Practice-based Methodology Research Articles

The Empreinte in Sculpture and Printmaking


 My personal experiences of living and working in Australia as an artist and immigrant from South Africa have made me aware of the importance of memories. The methodologies I apply in my art practice support the idea of lost or faded memories. Some memories are glimpses, faded and fractured, while others stretch out and become thin and complex like silkworm threads. 
 
 
 Georges Didi-Huberman's empreinte almost acts like a trace or imprint. It is omnipresent, leaving dents and marks on surfaces and objects from the beginning of time. The empreinte finds its origins through contact and movement, impacting the natural transference of shape or form from one plain or surface to the next as an operational chain that forms part of our visual experience. In relation to the empreinte, I will argue that there are parallels between my sculptural work Selfportret ||Self-portrait (Suspense) and that of printmaking. 
 
 
 The mould and the press function as storage for memories; it reflects the artist’s past actions, feelings, and thoughts from the negative shape into a positive empreinte. Forms and surface textures exist as empreintes on the surface of the mould or substrate. The empreinte always requires contact. 
 
 
 I utilise the empreinte throughout my sculptural practice as a tool to signify the fading of memory. The notion of vague memories and the empreinte supports my practice-based methodology of exploring form and visual imagery through various mediums. When I place a medium into a mould, I need to visualise how the positive cast will appear once de-moulded. This inverted or upside-down thinking is akin to that used for printmaking. This paper will investigate the close interrelationship between my sculptural practice and printmaking. 

Validation of a Manual Methodology for Measuring Roundness and Cylindricity Tolerances

This paper describes a practice-based methodology applied to roundness and cylindricity concepts. Traditionally, technicians encounter difficulties in understanding this topic, especially when they analyze the tolerances involved due to the complexity of their graphic interpretation. Additionally, it is mandatory for industrial engineers to acquire competencies that allow them to validate form and make decisions in this field. With the goal of enhancing the handling of measurement techniques involved in this topic and analyzing the results obtained, a methodology has been designed to address the roundness and cylindricity tolerance evaluation from different perspectives. Firstly, based on a conceptual analysis, an analytical procedure is introduced. Secondly, an engaging manual practice is implemented by using simple measuring instruments that allow the user to be involved in the development of the procedure applied. The conditions that tried to optimize the manual procedure to get good results were analyzed. Moreover, the results obtained under this perspective allow us to ensure that better skills can be acquired regarding the typical method based on the coordinate measuring machines. This experience has been validated based on the practice with ongoing users under a training period.

Introduction: ‘Baldewins Straunge Faschions’

ABSTRACT This introduction gives a brief overview of William Baldwin’s life and work, locating him in the context of mid-Tudor London and particularly describing the effects of religious upheaval on the publishing world in which he was immersed. We situate his novel, Beware the Cat (c. 1552), in the history of prose fiction in English before describing the theatrical adaptation of the text that generated the research behind this special edition. Finally, we consider the practice-based methodology that informs the project as a whole, before summarising the contributions that follow.

Just Do It! Exploring the musician's (use of) bodily performance

In the 21st century an increasing number of composers and performers include elements in their work that activate the musicians’ voice and body in ways not related to playing an instrument. The musician’s moving, dancing, touching, speaking, singing, shouting, grimacing, sounding body opens an novel and still expanding palette of expression – but its use also requires new skills that are currently not an explicit part of higher musical education or standard musical performance practice. Just Do It! is an artistic research project that seeks to explore the possibilities of bodily performance in an expanded field of music and to detect, define and describe some of the skills and knowledge needed to realize them. The project’s practice-based methodology is rooted in the creation of five new solo pieces for accordion and body and a concerto for ensemble and accordionist written by James Black, Marcela Lucatelli, Philip Venables/Ted Hufmann, Jennifer Walshe, Louise Alenius and Andreas Borregaard.

DEFAMILIARIZATION IN GLASS

This article aims to focus on the versatile material of glass and to explore the unique potential of glassblowing techniques for creating organic and transient glass forms for site-specific installations. The objective is to transform something mundane into something new and unexpected and deepen our appreciation for the natural world. Through defamiliarizing glass, this article explores its qualities and properties, examining the way light interacts with it, how it reflects and refracts, and the innumerable ways it can be moulded and shaped. Site-specific installations will invite the viewer to engage with the art in a specific context, creating a deeper connection between the artwork and its environment. The scope of this article is to push the boundaries of the traditional use of glass, and to explore new ways of creating and experiencing art through defamiliarization. Ultimately, this research aims to inspire a greater appreciation for the world around us and encourage viewers to see the beauty in the ordinary. The construction stages and resulting site-specific installations were recorded by photography, and the figure section provides visual representations of these documented stages. This research employs a qualitative approach, including a review of relevant literature, and will primarily utilize an experimental, practice-based methodology.

LIVING WITH IMAGES FROM LARGE-SCALE DATA SETS: A CRITICAL PEDAGOGY FOR SCALING DOWN

The emergence of contemporary computer vision coincides with the growth and dissemination of large-scale image data sets. The grandeur of such image collections has raised fascination and concern. This article critically interrogates the assumption of scale in computer vision by asking: What can be gained by scaling down and living with images from large-scale data sets? We present results from a practice-based methodology: an ongoing exchange of individual images from data sets with selected participants. The results of this empirical inquiry help to consider how a durational engagement with such images elicits profound and variously situated meanings beyond the apparent visual content used by algorithms. We adopt the lens of critical pedagogy to untangle the role of data sets in teaching and learning, thus raising two discussion points: First, regarding how the focus on scale ignores the complexity and situatedness of images, and what it would mean for algorithms to embed more reflexive ways of seeing; Second, concerning how scaling down may support a critical literacy around data sets, raising critical consciousness around computer vision. To support the dissemination of this practice and the critical development of algorithms, we have produced a teaching plan and a tool for classroom use.

In praise of orthographic projections: Cinematic plans, history and application

This article offers insights for architectural and design educators that teach emerging cinematic and filmmaking practices. Due to its interdisciplinary nature and its practice-based methodology, this article presents the research, pedagogy and practice for educators in the field of architecture and spatial design as well as other creative disciplines such as film, animation and digital media. The argument is substantiated by empirical observations and qualitative analysis of student filmmaking projects and first-hand experiments in a design studio environment. Direct observations made from experiments in a design studio environment in which more than 50 students were trained and numerous internationally awarded architectural films and animations were produced. The research outcomes illustrate how traditional orthographic drawing techniques can operate as highly useful instruments in the process of designing narrative pieces of digital media, animation and film about architectural projects. The pedagogical approach has the potential to have implications on the discourse, practice and pedagogy of the emerging common ground between architecture, spatial design principles, digital media and filmmaking.

Sound-space: a listener’s creative outcome through an acousmatic performance at the Spatial Sound Institute

ABSTRACT This research focuses on the invisible space built by sound as subject of study, developing through a practice-based methodology a creative process during a residency period in the Spatial Sound Institute (SSI), mainly to investigate the sound features of non-existing architectures. The process ended with a performance that invited listeners to experience a deeper awareness of perception for reaching spaces that exceed the limits of physical possibilities. In this sense, active listening becomes fundamental, not only for forming a personal interpretation of this expanded reality, but for creating sound-spaces from a performative experience.

Encouraging and assessing preschool children’s musical creativity

ABSTRACT Although recognising multiple creativities as an interdisciplinary and contemporary approach to creativity represents the basic opportunity for future change, the assessment of children’s musical creativity is a problematic and insufficiently explored area. The paper discusses the problem of encouraging and assessing the creative musical potential of preschool children using the adopted Measures of Creativity in Sound and Music – MCSM. Considering the inappropriateness of assessing children’s creative musical potential with numerical indicators, the research was focused on the method of participatory observation of fluency and imagination in making sounds and music. The research included 25 children aged 5–6 years in a preschool setting within an ethnographic practice-based methodology. The reactions of children to activities were varied but each child reacted to some of the conducted activities. In addition to the confirmed giftedness of one girl, the musical potential and musical giftedness of one boy were discovered, which was further confirmed by the state of flow during the activities. It was concluded that well-designed and stimulating musical activities can encourage children’s musical creativity and contribute to the recognition of their musical potential and giftedness.

Art as a Future-Generating Machine: Rheinberger’s Experimentalism in Practice-Based Arts Methodologies

Abstract This article explores the potential syntheses between practice-based arts research methodologies and historian of science Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s framing of the scientific “experiment.” Rheinberger offers the experiment as a “future-generating machine” resulting from material discursive processes enacted as “repetition with difference.” This framing of epistemological development has applications in practice-based methodologies through their simultaneous execution of action and reflection, as well as the importance of “surprise” in experimental practice.

A Practice-based Methodology on Conducting a Collaborative Scoping Review with PRISMA-ScR Model for the Separated Refugee Youth Project

Considering the novelty of the area of a 2-year study on impact of family loss and separation on refugee youth in Toronto, the research team decided to conduct a scoping review of the existing literature as a foundation document that included the extent, range, geography, and nature of research on the topic of interest.
 A collaborative co-design approach for this review bought in wisdom from relevant stakeholders. Arksey and O’Malley’s framework was modified for this scoping review that substantively identified the extent and magnitude of past research, research gaps, and best practice models for conducting such exploratory research on novel ideas. This framework yielded desired output, such as selection and characteristics of sources of evidence, critical appraisal within sources of evidence, and synthesis of results for the next steps of the research. Prudent researchers and professionals in this area of research, service provider agencies, and a university librarian were consulted. The PRISMA-ScR model saved time and ensured the appropriate yield of the search items. The quality of the review process was evaluated by the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) Qualitative Studies Checklist tool.
 This article displays a practical example of how the scoping review process was instrumental in a community-based research project with separated refugee youth to generate the foundational evidence for broader research. This quality-embedded process of collecting and charting data for a scoping review is transferable to similar research initiatives. The flexibility and reproducibility of this review method are commendable.

Recycling Destroyed Cities: Ruined Archives in Copy Art

This essay adopts a practice-based methodology to examine works that use copy machine as a tool of archiveology. Case studies are two of my animated films, collectively titled Recycled Series (2016-2017), and other examples of copy art, in which a series of (original and archival) images/films are degenerated with a black-and-white copy machine. I frame the degenerated images in these works as ruined images – anarchives that copy machines can produce for sensory experiences. I place these works in the context of archiveology (Russell 2018) to highlight two aspects in the ruined images: first, how the use of degeneration techniques in archiveology engenders urban imaginary; second, how archiveology as a mode of media art challenges the norms of authenticity and media specificity and unfolds the agency of recycling tools such as copiers. Using a copy machine to recycle film images, archiveology couples the practices of storytelling with the (re)discovery of the technologies of archives.

Australian Indigenous sensory knowledge systems in creative practices

The process of making is transmitting knowledge through an act of doing. Perceiving the body as a multisensory being pushes Australian Aboriginal artistic encounters that challenge other ways of thinking and doing. This article explores the nexus between Indigenous knowledge and creative practice as an embodied theoretical framework based on the human senses that may assist artists in deconstructing their current conventical thinking and broaden their interaction by deeply connecting with self and the environment. This article aims to highlight Indigenous practice-based methodologies that can inform the artist to practice research and teaching resources. Examining Indigenous creative knowledge systems can enable artists to experience not only an acquisition of content of Indigenous practices but develop a unique methodological Indigenous approach to how our senses offer a valuable contribution to the making experience.

Movement as Matter: A Practice-Based Inquiry into the Substance of Dancing

AbstractThis article approaches dance through the lens of new materialist theories (speculative realism, object-oriented ontology, thing theory, posthumanism, etc.), considering the possibility that objecthood need not align with inertness and movement need not be excluded from the realm of the substantive. Deploying a practice-based methodology informed by participation in works by Simone Forti and Maria Hassabi, as well her own movement investigation, the author considers theoretical positions that counter the persistent association of dance with ephemerality while also broadly questioning the relationship between dance and theory.

The Robot is Present: Creative Approaches for Artistic Expression With Robots.

There is growing interest in developing creative applications for robots, specifically robots that provide entertainment, companionship, or motivation. Identifying the hallmarks of human creativity and discerning how these processes might be replicated or assisted by robots remain open questions. Transdisciplinary collaborations between artists and engineers can offer insights into how robots might foster creativity for human artists and open up new pathways for designing interactive systems. This paper presents an exploratory research project centered on drawing with robots. Using an arts-led, practice-based methodology, we developed custom hardware and software tools to support collaborative drawing with an industrial robot. A team of artists and engineers collaborated over a 6-month period to investigate the creative potential of collaborative drawing with a robot. The exploratory project focused on identifying creative and collaborative processes in the visual arts, and later on developing tools and features that would allow robots to participate meaningfully in these processes. The outcomes include a custom interface for controlling and programming robot motion (EMCAR) and custom tools for replicating experimental techniques used in visual art. We report on the artistic and technical outcomes and identify key features of process-led (as opposed to outcome-led) approaches for designing collaborative and creative systems. We also consider the value of embodied and tangible interaction for artists working collaboratively with computational systems. Transdisciplinary research can help researchers uncover new approaches for designing interfaces for interacting with machines.

Start Here

This article attempts to lend an ear to the compact audio cassette: a key feature of the domestic soundscape from its introduction in the early 1960s until its gradual obsolescence in the first decades of the 21st century. The piece aims to provide a new perspective on the cassette by way of a discussion of the Start Here tapes project: a series of seven artist audio cassette tapes released in 2016 and 2017. Applying a practice-based methodology to a study of objects that are intimate and well known, the project seeks to foreground the material agency of the cassette by making work that reflexively references material objecthood. The article examines what is at stake politically in this focus on materiality, and considers the way creative forms of reflexivity might have renewed ethical and political value within a ecopolitical or biopolitical context.

Conceptual Designs for Sustainable Aesthetics: creative chess sets where form follows meaning

The paper presents conceptual designs that explore the notion of ‘sustainable aesthetics'. To encourage reflective practice through form and process, and guided by sustainable principles, a practice-based (thinking-and-doing) methodology was followed by Brazilian undergraduate design students. Beginning with a theoretical overview of the historical aesthetics of chess sets (premodern, modern and contemporary) the experimental findings show different approaches to thematic chess set designs that are guided by meaning-laden cultural considerations and developed using local, natural materials or reused (disposed) industrial materials. This is the first experiment of a project that represents a creative attempt to explore and develop an aesthetic for material culture through what we have termed a 'sustainable aesthetic function'. It demonstrates how objects with the same function can be expressed in very different ways whilst all adhering to the notion of "form follows meaning'.

COVID-19 Pandemic: Innovative Digital Tool Using Progressive Muscle Relaxation to Promote Mental Health Among Frontline Healthcare Workers

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused adverse social, economic, physical and psychological repercussions to mankind. Global healthcare systems are pushed to breaking points. Lockdowns and movement control orders imposed by the Malaysian government and many other nations on its citizens have necessitated home-based solutions to manage rising stress and anxiety due to personal, professional, financial and work-related uncertainties. Frontline healthcare workers bear the brunt of the crisis. This study responds to mental issues caused by the virulent pandemic and recognizes the increasing need for psychosocial rehabilitation among healthcare workers. It aims to create an effective, on-demand, mobile and pleasurable tool based on original music and progressive relaxation techniques that empower users to foster mental health and wellness. A combination of practice-based and user-centred design methodologies was adopted in this interdisciplinary study. Spectral analysis using Raven-Pro sound analysis offers insights into the sonic content of the tool. The result of the study is a prototype model of an innovative digital tool crafted and narrated in the English Language and Malay Language using Bespoke Music and Narration to promote mental health among COVID-19 frontline healthcare workers.

Field works: wild experiments for performance research

ABSTRACT This article reflects on a series of wild experiments in literal field sites. It develops a practice-based methodology that aims to identify, perform and assert wild presences and unruly processes, playfully engaging with vibrant and dynamic ecologies. To explore these concerns ‘in the field’, a series of research trips were undertaken in the United Kingdom between 2017 and 2020, including repeated visits to Knepp Wildland Project in West Sussex and Bamff Estate in Perthshire. These locations were chosen due to their engagement with rewilding as an experimental mode of ecosystem management. Rewilding is explored here as a process-driven approach to conservation that offers a potential model for transdisciplinary artistic research. Adopting and adapting its methods through a combination of place writing, collaborative performance making and site-specific art, a creative practice is developed that prompts collaborative ways of working in response to the ecologies, conceptualisations and performances of these field sites. Aiming to bring something back from the field into the academy, the article argues for a (re)wilding of disciplinary knowledge exchange. It concludes with a call for wild epistemology, proposing that research in specific field sites can be informed by an artistic practice that is entangled, unsettling and continually practiced.

Bespoke Music - Narration for Mental Health Using Progressive Muscle Relaxation in COVID-19 Times

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the global landscape of life leaving indelible vicissitudes wherever it strikes. The World Health Organisation reported over 48 million cases of infections and 1.2 million deaths in less than eight months since the outbreak was declared a pandemic in March 2020. Repeated national and regional lockdowns, job losses, isolation, marginalisation, deteriorating health conditions and a sense of uncertainty and helplessness among wide facets of societies have exerted unprecedented economic and psychosocial damage. Its toll on mental health is recognized as one of the major challenges affecting global communities. Innovative healthcare services are much needed. This study aimed to promote mental health by creating and using electroaccoustic music and pulse-based narration of instructional scripts premised on muscle relaxation techniques. An interdisciplinary practice-based methodology was adopted whereby a novel conceptual framework was designed and applied. The outcome of the study was the creation of Bespoke Music and Narration for Mental Health available both in the English Language and Malay Language. Positive feedback was reported from an experiential session by twenty-nine healthcare workers to gauge the clarity of the instructions and the effectiveness of the music with pulse-based narration in promoting relaxation.