Kip Jones

KIP JONES, an American by birth, has been studying and working in the UK for more than 20 years.
Under the umbrella term of 'arts-led research', his main efforts have involved developing tools
from the arts and humanities for use by social scientists in research and its impact on a wider
public or a Perfomative Social Science.

Jones was Reader in Performative Social Science and Qualitative Research at
Bournemouth University for 15 years.
He is now a Visiting Scholar and and an independent author and scholar.

Kip has produced films and written many articles for academic journals and authored chapters
for books on topics such as masculinity, ageing and rurality, and older LGBT citizens.
Jones' most recent work involves working with Generation Z youth to tell their stories using
social media.
His ground-breaking use of qualitative methods, including Auto-fiction, biography
and auto-ethnography, and the use of tools from the arts in social science research
and dissemination are well-known.

Jones acted as Author and Executive Producer of
the award-winning short film, RUFUS STONE, funded by Research Councils UK.
The film is now available for free viewing on the Internet
and has been viewed by more than 14,000 people in 150 countries.

Areas of expertise
• Close relationships, culture and ethnicity
• Social psychology, sociology
• Ageing, self and identity
• Interpersonal processes, personality,
individual differences,
social networks, prejudice and stereotyping
• Sexuality and sexual orientation
• Creativity and the use of the
arts in Social Science

Media experience
His work has been reported widely
in the media, including:
BBC Radio 4,BBC TV news,Times
Higher Education, Sunday New
York Times, International
Herald-Tribune
and The Independent.

Sunday 9 January 2011

Don Draper and some random thoughts for 2011

Thoughts at sea. These become parenthetical within the rhythm of the waves, the schedule of ports, the resting and relaxation--and the dreams. I report them here in a similar way.


Don Draper is, himself, his own invention. He is, therefore, Everyman or more pointedly, Nowhereman.


He is an idea man and his advertising firm is convinced of his brain-storms which flow like milk and honey from his ever-inebriated lips.


He produces a lot of ideas, but never has to execute them. Luckily, he has a staff of creatives who do this for him.


Which then/who's then, is the creative act?


Art is/creativity is/production is:


    • concerned with the impulse of creativity and the proclivities of production.

    • creative problem-solving is central to creative decision-making.

    • a reflection/a record of the time/space/culture which we currently inhabit.
How I problem solve creatively by listening to dreams:

A Dream at Sea:
The House and the Swimming Pool

Trevor was building a swimming pool next to the post-modern, but definitely retro-modern holiday house that he had designed, much akin to Alain de Botton's contemporary holiday homes. We said that the pool should be at opposite angles to the house, but Trevor insisted on a parallel configuration. We said, "No, no, no! that cannot be right!"


He began to cry and shed his clothes. He looked like a happy Buddha, except that he was crying so he resembled a sad one. We tried to comfort him.


Two rectangles -- how to place them:

  1. side by side, length paralleling length
  2. T-square formation

Change of Scene: Old Japanese woman with greying hair in a bun. I was lying in the grass and finding minuscule flowers, purple and orange--the most outrageous of the opposites on the colour wheel.

I placed the flowers in the old woman's hair.


She then spoke, herself in a dream state:

"The pool should be placed next to the rectangular house like a woman lying next to a man, her curves forming the negative space between the two of them".


So the pool should be curvilinear, not a rectangle. It's length should mirror the length of the house, but it's emphasis remain the shapes created between the two.


My father was right.





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