Reflections on walking and the disruptive experience
(2024)
author(s): Kenneth Russo
published in: HUB - Journal of Research in Art, Design and Society
Our main interest is based on understanding spatial relationships from first-person experience, from our virtual and real body. Through the act of walking, movement in real time, we become cursors that dash across the interface of reality. A continuous process that brings us closer to the production of meanings, new relationships and representations, and also a dialogue with space and time, and the network. This article seeks to present a series of disruptive experiences, documented by the authors themselves, which constitute an exploratory framework of space to discover different symbolic interrelationships, and sketch out constructions of the common space in haptic, political, social and cultural mode. It offers a repository of unexpected, intersubjective encounters, from the empirical practice of walking, which arouses new perspectives to be able to interpret circumstantial spaces, to lose oneself in ‘non-places’, or reflect as to how to approach the landscape and/or the city by opening new imaginaries that add value to the ‘glocal’ place that we traverse and/or inhabit.
Running Freight on the River. A Clean Cargo Prefiguration
(2023)
author(s): Tim Boykett, Tina Auer
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
We are interested in exploring the types of futures that are preferable for us all. Discussions of preferable futures can be made difficult by a lack of understanding of the lived experience of that possible future. We like to think that some wise person once said: “I hear futures and I forget. I see futures and I remember. I do futures and I understand.” In order to explore scenarios of possible futures, we thus look into experiential modalities.
This exposition examines our Danube Clean Cargo project. The prefigurative process imagined what small scale localised transport could be like and attempted to run a pilot scheme. Reporting on that, merging the quantitative, qualitative and experiential aspects of the project, we present some resulting insights and imaginations. The project leaves us with speculations and visions drawn out by the process of prefiguration. It also leaves us with questions around heterotopic instantiations, queered economics and the everyday to be pondered as artistic research. This helps us reflect on the process of imagination and speculation, on dreams of various freedoms and the harsh realities of logistics chains.
The exposition develops ideas in both internal and external reflective modes. The exposition is oriented along a chart of the Danube river for the region of interest. Along the south bank of the Danube the project and its internal reflections are arrayed as episodic text fragments, leading up to a short vision that echoes older stories of sailing cargo barges. Along the north bank a more external reflection is positioned, bringing the project and its understandings into context with a collection of previous developments and external references. The entire exposition is arranged as a single page paper nautical chart, which in contrast to a digital chart plotter, always displays all of the information and does not hide features.
This exposition is part of Curiouser and Curiouser, cried Alice: Rebuilding Janus from Cassandra and Pollyanna (CCA), an art-based research project from Design Investigations (ID2) at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and Time's Up. It is supported by the Programme for Arts-based Research (PEEK) from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): AR561.
The Atemporal Event
(2021)
author(s): Helga Schmid, Kevin Walker
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
The COVID pandemic has prompted many people to reconsider their previous living and working rhythms and to consider alternatives. We believe that the global enslavement to the standardised time of clocks and calendars has had a negative impact on us individually, socially, and environmentally. We aim, therefore, to change perceptions of time by helping people step outside societal time, treating time instead as a malleable material that can be stretched and moulded.
This exposition describes our process, outcomes, and analysis in staging an event using an alternative approach based on natural and material time processes specifically related to the body and the external day/night cycle driven by light colour and intensity. In a twenty-four-hour event in London designed around chronobiological phases, we investigated our research question of how to change perceptions of time by treating it as a malleable material.
We discovered that treating time as a malleable material necessitates first stepping outside of the clock-time system: in our case, using daylight and bodily chronobiological phases as alternative time-givers. Dialogues using linguistic and non-linguistic means between ourselves, our collaborators and participants, as well as with our tools and materials, resulted in treating time as place, and places and things in temporal terms. We discovered that time is not only stretchable but can take different shapes and qualities, with multiple times existing alongside each other, by 'programming' actions and activities through performance, rhythm, and materiality.
Our research focuses on the broader issue of the ‘time crisis’ as identified by sociologists, chronobiologists, and philosophers, as a result of acceleration processes driven by digital technologies and contemporary 24/7 societal norms. We address this by bringing together Helga's research on ‘uchronia’ (temporal utopia or non-time) and Kevin's anthropological perspective on designing embodied experiences.
Walking the Newsroom: Towards a Sensory Experience of Journalism
(2020)
author(s): Sander Hölsgens, Saskia de Wildt, Tamara Witschge
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
We invite you to join us on a walk through the newsroom of a regional newspaper, Dagblad van het Noorden. We trace how the journalists perceive, articulate, engage, embrace, challenge, are receptive to, and give form to the ‘atmospheres’ of their workspace. The concept of atmospheres is central in how we have looked at the newsroom. On this walk, we explore the spatial, socio-cultural, rhythmic, tonal, and somatic characteristics of the recently redesigned newsroom, using video, sound, text, and drawing. Employing artistic methods, we want to let you experience this newsroom together with us – giving you insight into the journalists’ lived experience of their profession as fundamentally interwoven with the idiosyncrasies of their workspace.
Our host on the walk is online news editor Alfred Meester. Alfred walked us, Saskia and Sander, through the newsroom, which we visited as part of the project Exploring Journalism’s Limits (funded by the Dutch Research Council, NWO, project number: 314-99-205). Also joining us on this day is Ricky Booms, a visual artist invited to reflect on the space alongside us. Along the way, we encounter visual editors, interns, freelancers, editorial staff writers, and learn about the kinds of spaces that resonate with them.
The walk takes approximately 45 minutes.
Keinuva käynti ja muutoksen tila
(2015)
author(s): Marika Orenius
published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
In my text, I ponder a process of making and researching art. As in my doctoral thesis (Home base - bodily response and spatial experiences processed to works of art) I shall now go through the process as an opening to a multiple spatial and temporal thinking. In addition to some philosophical reflection, I approach the social and political meanings of space-time and corporeality. Of these subjects, I have filmed various spaces for my upcoming video installation. The working title of the process is Parousia. The video material shown in the exposition is the raw material of the work.
Sense of Entangled Being, The Emotion of Awe in Weaving Towards Polyperspectivity
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Miranda Kistler
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
How has the concept of the sublime informed an unconsciously internalized world view throughout the history? And how could a mindset driven by the emotion of awe be a foundation for new understanding towards our environment as polyperspective?
Small elements all play a part in how we perceive. The choices of words we make, influence how we experience and how we define our reality. It becomes clear that to be aware of definitions and the use of words in a certain context, is crucial to avoid unconsciously misinforming our own perception and creating a reality we do not want to be in. Words create realities, realities we live in and others tap into when enforcing exchange. But would it be possible to alternatively inform an exchange that can reach beyond words and their established structures?
Sublime and awe are terms which often seem to come hand in hand. Some might refer to them as synonyms. However, the word ‘sublime’ from the contemporary perspective, has throughout history accumulated multiple connotations. It is thus that it differentiates itself from the word ‘awe’.
This research paper investigates the difference of the two linguistic definitions. By comparing the difference between the philosophical works on the sublime, by thinkers such as Longinus and Edmund Burke to contemporary psychological works on awe by Dacher Keltner. The paper investigates the sublime from its early origin up until its transformation into the contemporary time.
By tracing back the development and unfolding of the sublime experience with a focus on nature, into a sublime influenced by technology, the paper will come to speculate how nature of the modern age can then be experienced and perceived if modern technology is drawn away within that experience.
As a counter proposal, the paper will there conclude in proposing the emotion of awe as a new guiding concept in replacement for the sublime. Sublime has influenced a world view and ontology, with a perspective led by distinction for the majority of history. Awe will hold a new aim to foster interconnectivity and polyperspectivity between the human and the environment, making awe to become the new guiding concept for viewing interspecies relation between human, nature and technology of the future.
Clareira
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Ana Miriam Rebelo
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
"Clareira" is the result of research on the photographic representation of architecture, as space to be experienced. The project takes Trindade Metro Station, in Porto, as a laboratory for the experimentation of visual strategies that emphasize the photographer’s physical presence and sensorial perception as well as the presences of users. This public space, routinely crossed and appropriated by a great diversity of people, is observed in its relationship with the human and environmental elements that permeate it.
Taking a purposely subjective stance, the work was inspired by the writings of Peter Zumthor, namely in its search for a positioning of the self, and an attitude towards reality, marked by an attentive and available physical presence. This mode of being in space was the basis from which to develop a photographic approach that seeks to communicate subjective experience.
At a time when images are increasingly replacing the experience of architectural space and becoming a basis from which to think architecture, this project seeks to contribute to the affirmation of photographic practice as a research instrument, reflecting on the experience of built space, but also actively participating in the construction of the environments in which we live in, as architecture is also constructed through images.
"Clareira" is a printed publication, comprising a series of formally diversified elements exploring different themes. It was exhibited in its full form at "Encontros da Imagem" (2019) as a "Photobook Awards" finalist, and was part of "Cityzine Collection", an exhibition of alternative publications exploring architecture, city and territory, through photography (2019). This set of images is a short selection, curated by Pedro Leão Neto and Né Santelmo, exhibited at the "Bienal de Fotografia do Porto 2019", at Aliados Metro Station.
THE BENEFIT OF INCONVENIENCE- Revealing public space by walking and mapping
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Shuk Wun Li
This exposition is in review and its share status is: visible to all.
Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023
MA Interior Architecture
From the moment we wake up in the morning, we are triggered by the loud alarm, travel to work on crowded trains, and make thousands of decisions every day. Inconveniences can arise in every situation, and while most people accept them, very few try to fix them. The COVID-19 pandemic is undoubtedly the biggest inconvenience experienced by everyone on the globe simultaneously. People's way of life has been affected by it, and the world has been shut down for more than two years since December 2019. Despite the destructive effects of the virus, it has given everyone a chance to pause and reflect on their lives. The topic of my thesis is based on the idea that I benefit from the inconveniences of daily life. After moving to the Netherlands, I realized that it takes me more time to complete daily tasks than it used to, and my life has become less hectic. So, I started reading articles on the benefits of inconvenience. Kawakami writes that “the benefit of inconvenience cannot be derived from mere nostalgia for 'the good old days or by thinking positively about the inconvenience.” He also thinks that convenience does not necessarily satisfy people and enrich human life. Yet, we have become so dependent on convenience that we no longer pay attention to its consequences. While the purpose of this paper is mainly to identify the benefits of intentionally experiencing inconvenience in our built environment, a discussion of convenience will also be included to compare the different levels of inconvenience. Are there any inconveniences associated with 'too much convenience'? What are the ways in which inconvenience is purposefully incorporated into the everyday environment? This paper will investigate these questions and provide suggestions for implementing beneficial inconveniences in the built environment.
Capturing actions of the environment
(last edited: 2022)
author(s): A Zorzi
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Hey reader, how do you feel? Are you on your own right now? Is there someone besides you? Do you feel oppressed by other people presence or relieved? Your mental state must be quite tired after trying to answer these questions, especially since there is not a single and clear answer. I guess it always depends on the circumnstances, right?
Need some air?
How can a social condition change and be shaped by the transformation of a space altered by an action?
I’m starting to collect actions. Which actions can make a change?
How does a spatial action influence your perception?
Let's see if your experience of the spaces I'm going to immerse you in is going to affect your perception of them, and therefore your own condition.
Embodied experiences as a call for action
(last edited: 2020)
author(s): Franco Ismael Veloz
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
This project attempts to explore different ways of connecting with someone else’s reality . How can we cause an impact with storytelling? Generate reflection, a look from another perspective? It attempts to close the gap between information and the actual person behind it.
Intertwined - What does it mean to be a creative person of faith?
(last edited: 2019)
author(s): Joshua Hale, Kelly J. Arbeau
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
From the most religious to the most secular, no artist ever knows exactly where their creative process is leading—but we all seem to have faith that we will get there. Many factors underlying creativity are also crucial to the act of having faith. These shared factors include ambiguity tolerance, openness to mystery, engaging with paradoxical thinking, perseverance, and questioning. Additionally, those who practice each (creativity, faith) share many guiding phrases, such as “take it one step at a time,” “go with your heart,” and “trust the process.” This interdisciplinary arts-based research project explores the experience of being a self-identified creative who practices a faith or religion. The exhibition combines methods from arts-based research, human centered design, and phenomenology to describe the intersections between the creative practices and faith perspectives of 15 individuals. The experience of our participants is that of creativity and faith combining—intertwining—to form an interactional, hybrid experience that is profoundly different from each experience on its own.
In my text, I ponder a process of making and researching art. As in my doctoral thesis (Home base - bodily response and spatial experiences processed to works of art) I shall now go through the process as an opening to a multiple spatial and temporal thinking. In addition to some philosophical reflection, I approach the social and political meanings of space-time and corporeality. Of these subjects, I have filmed various spaces for my upcoming video installation. The working title of the process is Parousia. The video material shown in the exposition is the raw material of the work.open exposition comments (0)
This project attempts to explore different ways of connecting with someone else’s reality . How can we cause an impact with storytelling? Generate reflection, a look from another perspective? It attempts to close the gap between information and the actual person behind it.open exposition comments (1)