WINNER BA

On 1 July 2016, Kimmo Virtanen received the KABK BA Thesis Award for his thesis Flamebaits. Virtanen graduated from the Photography department. His thesis supervisor was Martijn Verhoeven.

In 2015-2016 he participated in the Thesis Lab, part of the Art Research Programme of the lectorate.

Jury statement: ”The jury finds Kimmo’s thesis Flamebaits to be a profound and extraordinary balance of theoretical contextualisation, autobiographical experience, different writing styles and design”.

Flamebaits

Can images change the course of events when pitted against the human ego? ‘Flamebaits’ is a research essay on visual methods of persuasion in the context of ‘the backfire effect’ and human rights campaigns, and their roles in attempting to cause lasting change in the spectators’ minds. Through a semantic and psychological case study of Amnesty International and a visual artist known as JR, the aim was to transform my findings into a method of storytelling that could be used to address difficult topics and human conflicts.

WINNER MA

In 2016 for the first time also a prize for a master thesis has been awarded. This year, Mamoru Okuno received the KABK MA Thesis Award for his thesis Generative Listening & Making Things To be Listened to.

Okuno graduated from the Master Artistic Research. His thesis supervisor was Jasper Coppes.

Jury statement: ”The jury was excited to read all the master theses and decided - after much deliberation - that the winner is Mamoru Okuno; because Mamoru has interwoven his artistic practice and theory in a poetic and engaging interdisciplinary thesis research”.

Generative Listening & Making Things To be Listened to

In this paper, I would like to first unfold the conceptual extended notion of listening in relation to my past projects and some of the key concepts that I have been working on. Conceptual listening is an attitude toward the world that approaches it through a sonic sensibility that reaches beyond the heard and engages in the audible or visible and the inaudible and invisible as if hearing it as well. My basic proposition is that listening can be an attentive way of engaging with and knowing the research subject and at the same time it can be a generative practice.

Jury

This year the jury of the KABK BA Thesis Award consists of Nina Couvert, alumna Graphic Design and winner BA Thesis Award 2015; Laura Bertens, university lecturer at Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society; and Tatjana Macic, visual artist and teacher Artistic Research at the Royal Academy and chair of the jury.

The jury of the KABK MA Thesis Award 2016 consists of Nina Couvert, alumna Graphic Design and winner BA Thesis Award 2015; Winnie Koekelbergh, theory teacher at the Royal Academy; and Tatjana Macic, visual artist and teacher Artistic Research at the Royal Academy and chair of the jury.