Research Catalogue

PERFORMING PROCESS is a research group within the Artistic Research Centre at Nottingham Trent University, co-led by Emma Cocker and Danica Maier, both Associate Professors in Fine Art. We ask: what is at stake in focusing on the process of practice — the embodied, experiential, relational and material dimensions of artistic making, thinking and knowing. What is the critical role of uncertainty, disorientation, not knowing and open-ended activity within artistic research? How might a process-focused exploration intervene in and offer new perspectives on artistic practice and research, perhaps even on the uncertain conditions of contemporary life? PERFORMING PROCESS has origins in a number of critical precedents: Summer and Winter Lodges originating within the fine art area (practice-research residencies or laboratories dedicated to providing space-time for making-thinking and for exploring the process of practice), collaborative artistic research projects such as No Telos, for exploring the critical role of uncertainty, disorientation, not knowing and open-ended activity; the DREAM seminar series with PhD researchers which focuses specifically on the ‘how-ness’ of practice research by asking - How do we do what we do?

Understanding the complexities of current European society is impossible, especially for the younger generations, without knowing and understanding the complex historical developments and narratives. In most EU member states teaching history in the system of formal education is predominantly focused on national, if not patriotic history narratives. The consequence of this approach is that young people have a lack of knowledge about a wider, transnational and shared European history.

A journey between art object and performance where the mirror of water reflects us in various different ways to give us access to different facets of our self. Looking at oneself immersed in the space of nature, fragmenting one's anthropised ego into a multitude of cyborg possibilities, fluidifies the petrified conception of the Narcissus who only looks at himself, making him in fact a healed Narcissus, a plant that blossoms and grows instead of perishing.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022 BA Interactive Media Design After four years of studying art and technology in The Netherlands and having my own experience in search of an internship within the gaming industry, I came to realize problems that I saw in my earlier years with my mother were not limited to Turkey, and that it is a much bigger problem which spans worldwide. In this light of realizations, I decided to put together this thesis which will explore women’s role in the gaming industry with a focus on my own passion in story driven games.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023 Photography In this research paper I aim to verbalize methods of working when portraying other people in order to find out how I want to tell the stories of people living in different social contexts than my own, through the realm of documentary making, in an honest and ethically justifiable way. My research consists of analyzing relevant aspects of the history of documentary photography over the last century. Through the work of artists like Dorothea Lange, Robert Capa, Nan Goldin & Susan Meiselas, a timeline is mapped out in which I recognize the role of the Western perspective and the changing dynamics within the domain of visual representation. Secondly, I make comparisons with the use of two case studies from the Netherlands. I describe elements of and reflect on the work of photographers Jan Hoek and Jan Dirk van der Burg, with both of whom I share an arguably similar background. By doing so, I counter their practices while verbalizing a way of working for myself. Lastly, the research done for the paper contains the tracing of my past, and the path that I have walked to come to this point. With the recognition of the privileges in my background, I have been able to better position myself as a photographer.

This work focuses on the position of the blow-in, or outsider in Irish society. From this, the text discusses Irish, queer and white guilt in isolated community dynamics. Questioning the acts of group assimilation, ascension and self-annihilation all through poetics.