I Cling to Virtue

Kular’s work centres on design as a means of engaging with social and cultural issues. Commissioned and exhibited by the V&A Museum, this was a mixed-media collection revealing the trajectories of the Lövy-Singh clan, a fictional East London family of mixed descent. It comprised 26 sculptures and two video pieces, developing the previous explorations of the MacGuffin in narrative (Kular REF Output 2). A catalogue with 28 fictional reminiscences, a genealogy and time line positioned the family’s experiences in geographical locations and historical events. Novel use of rapid-prototyping co-opted an industry process to confuse the experience of artefact and artifice. The design explored the historical, literary and cinematic traditions of the family saga and its relationship to memory and artefact. It presented an archive of objects derived from the flawed, biased memory of the (fictional) curator. A coherent story is replaced by one that is multiple and fragmentary. Kular and Toran (RCA) ‘produced’ the family by mixing their own genealogies with those of renowned 20th-century families, both real and fictional, such as the Magnificent Ambersons and the Rothschilds, positioning family members in everyday situations or key historical moments represented by an object and a ‘memory’ triggered by the object. Concept development was undertaken jointly by Kular and Toran. Kular’s archive research emphasised commonwealth immigrant histories and British 20th-century political events. His production contribution was in 3D modelling, rapid prototyping and display, leading production of the two films and development and editing of the narrative texts. The work was accompanied by a catalogue (2011), was reviewed in ICON Magazine (2010), discussed in an article by Hayward, Jones, Toran and Kular in Design and Culture (2013), and featured in The White Review (No. 2). It was re-exhibited in the group show ‘Politique Fiction’ at la Cité du design, Saint-Étienne, France (2013).

Exploring the Roles of Technology and Social Play in Art Museums

This co-written chapter was included in an edited book featuring invited authors from different countries and different areas of museum research and practice. The chapter uses a theory of play by Johan Huizinga (1938) to frame case studies of play-based interactive experiences in museums in various countries. The aim was to use theory to ground museum practice, in order to evaluate existing practical implementations as well as to inform the design of new ones. The book was nominated as one of the 10 best museum education books of 2011 by Museum Education Monitor, and the chapter led to a subsequent technology residency the author undertook in the Spike Island gallery, Bristol in 2012, funded by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, Arts and Humanities Research Council and Arts Council England. It also informed his subsequent postgraduate teaching, an example of which is a recent MA project, which deconstructs play from a computational perspective. Collaborations have continued with the co-author, which have resulted in a number of invited lectures. In this chapter the authors explore play as a structure for supporting visitor learning, drawing from international research in museums and interaction design. Four aspects of play first proposed by Huizinga are explored – the free-choice aspect of play, play as distinct from real life, play as an ordering structure, and the role of play in bridging communities. The chapter argues that play provides museums with ready-made structures and concepts, which can help planning for visitor learning. The research was equally divided between the co-authors, who developed the conceptual and theoretical aspects of the article by drawing on their own research alongside key examples of museum design and digital media.

A World Drawn: An Introduction to the art of Julian Opie (for a Polish Audience)

Essay in a monograph associated with the exhibition Julian Opie: Sculptures, Paintings, Films at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow, Poland, 18 October 2014 to 25 January 2015. Slyce attempts to re-examine the lineaments of Opie's practice for a new and broader audience. During which, he calls attention in the writing to the processes of its commissioning and early request to do so for a 'Polish audience'. He attempts to bring to light some of these often invisible moves in the commissioning of catalogue essays, while also re-examining Julian Opie's practice in light of its established reception in Britain.

Chromatic Aberration

Chromatic Aberration is a film installation which explores the early technologies of colour filmmaking drawn from the archives of George Eastman House, Rochester, New York. Featuring vibrant close-ups of eyes from fledgling archival experiments in colour film, Chromatic Aberration turns the cinematic lens in on itself: from the prosthetic recording eye of the camera, to an evocation of the abstract inner screen of one's eyelids. Early 1920s colour film footage - mainly tests shots featuring members of George Eastman's family as well as Hollywood stars of the time - is shot in such a way so as to reveal the inherent chromatic fringing, distortion and misalignment. Using specialist equipment at the BFI National Archive, London, the footage is reworked through the use of extreme close-up and magnification, honing in on the eyes. The installation evokes an imagined abstract colour world, a flickering eyelid trapped in a mechanical peephole. Exhibitions: Solo exhibition as film installation at Tyneside Cinema (Newcastle, Oct-Nov 2014); Solo exhibition at George Eastman Museum (Rochester, New York, Jan-April 2015), including a second work on display. Film festivals nominations for competitions: Winner of Best Vanguard Film Competition in Lima Independiente International Film Festival (Peru). Nominations: Filmadrid festival (Spain); Curtas Vila do Conde film festival (Portugal); Festival du Nouveau Cinema (Canada); Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival (Czech Republic ); International Film Festival Bratislava (Slovenia). Additional screenings at International Rotterdam Film Festival (Netherlands); European Media Art Festival (Germany); BFI London Film Festival (UK); Mini-retrospective screening at DIM CINEMA, The Cinematheque (Vancouver May 2015). Reviews and interviews in Artforum, The Wire Magazine, After Image, Studio International. Public lectures: with Prof. Sarah Street at Tyneside Cinema (Nov 2014); Royal Academy visiting public lecture (Nov 2014); ‘The Laughter of Things’ symposium, International Film Festival Rotterdam and Piet Zwart Institute (Jan 2015); George Eastman Museum and Rochester University (April 2015). Acquired by the George Eastman Museum for their collection.