PARIP 2003

NATIONAL CONFERENCE: 11-14 September

12 September 2003 | 13 September 2003 | 14 September 2003

ADVISORY GROUP SUMMARY | 14 September 2003

Baz Kershaw: Um, I’ll kick off. Err, I started the task of thinking about how to report back to you with, with wanting to write a list, err, which I called ‘giving birth to practice as research 29 instructions for a pleasurable labour’. Um, number 1: no single position will guarantee a smooth delivery; be prepared for epistemological complications. Number 2, and now I begin to assign these, the list to people who made particular points during the conference. Number 2: PaR flees scriptural economies (Jones); language may be a false promise of effective contractions. Number 3: there is no outside to performance (Melrose); any performance form can deliver PaR successfully. Number 4: forget about knowledge, delivering PaR is a way of knowing (Group 4); this is the Zen approach to delivery. Number 5: avoid the Van de Graff generator, birthing, (that’s Dovey of course) birthing PaR; the theory-practice binary will crash the system. Then I thought, it’s going to take too long to get through 29, all the different people I’d like to reference who are many in this list so I gave up on the list and decided to try and continue it some other time.

Err, so I’m going instead, as briefly as possible try and focus on some of the key characteristics and themes that have emerged out of the conference. One is where we began in some ways is the diversity, you know, the fabulous diversity. Each time I see another example I’m amazed at the way the diversity is extending between practice and media and different issues, that we’ve been discussing, and the diversity in the different stages of development, err, of different particular practices between individuals and between particular areas of ah, over, overlap between individuals. I found this very encouraging because it showed me, in terms of the development of the thought, in terms of the development of PaR, that the professors by no means have the monopoly on knowledge, err, that the new ways of thinking, and approaching the question of PaR that are coming through from emergent scholars of all ages, um, is very encouraging. Then I considered the different anxieties and concerns between the generations, and one thing that seemed to be going on was that, that the older, more experienced, perhaps, generations represented here were very, focused, tended to be very focused on the politics of our situation and how we resolve, the sort of the political complications that we’re faced with. Err, whereas emergent researchers of all ages, in PaR seem to have a very positive – can do – attitude and sometimes a very mature – make do – err, pragmatism about how we manage to continue to make work whilst we fight the political battles which we need to fight, to which the working groups have referred to.

And then, I found, I thought there were different degrees of awareness about the flexibility in how PaR might develop in the future. Um, the Van de Graff generator was still influential in the structure of some of the presentations that I saw where the practice was represented in live performance or in documentation on screen, whatever, the verbal and the linguistic discourse was still working around the practice-theory binary to some degree and that we need to think very hard about how to change that. But, the very, very strong signs in many of the presentations that I saw, that this is beginning to happen, because the range of discourses that were being played out in the presentations was wider than that binary implies, so various types of register and style of writing including autobiographical writing, including poetic writing, including precise analytical writing and being combined with different forms of visual and physical presentation in such a way that the gaps were between those became productive for me, and thought about what the research was in those particular examples. So the question of how we present, directly present, the nature and results of our practice as research individually, it seems to me, one, that’s very important to consider, as a way of deconstructing or destabilising the theory-practice binary.

Err, the two concerns that seem to run through a good deal of what I saw in the conference were the relationship between live and mediated creativity, that’s pretty obvious, and the relationship between theory and practice, which I’ve just mentioned, so you’ll allow me to skip a bit. Trying to save time, uh…..

The theory-practice, binary, um, we kind of hung onto Susan Melrose’s phrase of theoretical practice. I think it was, the fact that we’ve hung onto this, suggests that we need to do a lot more thinking about what other phrases and terms we might apply because of course the implication of theoretical practice in one sense might be that, err, practice can happen in theory, err, and therefore we don’t need to practice, just a theorize. To be less flippant, um, one of, one of the aspects of the presentation that I’ve found very, err, encouraging, as I’ve just said, was the multiplicity and the use of discourses, if I can put it that way, and where you individual researchers were searching for the opening of gaps in interpretation of those different discourses. I’m repeating myself because I think it’s so important. That was what, I felt, gave me access to what the research was about, so in whereas attempts to unify those discourses, err, into err, a single argument or a single statement tended to push, I felt, tended to push me away from understanding the complexity of research. So I think too, there was some overlap, err, moving backwards and forwards between three, three areas of work, and the contexts in which we’re working that perhaps we should work to keep more clearly separate in relation to each other, erm.

Ideas about criteria were overlapping, into, inevitably to some extent I guess, overlapping into discussions about structures to do with funding systems and peer review systems, and the three things I think perhaps we should think about keeping separate as far as possible, or for at least the time being, although they’re intimately related to each other, is first of all, the event and the artefact, and whatever media we’re working in. The process of creating the event, artefact, um, what ever medium we’re working in is one thing. And then secondly, the presentation in another context, other than the context of production of that event or that artefact, is a , is a second area, whether it’s reproduction, whether it’s, in terms of the individual researcher presenting the processes and results of their research, err, or whether it’s in terms of documentation with a research not there, but it’s a different, er, er, stage in the process of dissemination than, than the process of, the primary process of production. And then the third, which is moving more into the area of documentation, is the representation of research when the researcher is absent, not able to speak to research, not able to establish a dialogue between the research and the people who are looking at the documentation. These three modes of work, I think we need to think carefully about the distinctions between them, but also how they interlock and interact with each other.

Um, I suspect many of you have run conferences before, err and inevitably your antennae are out for what’s going on, what’s the, what’s the dialogue that’s emerging here, but as much as what’s the dialogue, it’s, um, what’s the tone of the dialogue, err, is this errr, a dialogue, of anxieties, or is this a dialogue of growing confidences? Um, and I think what I sensed over the three days into this morning, was, err, a shift from high anxiety, to deep anxiety (laughter)….to, thank goodness, I hope…gradually evaporating anxiety, as the, as the, clarity and the overlap, err of the reports back from the groups. Perhaps I’m just speaking about my own anxiety of course, but from the groups, err that produce some of the effects that I described earlier.

Err, just a couple more points in detail, um, to do with, err, peer assessment, and the err, future of conduct and structure of the next research assessment exercise. Um, this wasn’t, we weren’t able to think this through at the last, err, RAE process, because we didn’t have the information, erm, to err, to err, arrive at this kind of conclusion I’m going to try to explain to you. Um, and this is about how a dialogue can be set up, between, within the peer review system, but not just one dialogue, a series of dialogues, but this is an example, which I’m not, err, proposing as an action point, just throwing out as an idea to give you some notion of how the territory has shifted in the last five years. Erm, err, there are four hundred or so researchers on the PARIP database. Um, if those 400 researchers did a half-hour presentation, err of whatever form along the lines that we’ve seen a good variety of in this conference, this would take 200 hours. Err the last RAE there were 12 members of the panel, er, let's say there will be ten members of the panel next time. Err that will mean that it will take 20 hours for those 10 members of the panel, if they worked in pairs, to see presentations, one presentation from each of those 400 researchers. Whether or not that would be a good thing or a bad thing I’m leaving to onside, but what I’m saying is, now we know the scale, the types of activity in PaR, possibilities like that could be opened up, and we should think carefully about how we can open up possibilities of dialogue, that has been underlined several times from reports back from the groups. How we can open up greater potential for dialogue in the peer review process, partly because those dialogues could reinforce the dialogue of PaR as represented by you, and others not here, in the future. So those are my reflections on the conference, um, I’ll hand over now to Robin.

Robin Nelson: There may be a lot of overlap with things that have already been said, which I think is probably a good thing. First I like to say is that I’ve enjoyed the conference over all and there’s been lots of moments of fun. I’ve enjoyed particularly the performances with the feedbacks in the late afternoons from the groups. I was delighted this morning that we can be as radically innovative about mathematics as we are about our arts practices. But that’s my impression. I think one of the key questions for me is how we shift the I to we, and that is a point that came up in a very good presentation that I was at yesterday from Tony and Cahal, as an issue about representation. Who represents whom? And who’s eligible to represent whom? And I have to acknowledge that PARIP appears to be represented by men of a certain age. I was very conscious of that as we lined up outside the conference, I’m conscious of that at this, the three of us who are replying now. And I think that needs to be acknowledged.

I would like to think of PARIP as us, however, not as a separate them and us, though I wouldn’t want to be naïve of the politics of that. It’s been said a number of times, that we are all the academy, and indeed we are and I would like to re-enforce that, but of course there are lines of power and dominant and residual and emergent discourses within the academy which are in play, so it’s not a simple collective that I’m after. But I do think that the shift from I to we is very important, and will reaffirm what was said this morning by a group, that we need a kind of collective momentum because I think we are engaged, let's not say it's a battle between us and the AHRB or any other institution, but we need to make ourselves more visible. And also to reiterate the notion of diversity and the idea that yes, it is a broad collective and we need to acknowledge its diversity. Um, just another point on that, or it was triggered by something that was said in the feedback this morning, um, I’m pleased to say the action points we were talking about earlier on, sharing ideas, sharing networks and that was one of my points that I won’t reiterate when I come to it. But there are institutional forces which, um, lead towards competition rather than sharing and I would like to think that we can avoid that type on competition between ourselves.

Another thing that amused me this week was the running gag about the dead Frenchman, the idea that a very innovative, err, project is largely informed by dead French men. But of course that gag has it’s own exclusions: it excludes first of all the live and lively French women, Cicoux, Irigary, Kristeva for example used in Carol’s references yesterday, and of course those other men and women who’s conceptual frameworks we may share, some of whom have even been alleged Nazi sympathisers, I’m thinking of Nietzsche and Heidegger for example. So the point I wanted to make there, is that we have a very broad frame of reference and I’ve been pleased to see in the presentations, a broadening frame of reference, people emerging with new references, and new strands informing the overall dialogue. I think that’s extremely healthy because I’ve always been committed to multi and interdisciplinary. And the point, I suppose, I want to make out of this is it’s very important that we don’t have a kind of codified and rarefied set of people, these dead Frenchmen, to take that code, who inform our work only.

Ah, and moving on from that point, I want to reinforce something I said in my presentation for the conference, that we’re not alone here. I don’t think I’ve felt that so much in this particular conference, but in previous forums of this kind, there has been a kind of sense that the art world is somehow persecuted and different from other parts of the academy, and so on. And I recognise that obviously. But um, there are so many other disciplines where people are pushing, or if we go back to Simon's presentation altogether, if we’re moving across paradigms, people are also wanting to move across paradigms, and there’s a lot of other disciplines, errr, with which we have, share the approach in common. So my sense of the ‘we’ goes beyond PARIP to the broader community and there seems to be quite a lot of energy in that momentum at the moment and we need to be part of that. And I’ve been particularly pleased in this forum, to see the mix of people we’ve had here. Again, the symposium, the previous PARIP symposium, seemed to me to be dominated by, err, theatre /performance people, that’s just the way it turned out. This has been more broad, we’ve had a good range of dancers and musicians, people from the media, who weren’t represented much last time, um, and visual artists and performing artists of all kinds, performance people, I’m very pleased to see that mix. And that’s why broadly I’ve enjoyed the experience and feel that we’ve moved on, from our last meeting.

I wanted to take up just a number of specific issues that have just been grounded for me, that haven’t come up already, I’ll cut the ones that have come up already.

Um, yeah, the idea of professional practice, that has been mentioned this morning as distinct from PaR. What’s struck me is that that does work differently in different sectors, who work under different rules of the game and I need to think more about that certainly, and we need to revisit, it seems to me, and clarify the issues there. Um, the professional media point was made in a number of presentations. Err, so far in terms of the commercial economy, have a different set of forces in play than the arts world, though I sometimes think that the arts world, as we talk about it, effaces the commercial sector of the arts world, and that’s the nexus of things that I certainly want to revisit and maybe we all need to do that.

And that we might think we’ve collapsed the boundaries between high culture and popular culture, but it’s a number of things I’ve heard this week make it clear to me that we haven’t at least, in all respects, in PaR, that we’ve been selective in some ways and that’s something I want to go back to.

Um, language, I think. I do want to reiterate this point, again it has been made, language is slippery, but its usage matters. Whether it’s Susan’s theoretical practices or theoretical professional practices as it got muddiefied to, um, Susan says ‘we’ve talked about this for 10 years but we haven’t changed our language’. Well there were terms we used and I take Baz’s points, there may be several, and Jon's [Dovey] reflexive/theoretical/critical/ practitioner model might be another set of useful examples. But I think it does matter and I think if we keep separating theory and practice, not moving forward collectively with a new language, then we won’t move forward as fast as we should.

The notion of accessibility was new to me I think, in the way it’s appeared in this forum. And it cropped up in a number of places. Initially I thought this might stem from a question for the professional and commercial sector, for markets, you know, what’s accessible to people, but PaR doesn’t function outside the market and many people have constructed themselves both as artists/academics/practitioners and researchers here, so I think that question of access needs more unpacking as far as I’m concerned and that remains an issue for me for further discussion.

My next point has been covered very fully. So I’m going to jump that one. Yes, the place of writing obviously continues to be contested, I just feel the debate about it has been much more informed this time, it’s not a simple answer to that and that’s good. So I hope that we can agree, at least, that words don’t have primacy over works. Or perhaps to put in another way, that there’s a range of research practices of which writing is only one, and just to take up a point that Jon has drawn to my attention, that documentation may be another.

That takes me to the PaR PhD draft guidelines. Um, thank you to those people who have responded to me and there’s been some very helpful, um, small but significant points that will lead to amendments and I welcome more feedback. The means for that feedback is through Palatine’s website, to Palatine, or through PARIP to Angela, and that will get back to Stuart and myself. Um, yes, the next point has been made, we can skip that one.

Yes, just a, perhaps a ride on the idea of documentation. Whether it be what I call complimentary writing about other forms. Um, I was struck by a phrase by Michael Biggs, I don’t know if Michael is still with us, Michael was responsible for organising an equivalent forum for art and design, to PARIP, and he had a phrase or an argument really, which I just think is interesting. He says ‘it’s not possible for a work of art to contain/embody it’s own extrinsic context’ and that for me clarified why I think there’s a need for some form of something besides the practice itself. Then collaboration must be recognised, I would reaffirm that, and just wanted to say a lot of people know this already but Lee Miller and Bob Whalley who have just submitted their PhD, who are here and many of you have met them, and the point, if you don’t know about their PhD, besides making the work together that was shown as practice, they’ve also submitted a joint written submission. As far as I know that’s the first time that’s happened in the UK. There is an example in Sweden, in anthropology that I know about, I would welcome to know if there are any other joint collaborative submissions of that kind. And we need to use that kind of, for me that was a kind of strategy to move things on in the debate….. And I think I’m gonna stop there, that’s all I have to say. Thank you very much.

Christopher Bannerman: Right well I have that most difficult task of going last, and those of you I know have to go please don’t feel sad, or feel sad at leaving us but, yes please, um. And, errr, like Robin I need to admit, that kind of awareness and particularly a heightened awareness of. My discipline is dance, being a white man of a certain age, standing up in front of you, but I think I’m younger than Robin possibly (Laughter) I’m sure I’m younger, than Robin, I look younger, I know that (Laughter)…and of course I have three pages of notes here, and largely of course they are redundant because you’ve heard them all, and in part you’ve heard them from the responses, but also I think from the feedback from groups and that’s because, miraculously in some senses, the feedback from groups suddenly, um, took on a form, that was to me, had much greater clarity. And I will also say that I enjoyed the entire conference enormously, and enjoyed the work and the debate and discourse and I feel that we have a much much greater strength as a community. And given, of course that there are always particular disciplinary significances, particularly discipline contexts and therefore differences between us, I don’t think those differences, and at one point I thought that those differences were going to be too great, we’re never going to be able to address them, address issues across the divides of our disciplines, but actually I think they have informed us and infirmed each other. And Robin’s point about the commercial sector in the performing arts, which I think came up because of our situation, media and film colleagues, is a point that we can all consider really.

So I think I’m only going to address a couple of issues and perhaps take a personal stance on at least one of them, and that is: does the knowledge, new insight, reside in the artefact or event itself? Yes it does. Is there a extrinsic context? Of course there is, because it’s a performance or an artefact that's viewed, and we have from the field of science and many others, a notion of a community of knowledgeable people. Alright they might say a community of scholars, we are new scholars, this is new territory, new territory that’s opening up, partly through an interchange between what used to be the arts professions. There was a separate area, and the academy as people have put it, but I would like to see the academy as a kind of open pavillion and not an ivory tower and therefore exchanges of knowledges, and understandings are passed between. Of course there’s going to be, it doesn’t mean the two things are identical, and it’s probably important that they are not identical, important that there is something that people consider to be a profession that is separate from the discourses and debates and, bureaucracies of university context. And there’s probably some areas that universities feel should be critically distanced in the way that, might not involve a kind of, err, active interchange. But, there is a huge amount to be gained and I think we’re seeing it, many of us are a part of it, we’re all a part of it. There’s a huge amount to be gained by the synergy between, arts practice and universities, and the notion of practice a research and its development, over more than 12 years.

I remind us all again, we’ve had three RAEs in which performance work has been submitted as research. If knowledge and new contributions to knowledge, and insights don’t exist in the artwork, why was that work submitted? So we have done something, I think what we need to do now is to move on from that and perhaps elaborate the debate, and I do say debate because of course I’m speaking to you, even though I could be going (dance gesture with arm) (laughter) Yes? Old people still can move a bit (laughter). Not quite as good as Carol maybe, certainly not as long because I couldn’t carry that on for long. But uh, of course words are with us, they are with us in all aspects of our lives, virtually, and I am speaking to you know, so, err I don’t think words are going to go away. But do I think that they must be present in order for something to qualify as research? Within an RAE framework in which one’s assessing research outcomes, no I don’t think intellectually that they must be there. I think that there is a system with us that allows us to put down a framing context and I think that might be very helpful, a lens through which someone looks to see the work. But it is the work itself that’s being seen. One’s not judging the quality of the supporting statement, although one might be making a judgment about the quality of the supporting statement. But the ultimate judgment about the quality of the research resides in the work itself and in the interchange between the work and the spectator, receiver. So I would propose the, put that forward as a notion and in many ways we are already doing that. I think what we need to do is strengthen our understanding of that and to strengthen our community so that we can deal with the structures and the bureaucracies in place, err, to achieve the assessments.

And of course I recognise that the debate is spread more widely, there are also people involved in practice-based or practice as research PhDs and that is another kind of context. And that debate is fluid and flowing as well, as we’ve heard about the collaborative submission, which I think is also very interesting. And I think that a point I made, perhaps earlier, is that, this synergy, this development of new understandings, is actually something that I think will enhance the UK PLC or perhaps more importantly the cultural life of our county and countries. These are ways in which our lives are enriched, and enhanced. So rather than seeing dichotomies I’d like to see were binaries are useful. A vibrating communication between those binaries.

And it’s that third thing, that vibration between communication between binaries that is a rich and exciting, err, territory. And that’s a territory that’s opening up for us and I feel greatly enriched – it’s a pity that this is the beginning of the year in a way because I have to go back to a load of bureaucracy just at the moment where I feel excited and I could go off and do some research.

Thank you all very much, and thank you to Angela and to Caroline and to all those who have been involved in putting this conference together. Thank you.

Baz Kershaw: Thank you Chris, thanks Robin. They didn’t quite promise not to mention age, but they came quite close to it. I know I’m older than both of them and I know I can’t dance, like Chris, and I’m not even going to attempt it.

Ah, it’s the time for concluding remarks. We’re actually slightly ahead of schedule, but err, in order to perhaps finish on time, or a little earlier then dialogue over lunch can continue, rather than opening it up to the floor for just a few minutes, is a bit tokenish.

Um, so concluding remarks. Oh, here’s another old man in front of you. Um…I’m gonna do thanks as well, but I’m going to take one particular thanks out of turn, and that is to thank, err, Janet Thumin, head of department, who is no longer the head of department. She’s been the co-applicant on the PARIP project and a member of the management group of the project. Err, Simon Jones has err, become head of department, and therefore become automatically a member of the project, err, the the management group. Um, so we’ve diminished the number of women on the advisory group, and we will be thinking about this very carefully, what to do about this.

So onto the remarks. Um, what’s PARIP going to do next? Um, well, it depends which PARIP you’re talking about, in answer to that, because I think that one thing that’s emerged in the conference is we’ve got to think of that in terms of both/ands. PARIP is a small group of people, in one sense just three of us, but PARIP in another sense is all of you. So, the both/and world of small and large PARIP, what we’re going to try and do, in the next couple of years or so is, first of all to collate all the information that’s been gathered at the conference, err, and obviously to clarify and identify the overlap between the action points that you produced from the conference. Err, then we’ll decide how best to disseminate that information. Um, we’d be interested to hear from you, about whether you have produced written papers, whether or not you’d like us, or give us permission to put those papers on our website. And to continue the dialogue through the website.

Err, and secondly, in the project, a small project, we want to focus more on, err research and less on the facilitation and encouragement of research networks. And we’ve done quite a lot of that. I’ve lost track of how far Angela has travelled over the past three years. In fact she’s been, I know to every regional group's first meeting, which takes a lot of time. That has drawn energy and time away, and thinking time, away from the research of the project, although we’ll still continue that. So we’re helping to do less of the facilitation and more of the analysis of the material that we’ve gathered, the production of case studies that we mentioned, and the continuation of practical projects, that we have underway, which means that we want to encourage the regional groups in the way that the regional groups worked at this conference, continue in that mode, err, because we, we will be able to spend less time on facilitating. We’ll still do some of that of course, we want to encourage the regional groups take more, take that in hand more.

Err we also want to consider, it’s been mentioned in the feedback from the groups to encourage more consideration of standards and criteria, err, and systems for peer review, which has already been mentioned. The next event for PARIP in the proposal that we gave to the AHRB was for an international conference, because a part of our remit was to, that we agreed, was to, in the final two years of the project, was to extend the, our, the range of interest beyond the UK. Err, that conference is planned for June 2005.

At this stage the Roberts report on the RAE is not yet concluded, it’s up for consultation, err, so we don’t know when the next RAE will be, therefore we don’t know when panels will be chosen and then who they’ll be. But if it happens that err, the panels' members are identified if there are panels, it’s likely, I think that there will be, the panel members are identified by 2005, err, then the possibility of extending an invitation to those panel members to the 2005, erm if, 2005 conference, might be a distinct possibility. Again continuing this theme of dialogue that has been running through the presentations this afternoon.

So those are the, the main aspects of our work for the next two years. Don’t incidentally assume that PARIP 2005 will necessarily be at Bristol. Um, we’ve been in conversation with the University of Cork about the possibility of holding the conference there, um those conversations are very early days so that may not ensue, but the principle of it being somewhere elsewhere of Bristol, we think is an important one, not least because it involves a great deal of work. (Laughter)

Err, one final thing before I get onto the thanks, is can I remind you of the questionnaire in your conference programme, and please, if you haven’t done already, please can you fill that in for us. It matters a great deal, of course in feeding back to the AHRB, our next annual report is due in three weeks time, and we haven’t written it yet as we were waiting to see the outcome of this conference, so we would be grateful for the return of those completed questionnaires.

So onto the final, traditional business of thanks, of which there are, are many. Before I do this there’s one announcement, um, from the film academy from the university of Glamorgan, are holding a conference called ‘beyond theory of practice- - don’t start thinking about that! (Laughter). Err, that will be held at the Chapter cinema in Wales on the 20th-22nd November this year. And if you want more information it’s at, email filmacademy@glam.ac.uk.

Err, first of all, all of you. Um, the the, conference has been, despite the insecurities, the conference has been enjoyable for me, I hope it has been for you too, for the openness of exchange that it’s included. So I thank you and the good spirits in which it has been conducted, um so I thank you. I particularly want to thank the chairs, the reporters of the err, of the discussion groups, and the co-ordinators for the regional groups. I don’t think the kind of dialogues that have been emerging, err, as possibilities in this final session could have come out the way they have without that spirit of coming from all of you. Thank you very much for that. Err next the companies and the individuals who brought shows here, created installations, and displays and so on. Um, I know it was difficult for some of us to get around all of those things err, it err, because of the richness of the programme, and the difficult choices we had to make, but none the less I hope that the people who brought those pieces to the conference found it of beneficial experience.

Next thanks very much indeed to the advisory group members, um but especially to – I’m afraid I’ve begun thinking of them as the core group, you don’t kind of think of them in those terms, the ones here, erm, in a er, for me personally have been a terrific support, and I want to thank them for that, but I think they’ve also facilitated the conference in significant ways by chairing probably more than their due amount of sessions, so thank you to those of you on the advisory group, members here. Next, nearly done, thanks very much to my colleagues, in the err, department, without their support and without their, err, care in working out how best we might develop the project as a whole, err, this conference may not have happened.

And then, down to the real people, the ones who matter most I think, err, in some ways, the technical staff it’s been a quite complicated, complicated and complex job for them I hope those of you who didn’t get exactly what you wanted at the time you wanted, you understand that it was because it was such a complicated job. Thank you very much to them for getting all the kit to work as well as possible under the circumstance. And then the Theatre managers, who conducted as well through the, err, foyers it’s not one of the easiest foyers in the world, and in other ways as well. And to the porters who have looked after us and, importantly, given last night's events, err, have made sure that we have been secure in the building and that the building has been secure. Um, and I think that it's one of those frequently unnoticed contributions that the porters have been splendid I think.

And then next all the volunteer helpers, we had 18 volunteer helpers, um, so quite a shift system running for the volunteer helpers to make sure that everything went smoothly, I’m sure you’ve all managed to get lost at some point or another in the department, but I hope there was a volunteer helper not too far away to help you out in a predicament.

And then finally, coming on to the final thanks, to Hannah Crosson, who’s the administrator, err, part-time administrator of the project. Err, she joined us recently and it’s made a big difference to the amount of time we have started to devote to the research, err process, although again, most of our time has been consumed by setting up for the conference. And then finally, last but not least, um, to Caroline, Angela. Erm, its difficult for me to err, say how, err, precisely I’m supposed to be err, work hard at being precise, but it’s difficult for me to say precisely how invaluable Caroline and Angela have been to the creation of this event. Err, you know that you’ve got excellent err, colleagues, when there are huge areas of activity that you know are going on, but you don’t have to worry about. And that’s been my experience in the preparation and the running of this conference. So, I’d like to thank Caroline and Angela, if you could both, this is the embarrassing bit, if you could both come down here, I’d be grateful so that the conference can share, can share in my.

Caroline Rye:This is public humiliation! (Laughter)

Baz Kershaw:You’ve been brilliant. I’d just like the conference to share in my appreatiation of what Angela and Caroline have done to make this conference, I think, I hope, work very well indeed. (Applause)

Angela Piccini: But thank you to all of you actually, for making it all happen, because as Caroline knows I’ve had pre-party anxiety of ‘oh my god, is anybody going to turn up, are they all going to hate us for making them follow all of those instructions?‘ So thank you for being patient, and for doing what you were told (laughter and applause)

Baz Kershaw: One of the hardest decisions of the conference was deciding what we ought to present them with, here, but we decided to take the risk in case it might produce a performance (laughter). So that concludes the conference, ah, and I wish you all safe journeys home, and thank you again for being here. Thank you

Angela Piccini: And it’s lunch!

12 September 2003 | 13 September 2003 | 14 September 2003

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