Alice Twemlow: What do you teach here at the KABK?

Lyndsey Housden: I teach a course called the “Last Lab” together with two colleagues, Adriaan Wormgoor and Florian Mecklenburg. It is a year-long course supporting the graduation process of students in BA Interactive Media Design. The course is built around individual tutorials, group workshops offering research methods and design tools to support the graduation phase, and group feedback sessions.

I teach professional practice skills to third-year students and, since 2019, I have also worked as a study coach for years 1 and 2, with a focus on students’ personal and professional development. I want to support students in their understanding of how they learn best and the tools they need to get the most out of their study. I teach yoga for everyone at the KABK, and this year I started teaching an elective at the Conservatoire called “Yoga for Musicians”.

AT: Let’s discuss your practice and research practice and how they relate. How would you describe your practice?

LH: My practice has evolved significantly through the Research Groups and my work as a study coach. The Design Lectorate Research Group led me to delve deeper into the theory of embodiment, the history of knowledge, and different ways of knowing. I started seeing my practice as a translation between embodied knowledge and language, and I began to create both poetic and academic reflections.

The Interdisciplinary Research Group and my training as a coach-counsellor have also sparked my interest in wellbeing within higher education and its connection to study coaching. I’m particularly intrigued by the challenge of holistically integrating wellbeing into education.

AT: Where and how do you conduct your research?

LH: Initially, it was mainly conducted in my studio, as desk research, reflections and sketches; but now it takes place on location, such as in scientific labs and the dance studio.

AT: Are there certain methods or data sources you often rely on in your research?

I often explore physical sites and locations, especially man-made architectural spaces. I focus on the experience of the lived body in those spaces. My research methods include interviews and movement-based experimentation, and video reflection.

AT: I would also suggest that your methods are often participatory. I remember doing some lovely movement exercises with you…

LH: Right. It’s not only about a philosophical reflection on movement research. I find it important to share this research with an audience using any means that engage the haptic and proprioceptive senses. This requires participation from the “reader” to then find language through a creative process which is essentially non-verbal.

AT: Are there any funding sources outside of the KABK that have supported your research?

LH: I received a starter grant from Stimuleringsfonds in 2019, which greatly facilitated my research. Additionally, I collaborated with ICK, a contemporary dance orga- nisation in Amsterdam, where I had access to dance studio space and worked with one of their dancers, Arad Inbar. The Grey Space in The Middle in The Hague supported me through a residency in 2019, along with some funding towards production of a public event. I was a guest researcher at AMOLF, a physics research centre in Amsterdam. These affiliations opened various opportunities for my research. But in the first place, they were opened up by being able to say I was a member of the Research Group at the KABK.

AT: How do you disseminate the results or findings of your research?

LH: I find that participatory workshops are the most effective way to disseminate my research, as they provide diverse perspectives and lived experiences. Writing also plays a crucial role, although I’m still working on finding my voice in that aspect.

AT: Talk me through a project — your collaboration with ICK Amsterdam?

The research at ICK Amsterdam was self-initiated, with me taking on the role of the lead researcher. The project was supported and facilitated by Suzan Tunca, who was Head of Academy and a researcher at ICK. ICK Amsterdam provided studio space and time to work with a dancer.

LH: The goal of the research was to translate the lived experience of dance and movement into an interactive installation based on soft-robotic technology. In the translation of movement research into a prototype for a soft-robotic artwork, I found that I could not achieve the quality of experience of my movement research through representation alone. I concluded that experience and representation are two quite different things.

AT: Were there any specific outcomes or outputs from this project?

LH: The goal was to develop a set of keywords that could serve as programming tools for the behaviour of a selfpropelling robot or object. The project resulted in pro- totype artworks, documentation, and a durational performance at the Grey Space’s interdisciplinary symposium, in collaboration with writer Emily Besa and mu- sician/ composer Ryan Teague.

The event also included a movement workshop by choreographer and educator Ria Higler from AHK, and a lecture on haptics by Dr David Abbink from TU Delft. It culminated in a panel discussion moderated by Dr Marijn de Langen, a performing arts theorist and historian at AHK specialising in mime. In addition, there was a sharing of work-inprogress at the ICK Festival, an expert meeting for choreographers and researchers.

And, thanks to the Design Lectorate, I presented at the Fault Lines Research Forum and I wrote about the project on Open!

AT: How were these outputs used in professional artistic practice or other contexts? To what fields or disciplines did this project contribute?

LH: This project had connections with human-computer interaction (HCI) and technology in the context of medical care.

AT: And what about dance and performance?

LH: There may have been some feeding back into it but for me dance is more about understanding how you access that knowledge in the body, not necessarily how you perform it to an audience as an art form.

AT: How did this project influence your teaching at the KABK?

LH: The project enhanced my ability to integrate theory and practice in teaching, and particularly in emphasising the importance of an iterative research process. It encouraged me to support students in developing their research skills.

AT: How do you explain the importance of research to students?

LH: As research is a key aspect in the curriculum at BA Interactive Media Design from the first year on, there is no need to explain the importance as such. What is interesting, however, and what I have learnt from the Research Group is recognizing the stages or phases of research.

In particular, recognizing that phase of “not knowing (yet)”. The moment when design and artistic ideas develop through a process of making, where philosophical or theoretical notions and insights begin to take form through materials. The challenge I notice for some students is the transition out of the realm of desk research, language and rhetoric and into the messy, analogue or digital realm, with all the uncertain processes, mistakes, accidents, and plenty of serendipity.

The Research Group was really the first time I learned about research. About how to go through that phase of not knowing with a supportive group of peers, how to establish the research context, work out the specific question, find or invent a research method... All this meant I could better understand what some of my students are going through when developing their research projects.

AT: How has research at KABK evolved so far? Are there any areas that could be improved?

LH: Research at the KABK has grown and diversified since I’ve been working here. But I still see a need for more clarity regarding what research means in different con- texts and departments. Additionally, the way research is integrated, not just in education but in all aspects of the academy, could be further explored — and not only for faculty but also for students.

This can help foster a sense of belonging and cohesion within the institution. Research support should be more readily available and user-friendly. It would be beneficial if there were a dedicated support structure to help navigate the administrative aspects of research, such as grant applications and documentation.