“THE LANGUAGED EXTERIOR AND THE FELT INTERIOR”
UNDERCURRENTS OF LOGOCENTRISM WITHIN PRACTICE-LED RESEARCH SCHOLARSHIP
Keywords:
Practice-Led Research, creative research, logocentrism, practice/theory, jacques derrirdaAbstract
Despite the intention to legitimise creative arts research methodologies within academia, undercurrents of logocentrism have been maintained throughout its scholarship. In the effort to support creative practices within academia, scholars of creative research have adopted a lexicon and logic that position practice as a natural, original, and/or internal process, compared to theory, which is often described as external, artificial, deferred, and/or capable of corrupting the integrity of artistic practice. Drawing upon Jacques Derrida’s critique of the speech/writing relation within Western metaphysics, this provocation summarises the language used around artistic practice and theoretical knowledge within the scholarship, suggesting that, in its radical germination, a logocentric undercurrent has been maintained that reinforces binarism, hierarchies, and an overlooking of cultural influence on creative practice. I conclude that the traditional academic hierarchy between theory and practice has been reversed within creative research’s discourse, but not deconstructed.
