The studio and living laboratory models for practice-based research

This chapter presents organisational models of inter-disciplinary practice-based research designed for studio and public spaces in the field of art and technology. It charts the development of the ‘studio as laboratory’ approach to practice and research and its later association with a ‘living laboratory’ in a public museum. The foundational ideas arose at the first Creativity and Cognition conference, a forum for exchange between artists, technologists, scientists, engineers, historians and others, during which meetings outside the main conference programme took place. From this the Creativity and Cognition Research Studios (C&CRS) was created and later re-established at the University of Technology Sydney as the Creativity and Cognition Studios (CCS). In its new location, CCS continued the work initiated in C&CRS but with an enlarged and stronger PhD programme. Shortly after the inception of CCS, Beta_Space was established with the Powerhouse Museum (PHM), now the Museum for Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS). The partnership between CCS and PHM constituted a new model for digital art practice that, in parallel, provided a vehicle for research. From the history of establishing such centres of practice-based research, strategies for running practice-based PhD programmes that include support for inter-disciplinary community building are described.