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Establishing the Cybertextual in Practice based PhDs

The book is the first anthology of international writing on the processes and products of ‘digital’ research. The chapter focuses on UK based PhD study in art and design (linked to practice-based research). Tracing the historical developments of formats of submission of such doctoral study, alternative approaches are explored, with a focus on the format of the website submission, which is still in its infancy. www.zeppelinbend.com is used alongside other precedents in the arts and humanities to investigate experimental structures that might reveal how digital submissions can offer a suitable format for multi-modal creative research, rather than traditional material based submission. The discussion includes interactive processes of hyperlinking that propose a differentiated approach for a reader. Consideration is also given to how networked PhDs can generate greater dissemination of the research on an unprecedented scale but their immaterial form may pose complex questions of authorship, copyright and longevity in an ever-changing technological landscape. The developing considerations for institutions about the preservation of such thesis are investigated in parallel to similar research undertaken in the preservation of online digital art and literature. The 2009 paper ‘Fluid Archives’ presented at ‘Thinking About Things‘, an international conference at University College Dublin formed the basis of research in multi-modal approaches to the formats of research. Following on from the book chapter the 2011 ‘Appropriation and The Hack: New Forms of Production’ paper given at The Transitory Network Forum 21–22 July 2011, Salon Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade discussed the problematics of online copyright and authorship. Recently Structures for Digital Collaboration paper presented at the University of Winchester HEA Collaborative Learning conference, 3 May 2012 discussed how digital writing is utilised in blog formats for undergraduate art and design students.