In this exhibition, we presented 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.

Whilst some of the artistic outcomes of the research were displayed, the aim of this exhibition was to extrapolate and make legible the research methods that were used to gather, surface and analyse findings. By methods, we mean the ways one goes about doing research.

Some of the methods are derived from the humanities and social sciences, including interviewing, fieldwork and text or image analysis; whilst others, like experimentation with drawing and photography, emerge from the particular sensibilities and material registers of art and design practice.

Some methods 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.

With this exhibition we sought to reveal and reflect 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. Through doing so, we hoped 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

The 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.

Exhibition design: Judy Wetters
Exhibition graphics: Niels Schrader and Martijn de Heer

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