Thinking Through Art: Reflections on Art as Research

273 Pages·2005·3.628 MB·English

by  Katy Macleod, Lin Holdridge (eds.)

Thinking Through Art
How can we understand the relationship between art and thought? What kind
of thought comes from art practice, and how do we define it? When the art
in question is academic research, how is it situated both in terms of higher
education and art practice in a wider sense?
Thinking Through Art takes an innovative look at artists’ experiences of
undertaking doctorates. If the making of art is not simply the formation of
an object, but also the formulation of complex ideas, then what effect does
academic inquiry have on art practice?
The artists, philosophers, art historians and cultural theorists contributing
toThinking Through Art address the complexity of interpreting art as research
and suggest ways in which the visual in relation to the verbal could more
actively engage intellectual debate.
Editors
Katy Macleod and Lin Holdridge collaborate at the School of Art andPerform-
ance at the University of Plymouth in the research field of higher degreeculture
in fine art. Their current research, which has been widely published, focuses
on artists’ thought processes generated by academic art research.
Contributors
Naren Barfield, Iain Biggs, Clive Cazeaux, Jeff Collins, Peter Dallow, Nicholas
Davey, James Elkins, Timothy Emlyn Jones, Sir Christopher Frayling, Siún
Hanrahan, Kenneth G. Hay, Lin Holdridge, Katy Macleod, Kerstin Mey, Jim
Mooney, Ken Neil, Tim O’Riley, Elizabeth Price, Milos Rankovic and Gavin
Renwick.
Innovations in Art and Design
Series Editor: Colin Beardon
Titles available from Routledge:
Digital Creativity
A reader
Edited by Colin Beardon and Lone Malmborg
New Visions in Performance
The impact of digital technologies
Edited by Gavin Carver and Colin Beardon
New Practices
New pedagogies
Edited by Malcolm Miles
Thinking Through Art
Reflections on art as research
Edited by Katy Macleod and
Lin Holdridge
First published 2006
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
Transferred to Digital Printing 2009
Selection and editorial material © 2006 Katy Macleod and Lin Holdridge
Contributors’ chapters © 2006 the contributors
Typeset in Times by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or
other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Macleod, Katy, 1948–
Thinking through art: reflections on art as research / Katy Macleod &
Lin Holdridge.
p. cm. – (Innovations in art and design)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-415-36477-9 (hardback: alk. paper) 1. Art – Philosophy.
I. Holdridge, Lin, 1951– II. Title. III. Series.
N66.M347 2005
700′.1–dc22 2004029207
ISBN10: 0-415-36477-9 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0-415-57633-4(pbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-36477-5 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-57633-8(pbk)
Contents
List of illustrations ix
Notes on contributors xi
Foreword by Sir Christopher Frayling xiii
Acknowledgements xv
Introduction 1
KATY MACLEOD AND LIN HOLDRIDGE
PART 1 15
Introduction to Part 1 15
1 Art and theoria 20
NICHOLAS DAVEY
Introduction: disputed territories 20
‘Theoria’: triangulating its position 21
Theoria as go-between 24
Theoria, theoros and theory 26
Hermeneutical aesthetics as theoria 29
Theoria and art practice: a programme for dialogical involvement 35
2 Interrupting the artist: theory, practice and topology in
Sartre’s aesthetics 40
CLIVE CAZEAUX
Introduction 40
Sartre’s existentialism 41
Sartre’s theory of description 43
Topology, theory and practice 46
Conclusion 49
vi Contents
3 Concrete abstractions and intersemiotic translations: the legacy
of Della Volpe 51
KENNETH G. HAY
Words and images: an uneasy dialectic 51
Concrete or determinate abstractions: the plasticity of images 53
Filmic metaphor as filmic realism 54
Translatability in the Critica del Gusto 56
Cinema 57
Conclusion 58
4 Repeat: entity and ground – Visual arts practice as critical
differentiation 60
KEN NEIL
Modes of virtualisation 60
Brutally real seemingly 63
Rupturing the reduplicative screen 66
Traumatic ordinariness 69
5 The virtually new: art, consciousness and form 73
PETER DALLOW
Movement in art/art movements 75
Keeping it unreal 84
PART 2 87
Introduction to Part 2 87
6 Representing illusions 92
TIM O’RILEY
7 Spatial ontology in fine art practice 106
NAREN BARFIELD
sidekick 122
ELIZABETH PRICE
9 Painting: poignancy and ethics 133
JIM MOONEY
The condition of painting: how is painting doing? 133
Poignancy and ethics: or ‘What is our relation to painting?’ 138
Contents vii
10 Poesis 143
SIÚN HANRAHAN
Babel: meaning and poesis 144
Confusion 144
Conversation 148
Incompletion 151
Poesis II 152
11 Frozen complexity 156
MILOS RANKOVIC
Introduction 156
Defying lossy compression 158
Scales of structure 160
Levels of description 163
Strolling through the aesthetic landscape 165
12 Decolonising methods: reflecting upon a practice-based doctorate 168
GAVIN RENWICK
The research domain: decolonising methodologies 168
Anatomy of a sketchbook: the origin of method 171
NO W HERE (Beyond Eden?): precursor to practice – a Canadian
travelogue 173
Tlicho De as home (Dogrib land as home) 175
Acculturation by design 176
Endnote 179
Afterword: house, homeland and self-determination 179
PART 3 185
Introduction to Part 3 185
13 Hybrid texts and academic authority: the wager in creative
practice research 190
IAIN BIGGS
Contexts and perspectives: an abnormal view 190
Between Carterhaugh and Tamshiel Rig: a borderline episode:
occupying a ‘space between’ 197
14 The gesture of writing 201
KERSTIN MEY
Excursion one: the gesture of writing 205
Excursion two: the discursive and epistemological function of the essay 207
viii Contents
15 Derrida’s ‘two paintings in painting’: a note on art, discourse
and the trace 213
JEFF COLLINS
Mutism and volubility 213
Presence 215
Sign and script 216
Artworks and writing 218
The trace 219
Transcendental criticism 221
Incompetence and non-mastery 222
16 A method of search for reality: research and research degrees in art
and design 226
TIMOTHY EMLYN JONES
Introduction 226
Art and design practice considered as research 227
Relationships of research and practice 229
Research and art and design research 229
The fields of inquiry of art and design research 230
The place of the doctorate in higher education 231
The practice-based PhD 232
Towards a professional doctorate in fine art 236
Conclusion: doctorates and the search for reality 237
Afterword: on beyond research and new knowledge 241
JAMES ELKINS
Why research and new knowledge? 241
Purposes of the texts 242
How can a theory of practice be judged? 245
Why does the university resist? 245
How difficult the problem really is 246
Envoi 247
Bibliography 248
Illustrations
5.1 Patricia Piccinini, The Young Family (2002). Silicone, polyurethane,
leather, human hair, dimensions variable. Photo: Graham Baring 78
5.2 Sam Taylor-Wood, Atlantic (1997). Three laser discs for three
projections. Duration: 10 minutes 25 seconds. © The artist.
Courtesy: Jay Jopling/White Cube, London 78
5.3 Patricia Piccinini, Still Life with Stem Cells (2002). Silicone,
polyurethane, clothing, human hair, dimensions variable. Photo:
Graham Baring 79
5.4 Sam Taylor-Wood, Pent-Up (1996). Five screen laser disc projection
with sound, shot on 16 mm. Duration: 10 minutes 30 seconds.
© The artist. Courtesy: Jay Jopling/White Cube, London 81
5.5 Sam Taylor-Wood, Third Party (1999). Seven 16 mm film projections
with sound. Duration: 10 minutes. © The artist. Courtesy: Jay
Jopling/White Cube, London 82
6.1 Tim O’Riley, Four Intervals Gray (1998). Digital C-print, 81.6 × 152 cm 95
7.1 Naren Barfield, Chair (1999). Chair (sawn in half), digitally
manipulated photograph, mounted, inkjet print, 50 × 100 × 30 cm
(approx) 112
7.2 Naren Barfield, Sketches for development of small-scale maquettes 113
7.3 Naren Barfield, Examples of drawings of separate component parts
(with measurements) for development of small-scale maquettes 114
7.4 Naren Barfield, Architectural-type plans of separate component parts
for development of small-scale maquettes, created using a vector-
based ‘constructed drawing’ computer application (not to scale) 115
7.5 Naren Barfield, Unfolded elements combined with digitally
manipulated photographs to provide discrete components for
cutting, gluing and construction 116
7.6 Naren Barfield, Final construction combining each of the discrete
elements into a unified work 116
7.7 Naren Barfield, Detail of final work showing how effects of
motion parallax, shading and interposition become central to
the spatial reading 117
7.8 Naren Barfield, The Visit (stills # 1, 2, 3) 118
8.1 Elizabeth Price, Boulder (April 1997) 132
8.2 Elizabeth Price, Boulder (October 1999) 132