Research Catalogue

Illustration as research from within the field is of relatively new practice. The illustrators discourse on representation (Yannicopoulou & Alaca 2018 ), theory (Doyle, Grove and Sherman 2018, Male 2019, Gannon and Fauchon 2021), and critical writing on illustration practice was hardly found before The Journal of Illustration was first issued in 2014, followed by artistic research through illustration (Black, 2014; Rysjedal, 2019; Spicer, 2019). This research project developed as response to a rise in hate crime towards refugees and the targeting of European Jews in recent decade. A pilot project (This Is a Human Being 2016-2019) treated how narratives of the Holocaust may avoid contributing to overwriting of history or cultural appropriation. Asking how illustration in an expanded approach may communicate profound human issues typically considered unrepresentable, this new project hopes to explore representation and the narratives of “us” and “the others” in the contemporary world through illustration as starting-point for cross-disciplinary projects. The participants from different disciplines, have interacted democratically on common humanist themes to explore the transformative role of illustration in contemporary communication. our projects should afford contemplation of illustration as an enhanced, decelerated way of looking; and drawing as a process for understanding - a way of engaging in understanding the other, as much as expressing one’s own needs (McCartney, 2016). This AR project consisted of three symposia and three work packages, and the artistic research unfolded in the symbiosis of these elements. Our investigation of illustration across media and materials continues as dissemination and exhibitions even after the conclusion of the work packages in 2024.

Projekt se zabývá experimentálním přístupem ke vzdělávání, který integruje disciplíny hry a učení skrze umělecké dílo. Realizace záměru proběhla formou interaktivní expozice na vzdělávací platformě Centra současného umění DOX. Experiment vychází z konceptu „funkční plastiky" jakožto fyzického objektu, které slouží jako partitury pro interaktivní učení a hru. Fyzickou instalaci doplňuje libreto prezentované virtuálním (AR) průvodcem. Experiment zkoumá praktické využití krajní stimulace smyslů v kombinaci se spekulativním obsahovým sdělením. Tato synergie nabízí unikátní disharmonickou zkušenost, jež má za účel testovat efektivitu stimulace kognitivních funkcí formou podněcování adaptačního mechanismu na hranici komfortní zóny.

PRIOR is a functional experimental installation that explores the relationship between the sensory apparatus and spatial orientation. The subject of investigation is the link between the prediction model and the sensory input of the visual apparatus. By the method of disruption of the visual apparatus, the sequence of the mechanism responsible for spatial orientation is disentangled.

At first, the plan was simple — to be home by Christmas. To begin to view the very concept of home as built upon nostalgia. Imagining home is a pastime of any immigrant. If, as Breton suggests, ‘The imaginary is that which tends to become real,’ what were our imaginings bringing to life? The Place of Shade is an artistic research inquiry into the contemporary wake of the Norwegian presence in South Africa. Norwegians began operating within the British colonial framework around 1840 — the same period as the migration to America. Lutheran missions, whaling, farming, business and family characterise this almost 200-year Afri-Norge diasporic heritage. It has been almost entirely overlooked in visual culture, until now. Their legacy remains an integral component of the city and the province's socio-cultural fabric to this day. This exposition is just one expression within the broader scope of this ongoing project. Here, we on the one hand reflect on our preliminary research, methodology and fieldwork from a fictional standpoint — a kind of meta-methodological reflection — and, on the other hand, we address our Afri-Norge subject matter head-on. To achieve this, we narrate Ray Franz and Anthony Morton’s part in the initial fieldwork through the fictionalised perspectives of two PhD students at The University of Bergen — Vincent Dibble (RSA) and Bjarne Karlsen (NOR) — who leave their shared office to undertake an expedition which parallels ours, travelling to KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. This journey is set in the penumbra of the seismic socio-political events of 1999: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, The South African Arms Deal, Case no. 4138/98, and the looming global spectre of Y2K. Dibble, an occidental eschatologist and accidental apocalypse-hunter. Bjarne, a philosophical cosmologist and photography enthusiast. This exposition is imagined as the pair's pin board, suspended upon the expanse of their office wall upon returning to Norway. Behind them it hangs, a silent curation of fever dreams, as they weave theses into existence, their gaze drawn through the window onto the sprawling canvas of Bergen's cityscape.

Taming Amorphalia is an experimental documentation of the intuitive processes behind/during the development of ProjectMorpheo – a Master’s Project at SKH. The research aims to further discover the fragile connections between dreams and the materials that surround us. Since ProjectMorpheo is a participatory event, Taming Amorphalia attempts to communicate the background of the research in a dialog-like, interactive way by using the form of a text based role play game.

Can you listen to fashion? Can you play fashion as music? Fashion is primarily a visual ontology consisting of definitions, theories, and methods that are based on visual language. This exposition revises fashion by approaching it from a different—sonic—perspective wherein sound is considered not as a negative aspect but as a potential source of a new theory and facilitator of the evolution of new methods. Sound is thus presented not as a secondary quality of designed objects, but as the main idea-generator. The research opens new avenues for design thinking with ears rather than eyes. It explores fashion from the perspective of listening rather than seeing, sounding rather than showing. It is a form of rethinking and redefining fashion by starting with the statement that dress is sound.