4w Research and Postgraduate Programmes

04.

MA Fine Art: Contemporary Dialogues

MA Visual Communication: Contemporary Dialogues

MA Photography: Contemporary Dialogues

MA Textiles: Contemporary Dialogues

Research Degrees: MPhil/PhD

research & post-graduate programmes

.40

168

Jeremy Lewis

& hcraeser etaudarg-tsop semmargorp

169

01

02

Over the past ten years the research in the Faculty has considerably increased in both quality and quantity. A very high proportion of our staff are producing research work, for example conference papers, exhibitions, artefacts and designs, which has been recognised as of international importance. The 2008 Research Assessment Exercise catagorised 85% of research work in the Faculty as being of international quality in terms of originality, significance and rigour, with a number of research outputs being world-leading.

The academic advantages of postgraduate study at Swansea include our wide range of technical facilities, from the traditional to the multimodal digital. We have made a conscious decision to retain technologies such as chemical darkrooms, firing kilns for

170

glass and ceramics and an impressive line-up of printing presses. Alongside these we have the most up-to-date digital computing suites, video editing and a fully-equipped TV studio, as well as laser cutters, digital print and textile printers.

01. Hamish Gane 02. Paul Green

The School of Research and Postgraduate Studies offers a range of taught Master’s programmes and also supervised research degrees at MPhil and PhD levels.

The Faculty has eight research groups and an expanding number of research centres. The groups are Drawing, Lens-Based Research, Fine Art, Landscape, Art and Design Pedagogy, Contemporary Applied Arts, Contemporary Textiles, Memorialisation Research, and the centres are The Centre for Lens Arts and Science Interaction (CLASI); the Science – Art – Technology Network (SATnet) and the Creative Industries Research and Innovation Centre (CIRIC), which contains three European funded Projects. We have recently started an additional

research project: the International Project Centre for Research into Events and Situations (IPCRES).

The Faculty holds at least one, usually more, Symposia during the year, inviting speakers of international renown.

This high level of current expertise and involvement creates the ideal environment for post-graduate study either by taught masters or research degree, which is informed, challenging, stimulating and lively.

The research and practice of all staff in the Faculty also enriches the undergraduate courses and ensures their currency.

Research

A high proportion of staff in the School of Research and Post-

Graduate studies hold doctorates and all are highly research active.

Research & Postgraduate Studies

171

02

01

MA Portfolio Contemporary Dialogues 172

Students are taught together a lot of the time to engender dialogue between disciplines and all are encouraged to move out of their comfort zone and engage with different materials, mediums, conceptual, non-material and non-specific practices. In the spirit of experiment each student is challenged to accept a wider field of possible expression through seminars and lectures from staff and guest lecturers. One specialisation of the programme is durational and temporal practices premised on the notion of performativity, and students of all disciplines are encouraged to explore the possibilities of process led, non-spatial lines of enquiry.

02. Jonathan Powell

The MA Portfolio in Art & Design is an exciting, original and vibrant programme based around the impulse to explore and experiment. Students are encouraged to create ‘contemporary dialogues’ between the knowledge they have acquired through practice or a good first degree, and their chosen area from the list above. A photography graduate can join the course to study further photography together with other dialogues eg. durational or time-based practices. To study the photography route however, you do not need to be a photographic specialist, past students have been architects, contemporary dancers, philosophers, performance practitioners, designers and journalists, who have an interest in photography.

Each has created new dynamic forms of expression by creating a new discourse between their existing discipline and photographic expression. The same principle applies to all four pathway choices available.

01. Victoria Coyle

Fine Art, Photography, Visual Communication, Textiles.

During the First Semester, the first practical module introduces a workshop unit based on a ‘thought experiment’, in order to widen the scope of your expressive output and engender creative thinking. You will acquire a particular experiment culled from several books on experiments in the philosophy of everyday life. You may or may not enact the experiment but it is designed to lead to a process of thinking through a specific line of enquiry, supported by tutorials, seminars, supporting lectures, and detailed workbook led practice.

This could lead to a material finished work, and staff are interested to see the application of process and some resolution of the thought experiment into a coherent and articulate concept. The final results are presented/performed at a Japanese style ‘Pecha Kucha’ evening at the end of the semester. You are assessed formatively on your application of process and originality of thought. This ‘experiment’ workshop has been very successful with past students and many use the results as the basis of further work in Semester Two. Semester Two of Part 1 of the programme concentrates on allowing you to produce a process led work which begins to engage with differing media and materiality. This is self initiated work through negotiation with staff. This practical project, alongside the ongoing ‘Drivers of Creativity’ theory sessions allows you to integrate theory and practice successfully into articulate, nuanced and sophisticated expressions of your chosen field or dialogue. The spirit of experiment is still encouraged, and completing Part 1 you will be encouraged to organise and exhibit your work outside of the University, with the help of staff. This Part 1 process leads into Part 2 which is solely concerned with the creation of a major project of work to exhibition standard and supported by a report of 6-8000 words.

The programme is supported by a carefully chosen guest lecture series in order to

support the learning and teaching strategies that the courses utilise. The staff are all practicing artists and academics with six PhDs amongst those contributing to the programme. There are also sci-art (CLASI) and experimental practice led (IPCRES) research centres in the School of Research and Post-Grad Studies, which students have access to. It is also felt that the group dynamic at any given time is paramount in order to maintain an atmosphere where dialogues and discourse can be created, so that individual experimental practices can flourish and be nourished within Swansea’s vibrant Faculty of Art & Design.

“ My name is David White and I am a commercial photographer. Swansea helped me admit my addiction. Before attending SMU I was trapped in a world of prescribed rules and photographic systems. Swansea set me free. OK maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but there’s some truth to those statements.

SMU introduced me to new ways of looking at the photograph. Photography became fun again. Experimentation and collaboration was great, the diverse background of the other students was very cool.

I am now teaching photography at the largest art school in Canada and attempting to replicate the positive experience I had at Swansea”.

David White

MA Portfolio Contemporary Dialogues

173

01

vw

02

03

01. Fern Thomas 02. Jessica Hoad

MA Fine Art Contemporary Dialogues

03. Liam O’Connor

174

“ Attending Swansea is like going to a great Indie Film. It is off the beaten track and you walk away seeing everything better.

There I found an experimental petri dish of ideas, free thinking and exploration; we were aware of the pulse of the big city, great guest lectures, but felt isolated enough to play and not be judged until we were ready. I never worked so hard and happily in my life, I felt efficient and productive and had space to think while still supported by communicators who were integral conduits to my greater work�.

Edith Maybin

Much contemporary visual arts practice is concerned with a re-evaluation of the traditional forms and functions of art in society. This programme facilitates the development of your practice whether it involves drawing, painting, printmaking, lens-based and time-based media, site-specific installations, or combinations of these. You will be encouraged to relate your practice to the contemporary dialogues within visual culture which are introduced in lectures and discussed in seminars, and also encouraged to consolidate and enhance your existing skills in the manipulation of materials so that your work becomes both conceptually robust and perceptually intriguing. The programme offers the full facilities of the recently opened Dynevor Centre for Art, Design and Media.

For more information please contact artanddesign@smu.ac.uk

MA Fine BAArt (Hons) Contemporary Photography Dialogues & Video

175

02

01

“ The MA Contemporary Dialogues course provided a fascinating, intense and inspiring journey. It stimulated new enquiry into methods of working and analysis within my own Practice. I’m still continuing with work and always reflecting upon things learnt on the MA. A truly invaluable experience!”

176

The digital revolution has not only challenged most of our assumptions about photography and its social functions but has also enabled contemporary dialogues including the medium itself together with other interactive creative practices such as theatre, performance and sitespecific interventions. You will be encouraged to engage with these contemporary dialogues through lectures, seminars and your own practice, from initial concept and intention, and the choice of materials and processes, to the context of presentation of your work. The programme provides an ideal environment in which to develop your individual photographic eye and offers the full facilities of the Dynevor Centre for Art, Design and Media.

01. Tom Pope 02. Andrew Hobden

MA Photography Contemporary Dialogues

Liz McCutcheon

The difference between the Contemporary Dialogues MA in Photography here at Swansea and a straight Masters in Photography is the emphasis on the potential of the medium to create dialogues with other disciplines and also to explore some of the discourses already inherent in photography like the performative gesture. Students are invited from either photographic backgrounds or from any other relevant discipline that could provide a potential dialogue with photography.

In order to create new photographic discourses it is necessary sometimes to re-align the emphasis of the photographic process in order that it may lend itself to new configurations of possible meaning making. This may mean subverting its medium specificity and perhaps moving away from concerns with the frame and pictorialism. As well as performative practices, students also explore installation modes, durational practices, site-specificity, story telling and poetic/memory paradigms, as well as anti-representational possibilities of photography.

Of course all kinds of creative people are welcome, we just ask that they are open to challenge.

For more information please contact artanddesign@smu.ac.uk

MA Photography Contemporary Dialogues

177

01

02. Florence Parker 03. Anthea Walsh

Research of contemporary issues, textile skills development and material investigation are fundamental to your progress. Your individual practice will be developed through an engagement with critical and theoretical dialogues. You will be supported by lectures, seminars and tutorials with specialist staff and leading professionals within the field. We have an exceptional range of traditional and digital equipment and facilities, housed in spacious and purpose built workshops. Through these we encourage creative freedom and facilitate new technological advances across a broad range of the art, craft and design of textiles.

04

01. Nancy Mitchell

The course begins with multidisciplinary exchanges through seminars and lectures, involving all programmes within this portfolio, to stimulate new perspectives and challenge directions.

The cross fertilization of ideas through such dialogues will promote a rethinking of how textiles are perceived and produced.

02

Application of your ideas and knowledge, both practical and theoretical, should play a part in the future of textiles and it is expected that independent research through national and international collaborations will promote the potential of your investigation. The course culminates in a critical report and an exhibition.

MA Textiles Contemporary Dialogues

We have established a very good network of industrial links and contacts, both here and abroad. As a result we are receiving wide acclaim for our innovative work with textiles, helping us to maintain our diverse career successes.

178

For more information please contact artanddesign@smu.ac.uk

Induction workshops and facilities include: • Traditional printing, dyeing and manipulation • Digital printing • Laser cutting, etching and engraving • Water jet cutting • Traditional and digital stitch • Metal work • Construction techniques in hand and machine knitting • Needlepunching • Video • Printmaking • Adobe Illustrator • Adobe Photoshop • Dedicated AVA Textiles software

MA Textiles BA (Hons) Contemporary Photography Dialogues & Video

179

01

02 >

04

MA Visual Communication Contemporary Dialogues

01. Vilja Baiksaete 02. Karl Mountford

180

The domain of visual communication encompasses graphic design, typography, advertising, packaging, illustration and design for analogue and digital media. Contemporary dialogues between traditional print-based practices and new digital screen-based media, introduced in lectures and discussed in seminars, will facilitate the possibilities for visual communication to become more socially interactive and conceptually challenging. You will be encouraged to develop a personal style in addressing these issues and to develop your potential according to your specific aims and interests. You will also have the opportunity to engage with the contemporary issues of visual semiotics. The programme is based in the Dynevor Centre for Art, Design and Media, and offers the full facilities of the Centre.

For more information please contact artanddesign@smu.ac.uk

MA Visual Communication Contemporary Dialogues

181

02

We have a team of highly-qualified academics and practitioners with experience in supervising MPhils and PhDs to successful completions.

01. Amanda Roberts 02. Lloyd James

At Swansea, the Faculty of Art & Design offers opportunities to study for the research degrees of MPhil and PhD, both accredited by the University of Wales. Research may be undertaken through creative practice accompanied by a substantial written component, or through a written thesis.

Applicants are invited to discuss their research proposals with the Head of School in the first instance.

For more information please contact artanddesign@smu.ac.uk

01

PhD/MPhil Research Degrees

All research students are based in the School of Research & Postgraduate Studies. The School is unique in its embracing of the widest range of pedagogical and research activities, from the pre-Degree Foundation Diploma in Art & Design, through the portfolio of Masters taught degrees, and culminating in the research degrees of MPhil and PhD.

182

The School fully advocates the symbiotic relationship between research activities and pedagogical activities, and fully complies with the UK Professional Standards Framework which sets out the professional values monitored by the Higher Education Academy.

The research domain within the School is wide and varied, organised through a series of research groups: Drawing; Fine Art; Lens-based; Contemporary Applied Arts; Landscape; Pedagogy. Our team of research supervisors has expertise in all of these areas.

Recent Research Students’ Projects Brett Aggersberg Paintbrush to Pixels: A Critical Inquiry into the Developing Paradigms in the Production and Consumption of New Media Art.

Richard Monahan Drawing Conclusions: An Investigation of Discernable Influences of Drawing Practice within the Wider Field of Arts Practice.

Eva Bartussek An Exploration of the Ways that the Notion of ‘Patience’ operates within Photographic Practice.

Anna Papadopoulou Towards an Understanding of the Origins of Creativity in the Pursuit of an Inquiry into Personal Identity through Contemporary Visual Arts Practice.

John Paul Evans Trouble at the Top: The Sexual Politics of Photographing the Male Nude.

Laura Jenkins Can Photography Describe its own Event? The Photographer as Cryptographer and interpretations of enveloped practices beyond representation.

Babak Jani Cinematographeras Narrator: How Cinematography Can Produce a Field of Narrativity Capable of Conveying Philosophical Perspectives Richard Keating Landscape Aesthetics in Practice: A Critical Inquiry into the Use of Arts Practice as a Constructive Intervention within the Context of Landscape Change and Community Action.

Helen Matthews and Marilyn Allen ‘We Is Another’: Dialogue as Difference.

Alun Reynolds A Critical Analysis of the Early Photographic Albums of the Llewellyn, Vivian and Jones Families of Swansea.

Amanda Roberts A Critical Evaluation of the Relevance of the ‘Negative Feminist Critique’ for Twentyfirst Century Art Practice.

Paul Woodland Intersecting Worlds: Where Medicine, Sex and Art Meet.

We welcome proposals for research in all of the areas, from practitioners and theorists across the UK, European Union and world-wide.

Applicants would normally hold a Master’s degree or a higher Honours Batchelor’s degree in a relevant discipline.

Contact: artanddesign@smu.ac.uk

PhD/MPhil Research Degrees

183

01

Research Supervisors 184

Professor Andrea Liggins also works on issues to do with the representation of landscape, through her photographic research, and has expertise in a wide range of photographic practice.

Dr Paul Jeff pioneers the relatively new discipline of performed photography. His interests also include cultural expressions sited in the construction of events and situations, as well as durational and temporal models of post/photographic practice. He is particularly interested in the writings of Walter Benjamin and Gilles Deleuze, and his teaching practices are often experimental.

Dr Robert Newell’s practices painting and drawing landscape. This integrates with philosophical concerns regarding perspective and the development of a morphological methodology that integrates philosophical research with perceptual and material practice.

Professor Andy Penaluna’s area of expertise is in creativity in enterprise and entrepreneurship, especially within the creative industries.

Dr Hamish Gane’s practice-based PhD, awarded in 2013, is predicated on issues of photography, family and memory. His current research explores the notion of repositioning the modernist, subject-predicated concept of ‘melancholy’ within the poststructuralist realms of ‘affect’.

Dr Anne Price-Owen is an expert on the life and work of poet and artist David Jones.

She also writes extensively on contemporary artists, focusing on Wales’ women artist Professor Howard Riley publishes widely on visual semiotics and has specific interests in the relationships between visual perception and visual communication in the practice and teaching of drawing.

Dr Catrin Webster is fascinated by the construct of ‘landscape’ and deeply interested in more conceptual, abstract concerns about space and the nature of place. She structures her practice on the ‘journey form’, exploring the potentials of painting in a post digital context.

For more information please contact artanddesign@smu.ac.uk

01. Edith Maybin 02. Karen Ingham- Monarch Butterfly on Pollinator Frock

She is also Director of the Centre for LensArts and Science Interactions at Swansea.

Dr Barry Plummer is an expert in researching and compiling the catalogues and biographies of artists who have been neglected in terms of their regional and national importance.

CLASI Research Centre

Professor Karen Ingham has expertise in lens-based practice and in contemporary research which straddles art, science, philosophy and technology.

02

The Centre for Lens Arts and Science Interaction (CLASI) The Centre for Lens Arts and Science Interaction is part of the School of Research and Postgraduate Studies. CLASI works with Senior Research Associates and with PhD research students and we welcome expressions of interest from all sectors of the art, science and philosophy communities.

CLASI aims to encourage and promote interdisciplinary research projects, which stimulate research, innovation, and experimentation across all forms of lensbased, digital and electronic arts. A strong emphasis is placed on research strands where the histories, philosophies and practices of art and science intersect.

The definition of art and science is intentionally broad.

The aims and objectives of CLASI are: To foster interdisciplinary research, debate and collaboration at institutional, national and international levels; to create a praxis for the intersection of innovative practiceled research, exhibitions, and publications; to build partnerships with arts, science and educational establishments, fostering and promoting collaborations that yield rigorous, challenging and inventive outcomes.

CLASI also promotes the outputs of research investigations through symposia and publication.

To find out more about the activities, aims and objectives of CLASI contact: Dr. Karen Ingham, Professor of Art and Science Interactions

IPCRES / CLASI

185

01

01. IPCRES

Creative Industries Research and Innovation Centre (CIRIC) CIRIC was established in 2005. CIRIC has been very successful to date, supporting and developing the work of graduates from the Faculty, individual artists, designers, filmmakers and companies in the creative industries. CIRIC acts as an umbrella organisation for projects that support the creative industries in Wales. Each project is largely supported through external funding and has enabled the growth of research, knowledge transfer and staff/student engagement with companies and other organisations. The following projects are supported within CIRIC.

Advanced Communications Technology The ACT project exists to help small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) to better understand the opportunities that social media, the internet and other modern communication technologies offer. To achieve this we are running a range of fully funded events (Seminars, Workshops and Clinics) for SMEs in the Interreg areas of Ireland and Wales using a three-tier approach: ACT 1: Innovation seminars exploring new communication technologies at an introductory level.

ACT 2: Specialist workshops giving individually tailored strategies at a more advanced level.

186

IPCRES is a research centre developed by the Faculty of Art & Design at Swansea. The Centre is project based, initiating enigmatic and challenging projects at regular intervals that require a team of students from across the Faculty (sometimes the University) to bring to fruition. Students can volunteer to take part and if they wish credits can go towards the various visual studies modules depending on year of study. The centre aims

to create a sense of fun alongside serious cultural enquiry through the purposeful setting up of events and situations based around experimental art practices, both material and non-material. The Centre is run by Dr Paul Jeff and Phd candidate Laura Jenkins who ensure that the resulting ‘IPCRES Files’ are turned into international research outputs.

ACT 3: Specialist supports to prototype new products and processes.

Moving Image Wales 2 (MIW2)

CIRIC

IPCRES

International Project Centre for Research into Events and Situations.

(IPCRES)

Moving Image Wales 2 exists to support the development of new IP project proposals (TV, film and new media). It aims to attract investment into Wales and the University.

MIW2 has facilities, as well as staff and industry expertise, to assist in developing robust media proposals and R&D activities, such as the creation of Pilots/Tasters (for a future television, feature film, internet

concept, cross-platform content, etc.). In addition, MIW2 aims to forge new R&D networks and advise media companies on a range of activities and processes, such as new digital technologies, the cross-media exploitation of projects and on emerging business models that can target new revenue streams.

The Textiles Technologies Project (TTP) The Textiles Technologies Project (TTP) is provided in partnership with Coleg Sir Gâr where we encourage and facilitate the uptake of knowledge, new technologies and technical expertise within the diverse Welsh textiles sector. Our core aim is to support and facilitate the growth of this sector in Wales. The project works with the broad range of disciplines involved in the design, development and manufacture of textile related products. This sector is diverse and involves almost any kind of textile use ranging from fashion to office seating, architextiles to aircraft interiors and performance sportswear to textile based art.

CIRIC / Research Supervisors

187

Research & Postgraduate Staff Profiles 188

Professor Howard Riley Head of School, Research Facilitator and research supervisor howard.riley@smu.ac.uk

Dr Paul Jeff Coordinator of the MA Portfolio, Director of IPCRES and research supervisor paul.jeff@smu.ac.uk

Professor Karen Ingham Reader in Art & Science Interactions and research supervisor. karen.ingham@smu.ac.uk

Howard publishes widely, on topics ranging from the pedagogy of drawing and the semiotics of the visual, to generative art and multimodality. His practice of drawing is informed by these theoretical bases and he has exhibited in Australia, Malaysia, Finland and the UK.

Paul has identified a unique position within the photographic artworld and is continuing to develop new disciplines such as Performed Photography, and the ‘Performative Encounter’. He is also interested in event and situation-led practices and is researching into what might constitute a practice of photography as seen from the perspective of contemporary continental philosophy, via Deleuze, Laruelle et al.

Professor Karen Ingham has expertise in lens-based practice and in contemporary research which straddles art, science, philosophy and technology.

She is also Director of the Centre for LensArts and Science Interactions at Swansea.

Angela Maddock Programme Leader MA Textiles angela.maddock@smu.ac.uk

Professor Andy Penaluna Research Director of the Centre for Creative Entrepreneurship.

Angela’s research investigates how we enjoy space/place and how we ‘touch’, are ‘in touch’ with each other. Her practice led research at the Royal College of Art explores proximity, distance and attachment in creative practice, primarily through knit. She is also engaged in critical writing on textiles both as object and process.

Working with the Universities of Wales and New York, together with Kodak’s International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, New York, Andy’s early research looked at airbrush history and image manipulation.

He has received a number of research awards for developing creative and innovative thinking in business and is an Executive Director at Enterprise Educators UK, where he is developing international dialogues.

He now works closely with Welsh and Westminster Governments and is also an acknowledged expert at the United Nations in Geneva and the European Commission in Brussels.

Andy is also a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the American University in Cairo, Visiting Professor at the University of Leeds and an Innovation Business Fellow of the Royal College of Art.

Research & Postgraduate Staff Profiles

189

Professor Andrea Liggins Dean of Art & Design andrea.liggins@smu.ac.uk

Dr Catrin Webster Research Supervisor catrin.webster@smu.ac.uk

Dr. Robert A. Newell Programme Leader MA Fine Art robert.newell@smu.ac.uk

James Moxey Co-Director CIRIC james.moxey@smu.ac.uk

Dean of Art & Design. Andrea’s PhD, investigated the role of photography in the formation of value systems concerning the landscape. Linked photographic practice seeks to defy the authority of the view and concentrates on forgotten places, the waste-grounds; a landscape to look out from – not at. Work published in Blown, Source, Land Matters and Making Great Illustration, and recently exhibited in China and India.

Conference papers include Still Visions – Changing Lives and Barcode UK – Moving Beyond the Visible. National spokesperson for Photographic and Art/Design/Media Education to various bodies.

Catrin studied Fine Art at the Slade School as an undergraduate (1987–1991) and Painting as a postgraduate (1991–1993).

She was an Abbey Scholar in Painting at the British School in Rome (1997–1998) and has exhibited widely both in the United Kingdom and overseas, including solo exhibitions in Reykjavik and Rome. Examples of Webster’s work can be seen in both private and public collections, including the Arts Council of Great Britain Collection, Hayward Gallery, London.

Currently Rob is working on a series of paintings and drawings of rock formations and clouds: the adventures of matter in formative and destructive processes, mutations of structure and pattern, tensions between order and chaos.

James is the enabler behind much of our research funded projects. He was instrumental in setting up the Creative Industries and Research Innovation Centre (CIRIC) here at Dynevor, and he manages the many links we have with local, regional and international research partners.

190

www.catrinwebster.org

Philosophically, Rob is exploring relationships between subjectivity and natural phenomena in ways that involve aesthetics, history of science, and metaphysics. His objective is to consolidate a constellation of ideas and sources into a viable critical doctrine underpinning landscape representation and aesthetics. Currently this involves an exploration of the applicability of Immanuel Kant’s understanding of space and geometry to perspective, and thus to the concept and practice of landscape.

Other suitably-qualified members of staff from other Schools also contribute to research supervision.

Full profiles of the research staff can be found at www.smu.ac.uk

Research & Postgraduate Staff Profiles

191