Painting as emergent knowledge: Exploring contemporary artistic labour as a process of ecological cognition

This research seeks to understand the contemporary artistic labour of painting in a ‘post-aesthetic’ view, in which artistic knowledge is seen as socially situated, embodied, and emergent; existing in processes rather than artefacts. This has implications for understanding the ‘work’ of painting. Debates on artistic subjectivity and creative work ignore skilled and cognitive processes of labour (Taylor, 2011). An exception is Roberts (2007) who proposes that artistic subjectivity has become ‘decentred’, distributed across people, skills and tools. However, his labour theory does not address painting in any depth. My research explores decentred artistic subjectivity from within painting. Using a practice-led method, it explores how painting can evolve a practice in line with new norms around ‘spectatorship’, and asks how we might understand this labour. Painter-researchers have done much to understand artistic subjectivity as distributed across bodies and materials, but lack focus on ‘social’ conditions of practice. My research brings this social focus, employing a framework of ‘ecological cognition’ to develop a theory and practice of painting as emergent knowledge that unfolds in relationships between bodies, materials, the ‘social’, and the environment. It tests a new practice-led perspective for understanding creative work, exploring cognitive processes of contemporary artistic labour. It brings a ‘social’ perspective to understanding the work of artist and audience in painting as research. It develops a post-Cartesian understanding of ‘making-as-thinking’ that involves body and material interactions, rhythm and gesture. It considers the embodiment of social structures in artefacts and individual habitual practices, examining cognition as a ‘social’ process. It suggests that ‘co-responsibility’ (Bolt, 2007) encompasses artist, audience, and artefacts in meaning-making. It contributes a practical framework for sharing artwork and proposes that ‘creative labour’ (Gulli, 2005) can be a shared art of inquiry that is not just a way of knowing; it reveals social ‘being’

Reflections: glass: water: art: science

Reflections: glass: water: art: science The Reflections programme was an extensive schedule of events, which can be divided into two core parts; an artist-in-residency scheme, which took place in March 2016 and an exhibition, supported by a series of public events in May, which coincided with the broader Festival of Architecture taking place throughout Scotland during the Year of Innovation, Design and Architecture (YIAD 2016), a Scottish Government initiative. 'Reflections: glass: water: art: science' was developed from an original idea by Inge Panneels from the University of Sunderland, in collaboration with several partners. The Artist-in-Residency was supported by Selkirk Conservation and Regeneration Scheme (CARS), CABN (Creative Arts Business Network), the University of Sunderland Glass and Ceramics Department, Edinburgh University Architecture School and the Haining Charitable Trust. During the Residency, the thirty-three participants were able to explore the site of the Haining through the experimental use of glass, allowing artists from diverse working practices access to a material perhaps not accessible or available to them. The Exhibition and the supporting programme of events was supported by Creative Scotland, the Borders Science Festival, the RIAS Festival of Architecture, the Edinburgh Architects Association (EAA) and Selkirk CARS. The exhibition showcased the works of twenty artists, using glass, film, photography, sound, sculpture and found objects to create works. Over 530 people attended this short exhibition, and the series of events taking place during the exhibition period. The events which took place under the banner of Reflections: glass: water: art: science in Spring 2016 as part of the Festival of Architecture, can be dissected through both the lens of creativity as a process and making art as a philosophical and political proposition. The two essays contributed by Dorian Wiszniewski and Inge Panneels respectively explore this is more depth. This e-book is record and consideration of the processes, works and discussion which took place during Reflections: glass: water: art: science. I

Weather Permitting

Weather Permitting is an exhibition of objects and printed matter, primarily in the form of publicationsthat examine my relationship to nature and the idea of nature as both sanctuary and armor. At a young age, my parents would take my on a hike every Sunday instead of going to church. The hikes acted as a weekly pilgrimage deep into the woods and a ritual instilling the idea of nature being a place of spiritual refuge and retreat. A sanctuary - of course, weather permitting. As I grew up and experienced hardship, my first instinct has always been to go hide in the woods.Through publication and installation, I use landscape theory, deep ecology, ecofeminist themes and modes of disruption such as the glitch to share personal narratives. These publications wander through the strain of personal experience, the ephemeral and nature\u27s role in day-to-day life. To create these publications, I have been hiking, researching the effects of climate change, creating my own archives and utilizing the University of Arkansas Special Collections. Hiking and being in nature is a very important part of my studio practice where I recharge, observe, and remember why these publications need to exist

Designing for a playful future:a review of how humorous play within the urban realm can make adult play a part of everyday life

Abstract. Everybody plays. It is a behaviour that is common to all people and indeed most species. A person’s inclination to play is dependant, not only on his mental and emotional state, but also on his surroundings. Despite our physiological separation from the rest of the evolving natural kingdom, our brains have scarcely evolved further than those of our hunter-gatherer forefathers. So often the playful side of adults is forgotten, un-nurtured and neglected, much to the detriment of public physical and mental health. In this ever-changing and fast-paced human society, we are constantly trying to avoid or subdue our primal instincts because we believe we are somehow different... “We are not animals”. We make our primal desire to be free and rampant something to be ashamed of, afraid of and even embarrassed by. This thesis discusses the importance of play with regard to mental health and how urban environments can be and become conducive to play in adults. It poses some ideas about how designers can provide opportunities for both active and fantasy play in transitional urban spaces that we use on a regular basis. The thesis addresses the issue of ‘what is play?’ by establishing a working definition of play in terms of an individual adult player and their surroundings. This definition then serves as the basis for evaluating how contemporary urban design uses a wide array of techniques and strategies to incorporate adult play within everyday life through literature review and case studies. Moreover, it tackles the concept of humour and identifies the benefits to encouraging communication of the self through humour and freedom of expression within the urban realm. These observations provide the basic structure for developing some design parameters which an architect or urban designer might utilise in designing spaces and environments that facilitate play and designing humour for playable cities in order to attain the ‘playful’ city

Composing with soundscapes : capturing and analysing urban audio for a Raw Musical interpretation

The sound environment is increasingly more relevant in contemporary culture. It is a ‘picture’ of a place, an X-ray of its character and activities, shapeless and amorphous, whilst full of meanings and subtleties. It is a transmission that is complementary to what a picture retains and transports. Therefore it is a unique, tangible impression of the place to which it belongs, and intrinsically, its history, and that of the people who inhabit it, and their relations. Murray Schafer termed this element as Soundscape. Although always a present element, it was only from the end of the Twentieth Century that it has been studied in a systematic way, initially in a more ecological and socio-cultural function approach, but slowly it has been seen as an artistic tool, both in direct use of the sounds as well as being an inspiration, and a starting point, for creation. The exploratory research project presented here aims to study the capture and analysis of the urban soundscape, with a special focus on its temporal evolution, and its application in the creative and artistic context. At the first stage, we try to understand how and, if possible, to capture and represent the most challenging part of this massive sound element, which is its constant changing on the time axis. Grasping its nuances on both small and large time scales. The second phase is to understand the pertinence of such information and its direct influence in the act of music and sonic creation. To achieve these goals a multidisciplinary approach based on two main pillars was necessary: Soundscape and Computer Music. These disciplines determine the scientific areas in which this research had to be focused. Due to the fact that this thesis has a relatively broad scope of interests, there is a survey of the state of the art relating to projects and approaches that relate to the interests of this investigation in different ways. In areas such as: Music Information Retrieval, Algorithmic Composition, Eco Composition, and Sound Maps. This survey confirms the contemporaneity, relevance and originality of the project, both scientifically and artistically. In order to evaluate the proposed approach to the soundscape, URB, an experimental system to capture, analyse and store the urban soundscape was developed and implemented. The system is based on current technology, but is affordable and robust. To ensure the sustainability of the project, development was based in open source technology, to ensure the possibility of the project expanding and shaping according to the interests and needs of specific places, populations, research centres and/or artistic interests. Three main goals have guided the development of this system: addressing the lack of temporal perspective of the sound representation of urban spaces; the design of a free and autonomous system that depends only on the users, which results in a public free access database; to facilitate and systematize the access to data on the sound characteristics of an urban soundscape for both ecological studies as well as for creative and artistic purposes. A server keeps a record of the collected data, which can either be read directly, through an application developed for this purpose, or through a visual interface with a time-line approach, but always allowing for the possibility of creating original access tools that best serve the user’s purposes. After implementing the system, through four listening points, and confirming its robustness, we advance to the system’s application in the development of artistic works. For this purpose a challenge was proposed to a number of artists with distinct aesthetic backgrounds and training. This challenge resulted in different works that were presented to the public in different formats and media, such as works for classical instrumental, electro-acoustic works, improvisational moments with real-time sonification of the soundscape, sonic installations and sculptures powered by the system presented. This practice leads to a fundamental reflection in this research. We describe the different approaches chosen by each creator and primarily assess the pertinence in the artistic result of using a continuous and discrete system of urban soundscape analysis, from a creator’s point of view as well as from a listener’s point of view. With this research we are able to present a functional approach to the lack of temporal perspective in the usual sound maps that focus on the geographic origin of the recordings. We conclude that soundscapes can provide useful data for artistic creation and we promote a direct connection between that kind of approach and the artists. Even before the works developed and the artist’s feedback, whilst not ignoring the different approaches and opinions, we can conclude that this approach seems to promote new and functional soundscape composition ideas, making URB a relevant resource to compose original soundscape based music. Also, through analysis of the pieces, we could point out patterns of the technical and artistic choices on how to deal with information from the soundscape data, both in deferred time and real-time.A paisagem sonora é cada vez mais relevante na cultura contemporânea. É uma ‘fotografia’ de um lugar. Uma radiografia ao seu carácter e atividades, simultaneamente disforme e amorfa como repleta de significados e subtilezas. Uma transmissão complementar ao que a imagem retém e transporta. É portanto uma impressão única , tangível do lugar a que pertence e, intrinsecamente , da sua história , das pessoas que o habitam, das suas relações. Murray Schafer batizou este elemento como Soundscape (Paisagem Sonora). E embora tenha sido sempre um elemento presente, só a partir do final do séc. XX é que tem vindo a ser estudado de uma forma sistematizada, inicialmente numa abordagem mais ecológica e das suas funções socioculturais, mas lentamente encarado como uma ferramenta artística tanto no uso direto dos sons, como sendo o ponto de partida de inspiração para a criação. O projeto de investigação de carácter exploratório que aqui apresentamos visa o estudo da recolha e análise da paisagem sonora urbana, com especial enfoque na sua evolução temporal e da sua aplicação no contexto criativo artística. Como tal, numa fase inicial, procurar entender como e, se possível, capturar e representar o elemento mais desafiante que é a permanente mutação sonora no eixo temporal, apreendendo as suas nuances tanto numa escala de tempo diminuta como em grandes escalas temporais. Numa segunda fase entender a pertinência desta informação e da sua influência direta no ato da criação musical e sonora. Para cumprir estes objectivos foi necessária uma abordagem multidisciplinar fundamentada em dois pilares principais: Paisagem-Sonora e Informática Musical. Estas disciplinas determinam as áreas científicas em que esta investigação se debruçou. Tendo esta tese um âmbito de interesses relativamente amplo, há um levantamento do estado da arte referente a projetos e abordagens de áreas distintas que ,de diferentes formas , se relaciona com os interesses da nossa investigação. Em áreas como: Musical Information Retrieval, Composição Algorítmica, Eco Composição, Mapas Sonoros. Este levantamento confirma a atualidade, a pertinência e a originalidade do projeto, tanto cientificamente como artisticamente. A fim de avaliar a abordagem proposta à paisagem sonora, foi desenvolvido e posto em prática um sistema experimental de captura, análise e armazenamento de ambiente sonoro urbano, de nome URB. Sistema esse baseado em tecnologia atual, mas acessível e robusta para garantir a sustentabilidade do projeto e apoiado em desenvolvimento código aberto para garantir a possibilidade do projeto se expandir e se moldar de acordo com os interesses e necessidades concretas de locais, populações, centros de investigação e interesses artísticos. Três objetivos principais guiaram o desenvolvimento deste sistema: colmatar a falta de perspectiva temporal em grande escala de uma representação sonora de um espaço urbano; o desenho de um sistema que livre e autónomo, que apenas dependa dos utilizadores, que resulte numa base de dados de acesso público e gratuito; facilitar e sistematizar o acesso à informação sobre as caraterísticas sonoras de um ambiente sonoro urbano tanto para estudos ecológicos como para função criativa e artística. É mantido num servidor o registo de toda a informação recolhida, que tanto pode ser consultado diretamente, através de uma aplicação desenvolvida para o efeito, através de um interface visual ao estilo de linha temporal, deixando sempre a possibilidade para a criação de ferramentas de acesso originais que sirvam melhor os propósitos do utilizador. Após a implementação do sistema, através de quatro pontos de escuta, e a confirmação da sua robustez, avançamos para a aplicação do sistema no desenvolvimento de obras artísticas. Para tal, foi lançado um desafio a um conjunto de artistas que partem de diferentes formações e identidades estéticos. Esse desafio resultou em diferentes obras que foram apresentadas ao público com diferentes formatos e suportes, como obras integralmente para formatos instrumentais clássicos, obras electroacústicas, momentos de improvisação em tempo real com a sonorização do ambiente sonoro, instalações e esculturas sonoras alimentadas pelo sistema apresentado. Desta prática resulta uma reflexão fundamental nesta investigação. Descrevemos as diferentes abordagens escolhidas por cada criador e acima de tudo avaliamos a pertinência no resultado artístico do uso de um sistema contínuo e discreto de análise de ambiente sonoro urbano, tanto do ponto de vista do criador como do ponto de vista do ouvinte. A partir desta investigação, apresentamos uma abordagem funcional para a falta de perspectiva temporal nos mapas sonoros clássico que incidem principalmente sobre as origens geográfica das gravações. Concluímos que as paisagens sonoras podem fornecer dados úteis para a criação artística e promovemos uma conexão direta entre essa abordagem e os artistas. Perante os trabalhos e análises desenvolvidos por diferentes criadores, concluímos que esta aproximação promove ideias novas e funcionais para a composição. Além disso, através da análise de peças, apontamos padrões nas escolhas técnicas e estéticas sobre como lidar com as informações a partir dos dados da paisagem sonora, tanto em tempo diferido como em tempo real

Science and Nature in the Medieval Ecological Imagination

This dissertation explores the intersections between nature and culture in medieval literature and art with particular focus on Geoffrey Chaucer’s House of Fame, the thirteenth-century French Bible Moralisée (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Codex Vindobonensis 2554), and William Langland’s Piers Plowman. Current academic paradigms tend to place the study of nature firmly within the sciences and the study of culture firmly within the humanities, creating a gap between the fields that effectively isolates their respective methodologies and vocabularies from one another. This dissertation seeks to bridge that gap between the sciences and the humanities by approaching medieval literature through the lens of studies in science, technology, and society (STS). Examination of medieval literature reveals just some of the ways that the sciences and humanities overlap to create permeable intellectual spaces for the study of nature and culture. Framed within the ecological analyses of G. Evelyn Hutchinson, this dissertation demonstrates how scientific topics can be approached from a literary perspective and how, in turn, literature can be read scientifically. This project uses a highly interdisciplinary approach that relies heavily on the theories in STS developed by Bruno Latour. Latour’s theories, typically applied to writing and procedures found in modern science, provide the initial groundwork for establishing the connections between nature and culture in medieval literary sources. Because much of the previous work on science in the Middle Ages has primarily focused on the history of science through the study of educational texts and treatises, there is relatively little material available that takes on scientific observation of the natural world in medieval literature, poetry, and art. As such, the modern divide between the sciences and the humanities anachronistically separates nature and culture in ways that often unnecessarily isolate the two fields in medieval studies. By first problematizing and historicizing the academic development of science and its perceived animosity with the humanities, I strive to break down modern paradigms of knowledge to demonstrate how a medieval understanding of human culture was inextricably connected to perceptions of the natural world. The study of Chaucer’s House of Fame takes on special attention to the roles of language and translation in literature. My subsequent examination of the Bible Moralisée moves beyond the constraints of language to explore visual representations of science and nature in an explicitly Christian context. Building on the religious influences of medieval portrayals of ecology and science, I investigate Langland’s use of natural imagery in his portrayal of religious enlightenment in Piers Plowman. Each of these works demonstrates how the medieval imagination established a versatile permeability between science and the humanities that is far less common in the studies of modern science and literature

Oceanic Literacy in Contemporary Art: Communal Effort, Scientific Knowledge and Poetic Intervention

As the global population faces unprecedented accelerated environmental devastation, the future becomes increasingly unpredictable, and consequently difficult to visualize. This thesis thus considers how visual artists working in the twenty-first century are producing works that address the environment-in-crisis by proposing alternative paths, and potentially offering clearer and more hopeful visions of the future. While it alludes to several relevant artworks, it focuses on two creative responses to threatened bodies of water: Basia Irland’s Ice Receding/Books Reseeding (2007-) and Pam Longobardi’s Drifters Project (2006-). Through an examination of the conditions of visuality and the inter- or transdisciplinary nature of contemporary ecological art practices, this thesis first contextualizes Irland and Longobardi’s practices. It also provides new interpretations of their work by theoretically engaging with posthumanism. Interweaving William Cronon and Elizabeth Grosz’s accounts of posthumanism, and the writings of Indigenous scholars, namely Daniel Wildcat, Kim Tallbear, Vanessa Watts and Zoe Todd, this thesis considers visual art’s capacity to literally and conceptually intercept environmental destruction and climate change. In their attempts to recognize nonhuman agency, both Irland and Longobardi employ anthropomorphic aesthetics that are highlighted in this thesis. Finally, I contend that their most effective and innovative aesthetic strategies for dealing with environmental destruction are found in their roles as listeners

Engaging with Everyday Sounds

'Engaging With Everyday Sounds' is a rich and inspiring exploration of the role of sounds in everyday life, including their impact on human actions, emotions, and imagination. Marcel Cobussen intertwines sonic studies with philosophy, sound art, sociology and more to create an impressively lucid and innovative guide to sonic materialism, calling for a re-sensitization to our acoustic environment and arguing that everyday sounds have (micro)political, social, and ethical impact to which we should attend. Exploring the intellectual history of sound studies as well as local, global, and temporal sonic geographies, Cobussen weaves audio files, images, and journal excerpts into his work to create a multimodal monograph that explores the relationships of humans, nonhumans, and their environments through sound. This accessible and interdisciplinary collection of short, powerful essays will be valuable reading for both academics and the general reader interested in sound studies, sound art, philosophy, or the sociology of everyday life—and for anyone keen to think about the sonic in new and engaging ways

Immersive systemic knowing : rational analysis and beyond

Applied systems thinking has rapidly developed through successive waves of development, and the current reigning paradigm is the revisioned approach to critical systems thinking.This research scrutinizes systemic intervention. It employs the methods of second-order science to apply some of its principles reflexively back on to the domain to discover two gaps: one between the espoused aims of systemic intervention and the adequacy of its methods, the other about its dependence on dialogic rationality. It also delves into its philosophical underpinnings to trace the reason for this gap to the ‘ghosts’ of rationalism. This is because modern Western thinking equates consciousness with intentionality. I argue that there is another well-recognised mode of consciousness, that of non-intentionality. I name these two modes as the becoming-striving and the being-abiding orientations.To address the gap, firstly, a characterisation of the systemic ontology is attempted. Three basic features are identified: mindful interconnectedness, enactive cognition and teleonomy. I also describe plausible political, epistemic and pragmatic goals for systems thinking arising from this ontology.Four methods from adjacent disciplines are examined in detail to show that these address the systemic ontology in better fashion than existing systemic approaches. These mature global contemporary approaches access knowings corresponding to the being-abiding orientation, absent in systems thinking.A suitable ontoepistemology for systemic knowing must comprise of two ontologies and epistemologies corresponding to each of the two consciousness modes: four component elements. Suitable conceptual models from other disciplines serve the purpose of these four components. Thus, a model of immersive systemic knowing is assembled, which meets the requirements of a framework for systems thinking in terms of the goals posited.A key feature of this research is the espousal of experiential knowing: not in a phenomenological sense, but in terms of a radical empiricism. It argues for the value of practical knowings that go beyond rationalistic formulation, which are always held in the margins (in the language of boundaries). Systemists must actively seek such experiential knowing to enact truly creative improvement. The only answer to the problem of knowing the world better is to know the shadow aspects of the knowledge generating system. This requires truly radical methods and an extended epistemology, all shown to be available plentifully in other practices and cultures. Testimony is provided from two field projects that were a part of these inquiries, and from practitioner accounts