COMBINING CRAFTING, REFLECTING AND THINKING IN THE ARTISTIC PROCESS: A TEACHING METHOD

Even though the marketing rhetoric of many art academies seeks to elide the differences between making and thinking and to present them as undivided wholes, the locations in which they are taught remain separate. Theory classes continue to be taught in classrooms, seminar rooms, libraries and lecture theatres, whilst instruction of materials experimentation and making skills take place in workshops, ateliers or project spaces. As a consequence, it is difficult to bring the worlds of theorizing, reflecting and making together. This research project aims to develop a teaching method that helps to bring these processes (back) together.

As a theory teacher, Vibeke Gieskes has developed courses at various art schools where she experimented with ways to merge these processes, including the IST course ‘Crafting your Thinking, Reflecting your Craft’ at the KABK. For this course, students follow a trajectory integrating theorizing, technical apprenticeship, analysing, writing, making, drawing, producing work and reflection, which is guided by both workshop instructors and the IST tutor.

This year, the course is offered for the fourth time. It has evolved each time based on trial and error. Shaping the educational method has become a research project in itself, revolving around the question, What teaching methods most effectively bring together reflection/research/theoretical aspects of learning with doing and making to ensure that the artistic process can optimally benefit?

Keywords: collaboration, failure, hesitation, educational space, play, experiment, writing, tools, reflection, crafting, making, workshop, process, interdisciplinarity.

BIO:
VIBEKE GIESKES is an independent educator, editor, curator and project manager in the field of arts and architecture. She teaches theoretical and writing courses at the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam and at the KABK, The Hague. Previously, Gieskes curated the International Watercities exhibition at the 2nd Biennale of Architecture (2005) in Rotterdam, edited Herman Hertzberger’s book Space and Learning (2008), compiled and edited the publication The Future of Architecture (2013) and, as interim-director of Studio Veemarktkwartier, was involved in the development of a cultural district in the city of Tilburg (2009). Between 2011 and 2018, she was responsible for teaching all theory courses at the Department of Architectural Design at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. She is the current editor of Forum and is involved in several research projects in collaboration with architects. Gieskes studied Arts and Culture Studies at Erasmus University in Rotterdam and History of Architecture and Theory at the Université Lumiere II and the Ecole d’Architecture in Lyon.

QUEER AND FEMINIST PEDAGOGICAL FRAMEWORKS WITHIN ART AND DESIGN EDUCATION AT KABK

Maher and Bedford posit that power is articulated by and reproduced through a number of dynamics that are mutually constitutive; through material space, embodied space and conceptual space. They aim to locate and name where these phenomena exist within KABK and to focus on three pedagogic situations of direct interpersonal engagement where both the body and the subjectivity (of tutor and student) can be entwined within power dynamics, hierarchy and bias, namely:

1. tutor to tutor
2. tutor to student
3. student to student

They will study a selection of willing departments across the KABK, starting with their own (IA&FD). They want to see how the deployment of feminist/queer methodologies, discourse and strategies might transform all three points of interpersonal interaction, with a view to enhance creative decision making and problem-solving processes within a pedagogical environment.

What is the potential for feminist and queer pedagogical frameworks within the institutional practices of the KABK?

How could these frameworks enable both physical and dialogical vocabularies for students and teachers to co-create the conditions of creative production, an institutional safe space and open other spaces of being and becoming?

BIOS:
GABRIEL .A. MAHER is a tutor in BA Interior Architecture & Furniture Design. With a practice established in Interior Architecture and Social Design, Maher’s work centres on critical and analytical approaches to design and research–and, more specifically, on the effects of design and designing on bodies and the shaping of identity. Maher’s position and approach questions design and media practices through queer and feminist frameworks. To articulate, physicalise and activate this position, Maher seeks to create situations where research and design come together in performance. Pedagogic exchange is integral to this approach. Besides tutoring at the KABK, Maher mentors at the Design Academy Eindhoven. For these institutions, Maher collaborates with students on relationships between gender and identity in design as well as performativity. These collaborations work to establish accountable foundations from which to approach design practice. Maher uses the gender pronouns they/them/theirs.

CARLY ROSE BEDFORD teaches in BA Interior Architecture & Furniture Design. Bedford is a multidisciplinary artist who works across a diverse spectrum of mediums, from performance to sculptural installation to text. Her work balances a meditation on how materials stimulate affective responses within the body and a critical analysis of hierarchies and power structures in society. Her way of approaching these two interrelated issues could be defined as giving materials and objects agency to ‘perform’ queerly. This approach allows for nuanced propositions that enact queer thematics without always reverting to representations of the body and identity politics. She is also engaged in a long-term research project into methods for institutional critique that considers ways to engage power structures within institutions through a process of pedagogical exchange, positioning, workshops and exhibition-making. Besides tutoring at the KABK, Bedford mentors at the Institut für Künstlerische Keramik und Glas in Koblenz, Germany.

ALTERNATIVE IMAGES FOR THE SCIENTIFIC CULTURE

As humanity looks into the deepest parts of galaxies and the smallest aspects of subatomic spaces, the images created to document such endeavours have become increasingly abstract and technical. Recorded data is reproduced and presented repetitively and, subsequently, become the standard for our worldview(s). This is why the ability to both interpret these images and understand the processes behind their production is crucial to our understanding of the world and the ways in which we look at it.

Michiel Pijpe is interested in being wedged in the ambiguity of the conversation between artistic and scientific representation. Through his art practice, he became intrigued by the aesthetics of various representations used in scientific fields, including earth-sciences and astronomy, particularly in the historical narrative and traditions behind them. After all, the ‘scientific image’ has always been constructed and augmented by a combination of technical innovations, (geo-)political motives and various belief systems. In this research project, Pijpe seeks to develop a new teaching tool to convey conceptual knowledge about the organisation and representation of scientific images through proposing and creating an alternative scientific image.

In this research project, Pijpe seeks to develop a new teaching tool to convey conceptual knowledge about the organisation and representation of scientific images through proposing and creating an alternative scientific image

Keywords: history of science, philosophy of science, visual literacy, myth-making, world-building, imaginary worlds, speculative science.

BIO:

MICHIEL PIJPE has taught at the ArtScience Interfaculty since 2008. For more than a decade, he has been developing an image-making procedure that combines optics, light and fluid mechanics to create a visual technology exposing forms and textures found in various chemical potentials. The results from this process are translated and presented in a variety of photographic techniques. Alongside this ongoing visual research, Pijpe has developed several site-specific, theatrical and performative installations that have been presented in a variety of venues in The Netherlands, including WORM Rotterdam, Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ, Paradiso, Het Veem Theater and Frascati in Amsterdam, Baltan Laboratories in Eindhoven, De NWE Vorst in Tilburg and Theater aan het Spui/ZAAL3 in The Hague. International venues include The Greenroom in Manchester (UK), the Salone di Mobile, Milan (IT) and CTM in Berlin (DE).

THE other ACADEMY

In their work, artist duo Van ‘t Hullenaar & Vis investigate different forms of ‘survival’ encountered in artworks, focussing on the material and immaterial aspects of how ideas live on. They look at how historic artworks are tied to the dead-or-alive state of the artist as a persona and speculate on forms of future immortality for both artworks and their makers. Currently, they are working on a multimedia piece titled I Was Here, where they present a fictional journey in which they discuss their own positioning as ‘future immortal artists’.

How will artists and designers survive in the future? What tools will they need?

Extending this theme into the realm of pedagogy, Van ‘t Hullenaar & Vis have initiated an experimental space, known as The other Academy (ToA), which involves the development of a frame of mind to be shared with art students as a parallel reality, an undefined space, a multi-dimensional potential. They will develop the ToA framework by working collectively with students and tutors to explore the following research questions:

What role will artists and designers play in a future post-work society where only the embodied knowledge of the artist holds any ‘real’ value?

What should this new form of embodied knowledge consist of and how can digital technology assist us in building and conveying this knowledge?

Keywords: Artistic Survival Tools for the Year 2119, embodied knowledge, immaterial material, artificial consciousness, holistic digital production.

BIO:

NIELS VIS is a tutor in the Preparatory Year at the KABK. Since 2004, he has been working with Merel van ’t Hullenaar on projects that focus on contradictions between the human experience of time and scientific definitions of time. Through several installation pieces, such as -1 MomentaaN (’04) and Simultaneous Models (’07), they aim to rearrange conventional experiences of past, present and future for the spectator. In addition to collaborating on projects as a duo, they have realised work as independent artists, formed collectives with other makers and were sometimes more active as mediators. They each participated in an MA program: Vis at the Piet Zwart Institute (2005-7) and Van ‘t Hullenaar at the Sandberg Institute (2003-5). The multidisciplinary artist duo works from their studio in Amsterdam on a set of interrelated research-based projects titled The Man-Made History of Today.

PRACTICE OF FEMALE FRIENDSHIP

In this project, Katarina Zdjelar explores the question of female affection as a political, aesthetic and artistic concern with relevance to art and design education. The first part of the research involves excavation and analysis of relevant historical practices–including pre-monastic and convent-based formations and epistolary practices (such as the Beguines and works of Afra, Roswitha, Teresa of Ávila and Juana Inés de la Cruz) in order to draw a line of descent and create a foundation on which ideas of community, creativity and cooperative labour can be built and developed.

Although the project starts with an understanding of historical context, its main direction is generative–it is located in the here and now and ‘looking forward’. Therefore it also engages with contemporary speculative models, art practices and discourses, which can serve as tools to unlock the potential of female friendship—not only as the intimacy of a personal relationship but also as a politically affective state of being. Ultimately, the aim is to sharpen and refine collaborative and multi-vocal aesthetics in conceptual and formal terms asking: What are the formal consequences, technical possibilities and aesthetic potentials of such a practice? How do questions of women’s homosociality and their histories emerge in the practicalities of formalising this interest in an artistic and technical way?

What are the formal consequences, technical possibilities and aesthetic potentials of such a practice?

How do questions of women’s homosociality and their histories emerge in the practicalities of formalising this interest in an artistic and technical way?

Keywords: feminism, friendship, solidarity, multi-vocal aesthetics, female alliances.

BIO:
KATARINA ZDJELAR is a core tutor for Studio Practice at the MA Artistic Research. Originally from Serbia, she is a graduate of the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam, where she currently lives. In her videos, sound works and other projects, Zdjelar examines how people behave by reinventing their identities through a choreography of language, voice and body language as they move between different situations and cultures. These artistic interests find their focus in the creation of different platforms for speculation, knowledge building and exchange. Zdjelar also teaches in the Fine Art program of Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam. In 2017, Zdjelar was shortlisted for the Dutch Prix de Rome and won the Dolf Henkes art prize. She has exhibited extensively throughout Europe, including at the Muzeum Sztuki Lodz, Kunstverein Bielefeld, The Serbian Pavilion of the 53rd Venice Biennial, MACBA Barcelona, MNAC Bucharest, De Appel Contemporary Art Centre (Amsterdam), 5th Marrakech Biennale, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery Toronto, Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art (Rotterdam), HMKV in Dortmund, MuHKA Antwerpen, and the Total Museum of Contemporary Art Seoul.