Touching: A Research Method in Art and Design
Touching as a Research Method is the second publication of the KABK Art & Design Research Practices project, an initiative of the KABK Design Lectorate.
Art direction Niels Schrader
Editing Alice Twemlow and Kiersten Thamm
Editorial assistance Ada Popowicz
Printing Drukkerij robstolk
Typefaces: Niels Schrader and Martijn de Heer Publisher Design Lectorate, Royal Academy of Art (KABK), The Hague
To order a copy of the book please contact m.jager@kabk.nl
When we want to check the facts, to verify our ‘epistemic grip on reality’, as the philosopher Ophelia Deroy puts it, the sense for which we reach is touch. And while touch can certainly be used to elicit and ‘grip’ knowledge, it can also be used in a more tentative and probing modality — to feel our way toward truths that are both within and yet always beyond the grasp.
Whether engaging with materials to give tangible form to ideas, or using materials as the very starting point of a creative process, artists and designers recognise that this kind of feeling-toward-knowing requires deep patience and an openness to what a material is willing to impart.
When we want to check the facts, to verify our ‘epistemic grip on reality’, as the philosopher Ophelia Deroy puts it, the sense for which we reach is touch. And while touch can certainly be used to elicit and ‘grip’ knowledge, it can also be used in a more tentative and probing modality — to feel our way toward truths that are both within and yet always beyond the grasp.
It may seem odd to be focusing right now on the very sense that the global CoVID pandemic has deprived us of so emphatically and tragically. But perhaps that deprivation is why it’s even more important, at this moment, faced with the impending need to redesign physical sociality back into our lives, that we don’t omit touch from the equation. Let’s keep in mind what student in Fine Arts Heidi Holmstöm advises: ‘touch with courage and care’.
This publication, edited by Alice Twemlow and designed by Niels Schrader, contains interviews, research samples, recipes, quotations, and reflections on the research process by tutors, workshop instructors and students all across the KABK community.
The range of materials and processes engaged with is diverse and the approaches are as unique as fingerprints, but a premise embedded in the DNA of material research is that experiments are shared. And so, whether your work is about addressing one of the urgent social issues of our day or pursuing one of the more enduring questions about the relationship between humans and the environment, we hope you will find in this book the inspiration, but also the ingredients, you need to recreate and adapt your own variant of material research.
Contributors
MAE ALDERLIESTEN is a student in MA Interior Architecture (INSIDE) at the KABK.
PETRA BLAISSE is a designer, educator and founder of landscape design and interior architecture firm, Inside Outside.
MATAS BUCKUS studies graphic design at the KABK.
MARIE-ILSE BOURLANGES is an artist and teaches Materials in Interior Architecture & Furniture Design at KABK.
CYNTHIA BRUINSMA studies interior architecture and furniture design at the KABK.
BENNEDETTA CIAPPINI studies photography at the KABK.
CYNTHIA HATHAWAY is an artist. She teaches industrial design at the KABK.
DOLORES HILHORST is a specialist in digital fabrication. She is an instructor in modelling and making in the KABK 3D Lab.
HEIDI HOLMSTRÖM is a student in BA Fine Arts at the KABK.
ERCO LAI is a designer and runs the design studio ercoffice. He graduated with an MA in Industrial Design from the KABK 2021.
WIKTORIA MARKIEWICZ studies interior architecture and furniture design at the KABK.
RENATA MIRON is a student in MA Artistic Research at the KABK.
MUIREANN NIC AN BHEATHA graduated with an BA in ArtScience from the KABK 2021.
MARCEL VAN NISPEN is a designer and an instructor in modelling and making in the KABK 3D Lab.
MARCOS KUEH SHENG PANG studies textile and fashion design at the KABK.
LAURA VAN SANTEN is an architect and collaborates with Diederik de Koning as la-di-da. She is a studio tutor and the year head for first-year students in BA Interior Architecture & Furniture Design at the KABK.
LUCIE PONARD graduated with an MA in Industrial Design from the KABK in 2021.
KATIE PELIKAN graduated from the KABK in 2021 with an MA in Non Linear Narrative.
LUDMILA SOUZA RODRIGUES is an artist, scenographer and tutor in ArtScience at the KABK.
GIULIETTA PASTORINO VERASTEGUI is an artist and writer. She graduated with a BA in Fine Arts at the KABK in 2020.
The publication is part of a project initiated by the KABK Design Lectorate that explores the research methods artists and designers choose to work with, and how they use them to create and surface new contributions to knowledge. The first edition of the project focused on walking. In this second iteration we look at how research is conducted with and through materials and matter. In a third edition, to follow in 2023 we will focus on listening as a research method.
