Thesis

This Doctorate explored the pedagogical application of the methods employed in making art as a means of encouraging inter-disciplinary learning.

Drawing on key processes in art-making, this project recorded the development of phenomenological thoughts and concepts that arose during the creation of a variety of cognitive spaces, chiefly the making of artworks. It employs and expresses the emergent knowledge as both artwork exhibition (exhibited at the Counihan Gallery, Brunswick 27/9/12-28/10/12), and exegesis, in a ratio of 65/35%.

Employing the A/R/T/ographic method -a dynamically process focused heuristic and phenomenological methodology - this study endeavoured to build knowledge outside of the precise and defined knowledge of the academy, seeking to “permeate boundaries and open up new understandings” (Irwin 2005), rather than generate specific answers.

The method employed creativity’s practices of convergence, metaphoric communication and intrinsic motivation, to provide psycho/neurological space for knowledge to simmer within the unpredictable and non-linear, non-conscious processes of the human mind.

This form of cognition, described by Wallas (1926) as ‘incubation’, and espoused by many of the greatest scientific thinkers from Poincaré to Einstein, emerges in a temporal space away from the short-term productivity focus of contemporary society. It is applied in this research during artmaking, intended to allow the generation of ideas and questions.

The ideas generated within these spaces, once journaled, congealed into themes, which subsequently became catalysts for a broad search of literature, resulting in the production of meta-analytic essays, conference presentation, and some twenty-four exhibited artworks.

Each paper/artwork emerged through, and from the provision of space, allowing room for reflection and the integration of knowledge, which in turn generated questions that inspired further research - a symbiotic relationship where the art process feeds the learning, which feed the art, which feeds the learning, … The thesis contends art’s contextual instability, fused with motivational and critical characteristics of creativity are key values of art in pedagogy, which combine with quantitative methodological strengths to provide an integrated learning platform.

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