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Still standing still - The medialities of the performative lab
No full textStill Standing StillPerformance Lab: 19 - 21 Jan 2024Exhibition: 21 - 29 Jan 2024Galerie D, Parsons Paris, The New SchoolThe 'Medialities of the Performative Lab' proposes a heuristic experimentation of the connections between performing bodies, photo-filmic devices and situations.Starting from a seemingly simple exercise - documenting the performative act of standing still - we are investigating how artistic works are negotiating the borders of stillness/movement, falling/ failing, activity/passivity (rising/reclining, agency/inactivity), camera/ body/image, performing for the camera (recording/creating, documentation/work, intermedialities), posing/posture/durationExploring the act and the process of being-photographed and staging-for-the-camera, we are asking a gallery audience to engage with different apparatuses such as image-making installations in order to open a space for an additive and iterative 'public process of making' that becomes an exhibition in-progress.Based on precedents from the history of performance art and contemporary art practices, we will develop a parkour of installation-stations that enfold apparative situations to test the relationship of bodies and cameras based on different event scores. These will result in participatory acts of creating in-order-to-notice and being-with in order to learn from each other's experiences past and present:Arrangements and relationships that will constantly change, equally creating shifting intervals between quasi-choreographic installation-apparatus-recording works.Concept:Emmanuel Cohen (Parsons Paris, The New School) & Wiebke Leister (Royal College of Art, London)With:Filipe Figueiredo (IADE, Lisbon) & Cosimo Chiarelli (University of Lisbon / University of Pisa), Federica Stevanin (University of Padova
Immanent externalities: The reproduction of life in capital
No full textEnvironmental degradation, crises in care and the predations of finance capital impose new challenges to human reproduction. It is imperative to understand their roots in capitalism. But how best to do so? This book develops the concept of ‘immanent externalities’ to grasp the non-capitalist life processes produced by – and necessary for – capitalist reproduction. Immanent Externalities thus considers the category of reproduction by means of a philosophical re-reading of the three volumes of Marx’s Capital. In doing so, the book locates capitalism’s fundamental contradiction as that between the reproduction of profit-driven activity and ecologically situated human life, suggesting new orientations for theory and practice today
Practices of narration: A plural (re)imagination of Maré
Get PDFThis research departs from the work of Redes da Maré (Redes), a grassroots organisation based in Maré, a set of 16 favelas in Rio de Janeiro. Through collaborative research with Redes, I adopt an interpretive lens on narratives to comprehend their methodologies and spatial practices to expand the access of rights in the favelas. Drawing from feminist scholarship, I employ situated knowledges to understand Redes' counter-narratives that foster a plural (re)imagination for Maré. To disentangle Maré’s spatial disputes and locate Redes’ political action, I contemplate the multiplicity of knowledges surrounding this context using the notion of ecologies. In ecologies, as Feminist thinkers have observed, knowledges are non-hierarchical since each form of knowledge represents a partial perspective of reality. Observing knowledges through ecologies involves tracing the relational struggles intersecting race, gender, labour, sexuality, age, and context. I have recognised three ecologies in Redes’ everyday activities: (A) ‘Representations’, consisting of a dispute of narratives and counter-narratives for Maré's social imagination in the city; (B) ‘Rights & Space’, informing how rights are learned and exercised in the favelas; and (C) ‘Practices of Narration’ (PoN) concerning Redes’ spatial practices to convey counter-narratives seeking full citizenship for favela residents. This research investigates how PoN challenge representations that hinder residents' access to material and symbolic rights. Since 2007, Redes has been working to guarantee rights are distributed fairly, building awareness through mobilisation and policy advocacy. Using ethnography and participatory research methods, I unpack five PoN: (1) ‘Gathering- Evidence’, as Redes' data collection on the ground to build evidence-based counternarratives; (2) ‘Identifying-Narratives’ from residents' lived experience and knowledges; (3) ‘Mobilising-Engagement’, focusing on mobilising and sensitising residents of their rights; (4) ‘Documenting-Knowledges’ in making counter-narratives amplified to larger audiences in multiple communication channels; and (5) Enacting-Articulação, weaving agencies and entities in Maré’s urban fabric to approximate residents to accessing their rights. By unravelling PoN, this research sheds light on epistemologies of city-making that are often hidden under hegemonic narratives and, consequently, from the designing and planning activities. Hence, this work borrows theories from urban studies and insurgent citizenship planning, favelas studies, decoloniality, and feminist thinking. Finally, the research highlights the spatial knowledge production in favelas, acknowledging their insurgent forms of representation and expanding the lexicon of methods to read cities in times of uncertainty
Archetypes to categorise upstream packaging strategies for a circular economy
Get PDFPlastic pollution is a serious issue of global concern which requires an urgent and international response involving all relevant actors at different levels of the supply chain. Increasing production of single use plastics and the mismanagement of the resulting plastic packaging waste is one of the prominent reasons for this pressing environmental issue. Several potentially promising solutions, such as reusable, recyclable and compostable packaging systems exist. Many of these innovative approaches may contribute to achieving a circular plastic economy, but there is a need to categorise and collate these under unifying themes to facilitate the assessment and comparison of different strategies. The aim of this research is to analyse and categorise the existing solutions that tackle the plastic packaging waste problem to identify the archetypes of these solutions. Literature and business practice reviews were conducted to discover existing solutions. 200 solutions were selected and categorised by exploring the common patterns. Finally, 10 archetypes and 17 sub-archetypes were introduced. These archetypes are: refill stations, mobile refill stations, refill at home solutions, prefilled packaging systems, reusable takeaway and delivery solutions, B2B reusable packages, packaging solutions led by elimination, compostable and biodegradable packaging, substitution to a non-plastic material and plastic recycling. The findings led to the development of an upstream packaging strategies framework. This paper makes an original contribution to knowledge with the development of this framework as a systematic way to map existing (and new) solutions that can potentially tackle the plastic packaging waste and pollution problem
Room After Woolf: A practice-based investigation into creative production and domestic space
Get PDFThis practice-based research juxtaposes my own artistic practice with ten other artists in different rooms in the home. It examines the different approaches to making work, considering what materialises when art is made in a domestic environment, where other factors filter in. My method of juxtaposition provides a new feminist lens with which to examine artworks and demonstrates that one can make a significant contribution to knowledge when making artworks in this way. The artists were selected for the ways in which their practices resonated with mine; and because I saw in each a working through of significant moments in feminist art history, often at times of political and social upheaval. In each chapter I juxtapose two artists and align them with a medium (journal writing, durational film, artist book/publication, painting and assemblage), and a creative strategy. Further still I situate them in a specific room of a home, in order to unpack how the different processes and activities of each room facilitates art production. The artists I discuss are Anne Truitt, Frances Stark, Chantal Akerman, Andy Warhol, Laura Owens, Dorothy Iannone, Lee Lozano, Florine Stettheimer, Julie Becker and Sadie Benning. The research re-examines and juxtaposes numerous feminist readings in writing and making, drawing on the work of Virginia Woolf, Lucy Lippard, Helen Molesworth, Catherine Grant and Sara Ahmed, to name a few. I re-evaluate artworks made from the early twentieth century to the present day. In my own artworks, made throughout the period of research, I selected the media most appropriate at the time to examine the contradictions of my own circumstances and domestic responsibilities, this has also been influenced by my readings of the artists within this thesis. Juxtaposition is a consistent and important method in my own work. I am always conscious of the previous image, sound, silence or edit and how it can live alongside the next and I view these works through a feminist framing which allows different life experiences to coexist next to each other. It is often hard to respond immediately to the moment one lives through, but with my method of juxtaposition: my own practice, with that of the other artists and the different strategies for each chapter, it is possible to examine the depth of an artistic practice that is situated in a domestic environment. I demonstrate with this research that domesticity remains an important area of interest for creative production: this is a critical sphere that should continue to be considered as such, as each generation faces different obstacles that continue to redefine creative production. This research gives a voice to art production in a domestic environment and can be used as a tool for other artists to include different experiences, both personal and professional, and for them to think seriously about the work they make in the home. The strategies offer alternative systems, outside of the commercial art world, that fit around duXes of care, whilst also enabling artists who might face financial struggles and cannot afford a separate studio or a room of their own
Original copy
No full textThis was the second part of an ongoing project with The Burren College of Art in Ireland to engage with the area’s landscape, geology, culture and history by using the Original Copy software to generate sound, image and text for an installation, exhibition and performance. The project has involved collaborating with students and staff at the college. The Burren is a karst/glaciokarst landscape centred in County Clare on the west coast of Ireland. The area is formed from a thick succession of sedimentary rocks which form a limestone pavement of clints and grikes, deep fissures and slabs, in which microclimates create fertile conditions for flora and fauna to thrive. The entire region is rich in in megalithic sites and medieval ruins and this aspect of place or genus loci was something that this project attempted to articulate
Integrating design literacy within Chinese health promoting hospitals
Get PDFThe World Health Organization (WHO) established the concept of Health Promoting Hospitals (HPH) in 1986, with the main aim to expand the role of hospitals from treatment-centred to health promotion-centred cultures and by doing so, empowering and facilitating deeper community context. Design research and social healthcare have permeated western studies. However, when it comes to design practice in Chinese HPH, research suggests hospital managements still tend to believe design is only a last-minute intervention rather than drawing comprehensively and synthetically from a design research perspective. This is the gap my PhD practice-led research aims to fill, by employing designerly research, Chinese HPH practitioners may access and apply a systematic, comprehensive understanding of what design thinking means for HPH implementation. The research asks: Can design thinking create a supportive, sustained and creative community setting for Chinese HPH? Can the WHO philosophy of HPH and design epistemology be adapted and situated in Chinese hospitals through design research? The practice in this research is reflected in field trips, two case studies and design frameworks. First, the research examines Chinese hospitals in Central and East China, looking at the role of design in HPH and investigating the level of design penetration within that context between 2017 and 2019 using field trips and action research. Second, two case studies were conducted with two focus groups through participatory communication design (PCD) research: (1) participatory action research into a low-literate group targeting medical consumption issues in Hantun village; (2) a participatory dental health promotion course for children aged 4-8 in Wuhan. Both case studies propose a change from “top-down” policymaking to adopting a “bottom-up” strategy; from expert-dominated to participatory and democratic approaches. The core of HPH activities is enabling people – patients, professionals and communities – to design their own experiences, services, tools and artefacts. Finally, the design frameworks offer a pluralistic, situated, nuanced and inclusive process for Chinese HPHs. My main contribution to knowledge is within the Chinese HPH field, developing and proposing comprehensive design-thinking frameworks – designerly ways of knowing, thinking, and doing – increasing accessibility to the inclusivity of design ontology, epistemology and methodology, within Chinese HPH context. A secondary contribution to knowledge is situated in the design fields. It defines PCD through participatory design, communication design and communication theory as a blended theoretical construction, developing novel PCD methods and transitional communication methods as extensive methodology. These design contributions address gaps in current design research
Decolonised innovation: Designing needs, dreams, and aspirations under resource constraints
Get PDFConventional innovation—traditional processes of inquiry and action for introducing and implementing a new idea—involves substantial psychological and physical resources, a shared cultural mindset, and functional social systems to address urban challenges through critical thinking and creativity. However, designers that lack such resources and systems require the method of innovation to be modified accordingly to meet global differences in needs, dreams, and aspirations. This practice-based research project examines the activity of innovation with and for resource constraints and explores it through global cultural flows, context-specific circumstances, and cross-border movement of people while considering design as a transformative practice for uncertain states of mind and the unpredictable and fluctuating world where responses are influenced by necessity rather than by choice. Through critical reflection on the author’s design practice and the initiation of new collaborative design projects, this research project develops and tests the concept of Decolonised Innovation as the seventh generation of innovation (Figure 1.1) through the notions of human-connected design, autonomous design, design in emergencies, and design under resource constraints, and examines the role of transnationalism, specifically borders, as a site of conjunction between identity, imagination, and practice. Decolonised Innovation, in the context of this research, proposes methods of innovation—systemic procedures of inquiry and action for introducing and implementing a new idea—that liberate the individual from the constraints of a world that is already made. Generated and acknowledged collectively, they allow the designer to work against the assumption that there is only one path to modernisation by designing within the context that the people and the environment afford while approaching the construction and suitability of new ideas through socio-economic adaptation to the constraints of specific cultural contexts. The author’s practice is situated in the context of transformative design that crosses geographic, cultural, and political borders. Drawing on theories of transnationalism, in particular Cowen’s crosscultural and Friedman’s crossborder exchanges, and theories of cultural and transformative interaction, in particular Appadurai’s suffixscapes and Fry’s sustainment, this research project sets out a framework for experimenting with and analysing the effects of social context and relationships, environment, and cultural differences on innovation in resource-constrained conditions. Collaboration across different characters is established as a key mode of thinking, with a closer analysis between the local, migrant, and foreigner bringing to light the effects of difference in design outcomes. Kabul, Istanbul, and London are the locations for a series of projects that are investigated through designing research and researching through design methods. New knowledge is articulated through the way in which the design projects allow for the testing and reflection upon theories while the design methods employed in the projects help demonstrate the concept of decolonised innovation. The value of this research for individuals and collectives lies in the understanding of the effects that specific contexts and transnational and crosscultural exchanges can have on innovation and the possibilities for designing practically, desirably, and delightfully under resource constraints
Serpent symbolisms: Poussin's 'Landscape with a Man killed by a Snake' - A photographic inquiry
No full textOf old, snakes have embodied conflicting hybridities that represent wisdom and deceit, danger and healing, redemption and destruction - an ambiguous iconography of 'good-and-evil' that manifests the polyvalent elements of the serpentine in art and other cultural practices. Greatly inspired by Antique and Renaissance art, Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) spent most of his career in Rome. Depicting a man crushed by a massive snake lying in the shadow beside a stream, Poussin's painting (c 1648) at the National Gallery in London is a 'deathscape' in the most literal sense of the word. It was possibly inspired by a contemporary death-by-serpent in a snake-infested town south-east of Rome. While the canvas has been restored several times, the lurking shadow around the snake-curled man is now so deep that he is barely noticeable under its patina. Earlier engravings show the body more clearly, speaking to values of reproduction, copying, remedialisation and distribution. Drawing comparison to the cultural history of ancient snake rituals and their contemporary remains, my paper will look at different 'photographic' approaches to depicting and defeating the fear-of-dying in relation to this painting. These include its 'time-based' composition of arrested expression gestures in contrast to silence and absence, fortuitous image constellations in condition reports as well as imaging techniques used to establish visual data to understand what's depicted beneath the darkening - with an excursus on 'bad photocopies' used by researchers to jog their visual memory and, in turn, their imagination
Future arts ecology: A curatorial proposal for industry 5.0
Get PDFDespite the Internet's original promise as a new infrastructure for producing and distributing art, the shift to Web 2.0 has consolidated a centralised corporate model that encloses networks’ social, organisational, and economic capabilities within gated platforms. In curatorial discourses, attempts to democratise the curatorial function through the Internet have largely crystallised in a limited view of curators as arbiters of taste, tasked primarily with selecting, juxtaposing, and arranging content. At the same time, the Western-centric approach to art promotes zero-sum cultures and a scarcity paradigm, stifling the collaborative networked potential of artists' practices — online and offline. This research is positioned in an underexplored interstitial space of curatorial practice. It investigates the Internet as a medium, recognising in the networked environment a fertile territory for innovation in the arts. This approach aligns with the ambition of the curatorial to permeate society through porous, responsive, and practice-led mixed methods. It does not compromise on the conventions of making and showing – limited to the gallery or the museum – but as an engine for change it forges new rhizomatic pathways for systemic transformation. In a cultural landscape increasingly influenced by AI tools and algorithmic curation, where creativity is perceived as a renewable source of innovation, this study argues that curatorial work must extend beyond traditional gatekeeping. Consequently, I have identified timely functions to integrate into the expanded field of the curatorial, in alignment with contemporary conditions of making, valuing, and distributing work. This reinforces the urgency for curatorial practice to engage, beyond specialism, with new publics and hybrid contexts. This research leverages the Industry 5.0 framework to propose new ways of thinking and doing that reconstitute art's social, economic, and organisational foundations. As outlined by the European Commission, Industry 5.0 suggests an integrated model of human-technology collaboration, prioritising human capital and focusing on resilient, circular, and regenerative systems. This approach allows me to envision how emerging technologies, alternative working paradigms, and decentralisation principles can reformulate artists' labour and the sector's operations. If the transition from the traditional artworld to a market-driven art industry is inevitable, leveraging Industry 5.0 could facilitate the shift towards ecosystemic conceptualisations of new models and a new arts ecology. Although still surfacing, participating in Industry 5.0 and web3 debates and advocating for the agency of creative workers emerges as essential in times of increased automation. The two core practice elements – the unlike network and its learning protocol – explore the potential of digital network systems to enable distributed governance, sophisticated resource coordination, new value paradigms, and labour exchange. Presented as early-stage prototypes, highlighting conceptual promise rather than flawless design, these propositions proactively address the need to rethink the ossified practices of Western art. Simultaneously, they advocate for the value of creative and cultural work as essential public goods and innovation engines.The modelling of unlike creates a context for collaboration that does not yet exist, demonstrating its significance within and beyond the field of art, as a blueprint for the future