The application of creative practice as a means of disrupting or re-defining the dynamics of power in, with or for different communities.
(2022)
author(s): Sabrin Hasbun, Gareth Osborne, Rachel Carney, Julika Gittner, Catherine Cartwright, agnes villette, Harry Matthews
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
In this exposition, seven research practitioners investigate how creative practice can be applied as a form of knowledge production in order to disrupt or re-define the dynamics of power in a range of different contexts. These applications of creative practice take varied and complex forms, often transferring creativity from the practitioner-researcher to their participants, increasing participant agency or re-defining existing hierarchies, as they form, empower, and enlighten real and conceptual communities. This collaborative exposition has been developed through presentations and discussions over the course of two years. Although each researcher applies different methodologies to their individual projects, our work as a group followed a pattern of creative practice, reflection, and reformulation, as we responded to each other’s research, creating a research community of our own. We want to emphasize that creative practice can not only disrupt or re-define the dynamics of power in a range of different contexts, but that it can do this in an infinite number of ways. In this variety and adaptability lies the potential of creative research.
HONEYMOON IN POMPEII - work in progress
(2021)
author(s): Sven Vinge
published in: International Center for Knowledge in the Arts (Denmark)
“HONEYMOON IN POMPEII – work-in-progress” is an artistic research project conducted at the National Film School of Denmark. In it, I explore transmediality through the production of a prototype artwork spanning film, literary text, sculpture, and virtual reality all loosely inspired by the archeological technique used to cast the Pompeian victims of the Vesuvius eruption in 79 ad.
I describe my initial inspiration and how I changed my intentions of exploring a consistent storyworld to more abstract associations and themes and the different collaborative efforts in producing the four parts of the prototype (a test not meant for public exhibition). The prototype ended up consisting of:
1) A film representing a foot specialist helping a costumer try running shoes in a sports store but showing an obsessive interest in her feet and crossing her personal boundaries.
2) A literary text consisting of selected passages of Wilhelm Jensen’s short novel “Gradiva” (1902) translated to Danish in which we meet the young archeologist Norbert Hanold and notice his obsession with an ancient bas-relief portraying a young woman walking.
3) A sculpture consisting of four transparent plastic reliefs depicting a walking woman (copies of the bas-relief described in the novel) suspended in a 1x2x2 meter aluminum frame.
4) An erotic virtual reality experience in which the perceiver’s bodily movements affects the virtual world. When moving, the represented scene freezes and vice versa.
We conducted a test of the joint transmedia artwork with a small group of respondents who answered a questionnaire reflecting on their experience. I reflect on the respondent’s answers and propose further questions and themes that may be interesting to explore through artistic research: How does one explore transmediality not necessarily in relation to a consistent storyworld but also relying on abstract characteristics? What are the limits (if any) between mixed media art, transmedia art, and installation art? How can transmediality be explored as either a goal in itself or as a development tool for artists working with particular media in mind? Could it be beneficial to explore transmediality through the metaphor of archeology and how?