8 Artists and Their Research
Lecture series: Finnish and foreign artists presenting their research in the process or after finishing their doctoral demonstration of knowledge and skills/dissertation
The aim of this series is to look at the various methodological approaches that artists employ in research, with a particular focus on the relationship between production (artworks) and theory (writing, mostly). The series is coordinated by Jan Kaila, professor, Head of Department of Postgraduate Studies.
The course will continue in the spring semester (a total of 8 lectures).
Course requirements: 90% attendance = 2 study points (KuvA).
Limited participation – please sign up for each lecture to Anna Herlin, anna.herlin@kuva.fi, tel: 09 680 33 234. Should the seminar already be full, you will receive notification. In order to welcome as many students as possible, please remember to cancel in case you change your plans and will not attend the lecture.
The lectures are held at the department of postgraduate studies, FAFA. Address: Kaikukatu 4, 00530 Helsinki. Entrance from the lower courtyard.
1. Wednesday 22nd October, 2pm-4pm
Saara Cantell, doctoral student, University of Art and Design Helsinki
”Runoja valkokankaalla vai visuaalisia vitsejä? Dramaturgisia strategioita ja kerronnan keinoja lyhyessä fiktiivisessä elokuvassa ”
Tutkimuksen aiheena on lyhyt, alle viidentoista minuutin mittainen, fiktiivinen lyhytelokuva. Lähtökohtana on mm. Richard Raskinin, Eileen Elsey & Andrew Kellyn sekä Maya Derenin teksteihin ja töihin perustuva näkemys lyhytelokuvasta itsenäisenä elokuvataiteen lajina, jonka dramaturginen rakenne ja kerronnalliset keinot eivät välttämättä vastaa pidemmän elokuvadraaman puolella vakiintuneita malleja.
Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on tehdä näkyväksi ja määritellä mahdollisia lyhyelle fiktiiviselle lyhytelokuvalle ominaisia strategioita. Keskeisenä metodina tässä käytetään rinnastusta toisiin lyhyen ilmaisumuodon lajeihin; vitsin, runon ja metaforan tutkimuksen viitekehyksistä etsitään vaihtoehtoisia lähestymistapoja lyhytelokuvan hahmottamiseen.
Teoreettisen tutkimuksen lisäksi väitösteos sisältää painoarvoltaan yhtä suuren taiteellisen osan, joka koostuu neljästä tutkimusprosessin aikana ohjatusta lyhyestä lyhytelokuvasta. Näiden lyhytelokuvien kautta tutkimuskysymystä ja hypoteeseja haastetaan käytännön tasolla.
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“Poetry on screen or visualized jokes? Dramaturgical strategies and means of story telling in short fiction film”
The subject of this research is short (fifteen minutes or less) fiction film. Based on the ideas of e.g. Richard Raskin, Eileen Elsey & Andrew Kelly and Maya Deren, the short film is taken as a cinematic art form of its own right, which does not necessarily use the means of storytelling established in feature films.
The aim is to define and bring up possible ways of dramaturgy, characteristic of short film. This is done by using theories on other forms of short aesthetics as frames of reference. By searching meaningful structural parallels between short film and joke, lyric or metaphor, alternative ways of approaching the short film are being proposed and discussed.
The thesis as a whole will be based on a theoretical and an artistic part, both of equal importance. The practice-based study consists of four short films directed during the research process. Through them the research questions and hypothesis are challenged on the experiential level.
2. Tuesday 18th November, 10am-12pm
Tarja Pitkänen-Walter, DFA, professor, Finnish Academy of Fine Arts
Pioneerin taiteellisen tutkimuksen (KuT) haasteita – maalauksen aistisuus
Challenges of pioneering artistic research (DFA) – the sensuous materiality of painting
“The nature of painting, operating as it does with counterpoints and challenging the discursive world view, crystallizes in a paradox: painting means the breaking of an earlier and already known mental image. Painting manifests as a possibility and a space for observing the interaction of man and the world, within the reshaping of mental images and subjectivity. An event that does not allow the forgetting of the ‘Other’. Meaning in painting compares with the ‘line of flight’ state, described by Deleuze and Guattari, in which different ways of perceiving reality are stitched together.
In the first exhibition included in my doctoral research, I considered prerequisites for the early development of subjectivity, the formation of subjectivity and the processes of questioning subjectivity. Expressions of emptiness are repeated in many of the works. Another exhibition in 2001 explored the relations of amodal perception and abstract art. The exhibition at Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki in 2003, started with an ‘I have nothing to say’, experience. I mainly worked, guided by unconscious intentions and random events in the surrounding world, through dialogue with the material, without forgetting the context of painting.”
3. Wednesday 17th December, 1:30pm-4pm
Lea Kantonen, PhD (University of Art and Design)
”Dialoginen taide yhteistyössä alkuperäiskansojen nuorten kanssa”
(‘Dialogical Art in Collaboration with the Youth of Indigenous Communities’)
”Väitöstyöni keskeisin aineisto on syntynyt Suomen Lapissa, Viron Setumaalla ja
Meksikon alkuperäiskansojen kylissä yhdessä Pekka Kantosen kanssa toteutetuissa yhteisöllisissä taideprojekteissa. Tutkimustieto on tuotettu yhdessä
tiedonhaltijoiden kanssa keskustelemalla ja taidetta tekemällä.
Käsittelen luennossani keskusteluun perustuvan taiteen ja tutkimuksen menetelmiä. Dialogisessa tutkimusprosessissa tiedon hankintaa, sen analysointia ja esitykseksi rakentamista ei voi kokonaan erottaa toisistaan, sillä analyysi etenee kehämäisesti palautuen yhä uudelleen keskusteluihin tiedonhaltijoiden kanssa. Koloniaalisen historian aikana kansojen ja kieliryhmien välille on rakentunut valtasuhteita, joihin taiteilija-tutkija omalla työskentelyllään osallistuu. Tutkijan ja tutkittavien suhteeseen syntyy katkoksia, epäselvyyksiä ja hiljaisuuksia, joita ironinen huumori voi hetkittäin ylittää. Näytän osana luentoani kolmen saamelais-suomalaisen tytön työpajassamme tekemän videon “Kahdet kasvot”, jonka sisältämän huumorin analysoiminen on edellyttänyt minulta useita keskusteluja tyttöjen kanssa sekä jälkikoloniaaliin saamentutkimukseen perehtymistä.”
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“My artistic work is positioned in a tradition that has been compared with ethnographic research. Together with my family I have been spending time in small villages, most often in indigenous communities, conducting art workshops for children and young people. The results of these collaborations have been presented in art exhibitions in schools, community centers and art museums and have been examined and analyzed in my dissertation Teltta. Kohtaamisia nuorten työpajoissa (2005).
I have strived to apply dialogical methods to every phase of the collaboration: collaborative process, interpretation, writing, artistic presentation and representation. Listening to young peoples’ knowledge has been an impulse to start new circles of collaborative work and interpretation. As my husband Pekka Kantonen and I have tried to engage in dialogue with indigenous young people, we
have noticed that various forms of power relationships between different groups of young people and between the young people and ourselves have strongly influenced these dialogues. On the other hand, the dialogue constructs and rearranges authority and power. Instead of assuming renunciation from power and expertise, I would rather like to consider, how the expertise of different collaborators can be joined in meaningful artistic exchange.”
KUVA POST GRADUATE SEMINAR SERIES*
“CONTESTING METHODOLOGIES IN ART HISTORY & ARTISTIC RESEARCH”
Moderated by Ray Langenbach, Professor, Post Graduate Studies, KUVA (ray.langenbach@kuva.fi).
The linguistic and cultural ‘turn’ in critical theory marked by the emergence of discourses of power knowledge, gender, post-colonialism, performance, cognition, artificial intelligence and new-media in recent decades has expanded the discipline of Art History. This discursive shift raises questions about which methodologies to deploy when researching one’s own artworks or those of other artists.
These three seminars (followed by another two in early 2009) will take the form of moderated round-table discussions focusing on the art works and research projects of the participants in the Post-Graduate Department (students and professors), and will focus on the question of methodology or ‘procedure’ in ‘analysing’, ‘reading’ or ‘interpreting’ of art works.
General reading for the series. All the books are in library, Pulkkinen’s book is available in English and Finnish:
D’Alleva, Anne, 2005, Methods & Theories of Art History, Laurence King Publishing
(A good introductory survey of art historical methodologies)
D’Alleva, Anne, 2006, How to Write Art History, Laurence King Publishing
(A follow-up, “how to do” book on choosing and developing a methodology and putting it into words. )
Pulkkinen, Tuija, 2000, The Postmodern and Political Agency, Jyvaskyla, SoPhi
(An excellent introduction to the main concepts of modernity, post-modernity, structuralism and post-structuralism, and Feminist studies in relation to Finland nationalism.)
I. Thursday 23 October.10.00-12.30: “The Odor of Order”: Introduction To the Series
1st Discussion Point: Ray Langenbach – Recent unsustainable conversations
Specific Readings (English versions of the articles will be available at the September Seminar. Foucault may also be available in Finnish):
* Foucault, Michel, 1966/89, Ch.1. “Las Meninas”, in The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, Routledge, NY & London.
(A short essay on Velasquez’ painting (or is it a mirror?), a synecdoche for what Foucault calls the Classical convention of representation. He uses this discussion of the painting to introduce his extended discourse on knowledge, categorization, and epistemology in European culture.)
The following two articles focusing on Asian art works of three Asian artists from Taiwan and Singapore will be discussed.
* Ray Langenbach, 2007, “Moving Pictures: The Persistence of Locomotion”, Performance Research 12 (2), Taylor & Francis.
(A discussion of movement and time, film and the momentary event in performances by Amanda Heng and Hsieh Tehching. This article grew out of the KUVA seminar in 2005 organised by Pekka Niskanen and Pekka Kantonen)
* Ray Langenbach, 2008, “Lee Wen – Surfaces of the Political”, in Anthropometry Revision, Red & Grey Art Contemporary, Cheng Du, China, & SooBin Art International.
(A short catalogue essay focusing on the body of the artist, deformity and physical disability, the politics of the gaze and performance hermeneutics.)
II. Thursday 20 November at Kaikukatu 13.30 – 16.00: Topic To Be Announced
Specific Reading
* Derrida, Jacques, Ch. 4. “Restitutions: The Truth in Pointing”, in The Truth in Painting, Tr. Geoff Bennington and Iam McLeod, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press. It is a long chapter. Discussion will focus on pp. 255-295
Or, the abridged version of this article is available in Kamuf, Peggy, The Derrida Reader, Between The Blinds, New York, Columbia University Press, Chapter 13. pp.279 – 309
(In the first 30 pages of this delightful essay concerning conflicting readings of a painting by Van Gogh you can get a clear sense of Derrida’s use of deconstructive ‘procedures’, which ‘stroke against the fur’ of the conventional art historical and philosophical contestations put into play by Meyer Schapiro and Martin Heidegger. The abridged version gives an adequate sense of the scope of the essay.)
III. Tuesday 16 December 13.30-16.00: Topic to be announced
* The seminar series is open to all who are interested. Its focus is on the artistic research and writings of students and staff in the KUVA post-graduate department.