CHAPTER 5

Practice Research Process: Documentation

and Publication

DOCUMENTATION
This chapter starts with the assumption that documentation and the need for
dissemination of research insights are broadly accepted in Practice Research by
those operating within an HE framework. Accordingly, I do not repeat the
discussion of issues around the relation of the document (exposition, commen-
tary, exegesis) to creative processes, objects of material culture or ephemeral
practices. The issues have not changed (see Nelson 2013) but, broadly speak-
ing, practitioner-researcher attitudes have adjusted to accept that complemen-
tary writing is not an attempt to translate a practice into words but a contribution
to articulating and evidencing the research inquiry.1 As Sean Lowry summa-
rizes, “[t]he research component of research undertaken by artists [practitio-
ners] is, in some respects, comparable with any definition of research, a key
element of which is the transferability of the understandings reached as a result
of the research process.”2
However, the landscape of research is fast-changing: new formulations and
formats for undertaking, sharing and preserving research are rapidly emerging,
particularly in PaR. The validity of the “gold standard” peer review systems for
books and articles is itself under debate, and the Open Access, online reposi-
tory model challenges the dominance of traditional publication. Work is taken
to be “in the published domain” if accessible online, though self-selected for a
university repository is not quite the same as peer-reviewed. There is an oppor-
tunity for Practice Research to lead the field in these developments and to
inform what the future of research looks like. The Executive Summary of the
recent Performance Research Action Group (PRAG) (1) report points out that
“[i]n practice research, forms of intuitive, embodied, tacit, imaginative, affec-
tive and sensory ways of knowing can be conveyed, and its sharing presents an
opportunity for the modernising and revitalising of research communication,
uncovering novel dissemination routes in the digital era.”3

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 81

Switzerland AG 2022
R. Nelson, Practice as Research in the Arts (and Beyond),
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90542-2_5
82 R. NELSON

Two examples indicate how digital culture encourages new modes of docu-
mentation which are often inherent in the creative-investigative process as dis-
tinct from an additional record.4 Documentation may be integral to the creative
process. Prompted by the constraints of Covid on the performing arts, Alex
Whitney’s “Digital Body” project offers a new opportunity for dance collabo-
ration in which documentation is inherent.5 Interested in how human move-
ment can be transformed and dance performance created through 3-D motion
graphics, Whitney extended his investigations. Capturing his own choreo-
graphed dances with a Perception Neuron V2 motion capture system and mak-
ing the results virtually available for others to interact with, Whitney has
effectively created a space for distanced collaboration in choreography online.
Other practitioners can access the motion data collaboratively to develop dance
movements. Techno colleagues work with the mix of MoCap data and algo-
rithms to produce the visuals such that digital documentation is inherent in the
creative process.6
Aubiome for saxophone and live electronics is the major work produced
from Joel Diegert’s doctorate research project exploring collaboration between
saxophonist (Diegert) and composer (Atacho) by electronic means7 (Table 5.1).
The written word remains a useful mode of sharing, but writings in PaR may
likewise be inventive and deviate from the third person “objective” mode of
traditional publication. Indeed, several modes of writing (including the first-
person poetic) may be necessary to give a nuanced account of complex intra-
relations between insider and outsider knowing (see Chaps. 3 and 6). Influenced
by digital culture, written presentation may well follow structures other than
linear narrative or argument. PaR has evolved and valourized new ways of
knowing which might be better articulated in non-traditional forms, and new
vocabularies to address them. Beyond written words, visual images (sketches,
photographs, video recordings, objects, digital models) have been used better
to convey PaR insights. Advanced digital technologies have facilitated interre-
lationships of words, sounds and images, each informing the others. Digital
tagging and annotation (see below) not only afford commentary on selected
aspects of a process—a very useful function in itself—but have the potential to
bring out valuable aspects of PaR being-doing-thinking which elude documen-
tation in traditional narrative or argumentation forms precisely because they
are non-linear, indeed rhizomatic. The manner of presentation may thus be
insightful in itself in respect of onto-epistemology.
Where, however, traditional, third-person-passive, “academic” writing,
including referencing, is appropriate (possibly in outlining a conceptual frame-
work), established protocols are in place. It may be that practitioners entering
the academy are not equipped with that skill-set since their education/training
have developed other skills in other contexts. In preparation to undertake
Practice Research, then, it is likely that attention will need to be paid to tradi-
tional research and writing skills (see Chap. 6).
 5 PRACTICE RESEARCH PROCESS: DOCUMENTATION AND PUBLICATION 83

Table 5.1 Performance notes, Diegert and Atacho

As Diegert relates, “[t]he way the saxophone is

extended and the type of music in Aubiome is
very unlikely to have been written by a
composer alone, because it emerged over a four
year period of hands-on experimentation and
cooperative work where the main focus was to
explore possible ways that the saxophone and
computer might interact.”a In the process of
collaboration, Diegert and Atacho produce
“performance notes” as they approach a
fine-grained understanding through numerous
iterations of praxis
The notes are not quite the score of a composer
nor simply a research record; they serve rather as
an analytic tool for communication, a kind of
“naming the idea” in the collaborative process.
They assist each party to get a feel of the
entanglement of collaboration and each other’s
being-doing-knowing—giving the composer a
sense of how it feels to play the saxophone, for
example. Such documentation can, of course, be
used in any research exposition but its
production is primarily part of the investigative-
creative process

https://moxsonic.org/2018-schedule/friday-march-9-2018-7pm-concert-hart-recital-hall/, accessed 13/05/21

a

b
Notes reproduced by permission of the authors

Though new possibilities have emerged with the development of the field,
the old pragmatic questions remain: “what, when, how and where” to docu-
ment and disseminate. To flag up residual challenges amidst new opportunities
I offer short provisional answers to “what, when and how,” followed by one
example of a collaborative praxis in which I have been involved, prior to a lon-
ger account of “where” to disseminate.
84 R. NELSON

WHAT TO CAPTURE
As indicated in Chap. 3, reflecting on the process—and key decisions intuitively
and consciously made within it—often serves to help bring out the research
dimension of a project. An account of process, then, is useful but to document
everything would defeat the purpose: selection is necessary. In formal research
submissions, it is the insights, and the means of achieving them, which need
bringing out. So, that “sixth sense” of when something interesting is happen-
ing or moments of recognition that “it works” are key. Think ahead: the means
of capture (recording equipment) needs to be at hand.
It may be a tautology, but the documentation required is that which is suf-
ficient to evidence the research inquiry and its insights. Since projects vary
greatly, there can be no simple formula, but experienced practitioner-researchers
find it helpful to envisage an imagined endpoint and estimate the kind of docu-
mentation that might be useful. If there is a product, it might also need to be
recorded for formal submission. In UK REF, for example, visual artefacts are
routinely submitted by means of digital photographs, and recorded perfor-
mances are submitted on DVD. Though a professional standard of presenta-
tion is not required, the quality of submission is typically of some concern,
particularly for artists. It is important to remember, however, that the purpose
is to give access to the research and its insights. If you have hundreds of images,
select the best ten and annotate them: less is often more under these circum-
stances. If multiple publications address your work, select and literally high-
light, those paragraphs/sentences which bring out the research dimension. In
respect of a video recording of a performance, an edit of key moments—ideally
tagged and annotated—might be privileged for a research submission, with the
full version appended.
Particularly in an experience economy, it is important for some projects to
capture feedback from experiencers and to recognize that, to some extent, the
experience is imbricated within its articulation. Post-showing, for example,
people need a moment to digest the engagement before they say how it was for
them. Questionnaires may be designed for this purpose, though returns after
the event can be thin. Immediate post-experience conversations, captured on
hand-held camera can be effective if a space for reflection, or conversation, is
built into the process of exiting the experience. Likewise, an invitation to
respond through a sticky notes memory board, or even written entries into a
notebook, can prove useful. Feedback from selected peers after the event can
prove illuminating, and a system of setting up, and following up, dialogues
might be devised to achieve this. In sifting the information, you might look for
resonances with your own sense of the experience as well as generic responses
and contradictions. With regard to traditional evidence, it might be helpful to
download the overall response on to a DVD whilst summarizing insights in a
short written statement.
 5 PRACTICE RESEARCH PROCESS: DOCUMENTATION AND PUBLICATION 85

WHEN TO CAPTURE
The simple answer here is: throughout. In setting up a project, consideration
should be given to appropriate means, relative to form and approach to pro-
cess. It is important to recognize that some types of documentation might
unduly affect process. A video camera in a performance space may inhibit those
involved or alter behaviour. If, then, video recording is considered necessary,
its introduction into the process requires sensitivity. Some argue that to have
an ever-present camera renders it invisible but, even if that is so, much of the
footage may prove redundant and the task of editing may prove excessive.
So, selection of “what and when” to document is crucial. Some practitioner-
researchers—particularly those working with digital technologies—are fortu-
nate to find that documentation is built into their very process of making, as
noted, but it still requires attention for presentation.

HOW TO CAPTURE
Over the past decade, there have been significant developments, as indicated,
in the digital means of documenting the embodied and the ephemeral (see
below). But notebooks, sketches, still photographs, plans made on paper nap-
kins in cafés, may all prove useful. In general terms, do what you have always
done since authentic documents, however unsophisticated, carry a sense of
conviction. Remember that those ultimately reviewing your process will them-
selves have gone on similar journeys.

“HAMLET ENCOUNTERS”: AN EXAMPLE

OF DOCUMENTED PRAXIS

To illustrate some of the challenges of identifying a research inquiry and its

documentation in a hybrid research-professional practice, I offer a short
account of CREW’s “Hamlet Encounters” (2017–). An experimental arts
company led by Eric Joris, CREW “aims to visualize how technology is chang-
ing us.”8 Indeed, CREW’s work historically has involved innovative explora-
tion of media technologies (High-Definition Video (HDV), Omni-Directional
Video (ODV), Motion Capture (MoCap)) in theatre-installation events such
as Head Swap and Terra Nova.9 “Hamlet Encounters” was the initial working
title of CREW’s engagement with Shakespeare’s Hamlet set to emerge as a
professional intermedial theatre event, though not a production of Hamlet in
any traditional sense.
My involvement in the project has been as an associate dramaturg with a
practitioner-researcher background in both Shakespeare and contemporary
(intermedial) theatre production. I assisted the actors in preparing selected
scenes from Hamlet for film/MoCap, taking a small role (Barnardo) myself. I
documented aspects of process and subsequently experienced the HDV’s as
they developed. Like many such exploratory projects over a period of time
86 R. NELSON

there have been several iterations. Work-in-progress took the form of a virtual
reality (VR) installation available for delegates to experience alongside confer-
ences in Gdansk, Cluj and Belgrade.10 These were accompanied by seminar
presentations by the dramaturgical team.11 Two theatre iterations—the first,
Hands on Hamlet, and the second, Hamlet’s Lunacy, were located at KVS stu-
dio in Brussels, 2019 and 2020, and an online version, Hamlet’s Playground,
has been developed during lockdown, 2021.12
My insider-outsider perspectives inform an illustration of some of the issues
that repeatedly challenge practitioner-researchers. First, is the issue of identify-
ing a research question or (in my preference) inquiry at the outset of an open
exploration. Secondly, there is the issue of process versus product. Thirdly, I
indicate the dynamic interplay between the three different modes of knowing
in my model. Fourthly, I show how documents arising in the process of a pro-
fessional practice might be used in a research context. This project is offered as
exemplary only in the sense that it has strengths and weaknesses in research
terms. Overall, it raises the issue of how to document a contemporary practice
in which the events are less shows to be watched (in a traditional theatre sense),
and more experiences designed to be interactively engaged in. So, in one
important sense, there is no readily recordable product.
The project began with discussions and practical experiments over two days
by a dramaturgical team. The discussion threw up a range of (sometimes con-
flicting) know-that perspectives. The process was generative but perhaps yielded
too many possibilities. They included: madness and Old Hamlet as possible
psychopath; the affordances of digital technologies; shifting views on eC17
astronomy and their relation to Hamlet’s “delay” in taking revenge; ethics,
then and now; Hamlet and the Elizabethan/Jacobean revenge tradition;
agency in actuality and in a digital context; resonances between moments of
profound onto-epistemological dislocation at the respective turns of the seven-
teenth and twenty-first centuries. The MoCap experiments yielded know-how
into know-what suggesting that there might be potential in live-switching expe-
riencers’ (gender, ethnic) identities, as visual avatars were found to influence
behaviour in actual space. At this stage, the approach remained very open,
though, with hindsight, it might have been productive to edit and select. Had
I been supervising the project as a PhD, I might have pressed for some refine-
ment by way of identification of a more specific inquiry, if only because truly
open inquiries can go on for years without any significant outcomes or articula-
tion of research insights.
The initial discussion was recorded on newly acquired 360-degree cameras
but used up so much of the company’s data-space that it had to be wiped
before it could profitably be used. This prompts a word of warning: when plan-
ning documentation, consider its practicability and usefulness. If, for example,
you try to record all studio practice sessions on video without a strategy, you
will end up with extensive footage and too little time to edit it. Selection is
necessary, with video documentation limited to illustration of key aspects of
 5 PRACTICE RESEARCH PROCESS: DOCUMENTATION AND PUBLICATION 87

process and those moments when something is “working.” Rough edit as you
go to avoid a daunting task at the end of the project.
Still images, by way of screen shots, computer generation or photograph can
be particularly effective. The first of the two images below is a phone-photo of
a plan on a whiteboard in CREW’s studio (others were literally made on nap-
kins in cafés) working out different possible orchestrations of an event. The
“sixth sense” of a researcher attending differently to the practice is required to
capture the apparently random (Fig. 5.1).
The second is a more elaborate sketch by Eric Joris of the orchestration
deployed in Hands on Hamlet.13 These plans are working notes generated in
professional process, but, in PaR terms, they serve to illustrate what became a
central inquiry: addressing the challenge of orchestrating events for
experiencers.
The question of how to move experiencers in numbers through time and
(actual and virtual) space in digital environments, guiding them whilst maxi-
mizing their agency, has precedents—in the work of Blast Theory, for exam-
ple.14 So in a PaR exegesis, the inquiry might be located in a lineage. Though
this issue has not been fully resolved in “Hamlet Encounters,” its consideration
yielded research insights (know-how into know-what) consonant with the her-
meneutic spiral model (see Chap. 3). For example, feedback affirmed the need
for an element of both reassurance and guidance since immersion in digital
environments dislocates the sensorium and makes experiencers unsure of their
bearings. Ironically, experiencers needed prompting to explore, so the inclu-
sion of a task or quest might be required. Since one emergent aim of the proj-
ect was to maximize agency in line with the affordances of digital environments,
orchestration became key to the inquiry.
The plan above divided a limited audience into four groups, each group
undergoing in turn four different experiences, one in each section: watching a
big screen projection; immersed in a HDV headset; taking an overview; ani-
mating an avatar by wearing a MoCap suit. The last (Group D) experience took
up the early MoCap experiment noted above, but proved practically difficult
(in getting audience members into MoCap suits) and conceptually challenging

Fig. 5.1 Orchestration plans, CREW

88 R. NELSON

since, once connected to their projected avatar and virtually located with
Hamlet and Ophelia in the castle, they lacked both a script and a means of
inter-action. Though it was concluded that there is considerable potential in
immersing experiencers in this way, the logistics limit numbers. For even an
experimental theatre event, funders anticipate an audience in the multiple tens.
In consequence, this aspect is on hold. On reflection, the guided progress
through four distinct experiences also seemed a bit clunky. The core idea of
shifting perspective for immersed experiencers, dislocating their bearings to
open up a possibility for change was pursued in another way, through a kind of
head-swap in the bubbles in Fig. 5.2.
The computer-generated environment was developed from a 3-D architec-
tural scan of an actual castle which proved to be so realistic in its detail that it
was incompatible with the avatars of the actors. It was digitally adjusted to cre-
ate the hybrid actual-virtual castle environment. The actors performed in
MoCap suits in CREW’s Brussels studio, and wore period costumes just long
enough to be scanned with an iPad and dropped into the digital space.
Experiencers visiting the castle by means of an HDV headset could move
freely amongst the actor/avatars (Hamlet and Ophelia in the “nunnery scene,”
for example). A live, voice-over guide sought to encourage them to get the
fullest experience by directing them to descend a flight of virtual stairs or sit on
Gertrude’s virtual lap. Experiencers were also encouraged to put their heads in
the balloons floating in the environment whereby, through a trigger switch to
a different in-put source, they could be timelessly transported into another
space, exploiting one of the affordances of digital technology. The balloons
might be further explored to include all kinds of content and environments via
the secondary source with regard to creating different kinds of spatio-temporal
shock (Verfremdung) experienced in the bodymind. But, in the absence of
multiple HDV units, only one experiencer at a time could benefit from this
iteration and we were returned to the challenges of logistics and orchestration,
as with the MoCap suits for audience participants.
As creative processes go, the approach to “Hamlet Encounters” is atypically
rooted in know-that, partly because Eric Joris is himself a scholar-artist by dis-
position with a strong interest in history and astronomy. Traditional

Fig. 5.2 Virtual Polonius in virtual space; actual Polonius (Koen van Kaem) being
scanned, CREW
 5 PRACTICE RESEARCH PROCESS: DOCUMENTATION AND PUBLICATION 89

book-based (partly online) research was undertaken by members of the team

into such aspects as History and Astronomy. History: an exploration of Scottish
“revenge” paintings revealed that in 1567, Lord Darnley, Mary Queen of
Scot’s third husband, was murdered in circumstances which resonate with the
plot of Hamlet. Exploration of Astronomy brought out that the laboratory of
astronomer, Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) was located on the island of Hven,
close to Elsinore. The new star Brahe discovered in 1573 might well be “yond
same star that’s Westward from the pole,” referenced by Horatio in Hamlet
I.i:39. In De nova stella, Brahe refuted the Aristotelian belief in stars fixed on a
heavenly glass dome but did not realize the full significance of his discovery,
namely that Copernicus’s “heretical” account of the planetary system was cor-
rect. Curiously, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were the names of ancestors of
nobleman Brahe and they (Knud Gyldenstierne and Frederick Rosenkrantz)
are known to have visited England in 1592, their names figuring on an ances-
tral shield. All this know-that does not constitute original historical research:
though some discoveries were new to the team, they were previously known to
others. The new insights of research must be new to the academic community,
not the individual. However, details—fed, by way of visual images, into several
iterations—contributed to a sense of the uncanny and specifically the core
experience of fundamental bodymind dislocation as the known world is turned
upside down.
PaR processes are perhaps more typically initiated through intuitive doing,
only subsequently, perhaps, realizing through critical reflection how the body-
mind activity, the being-doing-knowing is informed by know-that. In contrast,
the discussion at the outset of “Hamlet Encounters” made it know-that heavy,
as noted. Some of the complex thinking proved a challenge to mobilize. Besides
conflicting ethico-legal issues of revenge killing and regicide at the centre of
Hamlet, the project was concerned with the shift from a medieval conception
of world order and the emergent modern world of renaissance humanism. The
move to a sun-centric planetary model instigated by the Copernican revolution
(and almost confirmed by Brahe) parallels a shift at the turn of the seventeenth
century to an ethical approach to personal conscience as opposed to obeying
rules notionally underwritten by God (as in Hamlet and the Elizabethan/
Jacobean revenge tradition).15 These are very big ideas to enact. The historical
experience of such fundamental dislocations of bearings resonated, however,
with today’s post-truth culture and with the affordances of digital technologies
for affective shifts. So the possibility of using time and spatial distance to bring
the present into a new focus (as in Brechtian tactics) emerged, but augmented
by the affordances of digital technologies.
One aspect of Hamlet’s Lunacy, a guided promenade event, involved expe-
riencers volunteering to enact the cosmological shift above (Fig. 5.3).
Issued with iPads, individual volunteers traced the orbit of a designated
planet by walking the path of its orbit, such that, together, they enacted the
change from one planetary model to another. The literal and metaphorical
lunacy of Hamlet’s world culminated in a section in which a large rig, located
90 R. NELSON

Fig. 5.3 Enacting shifting planetary motions, Hamlet’s Lunacy, CREW

in the centre of the space and used throughout for projections, was turned at
increasing revolutionary pace. Attached to it were six HDV headsets and those
participants wearing them were forced almost to run to keep up physically,
whilst they experienced a dizzying virtual environment of shifting geo-spatial
imagery. The affect arose from a perturbed embodiment creating a powerful
affective know-how iteration of the know-that summarized above which the
photograph below can indicate but not fully capture (Fig. 5.4).
The point here, however, is that explorations of affect by means of the affor-
dances of digital technical and live events involved a dynamic interplay of know-
that, know-how and know-what and that insights of process emerged prior to
any final product. The capacities of new technologies to afford distinctive new
experiences of other worlds (in this instance the world of Hamlet) is a key
aspect of the research inquiry. The timeless shift of space explored involves a
radical re-definition of our senses. The model of taking multiple immersed
individuals on a guided tour through a range of virtual experiences figures
again in the online iteration, Hamlet’s Playground, though the plan for such
orchestration of a theatre event was drawn up in a café in Belgrade several
years before.
The above sketch account illustrates how an intelligent, investigative, open
process of practical inquiry, a praxis, can avoid being over-determined at the
outset by a telos or Outcome. In this instance the theatre funding had some
bearing in respect of expected numbers in audiences which in turn constrained
logistics (e.g. MoCap suits and multiple HDV sets for experiencers), but it did
not unduly constrain process. If submitting “Hamlet Encounters” formerly as
a research submission, video recordings of the theatre iterations would be sec-
ondary to a primary account of process supported by evidence selected to bring
out their significance. For example, it is not necessary to submit all the numer-
ous sketch plans of orchestration on scraps of paper. A couple will demonstrate
this important and on-going aspect of the inquiry with a short exegesis to
bring out the issues since they are not self-evident in the plans. Photographs
should similarly be selected and annotated for their function in articulating
and evidencing the research inquiry. The extensive feedback from experiencers,
documented both in notebooks and in recorded post-experience discussions,
constitutes significant evidence in this kind of work where insights emerge in
 5 PRACTICE RESEARCH PROCESS: DOCUMENTATION AND PUBLICATION 91

Fig. 5.4 Hamlet’s Lunacy, CREW

the affect of a constructed event. An external recording cannot reveal this. The
notebook responses were grouped and digested into a summary document
which could be submitted, possibly with screenshots of the originals dropped
on to a DVD such that an assessor could check that the summary findings were
not rigged.
There is no single Outcome to this research project, though there are pub-
lications since several iterations are “in the public domain” and there are
recordings of the theatre events as well as still images. An outside assessor
attending, say, a performance of Hamlet’s Lunacy might initially struggle to
identify research insights. These might be technological, experiential, drama-
turgical, historical, conceptual, dramatic (pertaining to Hamlet), performative.
There are small insights in all these areas rather than a single paradigm-shifting
Outcome. Hopefully, the above short exegesis indicates how a research inquiry
may be made manifest in a process (as distinct from a product) and demon-
strates why a clew/clue is needed—particularly when the insights lie signifi-
cantly in the experience of participants. The project instances the intra-play of
my three modes of knowing refracted through an intra-disciplinary dynamic.
Finally, if we were to submit this project in a formal research context, a web-
site with hyperlinks to all the source documents (including recordings, photo-
graphs, plans of process) would seem most appropriate. Reviewers might be
invited freely to explore (maximizing agency), but an optional directed journey
through the research inquiry, guided by a Hamlet figure, as in several of the
iterations above, could draw attention to moments of insight. Such an approach
would be a praxis in itself but might better convey a sense of the experience
both of making and of participating.
92 R. NELSON

WHERE TO LOG AND DISSEMINATE

In spite of the proliferation of PaRPhDs and projects, the body of knowledge
and specific paradigmatic examples of Practice Research remain relatively elu-
sive. In part, this is because the practices of PaR do not readily lend themselves
to capture and distribution by written word in the form of books and articles.
In contrast with the long-established means of publishing traditional research
in monographs and journals with well-trodden protocols and dissemination
tracks and archives, PaR as yet lacks a fully sustainable and universal publica-
tions platform. This is a key issue to which we will shortly turn in respect of the
best archive yet available, Research Catalogue.
A number of journals accepting submissions at least partially by means other
than words have, however, emerged across research fields.16 A pioneer in its
domain, Performance Research has, since 1996, brought together “the varied
materials of artistic and theoretical research in the expanded field of perfor-
mance,” including images and, on occasion, DVD. Because, however, it “resists
disconnected, disembodied, and disinterested forms of scholarship” and oper-
ates through guest-edited, themed editions, it evades the journal standard of
blind peer review.17 In contrast, the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE),
is a peer-reviewed scientific journal initiated in 2006 to publish experimental
research methods in video format. Though its 13 currently listed categories are
in the natural sciences, it points a possible way forward to broaden its scope (or
for parallel journals) with the inclusion of neuroscience (with which arts PaR
has strong links). By means of a hybrid of written article and documentary
video, JoVe is a useful example of how professional practices in research might
be communicated in an accessible and interoperable format. Following success-
ful peer review of an initial manuscript, JoVE will make the accompanying
video, generating a script and storyboard—albeit at a significant cost. After the
shoot and post-production editing, both the video and a final written docu-
ment are published on the site. In addition, all JoVE publications “are indexed
in PubMed, Medline, Web of Science, SCOPUS and other relevant databases,”
giving them a wide reach and reminding us of the kind of parallel, online net-
worked infrastructure needed for PaR to be fully credible and visible.18 The
domain of PaR—particularly with a disposition beyond the arts to transversal-
ity and inter-disciplinarity—might profitably draw on experience across HE in
order to move forward in a digital environment.
The International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media (IJPADM)
also addresses the interface between performance and new media technologies.
It has proved insightful about practices in offering a “forum for innovative
practice” by practitioner-researchers “within or across disciplines related to
performance and digital media,” including computer science.19 It does not
afford the opportunity to upload digital material but contributors might offer
URL cross-reference to their practice documented on their own websites or
platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo. Short term, this is an effective means of
achieving hybrid documentation but with the longer-term unreliability of sites
 5 PRACTICE RESEARCH PROCESS: DOCUMENTATION AND PUBLICATION 93

and platforms, a more sustainable archive for PaR is additionally required.

IJPADM has usefully published a number of articles on digital developments in
documentation (see also deLahunta and Lösel below).
A more formally innovative example is the Journal of Embodied Research
(JER), “the first peer-reviewed, open access, academic journal to focus specifi-
cally on the innovation and dissemination of embodied knowledge through the
medium of video.”20 The journal is composed entirely of video essays, though
the moving images are accompanied by stills and a transcript of any voice-over,
quotations and citations included in them. Unlike JoVE, videos are author-
produced. Submissions are initially assessed by founder editor Ben Spatz and
his assistants before being subject to “single-blind” peer review by independent
experts who are asked to assess “clarity, validity, and sound methodology.”21
Since assessors are invited to provide feedback even if the submission is rejected,
individuals and the community benefit from advice on possible ways to improve
articulation of research. The journal began with annual editions in 2018 and
2019 and extended to two editions in 2020, suggesting a healthy trajectory,
and the site, under the auspices of the Open Library of Humanities, serves as
an archive of submissions.
Screenworks exemplifies a process of gradual migration from a journal with
an insert DVD document of film and media practices to an online mode.
Initiated in 2006 in another attempt to address the academic publication issues
of PaR and the perceived need for a system of rigorous peer review for screen
media, the Screenworks project initially produced the Journal of Media Practice
(JMP) in 2007 with an accompanying hard-copy DVD.22 Extracts of the works
in Volumes 1 and 2 were subsequently published online at JMPScreenworks.
com in 2011 before a move to exclusively online publication in 2016 on the
Screenworks site. The online mode affords wider dissemination whilst being less
expensive to produce. It also aims to meet the needs of screen practitioner-
researchers in respect of the requirements of research audit and funding agen-
das, Open Access, Impact and public engagement. All kinds of screen media
work are acceptable but the conditions note that “[w]here submissions are
documentation of interactive or installation work we encourage contributors to
consider the problems of documentation as part of the research process.”23 The
site has an archive which, whilst it is sustained, progresses the need for acces-
sibility to examples.
Some practices in the “expanded field” of the arts do not yield material
products but create a range of processes, events, experiences which offer fur-
ther challenges in a PaR context. To make such work visible in the research
domain, Sydney-based artist Sean Lowry has constructed Project Anywhere
“dedicated to the evaluation and dissemination of art at the outermost limits of
location-specificity [but with] a rigorous peer review process for assessing the
quality of artistic research outcomes.”24 Similar to established journal proto-
cols, the project has evaluation criteria, an advisory board and an “international
community of blind peer reviewers, all of which are artist academics of interna-
tional standing.”25 Following blind peer review of proposals in a competitive
94 R. NELSON

process, a small number of projects is selected for hosting, but “Project

Anywhere is neither an online exhibition nor a journal…. perhaps best imag-
ined as an exhibition comprising the entire globe in which the role of curator
is replaced with a blind peer evaluation model.”26 It is “designed to suit artist
academics working anywhere in the world that are seeking independent peer-
validation and international dissemination for their research.” Lowry’s accom-
panying article helpfully demonstrates how proposals are evaluated against the
criteria noting that “[a]n issue consistently raised by reviewers is the impor-
tance of a clear contextual framing within existing discourses and methodolo-
gies when working across disparate fields.”27 It is perhaps a mark of Project
Anywhere’s rigour that “[t]o date, no hosted projects have successfully navi-
gated the second level of peer evaluation.”28 However, the platform potentially
affords an important validation opportunity for those practices which are dis-
persed through time and space and thus most challenging to capture by recog-
nized documentary means.
In the context of developing institutional repositories to fulfil Open Access
obligations, individual HEIs, and sometimes clusters of HEIs, have sought to
address the needs of non-traditional publications. Projects exploring the needs
of artists with a range of movements, sounds and images to document in dif-
ferent formats include: Kultur (2007–09), Kultivate (2011) and Defiant
Objects (2011–13) but, as the dates suggest they are not ongoing, their aim to
assist loading materials into HEI repositories having been achieved.29 These
initiatives did not seek to develop a much-needed universal, peer-reviewed
publication platform which remains a project for the immediate future.
The difficulty of the task perhaps explains why an accessible international
resource is yet to be fully developed. Though digital technologies afford
unprecedented opportunities to capture and disseminate non-verbal material
culture, the challenges of resourcing a digital data-base storage system, finding
it a secure home, and ensuring future funding to maintain and develop it have
seen well-intentioned initiatives stall. I have personally been involved in a num-
ber of such initiatives. The Practice as Research in Performance (PARIP) proj-
ect, for example, concluded with a wish to develop a resource base, but it
remained unfinished as its funding ran out. Also in the UK, University of
Winchester launched the Experiments and Intensities web platform aiming to
bring together “qualities of the curated exhibition, the French cahier, the edited
collection and the scholarly journal to explore time-based art and research in the
language of artistic metaphor.”30 But it, too, failed to sustain beyond three
separately curated volumes, 2011–13.31
In the domain of arts and media, the most successful initiative to date is
undoubtedly the Research Catalogue project which followed the 2012 publica-
tion of Borgdorff’s Conflict of the Faculties. As Floris Solleveld records:

[I]n the last two chapters of the book, Borgdorff presents his ongoing project for
an online Journal of Artistic Research and a related Artistic Research Catalogue,
which are meant to provide a platform for publications and case studies that
 5 PRACTICE RESEARCH PROCESS: DOCUMENTATION AND PUBLICATION 95

escape the standard scholarly format – to indicate their hybrid artistic/scholarly

nature, they are referred to as “expositions”.32

Now in its eighth year, Research Catalogue, An International Database for

Artistic Research is a welcome development in the field, and it goes beyond an
academic research repository in striving also “to be an open space for experi-
mentation and exchange.” The mission of the overarching Society for Artistic
Research (SAR), “to nurture, connect and disseminate artistic research as a
specific practice of creating knowledge and insight, in and outside academic
institutions,” allows members freely to upload their practice to their named
space on the site without a selection process.33 Issues arising from the blurring
of “inside-outside the academy” distinction between aesthetic and research
excellence discussed in Chap. 1 thus remain.
The accompanying Journal of Artistic Research (JAR) is, however, dedicated
to academic research in that it is

an international, online, Open Access and peer-reviewed journal for the identifi-
cation, publication and dissemination of artistic research and its methodologies,
from all arts disciplines. With the aim of displaying practice in a manner that
respects artists’ modes of presentation, JAR abandons the traditional journal
article format and offers its contributors a dynamic online canvas where text can
be woven together with image, audio and video. These research documents called
“expositions” provide a unique reading experience while fulfilling the expecta-
tions of scholarly dissemination.34

Edited by Michael Schwab, the journal follows peer review processes similar
to those of established academic journals, and though most strongly located in
the fields of visual arts and music, it is open in principle to all arts practices,
though not, perhaps, to practices which fall beyond a broad arts umbrella.
Visual and sonic contributions to the above journals are often limited to a
recording of the practice, on CD or DVD, with a separate verbal commentary
in some instances. The video essay (as in JER) allows word and image to be
embedded, either in written form or as voice-over. To relate analysis to specific
aspects of a recorded process Scott deLahunta and others have developed “tag-
ging,” a means of marking on the timeline of a digital recording specific sec-
tions of a process or product which can then be linked to a commentary. Taking
the process of choreographer, Wayne McGregor, deLahunta and colleagues,
use “Process and Concept Tracking” as a methodology to facilitate deeper
probing of creative thinking during development and throughout the produc-
tion process.35
These developments in the documentation of PaR, progressively opening
up new possibilities, have recently been extended by the “Research Video”
project led by Gunter Lösel at Zurich’s University of the Arts.36 This project
directly addresses the use of annotated video for research and aims to “build up
trustworthiness within videobased research” and to validate it.37 Following
tests of existing platforms, the team set out:
96 R. NELSON

to create a more intuitive user experience. The new tool should be:
• Easy to use.
• Easily accessible. Our application should run in a popular web browser, requir-
ing no installation.
• Open. Being part of a research project, we decided to use open technologies
as much as possible as well as an open-source development model. The com-
plete source code of the application is open and can be studied, modified and
extended freely.
• Based on best practices. We decided to follow well-established conventions,
regarding user interfaces and the video medium.38

Beyond advanced tracking, the tool allows for annotation with text linking
through tags to marked sections on the video timeline, and the texts of the
annotation linking to each other. Besides facilitating the researcher’s documen-
tation, the tool also allows viewers to “follow the steps the researcher has taken
from the research question/research context, to the methods and the conclu-
sions.”39 The prototype was tested through case studies, including two accepted
in part for PhD submissions in Dance and Visual Anthropology.
As Lösel recognizes, the Research Video on the one hand might facilitate a
linear argument model but, on the other, opens up new compositional structures
since the reader is invited to move back and forth through time (replaying sec-
tions at will) and from video clip to tag, from tag to tag, and to other referents. In
comparison with the video essay or documentary video (over which the authors
control sequencing through time), the Research Video encourages an element of
interactivity amounting to a different mode of engagement, “generating insight
in a more finely grained way than without the tool [by] …. slowly elaborating
observational categories (tracks) and more abstract patterns (tagging).”40 Such a
non-linear, multi-perspectival approach is more consonant perhaps with PaR pro-
cesses, contributing to the recognition of the different bodymindsets of being-
doing-thinking. Lösel notes, “The Research Catalogue is integrating this new
form of publishing into its features—and from there it is only a short step to
publishing an annotated video in JAR, providing a peer review process.”41
Collectively, the above initiatives go a considerable way towards a sustain-
able international platform at least for the arts, but a recently published report
of the Practice Research Action Group (PRAG) in the UK concludes that there
is more to be done. Assuming that practices have been in some way digitally
documented, the variety and sustainability of the various formats remains an
issue longer term. As Lösel acknowledges, “a Research Video must be uploaded
to a repository or journal and given a permanent object identifier (such as a
DOI number)” to gain archive status and, for this to be achieved beyond the
essay, “project item types” need to be agreed across global research systems.42
To achieve overall stability and durability, standards of file formats may need to
be implemented. Though the most used format, PDF/A, is visible and easily
readable, it does not cover all required functions. In the interim, however—
whilst further consideration is given to durability and interoperability—PDF
appears to be the most flexible format in terms of
 5 PRACTICE RESEARCH PROCESS: DOCUMENTATION AND PUBLICATION 97

ease of discoverability and interoperability with existing research systems, the

ability to embed many different file formats within the PDF file format (such as
video, sound and image), and the already existing widespread adoption of the
format both in the practice research community and across all other research fields.43

Within the published REF 2021 criteria, acceptable formats for Main Panel
D (the area in which most PaR is submitted) include: “DOI, URL, PDF, USB,
physical copy of the book, printed score where appropriate, CD/DVD,
Object.”44 The acceptance of USB acknowledges that PaR submissions way
well include files in a range of different digital formats.
Format standardization and means of longer-term sustainability are chal-
lenged by rapid technological developments which are likely to render current
preferred formats obsolete. Since any one format is unlikely to survive indefi-
nitely, conversion capacity is perhaps key. JISC suggests the use of XML mark-
up language as it is the definitive source document with semantic encoding.45
But who might be in a position to take on these challenges and set standards
remains an open question. Almost a decade ago, the Budapest Open Access
Initiative proposed a public definition for worldwide Open Access and devel-
opments to include all new peer-reviewed research. Amongst a raft of recom-
mendations, it suggested that “OA repositories should provide tools, already
available at no charge, to convert deposits made in PDF format into machine-
readable formats such as XML.”46 But, as yet, it has not been taken up.
The requirements articulated as conclusions of the PRAG report are

a) to explore whether XML/PDF may be recommended as a primary format for

digital practice research;
b) to discuss the adoption of a “project” item type across global research systems;
c) to undertake a feasibility study for the creation of an independent body for the
peer review of practice research publication; and
d) to explore the founding of an Open Library of Practice Research (OLPR). This
open library would:
i. harvest and host peer-reviewed practice research;
ii. provide specific support for the novel formulations of practice research that
will emerge in future; and
iii. embody principles of Open Access.

Overall the PRAG report proposes

an independent body for peer review of practice research publication [which] may
operate on an ongoing basis, inclusive to submissions from inside and outside of
academia in England, offering a nexus for advice, support, constructive critique
and recommendation for practice researchers. Peer reviewers and editors could be
selected by an overarching editorial board, based on their appropriateness for
given submissions and be drawn from a diverse catchment of researchers in the
wider field.
98 R. NELSON

If achieved and open to research through all practices, this would afford a
citable benchmark of Practice Research, perhaps first in the UK but then open
to submissions internationally. Access could benefit smaller communities
worldwide who have neither a research audit infrastructure nor a sufficient
critical mass of experts to afford independent evaluation. A kitemark of quality
would serve those institutions already inclined to use the gradings of journals
as an instrumental indicator. The lack of such a kitemark (as noted in Chap. 2)
has caused problems for those seeking appointment or tenure in HEIs where a
track record of research is required to be demonstrable and verifiable.
Particularly if a consideration of the extent of uptake and use by the academic
community over time comes to be seen as a more appropriate indicator for qual-
ity than peer review, sustainable access to the archive is vital. As yet it remains a
proposal: beyond a dream, but not yet implemented and available. The achieve-
ments to date, and the work to identify possible ways forward should be cele-
brated. That the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in the UK
withdrew funding from efforts by the Arts & Humanities Data Service (AHDS)
to develop databases in digital format is not, however, encouraging.47

NOTES
1. See Nelson, 2013.
2. 2015: 41.
3. In Bulley and Sahin, 2021: 08.
4. See also Jürgens and Fernandes “Choreographic practice-as-research” in
Arlander et al., eds, 2018: 262–274.
5. See https://www.alexanderwhitley.com/digital-body, accessed 13/05/21.
6. See https://www.alexanderwhitley.com/digital-body, accessed 13/05/21.
7. Doktor der Künste, 2018, University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz,
Austria.
8. www.crewonline.org
9. See clips on Vimeo/YouTube and http://www.crewonline.org/art/projects
10. Iterations have been shown at the Shakespeare Festival, Gdansk (Aug, 2017),
KVS Brussels (May, 2018) and IFTR, Belgrade (July, 2018).
11. Eric Joris, Chiel Kattenbelt, Aneta Mancewicz and Robin Nelson, subsequently
joined by Joris Weijdom.
12. A additional production planned for Amsterdam in 2021 was postponed owing
to Covid 19.
13. All images from Hamlet Encounters are reprinted by permission of Eric Joris
and CREW.
14. For Blast Theory’s coinage and use of “orchestration,” see Benford and
Giannachi, 2011: 209–224 ff.
15. For an account of that tradition, see Bowers, 1966 [1940].
16. In addition to those cited below, the following publications might be consid-
ered: Journal of Sonic Studies, PARSE, PARtake, RUUKU, Vis. Some are region
or language-specific but others aspire to be international in scope.
17. See https://www.performance-research.org, accessed 02/02/20.
 5 PRACTICE RESEARCH PROCESS: DOCUMENTATION AND PUBLICATION 99

18. Overview, https://www.jove.com/authors/editorial-policies, accessed

25/01/21.
19. See https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsSco
pe&journalCode=rpdm20, accessed 25/01/21.
20. Home Page, https://jer.openlibhums.org, accessed 26/01/21.
21. Peer Review Process, https://jer.openlibhums.org, accessed 26/01/21.
22. Intellect Books. Volume 1, 2007.
23. https://screenworks.org.uk, accessed 25/01/21.
24. 2015: 36.
25. 2015: 36.
26. http://www.projectanywhere.net/about/, accessed 02/02/20.
27. 2015: 46.
28. 2015: 44.
29. See: Kultur, http://kultur.eprints.org; Kultivate Project, https://vads.ac.uk/
customizations/global/pages/kultur2group/projects/kultivate/index.html;
Defiant Objects, https://defiantobjects.wordpress.com, accessed 25/01/21.
30. Winchester University Press, http://www.experimentsandintensities.com/pub-
lished/vol-3/, accessed 25/01/21.
31. http://www.experimentsandintensities.com/published/vol-3/, accessed
25/01/2.
32. Solleveld, 2012: 78.
33. SAR Correspondents, https://societyforartisticresearch.org/correspondents/
sar-correspondents/, accessed 23/01/21.
34. Home Page, JAR, https://societyforartisticresearch.org/jar/, accessed
23/01/21.
35. See delaHunta, et al., 2018.
36. See researchvideo.org
37. Lösel, 2021: 03.
38. Lösel, 2021: 05.
39. Lösel, 2021: 07–08.
40. Lösel, 2021: 14.
41. Lösel, 2021: 09.
42. Lösel, 2021: 10.
43. Bulley and Sahin, 2021: 62. (2) 3.1.7.
44. REF 2021 Panel criteria and working methods, 92–97.
45. The Extensible Markup Language (XML) was developed by an XML Working
Group under the auspices of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 1996.
See: “XML essentials,” on World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), https://www.
w3.org/standards/xml/core, accessed 30/11/20.
46. BOAI, 2012, para 3.7.
47. See Bulley and Sahin, 2021: 62. (2) 3.1.4.