Georgina Williams recently completed her PhD at Winchester School of Art. Here she offers an account of the main research themes and issues.
Propaganda conceived for distribution via a medium such as the pictorial poster creates a body of artwork that can be productively examined from both aesthetic and political perspectives. When this artwork is primarily restricted to conflict propaganda from the second decade of the twentieth century, the temporal and contextual considerations assist in focussing the posterâs role as a functional object, not only within a propaganda campaign but also within the wider visual ecology of an era. These early years of the twentieth century â encompassing as they do the conflict of World War I â witnessed the emergence of the pictorial poster as a useful tool for the state to employ in the distribution of propagandist messaging. Allied with this is how propaganda as a concept was beginning to be considered in the context that we now understand, and both these considerations contribute to why this particular period of history is ripe for a productive analysis of this genre of artwork.
For the pictorial poster to operate as an effective means of propaganda distribution, however, the propagandist requires compositional elements that incorporate constructs considered to be capable of attracting the individual within the mass. If a particular construct is isolated and subsequently utilised in the artworkâs composition, its manifestation demonstrates the potential for its use as a mechanism by which the imagery can be unpacked. The concept of a propagandist promotion of an alternate reality worth striving for as a challenge to a current real â and the prospective movement from one to the other â can be figuratively as well as literally conveyed via an apposite constructâs employment as a pictorial trope. Taking these factors into consideration, therefore, the visual construct deemed to represent âmovementâ â and not only movement, but movement at its most beautiful, thereby forming a focus for the attraction of the viewer â is the serpentine curve that in 1745 William Hogarth scribed on a paint palette and titled âTHE LINE OF BEAUTYâ (Hogarth, 1997 p6).
In concentrating on the poster within the wider genre of early twentieth century visual conflict propaganda, and by creating new associations with both aesthetic and metaphoric concepts pertaining to Hogarthâs chosen âlineâ, Lines of Beauty: Propaganda, the Poster, and the Pictorial Trope as a body of research attempts to articulate how each contributory element within the artworkâs construction ârespectively influences the identity and the economies of the otherâ, thereby providing âa model by which to focus and rethinkâ these relationships (Ostrow, 2005 p226). In this way, the line of beauty serves as both cause and effect of the process by which the relationships are reconsidered, generating the potential to provoke an innovative discourse as to the prospective impact of the whole upon the visual culture field.
References
Hogarth, W. (1997) The Analysis of Beauty edited by Paulson, R. London: Yale University Press.
Ostrow, S. (2005) ‘Rehearsing Revolution and Life: The Embodiment of Benjaminâs Artwork Essay at the End of the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ in Benjamin, A. (Ed.) Walter Benjamin and Art London: Continuum 226-247.
Elham Soleimani’s PhD research is concerned with questions of the veil and the use of female figures in Persian illustrations. Her work centres upon her own practice of illustration, working towards counter-narratives of contemporary Iran. In this article she notes how a trip to the British Library’s ‘Comics Unmasked’ exhibition provided an opportunity to think further about the format and design of her work.
During the summer 2014, I attended an exhibition at the British Library called âComics Unmaskedâ. This major exhibition at the British Library was a great collection of comic books created by some of the most talented British writers and amazing artists such as Neil Gaiman (Sandman), Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta) Grant Morrison (Batman: Arkham Asylum) and Posy Simmonds (Tamara Drewe). However, there is a huge diversity of comics in this exhibition in terms of the creators, themes, content, size and styles and it was indeed fascinating how this show enables the viewers to trace the history of comics from their early days (almost over two centuries ago) to the digital era, highlighting their adaptability throughout the years.
For me, one of the main purposes of visiting this exhibition was to become more familiar with comics and also enhance my knowledge in this area, as my PhD practice has recently taken a new direction towards graphic novels. Although I have designed a number of books over the last few years, designing comics is a completely new and exciting, yet mysterious world to me. However, this exhibition was an excellent opportunity to take a quick journey through the history of comics and be inspired by many inspiring artists.
In the show, we came across a very interesting unique comic book, which was created by Libyan-born Muslim Asia Alfasi, that demonstrates the influence of Japanese pop culture on the artist and also her memories of watching anime cartoons in Libya and reading and making manga in Britain. âAsia had grown up watching anime (animation in Japanese) adaptions on Libyan television, and later realized it was not Arab after all but Japanese. She vowed to learn how to make her own manga. She kept her vow by growing up into an award-winning graphic novelist.â (Gravett, 2014: 59).
Apart from the brilliant illustrations in âJinNarrationâ, the layout of this book is fascinating. The overlapping Illustrations in different sizes, the close-ups, movements and wording allow the reader to become completely engaged with the story.
However, the exhibit that made the greatest impression was a giant comic book called âShe Livesâ by Woodrow Phoenix. Here is the Vimeo link so you can watch a video of Woodrow turning the pages of this very big book:
All of the illustrations in this book are hand-drawn and are in black and white. The book took Phoenix nineteen months to complete. In interview with the British Library he notes:
It was surprisingly physical to work on drawings at that size. I was covering so much paper, I was doing a lot of bending and stretching and I would be exhausted at the end of every day. But I did really enjoy doing something that used all of my body rather than just a bit from my elbow to my fingers. (Britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk, 2014)
One of the most amazing aspects of this book is that the images tell the story, rather than any text, and yet it is still an incredibly powerful story that is communicated effectively without the presence of any text.
Despite the fact that in the last couple of months I have been designing and redesigning my book, I have been struggling over a few issues, namely the relationship between the text (story) and the images, and the theoretical part of my research. Moreover, the question of to what extent I can use ânarrative artâ in this project has played on my mind. However, seeing this giant book, and discussing its particular layout and style with others, along with how the layout of comics in general enables the book to interact with the readers more effectively, I have begun to think further about the format of my own work. I found the following extract from the book âComics Unmaskedâ very inspiring and almost a solution for the issues that I am currently dealing with.
Instead of reducing a problem down to a simplified single image, comics can dig deeper to unpack the fuller story. Particularly rather than passive, comics incite readers to think for themselves by filling in the gaps between the panel and making their own interpretation of what the pictures and words are saying to them. Comics, according to Woodrow Phoenix, work as âempathy generatorâ. No wonder that such an engaging and empowering medium has been used by many groups as a tool for protest, as well as by the establishment to strengthen the status quo. (Gravett, 2014: 88).
References
Gravett, P. and Dunning, J (2014). To See ourselves. Comics Unmasked.
Soumik Parida is currently studying ‘soft power’ in the context of India for his PhD research. To date there there is little significant research in this area. In the following account Parida outlines the main scope and themes of his work.
India is a cultural melting pot. It has a rich and illustrious history with many different people from the Greeks to the Moghuls and latterly the English, Portuguese and French influencing its traditions that were initially set by the Indo Aryans. Indiaâs classical dances and songs have a strong presence on the world stage. Indiaâs cuisine can be found in all major cities of the world. Yoga has become the new-age mantra for healthy living with millions of people practicing it every day. Bollywoodâs (Hindi film industry) reach and effect on the pop culture is becoming more prominent, and some of the Indian film stars are even more popular than Hollywood stars. The country has various other soft attributes that it has contributed to the world, such as dance, food and Yoga. This work will explore the various soft attributes that contribute to communicating India as a soft power. A communication model is proposed that develops the idea of understanding how various people perceive India as a soft power and to overlay this with how these attributes are communicated to individuals. I want to understand Indiaâs great assets locked away in âsoftâ cultural contexts and why these are not exploited fully.
While there are many positive soft power attributes of India as seen above, the vicarious attributes of India outshine its positive counterpart; at least in the CBI Rankings (2011) and Monocle soft power rankings (2012), where India has been constantly dropping in the ratings. The focus of this research is based on Ying Fanâs nation brand definition. According to Fan âA nation brand is the total sum of the perceptions in the minds of international stakeholders, which may comprise some of the following elements such as people, place, culture, language, history, food, fashion, famous faces (celebrities), global brands, and cinemaâ. So the focus of this study is to evaluate various cultural factors of India which influence the perception of people around the worldâ. Factors such as âIndia as a nationâ, âIndiaâs historical perspectiveâ, âcultural perspectiveâ, âIndian cuisineâ, âspiritualism & yogaâ and âBollywoodâ will be analysed in detail.
India is a complex set of nation states unified by Bollywood, deep spirituality, food and dance culture so a study in these areas would help to understand the impact that they have outside Indiaâs borders. One could argue that none of the attributes discussed is mutually exclusive as Bollywood for instance can portray dance, food and spirituality in one go. At the same time yoga philosophy and practice also incorporates food principles via Ayurveda. Dance looks at spiritual aspects and history together with music that is often incorporated in Bollywood. The soft issues pervade Indian culture together with a passive acceptance of an often rigid caste system that rarely flares into riots such as those witnessed recently in Egypt. The study therefore needs to reconcile these opposites and the fluid interweaving of softness that comes across internationally and appears to exert such an influence on so many nations. Why does softness create such a popular nation and how does the hardness or vicariousness of the way people and women are treated create imbalances? The research intends to throw light on how a nation can use its soft power attributes to define its status and to move forward in the world. What are the complexities? What makes people stand up and take notice? How does a country change long held views?
I always wondered why a potentially prosperous country like India which has been called a cradle of civilization, and which gave the world Vedic mathematics, principles of non-violence, medicines and surgical expertise and was also a knowledge centre, slowly succumbed to invasion after invasion and finally lost its independence to the British empire. I believe, that Indiaâs answer to success lies in its glorious past. Nevertheless, there has been limited academic research in the field of nation branding and soft power related to India. Little research has been carried out in understanding the role of Indian cinema, Indian cuisine, spiritualism and yoga, Indiaâs historical and cultural heritage in the promotion of the nation. Which factors out of these are the most important ones? Do these factors change according to perceptions in different countries? For example will chicken tikka masala be a more prominent cultural ambassador of India in UK than Bollywood? What are the key factors that straddle most countries and what are the factors that are unique to certain countries?
This research intends to understand how interrelated factors can contribute to a countryâs brand as a soft power nation. At the same time it is important to understand what factors are more important than others.
Vanissa Wanickâs doctoral research investigates the design of advergames that could influence and embed cross-cultural consumer behaviour, analysing aspects of pervasive games, HCI and advertising, particularly through the comparison between UK and Brazil. In this post, she presents her recent experience at the first day of the Research Methods Festival and describes the best practices of research that are being used in different academic studies.
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Arts, design and social sciences: how to innovate in research methods
This yearâs Research Methods Festival (RMF14), organized by ESRC, had intriguing and variable sessions, including talks about Cross-National Research, Visual Methods and Big Data. I had the opportunity to go for the first day of the Festival with the aim to understand better the application of cross-cultural methods and other aspects that could be helpful for my methodology section in my research. Curiously, I had very good surprises, which I hope to share here with you.
Busy morning registering many of 700 delegates at #RMF14 – I’m supplying that now basic human need: WiFi! đ pic.twitter.com/Ylr31W1L4W
Cross-National Research and the challenge of meaningful quantitative data and indicators
For Cross-National Research, the session offered presentations from international organizations, such as UNECE and European Commission. The discussion was mainly situated in quantitative data, international policy frameworks, monitoring tools and comparisons between countries. Basically, from the perspective of my research, the session was helpful in many ways, especially to understand how big international institutions collect their data and publish their reports. Most of the organizations gather data from institutes like World Bank, WHO, ILO and Gallup World View.
The day started with Vitalia Gaucaite, from UNECE, the main aspect presented by her was regarding frameworks like, for example the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and the concern to make data accessible to the public and to decision-makers. The biggest challenge for most of the presenters was related to data accessibility, data quality, âtime lagâ (when the data was collected) and the necessity to negotiate the methodology to be applied in their research.
Most of the talks were regarding issues of ageing, unemployment and poverty, which are worldwide issues. For example, Jane Scobie from HelpAge International presented the indicators utilized to build the report âGlobal Age Watch Index 2013â. In essence, this shows that for any Cross-National Research itâs necessary to have indicators to build comparisons. However, defining indicators is not enough. Itâs also essential to understand peopleâs perceptions in each country. In addition, another important aspect highlighted by the presenters was the concept that the research will always depend on how you look at things. Basically everything could be considered as relative data and it will depend on how we, as researchers, interpret it.
Finally, the session ended with Isabelle Maquet-Engsted, from the European Commission with an exciting talk about poverty and challenges of quantitative data. Again, it was mentioned that the perception of poverty could be different across cultures. For example, some countries think that poverty is related to jobless, while other countries believe that it is related to the materially deprived. In essence, the session of Cross-National Research was very helpful in order to understand the impacts of quantitative data and the variables that we should take in account.
Social media and censorship
Still during the day, I had the opportunity to watch the exciting talk from Gary King, about âReverse Engineering of Chinese Censorshipâ. Gary introduced a very good background about the use of social media in research, especially regarding the popular Big Data. However the main issue was overlooking the context of the data. After building a program that could analyse this database, it was possible to understand how censorship works in China and what kind of information is not allowed in the country. It was also possible to detect the events that were censored and why. From the research perspective, Gary presented two approaches that he took with his team: observational study and experimental + participant approach. This methodology was very insightful in order to demonstrate the integration of two methods utilizing social media in one country. For this, it was necessary to have a big team with people that could not only understand Chinese as a language, but also as a culture.
Using visual methods in research
Lastly, the day ended with Visual Research Methods , which surprised me (in a good way). Visual methods are a new and expanding are of study in research methods, which could also include participatory approaches through visual resources as, for example, photos. Yes! Photos are a moment in time. They could be photo incitation, photographic journalist, annotated photographs and so on. Also, there are other methods that could be included in this category, such as cartoons (scaffolding responses), concept maps, visual organization, animation (as a learning journey), building things with LEGO (model identity) and more. I keep thinking that we could add games into that list too! Also, itâs important to understand that there are at least three types of visual data to be utilized: researcher created, researcher generated and researcher found. Briefly, visual methods can help to start conversations with people and should include confidence, understanding and warrant, making the participant interested and engaged into the study.
Finally, digital arts and social sciences at the same place
And what about adding digital arts and social sciences? Thatâs a talk that Iâve missed, because it was at the same time of Cross-National Research. However, I had the opportunity to enter into the website of MIDAS and find more about their project. In essence, MIDAS is an interdisciplinary methodology that combines body (physical interactions), digital resources and methods (practices and applications from social sciences). If you are interested, read this paper that explains how they mixed the methods in order to promote the best approach into research.  If you are intrigued, just look at the tweet below. Imagine what we can do!
To conclude, my experience at the RMF14 was fantastic. The lesson that I can take from it itâs that we can and we should innovate as researchers in our studies. Itâs possible to be creative and use everything we have now. Why not? There is a lot of work to do. But the best thing is that it was good to see that there is a lot of potential in research through the integration of arts and design into social sciences studies. Time to be creative!
References:
Margolis, E., & Pauwels, L. (Eds.). (2011). The Sage handbook of visual research methods. Sage.
Wall, Kate, Elaine Hall, and Pamela Woolner. “Visual methodology: previously, now and in the future.” International Journal of Research & Method in Education35.3 (2012): 223-226.
King, G., Pan, J., & Roberts, M. E. (2013). How censorship in China allows government criticism but silences collective expression. American Political Science Review, 107(02), 326-343.
Jason Kassâ doctoral research is jointly supervised in the schools of art and psychology at the University of Southampton. His research concerns an exploration of aesthetic experience, artistic volition, and spectatorship, approached through an understanding of visual cognition. In this post he reports upon his attendance at the Visual In-Sights conference held in Newcastle over the summer.
At the end of June I attended and presented a paper at the Visual In-Sights Conference at the University of Newcastle . The conference brought together a range of individuals who research the visual and/or work with visual materials and methods. The conference organisers described their goal to âto host an inclusive, cross-sectoral engagement event which create[d] spaces for academic, practical and exhibitive work within the framework of a conference programmeâ.
From the start, I was particularly interested in this conference for a number of reasons. On the one hand, as a researcher working across disciplines I was keen to present my research in a forum that took into account the difficulties that arise when attempting to breakdown disciplinary boundaries. And as a practice-based researcher I was equally enthusiastic to belong to a space that was inclusive of both traditional academic research outputs alongside the exhibition of practical research outputs.
The conference met its goals in many respects and gathered a truly varied group of presenters. The presentations were divided thematically and grouped into sessions as diverse as Art and Aesthetics,Embodying the Visual, Visualising Identities, Visual Cultures and Geopolitics, and Landscapes of the Visual. My paper titled Abstracting concepts from sets of instances: the case of serial works of art, was included in the Art and Aesthetics session.
The paper applied theories from visual cognition to an understanding of spectatorship of serial artworks. The work forms part of my PhD thesis and is supported by a practice-led project that responds to an aspect of Roland Barthesâ essay Camera Lucida, in which he describes the experience of remembering his mother through photography. The project is informed by mechanisms of visual memory and face recognition, particularly the model of âstability from variationâ whereby essential information is abstracted from discreet but related instances to produce stable concepts. The work generated to date has considered the relationship between exemplars and prototypes and the potential role of averaging in the formation of robust mental representations. Using personal family photographs as a starting point, my practice-based research examines the tension between instances and concepts both in relation to pictorial modes of address and the more private desire to come to terms with the limits of remembering those loved and lost.
In addition to the oral presentation, I had the opportunity to exhibit practical research outputs within the conference space. The available resources did not conform to the traditional white cube model as researchers were each given two, bright-blue pin-up boards in the entrance lobby to one of the Universities venues. This brought up issues that I have dealt with in the past regarding the status of images and artefacts resulting from the research process and to what extent they might be considered and treated as artworks. If anything, my experience at the conference only exacerbated these issues rather than offering any sense of resolution. This is an area that I hope to explore in more detail moving forward as I believe it remains ambiguous within practice-based research in the arts.
One of the highlights of the conference was the exciting plenary speakers. David Campbell spoke candidly about âthe changing function of photojournalism in the new media economyâ and offered a range of insights in relation to the proliferation of images in contemporary visual culture. Marcus Banks, Professor of Visual Anthropology at Oxford, presented a case for the âbanality of crime scene photographyâ. Both speakers touched upon the changing parameters of visual storytelling in a post-digital environment and current tensions around the authenticity of the image. I found it interesting to hear that many of the same concerns around the status of the image in an art context are shared by researchers working in other areas of visual research.
Christina Duffy (British Library) – Imaging Science at the British Library
Nora McGregor (British Library) â #BLDigital: 1 Million Image Experiment
Joanna Zylinska (Goldsmiths) – Curating / Open / Images
Image Research and its Futures was open to postgraduate and early career researchers working in the areas of image studies, visual culture, media and communications, and art and design. The guest panel offered presentations on a diverse range of image-related research projects and methodologies. The presentations considered institutional, ethical, intellectual and practical matters when devising, conducting and disseminating image-based work. Following which, participants engaged in an open debate about the role of images in research and image-based research a view to helping postgraduate and early career researcher look ahead to the development of research beyond the doctoral thesis. All participants were invited to expand on the debates and ideas explored during the workshop to submit individual contributions for the âResearcherâs Guideâ e-book.
Image Research & its Futures was the second of two workshop events for Looking at Images: A Researcher’s Guide, an AHRC-funded project which ran over 2014. The project focused on the development of skills in image-related research, prompting dialogue between and within the subject areas Art & Design and Media & Communication (concerning both practice and non-practice research). It culminated in a launch event, at the British Library, for a collaboratively produced âResearcherâs Guideâ e-book. The idea for the overall project grew out of three main influences:
(1) Marquard Smith (editor of the Journal of Visual Culture) offered a key contribution to Winchester School of Artâs Centre for Global Futures in Art, Design and Media, with a presentation about the âimageâ of research. Subsequent discussion also informed WSAâs Postgraduate Conference 2013, which identified a need in developing deep-level skills pertinent to understanding and handling the image in and as research across a range of areas.
(2) Approaches to thinking critically about images and image practices while simultaneously engaging with image-making processes has been difficult to formulate. Sunil Manghaniâs Image Studies (Routledge, 2013) is one key publication that speculates upon specific research tools and approaches for both obtaining and handling images (relating to issues of access, quality, ethics and intellectual property) and critiquing them (including the use of images as a means of critique). The book includes an âecology of imagesâ diagram as a proposed research tool, with examples of its use to stimulate and enrich image research.
(3) The recently launched Photomediations Machine (a sister project to the online open access journal Culture Machine) has renewed debates about the form of scholarly work. Curated by Prof. Joanna Zylinska (Goldsmiths), it provides an online space where âthe dynamic relations of mediation as performed in photography and other media can be critically encountered, experienced and engagedâ. As a platform for combined theoretical and practical work, it has led us to think further about the future of image-based, open access research in the field of visual culture.
Najla Binhalail’s doctoral research examines the practicalities and politics of the museum display of Saudi clothing, with particular consideration of the Unification of the Kingdom Hall in the National Museum in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Her work prompted the readings for a seminar on the function and ‘value’ of the museum . Her account of the seminar she led connects also with her attendance at the recent conference ‘Taste After Bourdieu’. Â
On Wednesday 14 of May, Dr. Sunil Manghani and eight PhD students from different nationalities studying at the Winchester School of Art took part in a seminar to discuss the cultural identity and value of museums. As this topic is relevant to one area of my PhD thesis, I would like to summarise and comment upon our seminar discussion. I began the seminar by giving out two papers, each summarising a previous piece of research concerning the core function of museums, and one paper  and pen for the answers to the question I would ask during the discussion.
A definition of the word âmuseumâ was then offered as âa building where many valuable and important objects are kept so that people can go and see themâ(Dictionary: Rundell and Fox, 2007, p.985). I asked the question, âWhat is the function of a museum?â, and the group were asked to write their answers on the paper provided and read them out prior to our discussion.
We then watched four YouTube videos (see links below) presenting a varied selection of views and perspectives from both visitors and museum staff in answer to the question I had posed.
We based our discussion on the videos and the summary I had made of two research papers, âThe Museum Values Framework: a Framework for Understanding Organisational Culture in Museums, and Museums, exhibitsâ and âVisitor Satisfaction: a Study of the Cham Museum, Danang, Vietnam.â After our discussion I asked the same question, âWhat is the function of a museum?â. Again the group gave their answers on the same sheet paper. The purpose of repeating the question was to observe and compare how opinions had changed as a result of our discussion.
 In the light of our discussion, I have come to recognize that the word “value” rather than “function” may be more appropriate when describing the aims and purposes of a museum. âFunctionâ tends to imply one overall concept which may or may not be true in any given context, while âvalueâ allows for differences in the economic, political, religious and national needs of each museum, its management, staff, and culture of which it is a part, as well as the wide mix of age, gender, nationality, social and educational background of its audience.
After the seminar I attended the “Taste After Bourdieu” conference at the University of the Arts in London, and as a result I became aware of the relationship between our seminar discussion and a research paper presented by Dr Silke Ackermann, “Have you got a quid?- Museums as development tools in urban culture.â
I understand Dr. Ackermannâs concern, because I am from Saudi Arabia and my culture is similar to that of the United Arab Emirates. Her questions were about the value of museums in an urban culture, and in particular she mentioned three new museums in Abu Dhabi as examples of her concern. My opinion is that there appears to be a different value for the museum in some countries of the West compared with some countries of the Gulf.
Some of the Gulf countries have come more recently to recognize the value of museums. They understand that progress and civilization originate from the roots of the past and are attempting to increase an awareness of the importance of museums. These countries tend to link the existence of museums to the interests of their tourists and non-citizens rather than to the needs of their actual residents. As a result, they plan their museums based on the valued experience of some western countries, with many of their new museums designed by foreign experts from a western culture. I am convinced that such experts will not easily understand the real needs of the citizens of the Gulf region.
Museums keep the valuable objects and display the heritage of the nation. Their presentations need to be distinct, effective, and offer the visitor a pleasing and interactive experience. Museums are not merely storerooms or repositories of the past, they are places of the present and the future, places that tell us the human story throughout the ages in an accurate and true fashion, and thus open up and interpret human civilization for succeeding generations to come. My hope is that the majority of citizens in the Gulf countries will come to appreciate the value of museums for the increase of knowledge and communication, and the strengthening of their political and economic standing in the world.
Resources:
Davies, S. M., Paton, R. and O’sullivan, T. J. 2013. The museum values framework: a framework for understanding organisational culture in museums. Museum Management and Curatorship, 28 (4), pp. 345–361.
Rundell, M. (2007). In: English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, 2nd ed. Oxford: Macmillan, pp. 985.
Trinh, T. T. and Ryan, C. 2013. Museums, exhibits and visitor satisfaction: a study of the Cham Museum, Danang, Vietnam. Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, 11 (4), pp. 239–263.
Looking at Images, Workshop 1: Picturing Research / Researching Pictures Wednesday 21 May 2014 Winchester School of Art
Guest Speakers
Marquard Smith, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Visual Culture
Sunil Manghani, author of Image Studies: Theory & Practice
Mihaela Brebenel, Jane Birkin, Rima Chahrour, Nina Pancheva-Kirkova, and Phaedra Shanbaum, who collaborated on the Working with Images symposium as part of the Radical Media Forum (Goldsmiths College 28/02/14).
Picturing Research / Researching Pictures was open to postgraduate and early career researchers working in the areas of image studies, visual culture, media and communications, and art and design. The workshop began with presentations on what is typically meant by image research and considered the different ‘images’ we hold of research itself. Following which, participants worked collaboratively to experiment with and critique an âecology of imagesâ research tool. All participants were invited to expand on the debates and techniques explored during the workshop to submit individual contributions for the âResearcherâs Guideâ e-book.
Picturing Research / Researching Pictures was the first of two workshop events for Looking at Images: A Researcher’s Guide, an AHRC-funded project which ran over 2014. The project focused on the development of skills in image-related research, prompting dialogue between and within the subject areas Art & Design and Media & Communication (concerning both practice and non-practice research). It culminated in a launch event, at the British Library, for a collaboratively produced âResearcherâs Guideâ e-book. The idea for the overall project, Looking at Images, grew out of three main influences:
(1) Marquard Smith (editor of the Journal of Visual Culture) offered a key contribution to Winchester School of Artâs Centre for Global Futures in Art, Design and Media, with a presentation about the âimageâ of research. Subsequent discussion also informed WSAâs Postgraduate Conference 2013, which identified a need in developing deep-level skills pertinent to understanding and handling the image in and as research across a range of areas.
(2) Approaches to thinking critically about images and image practices while simultaneously engaging with image-making processes has been difficult to formulate. Sunil Manghaniâs Image Studies (Routledge, 2013) is one key publication that speculates upon specific research tools and approaches for both obtaining and handling images (relating to issues of access, quality, ethics and intellectual property) and critiquing them (including the use of images as a means of critique). The book includes an âecology of imagesâ diagram as a proposed research tool, with examples of its use to stimulate and enrich image research.
(3) The recently launched Photomediations Machine (a sister project to the online open access journal Culture Machine) has renewed debates about the form of scholarly work. Curated by Prof. Joanna Zylinska (Goldsmiths), it provides an online space where âthe dynamic relations of mediation as performed in photography and other media can be critically encountered, experienced and engagedâ. As a platform for combined theoretical and practical work, it has led us to think further about the future of image-based, open access research in the field of visual culture.
Lisa Temple-Coxâs doctoral research centres around a practice of drawing,  focused upon issues of the body after death. In this post she reports upon a ‘dissection drawing event’ she attended organised by BIOMAB (Biological and Medical Art in Belgium) and in collaboration with ARS International and the University of Antwerp’s Faculty of Medicine. This annual event brings together independent artists, medical and anatomical arts students and their tutors, and surgical students from Antwerp University.
The event took place over two days. The first day was at the veterinary school of the University of Ghent, which offered the opportunity, via dissection of a number of donated animals, to learn about the differences between animal and human anatomy We saw, among other organs, a dog’s five-lobed liver – that organ which Galen used, erroneously, to describe a human liver, basing his work on human anatomy through animal dissections. (His work dominated Western medicine for over a thousand years until challenged by that ‘greatest single contributor to the medical sciences’, Andreas Vesalius, of whom more later).
The morning being taken up by the dog dissection (fig1) â donated, after it’s natural demise, by its owner who is a member of staff at the school â in the afternoon students were given the chance to work either from fresh specimens or to explore the on-site museum. While it was difficult to choose between the lab and the museum, I was very interested in the displays of animal teratology that the latter contained. It was in the museum that I came across this cephalothoracopagus calf skeleton (fig2): a fascinating comparative object against which to consider a similar (human) teratological specimen I’d drawn in the Mutter Museum on a previous research trip.
The second drawing day took place in the dissection lab at the University of Antwerp, where a range of body parts â both preserved in formaldehyde, and fresh â were laid out for students to work from. During this session the surgeon, Francis Van Glabbeek, continued a dissection on the left arm of the cadaver, (fig 4) an elderly woman who had died naturally and generously donated her remains to the school, while one of his surgical students dissected the throat. Throughout these processes they described what they were doing and explained the anatomy, pausing at regular intervals to allow for students to make notes and sketches. During our visit some footage was filmed as part of an upcoming documentary charting the life of Vesalius, who was born in Brussels in 1514, and whose anatomical atlas â De Humani Corporis Fabrica (1543) â changed the study of human anatomy in ways that continue to be felt. In conversation with Van Glabeek â whose interest in the history of western medicine includes a personal collection of some very rare tomes, the Fabrica included â I was informed that Vesalius’s treatise known as the Epistola Docens was, in his opinion, the first PhD as we know them today. He explained that it was not, as was usual at the time, a doctorate gained by the repeating of knowledge already known, but a document which sets out a problem and methodically shows the steps taken in order to solve it and arrive at a conclusion â a pertinent and timely reminder of the scholarship and enquiry that underpinned the work of all the participants of this event.
Aside from conversations over the course of these two days, many of which have opened up new or additional lines of enquiry, I found the event useful on several levels, creative and philosophical. In this opportunity to see beneath the skin â enter the hidden world of the body â there is something both beautiful and disturbing. It is a transgressive act, the cutting and incising: simultaneously revealing and destroying. I was moved and fascinated by the carefully exposed surfaces of the bones of the arm, with the wing of skin and sinew folding away from it – like an elegant shawl, or Isadora Duncan’s scarves with their movement arrested mid-dance. (fig 5) I was as drawn to the stripped arm this year as I was to the careful cutting of the hand last year (A process that I felt compelled to watch and draw even as I experienced an unpleasant sympathetic sensation in the tendons of my own hands.) This year additionally provided a pair of legs: already part-anatomised, the only skin left on the spindly limbs were the toes, strangely wrinkled and folded flat against each other. I drew these too, but thankfully my own toes did not respond. (fig 6)
For more information:
Illustrations from the works of Andreas Vesalius by J. B. deC. M. Saunders and Charles D. O’Malley. Dover Publications, New York 1973
Gericault: Images of Life and Death Exhibition Catalogue, edited by Gregor Wedekind and Max Hollein. Hirmer Verlag, Munich 2014
Bedour Aldakhil’s PhD research, Saudi females, the abaya and everyday life: Towards a Designerly Approach to Consumers Research, prompted the readings for a seminar on ‘Designerly Ways of Knowing’. She offers an account here of some of the elements of the seminar discussion.
At the start of the seminar, Dr Manghani introduced Noriko Suzuki-Bosco, practicing artist and member of WSA’s alumni, who had joined us for the seminar discussion.  Noriko, whose work is explicitly concerned with material form and processes of making, was able to contribute pertinent insights to our reading oftwo articles by Nigel Cross, ‘Designerly Ways of Knowing: Design As A Discipline’ (1982) and ‘Designerly Ways of Knowing: Design Discipline versus Design Science’ (2001). As part of preparation for the seminar we also listened to an interview on BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific with Professor Mark Andrew Miodownik, the British materials scientist at King’s College London and co-founder of the Materials Library.
In the main, the seminar discussions and arguments centred around the earlier article by Nigel Cross. The article lays out an argument for and challenges our thinking about a neglected third area of education: Design. In general, the two dominant cultures of education are the sciences and the arts, broadly defined. Cross’ article published in early 80âs was stimulated by a project on âDesign in general educationâ by Royal College of Arts in the late 70âs, however, it highlights several issues that remain highly relevant to us today.
Cross contrasts between the three cultures science, humanities and design to clarify what he means by design and what is particular about it. As he put it:
The phenomena of study in each culture is
In the science: the natural world
In the humanities: human experience
In design the man made world
The appropriate methods in each culture are
In the sciences: controlled experiment, classification, analysis.
In the humanities: analogy, metaphor, criticism, evaluation.
In design: modelling, pattern-formation, synthesis.
The values of each culture are:
In the science: objectivity, rationality, neutrality and a concern for truth
In the humanities subjectivity, imagination, commitment, and a concern for justice
In design: practicality, ingenuity, empathy, and a concern for âappropriatenessâ.
We recognise that the boundaries between these three cultures are not concrete but fluid. However, one member of the seminar was sceptical about the idea of design vs. science. He felt the design process that Cross argues for puts science in a tight corner. I think what Cross was trying to do is to explain his own perspective and make the case for design by comparing it to science. The underlying argument is that there are ‘ways of knowing’ embedded in the process of design that are different from  science; which is specifically illustrated with an example between architecture and science. Drawing on observations from Lawson’s study, How designers think (Architectural Press, 1980), Cross explains how postgraduate students of architecture and science show ‘dissimilar problem-solving strategies … The scientists generally adopted a strategy of systematically exploring the possible combinations of blocks, in order to discover the fundamental rule which would allow a permissible combination. The architects were more inclined to propose a series of solutions, and to have these solutions eliminated, until they found an acceptable one’. Lawson elaborates further:
The essential difference between these two strategies is that while the scientists focused their attention on discovering the rule, the architects were obsessed with achieving the desired result. The scientists adopted a generally problem-focused strategy and the  architects a solution-focused strategy. Although it would be quite possible using the architect’s approach to achieve the best solution without actually discovering the complete range of acceptable solutions, in fact most architects discovered something about the  rule governing the allowed combination of blocks.In other words they learn about the nature of the problem largely as a result of trying out solutions, whereas the scientists set out specifically to study the problem. (Lawson, How designers think, 1980)
Thus, for Cross, science relates to a process of a linear analysis to find a solution, while a designerly way of knowing is a process of synthesis and iteration. It unfolds in the future with innovative realisation. The designerly way of knowing is not only embodied in the process of designing but equally the products of design also carry knowledge. The material culture of our world provides knowledge to everyone ââŠone does not have to understand mechanics, nor metallurgy, nor the molecular of timber, to know that an axe offers (or âexplainsâ) a very effective way of splitting woodâ. In a similar vein Professor Mark Miodownik from University College London, in the interview on BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific, argued for the importance of our material culture and its sensual aspects. He offers the radical idea of converting public libraries into workshops with laser cutters and 3D printers in place of books. His point is that we now can access books with little difficulty (and on different formats) but materials and technologies in the context of a workshop are not widely available. Through making, doing, and experimenting people understand and have more appreciation for materiality and could find new solutions for problem that exist in our world. Materials have there own sensibility different from writing and reading.
Today we can see how people use technology creatively to solve their own problems and help learning from each other. The creative use of hash tags in twitter, or the rise of virtual communities are just a couple of digital examples. Maybe it is appropriate to end with a quote from Victor Papanek, a philosopher of design, from his book Design for the Real World:
âAll men [and women] are designers. All that we do, almost all the time, is design, for design is a basic to all human activity. The planning and patterning of any act towards a desired, foreseeable end constitutes the design process and attempting to separate design to make it a thing by itself works counter to the fact that design is the primary underlying matrix of lifeâ (1972: 3).