A PhD Research Proposal to the ‘Drawology’ Project Title (as defined in the ‘Investing in Excellence’ Vice-Chancellor’s PhD Scholarship Scheme 2014).

Drawing as Narrative?

Shaun Belcher

Drawing as Narrative?

Drawing as Narrative: From a practitioner-researcher point of view.

The topic area for this proposal is Fine Art: Drawing and attaches itself to the ‘Drawology’ project.

I see NTU Fine Art as currently being well-placed to create a ‘Centre of Excellence’ as defined by the

AHRC mission statement through supporting an international-level PhD cohort in this subject area. I

see myself as being part of that cluster and taking things forward. I wish to develop a thriving and

cutting-edge research cluster in Drawing led by Deborah Harty and raising NTU’s profile further from

the ‘Drawology’ exhibition. I see this project as a way of developing drawing across both subject-

areas within the School of Art and Design and across Schools by establishing a university-wide

‘Thinking through Drawing’ group based on the concepts introduced by the Thinking Through

Drawing’ events I have attended. The proposal is at heart both multi-disciplinary and trans-

disciplinary in attempting to create new intellectual spaces and knowledge.

The study is embedded within a field of enquiry which links directly to the Tracey Journal and the

DRN and is at the leading-edge of contemporary theory and practice. I see this as part of an

expansion of drawing across the curriculum into a variety areas alongside the current research into

dialogic drawing. The project will also address current concerns over the role of practice,

‘authenticity’ and ‘the art object’ in an era of increasing digitisation making the research highly

relevant both to cross-disciplinary practice and future pedagogy. Part of this proposal will look at the

role of co-design and investigate digital means of co-creation and its effect on drawing methods and

methodology. Drawing should be at the heart of an Art School curriculum in the 21st Century and

NTU can lead the way in this field if it supported properly.

Finally it may lead to the development of a ‘Visual Writing’ or to term it correctly ‘Visual Scribing’

M.A. based on my findings and outcomes. This idea has been suggested by the Dean. Having

established an international profile and had papers published alongside some positive press

coverage whilst at M.A. level this is the logical development of my academic career and if not

supported at PhD level within my own institution I will take my experience and current research

outcomes and enthusiasm elsewhere.

• If your proposal is for a practice- or creative-based PhD with a critical component, please also

describe the proposed media, content, and techniques of the practice/creative element(s), explaining the originality of the work and what you hope to explore;

Practitioner-Researcher: The Implication of Symbols

A series of programmed sequential drawings over time, both sighted and drawn ‘blind’ will attempt

to uncover this possibly ‘inherent’ intentionality. This draws on sequential drawings research I began

in my M.A. in Fine Art. This is the practitioner part of my research proposal and the foundation stone

of later development.

Group Workshops (The Dialogic): Co-Design Narratives

Through a continuation of action-research workshops across art and design disciplines the

researcher will investigate how notions of ‘drawing’ and ‘narrative’ change and how this affects

outcomes. I have recent experience of a Co-Design drawing workshop within a product-design

setting and can see cross-disciplinary opportunities for investigating different concepts of fine art

and design narratives through programmed events.

The linkage of narratology, the dialogic and the sequential in these events is an original approach within the context of current drawing research. It links to previous work I have completed on sequential narratives and notions of art research and pedagogy (Belcher 2013) The research will through its originality and combination of Fine Art and Design methodologies create new knowledge in the field of Art and Design Studies, Visual Culture and Art and Design Pedagogy. (Trans and multi-disciplinary knowledge)

• The problem or hypothesis to be tested (the research questions or problem you want to address, the research objectives);

Drawing as Narrative? Contrasting an interior symbology and an exterior dialogism to establish if a ‘narrative’ of drawing can be proved to exist?

The project will interrogate the place of various levels of drawing. For instance this may include the sketch, cartoon, visual writing, mind-map within art teaching and examine the role of facilitator/tutor in relation to building drawn narratives in divergent subject groups e.g. Product Design, Animation, Fashion and further afield Business Studies and Engineering for instance. The wider the test groups the better as this an investigation into the role of narrative in all drawing. The research methods will include co-creation and action-research alongside feedback and statistical data analysis according to a social sciences qualitative analysis. The research will begin in a personal iterative process and widen gradually as workshops and one-to-one methods are brought in. I will produce a range of data and research into the role of drawing alongside my own practitioner-researcher outcomes in the form of art-works. The two parts are mutually supportive. • The relationship of the proposed research to the published literature and to current research (or practice) in the field (how you project relates to other work);

The research will be located within wider contemporary investigations of the phenomenology of

drawing (Harty, McGuirk, Krcma and Ashton) and wider Visual Rhetoric theory (Elkins, Brandl). With

due regard to the definitions and disagreements of Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger it may also

explore the implications of the Speculative Turn and Object Orientated Philosophy in relation to a

new ecology of things. The notion of ‘narrative’ will draw heavily upon Bakhtin’s theories of the

dialogic imagination and fragmented discourse (Bakhtin 1981) and wider narratology theory.

• An indication of the contribution to knowledge that the thesis is anticipated to make (what you

hope to find out);

The object of this enquiry is to establish if different disciplines affect the creation of a ‘drawn’ narrative and how this may be explored within art and design pedagogy in the future through speculative research into ‘drawn narratives’ both personal and group orientated.

• The methods and techniques to be used in the research (how you propose to go about the research);

It is the intention of this investigation to relate the practitioner-researcher’s personal process to

wider group work through action-research and sequential process within workshops and dialogic

interventions. Some of these will be practice-based some online and digital.

The practitioner-researcher will conduct a series of time-based drawing actions alongside the wider group working.

• A provisional timetable for the project, indicating anticipated activities;

Year One - Mphil: Study of Research Methods and Research Theory In-depth literature review Personal symbology research: Time-based drawing sequences. Year Two Mphil-Phd: Programmed cross-disciplinary workshops in narrative drawing. Investigation of a ‘research narrative’. Year Three Phd: Analysis and first findings from co-design workshops and initial write-up. Personal Symbology exegesis through practice-led exhibition. Possible showing of the group work alongside personal drawing. Write-up dissertation and Viva. • Details of previous work in the proposed field, or relationship to prior experience or study;

2014 – December – Nottingham Open – Two drawings selected. 2014 - September/October ‘Drawology’ at Coventry University– three works from drawing practice as research. Lanchester Gallery. 2014 – July Publication of James Elkins 2nd Edition of Artists with Phds with my illustrations to individual chapters. http://www.jameselkins.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=211:artists-with-phds&catid=1:academic-books&Itemid=8 2014 – March – ‘Sequential Drawing’ Paper on Dickens and Illustrator Seymour to ‘Illustration and Narrative Construction‘ Conference, Paris, Universite Paris-Diderot. January 2014 – Awarded Fine Art M.A. ‘Distinction’. 2013 November 20th-December 6th ‘Drawology’ exhibition – three works from drawing practice as research. Bonington Gallery.

2013 October 24th-27th Delivered Animated presentation of ‘The art object in search of new knowledge’ at DRN/Drawing and Cognition co-conference at Columbia University and Metropolitan Museum of Art New York. 2013 September – Asked to submit a chapter to forthcoming publication ‘Phenomenology of Drawing’ I.B.Tauris. Edited by Deborah Harty T.B.C. speculative title ‘The implication of Symbols: The Intentional Object and repetitive memory’.

2013 July.10th-12th – Delivered paper at Film-Philosophy’ conference Amsterdam on ‘Alexander Mann’s Gnats: A sequential narrative in Etchings’. 2013 June 12th – Paper ‘ Can grey ravens fly: Beyond Fraylings categories’ accepted for publication in Arts and Humanities in Higher Education Journal (Sage) (Published May 2013 here: http://ahh.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/12/20/1474022213514548 ) 2013 March 7th Featured in Times Higher Education magazine article as practitioner-researcher in drawing. (Illustrated with cartoon) http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/blurring-the-lines-between-art-and-research/2/2002260.article 2013 February Paper ‘Can grey ravens fly’ published in proceedings of DRN conference Loughborough. M.A. by Registered Project restarted with new Proposal and supervision by Deborah Harty under ‘Fine Art: Drawing’.

2012 September 12th – 14th – Drawing and Cognition – STEAM Conference – Wimbledon School of Art – Invited artist 2012 September 11th and 12th – Drawing Research network Conference 2012 – Loughborough University. Delivered a paper as cartoon of ‘Grey Ravens’. 2012 7th-8th Swansea University ‘Practice makes perfect’ conference. Paper ‘Frayling Categories’. Submitted to Sage new voices issue. Further information and work undertaken whilst on M.A. in Fine Art available at my Drawing Research Blog HERE: http://www.shaunbelcher.com/research/ See also my NTU Staff Research profile on Irep: http://llr.ntu.ac.uk/rpd/researchpublications.php?pubid=cc654b86-4350-4332-9842-8566ffe85392

• Bibliography of sources already consulted or identified as of relevance to your proposal;

Archer LB (1984) Systematic Method for Designers, in Cross N (ed.) 1984. Developments in Design Methodology, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. 57-82, (Originally published by The Design Council, London 1965.) Bakhtin, M.M.1981. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin: Texas University Press. Belcher, S.D., 2014. Can grey ravens fly? Beyond Frayling's categories. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 13 (3), pp. 235-242. IRep - full text Belcher, S., 2014. [Exhibition catalogue contribution]. In: D. HARTY, ed., Drawology. Nottingham: Nottingham Trent University: CADBE, 2014, pp. 4-5. IRep - record - no full-text currently available Belcher, S., 2014. Shaun Belcher and Moogee the art dog at Thinking Through Drawing 2012. In: A. BREW, M. FAVA and A. KANTROWITZ, eds., Thinking Through Drawing 2012: drawing in STEAM. 123Draw in association with Loughborough University, Teachers College, Columbia University and University of the Arts London, 2014, pp. 16-30. Frayling C (1993) Research in art and design. Royal College of Art Research Papers. Vol.1. No.1. London: Royal College of Art. Harty, D., 2012. Drawing through touch: a phenomenological approach. In: Drawing Out, UAL - Chelsea, London, 28-30 March 2012.

Harty, D. [Curator] 2013, Drawology [Exhibition] Bonington Gallery, Nottingham. Artists exhibiting were: Shaun Belcher » Sian Bowen » Rachael Colley » David Connearn » Paul Fieldsend-Danks » Maryclare Foa » Paul Gough » Joe Graham » Deborah Harty » Claude Heath » humhyphenhum » Juliet MacDonald » Jordan McKenzie » Lucy O’Donnell » Bill Prosser » Karen Wallis » Martin Lewis » Patricia Cain » Simón Granell » humhyphenhumha » David Connearn » Andrew Pepper Krcma, E. (2010, October). Cinematic Drawing in a Digital Age. Tate Papers, 14. Retrieved from http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/ tate-papers/cinematic-drawing-digital-age Krcma, E. (2012, October). Lightning and Rain: Phenomenology, Psychoanalysis and Matisse’s Hand. Tate Papers, 18. Retrieved from http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/ lightning-and-rain-phenomenology-psychoanalysis-and-matisses-hand McGuirk T. (2012) “Drawing and Intellectualism: Contested Paradigms of Knowledge” in Niedderer, K and Mey, K. (guest eds.) (2012) Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education Journal. Volume 10 Issue 2. McGuirk T. (2010) “Heidegger’s Rift: The Epistemological Significance of Drawing”, in: De Freitas, N. (Ed.) Studies in Material Thinking, Edition 4, ISSN 1177-6234, AUT University, New Zealand, McGuirk T. (2012) “When Art turns its Back on the Body” in Elkins James (ed.), What Do Artists Know? University Park, PA; Penn State University Press. Vol. 3 of: “The Stone Theory Institute Series”.

Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962) Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge. Mottram J (2009) 'Researching Research in Art and Design' in Elkins J (ed.) (2009) Artists with PhDs: On the New Doctoral Degree in Studio Art, Washington DC: New Academy Publishing. Schön DA (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York, NY: Basic Books