The Institute of Beasts: strategies of doubt and refusal in a contemporary art practice

The collaborative work of Steve Dutton and Steve Swindells (Dutton and Swindells) can be seen in the context of post-conceptual artistic practices which play with and interrogate images, objects and texts through processes of collage, appropriation and multiple association. The aim of the collaboration is to foster complex interpretations, often from deceptively simple means; consciously working through varied rhetorical devices and tropes, modes of production and strategic interventions. We are tactical artists, preferring to focus on strategies, context and processes, frequently doubling, collaging, reversing, repeating and inverting images, objects and texts as a means of disruption. But a question remains at the heart of such contemporary art practices, namely, a disruption of what? My paper for ATINER focused on strategies of refusal, waywardness, the production of ambiguity and new fictional taxonomies in a contemporary art practice and asked if the use of tactics of doubt in the work of art are useful tools for production of new knowledge. At the heart of these questions are issues around the relationship between art and research, the possibility or impossibility of art within the contexts of the contemporary art/educational institution and art school and the possibility of creating and sustaining an art practice which refuses to align itself to any one canon, manifesto, school, industry, form, institution or critical method. The paper draws on the collaborative practice of Dutton and Swindells and also Michael Phillipson’s 1992 essay “Managing ‘tradition’: the Plight of Aesthetic Practices in techno-scientific culture” as a means of illustrating the potential absorption of the specific into the general under the auspices neo-liberal institutional and commercial agendas

“The hope – the one hope – is that your generation will prove wiser and more responsible than mine.” Constructions of guilt in a selection of disaster texts for young adults

This paper explores a range of definitions of guilt, and argues that fiction for young adults which is set after a major disaster that has been caused by humans has surprisingly little emphasis on guilt. Focusing on Brother in the Land by Robert Swindells, Nuclear War Diary by James E. Sanford (Jr), The Last Children by Gudrun Pausewang, The Carbon Diaries 2015 by Saci Lloyd and its sequel, The Carbon Diaries 2017, and Days Like This by Alison Stewart, the paper argues that in post-nuclear texts for young adults the emphasis tends to be on the perceived responsibility of the young adult reader&amp;apos;s generation to work towards preventing the disaster from becoming reality, rather than on the guilt of the adult generation that caused the disaster. However, in texts dealing with environmental disaster, the young adult reader&amp;apos;s generation can be seen to have some measure of culpability, and so the issues of guilt and responsibility become more complex<br /

Shaping attitude toward Christianity among year seven pupils : the influence of sex, church, home and primary school

This study set out to examine the differences in attitude toward Christianity among year seven secondary school pupils who had undertaken their primary education either in a Church of England voluntary aided school or a non-denominational state-maintained school. Data were provided by 492 year-seven pupils attending three Church of England voluntary secondary schools and comparison is made between 288 pupils who had transferred from Anglican voluntary aided primary schools and 164 from non-denominational state-maintained schools. After taking into account the effects of sex, pupil church attendance, paternal church attendance, and maternal church attendance, the data found no effect from attending a Church of England voluntary aided primary school

Controlling Latent TB Tuberculosis Infection in High-Burden Countries: A Neglected Strategy to End TB

In a Perspective, Gavin Churchyard and Sue Swindells discuss the importance of strategies to target latent tuberculosis infection in high risk populations and thus disrupt a reservoir for new infections in high burden countries

ROTOЯ Review

The ROTOЯ partnership between Huddersfield Art Gallery and the University of Huddersfield was established in 2011. ROTOЯ I and II was a programme of eight exhibitions and accompanying events that commenced in 2012 and was completed in 2013. ROTOЯ continues into 2014 and the programme for 2015 and 2016 is already firmly underway. In brief, the aim of ROTOЯ is to improve the cultural vitality of Kirklees, expand audiences, and provide new ways for people to engage with and understand academic research in contemporary art and design. Why ROTOЯ , Why Now? As Vice Chancellors position their institutions’ identities and future trajectories in context to national and international league tables, Professor John Goddard1 proposes the notion of the ‘civic’ university as a ‘place embedded’ institution; one that is committed to ‘place making’ and which recognises its responsibility to engaging with the public. The civic university has deep institutional connections to different social, cultural and economic spheres within its locality and beyond. A fundamental question for both the university sector and cultural organisations alike, including local authority, is how the many different articulations of public engagement and cultural leadership which exist can be brought together to form one coherent, common language. It is critical that we reach out and engage the community so we can participate in local issues, impact upon society, help to forge well-being and maintain a robust cultural economy. Within the lexicon of public centered objectives sits the Arts Council England’s strategic goals, and those of the Arts and Humanities Research Council – in particular its current Cultural Value initiative. What these developments reveal is that art and design education and professional practice, its projected oeuvre as well as its relationship to cultural life and public funding, is now challenged with having to comprehensively audit its usefulness in financially austere times. It was in the wake of these concerns coming to light, and of the 2010 Government Spending Review that ROTOЯ was conceived. These issues and the discussions surrounding them are not completely new. Research into the social benefits of the arts, for both the individual and the community, was championed by the Community Arts Movement in the 1960s. During the 1980s and ‘90s, John Myerscough and Janet Wolff, amongst others, provided significant debate on the role and value of the arts in the public domain. What these discussions demonstrated was a growing concern that the cultural sector could not, and should not, be understood in terms of economic benefit alone. Thankfully, the value of the relationships between art, education, culture and society is now recognised as being far more complex than the reductive quantification of their market and GDP benefits. Writing in ‘Art School (Propositions for the 21st Century)’, Ernesto Pujol proposes:‘…it is absolutely crucial that art schools consider their institutional role in support of democracy. The history of creative expression is linked to the history of freedom. There is a link between the state of artistic expression and the state of democracy.’ When we were approached by Huddersfield Art Gallery to work collaboratively on an exhibition programme that could showcase academic staff research, one of our first concerns was to ask the question, how can we really contribute to cultural leadership within the town?’ The many soundbite examples of public engagement that we might underline within our annual reports or website news are one thing, but what really makes a difference to a town’s cultural identity, and what affects people in their daily lives? With these questions in mind we sought a distinctive programme within the muncipal gallery space, that would introduce academic research in art, design and architecture beyond the university in innovative ways

Diffusion Coefficients and Viscosities of CO2 + H2O, CO2 + CH3OH, NH3 + H2O, and NH3 + CH3OH Liquid Mixtures

To evaluate quantitatively the results of gas-liquid absorption experiments, accurate liquid-phase diffusion coefficients and viscosities are needed. In this paper experimental values of these quantities will be reported for the binary systems carbon dioxide + water, carbon dioxide + methanol, ammonia + water, and ammonia + methanol. The diffusion coefficients have been measured using the Taylor-Aris dispersion method, and the viscosities have been measured with a falling ball viscometer at temperatures from 293 to 333 K. The ammonia mole fraction ranged from 0 to 0.312. The results have been correlated using Arrhenius-type equations and have been compared with literature data, where available. Furthermore, the measured diffusion coefficients are compared with values predicted by the modified Stokes-Einstein equation and the Wilke-Chang equation

Sculptural Thinking in Fashion

Human thinking in relation to the body is conditioned by an understanding of the body as a three-dimensional form. The fashion designer Madame Gres said ‘I wanted to be a sculptor — for me it is just the same to work with fabric or stone.’ Sculpture and fashion both adopt figurative formations, a default position of representing human form in space, motion and time: both an art form receptive to the senses of sight, touch and gravitational pull. This research questions whether the thinking processes in fashion design are common with thinking in sculptural practices within fine art. The question emerged through conversations between a fashion designer and a contemporary artist and centered upon the use of language, thinking and reflective practices, and the articulation and application of material processes. To address these questions we focused upon two approaches: whether thought and its articulation in the lexicon of creative practice is common and whether there is a two way flow of visual, material and technical influences. The initial conversation centered upon the art historian, Rowan Bailey’s essay ‘Herder’s Sculptural Thinking.’ Our interpretations of this work identified that thought itself evolves in the experience of three-dimensions and sharing our experiences of touch. The idea of the sculptural therefore becomes social; a shared phenomena. We became interested in how thinking begins to take shape in material forms, or the notion of working creatively in three-dimensionality is in itself a structure of the emotions that connect to a line of thought. The first section of the paper establishes a platform for the second section by investigating the significance of touch and mimicry, and the philosophies behind thinking sculpturally. The second section considers the effects of influence between the two disciplines, noting an interaction between the creative processes in sculpture and fashion design, such as: modeling, draping, molding, stacking, casting, shaping and carving. The paper concludes by drawing together the two sections

Preparation of silver-activated zinc sulfide thin films

Silver improves luminescence and reduces contamination of zinc sulfide phosphors. The silver is added after the zinc sulfide phosphors are deposited in thin films by vapor evaporation, but before calcining, by immersion in a solution of silver salt

Sculptural Thinking in Fashion

Human thinking in relation to the body is conditioned by an understanding of the body as a three-dimensional form. The fashion designer Madame Gres said ‘I wanted to be a sculptor — for me it is just the same to work with fabric or stone.’ Sculpture and fashion both adopt figurative formations, a default position of representing human form in space, motion and time: both an art form receptive to the senses of sight, touch and gravitational pull. This research questions whether the thinking processes in fashion design are common with thinking in sculptural practices within fine art. The question emerged through conversations between a fashion designer and a contemporary artist and centered upon the use of language, thinking and reflective practices, and the articulation and application of material processes. To address these questions we focused upon two approaches: whether thought and its articulation in the lexicon of creative practice is common and whether there is a two way flow of visual, material and technical influences. The initial conversation centered upon the art historian, Rowan Bailey’s essay ‘Herder’s Sculptural Thinking.’ Our interpretations of this work identified that thought itself evolves in the experience of three-dimensions and sharing our experiences of touch. The idea of the sculptural therefore becomes social; a shared phenomena. We became interested in how thinking begins to take shape in material forms, or the notion of working creatively in three-dimensionality is in itself a structure of the emotions that connect to a line of thought. The first section of the paper establishes a platform for the second section by investigating the significance of touch and mimicry, and the philosophies behind thinking sculpturally. The second section considers the effects of influence between the two disciplines, noting an interaction between the creative processes in sculpture and fashion design, such as: modeling, draping, molding, stacking, casting, shaping and carving. The paper concludes by drawing together the two sections

The Oregon Community Foundation Annual Report 2013

This annual report includes a message from the Board of Directors, a recap of 2013 foundation acitivities, a description of the regions they work in, a closer look at various grantmaking initiatives, a list of representative grants, a list of the OCF funds, a list of staff members, investment policy, and financial highlights