Here we have collected the Programme, Call for Presentations and Call for Participation in PDF format:

Aesthetic Practice and Aesthetic Insight

The discussions at the first SK conference revealed, among other things, a conflict between what may be an Anglo-Saxon and a Continental understanding of concepts like “science”, “research and development”, and “knowledge” and their relevance for artistic R&D. The former seems to take its point of departure in the natural sciences, demanding strict methods and hoping for new, factual and generalizable knowledge, whereas the latter is inspired by the humanities, using hermeneutic methods and aiming at providing some kind of broader insight.

In the conference “Sensuous Knowledge 2″ (2005) the distinction between the two concepts will be treated in at least one key note speech within a context of both theory and history of both science and art. One plenary session will contain a couple of presentations with prepared comments, also introducing a rhetorical perspective on ways of discussing the various kinds of aesthetic insight that may be gathered from these examples of aesthetic practice. But the main feature of this second conference will again be the working groups where participants present their own artistic R&D and get prepared comments before all members of the group join in a general discussion.

SK2 call for presentations

SK2 call for participation

Sensuous Knowledge 2 Programme 2005

Den svenske koreografen og professoren Efva Lilja åpnet fellessesjonen før deltakerene gikk til gruppearbeider. Konferansen har tittelen “Aesthetic Practice and Aesthetic Insight: An International Working Conference on Fundamental Problems of Artistic Research and Development”. Det blir i alt tre hovedinnlegg og 26 innlegg på de ulike gruppesamlingene.

Workshops and key notes

The first plenary presentation was by Professor Efva Lilja, with a lecture made up of words, video and dance.

Professor Ken Friedman, Norwegian school of management (Handelshøyskolen BI), gave the final plenary presentation on Friday 11th of November.

Amanda Steggell, research fellow at the Østfold University College, gave a presentation thursday 10th November of her project involving sound and underwater readings with an echo sounder (sonar).

Lars Hallnäs has held his presentation of “The Dark Room Fashion Show” in his group Wednesday 9th of November, and the group is discussing different aspects of his project.

Plenary presenation thursday

Small talk inbetween sessions.

Professor Ken Friedman / Photo: Peter Klasson

Amanda Steggell / Photo: Peter Klasson

Choreographer and professor Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo

Action towards Articulation

As a choreographer I involve in functional and emotional energy patterrns. Form, rhythm, texture, dynamics, use of time and space emerge from the body as I move.

A new piece of choreography for the stage is movement designed in multi- dimensional layers with dancers, music, set – design, light, color, and other medias or technical devices. The Concept may be verbalized. The Content is movement in time and space.

The questions

What constitutes optimal conditions in the processes between dancer / performer and choreographer / creator?

How can dance artists verbally share their reflections of kinesthetic experience, perception, craft, and method? What are the qualities inherent in a groundbreaking artistic process?

The project

In “Action towards Articulation” I have interviewed prominent Norwegian dancers and choreographers on the essential criteria of groundbreaking experience in their artistic processes. I wanted to learn more about the inherent characteristics in the process of creating a new piece, and how to explain the development of methods.

What are the inherent characteristics of creative dance processes between the dancer and the choreographer? If there is a specific dialogue between performer and creator on a sophisticated level, what are the elements in this dialogue?

One central part is the physical memory.

Physical memory

From a musicians point of view a dancer’s physical – or muscle- memory is amazingly precise. She can remember complex movement – combinations without notation and reproduce them many years later. Her sense of space and accuracy in remembering spacial positions is impressive to the architect. Her ability to observe detailed visual and audible information on multiple tracks equals the filmmaker’s.

The Tacit Knowledge of the choreographer equals a composer who conducts his own music: they both efficiently express the tacit knowledge through rhythmic punctuation, utilizing facial expressions, gesticulations and the use of dynamic variations of voice, rather than complete meaningful sentences.

Communication in the moment of creating

The dancer, taking an active part in the creation of a new piece, triggers her perception and her body memory, kinesthetic sensing and physical ”know-how”. This bodily experience is often referred to as ”craft”. How ”craft” forms a ”text”, and how then ”the text of the dance” emerges from the body of the choreographer and dancer becomes choreographic ”Signs orchestrated in Time and Space”.

Language in the rehearsal studio

In the course of the working process a language is created between performer and choreographer with codes that can be difficult to decipher for an outsider. Words are given their own specific meaning, often blended with technical dance-terminology (in French or English), demonstrations of positions, space patterns, or energy flow, nonverbal communication, touch and gesture. This language points in diverse directions of which one attempts to clarify the technicality of weight, flow, the timing and spacing of specific sections of movement. The other attempts to elicit the inner landscape of the dance, its emotionality, its meaning and its significance.

Research approach

The interviews which form the basis of the research were videotaped and edited.

I have reflected on a series of themes by listening to dancers and choreographers talking about the same process but experienced from individual angles. These are for instance; How does the dancer understand herself and the nature of her artistic contribution?

What does she say about the optimal conditions for communication in the studio?

And what does the choreographer express about her own aesthetic concerns?

The four dancers involved in the project are Ellen Kjellberg, Ingrid Lorentzen, Cecilie Lindeman Steen and Sigrid Edvardsson. The four choreographers are Edith Roger, Kjersti Alveberg, Ina Christel Johannessen and Ingun Bjørnsgaard. They are eight strong female voices in the history of modern Norwegian dance from the late sixties to the present.

Documentation

The result of the research is presented in the format of a CD ROM with live images, written texts and a selection of rare video – excerpts. The material is composed similar to my own choreographic processes, in which Chance Procedures, a composition method inherited from the American master choreographer Merce Cunningham and composer John Cage, have been an important source of inspiration.

The objective of the documentation

I wish to invite students, artists, designers, scientists, and theoreticians to navigate through the material in order to reflect on the complexity of the moving body in artistic practices and expand the reflection on physical memory. I would also like to demonstrate how mechanisms in practice coheres with manners of communication, and how these mechanisms and manners may give clarity to content and artistic intention. Finally I hope to bring the voices and energy of the performing and creative artists into the field of research.

Anne Grete Eriksen

www.dansdesign.com / anne@dansdesign.com / anneerik@khio.no

Artist/Lecturer, Glasgow School of Art/Valand, Gothenburg University.

The Nose Knows:
Discourses in Olfactory Art and Science

How does a person with an artistic education understand science? How does a scientist use the visual language of drawing to understand what they cannot see with the naked eye? What common language can we use to facilitate this discussion? How can we discuss odours when there is no verbal language for what you are experience except metaphor or crude dichotomies (ie: It smells like roses; It smells good; It smells bad, to name but a few examples).

These are questions that often come up within my research in terms of solving the practical problems of working on the borders of art and science. Using video, sound and image, I intend to document my process of dialogue with people in diverse fields, with their own specialist languages. My intention is to make my research process more visible.

Through a grant I was recently awarded from GothenburgUniversity, I have made initial contact with smell experts (“noses”) and foundations in New York and the UK including:

• Christopher Brosius, a perfumer who has a studio/laboratory in New York. I am interested in meeting him as he creates unusual perfumes (including the smell of grass, dirt, fire, beetroot to name but a few).
• Frank Voegel, a perfumer who works for the fragrance house Symrise, New York
• Robin Cleary, chemist and biologist working for Quest International, a fragrance house with several bases around the world including the UK.

For Sensuous Knowledge 2, I would like to propose to present a collation and distillation of this initial research, which would include, video, sound and image.

Background

I am an artist who works with smell. I have been collaborating with George Dodd, a biochemist and perfumer, for the past 10 years to create portraits in scent. I create smell environments chemically and organically which I disperse electronically in the gallery setting. Unlike vision and the other senses, there is no language for smell. Consequently we speak about smell either metaphorically (it smells like oranges) or through crude dichotomies of good and bad. I am interested in these dichotomies and what they exclude.

Ongoing research issues:

a) The borders of what is positively labeled a science, or negatively labeled as pseudo-science

I have been working with the same scientist (George Dodd) for the past 10 years, and have an active and critical interest in the paradigms and ideologies that inform what is positively labeled as science, or negatively as pseudo-science. This project will explore some questions in this area. Last spring I was invited to give a performance lecture in Toronto at the annual International Art and Science Symposium at the University of Toronto, titled Subtle Techologies. Here I spoke about pheromones, playfully presenting myself as a researcher rather than an artist.

b) Non-verbal and chemical communication / miscommunication

(Through looking at pheromone research)

c) Blindness and the non – visual senses

I have a commitment to exploring the non-visual in my practice, and have been testing the possibilities of developing a language/aesthetic for this interest for well over a decade. Increasingly I am approached to talk about my work in this context for conferences, and most recently have been interviewed for two upcoming books on the subject. Fiona Candlin will be interviewing me for her forthcoming book on the subject of blindness and touch in museums, and Jim Drobnick will be including my work in a book to be published this winter titled The Smell Cultural Reader (Berg Publishers, Oxford).

Associate Professor, Griegakademiet/Bergen University College.

Music and rhetoric:
Rhetorical theory connected to musical practice

Is it possible to use rhetorical theory and rhetorical terms as base for musical interpretation, i.e. could a musician work rhetorically to become a good musician?

In this presentation I will investigate how rhetorical theory and ways of asking questions can develop musical practice.

Material

By playing music by Luciano Berio, Fernando Sor and Johann Sebastian Bach, I will show that rhetorical terms and basic rhetorical theory are good tools in studying and interpreting these scores, which in form and content are very different from each other.

Method

The texts constitute the base of the interpretations, and by text I mean the written music.

There is a big difference in how Berio and Bach write (print) their works, and when a musician sets out to play the music, he or she must find what the symbols mean.

One might think that this is a simple matter; an A is an A, a quarter-note is a quarter-note, etc. However, every musician meets passages where he has to make choices; either this way or that way, weaker or stronger, where is the peak of the phrase?.., and so on. This means that the musician has to interpret the text.

This is where I will show the practical use of rhetoric in music.

http://home.hib.no/ansatte/jla/njaalvindenes/

Senior lecturer in Music
Darlington College of Arts

Beyond these Four Walls: Sound Space

Abstract

Sound directly affects our experience of the physical environment; in extreme cases the presence of certain sounds in a building can have an uncanny effect on our perception of a place. Sick building syndrome, paranormal experiences and acoustic weaponry are all effects that can be attributed to this phenomena. More subtle acoustic conditions can also create unexpected, although less apparent responses to a place. By referring to the writings of Finnish theorist, Juhani Pallasmaa, exploring the acoustic experiments of the seventeenth century acoustician, Athanasius Kircher and drawing on more contemporary discourses in the emerging fields of acoustic archaeology, acoustic ecology and soundscape composition, we will explore the ways in which sound can be used to heighten our multi-sensory experience of architectural space.

We will concentrate not only on the innate sonic qualities of architectural spaces but implied spaces that can exist beyond the ‘four walls’. Peter Eisenman ends his 1992 essay ‘Visions’ unfolding…’ with the following challenge: “Architecture will continue to stand up, to deal with gravity, to have four walls. But these four walls no longer need to be expressive of the mechanical paradigm. Rather they could deal with the possibility of these other discourses, the other affective senses of sound, touch and of that light lying within the darkness”. (Eisenman, 1992:24). What follows is an overview of some of the above themes, which have influenced the formation of our partnership liminal, a practice specialising in the exploration of possible redefinitions of the ‘four walls’ described by Eisenman by means of sonic intervention.

Biographies

liminal is a partnership that specialises in architectural sound art and design and the research, development and creation of ‘sonic spaces’. The partnership was founded in 2003 by sound artist and composer David Prior and architect Frances Crow.

Before founding liminal, David and Frances worked together on projects that combined their expertise in architecture and sound and covered the areas of public art works, education and installation. The areas that liminal have since worked in include: site specific, spatialised sound installations; sound consultancy and design for architects, artists and designers and research into relationships between architectural, public space and sonic art practices.

David Prior is a composer and sound artist. He studied at the University of Wales, Bangor and the University of Birmingham where he completed a Ph.D in Musical composition in December 2001. His sound work from this period often focused on the use of recorded media and multi-channel pieces which explore the use of space in musical composition.

David’s work has been performed, exhibited and broadcast widely and has won numerous prizes from institutions including Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition, Cornelius Cardew Prize, E.A.R (Hungarian Radio) and the George Butterworth prize.

In addition to his work with liminal his current projects include a number of writing and production collaborations with other artists. He also continues to work on video and gallery based and site specific installations and is currently a part time senior lecturer at Dartington College of Arts in Devon, UK.

Frances Crow is a qualified architect who has worked in practice since 1998. Following her training at Liverpool John Moores and the Bartlett University College London, she worked for a number of national and international architects. Following her work with van Heyningen and Haward Architects, London, she began her own architectural design and research practice in October 2001.

In addition to her work with liminal she works as a part-time senior lecturer at Plymouth University. In her architectural practice she works across the disciplines of architectural research and design. A number of her projects have led to interdisciplinary collaborations, including the research project Waiting, in collaboration with Josephine Pletts, which was supported by the Royal Institute of British Architects.

www.liminal.org.uk

Artist/MIRIAD Phd fellowship
Manchester Inst. for Reseach and Innovation in Art and design, Manchester Metropolitan University

Ceramics, Landscape, Memory and Confection

The development of landscape on ceramic surfaces, from a support to narration, to a genre in its own right will be examined in the context of wider developments in the visual arts. The research will show how a combination of landscape imagery, pattern and ceramic form became a significant carrier of meaning following the industrialisation of production; and how although altered, these still have a hold in contemporary memory. Studio research will manipulate established vocabularies of printed motif and pattern together with contemporary imagery, to explore image extraction, re-composition and adaptation; establishing patterns and methodologies of remediation in the confection of stylised printed landscape patterns on ceramic. Creating contemporary confections, which draw on collective memory of the familiar (blue and white), the research will engage with elements of existent landscape composition and construction.

Research Aims:

• To establish how landscape patterns and the picturesque informed the decorative language of industrially produced ceramics, and the extent to which these were particular to the medium.
• To create an understanding of the relationship between these ceramic patterns and iconographies, and the treatment of landscape in other areas of the visual arts (in particular painting and textiles).
• To establish processes involved in their formulation and remediation to the ceramic surface
• To generate insights and understandings of issues affecting the existent contemporary landscape by creating formulated ceramic patterns and the ‘picturesque’, drawing on collective memory of the genre.

Research Context:

It is only relatively recently that critical writing in the applied and decorative arts has begun to examine the decorative surface history of ceramics and its meanings; my ongoing research into the graphic development of ceramic surface [1] has been acknowledged as adding significantly to the body of knowledge in this area.

In recent years I have engaged in research of (ceramic) print archives in UK and Sweden [2] and curatorial and studio based research of objects in particular museum collections [3]. As well as developing an understanding of the genre of Blue and White ceramics, I have been harvesting raw material for creative engagement. My practice-based work employing print and ceramic surfaces, alludes to the industrial, and uses a similar, familiar visual language and vocabulary, to successfully engage with contemporary issues affecting the landscape [4]. Current studio research involves the deconstruction of printed image (archival and contemporary) in a reversal of ontological understanding; translating perspectival codes into printed ceramic planes – actual forms occupying real space, whilst embodying the rhetoric of a deceptive pictorial system. Producing new works for placement in differing locations is planned, creating new challenges, including those of scale, and material suitability. Conceptually, work examines the duality of the ceramic medium; form as image, image as form. Porcelain and bone china, as materially extricated from the earth by a combination of mineral extraction (china clay), and farmed animal product (Ox bone); the landscape as fantasy or pastoral decoration, as producer of food, source of energy and consumer products, and as an escape from urban living.

Methodology:

Analysis of selected published texts on landscape (from a variety of perspectives) and patterned ceramics.

Observational research will reference selected collections of ceramics and prints [5].

Prints taken from the unique, extant Rörstrand copper plate archive will be employed in analytical practice based work; Drawing, engraving and digital manipulation will be employed, to establish how aesthetic, practical and material factors influence the stylisation of landscapes in their evolution to decorative patterns for the ceramic surface.

Interviews with engravers and digital artists at Spode will establish how they continue to translate imagery into new commercial designs.

Studio research will also establish methodologies for large-scale printing and ceramic form production, with suitable slip and glaze surfaces for printed detail.

Outputs:

Papers will be published in appropriate journals and presented to conferences, including NCECA 2006. A number of documented exhibitions together with complimentary writing will make up the final submission.

Selected Bibliography:

• Andrews, Malcolm, Landscape and Western Art, OxfordUniversity Press, 1999
• Atkinson, Conrad Picturing the System , PUB Pluto Press and ICALondon 1981.
• Barrell, John. The Dark Side of Landscape: The rural Poor in English Painting, 1730-1840. Cambridge, 1980
• Birmingham, Ann. Landscape and Ideology: The English Rustic Tradition, 1740-1860. Berkeley: U. of California P. 1986
• Bolter, Jay David and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999.
• Brennan, Matthew C Wordsworth, Turner and Romantic Landscape: a Study of the Traditions of the Picturesque and SublimeCamden House 1987.
• Copeland, Robert Spode’s Willow Pattern and other designs after the Chinese, Studio Vista, 1990.
• Coysh and Henrywood, The Dictionary of Blue and White Pottery, 1780-1880, Vols 1&2, Antique Collectors Club 1982/1989
• Gilpin, William Three Essays (1792)
• Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forrests: The Shadow of Civilization. Chicago: U. of Chicago P. 1992
• Mitchell, W. J. T., editor. Landscape and Power. Chicago: U. of Chicago P. 1994
• Rosen Charles/Zerner Henri, Romanticism and Realism Faber and Faber 1987
• Schama, Simon, Landscape and Memory Fontana Press, 1995
• Tichelaar Jan, Hans Pieter & Polder, Casper, Fired Paintings, Freisian Ceramic Wall plaques 1870-1930, Primervera Pers, Netherlands 1998.
• Turner, James, The politics of Landscape: Rural Scenery and Society in English Poetry 1630-1660. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1979.
• Warnke, Martin. Political Landscape: The Art History of Nature. London: Reaktion Books Ltd. 1994.
• Williams Raymond, Country and City in the ModernNovelUniversity of Wales, Swansea, 1987.

[1]Published matter includes: Scott, Paul Ceramics and Print A&C Black/UPP 1994, 2001 ISBN 0 8122 1800 0, Hot off the Press, Bellew/Crafts Council 1998, ISBN 1 85725 119 9,

Willows, Bombs and Cop-outs:, for In-Print, Evolution in Contemporary Printmaking, catalogue, touring exhibition, Quay Art Hull. Painted Clay A&C Black/Watson Guptill ISBN 0 7136 4754 X 2000.

[2] Arts Council Encore funding for research into the creative engagement with industrial ceramic print archives; SpodeMuseum and Gustavsberg Porcelain Museum 2002/2003. Arts Council Funding 2004/5 for research in Sweden, Finland and Norway.

[3]See Venables, Fiona, Cumbrian Blue(s), catalogue essay for solo exhibition, Tullie House, ISBN 0-907852-12-2, Carlisle Museum and Art Gallery 2003, also Dahn, Dr Jo, Remember Me When This You See, catalogue essay University of Wales, Aberystwyth 2002

[4] See: Blackburn, Janice Collect, ISBN 1-903823-12-9 V&A/Crafts Council 2004 catalogue essay.

Long, Tim Ceramic Copper Plates and Computers, Printmaking Today Vol 12 No 4 2004.

De Waal Edmund Twentieth Century Ceramics, Thames and Hudson 2003

Venables, Fiona, Cumbrian Blue(s), catalogue essay for solo exhibition, Tullie House, ISBN 0-907852-12-2, CarlisleMuseum and Art Gallery 2003.

Lane, Peter Contemporary Studio Porcelain, A&C Black/UPP 2003

Dahn, Dr Jo, Remember Me When This You See, catalogue essay University of Wales, Aberystwyth 2002

Delvecchio, Mark Post Modern Ceramics, , Thames and Hudson 2002.

Ostermann, Matthias Ceramic Surface Decoration: contemporary approaches and techniques A&C Black 2002

Brown, Dr Stephanie: Pioneer Printer Keramiek Magazine No 3, 2001

[5] Potteries Museum Stoke, Allen Gallery Hampshire, Victoria and Albert Museum London,; Gustavsberg Porcelain Museum, Rörstrand Museum, Sweden; Kunstindustrie Museum Bergen, Egersund Museum Norway.

School of Jewellery, University of Central England

Grow Your Own – Angiogenetic Body Adornment

The perceived distinction between an Anglo Saxon and a Continental approach to research suggested in the call for papers for Sensuous Knowledge 2 is an interesting one. While I can see how the distinction can be made between the two traditions I am inclined not to concur with it entirely, in that I believe there is often actually a much more complex approach to research, often something of a composite methodology.

As an example I might offer a parallel in the world of Jazz. Contemporary jazz practice in North America, being a continuum of an indigenous popular art form, is still very much based on scales, modes, and specific structural forms. The Continental practice, although it must of necessity have originally been influenced by the American model, is nonetheless much freer, expressive, intuitive, creating layers of interrelated sound rather than a more easily definable counterpoint. Until recently UK practice was very much at one with the transatlantic model but increasingly Continental influences have become much more manifest in performance and teaching.

Perhaps my own approach to recent research exemplifies this “Anglo-Continental” approach. I have examined a technology very much different to that which I would normally be knowledgeable of (or even comfortable in), considered how it might be developed by an Art and Design specialist such as myself, and how it might then be open to subversion by a specific subculture. Consequently, further research and comment is invited by yet another group of professionals – sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, and psychologists.

Abstract:

This paper examines aspects of body adornment which for some time have been of interest to crafts practitioners and which have certainly been influential on the creative practices of many of those working in the jewellery and fashion arena. Tattooing, piercing, and scarification have often been used as source material by this constituency and actually practised, relatively speaking, by a minority.

Contemporary refinements in cosmetic surgery, competitive bodybuilding, implants, and the recent history of organ transplant and technology, are all woven together.

Recent developments in the biomedical discipline of Tissue Engineering may well provide a viable opportunity for permanent body modification via deliberate and planned growth of one’s own tissue.

Tissue Engineering can be described as a discipline which applies the principles of biology and engineering to the development of viable substitutes which restore or improve the function of human tissues. Cells from a patient’s own body are cultured in vitro, then inserted in a biodegradable three dimensional matrix which is reintroduced to the subject’s body where the cells multiply and new tissue grows, via the natural process of Angiogenesis, in effect replacing that which has been lost through disease, accident, or surgery. So far skin, cartilage, and bone have been produced successfully and throughout the world biomedical teams are making strenuous efforts to develop neo-livers, breast tissue, and even hearts.

During and immediately after the Second World War, teams of surgeons refined the discipline of plastic surgery as a means of providing some alleviation of the horrific injuries suffered by many military veterans. Within a very few years this had developed commercially to become what we know today as Cosmetic Surgery. In the USA two of the commonest graduation presents from parents are apparently nose or boob “jobs”. I believe it is quite likely that in a not dissimilar fashion Tissue Engineering will grow into a commercial opportunity, enabling some people to have implants which over a period of months will grow as subcutaneous cartilage or even new bone formation to form new, living body adornment.

The performance practices of Mme. Orlan, The Lizard Man, and the somewhat extreme (and perhaps surprising) activities of the international body modification subculture, indicate this most strongly.

The paper reviews up-to-date Tissue Engineering developments and current body modification practices, postulates likely forms of Angiogenetic body adornment, and informs the ethical debate within an intelligent constituency sensitive to the creative possibilities of the human body.

Phd-student, University of Bergen

Affinity and Battlefield. Artistic strategies and new digital media in science museum communication practices

Affinity and Battlefield is a cross-disciplinary Ph.D. study combining art and media practices and theoretical analysis. The methodology consists of three parallel tracks:

1. Development and production of practical projects, communicating science, utilizing new digital media in the context of the old museum medium. These projects are ‘artistic interventions’ and will be made by several artists from different fields of work to
a) Bergen Museum of Natural History (project working title: In Deep Water!)
b) Bergen School museum (project working title. When School was a Child).

2. Development and production of a documentary video work where the process of Affinity and Battlefield is shown within a framework of cultural and media theories. The work wil preferably be made as a production for television made in cooperation with a production company, but alternatively as an amateur work logg.

3. A written Ph.D. thesis where the work is analysed, theorized and summed up, supported by a broad theoretical framework and the practical experiences developed from 1) and 2).

I have several roles, being in charge of the three parts, but management, manuscript and directing are the central practical roles but hopefully I will have several enthusiastic co-developers. All other functions will be carried out by others. Being the theoretical responsible I must have an extra sensitivity towards integrating relevant perspectives, concepts, working tools and specialized skills that I can spot from theoretical in-depth analysis – and the other way around, I must tune the theory in towards the challenges that are born out of the practical work.

Download the Project presentation for SK2 of Affinity and Battlefield.

Senior Research Fellow, MIRIAD, Manchester Metropolitan University

Art, Politics and Narrative

As Senior Research Fellow, MIRIAD, at ManchesterMetropolitanUniversity, I am engaged in practice-based research into the role and nature of political narrative in the contemporary crafts.

I am interested in the inter-relationship between research and practice, and would welcome the opportunity to debate this in an international and inter-disciplinary context.

I recently presented a paper ‘Beauty and the Beast’ at the IASPIS symposium ‘Aspects of Beauty’ in Stockholm.

I propose, for ‘Sensuous Knowledge 2’ to make a presentation based on a number of issues explored in my most recent works; ‘21 Countries’ (exhibited at the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester, Clay gallery Los Angeles, and SOFA New York) and ‘Savage Indignation’ (exhibited at Contemporary Applied Arts, London).

The presentation will address the following questions:-

• Context – the legacy and tradition of ‘political’ ceramics.
• The nature of political narrative in contemporary crafts practice.
• Whose narrative is it anyway? – truth, knowledge, alternative realities.
• Power and propaganda in an age of media spin.
• Pop culture – visual metaphors and new allegories.

I would make my presentation as a cd-rom power-point, and would require a pc lap-top and digital projector.

The following text, an extract from a forthcoming article for ‘Kunsthandverk’ magazine (Ed. Jorunn Veiteberg) explains my work and research interests more fully.

The Sleep of Reason

Since I began my professional practice in 1986, I have been engaged in the development of a contemporary political narrative for ceramics.

Initially, my work exploited the visual language of the satirical cartoon, in a densely modelled and deliberately accessible figurative format. These pieces, usually took the form of lidded ‘boxes’, and were inspired by the rich traditions of figurative ceramics and ‘popular’ commemorative wares.

Since 1998, as Research Fellow in Contemporary Crafts at Manchester Metropolitan University, my practice-led research into political content has focussed on the printed image, and on the development of a more ‘allegorical’ narrative, based on a layering of visual metaphors.

The precedent for my most recent work comes from Spanish artist Francisco de Goya’s iconic (and prophetic) graphic statement on the politics of his time, ‘The sleep of reason produces monsters’. Goya’s etching, from ‘ Los Caprichos’ nightmarishly reflects upon the post-revolutionary terror in France and the reactionary political situation in Spain.

My own printed narratives reflect upon the political uncertainties of our times, provoking the questioning of current western policies, particularly towards the Middle-East, and challenging our assumptions of the moral and cultural superiority of western democratic values. Events surrounding the recent war on Iraq are central to this latest body of work, reflected in the eclectic mix of biblical, classical and historical imagery, and in the references to religious conflict, persecution and execution.

21 Countries

In February 2004 I exhibited a provocative installation of 21 ceramic plates at the Imperial War Museum North, in Manchester, England. These plates were printed with imagery referencing U.S. foreign policy since 1945, inspired by an advertisement placed in the national newspapers by the ‘Stop the War’ coalition; “Since the end of the Second World War, the United States Government has bombed 21 countries”. These countries ranged from China in 1945 to Iraq in 2003. (Some of these attacks were made with the active support of coalition forces, including Britain, while other conflicts saw the U.S. acting independently, despite worldwide protest.)

The plates were not meant to be interpreted as individual and literal representations of each country, instead they were to be viewed as a related series exploring a central theme, which questioned the common assertion that “The United States is a force for good all over the world”.

Metaphor and allegory

Like many students of the enigmatic Eduardo Paolozzi at the Royal College of Art in the 1980’s, I was ‘trained’ to focus my obsessions into a language of visual references, to develop a personal iconography or ‘alphabet’ of resonant and relevant images. Recent additions to my own ‘alphabet’ include images of war and peace (the classical story of Venus and Mars), scary monsters (robots, chimeras and the machinery of modern warfare) biblical iconography (angels, dragons and the whore of Babylon) incarceration (the imaginary prisons of Piranesi) and decapitation (the myth of Perseus and Medusa).

A number of related themes and narratives weave in and out of the printed and modelled imagery, appearing on several pieces in varying contexts and combinations. For example, one underlying theme, ‘George and the Dragon’, references the western tradition of ‘good versus evil’ narratives, and parallels the polarisation of attitudes in the current struggle against global terrorism. ‘George’ can therefore stand for the mythical knight Saint George, or for George Washington, icon of democratic values, or, in more contemporary terms, current U.S. president George W. Bush

The slab-built forms of my large pieces are loosely derived from vessels associated with the petroleum industry; oil drums, petrol cans etc. This references a long tradition of pottery’s imitation of more valuable metal vessels, but also provides a formal metaphor for the western obsession with Middle-Eastern oil supplies.

‘Decorating’ these ceramic forms, iconic images of classical sculpture rub shoulders with pop and media imagery. This clash of incongruous images points up the duality of contemporary western society, contrasting the high and low points of a culture equally capable of producing the Renaissance and the Holocaust, the Sistine Chapel and the cluster bomb.