The Bureaucreative Age is a research that finds itself tangled within a corporate, economic and bureaucratic environment and is explored inside an artistic parafiction. The artist plays with an overlap between fact and fiction through the imagination of the Research Centre on Creative Abilities meandmywork. 

The story in which meandmywork is ultimately set up as a fictitious character, over-identifies itself with the bureaucratic and corporate processes experienced in the business field of creativity incorporated. In order to leave the door open for speculation, the research is an artistic act of futuring: a process to think about the future, envision what may happen, and to gain insight into actions to take in the present. 

Another part of the research enters the stage by means of an exhibition showcasing so called artefacts dating from The Bureaucreative Age and the journey of the Research Centre meandmywork, encouraging the viewer to step further inside its fiction.

The parafiction of The Bureaucreative Age and the Research Centre on Creative Abilities meandmywork as its lead role, produce their meaning in the encounter with the spectator, creating a specific multiplicity while introducing a fatalistic version of what might happen when art and creativity get absorbed by corporate dominion.

Read the fictional story of meandmywork in Forum+ (Februari 2021, vol. 28 nr.1). 

The parafictional documentary meandmywork and the (Bureau)Creative Age and the accompanying exhibition were displayed at M HKA in Antwerp (24/02/2022 – 20/03/2022).
If you are interested in buying the publication of the research, please contact me.

WATCH THE DOCUFICTION
meandmywork and the (bureau)creative age

Arts-Based Knowledge Creation

Exploring ways to incorporate creative research dissemination praxis into academia

This research explores the potential of creative research dissemination praxis (CRDP), either as an alternative or as a supplement to standard written academic formats for research dissemination. With CRDP we refer to five major types of artistically inspired or design related creations: Interactions (games, websites, videos), Visual art forms (photographs, paintings, cartoons, still images, video productions, drawings, paintings,), Performing Arts (dance, drama, musical productions), Literary works (poetry, fictions, short stories, blogs, creative writing) and Projects (prototypes, designs, installations, 3D sculptures etc.) (Gergen & Gergen, 2011; Leavy, 2009; Wang, Coemans, Siegesmund & Hannes, 2017). The project focusses on how CRDP can be imbedded into an (educational) academic context and how arts-based techniques redefine knowledge creation.

The research is guided by following research questions:

- How does our recent historical and societal context influence our thinking and acting upon CRDP in academia?

Through a literature review and discourse analysis of student blog posts, we outline the educational and academic ideologies that currently define dissemination practices in social and behavioural sciences. We highlight the societal, ideological, and epistemological factors related to a shift from standard written dissemination to an inclusion of CRDP. 

- How does CRDP operate within an academic context and how does it affect (student)researchers?

Through participative observation and an evaluation study, we have analyzed the effects of integrating CRDP in a pedagogical module. We did this on two levels: 1) How does the use of arts-based techniques influences student’s learning process? And 2) How does CRDP influence the transfer of complex theories to a peer student audience? Our results show that arts-based techniques encourage metaphorical thinking which enables students to better grasp abstract concepts. We have also found that arts-based works that are materially accurate, show connective relations and have a consequent narrative, are likely to increase the sense of understanding of the theory they aim to explain.

This research will also report on the personal process of the PhD researcher of using drawing as a method to both understand and disseminate new knowledge.