Talk - How and Why to Make a Web-based Thesis in Artistic Research: field notes from Tactile Paths

This presentation seeks to unpack the problems and possibilities of publishing a practice-based thesis in the arts as a native website. It builds on my own experience as an author of “Tactile Paths: on and through notation or improvisers” (www.tactilepaths.net), a PhD dissertation accepted by Leiden University in 2016, among other web-based publications.

“Native” web publications refer to texts that are written for digital media, rather than to those built for print media and later posted (e.g. as PDFs) on the web. In the context of artistic research, web publishing offers many advantages over print:

• easy integration of nonverbal media
• interactive functionality
• access to increased readership, especially in the art world beyond academia

“While digital dissertations have been around for twenty years or more,” digital rhetoric scholar Virgina Kuhn notes in her forthcoming anthology on digital dissertations in the humanities, “the precise processes by which they are defined, created and defended remain something of a mystery.” This presentation thus aims to offer some practical thoughts and reflections to help remedy this situation.

During this session, we will

• trace my own motivation, trials, and errors in the construction of Tactile Paths
  
• consider how writing for the web can shape and enrich the research process itself
  
• briefly compare different web platforms that can be used to build a dissertation website, such as the Research Catalogue, Vega, WordPress, and Hugo.
  

Participants are welcome to present their own web-based projects briefly at the end of the presentation. Please contact Williams at christopherisnow@gmail.com if you are interested in doing so.