Research in the Creative and Media Arts

Auteur

Desmond Bell is a research fellow at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, where he was previously Head of Research. He has held chairs in film, photography and media studies at a number of UK universities, combining his academic work with a career as an award-winning documentary film-maker.

Texte du rabat

In Research in the Creative and Media Arts, Desmond Bell looks at contemporary art and design practice, arguing that research activity is now a vital part of the creative dynamic.

Contenu

Part I. Critical Parameters

Chapter 1. Creative arts and media research: key terms and perspectives

1. Introduction
2. Defining the key terms
3. The distinguishing characteristics of artistic research
4. The main types of artistic research

5. Modelling artistic research
   Chapter 2. The research that artists actually do

6. Introduction
7. Re-evaluating "background" research
8. Artist reflections and critical dialogues as research sources
9. The artist interview as a research tool

10. Case study: found footage film-making Chapter 3. A research turn in the visual arts?

11. Introduction
12. The dynamics of contemporary art practice
13. Conceptualism
14. Curational strategies
15. Relational aesthetics
16. Performativity
17. The practice turn in contemporary theory
18. Conclusion

Chapter 4. The spectre of science

1. Introduction
2. The methodological drive in artistic research
3. Understanding the logic of scientific discovery
4. The specificity of artistic research
5. Against method (and for art)
6. Artists and science
7. Case studies of art-science collaboration
8. Conclusion

Part II. Antecedents and Foundations

Chapter 5. The historical antecedents of artistic research: the Renaissance

1. Introduction
2. Renaissance vision
3. Leonardo, science and invention
4. Assessing the Renaissance contribution to the advancement of artistic research

Chapter 6. A science of art?: theory and practice in the modernist avant-garde

1. Introduction
2. A science of art?
3. Founding fathers (and mothers) of twentieth century artistic research
4. Theory and practice in the work of Wassily Kandinsky
5. Art as expression
6. Founding texts and axioms of modernist artistic research

7. Conclusion Chapter 7. Utopian visions and material realities: artistic research and the revolution

8. Introduction
9. Artistic research for a revolutionary moment
10. The auspices of non-objective art: from the analysis of style to language and system
11. Malevich as pedagogue: the UNOVIS experiment
12. The Constructivist challenge
13. From Suprematist painting to Constructivist imaging
14. The eclipse of the avant-garde
15. Conclusion

Part III: Interdisciplinary Dialogues

Chapter 8. Art and the sciences of man: reframing history

1. Introduction
2. Method, craft and science in history
3. Material memory: exploring a family archive (case study)
4. The artwork as historiographical intervention: interpreting the Spanish Civil War
5. Imaging the past: The Enigma of Frank Ryan (case study)
6. Contemporary art and the engagement with history: Hito Steyerl's Der Bau and Free Fall

7. Conclusion Chapter 9. Artistic research and the human sciences: staging anthropology

8. Introduction
9. An ethnographic turn in the visual arts?
10. The tarnished legacy of anthropology
11. Lens-based ethnography: documenting Dublin's docklands (case study)
12. Susan Hiller: a coming to terms with anthropological method
13. Trinh T Minh-ha: speaking nearby

14. The auto-ethnographic impulse in artistic research Chapter 10. Artistic research and critical theory

15. Introduction
16. Theory in the creative arts and media
17. Paradigms of the theory-practice relation
18. Exemplars of contemporary creative arts practice in the critical tradition
19. Conclusion: artistic research and critical theory