded by the Swedish Institute into the role of creative practice in architectural research as evidenced in Swedish doctoral theses. The sample was mapped and analysed in terms of clusters of interest, approaches, cultures of knowledge and uses of creative practice. This allowed the identification of...

This chapter considers architecture as a discipline, the role of practice in its academic research, and its potentially transdisciplinary character. Developing an earlier study of theses, we differentiate the plane of traditional academic research from an additional dimension offered by practice. However, we note that generic forms of practice occu...

At the University of Hertfordshire [UH] in UK we have hosted a series of research projects into the changing nature of the arts as it has been progressively academicized and incorporated into the university community. We have observed that the dominant knowledge model of the academic community is the scientific one, valorising text-based reasoning,...

The creative and performing arts have recently entered the university system in many European countries. They bring with them expectations of forms of practice and understandings that are non-traditional. These practices and understandings are manifestations of underlying values held by each community and, in our analysis, we see the difference in...

In professional areas such as the creative and performing arts and design, the academic model of research has not been clearly articulated. This means that often the values held in advanced professional practice run counter to the traditional models of knowledge and research that are adopted in academia. As a result, there is a problem in accountin...

This article addresses two core problems in practice-based research: the identification of fundamental conditions and, therefore, the identification of actual examples. It is critical of the methods in many earlier case studies involving circular argumentation. The article assumes that research in the creative and cultural industries is both situat...

Em areas profissionais em que existe uma pratica projetual, como e o caso na arquitetura e urbanismo, na academia o conceito de conhecimento nao esta claramente articulado. Entretanto, algumas das caracteristicas do conceito de conhecimento parece incluir a valorizacao da subjetividade; a pluralidade de interpretacao; objetos os quais encorpam sign...

In this paper we express our framing of supervision as preparation and training for professional practice as a researcher, rather than the culmination of tertiary education. Instead of discussing the supervisory activity, performance and best practice, we focus on the uniqueness of practice as a researcher in the creative arts as being constituted...

This paper examines the connections between research, and practices of design including research by design. The paper argues that owing to different worldviews, what constitutes an effective practice within each paradigm is different. The received paradigm of scientific research benefits from high levels of coherence between its aims, methods, and...

In areas of design practice, the paradigm of knowledge has not been clearly articulated, but some of its characteristics appear to include a valorisation of subjectivity; plurality of interpretation; objects that embody meanings; and that which cannot be expressed through language. These values run counter to traditional models of knowledge and res...

This article addresses two core problems in practice-based research: the identification of fundamental conditions and, therefore, the identification of actual examples. It is critical of the methods in many earlier case studies involving circular argumentation. The article assumes that research in the creative and cultural industries is both situat...

In this paper, we set out to investigate the nature, role and purpose of the research exhibition. The idea of the research exhibition was put forward some time ago with a paper by Rust and Robertson (2003) who have considered it with regard to its potential as a means of communication for research. This seemed a promising approach, but remained at...

In our advance publicity materials we said that Research into Practice 2006 would “explore the instrumentality of the context on the reception of artefacts as constituting or contributing to research”. This is part of a series of questions posed since 2000 that represent our on-going problem analysis of the relationship of research and professional...

It is the claim of this paper that the judgement and classification of a work as research is a judgement that is made by the audience and is an issue of its reception, rather than being determined by the intention of the "author". This is because a work must meet a few basic conditions in order to function as research, and these are centred on issu...

Wittgenstein developed what has become known as "the picture the ory of meaning" in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. This has been widely interpreted as a comparison between the way in which an engineering drawing is derived by means of projection from the object, and the way in which language and/or thought is derived from the world around us....

This paper addresses an apparently trivial question: what is the difference between graphics and text? It appears to be trivial because there would seem to be several alternative and simple ways of answering it. For example, 'text is made up of letters whereas graphics are not', 'one can create text using a keyboard', 'one can read text aloud', etc...

The theme that is hopefully pervading this issue of the journal is "what is the role of the artefact in art and design research?" Being of an enquiring disposition that immediately raises two further questions in my mind: firstly, what does the question mean, and secondly how does this question arise?In terms of determining what the question means,...

This paper is about models of research and knowledge. In particular it addresses the implications of so-called practice-based research in art and design as a method or as a mode of communication for experiential content. The investigation is pursued by contrasting the way in which we use linguistic modes of argument and communication with the possi...

I do not intend to summarise the main points from the speakers' papers. I do want to establish the nature of the question, why it arises, and some reference points that might aid navigation through the day's proceedings.This year's theme is "what is knowledge?"We are not interested in the question in the context of traditional epistemology: it is n...

Abstract The paper opens with the definition ofresearch madeb ythe Artsand Humanities ResearchB oard oft he UK. Thisst ates thatart and design research mustadvance knowledge, understandinga nd insight.T he paper goes on toco nsider the role ofth e artefact inco mmunicating this advancement,and whether artefacts have the capability toemb ody knowled...

This paper is a study of examples of visual reasoning from Wittgenstein. There are two key issues. First, to what extent are some lexical concepts predicated on visual examples? Cases of ostensively defined nouns such as 'red' are less interesting in this context than cognitive terms such as 'to show' [proof]. Second, I identify examples where an u...

This conference has been convened to discuss practice-based research in art and design, and the relationship of doctoral degrees to professional practice in the discipline. Back in the 1980s conference delegates were thirsting for completed examples of doctoral degrees in art and design to use as models of research. In the last couple of years ther...

In this paper I shall criticise the notion of objectivity in design research methodology. I shall argue that the requirement for such objectivity is either implicit in the phrasing of research degree regulations, or is widely assumed in their interpretation. The philosophical error is the assumption that objectivity is either methodologically possi...

The purpose of this paper is to identify a function for some of the graphics which may be found in Wittgenstein’s writings. Not all the graphics function in the same way, but so little has been written about them that an outline of the function of even a few would seem to make a useful contribution. I describe the graphics in relation to seven key...

Rapport de la discussion par e-mail sur la philosophie et la publication electronique qui s'est tenue entre novembre 1995 et juin 1996 autour de l'article d'A. Renear consacre aux problemes de l'encodage du texte par ordinateur, d'une part, et au passage d'une conception platonicienne a une conception antirealiste de l'intertextualite et de la repr...

There are no established conventions for, and few examples of, indexing visual material on the basis of its form. Most image databases use keywords to describe the form or function, and access data by text-based retrieval of these keywords. An image- based approach would order the data by appearance, e.g. Shepherd (1971) and Dreyfuss (1972). A taxo...

Este artículo estudia el papel de la experiencia visual en la obra de Wittgenstein. La tesis específica consiste en que la experiencia visual no da únicamente ejemplos ilustrativos de lo que podría ser una explicación del significado, sino también una metáfora repetida de todo el proceso del significado y del entendimiento. Wittgenstein utiliza un...