Dundee

WHO'S AFRAID OF ARTISTIC RESEARCH?

Lindsay — Sat, 03 May 2008 10:02:35 +0200

WHO IS AFRAID OF ARTISTIC RESEARCH?

Thursday 22nd May 2008 10am - 4.30pm
Dundee Contemporary Arts Seminar room

One-day symposium about the epistemology and context of practice-based research

Compared with the established epistemologies of the humanities, the social sciences and the natural sciences, the discourse surrounding practice-based research in art and design is relatively young and includes a range of diverse approaches. What practice-based research is or is not, is highly controversial. Does it mean that the researcher investigates his/her own (visual) practice, or rather, that visual practice is a means of investigation? Other questions arise in the context of 'normal science' and the knowledge economy: what are the goals of such research?, and what is the desired outcome? What are the connecting lines between art and science, between practice and theory?
And last but not least: why would an artist want to do 'research'?

Practice-based research can be understood as a process, evolving from and changing through the practice undertaken by the individual researcher. The challenge here is that research (still) can be undertaken in releative freedom. Entering the arena of ongoing discussion, negotiation and re-adjustment, and engaging in the discourse about methodology essentially contributes to constituting this freedom.

Speakers:
Laurence Rassel, artist/curator (constantvzw.org, Brussels) Simon Sheikh, curator/critic (Copenhagen, Malmö Art Academy) Dr. Dieter Lesage, philosopher (Berlin/ Erasmushogeschool Brussel) Prof. Nigel Johnson, artist/researcher (Dundee University)
Chair: Dr. Ken Neil, artist/researcher (Glasgow School of Art)

Screening:
A portrait of the artist as a worker (rmx.), Ina Wudtke, Berlin

Organised by: Lindsay Brown and Cornelia Sollfrank

For detailed information about the programme and the speakers, please visit the Visual Research Centre website at the address below.

The event is free, but advance booking is required: 01382-909900

Dundee Contemporary Arts · Nethergate 152 · Dundee DD1 4DX

Artefacts

Lindsay — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:55:25 +0100

These are some of the artefacts from the Physics department that are contained in the University Museums Collection in Dundee. The artefacts date from the nineteenth century to the 1970's and were mainly used for demonstration rather than research purposes.

Dundee has quite a long list of previous scientific scholars, including James Bowman Lindsay who in 1835, forty-four years prior to Edison, demonstrated the incandescant light bulb at a public meeting. Prefering to work on wireless telegraphy, Bowman left the light bulb behind to concentrate on radio. By 1854, Bowman was sending transmissions accross the Firth of Tay from Dundee to Woodhaven in Newport on Tay, which is a distance of two miles.

Sub Station

Lindsay — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:41:12 +0100

Used to walk past here before they built the houses. Early mornings coming home from friends, the hum of this sub-station could be heard from the top of the road; a menacing backdrop on the horizon of audible noise which included domestic normalities such as alarm clocks and the dawn choruses of birds.

Felicity and Box

Lindsay — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 11:10:49 +0100

These two were spotted at an industrial techno night at The Cage Club creating dance-floor crime with the likes of Sketchy Pete and friends. The Cage is an ultra dingy backstreet den that shares the building with an inspired set of neighbours such as lapdancing and gay clubs, and of course The City Function Suite, the tacky but hip venue for the city's art scene. Haloween celebrations had started early, and both girls and boys had embraced the party spirit by flashing delicious thighs in stocking-tops, this of course was helped along by some Mansonesque soft black-strap bondage imagery, courtesy of The Cage's small but obligatory LCD screen.

The Moon and the Church

Lindsay — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 10:36:57 +0200