A topian artistic methodology
(2022)
author(s): Kevin Walker
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
This exposition details a methodology for artistic research based on the book Utopia as Method by sociologist Ruth Levitas. It involves specific methods at three levels of analysis: archaeological, architectural, and ontological. Practical work is produced using archaeological and architectural methods, aimed at triangulating onto contemporary ontological issues. The term ‘topian’ was chosen in order to incorporate both utopian and dystopian perspectives — this term, from the Greek ‘topos’ meaning place, frames an artistic practice in relation to one or more sites of investigation.
The methodology was applied in a residency project split between London and Athens, focused on sculptures from the Parthenon that link the two cities. Museums in both cities served as sites of archaeological and architectural investigation. Work included speculative site mapping and stratigraphy, drawing and photography of artefacts, printmaking, and 3D modelling. Works were exhibited in a group exhibition in Athens, ‘Contemporary Archaeologies’.
Walking to Utopia and Thinking About Art Along the Way
(2021)
author(s): Ulvi Haagensen
published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
Walking through the old town of Tallinn, where everything is quiet because shops, cafés and restaurants are closed, some permanently because of a lack of tourists due to the pandemic and others temporarily because of the current lockdown, I experience the city in a new way. The city is different and no longer am I drawn in by the enticement of what I could or should buy. I no longer peer in the café window to see if there is an available table, in the expectation of a pastry and a coffee. Art galleries and museums are also closed. I’m closed out but this strange situation means there is time to stop, notice and think, space to walk and an opportunity to see things differently. There is freedom to imagine new worlds, other possibilities, and new ways of seeing and being. I look at shop windows, peer into art galleries, think about my own window exhibition in the context of these other windows, and in the process take in a full experience of visual art in the form of installations, performance art and even participation art. At the same time my thoughts take me to completely other utopian worlds where things are quite different. The walk, though initially purposeful, becomes something more than a walk. It starts to meander and – combined with what I see, remember and imagine – it becomes a meandering text with images and ideas that click in and out of focus.
Shell-Ter
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Maëlla Castiglione
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Shell-Ter is a microarchitecture project inspired by the shape of seashells. The idea stems from the current housing crisis in Europe. What if we all became homeless? Dystopian thinking here is a space of refuge for human psychology, finding in dystopia a libertarian alternative by thinking in terms of nomadism.
Shelter Research
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Maëlla Castiglione
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Here you can found my essai or research in order to understand my Shell-Ter project.
