From the lounge

The output is an artefact, a book of short horror fiction commissioned by Deptford X Contemporary Art Festival 2018. Steans was nominated for the commission by a panel of experts. Research process: Steans writes fiction as part of an intermedia and interdisciplinary art practice, and his ambition for 'From the Lounge' was threefold: (i) collect some of his writing from the last few years in an accessible package that would outlive the festival; (ii) directly represent his interest in genre horror; and (iii) explore the blurring of fiction and reality as artistic method, by writing around the conditions and context of Deptford, the festival, and the commission itself. Research insights: From the Lounge embodies conceptual themes and artistic methods that underpin Steans' practice-led research. Firstly, the book is an expression of 'realist horror' (Freeland 1995); a definition originally derived from film studies that is a key reference in Steans' doctoral research. Secondly, a blurring of fiction and reality is enacted by the book's folding of real-world referents into its fiction, and its fictionalisation of real-world contexts and locations; a strategy consonant with Burrows and O'Sullivan's concept of 'fictioning' (2017; 2019). Thirdly, it is simultaneously a work of contemporary art and of literature, a dual designation Steans attributes to the author-function (Foucault 1977) of the contemporary artist. Finally, the book typifies Steans' approach to genre by playfully evoking generalized reader expectations of experimental literature and horror, thus engaging in Frow's 'relational economy' (2015) of genres. Dissemination: Several stories collected in From the Lounge were adapted from prior public presentations/works at exhibitions/events, including: Mantel, Copperfield Gallery, London, 2018; MAMO 3: The Middle Ages in the Modern World, University of Manchester, 2017; Library Interventions: Moving Knowledge, Leeds Arts University, 2018; Radiophrenia Festival, Glasgow, 2016; Gruesome FX, Triangle Arts Association, Brooklyn, 2018

Necrotic biography room

The output is a creative project, a two-channel moving image work exhibited as an installation at Pavilion, Leeds. The installation consisted of a 30-minute digital video and a 1-minute 2D animation. Research Process: ‘Necrotic Biography Room’ -- the title refers to a phantasmagorical 'room' frequently alluded to in the script -- developed from two related interests: (i) artworks that 'return to the scene' and (ii) the 'behind the scenes' documentary. An earlier version was exhibited at ‘Library Interventions: Moving Knowledge’, which provided a testing ground. During the first phase, Steans realised the process of filming was as interesting as the ostensible subject, or 'scene', and the very concept of 'behind the scenes' was itself a 'scene'. Subsequently it became a film about the making of itself. Research insights: ‘Necrotic Biography Room’, like Foster's 'traumatic realism' (1996), depends not on a stable dichotomy between the world and the artwork but on interlinked processes of receptive experience and artistic production. The concept 'returning to the scene' helps to figure a privileging of receptive and productive processes, implying agency or action on the part of the artist. ‘Necrotic Biography Room’ also evidences a kind of ‘versioning’, meaning that projects materialise as series of published iterations, each one a singular version and an adaptation of previous ones. Steans likens versioning to Edmond's 'iterative poetics' (2011), with which Edmond describes the work of Caroline Bergvall. Versioning relates to Steans' thinking on horror – it adapts and evolves in a similar way to genres that mutate over time, propagating new subgenres through repetition and difference (Neale 1980; 1985). Dissemination: ‘Necrotic Biography Room’ has been competitively shortlisted and screened at New Flesh residency website; ‘Necrotic Biography Room’, Pavilion, Leeds, 2019; ‘Library Interventions’, 2018