Talks by Nancy de Freitas
visualising / documenting / speaking / listening / showing:
the hidden academic practice... more visualising / documenting / speaking / listening / showing:
the hidden academic practices of making & writing
Workshop series at the Swedish School of Textiles, Borås, November 2014
1) Prewriting strategies for early stage studio/research integration
This is a workshop for artists and designers starting out on a new research project. The workshop includes work on: genre & structure; re-examining the research proposition/question; honing a working abstract and envisioning the final research presentation. Planned for MA and PhD students embarking on a new research project – that is, at the start of their project.
2) Focussed forms of writing
This is a workshop for improving the relationship between text, documentation and artefact. It includes work on: planning a thesis text; Shut-up and write; freewriting and writing a good research abstract. Planned for research students who are mid-way through their studio work and research projects.
3) Artistic Research, Material Thinking and Design Conversations
Open lecture on the place of artistic research in the academy.
4) Discerning the forms of Artistic/Design Research Communication
One-hour colloquium - for researchers interested in the changing form of artistic research communication in the academy.
Globalisation has created increased complexity in relation to institutions, governments and event... more Globalisation has created increased complexity in relation to institutions, governments and events. While traditional social and cultural enclaves are increasingly vulnerable to and wary of the impact of globalised commerce, technology and human movement, some contemporary artists and designers actively seek out these sites of difference in order to explore the intricacies of aesthetic value. In universities and schools of art and design, the influence of this ever-expanding horizon of cultural and political perception is evident in the changing nature of student design and artistic work. The impact of embracing globalised perspectives is potentially positive and negative: productive and repressive. Ideas and information, transported as new knowledge through creative practices, are moving seamlessly across institutional and national boundaries. This fluidity of transfer, encouraged by open access to institutions, partnership and trans-national agreements, is further enabled by widespread use of digital media and financial support for academics and students to be mobile. While geographical mobility is encouraged and increasing, the patterns of adaptation within educational programmes and structures may not be responding as fast. This paper reflects on artistic identity and aesthetics based on personal accounts of immersive experience in educational environments. We examine the value and risks of flexible artistic identity and aesthetics and conclude by proposing a couple of key adaptive strategies for ensuring that the strengths and cultural integrity of internationalised creative practices are protected.
Conference presentation co-authored by:
Nancy de Freitas, Associate Professor, Postgraduate Studies, School of Art and Design, Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies, Auckland University of Technology.
King Tong Ho, Senior Lecturer, International Student Liaison, School of Art and Design, Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies, Auckland University of Technology.
Rosemary Martin, Lecturer, Dance Studies, Dance Studies Postgraduate Advisor, National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries, University of Auckland.
Te Oti Rakena, Associate Head of Performance, Coordinator of Vocal Studies (Classical), School of Music, National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries, University of Auckland.
Papers by Nancy de Freitas
Over the past two decades, a continuous dialogue and fruitful convergence has been taking place i... more Over the past two decades, a continuous dialogue and fruitful convergence has been taking place in academia between art and design related practices and the practice of research. While the practice of research aims at the generation of new knowledge, art and design practices predominantly aim at the creation of new artefacts. However, this does not mean that there is no knowledge involved in the making of artefacts. Rather, knowledge and understanding of one’s own creative practice are generated whilst the artefact is being formed. Such knowledge can be called ‘experiential knowledge’ or knowledge that is derived from experience and concerns ‘how things appear’ (Williams 2001, p. 189). How artefacts appear in the practices of artists/designers
that are integrated into the conduct of academic research is the focus of this special volume ‘Experience·Materiality·Articulation.’ Direct experience of artists/designers performing research in academia is key in the discussion within this special volume. The volume takes a critical look at the interactive and dynamic relationship between experience and articulation from the perspective of practicing artist-researchers who deal with materiality in their practice.
Visual Representations and Interpretations, 1999
The concept of material thinking is re-examined as a core artistic and design tool for the 21st c... more The concept of material thinking is re-examined as a core artistic and design tool for the 21st century. The analysis is focused on important changes occurring in design and art education in response to transdisciplinary reorientations appearing in the design and cultural/creative industries. Artists and designers understand that the nature of their experiments and interventions is dynamic and emergent. They are familiar with the experience of project developments that change the pattern of their thinking even before they have an insight of the point of completion or a resolved outcome. These emergent and interdisciplinary working methods open multiple pathways while subjective and interpretative ways of thinking, integral in creative processes, add further complexity and richness to the process. Moreover, the effects of new and shifting interfaces between technology, art and design are important markers in the on-going review of education programmes and partnerships. Changing featu...
Working Papers in Art and Design, 2004
This work examines the role of the artefact in creative collaboration. In the context of visual a... more This work examines the role of the artefact in creative collaboration. In the context of visual art practice, collaboration is a method through which work is produced by more than one artist. It is a process that offers the opportunity for intellectual conversation and critical discourse ...
de Freitas, N. A. (2014). When Design is not a Science. In Teresa Franqueira, & João Sampaio (Eds... more de Freitas, N. A. (2014). When Design is not a Science. In Teresa Franqueira, & João Sampaio (Eds.), What's on: cultural diversity, social engagement and shifting education (pp. 483-493). Aveiro, Portugal.
In many emergent new fields of design, creative practices open up a domain of new knowledge and understanding about us and about the world that is understood through the making of new or improved artifacts. This paper speculates on issues of ‘research’ and ‘new knowledge’ in the context of artistic design practices framed within postgraduate research degrees. A dilemma arises for artists and designers as researchers when they struggle between the need to protect the integrity of their individual practices and the need to fulfill the academic requirement for a robust and convincing theoretical text. This can result in a struggle between intuitive, inventive autonomy and institutional/academic authority for those artists who believe that designing and crafting work in itself embodies a form of legitimate knowledge accessible through the artifacts. The ideas discussed here have come out of an ongoing review of postgraduate student examination submissions with reference to an earlier study of the studio research methods of postgraduate art and design students. That study investigated students’ understanding of active documentation as a research method within their creative practice and sought to identify the forms and processes that constitute that activity. The study results and subsequent review of thesis documents reveal some of the ways in which new researchers in art and design begin to understand and ultimately take control of their working methods. It appears that this control may lead to greater confidence in the design process and in the construction of meaning, which in turn strengthens the argument for the primacy of the creative work in the research process. The challenge for those of us in art and design education is to find appropriate forms of academic legitimacy, which enhance material thinking and design literacies.
KEYWORDS
Postgraduate research, art and design, new knowledge, material
de Freitas, N. A., & Lowry, S. (2013)
This paper deals with the complexity of critique in th... more de Freitas, N. A., & Lowry, S. (2013)
This paper deals with the complexity of critique in the context of contemporary artistic practice that challenges conventional spatial/temporal notions of exhibition. In an academic context, contemporary artists working in this genre face unique difficulties when it comes to the critique and validation of their work as artistic intervention or as a practice-based research outcome. For example, a public space intervention by an art activist, designed to disrupt the quotidian experience of its viewers, may be reduced through documentation to a skeletal, digitally packaged concept with significant depreciation of its artistic and aesthetic quality. Similarly, works that exist in remote geographical locations, or works that are designed and intended to transcend physical locations or to occupy space for very brief or very long periods of time provide similar challenges for critical and archival access. With specific reference to a new exhibition project space, Project Anywhere, a website devoted to this genre of work, the authors examine the difficulties and possibilities associated with critique in this context. PA has differentiated its core function by replacing the usual role of curator with a peer review model. The significance and potential value of this experimental model will emerge over time as more artworks are submitted, critiqued and archived in this open-access forum where modes of critique, artistic claims and methods of documentation can be reconsidered. The authors consider key areas for further development of this research initiative and suggest that new methods of documentation and combinations of documentation formats could better represent the work and facilitate the process of critique and validation for this rising form of contemporary artistic practice.
Keywords: critique, peer review, artistic research, exhibition
Co-authored by: de Freitas, N. A., Ho, K. T., Martin, R., & Rakena, T. O. (2014).
This paper ... more Co-authored by: de Freitas, N. A., Ho, K. T., Martin, R., & Rakena, T. O. (2014).
This paper reflects on a number of issues that are characteristic of education in an age of expected intercultural exchange and outreach. With increased diversity of student backgrounds and prior education, the dynamics of the artistic self vs. the others’ expectations, and many versions of western/non-western contradictions play out in art and design educational and professional contexts. These varieties of ‘us and them’ can be recognised in approaches to and rejection of technological advancement, in ethical and moral approaches to the design of material and social artefacts, in philosophical orientations to social entrepreneurship, and in attitudes to contemporary political and economic contingencies. This paper examines differences, relationships and trans-national impacts from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Globalisation has created increased complexity in relation to institutions, governments and events. While traditional social and cultural enclaves are increasingly vulnerable to and wary of the impact of globalised commerce, technology and human movement, some contemporary artists and designers actively seek out these sites of difference in order to explore the intricacies of aesthetic value. Some find the experience of cultural difference to be difficult. The impact of embracing globalised perspectives is potentially positive and negative: productive and repressive. Artistic and design research has become a crucial site of cultural influence that will have an increasing, on-going effect reshaping our world. Ideas and information, transported as new knowledge through creative practices, are moving seamlessly across institutional and national boundaries. This fluidity of transfer, encouraged by open access to institutions, partnership and trans-national agreements, is further enabled by widespread use of digital media and financial support for academics and students to be mobile. This paper brings together a range of contemporary perspectives on the value and risks of flexible artistic identity and aesthetics.
Keywords: aesthetic value, artistic identity, intercultural exchange, regionalism.
Practice-based research in art and design is the focus of postgraduate programmes at many univers... more Practice-based research in art and design is the focus of postgraduate programmes at many universities. The term is useful when practice constitutes a critical part of the research methodology resulting in a form of research through practice. This study uses one such postgraduate ...
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Talks by Nancy de Freitas
the hidden academic practices of making & writing
Workshop series at the Swedish School of Textiles, Borås, November 2014
1) Prewriting strategies for early stage studio/research integration
This is a workshop for artists and designers starting out on a new research project. The workshop includes work on: genre & structure; re-examining the research proposition/question; honing a working abstract and envisioning the final research presentation. Planned for MA and PhD students embarking on a new research project – that is, at the start of their project.
2) Focussed forms of writing
This is a workshop for improving the relationship between text, documentation and artefact. It includes work on: planning a thesis text; Shut-up and write; freewriting and writing a good research abstract. Planned for research students who are mid-way through their studio work and research projects.
3) Artistic Research, Material Thinking and Design Conversations
Open lecture on the place of artistic research in the academy.
4) Discerning the forms of Artistic/Design Research Communication
One-hour colloquium - for researchers interested in the changing form of artistic research communication in the academy.
Conference presentation co-authored by:
Nancy de Freitas, Associate Professor, Postgraduate Studies, School of Art and Design, Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies, Auckland University of Technology.
King Tong Ho, Senior Lecturer, International Student Liaison, School of Art and Design, Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies, Auckland University of Technology.
Rosemary Martin, Lecturer, Dance Studies, Dance Studies Postgraduate Advisor, National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries, University of Auckland.
Te Oti Rakena, Associate Head of Performance, Coordinator of Vocal Studies (Classical), School of Music, National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries, University of Auckland.
Papers by Nancy de Freitas
that are integrated into the conduct of academic research is the focus of this special volume ‘Experience·Materiality·Articulation.’ Direct experience of artists/designers performing research in academia is key in the discussion within this special volume. The volume takes a critical look at the interactive and dynamic relationship between experience and articulation from the perspective of practicing artist-researchers who deal with materiality in their practice.
In many emergent new fields of design, creative practices open up a domain of new knowledge and understanding about us and about the world that is understood through the making of new or improved artifacts. This paper speculates on issues of ‘research’ and ‘new knowledge’ in the context of artistic design practices framed within postgraduate research degrees. A dilemma arises for artists and designers as researchers when they struggle between the need to protect the integrity of their individual practices and the need to fulfill the academic requirement for a robust and convincing theoretical text. This can result in a struggle between intuitive, inventive autonomy and institutional/academic authority for those artists who believe that designing and crafting work in itself embodies a form of legitimate knowledge accessible through the artifacts. The ideas discussed here have come out of an ongoing review of postgraduate student examination submissions with reference to an earlier study of the studio research methods of postgraduate art and design students. That study investigated students’ understanding of active documentation as a research method within their creative practice and sought to identify the forms and processes that constitute that activity. The study results and subsequent review of thesis documents reveal some of the ways in which new researchers in art and design begin to understand and ultimately take control of their working methods. It appears that this control may lead to greater confidence in the design process and in the construction of meaning, which in turn strengthens the argument for the primacy of the creative work in the research process. The challenge for those of us in art and design education is to find appropriate forms of academic legitimacy, which enhance material thinking and design literacies.
KEYWORDS
Postgraduate research, art and design, new knowledge, material
This paper deals with the complexity of critique in the context of contemporary artistic practice that challenges conventional spatial/temporal notions of exhibition. In an academic context, contemporary artists working in this genre face unique difficulties when it comes to the critique and validation of their work as artistic intervention or as a practice-based research outcome. For example, a public space intervention by an art activist, designed to disrupt the quotidian experience of its viewers, may be reduced through documentation to a skeletal, digitally packaged concept with significant depreciation of its artistic and aesthetic quality. Similarly, works that exist in remote geographical locations, or works that are designed and intended to transcend physical locations or to occupy space for very brief or very long periods of time provide similar challenges for critical and archival access. With specific reference to a new exhibition project space, Project Anywhere, a website devoted to this genre of work, the authors examine the difficulties and possibilities associated with critique in this context. PA has differentiated its core function by replacing the usual role of curator with a peer review model. The significance and potential value of this experimental model will emerge over time as more artworks are submitted, critiqued and archived in this open-access forum where modes of critique, artistic claims and methods of documentation can be reconsidered. The authors consider key areas for further development of this research initiative and suggest that new methods of documentation and combinations of documentation formats could better represent the work and facilitate the process of critique and validation for this rising form of contemporary artistic practice.
Keywords: critique, peer review, artistic research, exhibition
This paper reflects on a number of issues that are characteristic of education in an age of expected intercultural exchange and outreach. With increased diversity of student backgrounds and prior education, the dynamics of the artistic self vs. the others’ expectations, and many versions of western/non-western contradictions play out in art and design educational and professional contexts. These varieties of ‘us and them’ can be recognised in approaches to and rejection of technological advancement, in ethical and moral approaches to the design of material and social artefacts, in philosophical orientations to social entrepreneurship, and in attitudes to contemporary political and economic contingencies. This paper examines differences, relationships and trans-national impacts from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Globalisation has created increased complexity in relation to institutions, governments and events. While traditional social and cultural enclaves are increasingly vulnerable to and wary of the impact of globalised commerce, technology and human movement, some contemporary artists and designers actively seek out these sites of difference in order to explore the intricacies of aesthetic value. Some find the experience of cultural difference to be difficult. The impact of embracing globalised perspectives is potentially positive and negative: productive and repressive. Artistic and design research has become a crucial site of cultural influence that will have an increasing, on-going effect reshaping our world. Ideas and information, transported as new knowledge through creative practices, are moving seamlessly across institutional and national boundaries. This fluidity of transfer, encouraged by open access to institutions, partnership and trans-national agreements, is further enabled by widespread use of digital media and financial support for academics and students to be mobile. This paper brings together a range of contemporary perspectives on the value and risks of flexible artistic identity and aesthetics.
Keywords: aesthetic value, artistic identity, intercultural exchange, regionalism.
the hidden academic practices of making & writing
Workshop series at the Swedish School of Textiles, Borås, November 2014
1) Prewriting strategies for early stage studio/research integration
This is a workshop for artists and designers starting out on a new research project. The workshop includes work on: genre & structure; re-examining the research proposition/question; honing a working abstract and envisioning the final research presentation. Planned for MA and PhD students embarking on a new research project – that is, at the start of their project.
2) Focussed forms of writing
This is a workshop for improving the relationship between text, documentation and artefact. It includes work on: planning a thesis text; Shut-up and write; freewriting and writing a good research abstract. Planned for research students who are mid-way through their studio work and research projects.
3) Artistic Research, Material Thinking and Design Conversations
Open lecture on the place of artistic research in the academy.
4) Discerning the forms of Artistic/Design Research Communication
One-hour colloquium - for researchers interested in the changing form of artistic research communication in the academy.
Conference presentation co-authored by:
Nancy de Freitas, Associate Professor, Postgraduate Studies, School of Art and Design, Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies, Auckland University of Technology.
King Tong Ho, Senior Lecturer, International Student Liaison, School of Art and Design, Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies, Auckland University of Technology.
Rosemary Martin, Lecturer, Dance Studies, Dance Studies Postgraduate Advisor, National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries, University of Auckland.
Te Oti Rakena, Associate Head of Performance, Coordinator of Vocal Studies (Classical), School of Music, National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries, University of Auckland.
that are integrated into the conduct of academic research is the focus of this special volume ‘Experience·Materiality·Articulation.’ Direct experience of artists/designers performing research in academia is key in the discussion within this special volume. The volume takes a critical look at the interactive and dynamic relationship between experience and articulation from the perspective of practicing artist-researchers who deal with materiality in their practice.
In many emergent new fields of design, creative practices open up a domain of new knowledge and understanding about us and about the world that is understood through the making of new or improved artifacts. This paper speculates on issues of ‘research’ and ‘new knowledge’ in the context of artistic design practices framed within postgraduate research degrees. A dilemma arises for artists and designers as researchers when they struggle between the need to protect the integrity of their individual practices and the need to fulfill the academic requirement for a robust and convincing theoretical text. This can result in a struggle between intuitive, inventive autonomy and institutional/academic authority for those artists who believe that designing and crafting work in itself embodies a form of legitimate knowledge accessible through the artifacts. The ideas discussed here have come out of an ongoing review of postgraduate student examination submissions with reference to an earlier study of the studio research methods of postgraduate art and design students. That study investigated students’ understanding of active documentation as a research method within their creative practice and sought to identify the forms and processes that constitute that activity. The study results and subsequent review of thesis documents reveal some of the ways in which new researchers in art and design begin to understand and ultimately take control of their working methods. It appears that this control may lead to greater confidence in the design process and in the construction of meaning, which in turn strengthens the argument for the primacy of the creative work in the research process. The challenge for those of us in art and design education is to find appropriate forms of academic legitimacy, which enhance material thinking and design literacies.
KEYWORDS
Postgraduate research, art and design, new knowledge, material
This paper deals with the complexity of critique in the context of contemporary artistic practice that challenges conventional spatial/temporal notions of exhibition. In an academic context, contemporary artists working in this genre face unique difficulties when it comes to the critique and validation of their work as artistic intervention or as a practice-based research outcome. For example, a public space intervention by an art activist, designed to disrupt the quotidian experience of its viewers, may be reduced through documentation to a skeletal, digitally packaged concept with significant depreciation of its artistic and aesthetic quality. Similarly, works that exist in remote geographical locations, or works that are designed and intended to transcend physical locations or to occupy space for very brief or very long periods of time provide similar challenges for critical and archival access. With specific reference to a new exhibition project space, Project Anywhere, a website devoted to this genre of work, the authors examine the difficulties and possibilities associated with critique in this context. PA has differentiated its core function by replacing the usual role of curator with a peer review model. The significance and potential value of this experimental model will emerge over time as more artworks are submitted, critiqued and archived in this open-access forum where modes of critique, artistic claims and methods of documentation can be reconsidered. The authors consider key areas for further development of this research initiative and suggest that new methods of documentation and combinations of documentation formats could better represent the work and facilitate the process of critique and validation for this rising form of contemporary artistic practice.
Keywords: critique, peer review, artistic research, exhibition
This paper reflects on a number of issues that are characteristic of education in an age of expected intercultural exchange and outreach. With increased diversity of student backgrounds and prior education, the dynamics of the artistic self vs. the others’ expectations, and many versions of western/non-western contradictions play out in art and design educational and professional contexts. These varieties of ‘us and them’ can be recognised in approaches to and rejection of technological advancement, in ethical and moral approaches to the design of material and social artefacts, in philosophical orientations to social entrepreneurship, and in attitudes to contemporary political and economic contingencies. This paper examines differences, relationships and trans-national impacts from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Globalisation has created increased complexity in relation to institutions, governments and events. While traditional social and cultural enclaves are increasingly vulnerable to and wary of the impact of globalised commerce, technology and human movement, some contemporary artists and designers actively seek out these sites of difference in order to explore the intricacies of aesthetic value. Some find the experience of cultural difference to be difficult. The impact of embracing globalised perspectives is potentially positive and negative: productive and repressive. Artistic and design research has become a crucial site of cultural influence that will have an increasing, on-going effect reshaping our world. Ideas and information, transported as new knowledge through creative practices, are moving seamlessly across institutional and national boundaries. This fluidity of transfer, encouraged by open access to institutions, partnership and trans-national agreements, is further enabled by widespread use of digital media and financial support for academics and students to be mobile. This paper brings together a range of contemporary perspectives on the value and risks of flexible artistic identity and aesthetics.
Keywords: aesthetic value, artistic identity, intercultural exchange, regionalism.