In this exhibition we present projects developed by the KABK Research Group 2018 which address, through a combination of theoretical, historical and practice-based research, some of the pressing issues of our time, namely: ecological crisis, digital pollution, surveillance infrastructure, coloniality, and affect space.
While some of the artistic outcomes of the research will be on display, the aim of this exhibition has been to extrapolate and make legible the research methods which were used to gather, surface and analyse findings. By methods, we mean the ways one goes about doing research.
Some are personal takes on familiar methods derived from the humanities and social sciences, like interviewing, fieldwork, and text or image analysis; while others, like experimentation with drawing and photography, emerge from the particular sensibilities and material registers of art and design practice.
Some are natively digital like internet scraping, gleaning data from satellite imagery, and the deployment of AR and Machine Learning systems. Others use tactics from activism, like workshop organization, interventions and public debate; others still use fictional and satirical strategies to defamiliarize and destabilise.
By revealing and reflecting upon the normally hidden mechanics and motivations of the research process—the tools and techniques used for gathering, sifting, and evaluating, the references consulted, and the quandaries and breakthroughs experienced—we hope to contribute to the building of a research culture at KABK that is open and imaginative as well as rigorous and robust.
Presented by the KABK Lectorate Design
Practical Information
Dates
6 December - 10 December 2019
Opening and Drinks Reception
Friday December 6, 18:30 (Directly after the Fault Lines Symposium)
Location
KABK Gallery 1, PA.007
Opening Hours
Opening: Friday 6 December, 18:30 – 20.30
Exhibition is open on
Saturday 7 December: 10.00 – 17.00
Monday 9 December: 10.00 – 18.00
Tuesday 10 December: 10.00 – 17.00, followed by the book launch 'In Between Words' (17.00 - 19.00)
Featured researchers and Research Topics
Rachel Bacon, tutor, BA Fine Arts
Undermining Value: an exploration of the relationship between mark-making in drawing and in mining in the context of climate crisis.
Eric Kluitenberg, tutor, BA ArtScience, MMus ArtScience, and Interactive/Media/Design
reDesigning Affect Space: finding opportunities for the spatial design disciplines to counter the intense affective exchanges caused by the explosive growth of mobile media and wireless networks in public spaces
Niels Schrader (in collaboration with Roel Backaert), co-head, BA Graphic Design and MA Non Linear Narrative
Acid Clouds: an attempt to portray the environmental and psychological impacts of our ever-accumulating software and data waste through photographic portraits of datacenters.
Rosa te Velde, tutor, BA Interior Architecture & Furniture Design
Design History Fictions: an invitation to critically reflect on the insufficiencies and omissions of “design”—through the eyes of an anthropologist from the 2090s.
Donald Weber, tutor, BA Photography and MA Photography & Society,
The Mechanical Sky: a foray into how photographic practice can be used to understand, and confront, the sky as a new kind of landscape that is politically and technologically mediated by a totalizing, global view.
Closing Event
The exhibition will close with a book launch of the publication 'In Between Words' produced by the the lectorate Art Theory & Practice (KTP), headed by prof. Janneke Wesseling
Exhibition design: Judy Wetters
Exhibition graphics: Niels Schrader and Martijn de Heer
