Old Week 2

January 16-21 “Practice-led Research”

Outcomes

  • Activate the process of making, as a way of knowing.
  • Identify personal inspirations and interests as a way to see their own artistic agency as self-reflective practitioners.
  • Practice poiesis in an artwork that demonstrates sensitivity of intuition transferred to intellect.

Lecture

How the studio can expand knowledge will be introduced.  What does it mean to engage in practice-led research?  How do we do it?  How have others discovered through practice.

Assign Artist Poster due January 23, 27 & 28


Lab

“Artistic Research” Group Work & Meetings

This lab is dedicated to making groups of particular topics and for students to pursue a discussion.

  • Have students display their topic lists, then arrange students into groups of like-minded or crossover disciplinary interests, be careful not to have more than 4-5 students per group (3-4 per group would be best).
  • Have them talk about their topic/themes with each other and particular threads within the themes they are most interested in.
  • Visit each group and after a bit of listening and discussion, recommend a few artists for students to research that will become the group connection via an artist.
  • Please ensure recommended artists have been making work within the last 40-50 years and that their practices are somewhat contemporary.
  • A list of disciplines and suggested artists is here, please feel free to add more!
  • Students will have the week to research and pick an artist as a group (the entire group must pick one artist), and inform you of their choice by next week lab time (this can be during next week’s lab or in an email).
  • Artists must be approved by the TA or Christine, they can ensure this by using one of your suggestions but if they find another artist they are more interested in then they need to get approval before pursuing.
  • They will each make a poster on the same artist, but each poster will feature a different work.
  • When you are not there they can also help each other evolve their topics and find details within them.  A suggested “question” game to further expand their questions is below.

“The Question Game” (optional)
Students can do this with the questions they brought in as a jumping off point.  Two or more participants pick a topic and generate as many questions as they can about it.  One person starts with an open-ended question, then the other person responds with another open-ended question, and the other responds with a related open-ended question.  This goes back and forth as long as they can continue without making a statement, or repeating a previous question.  For example, the game might begin by exploring questions related to an object I the room, such as a light bulb:

  • Why is it important to have light?
  • Where does light come from?
  • What is the difference between light types?
  • Can blind people see light?
  • What is the opposite of light?
  • Is darkness lack of light, or is it an entity of its own?

When the ‘players’ run out of question, it is then time to reflect.  What is the most interesting question that came up, and have them explain how they would learn more about it.  The most important thing about this exercise is not to stop the conversation with an answer.  As Mikhail Bakhtin once said “If an answer does not give rise to a new question from itself, then it falls out of the dialogue”. This exercise is to have students start to construct new ideas from their pre-conceived notions of how they ‘know’ topics, and go beyond information known.


Homework Reminders

  • Module 2 with accompanying quizzes are due January 22, remind them to keep on track!
  • Final selection of artist for posters needs to be finalized this week!
  • Poster presentations will happen in lab on January 23-28

 

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