Unlearning

Keynote speaker for a one day symposium in Fine Art and Photography at De Montfort University, Leicester. The symposium looked at research as a rigorous process of investigation leading to new knowledge. It was aimed at visual arts practitioners wanting to account for their practices as forms of research. Two key questions were addressed: 1. How can arts practitioners account for the rigour of the methods they use in practice? 2. To what kinds of knowledge can their practices lead? Coutts' keynote looked at the concept of 'Unlearning' used by Marie Luisa Knott to explore what Hannah Arendt first had to do in order to rethink the atrocities carried out by the Nazis in the 20th Century. To be able to think anew means also to find a means for undoing what has previously been thought. Coutts looked to Arendt amongst other thinkers and artists, and used examples from within her own practice, to reflect on rigour in research and methods for legitimising a range of visual practices.

Relocating the Frame: Object-Oriented (1.) and Locative Art (2.) Environments

The locative project is in a condition of emergence, an embryonic state in which everything is still up for grabs, a zone of consistency yet to emerge. As an emergent practice locative art, like locative media generally, it is simultaneously opening up new ways of engaging in the world and mapping its own domain. (Drew Hemment, 2004) Artists and scientists have always used whatever emerging technologies existed at their particular time throughout history to push the boundaries of their fields of practice. The use of new technologies or the notion of ‘new’ media is neither particularly new nor novel. Humans are adaptive, evolving and will continue to invent and explore technological innovation. This paper asks the following questions: what role does adaptive and/or intelligent art play in the future of public spaces, and how does this intervention alter the relationship between theory and practice? Does locative or installation-based art reach more people, and does ‘intelligent’ or ‘smart’ art have a larger role to play in the beginning of this century? The speakers will discuss their current collaborative prototype and within the presentation demonstrate how software art has the potential to activate public spaces, and therefore contribute to a change in spatial or locative awareness. It is argued that the role and perhaps even the representation of the audience/viewer is left altered through this intervention. 1. A form of electronic imagery created by a collection of mathematically defined lines and/or curves. 2. An experiential form of art which engages the viewer both from within a specific location and in response to their intentional or unintentional input.

Visualising Spaces: The Illustrated Map as a Mode of Communicating Fact, Fiction and Feeling

Communicating thoughts, facts and narratives through visual devices such as allegory or symbolism was fundamental to early map making and this remains the case with contemporary illustration. Drawing was employed then as a way of describing historic narratives (fact and folklore) through the convenience of a drawn symbol or character. The map creators were visionaries, depicting known discoveries and anticipating what existed beyond the agreed boundaries. As we now have photographic and virtual reality maps at our disposal, how can illustration develop the language of what a map is and can be? How can we break the rules of map design and yet still communicate the idea of a sense of place with the aim to inform, excite and/or educate the ‘traveller’? As Illustrators we need to question the purpose of creating a ‘map’: what do we want to communicate and is representational image making the only way to present information of a location? Is creating a more personal interpretation a form of cartouche, reminiscent of elements within the Hereford Mappa Mundi and maps of Blaeu, and can this improve/hinder the communicative aspect of the map? Looking at a variety of historical and contemporary illustrated maps and artists (such as Grayson Perry), who track their journeys through drawing, both conventional journeys and emotional, I will aim to prove that the illustrated map is not mere decoration but is a visual language providing an allegorical response to tangible places and personal feelings.

The Measure of All Things: Rethinking Humanism through Art (Group Show)

University of Buffalo New York Department of Art Gallery. The ancient philosopher Protagoras is most famous for his claim: “Of all things the measure is Man” and today, Western societies continue to promote anthropocentrism, an approach to the world that assumes humans are the principal species of the planet. We naturalize a scale of worth, in which beings that most resemble our own forms or benefit us are valued over those that do not. The philosophy of humanism has been trumpeted as the hallmark of a civilized society, founded on the unquestioned value of humankind defining not only our economic, political, religious, and social systems, but also our ethical code. However, artists recently have questioned whether humanism has actually lived up to its promises and made the world a better place for humankind. Are we better off privileging humans above all else or could there be other, preferable, ways to value life? With the continued prevalence of violent crimes, even genocide, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we see the ways in which the discourse of humanism falters, as groups are targeted through rhetoric reducing them to the subhuman, and therefore disposable. But what if the subhuman, nonhuman, and even the non-animal and material, were reconsidered as objects of worth even if far removed from us?

Teaching Rules or Teaching Creativity: a Paradigm Shift

Structure is everything in a screenplay we are told. If indeed there are any rules to screenwriting then this would be carved in tablets of stone. Within pedagogical frameworks we are diligent in our instruction of the three acts, advocating it as a paradigm. We pass on tools for the analysis of character that are gleaned from psychology. But I have seen students struggle with this toolbox. They feel constrained by concrete techniques. So often seeing principles as rules, structure as restriction. The stifling of free-form ideas is further compounded by the plethora of books that claim the path to glory lies only in structural devices. Some even purport to have a formula, a simple prescriptive model that will bestow almost certain success. Yet this is an industry that abhors formula, that hungers for the fresh and the new. Without bravado, imagination and experimentation with character and form, the best structured screenplay in the world is merely a typing exercise. As educators we have a duty to retain a balance between letting a student’s mind dance and keeping them to the tempo. This study will compare a variety of diverse structures, from Hegel to Alcoholics Anonymous, Kubler Ross to Jung. It will analyse recent journal articles, on both new techniques in teaching creativity and new approaches to the instruction of screenwriting, to suggest a model of how best to inform the application of structure to HE students and keep creativity uppermost. A structure of emotional truth. An equal appreciation of both the tools of our craft and an imaginative exploration of character and world that can unlock our originality and our artistry.

Theatrical Latency: Walking Katrina Palmer’s The Loss Adjusters

In this article I introduce the term ‘theatrical latency’ as a pleasurable effect experienced when listening to sound in relation to visual perception. Latency refers to both the phenomena of audio delay (in feedback from analogue to digital conversion and the momentary lapses experienced when playing live with recorded music) and a theatrical sensation that comes from the reanimation of visual environments through aural framing. In this configuration, the notion of latency takes on a double meaning as both a recorded phenomenon and the retrieval of something dormant within physical objects, sites or materials. These ideas will be introduced through my experience of walking Katrina Palmer’s site-specific audio work The Loss Adjusters (2015) on the island of Portland (UK). The audio tracks create an extended meditation on Portland, interweaving specific locations and histories with fictional characters and ghosts of the island.

Encountering the Spectre of Painting

When thinking what paintings are, I am continually brought back to my memory of a short sequence in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. In the scene, Kim Novak’s Madeleine is seated on a bench in an art gallery. She is apparently transfixed by a painting, Portrait of Carlotta. Alongside James Stewart, we watch her looking intently. Madeleine is pretending to be a ghost. At this stage she does not expect us to believe she is a ghost, but simply to immerse ourselves in the conceit, to delight in the shudder. Madeleine’s back is turned away from us, and as the camera draws near to show that the knot pattern in her hair mirrors the image in the portrait, I imagine Madeleine suppressing a smile. She resolutely shows us her back, though, so her feint is not betrayed. Madeleine’s stillness in this scene makes her appear as an object, a thing in the world, a rock or a pile of logs perhaps. We are not looking at that thing, however, but rather a residual image of something creaturely, a spectre. This after-image is held to the ground both by the gravity suggested by its manifestation and by the fine lie - the camouflage - of pretending to be a ghost. Encountering a painting is like meeting Madeleine. It sits in front of its own picture, gazing at it. Despite being motionless and having its back to us, there is a lurching sensation the painting brings about by pretending to be the ghost of its picture, and, at the same time, never really anticipating your credulity.

Unfolding the Archive (Group Exhibition)

Unfolding the Archive, an exhibition of new work by the international artists’ group Floating World, is the result of a collaboration between the National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL) and the F.E. McWilliam Gallery & Studio in partnership with the NCAD Gallery at the National College of Art & Design. The exhibition takes its title from the tangible starting point for engagement with an archive – the simple act of unfolding – and the practice of appraisal, valuation and interpretation that is inherent in this process.

As manifestações artísticas urbanas e o ensino de artes visuais

O presente estudo, inserido no Mestrado em Ensino de Artes Visuais no 3.º ciclo do Ensino Básico e no Ensino Secundário, aborda a importância das Manifestações Artística Urbanas no ensino de Artes Visuais. Esta investigação pretende analisar a forma como estas manifestações podem ser adaptadas ao currículo do programa da disciplina de desenho numa escola secundária artística, no sentido de munir os alunos de capacidade crítica para o atual estado da arte, assim como atraí-los para o desenho, levando-os a descobrir e desenvolver seu próprio traço. O facto de a prática de ensino supervisionada se ter realizado na Escola Artística Soares dos Reis, no Porto, uma das mais prestigiadas instituições artísticas em Portugal, privilegiou e potenciou a investigação tendo em conta a cultura artística e urbana demostrada pela comunidade escolar.

'Stepping out' with Gargantua : learning new research practices in the educational theatre of absurdity

Access to new forms, conduct and practices of educational research remain elusive providing researchers stay within the narrow theoretical constructs-the static, single vista ofconventional research models. This dissertation presents the findings of an experimental study that aims to extend the discourse of educational research through a 'performative ethnographic analysis' by using a single-site case study approach. The case study is an analytical parody based on multiple discourse relevant to a 'new' and different approach to educational research so that a more comprehensive and complex process of reading and writing text becomes possible. Throughout this process, a generative methodology and interpretative base are anticipated to provide a metaphoric focus for a critical dialogue. The discourse informing the theoretical and interpretative base of the study include philosophy, science, visual arts, literary theory, critical postructuralist theory and theatre performance. The data are presented as a series of performance narratives in the form of socio-drama, interspersed with critical reflection that enables the researcher, the research participant and reader to become part ofa triadic construct. The findings from this study have major implications for informing contemporary educational research, as they demonstrate that by approaching research in 'new' and different ways, the researcher and the educational community have access to insights that are unavailable within the constraints of conventional models ofresearch.

Motivação: estratégias de ação nas artes visuais

A ausência de motivação, na generalidade, é uma questão atual na escola, patente nas diversas vertentes de ensino, em alunos e professores. Assim, o presente trabalho surge no âmbito do Mestrado em Ensino de Artes Visuais no 3.º ciclo do Ensino Básico e no Ensino Secundário, com o propósito de estudar este problema, em particular nas Artes Visuais. Pretende-se fornecer informações, de modo a ser possível identificar e solucionar problemas relativos à motivação, de professores e alunos, especificamente, na disciplina de Educação Visual. A escolha desta temática partiu da preocupação, sentida não só enquanto aluna, mas também enquanto professora, com a confrontação de falta de motivação em sala de aula. Partindo do princípio que a prática do ensino deve estar em consonância com necessidades emocionais, sociais e cognitivas, foi elaborado o presente estudo que, em simultâneo, sustentou a prática de ensino supervisionada. Nesta pesquisa, procura-se compreender o domínio emocional, ainda que inferiorizado, nas relações existentes na sala de aula, de modo a que estas deem o seu contributo para o processo de aprendizagem. Com particular ênfase na problemática da motivação, são estruturadas estratégias de ação para uso em contexto escolar. Este estudo é complementado com o trabalho prático, decorrido em contexto sala de aula, de forma a verificar o potencial dos conceitos teóricos investigados. Para tal, foram realizados quatro projetos, em duas turmas de diferentes níveis de escolaridade e caraterísticas singulares. Recolhidos e analisados dados, obtidos nesta componente prática, procurou-se validar as vantagens do ensino que responde a necessidades não só cognitivas, como também sociais e emocionais.

Obrazy muzyki w twórczości Janiny Kraupe-Świderskiej

Filologii Polskiej i Klasycznej: Zakład Dydaktyki Literatury i Języka Polskiego

Culture_Arte : a Web 2.0 ao serviço das artes visuais

Relatório de estágio para obtenção do grau de mestre na área de Educação e Comunicação Multimédia