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What’s Wrong with the Primacy of Theory?

A journal article in the international refereed Journal of Visual Art Practice. The article argues that there is considerable terminological confusion whereby anything that is seen as the ‘writing based other’ of practice is liable to be labeled theory. Historical, empirical and methodological study all comes to be subsumed under the heading ‘theory’. The article sees different forms of study and practical work as a set of overlapping domains with theory as but one of these.

The overriding methodological orientation in the article is historicist. It privileges historical explanations over theoretical ones while nevertheless treating history as a problematic term. A form of historicism might be a more suitable candidate for uniting various forms of practice and academic writing associated with film and photography, so that developments in practice, method, theory and empirical study might all be taught and understood within a variety of historical narratives.

The essay contributes to pedagogy and curriculum development, particularly in its recommendations concerning doctoral programmes. It also contributes to the scholarly discourse on the role of theory in relation to practice.

Many of the ideas presented in the paper before its publication were discussed at a symposium at Chelsea College of Art and Design on a panel with Dr Malcolm Quinn and Mary Anne Francis, at the invitation of the editor of JVAP. The symposium was titled: ‘C ‘ARTwork, CRITIQUE work: some conjugations’ and was held on 30th April 2008’.