Leeds Arts University Repository
Not a member yet
463 research outputs found
Sort by
The iconography of disruptive bodies: social media and medical identities
Get PDFAs an artist I examine how photographs discipline an individual’s relationship to her or his body and society. Working on the premise that the idealization of certain bodies has led to a reduced visual language of expression for the body, I explore ways of expanding this iconography. As a historical backdrop to this study, I discuss photographs created in La Salpêtrière hospital in the late-nineteenth century. During this time, the women who best performed the contorted shapes of hysteria were photographed for the Iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière (Charcot). Film stars began to imitate the women in the photographs, and the gestures of hysteria transformed popular expressions of passion. In this chapter 1 examine the cyclical relationship between body ideals, online social networks and individual bodies by exploring the selfie’s potential for self-creation, performance and masquerade. Alongside the ‘healthy’ productive body I will consider illness as a form of unconscious protest, referring to hysteria and its contemporary counterparts, binge and restrict eating disorders. Using the Foucauldian notion of the disciplined body, I will theorize online social networks and selfies as potential sites for disruption of hegemonic body-image ideals
Call it what you like. Art as words, spoken and heard.
No full textFeature article, responding to the event ‘New Writing with New Contemporaries’ at Leeds Art Gallery (9 Nov 2019). Via an exploration of performances by artists Jude Browning, Lucy Rose Cunningham, Freya Dooley, Malachy Harvey, Leo Hermitt and Ruby Lewis the article considers modes and motivations for the use of verbal language in contemporary art. Publication: Corridor8 [online
London Spinner
Get PDFThe output, 'London Spinner', is a collaborative practice research, digital film project, co-authored by artists Taylor and Paul. Research process: This practice research seeks to investigate the collaborative intersections between film and painting and concepts of perceptual expectancy. Research insights: Through the application of a trans disciplinary methodology across film and painting the research engages with phenomenological precepts and associated narratives. This process of investigation embraces concepts of aesthetic hierarchies, DIY culture and Dr Sarah Taylor’s concept of Aspirational Beauty. Dissemination: The film was disseminated within a group exhibition, Outpost 2, at SHORTWAVE, London, 3 - 28June 2019
Who remembers post-punk women?
Get PDFWho remembers post-punk? Its cultural and musical presence in the late 1970s and the early 1980s is often celebrated by many, despite the numerous hardships that British society faced. From industrial disputes and strikes to anti-Thatcherism and youth unemployment, it was a transitionary time in British history. How do we remember post-punk? Established since the 1940s, memory work and oral histories provide an opportunity for this, although they simultaneously raise a multitude of issues, not least from terminology. ‘Individual memory’ and ‘collective memory’ both allow for misrepresentations, although Sara Jones contends that the latter ‘requires actors, both individual and institutional, to construct, transmit, and support particular narratives of the past’. It is hence paramount to ask: who has been permitted to remember? When considering memory alongside gender identity and post-punk, one can observe some of the opportunities that it afforded women, and yet debate continues to contest their ‘empowerment’ and ‘increased’ representation in popular music. Historically much memory work has been conducted by women, whilst oral histories of punk and post-punk have predominantly been written by men. Ultimately, this article examines the memory and representation of women through semi-structured interviews, revealing anecdotal nostalgia of post-punk by members of what was termed Generation X (those born between 1955 and 1975)
Practise as praxis: A Freirian approach to instrumental practice within the conservatoire
Get PDFResearch process: Taking a Freirian theoretical perspective, Huxtable explores the potential for individual practise, within the Conservatoire, to be an emancipatory act. The nature of oppressive ideologies at play within these institutions will be first identified, providing examples as to how they manifest within student attitudes and student/teacher relationships. The research process involved analysis of a number of secondary source materials using Critical Pedagogic theoretical tools.Research insights: Through the application of Critical Pedagogy tenets of ‘Praxis’, a model for Praxis/Practise has been introduced, ‘problem-posing’ the many relationships found between the student, teacher, institution and society leading to suggestions as to how practise methods could liberate students, teachers and the Conservatoire. This research output builds upon existing scholarship around application of Critical Pedagogy within Music Education through application to Higher Education contexts, particularly that of elite Conservatoires. The ‘Problem-Posing’ theoretical model provides a tool for educators to uncover previously hidden attitudes, beliefs and biases within students as a means of transforming current realities and contemporary ‘common sense’ epistemologies.Dissemination: Findings of this research where disseminated at the MayDay Group Colloquium, feeding into an institutional research event (Research Tuesday at Leeds Arts University)
Cookbook anxiety
Get PDFThe output is a creative project that responds to the Cookery Collection, one of the special collections in Leeds University library, which contains printed and archival material relating to food and cooking that dates from the late 15th Century until the present day. Research process: The project responds to selected cookbooks and printed material through still photography and moving image, especially mid 20th Century cookbooks containing early examples of colour photography. The work is inspired by mainstream images of food in cookbooks, particularly visual depictions of idealised lifestyles which conjures shared social fantasies, perpetuated by mainstream images and our own internalisation of them. In my response, still photographs and moving image sequences explore staged scenarios and table sets which parody the lifestyles depicted in the books, to explore the social and domestic anxieties subtly generated and communicated. Research insights: Cookbooks are utilitarian - they have an instructional purpose, but are also aspirational, and filled with social-class anxieties. They not only tell one how to do a thing, but also imply value judgements, sometimes directly through words, and sometimes indirectly through photographs. The reality of preparing to entertain is hugely influenced by visual culture – we try to attain the mythical ideal, and in doing so perpetuate the visual myth. The output was exhibited and presented at;
MAKE GOOD (group exhibition), Leeds Arts University, Sept 2019;
PEERS (group exhibition), Vrij Paleis, Amsterdam, Sept 2019
Haptic criticality: can risk be deflected through development of critical thinking with adult learners?
Get PDFThe objective is to develop adult student critical thinking (CT) skills to equip participants to be flexible in a world risk society. The first aim of this paper is to create channels of communication and connection. The second aim examines the meta-narrative of pedagogic policy in relation to adult learners in the petite-narrative (Lyotard 2004) of my classroom, creating a piece of action research (McNiff 2014). The significance to the field of policy studies in adult education is that, haptic criticality, thinking through doing is essential to equip vocational students for problem solving in industry or self-employment. Relevant policies are:- the Foresight Review into the Future of Skills and Lifelong Learning (2016) and the Department of Education (DfE) adult learners policy (2018). The paper is relevant to the conference in that, the Education World Forum (EEF 2019) asks, ‘how might education policy encourage using what we know to improve what we do?’ A good question when considering risk, haptic criticality in andragogy or adult pedagogy. There is a role for the critically engaged artist in a world risk society.
Responding to the conference theme ‘Education policy and new social risks: How can adult education and learning policy contribute to community integration today?’ An outcome is community building interventions such as poetry group and book club creating social cohesion and group bonding. Participants become agents of change in their own education. Wider implications are integration in work, higher education, community and family. The research problem or question asks, if risk may be deflected through the development of critical thinking (CT) skills with adult learners. Brown (1998: 1) believes there is a thinking skills deficit. To increase possibilities of social mobility and social capital CT skills could be instrumental in escaping poverty and gaining qualifications. The Canadian Ministry of Education states that all students will need to develop a flexibility and a versatility undreamed of by previous generations and to employ critical skills (Shaheen, 2007). The significance of the paper highlights the importance for students to understand ‘wicked problems’ as part of a world risk society. Then to translate their story into the universal. Gregory (2009), suggests that myth and narrative are a vital part of our identity, although Adichie (2009) warns against the idea of a single narrative becoming dangerously inflexible, if taken to risk extremes. The central theme and question of the paper is, what is CT and practice based research? Can it aid deflecting concepts of fear and risk? Could connection be discovered through community of inquiry and narrative? What are current andragogic policies, are they community makers or cohesion barriers? Ethical guidelines use British Education and Research Association (BERA 2018). All participants and institutions are anonymised. Theoretical and conceptual frame works are a double ontology of the art school and the world of andragogy. Auto/biography and anthropology are methodological approachs used to add reflexivity to the paper. Pedagogy is a socially constructed reality, with power dynamics. When postmodernist theories unsettles assumptions and decolonise educational theories then space can be made around historical concepts. Qualitative mixed methodologies are inclusive and illuminative in this newly created space (Kara 2015: 26). A sample of 133 self-selecting participants volunteered for CT methods. Data is inductively, iteratively linked and analysed in a cycle of reading, labelling and coding, to discover patterns and themes. Tentative conclusions are, a community of inquiry accesses the legacy of the critical traditions. Classroom democracy is a high-risk strategy, Beck (2013) implies, risk can be both positive and negative. Democracy is unpredictable and it does not have a predetermined outcome, it can be, ‘the transformational power of critical thinking.’ Participants in the research have become more confident and articulate, argumentative and discursive. I have observed an increase in the way participants use haptic criticality to talk out practice and theory in lectures and workshops, confronting risk. The output of the paper is to disseminate findings at conferences and in a relevant journal
Storytelling as a means of communication in the United Kingdom's creative industries
Get PDFThis was a talk delivered at the 5th International Conference on Media and Popular Culture. My talk was on my ‘Reductionist Manifesto’. How I developed a methodology and the uses I have put it to. Over the course of my professional career I have worked in both large and small design and advertising agencies and experienced many methods of working. But there has always been one constant. Clients. My job was to convey the benefit of their product or service in a compelling and engaging way. This is often where the trouble begins. Clients who have paid a lot of money for creative work and media space want to say as much as possible to as many people as possible. But by trying to say everything they often end up saying nothing. Bombarding an audience with too much information can be a turn off. They don’t know what to ignore first. My instinct has always been that less is more. Discover what the most important thing is and say it clearly. But to be brief is to be brave. In Erich Harth’s (2004) paper ‘Art and Reductionism’, he explains that in physics reductionism attempts to weave a fabric of cause and effect from the complex to the elementary: ‘reductionism is the most powerful strategy known to science’ (Ramachandran, 2001, cited in Harth, 2004: 111). However, the human brain doesn’t behave this way. Our thoughts and feelings are not just shaped by the bottom-up influences of our genes but by the top-down effects of experience. ‘Reductionism’ already has many definitions, some of them derogatory, suggesting it was to simplify a complex idea or issue to the point of obscuring or distorting it (Dictionary.com, 2014). This is the opposite of what I want to do I define ‘Reductionism’ as ‘Storytelling through absence’. The intention of my ‘Reductionist Manifesto’ is to interrogate the theory that less can be more. To provide a methodology that can be used by storytellers to reduce the amount of information one communicates. And to use the experience of the audience to help tell a story
Bring Stuff to Life? You can with the 12 Principles of Animation
Get PDFThe output is an artefact created by Simpson.
The artefact is a book which simplifies and demonstrates the 12 Principles (building blocks) of successful animation.
The project was devised, compiled, and contributed to by Simpson, with sections written and illustrated by Peter McDonald, Cindy Cheng, and Tim Webb. The foreword for this output was written by Tom Box.
Research process: The aim of the project was to create a simple but effective means to communicate the core elements of successful animation to children and young people. It was important to Simpson that the book was in a format which is accessible to others, and that the information was presented in a fun and engaging way.
The output was created via long distance communication between the authors, who all contributed sections which provide visual explanations of a core principle of animation.
Research insights: Through collaborating on this output, Simpson was able to reflect on the core elements to successful animation in a group of his peers in the animation industry – producing an output which stands as a culmination of different perspectives and interpretations of these foundations.
This output provided Simpson and his collaborators a new insight into ways in which illustrated instructions can provide accessible learning to those who are new to or struggle with English.
Dissemination: The output was published through Red Bird publishing on 11 November 2019, has been used in workshops at Thought Bubble Comic Art Festival in 2019 and 2021
Horizontal discourses in adult art and design education
Get PDFThis article draws upon research from a longitudinal study (2011-2014) that sought to capture the experiences of adult students as they studied their degrees in art and design in the United Kingdom. Due to the entry qualifications to higher education held by these students they were perceived by their institutions as being ‘non-traditional’. They also tended to be mature students with a variety of backgrounds and life experiences. The project entailed the participants meeting with the researcher twice a year during the duration of their higher education. The methodological approach that was used is based on narrative inquiry. Bernstein’s (1999) theories that relate to horizontal discourse (everyday talk that is informal and specific to the context in which it is enacted) informed the analysis of the participants’ stories.
It is suggested that informal, day-to-day dialogue is as important as the formal, specialist discourse about art and design in the studio. The sense of belonging seems of particular importance for those learning in an art and design studio where the students are diversified due to their age. It prevents a sense of exclusion among ‘mature' students who stand out with their appearance, clothes and behaviour. In conclusion, the author suggests establishing a relevant curriculum and developing a strategy fostering better social integration of "mature" students, which can greatly affect their sense of belonging to the group as well as educational experience directly related to the studied subject matter