BAPP TASK 6c: Award Specialism Title

The task 6c of the Module 2 of the BA (Hons) in Professional Practice at the Middlesex University consists of based on your questions, and previous reflections, identify and propose your award title, and provide a written rationale for it posting it on my blog. The award title should reflect your knowledge and expertise and you should think carefully about it in relation to your future career development

I would like to propose that my award specialism title will be: How the new technologies are influencing the mental imaginery, aesthetics and choreographic process in Professional Dance in the 21^st Century?

My rationale will be as follows:

- I have been always fascinated with the relationship between Art-Science, therefore when I started to plan my inquiry, I knew that I wanted to develop further my knowledge of it, Previously I had a background of the work of British choreographer Wayne McGregor studying how he has introduced the new technologies into his choreographic process, therefore I took it as the starting point for this new piece of research.

After researching several resources of my topic, reading about the work of other choreographers that had used novel methods and ideas for their choreographic process, also getting to know the impact of the scientific breakthroughs,  discoveries, and inventions in other art forms and how art-science cooperate together to develop the final piece of art, as well analysing and understanding my own creativity process, I have chosen to focus on the impact of new technologies on the Professional Dance. My intention is to discover what is the impact of the influence of science, especially the new technologies in the creation of new pieces of dance and and how are developping the mental imaginery, aesthetics and choreographic process during this 21^st century.

This inquiry will be of direct value to my professional practice as it anticipates what I wish to pursue for my future career in dance research and management. It will give me and excellent insight into this specialised area of research whilst at the same time, giving me the opportunity to positively shape the future of my own choreographic process by offering me greater knowledge of how to introduce further the new technologies into them.

Don´t forget to keep following the blog and my Google + Community for the updates about my research!

Gonzalo

BAPP TASK 4D: Identifying Literature related with my Inquiry Part 1

The task 4d of the Module 2 of the BA (Hons) in Professional Practice at the Middlesex University consisted of identifying three important pieces of literature related with my inquiry/topic interests.

After finding my resources that I will be using for my inquiry, I decided to conduct a brief review (reading them and analysing) of these three pieces of literature, 2 books and 1 doctoral thesis, thorough the module:

Tornero Lorenzo, Paz (2013) Tecnologías de la Creatividad: Conexiones entre Arte y Ciencia en la Contemporaneidad, Madrid

Miller, Arthur I. (1996) Insights of Genius: Imagery and Creativity in Science and Art, Gottigen, Copernicus

Wilson, Stephen (2010) Art + Science Now: How scientific research and technological innovation are becoming key to 21st-century aesthetics, New York, Thames & Hudson

Screenshot of the doctoral thesis, Tecnologías de la Creatividad: Conexiones entre Arte y Ciencia en la Contemporaneidad

Therefore, in this Part 1 I will analyse my first important piece of literature, the doctoral

Thesis. During this module I have been searching and searching the resources that will be the background base of my research, prior starting my interviews to key international professionals in June. I found this work: Tecnologías de la Creatividad: Conexiones entre Arte y Ciencia en la Contemporaneidad (2013) by Paz Tornero at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid through the Library of the University of Zaragoza early in March. And after looking a bit into it I realised, it will be a fantastic way to start to introduce myself into all the previous work of the Art & Science relationship.

Screenshot of one suggestive image by the Harvard Idea Translation Lab at the the doctoral thesis, Tecnologías de la Creatividad: Conexiones entre Arte y Ciencia en la Contemporaneidad about Creativity

After I have read through all this thesis doctoral, I am fascinated how much more knowledge there is my research field that I had no idea of it before. For me it was specially, interesting how many it has been cited my next piece of literature, Art + Science Now by Stephen Wilson, therefore it will be very important to keep deepening in my field to get a wider background knowledge of it. Also it was very interesting to see how dance and the new technological developments have influenced several world class choreographers such as Merce Cunningham or Maurice Bejart. This book it is divided into 3 parts to explore further the field, ranging from a historical view of this concept or how artist have been working in several programmes in several scientific labs, as well as the different innovations and research that are being carried nowadays.

Reading this book has been an astonishing journey to get myself inside what my Professional Inquiry will be discussing and don´t forget to keep following the blog and my Google + Community for the updates about my research!

Gonzalo

BAPP Task 6b: Review of the Inquiry Tools

The task 6B of the Module 2 of the BA (Hons) in Professional Practice at the Middlesex University consists of blogging your critical reflections on the relative merits of the 4 tools in addressing your inquiries or what you want to find out. You should evaluate both their merits and their limits. Your experience and independent understanding of the general principles of insider-researcher relate to proposal

To develop a professional inquiry there are 4 different tools that you can use to develop it: Interviews, Focus Group, Survey and Documents. In my case, as I said in the previous post I will be using mainly the tool of interviews, because it suits better my way of research as well as how to acquire the knowledge that I need to analyse for my inquiry.

However, I will analyse all the merits and limits of the different 4 tools in order to deepen my knowledge on them, to see how can I use them for my inquiry:

- Interviews:

              Merits:

- The information you get is accurate because you are the one in charge of the questions,

- You can collect very detailed knowledge through the answers of the interviewee

- You can get both verbal and non-verbal communication (Body Language)

              Limits:

              - It is a long process, therefore time consuming

- You could analyse wrongly the answers of your interviewee, therefore you wouldn´t get an accurate piece of knowledge

- It could be difficult to organise with your interviewee or they could feel afraid to arrange it if you are not doing it politely enough.

- Focus Group:

              Merits:

              - It allows to make more questions

              - Also it allows you for a qualitative approach to your inquiry research

              - It is an open environment; people can participate with each other.

              Limits:

              - It is a very time consuming process

- Your participants might feel exposed to each other and therefore not answer accurately or honestly to the questions

- It is a very difficult process to organise

             

- Survey:

              Merits:

              - You can collect the data from a wide range of people

              - The interviewee as anonymous could be more honest that

              - It takes less time to organise it, therefore is less time consuming

              Limits:

              - It can be hard to develop the right questions to obtain the knowledge you want

- Your participants can get bored of it and don´t continue the survey if it is not interesting enough.

- If you participants don´t understand the questions they have no access to you to solve it before they respond.

- Documents:

              Merits:

              - It is very useful to expand your current knowledge

- It is an existing knowledge, therefore with hard evidence of what already exist supported by studies of professionals in this field.

- You can find documents to back up your ideas and support your analysis of them

              Limits:

              - You could interpret incorrectly the documents

              - As knowledge keeps growing every day, it could be an out of date source

              - This documents could have errors, as we are all humans.

How do these inquiry methods relate to the workplace and particular sector knowledge?

In my case, these methods relate to my workplace quite closely because I will be developing 2 of my interviews, the ones in Riga at the Latvian National Opera with professionals of that institution. Concretely to one choreographer and one video designer that I am working at the moment to develop a new solo to be premiered next month.

How does your inquiry help others to develop their knowledge and understanding?

This inquiry will help both professional and students of the field of dance to have a better understand of how technology is influencing dance nowadays, and how it will be a key point to the development of this art form in the 21^st century. And hopefully, after the presentation of my inquiry I will add a bit more of knowledge to this field.

Don´t forget to keep following this blog and my Google + Community for the updates about my research!

Gonzalo