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On Collaboration in pdf format
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A personal desire for definition: Collaboration is not the same as co-operation.

In the discourse around arts practices, I often find myself confronted by the use/mis-use of the term collaboration. As someone who has been engaged for a prolonged period in this way of working, I have felt the need to define/re-define this term – it seems to me so useful, it would be a shame to lose its potential as a term that denotes a very particular working arrangement – one that I see as quite distinct from a more simple co-operation (working together).

I’d like to express a desire to ‘save’ the term collaboration to describe a way of working between two or more people, where the creative process confuses authorship to the extent that none of the collaborators can identify elements (or contributions) that are solely ‘theirs’ – generating a product that is ‘shared’ rather than claimed solely by any one contributor. It is with this sense of collaboration in mind that I am attempting to unpack my position as a co-creator of the work produced under the moniker LOW PROFILE.

This wilful confusion of authorship, ownership and accountability, of course, presents complications in the academic situation – how can I present (any of) this practice, this work or these ideas as truly ‘my own’, and more particularly, ‘my own unaided work’?

11. Author’s Signed Declaration*
If your work has been part of a collaborative group project, a declaration must be made to indicate clearly your own individual contribution and the form and extent of collaboration.

Rachel Dobbs
(LOW PROFILE)
2009

* from Protocols and Conventions for Dissertations (MA Guidelines document), University College Falmouth incorporating Dartington College of Arts

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On Collaboration in pdf format
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this work by Rachel Dobbs & LOW PROFILE
is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
research has been supported by AHRC
and undertaken as part of the MACAPD
programme at Dartington College of Arts
(University College Falmouth)

for more information about LOW PROFILE
see www.we-are-low-profile.com

return to rachel's page on the LOW PROFILE site