Practice-based PhD Research Research Articles

Adventure: Biopolymer Aesthetics and Empathetic Materialism—Another World is Possible

This paper discusses affective methodologies within a practice-based PhD research project using plant-based and bacterial biopolymers (bioplastics) for painting, site- responsive intervention, and collaborative video. Biopolymers have long material histories with a range of material qualities and affects that inform adventurous working methods. These methods and associated affects could be said to produce a biopolymer aesthetics and an empathetic materialism forms of onto-aesthetics involving what Elizabeth Grosz (2017) and Félix Guattari (2000) respectively term an onto-ethics and an ethico-aesthetics. In this paper, new materialisms are used to understand the pedagogical qualities of worlding through the artworks of the author, where biopolymer aesthetics generate adventure and bewilderment—aligning withJack Halberstam’s (2020) idea of an aesthetics of bewilderment.

Flickering Souls Set Alight

The short film Flickering Souls Set Alight (2019) is the final outcome of my practice-based PhD research in the University of Central Lancashire entitled: “Reshaping Contemporary Greek Cinema Through a Re-evaluation of the Historical and Political Perspective of Theo Angelopoulos's Work”. Examining and reshaping our knowledge around the historical and political aspects and techniques of Theo Angelopoulos's work can give us a better understanding in the way that we can use these tools in contemporary Greek cinema. Flickering Souls Set Alight (2019) is the example of this new wave of political Greek cinema that I suggest.

Portable Projections: Analyzing Cocreated Site-Specific Video Walks

The author discusses key findings of a series of video walks developed as part of her practice-based PhD research (2011–2014). Four video walks were produced for handheld projectors and tested in four different public spaces. The first video walks ( The Surface Inside, 2011; I-Walk, 2012) were guided, and only one handheld projector was available. The latter ( Walk-itch, 2013; (wh)ere land, 2014) were created for multiple handheld projectors, offering participants a cocreative role. Onsite observations revealed a shift in participant engagement between earlier and later video walks. A threefold method for analyzing audiovisual documentation also emerged during the research.

Graphic Swim: 2D and 3D Printing in Glass Casting

This document is a report on developing processes to encourage flow of the graphic image in kilnformed glass. It is also a description and reflection on a body of artworks in glass in which new visual qualities were exposed through a mishap and turned into an aesthetic choice. The research links 2D print approaches to 3D printing and their integration in cast glass. It updates the author’s practice-based PhD research, a study that utilizes glass printing, cutting and fusing processes to combine the printed image within the glass object. The outcomes of the study can be organized under two approaches that have been developed, one appropriate to practical workshop teaching, and the other for the conceptualization and fabrication of new personal artworks.

Towards an ‘ever more wordly sensitive interface’: the affective turn and site-based and participatory performance training – a practice-led perspective

This article discusses the use of affect theory in thinking through non-verbal and non-human participation within site-based directing performances and reflects on the possibilities offered by the affective turn in performer training for these forms. It describes three ‘affective dramaturgies’ developed in the author’s practice-based PhD research, linking them to their theoretical underpinning, and proposing ways that each approach is of value in continuing training for site-based performance and other forms, from immersive to intimate theatres and beyond. It discusses affect theory drawn from Spinoza’s radical notion of bodies, Nigel Thrift’s perspective from cultural geography in which the combined spatial and biological emphasis of affective thinking are foregrounded, and anthropologist Kathleen Stewart’s writings on ‘affective attunements’. The use of affect theory to develop conscious recognition of porousness between one another and things offers students of performance what Gregg and Seigworth term: ‘a pedagogic nudge aimed toward a body's becoming an ever more worldly sensitive interface, towards a style of being present to the struggles of our time’ (p12). The article makes reference to two site-based processes within the author’s PhD, discussing moments from rehearsal and from performance of She Wrote Massacre When She Meant Revolution (2014), and A Testimony and a Silence (2014).

Absences within and surrounding light-to-sound translations

Within the material-immaterial dichotomy structuring the creation of media artworks and its inherent informational aesthetic, one may observe fractures or continuities. Considering media artworks through the notion of translation of materialities, the aim of this paper is to analyse some of the multiple roles that absence play within and surround this sort of aesthetic experimentation. The discussion is unfolded through the articulation of Vilem Flusser’s media theory – namely considering the zero-dimensionality of electronic and digital media and the concept of Mediumsprunge. These concepts are exemplified through historical and contemporary media devices and artworks technically based on light-to-sound translations. The discussed examples were partially selected from references and methodological tools used in a cross-disciplinary practice-based PhD research on photosensitivity in relation to media history and media art history conducted between 2014 and 2018. The methodology combines a historical and analytical approach, through new materialism, media archaeology, cultural techniques and second-order cybernetics. The significance of the discussion is exposing both the artistic freedom (or emancipation) and the arbitrariness (and responsibility) implied in bridging the gaps involved in media artworks.

Writing life narratives through art practice

ABSTRACTThis article shares some of my doctoral experiences in a practice-based PhD research in arts developed at the Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London. It locates art practice within the academic research realm and contributes to researchers working on autobiographical studies and practice-based research methods. By offering an overview on my research topic focusing on the relationship between language and place in the life of Brazilian women living in London, I reflect on the relevance of “not-knowing” as a fruitful space for researching autobiographical and situated life narratives through art practice. The article concludes that qualitative methods are relevant for building passages from the individual to the collective sphere of an art practice developed within geographical displacement and in the context of academic research.

As the World Leaks into the Work: Composition and architecture

This article proposes a framework as a contribution to the expansion of compositional practice. It analyses and problematises different dimensions of architectural thinking and practice, and transposes them to the field of music. This way it suggests and develops compositional strategies that are more deeply engaged with the several spatialities of music creation, performance and listening.Material,site,drawing,programmeanduseoperate as conceptual tools to articulate music and architecture in a discussion towards a more comprehensive understanding of music composition. This was the theoretical ground of a practice-based PhD research in which I developed a portfolio of works. I will describe some of these to contextualise and demonstrate the contemporary relevance of this framework.

Drawing and emerging research: The acquisition of experiential knowledge through drawing as a methodological strategy

The paper proposes the activity of drawing as a methodological strategy within a university research context. It is illustrated with examples from one of the authors’ (Roberts) practice-based PhD research. The paper argues that drawing as a research method can be validated in a manner akin to the more established research methods associated with the range of research paradigms outlined in Denzin and Lincoln’s Handbook of Qualitative Research. It is proposed that visual research methods are unique in their ability to produce experiential knowledge that can be shared through visual media but not easily articulated through language. The paper then argues that drawing’s contribution as a visual research strategy has a more holistic and far-reaching potential within the university than other qualitative and quantitative research methods. In addition, visual research outputs operate as components of findings and conclusive evidence in the form of experiential knowledge that can enrich and extend language-based cognitive knowledge.

‘Liveness’ and ‘presence’ in bio-networked mobile media performance practices: emerging perspectives

If you could share and exchange your dream imagery, feelings and sensations with your friends and loved ones, how would you do it? If could not only share and exchange, but remix and collage them, what would it look like or feel like? How would it work? Explored through the new media performance project, MindTouch, uses biofeedback sensors and mobile media phones in live, staged events. MindTouch is a BBC R+D sponsored PHD research, to connect people remotely through the mobile phone, allowing them to re-engage with each other and with the world, affectively and expressively in new creative, non-verbal/nontextual ways through mobile video performance events. The aim of this article is to discuss current practice-based PhD research underway at the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute's UK base at the University of East London, under the direction of Professor Lizbeth Goodman. The MindTouch project involves the pursuit of a better understanding and facilitation of the individual's mode of expression in relation to the collective experiences of liveness and presence, as observable and ‘capturable’ within the virtual ‘space’ of a live mobile performance event. This article reflects on meta-concepts of this research and on past video collection workshops completed in the first phase of the project, including observations from these workshops, and the on-going practice, development and technical issues involved. It discusses practical processes and concerns (such as methods for encouraging people to connect remotely, that are allowed to reengage each other and the world affectively using the mobile phone), both in and through participants’ bodies, and through a range of expressive, creative, non-verbal/non-textual means, through networked performance activities.

The Digital Thesis: Recent Developments in Practice-Based PhD Research in Art & Design

This paper describes the recent developments in the use of digital media in the research process. It concentrates on the use of these media in practice-based PhD research in Art & Design, drawing on the experience gained at the Centre for Research in Art & Design, Gray's School of Art. The digital thesis is now a reality. The features of two examples of a digital thesis are described. The paper discusses the key considerations in developing such a document: benefits and limitations; general issues concerning planning, structure, and content; specific considerations for the design of the digital thesis, including navigation, required technology and support, different formats and development time. The paper concludes by speculating on issues for future developments.