3983 research outputs found
Sort by
Cold land, land of wolves
Get PDFThe region of Barroso - the ‘cold lands’ - has maintained a strong tradition of autonomy over the centuries. Remote and of difficult access, these mountains have always been places of refuge. Perhaps this is why traditions of communalism and collective life have remained so alive, such as communal grazing practices, or ‘vezeiras’, the sharing of threshing floors, the maintenance of small water canals, or ‘levadas’, the community mills and ovens and, above all, the management of ‘baldios’ or common lands, that still cover most of the territory and on which communities have always depended for their survival
Art school studios: Three vignettes
Get PDF‘Art School Studios: Three Vignettes’ is an expanded introductory essay to the book ‘What is a studio, anyway?’. It forms part of a project conceived by editors Furnell and Hawes to interview artists, designers, curators, art students, academics and other arts professionals about the role Higher Education has had in defining the artist’s studio. The illustrated essay explores the art school studio as a vital space where ‘students have experimented, conceptualised their art and realised their aspirations.’ Prompted by teaching in a post-pandemic context, ‘Art School Studios’ foregrounds reflective creative practice and historical archival research to evaluate the studio as a site of transformation. Drawing from the writings of O’Donnell (2016) and Thom (2017), the essay shows how a ‘philosophical imperative’ might be explored as a pedagogical model. Interdisciplinary and nomadic methodologies are promoted to challenge hidebound forms of studio practice that remain prevalent in arts and design education today. Methods are drawn from historiography and autobiography forming a narrative that combines a creative writing approach with academic research conducted in London-based art schools’ archives (e.g., Royal College of Art, Slade School of Art, and University of the Arts London) and personal collections. Structured into three vignettes, the essay incorporates familial memories of the artist’s studio whilst growing up in Texas and later academic experiences of studios in UK art schools. Important studio examples that reinforce an integral relationship between studio environments and learning experiences include Slade School’s Victorian drawing studio and the University of Texas’s Second Life virtual design studio. The essay concludes that the art school studio is not in danger of eradication, despite the pressures of contemporary political and economic contexts. Rather, it remains a site of transformation, playing a crucial role by fostering experimentation, encouraging self-critique, and promoting speculation
Erotic ecologies
No full textThe title of the show Erotic Ecologies is borrowed from Matter and Desire: An Erotic Ecology by bio-philosopher Andreas Weber. Weber urges us to live with a perspective from ‘the inside of life’ by paying attention to the corporeal experience of being alive rather than as analysing machines standing apart from the world. The drive toward both attachment and autonomy is the fulfilment of what he calls an ‘erotic encounter, an encounter of meaning through contact, an encounter of being oneself through the significance of others’ (pxiii). Far from a straightforward or romantic idea, this is a challenging and complex relationship of opposites, which, when in “proper balance” creates sparks of “enlivenment” – enlivenment is the sign of creative breakthrough beyond the mindset of measurement and comparison. Weber’s ideas seem to resonate with processes of making an individual work, which has autonomy as a ‘work’ but only works through contact, touch, desire and the enfolding of all that is outside. We have thought about his ideas as we put our exhibition together, as we have tried to create new contacts and relationships between work, gallery space and viewer
Persistent afterimages: The living structure of bodies, and archives
Get PDFThrough moving-image, discursive events, text and publication, this research critically explores the spatial connections between ideology, bodies and buildings, exploring the powerful tensions at play within the architecture of health for social and civic improvement. Through practice-led enquiry and archival analysis, I reflect on the tenets of modernism inherent in public design and common assets, critically examining what is activated through my intervention within this discourse. A central question being: How do we ‘observe’ such radical social experiments in the production of health and wellbeing from the locus of the present? At the core of this enquiry are two extensive case studies, The Peckham Pioneer Health Centre (1931-1950) and Park Hill Estate Sheffield (1961-2004). These contrasting schemes are the cornerstones of my practice-based research and thesis. Both buildings and their respective archives offer a snapshot in time, representative of two crucial moments in health and social reform in the interwar and post-war periods. The Pioneer Health Centre, built before the foundation of the Welfare State and 20 years prior to the formation of the NHS, and Park Hill Estate, active at the peak of the welfare state, coming into decline in the 1980s. By utilising my practice-based methodologies, this research critically unpicks how bodies perform the architecture of power and consequently, in what way embodiment becomes the catalyst for a variety of forms of mapping, metaphor, analogy and blurring – both within the realisation of utopic architectural health proposals for social remodeling, and as a method of navigation, experimentation and provocation within my own practice. The survey, the body and its attendant technologies become key tools to test and provoke the boundaries active within the archive, between observed and observer, body and building, modernity and obsolescence. The gaps and omissions left open and slippery in both archives, materialise the question of observation: who is being watched and what is the apparatus of the observer? Who is invisible? In examining the ideological implications of architecture as an embodied instrument, and data as a diagnostic tool driving a solutionist approach to complex social problems, images and their afterlife become central to every aspect of the research. Whether the trace left in an archive, the production of medical diagnostic images, or the realisation of an architectural plan, I am thinking through notions of afterimage. What is an image, how can it be used to navigate archival, present, and speculative societal space? Not only an optical phenomenon or purely a metaphorical tool, afterimage in this context describes both a method of technological surveillance and acts as a historical interface between the eye of the researcher and the material of their research. What anchors this enquiry is an interest in both case studies as sites in flux – archives perpetually unsettled and unfixed. Whether through change of use or falling into dereliction, it is in their uncertain state between past vision and present reality that they speak to the ongoing issues they come to represent. Using methods of co-inquiry, I set out to find a shared language that sits in-between, connecting architectural materiality with embodied knowledges, archives, entangled and physically sited in on-going lived experience and encounter. In tracing the decay, maintenance is exposed both in its utility and as a discourse. What are we protecting? What are we being asked to remember? This practiceled research draws out architecture not only as governmental agent, but an actor in its own right, asking in what way the historical apparatus of publicly activated architecture as an instrument of health becomes a critical tool and witness
CLIMAVORE: Divesting from fish farms towards the tidal commons
Get PDFIn Scotland, residents have fought open-net salmon farms and their toll on human and nonhuman bodies for decades. This paper recollects seven years of work in Skye and Raasay, two islands off the northwest coast of the country, developing strategies to divest away from salmon aquaculture. Addressing the contemporary wave of underwater clearances created by UK’s top food export industry, it unpacks the implementation of a transition into alternative horizons by embracing the legacies of toxicity inherited from salmon extractivist industries. CLIMAVORE, a framework developed as a research-led artistic practice by the authors, investigates how to eat in the new seasons of the climate crisis. In a season of marine dead zones, it facilitates new approaches to aquaecology and coastal care that cultivate coastal livelihoods. CLIMAVORE began with a new public forum, shaped as a multispecies intertidal table, established in Skye in 2017 to envision environmentally regenerative and socially reparative forms of food production based on metabolic interactions between humans and depleted landscapes that benefit a plethora of species. CLIMAVORE’s site responsive methodology relies on a socially-engaged art practice, consisting of fieldwork, interviews, working groups, oral histories, performative meals, cooking and building apprenticeships, tidal gardening, material testing and public art installations. Ongoing collaboration with residents, scientists, and policymakers critically explores ways of living not only on but with the coast. This new holistic approach to coastal nourishment provides methodologies for ecological praxis as well as a platform for researchers and the general public to imagine an alternative ecological future: the tidal commons
Learning from the void: Researching design methods towards a new spatial paradigm
Get PDFThis research focuses on a construction method based on digital cavities and surfaces. Today, any entity simulated by software is essentially a cavity wrapped in a thin film. This void is a space that is entirely invisible to others and belongs only to designers and manufacturers. It existed before the computer, and though ancient masons or potters may not have been aware of it, the craftsperson who cast metal must have discovered this space long ago: to shape hot liquid copper, a cavity of the same shape must be created in advance. Since ancient times, we have shaped form by creating cavities. Today, modelling software shows this cavity to builders with unprecedentedly clarity. Here, the absence and presence of substance are directly equivalent. Even a substantial wall that is about to be constructed in the real world is nothing more than a void defined by a virtual surface in computer-aided design (CAD) software. This emptiness is the mechanism that allows us to oscillate between operability and perceivability, abstraction and materiality, concept and final product. Design representation and illustration are frequently correlated with design outcome. They are the paths to the final construction and establish its predetermined boundaries. Through studying and reflecting on the new visual means of digital representational tools, as well as a series of practical projects, I seek to answer the following research question: is there a new method, or a new set of methods, of making things with the tools of today that marks entities with surface constraints
Design for Saudi public services: Integrating graphic design to improve the experience of Zamzam water services across the Umrah visitors’ journey
Get PDFThis practice-led research examines the capacity of graphic design to contribute to improving the visitor experience of Zamzam water services across their Umrah journey. Zamzam water is a holy water considered one of the enduring miracles of Islam and represents God’s mercy for Muslims. The Umrah is a non-obligatory but important religious ritual for Muslims. Saudi is the land on which the two Holy Mosques and the Kaaba are located. It is the Kaaba, the holiest Islamic shrine on earth, that Muslims around the world turn towards at prayer. The Saudi government has the great honour to serve Umrah visitors and to ensure their comfort and safety. Enriching their religious experience is identified as one of the overriding objectives of the Saudi Vision 2030. This is envisaged as a process to improve the quality of the services related to Umrah religious rituals while also integrating e-services across Umrah visitors’ journey to meet visitors’ needs and desires. The central aim of this research is to contribute to facilitating the Umrah journey for Umrah visitors by examining in what ways graphic design can help to improve public services within a religious context. More specifically, the main research question is: How can graphic design contribute to enhancing Umrah visitors’ experience of the Zamzam water service across the Umrah journey? To accomplish this, the methodology combines a range of methods and graphic design practices while prioritising human-centric and culturally sensitive design-led approaches. Culturally sensitive means that this research is conducted with respect to Islamic faith and teachings embedded within the Saudi government values for services related to religious rituals. To scope the existing graphic design profession in Saudi, a two-part strategy incorporated desk-based analysis complemented by a series of Design Conversations with local and regional practitioners who possess first-hand knowledge and experience of working in graphic design in the Saudi context. This revealed a gap in the ways that graphic design was being employed to enhance the delivery of public services and led to innovation in the field. Limitations in the understanding of how graphic design can contribute to a greater public service improvement industry were exposed, and the consequent lack of case studies that could demonstrate such a contribution. Consequently, an opportunity was identified within Saudi to strengthen and expand upon the understanding of graphic design as a method to improve the experience of public services rather than as only an aesthetics-related activity. The range of approaches undertaken in the research positioned it at the intersection of visual communication design, social design and service design and borrows from all these fields. Ultimately the research findings led to the discovery of ten interrelated themes that form a service graphic communication framework, which is piloted through the case study of Zamzam water service across the Umrah journey. This practice-led research presents a tangible opportunity to improve the visitors experience through the service graphic communication design framework. Furthermore, with regard to the perception of graphic design in Saudi, this research serves as a catalyst for change at all levels of the graphic industry beginning with graphic design education within Saudi universities
AiLoupe at Source Fashion in London and Centre Stage in Hong Kong
No full textExhibiting AiLoupe at Source Fashion, the UK's new sustainable sourcing show, connecting global manufacturers and suppliers to buyers, and bringing exciting new ranges to life. AiLoupe was among other AiDLab projects, AiDA and Wise Eye. The exhibit then went to Hong Kong to be displayed at Centre Stage, an annual fashion showcase organised by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC). AiLoupe allows designers and material developers to discover and assess textile materials for material identification, knowledge and selection. Identifying materials takes you to each Material Data Card, showing sensory subjective data, translating the tactile, physical elements of touching the materials digitally. AiLoupe uses the Sensory Materials Library which is an AI research project for materials selection in the product design process by improving conventional materials libraries with sensory and human experience properties of materials. We have demonstrated how AiLoupe can present sustainable alternatives as ‘like for likes’ to traditional less sustainable materials that Designers are more familiar with
Silence
No full text"Silence," an interpretive cover of Constantin Brancusi’s "Table of Silence." Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) was a Romanian artist and is known as a pioneer in modern abstract sculptures. Constantin Brancusi believed in distilling forms to their purest, most essential shapes, affirming "simplicity is resolved complexity." He was described as 'one on the inside of things, who stands on the ground an equal among rocks, trees, people, beasts and plants, never above or apart from them’. Through a respectful approach to materials, his work arises from an attunement to the spiritual through material elaborateness of simplicity. In The Table of Silence, the use of stone reflects a close connection to the earth and an appreciation for the natural world's intrinsic qualities. Brancusi must have been a noisy neighbour, continuously hammering, chipping and polishing. Yet, his work offer a serenity that embodies the essential attitude of silence as a place for re-connection. The piece ‘Silence’ emphasises simplicity and a close connection to nature, using locally sourced stone with minimal processing. The work reflects on silence as a means of reconnection, aligning with Brancusi's focus on essential forms. Delfina and Roach’s piece will be donated to the Timisoara municipality, further linking the work to its local context and community
Intelligent architectures for extreme event visualisation
Get PDFRealistic immersive visualisation can provide a valuable method for studying extreme events and enhancing our understanding of their complexity, underlying dynamics and human impacts. However, existing approaches are often limited by their lack of scalability and incapacity to adapt to diverse scenarios. In this chapter, we present a review of existing methodologies in intelligent visualisation of extreme events, focusing on physical modelling, learning-based simulation and graphic visualisation. We then suggest that various methodologies based on deep learning and, particularly, generative artificial intelligence (AI) can be incorporated into this domain to produce more effective outcomes. Using generative AI, extreme events can be simulated, combining past data with support for users to manipulate a range of environmental factors. This approach enables realistic simulation of diverse hypothetical scenarios. In parallel, generative AI methods can be developed for graphic visualisation components to enhance the efficiency of the system. The integration of generative AI with extreme event modelling presents an exciting opportunity for the research community to rapidly develop a deeper under-standing of extreme events, as well as the corresponding preparedness, response and management strategies