A Personal Research Statement (Illustrated) v1.4

Reading Casey O’Callaghan’s personal Research Statement encouraged me to write one of my own. I’ve since illustrated it with examples and links to online documentation from my own practice for Tacit – “a new e-journal and blog dedicated to debating and documenting new approaches to arts research practice, especially those enabled by evolving digital technology”.

This statement is the final iteration of a piece of developmental writing that began in June 2013 – a personal response to the Research Statement of contemporary sensory-centric philosopher Casey O’Callaghan and part of a body of writing published by O’Callaghan that I was actively researching around this time.

I was beginning to appreciate that the way in which I communicated my research was a significant aspect of the Ph.D. – and O’Callaghan’s technique of introducing complex themes, ideas and interests through broad brush strokes and an accessible yet evocative writing style appealed to me as a literary mechanism I could attempt for myself.

A reworked version of this statement became an early section within the Introduction chapter of my final thesis. This version was submitted to the Tacit e-journal – a project initiated by fellow MIRIAD PGR’s Hannah Allan and David Jackson – but since Tacit sadly never realised it’s first edition of peer-reviewed digital and emergent arts research practice I’ve subsequently self-published it here.