Seminar – Of Artistic Research: considered through hybrid writing and visual practice
(2023)
author(s): Mike Croft
published in: i2ADS - Research Institute in Art, Design and Society
The exposition involves the adaptation of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan's logical square, to convey an idea of artistic research practice considered from the perspective of the human subject's position in its midst. As part of the discussion the author has used some evidence of a previous lecture presentation, integrating such material with that of a newer project concerning the visualization of a nightmare image of a phantom in a portal. The tools of the research are a hybrid form of writing that embroils fictional and academic modes as a language-based practice, and visual artistic practice. The author takes Lacan's idea of the confounding of any logical argument by automatic obfuscation of it by unconscious process, and imagines that he has an other to him as a subjective second voice. The question of voices is central to the research; the suggestion that one does speak to oneself in various ways simultaneously that may be fashioned as distinct and separate. It is argued that the research aspect of artistic practice involves just a section of Lacan's logical square, particularly concerning contingency. This orientation may call to question one's tendency to reason and find meaning from the necessary locus of inquiry from the vantage-point of the language-based Symbolic – of Lacan's three psychic structuring registers Imaginary, Symbolic, Real. The element of fiction provides a literary inclination whereby, while the artistic research speaks about itself as research and references a visual practice, the exposition could also be considered a language-based practice in its own right.
A Change in Perception
(last edited: 2022)
author(s): Garry Barker
This exposition is in review and its share status is: visible to all.
An artist’s narrative that sets out to introduce the starting point for a new body of evolving work that will grow out of an interrogation of somatic perception and interoception.
As the corona virus pandemic emerged the artist Garry Barker had just been given a commission to develop a series of playing cards that were designed to help people develop conversations about their bodies. However lockdown prevented many proposed activities taking place, initial packs of cards were produced but they couldn’t be used to play the suggested games, and the artist was asked if he could develop an online version. The artist’s research then began to change direction and questions were asked about the nature of perception itself, the body and somatic awareness. Research was refocused on inner body perception and neuropsychology and associated drawings were made in response to a growing awareness of internal body schemas, together with visualizations of relationships between interoception and exteroception. Gradually what emerged was the artist’s realization of how important his own imagination was in building images of how we feel about our inner bodies.