WOOFISM and beyond
Continuing the ‘automatic’ drawings which I have started doing in studio when waiting for software to fall over or repair itself..or machinery to work…or when I not reading up about impressionist painting and photography I do these small ‘doodles’…..
I not thinking about them just letting them fall as they might and will analyse later.
Starting to look like graphic designer’s maps:-)
I started to plan out the next phase of the ‘Research Odyssey’ and here two drawings and below the proposal sent to DRN for this year (not expecting to get accepted two years in a row) but happy that last year’s Moogee V Frayling has appeared in the proceedings for DRN 2012:-)
Link to publication here: http://www.drawing-research-network.org.uk/drn-2012-proceedings/
DRN proposal 2013
2013 A Research odyssey: The art object in search of new knowledge
Parodying both Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Rake’s Progress (Hogarth mashed up with Hockney ) the paper will be a dual submission of traditional academic paper and cartoon strip.
Following on from the previous investigation of Frayling’s categories this time the focus of the research will be the character of ‘The Art Object’ . The paper will chart the rise of the notion of ‘The Art Object’ and search for examples of the ever elusive ‘new knowledge’ which presently beckons like the ‘final frontier’ at the centre of postgraduate artistic research .
It will draw on examples of a range of contemporary theories to try and understand where this ‘knowledge’ may or may not lie and its elicitation (if found) may guide future practice and inform pedagogic delivery especially at PhD level.
Interleaving graphic techniques and traditional academic paper methodology will in itself create a trans-disciplinary enquiry. This enquiry along with an animated sequential version of the cartoon forms the basis of a current M.A. by registered project enquiry into drawing, sequential narrative, animation and the current state of research methodology.
Keywords: Art and design research, PhD, studio art, methodology, practice-led research, final frontiers, new knowledge and woolly theory.
Shaun Belcher
Nottingham Trent University
Submission type:
• Drawn / Practice-based submissions + • Theoretical, philosophical or contextual papers
Moogee in the THE 🙂
A bit of ‘raised profile’ news for my canine cartoon research character…
A ‘Moogee the Art Dog’ V Frayling’s Categories cartoon accompanies a ‘Practice as Research’ feature in this week’s Times Higher Education edition (March 7th) by Matthew Riesz article.
Moogee Cartoon and original paper it based on available here: https://shaunbelcher.com/research/?p=229
and as part of Drawing Research network Proceedings available here:
http://www.drawing-research-network.org.uk/drn-2012-proceedings/
I finally managed to get some things working in studio after the old XP laptop that I had managed to set up the larger tablet on failed. I have upgraded slightly an old toshiba laptop thrown out by work and after ripping the now dead screen off it have a serviceable digital drawing workstation at last. the new cheap Medion tablet (£3.99 from Oxfam!) actually works ok with Windows 7. I then drew a couple of digital versions of the daily ‘doodle’ that I have been doing in studio when there. Not with any great research output in mind but just to keep hand in and to start thinking about the glorious ‘art object’.
Below are these digital drawings and the comparable ‘real’ works. Interesting to work with similar materials in digital and physical space. Two are digital rest are drawn and scanned.
The strange thing is that the two ‘digital’ drawings are much free-er and less ‘digital’ than the hand drawn ones. I felt less prescribed as was trying out tablet and also trying out various brush sizes and effects whereas with pens I had a narrower range of mark-making available ironically ( a large, medium and small sharpie for those interested in such things and a biro). When using biro as thinner, scratchier implement I tried to match that in digital arena with photoshop brushes.
The other interesting thing is the process of trying out some new ‘textures’ was same in both processes. Maybe I have used digital pad enough now to feel more comfortable with it whereas before I always felt inhibited by the technology . But does any of this constitute ‘new knowledge’? I started reading Scrivener’s Hertfordshire essay on knowledge and the art object as preparation for the ‘art object’ as cartoon character series.
http://sitem.herts.ac.uk/artdes_research/papers/wpades/vol2/scrivener.html
I have about 24 hours to pull together a reasonable attempt at a PhD bursary application. No pressure there then.
For the purposes of this application I am rehearsing what may be the research ‘question’ that I would interrogate and keep coming back to the same, to me key question, of where ‘knowledge’ may be said to reside.
James Elkins in a draft of a new chapter in his second edition of ‘Artists and Phds’. Provisionally titled ‘ Fourteen ways to mistrust the PhD in studio art’ touches on this in a subsection devoted to the question of ‘knowledge’ and most pertinently for me categorises it as the following two options:
C. How is this knowledge extracted from, read into, or interpreted in, visual art?
If “artistic knowledge” is partly outside of language, then it presents a problem for assessment and what are called in the UK “learning outcomes.” The fundamental choice here has to do with how the “artistic knowledge” is imagined to be related to the art object. There are fundamentally two choices here:
(i) “Artistic knowledge” inheres in the visual object or practice, so that the object or practice is itself a form of knowledge, or
(ii) “artistic knowledge” is interpreted to exist in the object or practice, so that discourse reveals the art’s contribution to knowledge.
In a separate facebook posting he also said the following:
Is art research? Is it knowledge?
Bruce M. Mackh asked me these two questions:
1. Is “Arts Practice” research?
2. Can the products of “Arts Practice” be original contributions to knowledge?
At the moment I am revising all those posts from earlier this year, for the new edition of the book “Artists with PhDs.” So these questions were timely. He made it necessary for me to try to answer in a very succinct way. Here are my answers — any thoughts?
1. Is “Arts Practice” research?
It hasn’t been until the 20th century. It’s important to bear in mind the relatively recent development of the notion that art is research: it comes from post-war academic pedagogy, and especially the structure of UK universities, which require new fields to present themselves as being aimed at “new knowledge” by way of “research.” This isn’t to say some art practice is not research: it’s to say the great majority isn’t.
2. Can the products of “Arts Practice” be original contributions to knowledge?
If you can give me one example of art research that is comprehensible as knowledge, I’ll say yes. Until then, I’ll say that art can often be understood as if it were producing knowledge: but that “knowledge” is insight, expression, understanding, feeling, affect, constellations of objects, unexpected juxtapositions, new sensory configurations. Note that your question asks if artworks can be knowledge. The other option is that the lead to knowledge, or can be interpreted as constituting knowledge. That leads in entirely different directions.
I have posted photographs below from my father’s shed and my mother’s garden both of which became neglected as their illness progressed. Indeed they are a tacit reminder of how much their illnesses imobilised them both. In the process of clearing my family home for future sale I also had to confront another loss. The last time I had a viable painting space before gaining a new studio in 2011 in Nottingham (not counting a brief attempt to start again in 2005/6) was a garage at my parents last utilised in 1993. In it I left stored all my paintings from a ten year period in London (1979-89) and over the years at least half of the works had to be destroyed as eaten by mice (rolled canvases) and the rest on board stayed in garage. As the garage became dilapidated following my father’s death they too were affected. Finally in August this year I broke up the remaining large hardboard oils (some 8 feet by 4 feet)as a final act of closure….maybe on painting too. Here a sequence of photos showing their storage and final end. The white bycycle is my mother’s bike that I toured the downs on when completing a sequence of nearly 70 charcoal representational drawings on in 1991-2.
I today submitted a fully revised Project proposal for my M.A. R.P. (part-time) under the new Subject area of Fine Art.
This attached below in pdf format and is also available on ‘Proposal’ page above.
So now everybody including myself knows what I am doing 😉
I now know ( January 24th) that this has been accepted and I move on to the ‘Development’ phase.
I spent most of today in studio again for first time in six weeks as illness prevented me from being there. I went in today with the supervision meeting yesterday for M.A. in the back of my mind. Clarifying the subject of the M.A. as ‘Graphic Research’ has helped greatly. However my next decision is how far I pursue the Frayling argument between now and next September. In what form I investigate the ‘research question’ when defined (has to be submitted as a new proposal by 7th January) so something to work on over Xmas and finally how much of this can I move forward as interrogation of own practice leading to a possible PhD?
To that end I started looking through old art magazines in studio going back to 2001. I was looking for mentions of ‘academic research culture’ in an attempt to find out when this started affecting what artists produced and the way they worked. Without going into detail it did seem that by 2003 it was observable within magazines to a degree which it wasn’t earlier. There is a whole PhD in analysing this subject in relation to magazines and wider art practice ‘fashions’ but for now i simply cuttiing out references then analysing them as best iIcan with cartoons drawn over the top. This could develop into a range of artefacts or be a dead end but seems a useful way of directly looking at shifts in artist self-definitions and institutional advertising.
Brilliant example of informative, pointed and artistically excellent animation like RSA animations..maybe same person?
This reflects where I am now hopefully.
Online at : http://www.ntu.ac.uk/apps/staff_profiles/staff_directory/123934-0/26/profile.aspx
ACADEMIC ROLE:
Shaun currently teaches web and graphic design and research across the Multimedia B.A. and Foundation Media Creatives Courses.
He’s working by Registered Project in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University investigating art and design pedagogy through visual thinking.
CAREER:
Shaun is a published poet (‘Last Farmer’ – Salt Publishing 2010), exhibited painter, songwriter and cartoonist. He has designed record sleeves for WEA Records and Creation Records, released Americana recordings as his alter-ego ‘Trailer Star’ and his ‘Moogee the art dog cartoons’ have been featured on the web and at academic conferences.
For more info : https://shaunbelcher.com
RESEARCH:
Shaun is currently investigating Frayling’s Art and Design Categories especially the notion of ‘Art FOR Research’ in relation to new knowledge and the art object through the medium of ‘Graphic Research’ his name for using cartoon imagery as a research ‘tool’.
He is also interested in art and design pedagogy and research in the fine arts in higher education especially at MA and PhD level.
© 2024 A Dog's Guide to ART RESEARCH
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑