Dramatizing an Articulation of the (P)Artistic Researcher’s Posthumanist Pathway to a ‘Slow Professorship’ Within the Corporate University Complex

Abstract

Within academia, the practical arts researcher endures an unstable status owing, in part, to the diverse research methodologies gathered underneath the umbrellas of Practice-[led/based/as/for]-Research. (P)Artistic Research is difficult to define, no less validate, in a result-oriented, data-driven, ‘performance’-measuring culture. The (P)Artistic Researcher embodies dissent in such contexts, as the nature of most artistic research is process-oriented, collaborative and solution-finding. In response to Berg and Seeber’s pleas for ‘slowness’ in The Slow Professor, this chapter reflects critically on the author’s habits and history as a (P)Artistic Researcher while moving through a ‘gap’ in employment, from a dramatic resignation at one institution to an acceptance of a new post at another institution, one year later. This writing is contaminated by aspects of the author’s ‘playwrighting’ practice, becoming a posthuman ‘playper’ in which forms of writing are intertwined, and structure, layout and grammatical positioning are used innovatively to produce new knowledge which is not ‘in-prism-ed’ by the narrow perspective of the corporate university. The content of the ‘playper’ offers a malleable frame with several pedagogical points of entry, including prompts, provocations and practical exercises which intend to slowly contaminate the classroom with a conscientious commitment to a posthuman understanding of the world.