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Drawing as an expanded research method
No full textDrawing as an expanded research method: a practice sharing symposium. Fri 17 Nov, 11.30-5.00, Drawing Room, London. Drawing as an Expanded Research Method: a Pop-up Exhibition. Wed 26 - Fri 28 June 2024, Unit 8 Media Works, White City Place, London. Participants: Birgitta Hosea, Chloe Briggs, Claudia Kappenberg, Emmanuelle Waeckerlé, Gary Clough, Haris Kittos, Isabel Young, Orly Orbach, Robert Luzar, Steve Jensen, Wiebke Leister. A group of interdisciplinary practitioners with a shared interest in using drawing as a methodology in their different practices - understanding 'drawing' as a multitude of differently oriented research practices that feed into specific disciplinary teaching and learning practices to encourage artistic research activities as acts of thinking-by-doing. The group met in November 2023 at the Drawing Room in London to set each other drawing tasks based on prompts that they have then developed further as part of their individual practices for the pop-up exhibition
The Sitting: (after) If this is a Man
Get PDFHow can we use lament as a space of criticality to open methods and conversations regarding reparative, restitutional, resistance and peripheral histories? And once we have begun to work from this space how can lament enable us to remain and work within [it] articulating silences and absences found there? How can we then bring lament into contemporary art and writing practices and find new formulations for what lament can offer as a methodological approach within these fields? Rooted in Primo Levi’s memoir If this is a Man and the Jewish mourning ritual of the Shiva, this research project is built out of an ontology of Jewish thought before growing into a theory of the dispossessed and displaced. Producing an original embodied methodology known as lamentology, which takes the lament found in the shiva and proposes research and practice as an unfolding, continuous and on-going live event. The central theories of this practice are structured around Derrida’s notions of hospitality, the address and shibboleth, enfolding Irit Rogoff’s concept of smuggling within this to consider what diasporic approaches to writing and artistic practice can be. In conjunction with this, notions of fugitivity are employed throughout the work employing Moten and Harney’s theories to propose a reparative method that works for the past in the present. These concepts are brought into relation to Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of minor literature, reframing the minor as operating beyond the field of literature under the terms of the periphery and the unseen. The Sitting: (after) If this is a Man is an embodied project that entangles research and practice, through a concern for ‘liveness’. The work functions between the fields of institutional critique, diaristic writing, poetics and the exhibition, through which theories on ontology, ethics, and deconstruction are encountered. This practice displays itself by employing the date as a mechanism to allow different forms of written documents (poetic, essay, proposal, aphorism) to combine, producing an unfolding ‘memoir on the move’. Through this labour materials and histories are found, encountered, examined, and experimented with. As such language becomes material, the form of the exhibition is called into question, conversations and exchanges become mediums, collecting is used as a method and the archive is readdressed as a poetic and gestural space. These practices and behaviours provide the fundamental framework for lamentology, situating its dissemination within art and writing contexts
The sensory materials library - AiLoupe Pecha Kucha presentation
Get PDFIntelligent Design Systems for Innovation is developing AiLoupe, a mobile-app which utilises image recognition to identify, characterise and catalogue materials. It features the Royal College of Art’s Sensory Materials Library, a growing database which includes physical and sensory properties to help designers with materials selection in the product design process
“Play Your Anger”: A report on the empathic in-vehicle interface workshop
Get PDFEmpathic in-vehicle interfaces are critical in improving user safety and experiences. There has been much research on how to estimate drivers’ affective states, whereas little research has investigated intervention methods that mitigate potential impacts from the driver’s affective states on their driving performance and user experiences. To enhance the development of in-vehicle interfaces considering emotional aspects, we have organized a workshop series to gather automotive user interface experts to discuss this topic at the International ACM Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications (AutoUI). The present paper focuses particularly on the intervention methods created by the experts and proposes design recommendations for future empathic in-vehicle interfaces. We hope this work can spark lively discussions on the importance of drivers’ affective states in their user experience of automated vehicles and pose the right direction
Edna: All-in-one hub for DA (Domestic Abuse) care
Get PDFThis study utilises human-centred thinking, rapid prototyping methods, and the double diamond framework (Figure 1), to facilitate a mixture of primary & secondary action research (Appendix B) into the issue of domestic abuse (DA). An analysis into existing products & services, and a reflection of personal and external survivor experiences, produced the foundation that informed the final research outcome. Throughout the process of this project, conversations were held with four female survivors, each having experienced at least one or more forms of DA by an intimate partner or family member over a prolonged period of time. Their experiences documented and analysed, to identify the various behaviours, impacts and systems associated; with a particular focus on safety, health and awareness. Various digital and analogue prototyping techniques were adopted to rapidly explore and test concepts, with consideration semiotic theory and user sensibilities throughout. To ensure the validity of research and efficacy of ideas, 'Thinker' participants were enrolled to critique and inspire ideas. The analysed results will aid in the development of ‘Edna,’ an ongoing research platform harnessing advanced AI to delve into narratives, impacts, and trends of domestic abuse in the UK. This endeavour seeks to enhance the recognition of both individual and systemic abuse patterns, enabling timely and pertinent support for women enduring and recovering from DA
A journey of the displaced: Making sense of the reflections
Get PDFDuring my year-long residency at the V&A as part of the Jameel Fellowship program, I explored the intersection of displacement, memory, and material culture through a methodical investigation of the museum's glass collection. As a Palestinian artist, I found myself deeply connected to the objects, many of which had been displaced, reflecting my own experiences. My research method began with a rational approach—organizing a list of 100 glass artifacts from the Middle East that I wanted to explore, categorizing them by type and origin. I focused on understanding how these objects arrived at the museum, who donated them, and the role colonial forces played in their displacement. However, I soon realized that this structured method was limiting, so I shifted to a more immersive approach. Rather than gathering data, I began to engage intimately with a smaller selection of objects. This shift allowed me to connect more deeply with each piece, exploring its textures, history, and emotional resonance. For example, while investigating a glass pendant of the goddess Astarte, I uncovered its likely Palestinian origins, despite being labeled as Syrian in the museum’s records. This discovery prompted me to delve into the history of biblical and colonial archaeology, and the implications of such mislabeling in the context of Palestinian displacement. My research also expanded beyond objects to architecture, particularly the use of glass in Ottoman windows. This research led to new works that blend glass, memory, and displacement, pushing my practice beyond its previous boundaries. Ultimately, my time at the V&A transformed my artistic process, shifting from broad historical research to a more personal and intimate exploration of the objects and their meanings
The shamanic condition of becoming posthuman: Being embedded in scattered landscapes
Get PDFThis is a research project led by series of art practice and written thesis to develop the possibility of an alternative-posthuman subject Shamanic Condition, which lies outside mainstream posthuman subject (with Western humanism as the trajectory to the position between the philosophy of technology and human beings), and discuss the affirmative fragility that the body manifests in it. This research derives from retrospection of my cultural background (Taiwan's biological multiculturalism and colonial history) and the philosophy of change in Taoism. Based on this, taking history as a mirror, through reviewing colonial history and the disidentification and heterogeneity of post-humanism to seek their echoes. The development of this alternative posthuman subject means that for the ‘Others’ who have undergone constructed modernisation (colonialism, the international system), the many contexts of posthuman generate a gap with the other's historical experience. This gap thus needs to be driven by crossover dynamism that we can fill by tapping into the experience production, hybrids of tradition and modernity, to enrich the complexity of posthuman subjects. This research is structured by my art practice interspersed in the beginning/end of each chapter, and further discourses around the possibility of posthuman subjects with the relevant theses. It applies art practice, exploratory research, interdisciplinary research, descriptive research, and style analysis as research methodology. Thesis structure includes four chapters. They are: 1. The Self; 2. Solid body? 3. Non-human human; 4. Conclusion—Shamanic Condition. In particular, the research focuses on theses to the philosophy of technology to first sort out the posthuman subject: N. Katherine Hayle's How we became posthuman (1999), Rossi Braidotii's The posthuman (2013), Donna J. Haraway’s Simians, Cyborg, and Women: The Reinvention and Nature (1991) et al. Rather than focusing solely on technology itself and what it means to be human, I—from reviewing Taoism's philosophy of change, colonialism's production of experience, and related art practices—have noticed that exploring identity politics of colonialism, when viewed as a bio-technology, can more effectively drive into thinking about the heterogeneity and complexity of posthuman subjects. Therefore, this research also conducts thematic exploration and mining through the theses related to colonialism and its ‘technology’ and comparison with posthuman theses. These mainly include A History of Healing in East Asia (2017) edited by Shiyung Liu and Wen-ji Wang, The Birth of the Clinic (1973) by Michael Foucault, Chinese Thought by Roel Sterckx (2019). ) and Shih-shan Susan Huang's Picturing the true form (2015), with exploration of contemporary artist Stelarc's practice about the body, machine and participants, Kadder Attia and Chen Chieh-Jen's practice about history and colonisation, and my practice about the imagined aesthetics of alternative-posthuman subject. The research question points to: Beyond reviewing humanism and cybernetics, is there any possibility to jump out from dead ends such as ‘self/others’ and identity? In the development of alternative-posthuman subjects, what kind of imagination can the manifestation of the others’ crossover be performed? Now, an understanding of today’s human’s position is necessary
Sonically-attuned design histories: Directions in research and communication
Get PDFSound is ephemeral and intangible, yet it is also resolutely physical, taking the form of vibrations felt in the body when it is perceived. Despite its fleetingness, sound is therefore tied to the materiality of things and spaces, and to the human interactions with and within them. Think of the hushed interior of a library, for instance, or the aural feedback offered by an electronic device. Whether deliberately ‘designed’ or not, the sounds of so many subjects of design scholarship serve communicative functions and shape social relationships and experiences around them. Yet sound is rarely an explicit presence in design history narratives. In this paper, I ask how we can write design histories that are enriched by tuning into the sonic qualities of artefacts and spaces, and to historical modes of listening and sound production. In reflecting on the possibilities of sonically-attuned design histories, I explore how thinking through sound might not only broaden the scope of design history’s subject areas, but also affect approaches to research and modes of dissemination. The paper draws upon an analysis of sound archives, including my own experience making a pilot sound archive at the Victoria & Albert Museum, as well as examples from sound art and design practices. These cases prompt reflections on how sound-focused research can advance design historical concerns and questions, including investigations of materiality, and prompt methodological approaches associated with ways of listening
Creative science: A collaborative journey through design and chemistry
Get PDFHow does creativity connect Design and Science? What are the similarities between science and design language, methods and processes, and how can these disciplines learn from each other? How might sharing design approaches across artists, designers and scientists lead to new possibilities for scientific research? Join Dr Amanda Jarvis from the University of Edinburgh and the ASCUS team for a discussion round that meets with selected art-science duos to dive into cross-disciplinary Design and Chemistry collaborations. We will explore their creative outputs and gain insights on their collaborative journey to guide what has already been achieved and what conversations still need to be had to help us be the best designers we can be in all disciplines. The panel will be chaired by Emily Candela, a researcher focusing on relationships between design, science, a sound practitioner, curator and senior tutor in Communication Design at the Royal College of Art, UK. We are excited to have the creative duo John Hardy and Adam Blaney from Lancaster University on board who will share of their collaborative endeavours into the potential of Chemistry in Multidisciplinary, Interdisciplinary, and Transdisciplinary Teaching. They will be joined by Rasa Weber, PhD candidate and design researcher from Matters of Activity, sharing of her collaboration with UK based Chemist Richard Blackburn and the Leeds spin off Keracol within the design studio Blond and Bieber
Animate materials: Exploring nature-inspired dynamic color adaptation
Get PDFThrough evolution nature became a master of colour manipulation by creating unique structures that can interact with light purposely. Inspired by the footsteps of nature and through our ability in textile processing; we embarked on a collaboration between the two Universities and formed an interdisciplinary team of scientists, artists, and designers to transform the colouration of textiles. Textiles reveal and contextualize the most intimate relationship between material and humanity. The process of combining cutting-edge technology and traditional textile making strikes a balance in the preservation of nature and the breakthrough in progressing human society. In this exhibition, we are showcasing not only the use of micromachining, self-assembly and surface engineering concepts to build colour in textiles (without any colourants) we will also offer functionality inspired by nature that will give the textiles the ability to respond to their environment. Inspired by the principle of colour-changing butterfly wings, we explored 3D printing hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC) into pieces with pinholes of varying sizes and thicknesses. We experimented with different arrangements and connected them together with threads, simultaneously referencing the large-scale installation "Unwoven Light" by artist So Sunny Park. The sensory interaction is revealed on the textile surface, visualized by the thermochromic quality of the liquid crystals, extending the microstructure of colour into the macro level. Hence, the visuality of our project communicates the reciprocal relationship between art and science as an entity to a larger audience