NCADResearch & Postgraduate Yearbook 2012

NCAD

Research & Postgraduate Yearbook 2012

8mm

11358_NCAD_PG_YB_Cov_Final.indd 1 30/05/2012 12:46

11358_NCAD_PG_YB_Cov_Final.indd 2 30/05/2012 12:46

NCAD Research & Postgraduate Yearbook 2012

First published in 2012 by

NCAD – National College of Art and Design

Coláiste Náisiúnta Ealáinte is Deartha (NCAD) is a recognised college of University College Dublin (UCD).

© June 2012. All rights reserved NCAD, the artists, authors and publishers.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

Publication Coordinators: Prof. Siún Hanrahan, Head of Academic Affairs & Research and Margaret Phelan, Administrator, Research & Postgraduate Development, NCAD.

Design: Language, www.language.ie

Print: Character Print

Edition of 650

Cover image:

Walking in the Way – Labour Exhibition, Derry 2012,

Pauline Cummins and Frances Mezzetti

Photo: Jordan Hutchings

4 Foreword

6 TheNCADResearchEnvironment

11 User-FirstDesign13 Projects19 MSc – Medical Device Design

23 ContemporaryPracticesinArt&Design26 Projects32 Researchers40 Doctoral Researchers46 MA – Design54 Masters of Fine Art70 MA – Art in the Digital World76 MA – Art in the Contemporary World

83 ModernIrishDesignHistory&MaterialCulture85 Projects86 Researchers88 Doctoral Researchers89 MA – Design History & Material Culture

97 Creative&CriticalPedagogies99 Projects101 Researchers102 Doctoral Researchers103 M.Litt – Education105 MA – Visual Arts Education

113 DesignSustainability115 Projects116 MA – Design Sustainability117 MA – Industrial Design

118 StudentsCompleting2012

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Foreword

The NCAD vision is to be in the world; to speak and be heard in the culture, in the economy and in society. At a time of dramatic, persistent and pervasive uncertainty, the importance of realising this vision is critical. We cannot hope to affect the global economic crisis but we can expect to contribute to how it is understood and responded to at national and local levels.

At the height of Ireland’s economic crisis, when the world’s media were here to monitor and report on our broken economy, the verdict of the Guardian and the New York Times included recognition that the culture is not broken. The entrepreneurial, do-it-yourself agency of Ireland’s emerging artists invites us to think again about what is possible in this moment.

In repairing and reshaping our economy, visual literacies will be key. They are key to the creative industries that are a vital part of Ireland’s economic future. But the value of design, in particular, exceeds this in its potential to greatly enhance the success of SMEs and Industry in bringing innovative and user-centred products to market.

As we enter into a decade of commemorations, remembering how Ireland was imagined and forged as a nation-state, artists and designers have a key role to play in support of how we, as a society, make sense of the moment in which we find ourselves, and imagine a future toward which to shape ourselves. We need an effective and dynamic economy that underpins a society to which we want to belong. The space of critical and creative reflection offered by art and design has a vital role to play in imagining and articulating the social possibilities we want our future economy to serve.

Delivering upon our ambition for the future of art and design in Ireland requires orientation toward and emphasis upon research and postgraduate education. The NCAD is Ireland’s centre of excellence for research in, through and about contemporary art and design, and Ireland’s leading provider of postgraduate education in art and design.

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NCAD’s Research and Postgraduate Yearbook presents a snapshot of the research being carried out at NCAD in 2012 and communicates something of the rich research environment that guides postgraduate study in the College. The presentation is led by the current research priorities of the College research community:

• User-First Design

• Contemporary Practices in Art & Design

• Creative & Critical Pedagogies

• Design Sustainability

• Design History & Material Culture

Each research priority is briefly introduced along with a selection of current and recent projects, and followed by a presentation of the work of graduating postgraduate students relating to that domain.

Prof.SiúnHanrahanHead of Academic Affairs & Research

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Art and design have a crucial contribution to make to the cultural and intellectual enrichment of Ireland, and to Ireland’s capacity to create a sustainable knowledge based economy and society. The research in, through and about art and design at NCAD is oriented towards the real worlds of art and design practice – focused upon disciplinary excellence, relevance to contemporary art and design contexts, engagement with industry and diverse communities, and upon informing art, design and education policy.

The foundation for the rich multi-disciplinary research environment at NCAD is the professional activity and output of leading national and international practitioners across a wide range of disciplines. Although many of our domains and practices have not typically been associated with notions of research, the definition of research asserted in the international standard reference tool for research and development measurement, the OECD Frascati Manual (first edition 1963), provides a framework for understanding research that accommodates the specificity of the knowledge domain of art and design practice:

…creative work, undertaken on a systematic and rigorous basis in order to contribute to and enhance knowledge and understanding in the pursuit of new concepts and applications. (Frascati Manual 1997 and 2002)

NCAD’sResearchMission

To be Ireland’s centre of excellence for research in, through and about contemporary art and design; providing academic and creative leadership in the culture, the society and the economy.

The NCAD Research Environment

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KeyStrategicAims

• To provide a rich, dynamic and challenging art and design research environment.

• To be acknowledged and respected as a centre of excellence for research in, through and about contemporary art and design in Ireland and internationally.

• To promote, support and develop the role of art and design in creating Ireland as an ‘Innovation Island’.

ResearchPriorities2012-2016

• User-First Design

• Contemporary Practices in Art and Design

• Irish Design History & Material Culture

• Creative & Critical Pedagogies

• Design Sustainability

ResearchvaluesatNCAD

• Creativity

• Excellence

• Dialogue

• Innovation

Image: Matthew Thompson

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TheResearchInstitute

NCAD’s Art and Design Research Institute seeks to build upon the breadth and calibre of activities and output of NCAD’s research active staff to create a multi-faceted research and innovation platform that will support a number of intertwined research and innovation activities addressed to a range of audiences and contexts: from the academic (historical, critical, practice-based), to the entrepreneurial (art and design practitioners, SMEs, industry), to culture tourism (heritage and contemporary). The Research Institute offers a means of supporting and resourcing staff research activity as well as capturing and making visible the research identity of NCAD.

The NCAD Research Institute incorporates a number of strands of activity:

• Scholarly research (including practice-based)

• External Academic Relations (Associate Researchers, Visiting Professors, Fulbright Scholars)

• Innovation/incubation

• Art and design consultancy

The most developed of these strands of activity is scholarly research. The work of artists, designers, historians and critics at NCAD is exhibited, commissioned and published nationally and internationally. External academic relations are an increasingly strong feature of the NCAD research environment, with the College regularly hosting Fulbright Scholars and a growing number of Associate Researchers. The College has a tradition of sustaining informal incubation relationships with graduates, but is working with Enterprise Ireland and NovaUCD to formally develop this capacity. It is anticipated that the NCAD’s Research Institute will enhance the College’s capacity to work in collaboration with diverse agencies in support of the delivery of significant art and design initiatives.

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FutureDevelopments

While a timescale for the development of a dedicated research centre with postgraduate facilities is hard to predict in the current financial climate, it is intended to include:

• The National Irish Visual Arts Library, a unique research facility wherein every aspect of 20th Century Irish art and design has been documented;

• A Co-Design Laboratory, building upon and expanding existing collaborations, research and postgraduate initiatives;

• A Public Cultures Laboratory, harnessing and developing long standing art practices and networks, and diverse art, design and education research projects in the area of culture-engaged regeneration and social development, and art and health;

• Extensive, mixed profile postgraduate research space, including:

2D, 3D and moving image digital laboratory space; Flexible studio research space; Open-plan office style work space; Seminar rooms.

GraduateSchoolofCreativeArtsandMedia

The Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media (GradCAM) is a key resource within NCAD in support of our doctoral programmes in particular, and our development of a research ecology for art and design in collaboration with the wider art and design sector.

User-First Design

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Introduction

User-First Design is people-focused design and involves attending to the appropriateness of products and services to meet the needs of the user and the application of the principles across a wide range of domains.

‘…recent research shows that the 70% to 80% of new product development that fails does so not for lack of advanced technology but because of a failure to understand users’ needs …The emergence of user-centered innovation clearly shows that this near-exclusive focus on technological advance is misplaced’

Professor Eric von Hippel (Harvard Business Review, February 2007)

User-First research at NCAD is engaged across a number of domains e.g. human-computer interaction, industrial design, service design, universal design and multi-modal design, with the aim of deepening our understanding of people-focused design and of developing practical innovative and creative solutions to user needs.

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Projects User-First Design

TFE Task Furniture in Education is a Marie Curie FP7 (IAPP) Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways funded programme.

In recent years, there have been arguments made that many of the predominant Western education systems do not adequately prepare children for the challenges they will face in the future. To design for learning in the 21st century the educational vision underpinning schools must be radically different from those which informed the design of schools in the 19th and 20th century. Many aspects of existing learning environments today appear to be teacher-focused and uni-directional, seriously limiting the interaction and types of activities that can take place.

Furniture often receives very little consideration in school design and refurbishment projects, which has led to the design and specification of inappropriate furniture and equipment for the learning environment. Too often teachers and students are required to work around the limitation imposed by furniture, when instead they should be supported by them and enabled to employ more effective methods of teaching and learning. It is possible to design furniture that is adaptable and flexible to different purposes if it is designed with a clear goal and vision for learning in mind.

While there is agreement on the existence of a connection between style of teaching and classroom organisation the research findings on the implications for learning differ. It has been argued that individual characteristics of a school will have an impact on students. However, it must be recognised that different cultures, schools, children and contexts for learning will also affect conditions for learning. Although knowledge of the value or benefits of both the tangible and intangible aspects of the ‘good design’ is growing, there is a need for improved evaluation methods if future learning environments are to benefit from the emerging understanding. There is a lack of research on the impact of environments in terms of effectiveness for learning and any research that has been done seems to be mostly focused on the

TFE Task Furniture in Education

Transition year students, TFE “Design for 21st Century Learning”

workshop, NCAD Gallery, November 2011

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ProjectsUser-First Design

traditional ‘chalk and talk’ learning in standardised ‘one size fits all’ institutions.

Designers and those working on the design and planning of schools need to recognise the barriers that furniture can create for teachers and students. It is time for designers to bridge the gap between research and design and to use this research to design, test and deliver solutions for task furniture in education. Creating learning environments is first and foremost about education, not architecture. It is about creating spaces in which learning will happen, spaces that will foster learning relationships and experiences.

The implications and directives that will be established through the TFE project aim to inspire and provoke and sustain the design of learning environments for a 21st century pedagogy.

TFE Research Team

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User-First DesignProjects

Capsule knit collection with ‘signature’ pieces for the User First Client of Post Polio Support Group of Ireland

This User First Group built on the success of a previous Innovation Voucher with Post Polio Support Group with ‘Tutty’s Handmade Shoes’. The group had identified the need for knitted clothing for people with restricted mobility.

The NCAD first established a questionnaire and then meet with a Focus group of PPSG members. This is an important stage in User First Design, as it provides the key considerations of the niche market. We considered functional needs, wearability, ‘fashion look’, cost, handle of knits, production, whether machine knit or with hand knit details/accessories; above all freedom of movement/putting on and taking off, all determined our design outcomes.

NCAD researchers designed a range of key component garments with ‘signature’ pieces.

We chose Merino wool due to its softness, lightness in weight and handle. Some Merino had a linen mix, perfect for the Irish climate.

We selected the colour palette of soft and muted colours that had cross seasonal usage with accents of strong colour for accessories and edging details and that could be worn together or integrated into wardrobes of the wearer. We developed a range of sophisticated knitwear; Anne Byrne Designs specialized in the technical skills required to produce our swatches and ‘The Cape’.

The range was to include simple silhouettes of a palazzo style trouser, tunics of 3 lengths and skirts that all could be worn with the ‘signature’ garments of cape, wrap or reversible cardigan/jacket. The unique knitted textures enable the garments to cross over from day to evening wear and the reversible qualities in the cardigan/jacket and wrap give a completely different look within the same garment .

Dee Harte worked on hand finished edgings and features that can be attached to outer garments, such as pockets with designs for

Department of Fashion & Textiles Innovation Voucher Research Project

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separate knitted sleeves. These could be optional in production but gave the garments a bespoke feel and addressed requests made by the focus group user; such as where to keep a mobile phone or keys. Therefore the attachable accessories enabled the wearer to coordinate the ‘look and to adapt to their use and needs.

Cathy Mooney produced all the CAD sheets, renderings, specs and presentation formats and as a ‘Freelance designer ‘will continue to design for User First niche markets, working collaboratively with cut and sew production.

Dee Harte, has embedded this research in her current MA researching sustainable practices around hand knit products and industrial wool wastes. Dr. Helen McAllister facilitates making links that are underpinned by educational imperatives for User First Design.

The PPSG were a fantastic group to work with, their insights gave the collection a strong direction for design solutions by their first hand experiences of their fashion needs.

Fashion & Textiles Department – NCAD staff

Cathy Mooney – Lead Researcher/Designer/CAD Rendering/Specs

Dr. Helen McAllister – Facilitator/Researcher

Dee Harte MA Textiles NCAD – Designer/hand prototyping

With Anne Byrne Knit Production – knit sampling

User-First Design Projects

Projects User-First Design

AcollaborationbetweenNCADandCrosscare–Spring2012

The third year Industrial Design students worked with the charity Crosscare to develop a range of design responses to improve Crosscare food centres in Dublin. This work aims to deliver a greater service experience for new or existing users, staff and volunteers, as well as to provide pragmatic solutions and identify long-term opportunities.

Increasingly, the role of the designer is moving away from products to encompass services, experiences and systems. Design is now concerned with behaviours, roles and interactions, or with the application of ‘design thinking’ to larger social issues. More than ever designers need to understand and communicate how their work is shaped by and responds to our shared social challenges.

Crosscare has a diverse range of programmes across homeless, community and young peoples services, all delivered with commitment and passion. Crosscare run three food centres in Dublin. Innovating for seventy-one years, Crosscare is redeveloping these centres to meet the challenges for 21st century Dublin.

Over nine weeks the design team researched, developed ideas and prototyped a range of design responses for Crosscare food centres. We met users and staff, examined systems, and generally got immersed in learning about life in the centres. From this research we identified a number of challenges, and then formed smaller project groups to explore and develop the most relevant ones.

To test our ideas we ran experience prototypes. Through a range of failures, adaptations and successes we learned how to use design intervention to address general and specific client needs.

Our work is not viewed as a finished solution to a problem, but a series of experiments, prompts and prototypes. These tests suggest both immediate pragmatic changes for Crosscare, as well as identifying potential opportunities for the organisation’s future.

Experiments – Prompts – Prototypes

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Detail view of LevitAID by Niamh Pucrell and Tara O’Reilly

ProjectsUser-First Design

NCAD completed another successful collaboration with Trulife, the Irish owned producer of niche healthcare products. The project involved 2nd year Industrial Design students who were given the brief of re-designing Trulife’s Pressure Care Pad range. These products are designed to support patients and relieve pressure whilst in operating rooms. Trulife felt that a partnership with NCAD’s Industrial Design department offered excellent scope to explore and develop innovative new features and forms for their product range.

Working in teams of two, the students were assigned a brief to develop a novel range of operating room pressure relieving positioning pads that stand out from those of competitors through superior functionality and cosmetic appearance. Throughout the project the students were encouraged to adopt a user first design approach. This included an extensive primary research phase that built a clear picture of user needs, abilities and resources. Trulife’s R&D department provided input to ensure that the project process and outcome matched Trulife’s requirements and also that the students were given a real world client experience.

The final designs presented a diverse and highly innovative range of concepts that sought to address the requirements of Trulife’s initial project brief. Each of the teams explored different materials, manufacturing processes, usage scenarios and aesthetics. Common to each project though, was a detailed analysis of user needs and a translation of these into relevant product features and forms.

The outcome of this project highlights the effectiveness of industry involvement in academic design projects. The students get to experience a real life client and to potentially see their concepts move towards production. On the industry side the project partner gets to engage with a group of young designers who offer a fresh design perspective and can generate an innovative variety of new concepts.

Trulife Sponsor Industrial Design Project at NCAD

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Medical Device Design

Ireland has a significant role in the global medical technology industry. It is home to some 110 companies, including 15 of the world’s largest 25. As ‘industry cluster’, it is comparable with the two other largest in the world. Medical technology needs innovators who are able to generate great ideas and produce great designs for successful products. Innovators who understand the need for empathy with users and the technologies needed.

The demand and complexity of medical devices is ever-growing. Sophisticated devices for professional and home use, an ageing population of users, digital interfaces and demanding safety requirements are all leading to an increased emphasis on ‘human factors’ in the design of devices. Good design improves our quality of life and never more so than when it results in successful medical products. The skills and ethos of three colleges – design at NCAD, engineering and science at University College Dublin (UCD) and Trinity College Dublin (TCD) – combine to provide a rigorous approach resulting in innovative products.

Students on NCAD’s MSc Medical Device Design programme spend almost ninety per cent of the time working on real projects with medical device companies. Projects have covered a broad spectrum of medical devices and have included problems relating to blood containment in operating theatres, urinary catheters and even reducing the cost of disposable components. Most of the companies involved have also provided ‘masters projects’ for individual students.

The ‘innovative’ approach is to identify problems accurately and then to draw on a wide range of knowledge to produce potential solutions. The environment at NCAD is conducive to this way of working and time, encouragement and tools are provided so that students are capable of producing huge numbers of options as a matter of routine. The ability of the students to visualise solutions can drive innovations forward very rapidly. This approach differs from traditional engineering courses, where students have to focus on theory and have relatively little time for practical projects and do not tend to draw on a wider knowledge base for their solutions.

MSc – Medical Device Design User-First Design

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The MSc programme is exciting and intensive, offering a wide range of modules to support a career in the medical devices industry. The programme:

• provides students with the in-depth knowledge and expertise that will allow them to work as designers of medical devices and to pioneer new approaches to the solution of medical problems;

• provides the methodology to understand the broader issues that are needed to optimise the design of medical products;

• advances learning, knowledge and professional competence in the field of medical device design.

Securing the Intellectual Property (IP) of the innovations and design solutions generated by the students is such that projects are not featured in this publication.

MSc – Medical Device DesignUser-First Design

Contemporary Practices in Art & Design

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Contemporary Practices in Art & Design is a research strand that serves to support and make visible the creative and critical practice of NCAD researchers engaged in and with contemporary practice in art, design and craft. It is a complex, multi-disciplinary research strand that anchors diverse individual practices and a number of disparate research groupings, including:

TheoriesofContemporaryArt:Situation,Modernity,MediumsandPhilosophy

This research cluster addresses the theories and practices of contemporary art. It considers the different theoretical and practical contexts within which contemporary practice can be situated. Broadly speaking there are four main themes around which the research is clustered: Situation (space), Modernity (history), Mediums (form) and Philosophies (thought).

painttube

painttube is a research group engaged with and interested in Painting within contemporary fine art practice. painttube is connected to an expanding network of Irish and International painting groups delivering events that explore painting in contemporary visual arts practice. painttube embraces current painting as a diverse practice and expanding field with reference to historical and critical realms.

(http://painttube.wordpress.com)

Introduction

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ParticipatoryCultures

Participation is popular; arts councils, higher education providers and policy makers encourage participation. Yet participation is complex and not easily achieved, as issues of power, inequality, ethics and relationship between different bodies, groups and communities require sustained attention over time. Participatory Cultures is a multi-disciplinary research cluster exploring: participation and culture across a spectrum of practices in fine art, education, equity and social justice; questions of voice and authority in society and the politics of institutions; the ethics of representation and forms of resistance to authoritarian systems of knowledge production.

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DOCUMENT!

A curated selection of visual arts documentation from the National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL)

NCAD Gallery 26th April to 26th May 2012 Opened by Barbara Dawson, Director, Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane

DOCUMENT! is a chronological exploration of the materials used to document the arts providing a window into developments across the visual arts in Ireland from 1890 to 2010. The exhibition features selected works from the collections at the National Irish Visual Arts Library that are representative of the physical and intellectual content of the library’s extensive holdings including printed ephemera, books and journals, exhibition catalogues, archives, Special Collections, audio-visual material and digital ephemera.

The exhibition was accompanied by a programme of public events:

Seminar: Current investigations into Irish visual culture – featuring MaryAnn Bolger, Michelle Browne, Ciara Healy, Dr. Roisin Kennedy, Megs Morley and chaired by Valerie Connor.

Artists’ in Conversation: A Walk through the File with… featuring Alice Maher with Catherine Morris; and John Byrne with Declan Long.

Reading Ensemble III – a video work and public performance by artist Jennie Guy.

DOCUMENT! – a conversation about archives, written by Valerie Connor and Dr. Catherine Morris, was produced to mark the exhibition and 15th anniversary of the establishment of NIVAL.

DOCUMENT! was curated by Donna Romano.

Research and design by Katie Blackwood, Eve Parnell, Renata Pekowska and Roisin Sheridan.

The exhibition was coordinated by Anne Kelly.

ProjectsContemporary Practices in Art & Design

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Panellists left to right: Ronnie Hughes, Merlin James , Dougal McKenzie,

Kristina Huxley, Robert Armstrong, Madeleine Moore, Oliver Whelan,

Alison Pilkington and Natasha Conway

Abstraction – more or less A painttube symposiumNCAD,HarryClarkeLectureTheatre,Friday23rdMarch2012

Speakers and Programme Ronnie Hughes on Abstraction and Representation

Madeleine Moore on Space in Abstraction: Agnes Martin and others

Alison Pilkington (PhD student NCAD) on Endgame: Philip Guston’s move from abstraction to figuration in relation to some of her own work

Kristina Huxley on Hassel Smith

Dougal McKenzie, Where do we go from here? From Duchamp’s Last Painting, to Kristin Baker and Julie Mehretu

Oliver Whelan on Science and Abstraction

Susan Connolly, Natasha Conway, Diana Copperwhite – in conversation

Merlin James, Keynote on Abstraction – Then and Now

Followed by Panel Discussion/Q&A

The day long symposium was attended by a full house throughout the day

painttube was established by Robert Armstrong and Kristina Huxley in association with Eamon Connors, Diana Copperwhite, Chris Maguire, Susan MacWilliam, Madeleine Moore, Paul Nugent and Ollie Whelan.

Projects Contemporary Practices in Art & Design

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In 2010, the Metals and Jewellery Area established a three dimensional printing research laboratory. This strategic initiative was aimed at developing first hand design and manufacturing research knowledge in the area of rapid prototyping (rp).

Making connections between traditional craft studio practice and emergent digital technology is a significant priority for our Metals and Jewellery research programme. Using three dimensional printing technology we can now test, experiment and explore the potential of computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided manufacturing processes.

A range of digital software tools allow you to design simple or highly complex three dimensional structures. These cad models are then fed into our wax or acrylic rp equipment which construct three dimensional models. Physical models are normally then transformed into a solid metal object using traditional lost wax casting methods. Whether it is a completed one of a kind or production object, component part or artifact, the combination of old and new craft studio technology now presents infinite creative design and manufacturing possibilities.

Creating an rp service bureau for clients within the small manufacturing and jewellery sector was also important to the Metals Area. The Enterprise Ireland Innovation Research Voucher Programme presented an opportunity for us to pursue short funded research projects with indigenous industry. We have now completed numerous funded research and knowledge transfer partnerships with specialist design companies. Many clients who may not have had experience with or access to new technology could come to the NCAD to work on specific product development research projects. Clients now see the enormous benefits of using CAD/CAM design and manufacturing to more quickly develop new product ranges or to develop their own facilities

Through funded research, we use our craft design expertise to creatively address a wide range of business development issues. We now have the capacity to bridge the knowledge gap between the traditional craft industry and post-industrial design and manufacturing.

New Technology in Craft Studio Practice

Contemporary Practices in Art & Design Projects

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Walking in the Way – Labour Exhibition, Derry 2012,

Pauline Cummins and Frances Mezzetti

Photo: Jordan Hutchings

Creative Aging

Fine Art Faculty Research embraces both ongoing individual staff work and more collective project based activity potentials like that described below.

The NCAD is participating in two related strands of research with St James Hospital. Both strands relate to creative aging which has momentum within the society and is clearly an area of attention and growth in our culture. The NCAD has staff expertise in the Art and Health Area and recent post graduates (notably Denis Roche) who have developed significant research practices sited in the junction between creative and clinical environments.

Through a committee comprising St James Hospital medical and management staff, user representatives, NCAD staff and other contributors, a body of work in advising on the design and function of a creative aging space within a proposed new hospital on the St James site is underway. Staff have been able to present work of students and staff in relation to the processes and potentials of open ended but relevant inquiry with people.

These considerations are developed in relation to a further research inquiry examining issues surrounding assistive technology and aging.

Projects Contemporary Practices in Art & Design

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Contemporary Practices in Art & Design Projects

Working with partners across Europe, NCAD is involved in establishing a Network for Public Art in Europe that will enhance the creation, understanding and impact of public art in Europe: for the benefit of artists, commissioning bodies, and the wider public.

The forging of the Network is being shaped by a number of considerations, including: enhancing opportunities for artists, fostering a sustained impact for contemporary public art in Europe, contributing to the development of Europe and the countries of the European Union as a diverse cultural sphere, and fostering the emergence of an active public sphere in and across Europe.

In seeking to connect, and promote knowledge transfer between different types of organisations and interests around public art, we are not seeking convergence around a singular model of good practice. Rather, our ambition for knowledge transfer in relation to models of practice across the domain is that through active dissemination of information about such models, our capacities to innovate locally will be enhanced, and our opportunities as artists, curators, commissioners, critics, educators, and policy makers will be extended.

In considering how best to found and develop an effective Public Art Network, we decided to seek the involvement of stakeholders in terms of three key ‘types’ of organisation: commissioning bodies, spaces of documentation, and fine art higher education. In this founding moment, the Network is being developed and lead by the organisations listed in the following table:

A Network for Public Art in Europe

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Projects Contemporary Practices in Art & Design

Documenting Commissioning Educating (Fine Art Higher Education)

Art-public.com, France

BBK, Germany National College of Art & Design, Ireland

ISELP, Belgium KORO, Norway Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Granada (Spain)

European Public Art

FMAC, Switzerland Accademia di Belle Arti, Palermo, Italy

Sculpture International Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Arts University College, Bournemouth

ThePurposeofaEuropeanPublicArtNetwork

Since the 1950s/1960s programmes for public art have existed in many European countries. Activities of this kind are manifold and vary widely across Europe and the European Union. Despite this there has been relatively little international exchange about the diverse national and regional programmes for public art. By driving a sharing of information in relation to public art practices across Europe, the European Public Art Network aims to:

• Promote a ‘culture of the public sphere’ through art in public space.

• Foster a sustained impact for contemporary public art in Europe.

• Contribute to the development of Europe and the countries of the European Union as a diverse cultural sphere through enhancing intra-European and international opportunities for artists.

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ResearchersContemporary Practices in Art & Design

Recent Research Outcomes

Group Exhibitions2012: ‘Remote Control’, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.

2011: ‘Seeing in the Dark’, Circa Projects, Newcastle upon Tyne.

2011: ‘Myles Away From Illustration: Flann O’Brien’s Influence on the Visual Arts’, English Department, University of Vienna and the ‘Alley Theatre Gallery’, Strabane, 2012.

Citations2011: ‘Expanded Cinema – Art Performance Film’, published by

Tate, London.

2011: ‘Creative Ireland {The Visual Arts, Contemporary Irish Visual Art 2000 – 2011’, edited by Noel Kelly and Sean Kissane, published by Visual Artists Ireland.

Performances2012: ‘In Two Minds-Past Version’ – Tampere Arts Festival Finland.

2011: ‘In Two Minds-Past Version’ Circa Projects, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Solo Publication2012: ‘Auto Interview – Kevin Atherton’, Published by Flood, Dublin.

Curation2011: ‘Myles Away From Illustration: Flann O’Brien’s Influence on

the Visual Arts’, English Department, University of Vienna and the ‘Alley Theatre Gallery’, Strabane, 2012.

Conferences2012: Panel Speaker: ‘Art in Public Space: Democracy and

Participation’, ‘Radius of Art ‘ Conference, Heinrich Boll Stiftung, Berlin.

2011: Paradox Secretary and Breakout Chair of ‘Paradox: The Fine Art European Forum’s – ‘Outside In – The Permeable Art School’ conference. Crawford College of Art, Cork.

Dr. Kevin Atherton

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Kevin Atherton talking at the opening of the ‘Myles Away From

Illustration Exhibition: Flann O’Brien’s Influence on the Visual Arts’

exhibition at the University of Vienna, July 2011

Myles Away From Illustration: Flann O’Brien’s Influence on the Visual Arts

An Exhibition of Work by Kevin Atherton, Jeff Edwards, Andrew Folan, Anthony Hobbs, Margaret O’Brien, Phelim McConigly and Tim O’Riley.

The University of Vienna July 2011 and the Alley Theatre Gallery, Strabane, March/April 2012.

The relationship between the visual and literary arts is historically a problematic one where both parties are unwilling to be at the beck and call of the other. The artist Gary Coyle recently said in his introduction to his performance, held at UCD’s Newman House, that: ‘some of the worst visual art to come out of Ireland has been in the name of Irish literature’. If this was not discouragement enough in setting about bringing this exhibition together, then Flann O’Brien himself displayed no obvious love of the visual arts. His satirical renaming of the vandalized public monument ‘The Bowl of Light’, sited on O’Connell Bridge as a part of Dublin’s ‘An Tóstal’ tourist festival in 1953, as The Tomb of the Unknown Gurrier are hardly the words of a man in love with public art.

The obvious link between O’Brien and the visual arts is through surrealism, which as a movement was both literary as well as visual. René Magritte as another hat-wearing suburbanite is ‘a good fit’ to Flann O’Brien but in the same way that O’Brien has suffered by being miscast as an ‘Oirish’ comic writer, there is much more to Magritte than his student-poster popularity would suggest. The multi-layered structural nature of Magritte’s paintings with their use of endless regression of paintings within paintings corresponds directly with O’Brien’s use of mise-en-abíme within the novel. The recent René Magritte’s exhibition at Tate Liverpool had as its title ‘The Pleasure Principle’, much of this undoubted pleasure was to be found not only in the intricacy of the relationships within each work but also between works, where, like a running gag, things are kept going by their creator. Here the similarity with O’Brien is also clearly evident.

Researchers Contemporary Practices in Art & Design

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Nigel Cheney

Reconcilingdigitaltechnologieswithhandcrafttechniques

Recent work by Nigel Cheney has been given a public presence in three exhibitions in Ireland.

‘Gone to the Dogs’, NCAD Gallery 5th to 28th May, 2011;

‘Goldilocks and the bears’, (group show with Dr. Helen McAllister and Alex Scott), Dalkey Heritage Centre. November 16th to 20th, 2011;

‘Telling Stories’, Crawford College of Art. March 3rd to 9th 2012.

My work is rooted in embroidery in all its forms. I come from a respect of the breadth and versatility of tradition and work from a full palette of textile and embroidery techniques. The wall-hung textiles I produce are often pictorial and delve into story telling with multi-layered references that stem from musical references and idiomatic phrases.

I exploit both hand craft, hand operated and computer aided manufacture, and this places the work in current debates around the role of technology. Makers have always valued their tools, as such the transition from a dye bath, or screen-printing to the use of digital printing is a natural right of passage for Craft. Complex grounds are built from layers of scans of hand drawn images, photography, digital manipulations, pattern and texture. The contrasts of stitch qualities, which are applied in hand or controlled through a computer are also factors in the multiprocessing of cloth through craft means to produce this artistic work. The design process is integral in selecting and organizing these techniques in addition to the skill in the physical framing and threading of a computerized multi-needle machine, all these factors speak to the new traditions of craft.

ResearchersContemporary Practices in Art & Design

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Get Here IV, oil on panel, 30 x 46cm from the exhibition Last,

Douglas Hyde Gallery, April 2012

Recent Research Activities

Oliver Comerford’s practice is engaged with place, and the changing nature of place, addressing the interface between the local and the global. It has relevance to social and environmental change. It explores the notion of what in fact ‘place’ is; whether it resides in the particular or the universal, whether it is something secure or more complex and contradictory. It draws on aspects of contemporary life, visual culture, and film. It comments on our contemporary relationship with our environment and challenges perceived ideas of Romanticism.

He presents a distinctive psychological space and has focused on the representation of outposts, remote or distant locations, conifer woodlands and views from the edge of town. He reminds us that the edge is a psychological state as much as a geographical or economic one.

In April 2012, Oliver Comerford exhibited painting in the exhibition Last, at the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, accompanied by a publication. The exhibition pushed beyond the boundaries of edgelands, liminality and the borders of the known, towards a less familiar place where everyday structures have either been eroded or disintegrated. Last might be said to reflect a mood of anxiety, a struggle for survival and the possibility of transformation.

In March 2012, Harvill Secker, London, published At the True Romance Cinema, after Oliver Comerford, in the Paul Durcan book, Praise in which I live and move and have my being.

In July 2011,Oliver Comerford exhibited a series of paintings in the exhibition, In a place in time, at VISUAL – Centre for Contemporary, Carlow.

In August 2011, Oliver Comerford exhibited painting in Room Outside, Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin 2011.

He is currently External Examiner in Fine Art at GMIT, Galway.

Oliver Comerford is a part-time lecturer, Core Studies, NCAD.

Oliver ComerfordResearchers Contemporary Practices in Art & Design

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BEYOND TELEPATHY, Andrija Puharich

From 3072 scanned images made from original archive material from the

Rhine Research Center and Parapsychology Laboratory Records,

Duke University, Durham, NC

My work explores multiple viewpoints and considers and employs forms and processes of portraiture, interpretation, reconstruction and representation. I am interested in that which is on the periphery of the mainstream and which falls beyond ‘normal’ fields of science and psychology. I reflect on the research, experimental apparatus and lives and personalities of those involved in parapsychology. The archive is a primary research source as is the interview. The work seeks to explore, re-present and re-consider historical studies of perception through contemporary installation and video processes.

Current work arises from my 2011 residency at the Rhine Research Center and Parapsychology Laboratory Collection, Duke University, Durham, NC where I researched the groundbreaking experimental work of Dr. JB Rhine. Dr. Rhine (1895-1980) was interested in testing telepathy, psychokinesis and precognition through methods acceptable to science. I worked with historical correspondence, records of experiments, photographs, newspaper clippings and laboratory apparatus, and interviewed Dr. Sally Rhine Feather (daughter of Dr. Rhine) and Dr. Seymour Mauskopf, Emeritus Professor of History, Duke University and author of ‘The Elusive Science: Origins of Experimental Psychical Research’.

Forthcoming Exhibitions: F-L-A-M-M-A-R-I-O-N, Open Space, Victoria, BC.Exhibitions Since June 2011: The Edge of Reason, Kino Kino, Sandnes; WUNDER, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; We Make Versions, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster; Afterlife, Tot Zover, Funeral Museum, De Nieuwe Ooster, Amsterdam; Interplanetary Revolution, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast; WUNDER, Kunsthalle Krems, Austria; Cutting A Door, Eastlink Gallery, Shanghai; O Diamond Diamond, Five Lamps Arts Festival, Dublin. Writing: My Adventures in the Supernormal, Susan MacWilliam, Paranormal Review, Society for Psychical Research, July 2011.Talks: Rhine Research Center, and Special Collections Library, Duke University, Durham, NC. Visiting Lecturer: Leeds Metropolitan University.

www.susanmacwilliam.com

Susan MacWilliamResearchersContemporary Practices in Art & Design

Researchers Contemporary Practices in Art & Design

Artist: Philip Napier

Photo Credit: Feargal O’Malley

Title: Always Hoping for Hope

Location: Void Gallery

Material: Chinese Made Zepplin, Flies, Satellite Navigation System

In this cycle of work and research I have been taking readings of a doomed 19th Century maritime quest which attempted discover the North West Passage linking Europe to China and India across the frozen tundra of the Canadian Arctic. The Franklin expedition ended in the mystery of neither arriving or returning, but its ships HMS Terror and Erebus are entombed in ice somewhere between the hard shoulder, the soft estate and the visual amenity of an emerging marine superhighway for containerised shipping. The highway is gradually opening now due to global warming and the shrinking ice sheet. The contemporary effort to find the Terror is a means of underwriting sovereignty. The arctic has been the site of successive romantic imaginations, terror and now hard edged economic advantage as the ‘logic of economic connection’ in a globalised culture is irresistible.

In practice I have been re-negotiating the vehicle of HMS Terror as a means of driving a series of connections and co-ordinates beyond ‘the highlighted route’ focussing relationships to discovery, civil recovery and routemaking, referencing Serres, Gramsci and premiering installed excerpts of the unpublished research of

Dr Kevin McKenna

Unpacking the Terror The Dock, Co Leitrim

Recalculating Void Gallery, Derry

Writing Variant Joanna Laws

TRADE conference Presentation

Publication Remembering the Future (Forthcoming) Essay by Declan McGonagle

Philip Napier

38

My current research explores the hypothesis of repetition in art as a mechanism of semiotic destabilization, a visual device that destabilizes an otherwise established meaning or context. In developing the semiotic potential of repetition, the field of research expands to include a significant consideration of semiotic theory and an analysis of language in contemporary art practice.

Proposed research will expand on the above hypothesis that the occurrence of repetition in an artwork can render the meaning or interpretation of that work unstable or shifting. It will focus on particular practices of the multiple in contemporary art, as well as repetition through processes of manufacture.

Parallel areas of research through practice also include Installation as Material; Site as Context; Contextual shifts between the Singular Object and the Multiple.

Margaret O’Brien, MPhil, MFA Lecturer in Fine Art , NCAD, Dublin and CCAD, Cork

obrienmgt@googlemail.com

Margaret O’BrienResearchersContemporary Practices in Art & Design

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Researchers

‘TimeinyourPocket’

An Installation by Artist Eve Parnell

The Courthouse Arts Centre, Tinahely, Co. Wicklow, Ireland 04 August – 07 September 2012 Curated by Deryn O’Callaghan, Artistic Director.

The space is at once occupied and deserted; occupied by familiar, serviceable objects (hangers, suitcase, measuring tapes) and yet deserted. The geometric forms of triangles, rectangles and radials carve up a space with severe design that brings to mind the clothes they have, in their time, bundled, borne and measured, and by extension, those chaotic human lives that have gone with them.

The suitcase is the centre of attention; it is the axis from which radiate the lines of the tapes and hangers. The combination of severe geometry and the used and humble creates a sense of unease, even menace. The suitcase looks old, battered; it has seen many travels. The measuring tapes emanating from (or to?) the case, suggest lives of making and making-do, the tailor’s hard-working hands, the lives lived in back-rooms of sewing machines and fabrics. The hangers are the common or garden metal variety and hang in straight lines at shoulder-height, suggesting lives of work and duty, the lives about which we know nothing, lives now absent.

There is always a certain horror in considering life in terms of measurement. The average life contains a quantifiable number of hours and minutes, a certain number of events may have occurred, also measurable, an absence of others, these too may be reckoned up and that’s it – our allotted time. But the counting of things, the lists, the numbers, how far short these fall of life itself, in all its clothes of many colours.

Eve ParnellContemporary Practices in Art & Design

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Interruptingandoverlappingthefather’svoice:ExploringafamilyarchiveofanIrishemigrationtoEngland1950s–mid1960sthroughsculpturalinstallationartpractice

This thesis is a micro-study, carried out through installation art practice, of a specific Irish family’s emigration from Ireland to England during the early 1950s to mid 1960s. Using an ethnographic and case study approach, this project sets out to reinterpret my family and my own childhood emigrant experience from multiple perspectives. It does this by using a range of art processes that remediate original family archival material and first person oral accounts. This process creates an installation with many circular and overlapping narratives inscribed in film, sound work, sculpture and photography that also offer the viewer the chance to encounter the work in a ‘migratory’ fashion.

The enquiry sets out to examine the hints, lapses, gaps, silences, performances and assertions that make up the complex spaces embedded in a family archive to amplify social and personal responses that emerge from individuals negotiating two different and contrasting environments, (a) a Post World War II country embracing modernism and consumerism in its rebuilding process and (b) a nation circumscribed by conservative and paternal institutions of Church, State and Family.

This family archive includes; home movies – shot on 8 mm film; 29 personal letters from the artist’s father written to one recipient (the artist’s future mother), random black and white snapshots, a small collection of artefacts and domestic furniture and a series of interviews from seven female family members. This study draws together current discourses on memory – individual and collective, oral and micro history, amateur film and family photography and analyses the work of international contemporary artists, such as Mathew Buckingham, Vivienne Dick and Rene Green, who employ a range of new methodologies and methods for investigating the role of historiography, memory and family narratives in an art context.

Margaret FitzgibbonContemporary Practices in Art & Design Doctoral Researchers

41

MeetingswithRe-markableSurfaces

After collaborating with researchers at Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, earlier this year, I became fascinated by the phenomenon of synaptic plasticity. Current research in this area indicates that the recollection of information results in a physical change within the brain, and the process of remembering itself, is fundamental to the alteration of memory.

In an exteroceptive sense, I am interested in the transmission of information and how this instigates change. By analogy I consider that society in general, operates with a similar synergy to that of the mind. Society is a macrocosm of cognition, and is structured as an organic whole through its interconnectivity. The most graphic example of this, is in the physical interactions of humanity with surfaces. This information is manifest at sites of intense social interaction. Satellite photographs make visible tracks left by human passage on soft ground. Seen from above, traces of activity are most evident in low-elevation sunlight, which accentuates subtle markings, indiscernible at ground level. Pathways left in parks and public spaces, result in palimpsests – records of the continuous writing and overwriting of humans walking and wayfinding in open spaces. These tracks are cognitive manifestations formed in a conscious manner. They establish a spatial syntax, a close fitting map of the territory, and a graphic record of human cognition. Preferences are indicated, decisions are made, and the desire to conform, and break from established modes, all become recorded. This externalization of the mind creates a ‘coupled system that can be seen as a cognitive system in its own right.’1 It is at the nodes and intersections of these pathways that humans interact (neural junctions occur) and instances of synaptic plasticity unfold within the memory of society.

1 Menary, Richard, The Extended Mind. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 2010.P.29

Andrew FolanContemporary Practices in Art & DesignDoctoral Researchers

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CriticalRemix:ThePoliticalPotentialityofaForminFlux

My PhD project is a detailed study of Critical Remix Video (CRV), an experimental form of video art activism that uses as raw material pre-existing audio-visual content. CRVs seek to expose ideological contradictions encoded in mainstream media messages, such as journalism, advertising and political broadcasts, in order to critique perceived wrongs and injustices. My research employs a visual semiotic methodology to analyse a representative sample of CRVs, identifying the ways in which this type of work is susceptible to ideological bias, by revealing the alternative ideologies communicated by the visual signs and their rhetorical messages.

This analysis raises a number of related research questions, such as, which version of events is the more accurate representation of reality – the narratives presented by mainstream media or the deconstructed versions presented by CRVs? To what extent are the critical messages presented by CRVs diluted by the ideological biases to which they are subject? Where are the ethical boundaries in terms of the appropriation and reuse of copyrighted content vis-a-vis freedom of expression?

One of the most significant problems that practitioners of critical remix face is the perceived illegality of their work. The unauthorized reuse of copyrighted content in video remixes represents an ongoing struggle for copyright holders, remixers and those involved in the legal professions. Despite such dilemmas, CRVs represent an opportunity for grassroots activists to have their voices heard on a global stage, utilizing the full potential of spreadable media content, mobile technologies and online distribution platforms.

Supervisors: Dr. Francis Halsall, Dr. Paul O’Brien

owen@chimedia.ie

Skype: owen.gallagher

www.criticalremix.com

Owen GallagherContemporary Practices in Art & Design Doctoral Researchers

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Contemporary Practices in Art & DesignDoctoral Researchers

Willie Doherty

Ghost Story 2007

HD video installation with sound,

duration 15 mins

Courtesy of the artist

Ghost-HauntedLand:ContemporaryArtandPost-TroublesNorthernIreland

AbstractThe focus of this thesis is contemporary art from (and relating to) Northern Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998: the formal endpoint of the thirty-year modern ‘Troubles’. This ‘post-Troubles’ period has been marked by significant transformations in Northern Irish society. Consensus rather than conflict has become the priority of political engagement within post-Agreement democratic structures, and new terrains of consumption, entertainment and enterprise have been widely marketed as the replacement for Troubles geographies of security and sectarian division. Nevertheless, the ‘peace’ era has also been one of instability and for many visual artists, addressing the anxieties of progress has been a matter of profound ongoing importance.

This thesis thus argues that in the wake of the negotiated ‘resolution’ of the Troubles, the field of contemporary art in Northern Ireland has become an alternative space of representation with regard to the complexities of aftermath. Drawing on Chantal Mouffe’s theorization of ‘the political’ as the ‘ineradicable dimension of antagonism’ that is constitutive of every social order, the thesis proposes that by concentrating on repressed elements of the Troubles’ ‘present-past’, and on problems with current visions of progress, much recent art has functioned in an obliquely critical, dissensual manner in relation to the ‘post-political’ conditions of the existing public sphere in Northern Ireland.

Prompted by recent tendencies in the work of Willie Doherty, Northern Ireland’s most internationally prominent contemporary artist, the central metaphor in this analysis is that of haunting. Investigating the post-Troubles predicament has necessitated confrontations with the ‘spectres’ that haunt the contemporary moment in Northern Ireland. Moreover, in finding forms adequate to the anxieties of this transitional period, artists have aptly developed practices characterised by a heightened sense of spectral in-betweenness.

Declan Long

44

Still taken from “Rehearse – Verse – Reverse”

Featuring Dave Layde, Naomi Sex and Darina Gallagher

Practice makes practice... VISIBLE? Revealing structures of the artistic field, articulating through art practice the evasive properties inherent in its systems of production

This practice-led research project attempts to seek out and reveal the structures that frame the production of art practice, through and with art practice itself. With this premise in mind, the first phase of the study aims to use practice-led research by adopting quasi-ethnographic strategies to firstly explore the field of artistic production, and secondly in an attempt to activate, capture and contain tangible evidence that the artistic field is powered by persuasive informal discourse and practices that contribute to stringent and hierarchical rules of engagement. Entering the second phase of the project the contribution of this study is based on a proposition — that is, as a research project it utilises the performative lecture to position art practice as a formal presentation model demonstrating that art practice in and of itself can act as an appropriate tool to articulate the findings from the practice-led research cited above. The study aims to demonstrate that art practice can be an adept conceptual, contextual mode of communicating its own particular character, to iterate and embody its own hierarchical structures and articulate, critically, by rendering visible its structures and evasive, invisible properties.

Recent Events“Third Strike: 100 Performances for The Hole”, a performance biennale comprising of one night of 100 artistic moments, curated by Justin Hoover, SOMArts, 934 Brannan Street, San Francisco, CA, Dec, 2011.

With the support of the Irish Arts Council participated in “MICRO-MANAGEMENT”, a performance event, curated by Sean Fletcher and Isabel Reichert at The Performance Institute, San Francisco, CA, Oct 2011.

naomi_sex@mac.com

Naomi SexContemporary Practices in Art & Design Doctoral Researchers

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CorpusDelicti:Object,EvidenceandRemembrance

My work focuses on the practice of remembrance evoked through the object.

Remembrance brings together fragments of information that acknowledge past experiences. It is the experiences associated with objects that we inherit or hoard that I use as the material for exploration. Ceramic tableware is the particular metaphor chosen to express notions of family, relative safety and a sense of belonging.

Tableware could be interpreted as passively absorbing human relationships and experiences, the molecules of which are embedded in the surface.

Through a disparate collection of tableware I address the casualties of the First World War and those who nursed them and also the Irish experience of collective amnesia of the trauma suffered in that war.

Trained nurses and Voluntary Aid Detachments witnessed horrific injuries and death. Their Post-traumatic Stress disorder was not formally acknowledged until 1919. Young men suffered gruesome amputations, disease, long term shell-shock, and were often returned home as ‘surplus to requirements’ and without pensions. Facial disfigurements robbed their physical identity, but it was the changed political landscape that excluded and isolated them. Well into the 1960s casualties of the First War were still being nursed in solitude in Leoardstown Military Hospital, Dublin.

The table with ill-matching settings explores the isolation of the men and women who were the collateral damage of the war.

Corpus Delicti, the body of evidence, brings together fragments of past experience to be remembered, acknowledged and integrated into the present.

youngl@ncad.ie

Lisa YoungContemporary Practices in Art & DesignMA – Design

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Blue Star No.1

ThesisAbstract

It is commonly held belief that the failure of craft people to adopt new technology is due to the cost of technology, as well as the difficulty involved in developing the required training, knowledge and experience to become proficient and productive using these tools in craft studio practice. Through my research, I now present a rebuttal to this argument by describing how craft and technology has always been closely intertwined. My work explains that craft has continued to thrive because craft makers have embraced technological invention and systemic change. My research presents the argument that this continuum must be maintained for the craft sector and craft makers to prosper.

My research is aimed at designing a range of brooches using diverse traditional and new technologies, including computer aided design modelling and digitally operated computer numerically controlled milling machinery. My design work has specific artistic reference points but is also influenced by my cultural identity and personal circumstance. These factors significantly enabled me to develop a unique aesthetic, or style, that I believe is both distinctive and innovative.

My work illustrates that contemporary jewellery designers, like any other craft makers, will greatly benefit if they are willing to accept inevitable change, while simultaneously welcoming the need for interdisciplinary transferable know-how to create invention and innovational change in their field.

The exploration of diverse approaches in contemporary jewellery making, combined with an investigation into modern and contemporary design, has helped me to develop a working model that can now be adopted by other craft studio makers.

arturo@arturoborrego.com

Arturo BorregoMA – DesignContemporary Practices in Art & Design

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MA – Design Contemporary Practices in Art & Design

The 2012 jewellery collection by designer – maker Theresa Burger, is an amalgamation of CADCAM (Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing) and rapid prototyping practices in a jewellery context. The body of work stems from her current MA research into Zulu adornment, patterns, motifs and forms. With the series of work, the maker’s aim is to reach out and form a connection with the jewellery traditions from her native South Africa. She used these traditional elements as inspiration for constructing a collection of 3D printed jewellery. It provided her with the room in design to fully explore the exciting developing fusion between craft and rapid prototyping. The jewellery items are printed using a 3D printer; laser sintered using nylon and then hand dyed in various colours. With colour being such a vital element within Zulu beadworking, it became an important aspect to the collection. The large, boldly designed jewellery items have been dyed in rich vivid colours.

Artist BioTheresa Burger is a jewellery designer currently based in Ireland. Originally from South Africa. In 2009 she graduated from Cape Peninsular University of Technology, Cape Town with a BTech degree in Jewellery Design & Manufacture. The body of work for her degree traced her ancestry and focused on the notion of what is heirloom. The collection worked with materials such as silver, resin, gold and silver leaf combined with wood, gemstones and pearls. She will be completing a MA in Design at NCAD, Dublin in June 2012.

The work for her master’s project focuses on merging rapid prototyping technologies like 3D printing with her traditional jewellery skills. For this 2012 collection she has been inspired by Zulu’s rich heritage of beadwork associated with ritual and symbolism and draws from their patterns and motifs used with this beadwork.

In 2011 Theresa was the recipient of a Special Student Award from Future Makers and was published in jewellers’ Nicolas Estrada’s book ‘New Rings’. Her most recent exhibition includes ‘Jewellery as Art’ in Cil Rialaig, Ballinskelligs, Co. Kerry.

www.theresaburger.com

Theresa Burger

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BelBreenBrand

This project uses the case study of the development of a lifestyle brand of clothing and collectables as the axis to question the application of design thinking, and business strategy in the establishment of a successful brand. Bel Breen embodies a humorous, irreverent and individual aesthetic that adheres to the rules as follows:

1. Bel is always right.

2. Does it come in Neon?

3. I don’t believe in complimentary colours.

4. There can never be too much hologram foil (or glitter).

5. There are mutha f**king monsters, the monsters make the rules.

6. Writing stuff in funny fonts is fun.

7. I <3 patterns.

8. More is more.

9. What is strange is wonderful.

10. Girls can wear anything, especially if they have ‘stolen’ it from a boy.

This research is underpinned by an analysis of successful brands such as ‘Ballet cats’, ‘Band of Outsiders’, and ‘Friends With You’. ‘The Brand Gap’ by Marty Neumeier is a key text in simplifying business strategies and approaching the application of key methodologies to design practice. The playful ‘monster’ characters derive from doodles and observations from Dublin’s Dead zoo and are a colourful composite of texture, form and narratives. These are made manifest as collectable objects, and are the driving force behind the development of the brand identity. Clothing addresses the men’s, women’s, unisex and childrens wear markets. Garments are easy to wear separates that mix and don’t match, using relaxed oversized shapes in a range of jerseys, fancy woven and ‘tacky’ glitters and neons. The contrast of subtle and in your face use of pattern is applied through a combination of hand crafted and digital processes.

Annabel BreenContemporary Practices in Art & Design MA – Design

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Cut Throat

This research project explores the fragility of the body when confronted by illness, using Cut Throat as a conceptual axis for the investigation of these effects – physical, psychological and emotional. The multiplicity of definitions of ‘cut throat’ is analogous to the assertive symptoms that are central in the lives of people living with ME (Myalgic Encephalomyalgia)/CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. ME/CFS is a neurological syndrome which causes fatigue, pain and a variety of other symptoms. Other associations of the term Cut Throat include the unprincipled, ruthless and competitive nature of this unrelenting illness. The red line across the neck of the Cut Throat Finch is startlingly similar to swollen lymph nodes.

The analogy of the bird and the concept of its freedom – true or limited – emerged as significant during the development of this project. The physical limitations of freedom through the clipping of wings or the training of the homing pigeon demonstrate the restrictions imposed by illness where freedom is no longer a right but a challenge.

Through my examination of themes such as ME/CFS, the bird analogy, freedom, medical and scientific I have found relevant ways of expressing the dynamics of this illness. This was depicted through a variety of scenarios that tested how to communicate the existence of ME/CFS and its challenges to a wider audience. A central theme of the work was the use of collaborative inquiry as a means of expanding the creative process, through dialogue and consultation with people living with ME/CFS. This project was not primarily about creating finished artworks, but pedagogical in nature, seeking to engage and to inform a variety of audiences that attempt to give a fuller understanding of living with a long-term illness.

www.racheltynan.ie

Rachel TynanContemporary Practices in Art & DesignMA – Design

50

Silk/steel honeycomb weave. Paper and copper/steel satin weave, laser cut finish

Abstract

The Material Matter: Can weave act as an interface between traditional and contemporary processes?

If the material itself is integral to the process, the origin of the material would place works of art and craft in a cultural setting.

Adamson, 2007

The central aim of this work is to maximize the innate characteristics of materials through the consideration of weave structure. The research that I am undertaking studies the material properties of yarns spun from natural and man-made fibres. Sophisticated spinning methods have resulted in the refining and honing of the innate characteristics of raw materials. My enquiry looks at the methodologies of weaving as one of the first steps of the production process for exquisite small run fabrics. I am researching hand weavers and small batch production companies. Inspired by a similar methodology, design ethos and with respect for traditional techniques, Scandinavia, Japan and Scotland have been and will continue to be cornerstones of my exploration. Through a process of systematic sampling at the prototype stage, I am exploring the possibilities of hand craft with technology led processes such as laser cutting. Creating cloth that has unexpected yarn combinations is contrasted with finishing processes applied to existing fabrics that have been ethically produced. The cloths realised have been grouped into three final collections according to their primary material types; namely paper, wool and metal. In order to preserve, sustain and develop traditional weaving methods and techniques, my approach to weaving is with respect for traditional craft and materials, while embracing the availability of contemporary materials and processes.

Kathy MooneyMA – DesignContemporary Practices in Art & Design

51

Propeller–anevolvingonlineresourceandfocalpointfordesignstudents

The aim of my MA research has been to identify and create opportunities to compliment the educational experience of design students through the use of online channels. Following an extensive explorative process that considered both the relationship between student/educator and student/design practitioner and how Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are being utilised in Third Level Education, my MA research has evolved into Propeller. Propeller is built on the premise that if I can facilitate and stimulate thoughtful, inspiring and challenging interactions between a community of professional designers, students and educators, there will be a long-term benefit to the design community as a whole. A primary concern of the project has been how to encourage students to be active contributors in an online community rather than passive consumers of content. As a result, aspects of play and reward, along with the development of an approachable visual aesthetic and tone of language have been central to the structural and visual definition of Propeller. The interface is divided into three sections that include a range of initiatives, allowing participation at varying levels of commitment:

1. Propellers – an evolving resource of originally created concise videos with professional designers, containing insights into their design thinking and processes.

2. Be a Propeller – opportunities for the design community to participate in theme related debates, surveys and competitions.

3. Propeller Filters – through the use of an aggregated Twitter feed, professional designers and educators can help students get to the great content already in existence across the web.

My ultimate goal is for Propeller to develop into a recognised focal point for design students, an online space full of inspiring thinking.

Mobile: 086 196 3530

joe@propeller-inspires.com

Twitter: @propel_er

Joe CollContemporary Practices in Art & DesignMA – Design

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Albert,Ernest&theTitanic

For my MA in Design I proposed creating a celebration of the RMS Titanic, using the ship as a vessel to explore through letterpress printing. During initial research I stumbled across an article relating to the letterpress printers who were employed to travel aboard on her Atlantic debut. Abraham Mishellany (known as ‘Albert’ to his friends) and Ernest Corben took the positions of chief and assistant printer, respectively. Their role aboard was to cater for the printing needs of the ship’s various restaurants and wealthier passengers who required daily menus, tickets, calling cards, labels etc. Until recently most of the surviving ephemera was the product of their endeavours.

My book ‘Albert, Ernest & the Titanic’ portrays two key stories in parallel, that of the printers and that of the Titanic. Until now the printers’ story has lain hidden behind that of the great liner. This book brings the printers to the fore. Over 176 pages the narrative is told through a series of 20 scenarios, each consisting of two linocut illustrations, followed by a textual account or relevant survivor’s quote. Mapping co-ordinates illustrated through contemporary versions of old wood type place each scenario along the navigational course of the ship, pinpointing it in time and space.

The type is set by hand in newly mono-cast Garamond (Hand & Eye, London) and Edwardian grotesque faces (Stephenson Blake, Sheffield) acquired through the Irish Print Museum archives. The hand-sewn and glueless binding is unique. One of the inks used is also unique – I made it from coal retrieved from the wreck site. The book is letterpress printed in a limited edition of 36. Foreword by Colm Tóibín.

jamie@fjord.ie

Jamie MurphyMA – DesignContemporary Practices in Art & Design

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PointofInformation:InteractiveCommunicationandNavigationSystemforPublicTransportUsers

Creative VisionIn the era of traditional printing a folding map or conventional signage display might have been sufficient to guide us around. These days, technologies such as touchscreens and computers are able to do this more effectively by simplifying the processing of information and helping us to make more accurate decisions.

For instance, a map on an interactive touchscreen could have a set of functionalities to help us make better use of the public transport systems in our cities. This value-added service could positively change users’ experience of the city and increase efficiency.

A touchscreen display allows us to find what we are looking for with just a few taps. This project researches the possibilities of such a display by developing the user interaction and visual design guidelines in the context of Dublin City.

The visual design aims to put the urban dweller in the centre giving emphasis to approachability and accessibility. The pedestrian is the target audience. In a few steps, the user can interact with the technology creating a dialogue which is as simple as the traditional folding map, or even more so than that.

The intention is to give a service to users that informs them about the city they live in, or those who are visiting it, by creating more transparent and efficient communication through visual and technological means.

email@raulmv.com

www.raulmv.com

Raúl Martínez VicenteContemporary Practices in Art & DesignMA – Design

54

‘Borrowed Mind’ from a mixed media installation

BorrowedMinds

My work is an exploration of altered mental states using the device of fiction and the lenses of the histories of Magic, Film-making and Psychiatry. I am comparing these disparate fields in search of parallels and relationships between archetypal figures associated with each field. I have researched the careers of figures such as magician Harry Houdini, scientists Nicola Tessla and Milo Farnsworth and various doctors from the field of psychiatry in search of common ground in terms of how the concept of the unknown is addressed from these different points of view. For example; a psychiatrist investigating the causes of the effects of electric shock therapy on patients, versus Houdini’s struggle to debunk the claims of psychics in the early twentieth century, versus Tessla’s acquiring the reputation (and cultural representation) of a ‘Mad Scientist’ from his innovations in the areas of television to his exploration of the idea of a ‘Death Ray’.

The reason for these comparisons is to uncover any common truths that exist around our attitudes to the concept of the unknown as a society, and our efforts to conquer or uncover the unknown, which are at times contradicted by our exploitation of the unknown for illusionistic purposes (or in the case of Medicine the psychosomatic therapeutic effect of the placebo). My work currently draws from pre-cinematic forms of moving-image media, such as mutoscopes and phenakistoscopes. Through the use of these more primitive devices, the work can connect to the moments of innovation and invention that predicted the new-media discipline in which it exists.

The different figures my work features and describes also have aspects in common with the figure of the artist as an innovator, and it is my aim that through my work the audience may encounter this part of what it means to me to work as an artist.

emilyboylan@yahoo.co.uk

Emily BoylanContemporary Practices in Art & Design Master of Fine Art

55

Untitled

Master of Fine Art

I began the MFA with three main questions: What is painting? How do you make a painting? and what is the point of painting? I can honestly say that I have not found a definitive answer to a single one of these questions. However, the main difference between then and now is that answers are not expected. After nearly two years I have completely changed my painting practice and what I feel an exciting practice is. To think about painting is to practice painting in an adaptive and reflective manner. It is a constantly changing, incomplete position beyond what is said. Questions usually lead to more questions ad infinitum.

Presently my work concerns itself with the nature of observation and its limits. What does it mean to look and understand or know? I am interested in how certain images have, and continue to influence our perception of the world around us even though they are an illusion, a mere representation of a reality which we cannot directly experience. My paintings make use of this strange visual interaction. The tactile reality of a painting – its undeniable presence, along with its unique ability to confound and elude is imperative in the process of making the paintings. There is a tension here.

I have arrived at a point that thrives on the questioning. I am preoccupied with the act of looking, observing and the constant interchange of frustration, concentration and delight in the unexpected.

conoraidanbrennan@gmail.com

Conor BrennanContemporary Practices in Art & Design

56

SuchStuffatPlay

My interest lies in the deconstruction of self, the body and the mind. The everyday roles we play: the notion of “acting the part”. As I come from a theatre background I naturally wanted to explore this deconstruction within that frame. Declan Donnellan speaks of our last mask coming off the day we die, and the notion that we are all acting in our everyday lives, “every moment in our lives is a tiny theatrical performance. Even our most intimate moments have a public of at least one: ourselves”. He mentions Diderot’s paradox of the actor, asking how can one speak of truth in performance, which of its very nature is a lie. Donnellan insists “acting is the nearest we get to truth”.

‘Such Stuff at Play’ explores the movements between our day to day lives and the selves we catch in our reflections; the languages we shift between in the personal and the professional environments we inhabit and the masks we paint from one encounter to the next. As our roles come into play we often overlap masks or follow each changing face in quick succession with another, the performance light is on as we move through our day, “every exit is an entrance somewhere else”, [Tom Stoppard]. Through exploring Beckett’s ‘Quad’, it has provided me with the mundane task of getting to certain points; you start somewhere to get somewhere else, a daily routine. Are we always real in the moment we live in, or are we true to the role we are required to play in that particular moment.

My research, along with this piece, has and will continue to explore truth through identity in the frame of theatre, performance and multimedia. This piece focuses on the question of truth within my own identity, the roles I play daily, the ever changing answer to the question of, who am I? – a question that we all find ourselves asking at some point. I want to address the roles specific to my life and the languages I’m fluent in with the hope that by examining the particular, I’ll speak of the universal.

claraburke85@gmail.com

Clara BurkeContemporary Practices in Art & Design Master of Fine Art

57

HereandGone

We are surrounded by images, by the insistently visible. The course of this research has been to address different modes of photographic production and receptivity, to scrutinise the ways in which meaning emerges from the image. Our encounter with photography is not derived from its material presence, which is just a place-holder for content, but by the interaction we have with its thoroughly coded depiction of a subject.

The expectation of an image is that it necessarily contains some irreducible dimension of what preceded it, a prior reality to which a visual code is applied within the photograph, but one it ultimately struggles to enclose. It is precisely this tension between the image as a seemingly un-coded reference and its function as a mode of exchange that constitute photography in itself, the tension between what is visible to us and the meaning we take from it.

My work deals with our relationship to the world, the nature and quality of our attentiveness – any question about photography is, perhaps inevitably, about looking as well, about how we see. So the response to an image then is not to ask what its subject is, but rather how is it seen, and, furthermore, what condition of the medium imposes that particular view, revealing the implicit assumptions that drive this supposedly “neutral” experience, unravelling the nexus of memory and imagination that these images propose.

www.theincoherentlight.com

Darren CampionContemporary Practices in Art & DesignMaster of Fine Art

58

In my painting practice I have been engaging with images sourced from the daily papers, keeping an ever-changing array on my studio wall. The images I decide to use are then edited and reformulated through paint.

The apparent disparity of the paintings is intrinsic. Whatever the impetus for choosing the images at source, the rationale for the images I eventually choose to work with comes about through time spent with them in the studio. I am not trying to select an interesting arrangement from the found images. If I choose an image for the wrong reason, as I see it, because it might make a pattern or be more suggestive, this skews the process. Rather I think there is a tension that comes from within my relationship with the found media images, together with the struggle with the inherent uncertainty of the medium.

The works defy a coherent narrative and each new installation generates a new set of relationships between the works. These aspects correspond both with the inconclusive nature of interpretation, which is not fixed but open, malleable and coincidental and with the contingent nature of our present. I try to use paint equivalents to show scepticism in how reality may be represented.

My work is informed by the concepts of écriture feminine, the open-ended narrative structure, proposed by Helene Cixous and others.

lorettocooney@gmail.com

Loretto CooneyContemporary Practices in Art & Design Master of Fine Art

59

Hyde and Seek, 2012, Installation Shot, work in progress, HD Video

Master of Fine Art

In the work convergence is explored through the projection and distortion of imagery to present a different view. The work references duality and contradiction, incorporating simple quotidian materials to create both obstructions and apertures. Altered, they transcend their known materiality going beyond surface value. This transformative process forms connections between the visible and invisible, erasure and disclosure, the familiar and the unknown.

A series of propositions composed of interlocking metaphors and materials are presented to be imagined as a whole which can be viewed or oriented in multiple directions. Making interstices that create a dialogue between possibilities and alternative realities which are in a state of continual transformation.

Janine DavidsonContemporary Practices in Art & Design

60

In my Paintings, I aim to show the truth. Never painting from life, my characters are sourced from internet, film, and magazine cuttings. My portraits are not aimed to flatter an ego but are instead giving representation to what is hidden. In life, we all have stories to tell but we hide the truth from others and perform to societies expectations, it is how we survive.

genievefiggis@hotmail.com

www.a1000livingpainters2010.wordpress.com/2010/02/07/genieve-figgis

www.artslant.com/global/artist/show/224529-genieve-figgis

www.facebook.com/pages/genieve-figgis/292857546411

Genieve FiggisContemporary Practices in Art & Design Master of Fine Art

61

This current practice has been influenced by the changing concepts of privacy and intrusion. Making case study investigations into areas where social behaviours of the Metaverse have dissonantly translated into non-virtual communications. It seeks to test established social boundaries, often resulting in what could be seen or felt, but not defined as intrusion.

The artist negotiates the potential of intrusion through performative gestures in two contrasting ways. The first method involves scouting homes and apartment buildings in order to take long exposure photographs through openings capturing fragmented, obscure details from inside. In some instances she inserted long exposure cameras into residential elevators. To the residents these could present the possible threat of having their image disseminated with signifying data. The images would never capture people or any signifying information, and never physically cross any threshold but they have the potential to do so in the minds of the residents, or in the assembling and display of information.

The second method negotiates the boundaries of intrusion in a more intimate way. The artist persuades strangers to allow her in to photograph their living rooms. She engages them in conversation and attempts to persuade them to allow her to take their portrait, whilst covertly sound recording the process. The performances were wrought with the tension of a possible physical threat to both the resident and artist and also with the stressing and confusion of social etiquette and boundaries within the situation.

The potential of the intrusion is uncertain through these acts and can only be discernible through the tentative assembling and obscuring of documentation. The viewer may become implicated in the process by the ways they cognitively read and construct the information and by their desire to do so.

jillefrench@gmail.com

Jill FrenchContemporary Practices in Art & DesignMaster of Fine Art

62

otherworldly transitional concealing revealing rebounding sound sticky slippy seeping spreading soft and squishy

pathological pink yellow green radiating stretched taught tearing

interconnected emerging

body

The main objective in my practice is to create phenomenological environments and experiences for the viewer. Through these experiences I propose to question understandings of what is means to be human, viscerally alive and if only for a brief time outside the constraints imposed by society.

My practice has always been a hybrid one between art and human biology. More recently it has expanded to include the medical world, how the human body is examined, labelled and depicted.

I am interested in the abject body; the feelings of anxiety and disgust that the visceral fragile body engenders. I have and continue to explore the human body’s potential to be simultaneously grotesque and sublime.

The horror of leaking bodily fluids attests to the permeability of the body. It points to the perilous divisions between the bodies inside and outside and its dependence and liability to collapse into this outside. (Elizabeth Grotz, 1994, P193-194).

olivia@oliviahassett.com

www.oliviahassett.com

Olivia HassettContemporary Practices in Art & Design Master of Fine Art

63

My practice is multidisciplinary and involves drawing, architectural models and temporary interactive installations. These works are playful and address the presence of the viewer in the space, implicating them in an experiential way. It deals with perception and expectation of a space. I am interested in the language of minimalism, the built environment, how people interact with it and how our behaviour is shaped by this. They utilize the ready-made, mechanisms and architectural devices found in industry that we experience on a daily basis. The installations often feature surprising elements, which can disorientate or dislocate the viewer when interacting with them and emphasize a heightened sense of oneself and others in the space. These spaces challenge our collective perception and a new experience of space is introduced which questions our sense of stability.

Elaine LeaderContemporary Practices in Art & DesignMaster of Fine Art

64

Séamus McCormack, Presence/Presents, 2012, Video Projection

Master of Fine Art

My interests lie in transitions and transformations, masquerade and play. Borrowing elements and motifs from the black box theatre/cinema space my work deals with social performance and identity construction and takes notions of performance and artifice as present in theatre as a metaphor for wider concerns. The mise-en-abyme is a structure that I have continually referenced. I am interested in how mirroring and repetition can draw attention to and deconstruct the whole, similar to that of a Pirandellian hall of mirrors with infinite reflections of itself. My aim is that these pieces create liminal spaces that disorientate or re-orientate perception, and question what may be mimicry. Repetition is an important element of the work, creating an awareness of difference between the passing of real time and represented time.

mccormack.seamus@gmail.com

www.seamusmccormack.com

Seamus McCormackContemporary Practices in Art & Design

65

“Is it at all possible to elude already-made art categories, genres and received classifications – to wriggle free of retinal repetition – in order to come up with something different, unknown, other?”

Maharaj, 2002

One of my recent projects is a three screen installation of a close up video shots of moving buses, filmed in the dark through my bedroom window, over a long period of time. Projected beside each other they form a long line of continuous never ending bus parts, each moving at a different speed. Standing in front of that endless bus that is projected at the eye level, in the dark, the viewer finds himself as in the bus stop. In this situation the viewer and I jointly participate, at different locations, and different times. I am hiding in the dark behind my bedroom window passively observing rows of buses go by, as if motionlessly looking at an uneventful still life pass by. The viewer is made to move along, walk along the line of slowly moving buses, of bus windows, past the passenger’s melancholic gazes. The spectator sees the images of the anonymous people moving past with an almost posthumous implicit agreement that they were moving in the right direction for the right reason. Behind the dimmed surface, the camera and I are separated by several pieces of glass, less than 5 meters away, recording their metronomic movement. On one hand, I am stating the obvious, just simply rows of people sitting on the bus. But why are they on that bus? It is part of some daily ritual as they move to and from work. What is it that makes it obvious? Why do we not question repetition? My practice is about examining repetition, uniformity and the implicity of one’s actions by questioning the obvious.

Mobile: +353 85 835 2105

mollymishkas@gmail.com

www.mollymishkas.com

Molly MishkasContemporary Practices in Art & DesignMaster of Fine Art

66

Bodhran, oil on canvas 50 x 40cm

My work locates itself between history and modern folk tales that can resemble a fantastical imagined world. The source of my work lies in historical research into cultural migration. In the works, I try to open up a space where historical and speculative narratives are in conversation with each other examining notions of cultural fluidity.

My research into cultural migration focuses on the emigration of thousands of Irish people to the Caribbean in the 17th and 18th centuries. The work explores Irish culture in collision with West African and indigenous cultures. ‘Primitive’ marks are used in the execution of these paintings exploring and speculating on the possibilities of a new hybrid culture inherent in such a collision. The paintings can be seen as modern day myth, telling tales from the past with a contemporary relevance, compressing time and history into one space on the canvas.

Though my work is informed by 17th and 18th century references, the paintings draw on various art histories and pictorial vocabularies – pre-modern, Caribbean and outsider art as well as more mainstream and European ideas. This melting pot of information is transformed on the canvas through the use of many different painting techniques. Through these different approaches the work evolves like folklore. The narratives and possible readings change with the juxtapositions of motifs within works. Like an ever-changing journey, this transports the viewer through our past into our present, and on to somewhere else.

kevin73mooney@yahoo.co.uk

Kevin MooneyContemporary Practices in Art & Design Master of Fine Art

67

Master of Fine Art Contemporary Practices in Art & Design

Joseph Noonan-Ganley re-works and re-directs the strategies and materials through which design, literature, philosophy, craft and signage construct their own particular reality.

He uses familiar words and materials to change the functional operation of the built world. For example with STRUNG ABOVE the work capitalises on the manufacture and installation of a banner. It functioned with all the dynamics that banners do: it moved with the wind, it floated above something, attracted attention, marked a place and took up space. The chosen words on the banner though were strictly complicit with the anonymousness of the banners generic modality.

He also constructs texts, which weave paradoxical statements around objects. In The Death of The M Couch the text depicts the demise of a custom made couch, which is displayed in the electrical appliance company Miele’s showrooms. The text depicts a kind of non-functionality, but the text itself produces the non-functionality of the couch which is a functioning narrative: a meta-space of the couch.

These works subordinate the originary or normal use, materiality and sign value of the particular referenced object to a kind of diagrammatics. The diagram is essentially a hybrid meta-structure, which withdraws from and then intervenes in the consistency of the spaces it is inscribed into.

In a stark opposition to the current ideology of possibility and enjoyment these works bolt down the productivity or machinic trajectory of a diagram. They necessitate the configuration of the work such that the exhibition space and cultural context begins to be organised around the work rather than pre-determining the configuration and horizon of possibility for the work.

This work proves that the present configuration can be re-assembled so as not to repeat the givenness of being, whilst also not losing its agency to the structure of enjoyment today.

www.josephnoonanganley.com

Joseph Noonan-Ganley

Image: *STRUNG ABOVE*, The National College of Art and Design,

Oliver Bond Street,Dublin, 2011,

synthetic material, aluminum poles, steel, black paint, rope and steel

fittings, 8.25m x 8.5m x 8.5m.

68

ohpho, 2012, Video Projection

DOPPELGANGER

Entering the lonely house with my wife I saw him for the first time Peering furtively from behind a bush- Blackness that moved, A shape amid the shadows, A momentary glimpse of gleaming eyes Revealed in the ragged moon. A closer look (he seemed to turn) might have Put him to flight forever- I dared not (For reasons that I failed to understand), Though I knew I should act at once.

I puzzled over it, hiding alone, Watching the woman as she neared the gate. He came, and I saw him crouching Night after night. Night after night. He came, and I saw him crouching, Watching the woman as she neared the gate.

I puzzled over it, hiding alone- Though I knew I should act at once, For reasons that I failed to understand I dared not Put him to flight forever.

A closer look (he seemed to turn) might have Revealed in the ragged moon A momentary glimpse of gleaming eyes, A shape amid the shadows, Blackness that moved.

Peering furtively from behind a bush, I saw him, for the first time, Entering the lonely house with my wife.

J.A. Lindon

Tanya O’KeeffeContemporary Practices in Art & Design Master of Fine Art

69

First, a quote.

“In Hidden Writing, a main plot is constructed to camouf lage other plots (which can register themselves as plot holes) by overlapping them with the surface (superficially dynamic plot) or the grounded theme. In terms of such a writing, the main plot is the map or the concentration blueprint of plot holes (the other plots).”

Reza Negarestani – Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials

We have to try and catch the context between what has been, what is now and what it might be, in order for there to be a context at all. The context is the writer, the university, this publication and furthermore it is in trying to occupy a speculative position in order to critically engage with certain activities and conditions that may fall under the guise of contemporary art, work, labour and life. We need to ask ourselves the question, to what extent does philosophical thought depend upon the form of which it takes?

Fundamentally, the context, this context, is never fundamental.

Borrowed from a separate context, this is an origin for what might be recognised as the work, this is the apparent ambiguity, this is essentially a series of starting points that require

“a concentration on new models of production in order to understand what is yet to be produced”

Liam Gillick

Mobile: 0874105454

francis.wasser@gmail.com

www.franciswasser.com

Francis/Frank WasserContemporary Practices in Art & DesignMaster of Fine Art

70

“NotesfromaRehearsal”–Exploringthepoeticsofignoranceandbadtranslationbetweencontemporarydanceanddigitalmedia

“There are situations of course that just leave you utterly speechless. All you can do is hint at things. Words too, can’t do more than just evoke things. That’s when dance comes in again.”

Pina Bausch

Over the course of the last two years, my research has consisted of a series of investigations into the ways in which contemporary dance and digital media inter-relate, challenge, and affect one another, both as aesthetic and ongoing practice. These questions have led to an expanded and mobile practice that occurs primarily between the dance studio, the computer lab, and the theatre.

Given that the body and the binary are vastly different arenas, each with its distinct culture, language, norms, and histories, which can potentially antagonise and alienate one another as such, attempts to combine the two necessitates the invention of tactics i.e. an establishment of the terms upon which they are to be combined. In this sense, the production of artworks is akin to the creation of pidgin languages or creoles, forged in an effort to lay a common ground between the two.

However (and perhaps more interestingly) there are aspects of dance for example that resist translation into any other medium, the body is a world of its own, inseparable from all perception. This resistance to translation and utter involvement in our entire scope of experience both renders it a blind spot and affords it a role in all of our choices, as art makers or otherwise. Hence a process that is based on translation is, on one hand, a doomed enterprise, but on the other offers us a license to play, to free-associate, to “fail” and fail beautifully.

monagamil@hotmail.com

Mona GamilContemporary Practices in Art & Design MA – Art in the Digital World

71

Time, as space, is a given dimension in the universe, but time, as we know it in modern society came into existence only after humans started to measure it. This division of time into hours, days, months and years gives us a perception of time-duration. But as M. McLuhan wrote – “Processed in this uniform way, time is separated from the rhythms of human experience”. Time keeping became critical in the last century. Everybody perceives time differently yet time is unified with seconds, minutes, days, months and years. My own life is well organized and planned days, months and years ahead, even though I noticed a different flow of time in nature. Processes in nature have different paces, cycles, and patterns, they start at a different time of the day, and we have no control over them.

For my work I selected twelve processes from nature and human activities which I was observing and recording every day during one month. There are three hundred and sixty six videos altogether organized in the form of a calendar. My intention was to let people experience time, to think how we perceive time, how time duration varies and to compare time, as it exists in nature with the time we use in our own lives.

AcknowledgementsHelpful comments, guidance and encouragement from my tutors Leah Hilliard and Benjamin Gaulon are gratefully acknowledged. I received enormous technical support from all staff in The Media Department, NCAD during my years of studying. In particular I wish to thank: Anthony Hobbs, Julia Kemperman, Mark Jones and Mickey Smyth. I wish to thank my fellow students for valuable discussions. My family provided me with support and understanding which I appreciate very much.

tat-1@hotmail.com

Tatiana MacklinContemporary Practices in Art & DesignMA – Art in the Digital World

72

The idea for my research project ‘The Guerrillas of Love’ came to me when I read a passage by a Tibetan Buddhist teacher:

“When ego staged this coup d’état, when this fascist regime of ego was imposed upon us, our true nature hid in our hearts. Our true nature became a kind of guerrilla movement hiding out in our hearts and constantly resisting, constantly working for us, to bring us back, to overthrow this fascist regime, to undo this bureaucracy of ego that’s trying to control everything, to undermine the propaganda of ego and bring us back to our true nature.”

Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lödro 1893-1959

con·tent (Collins English Dictionary) adj. 1. Desiring no more than what one has; satisfied.

The consequences of being content are staggering: no matter what happened to us we would be happy. No matter how we looked or what job we had, if any, or whether we were in a relationship or not, or if we lived in a mansion or a mobile home, we would just be happy. Sick or well, young or old, strong or infirm, if we were content, all would be well. No longer looking outside of ourselves for someone or something to make us feel good or someone to blame when things went wrong, what would be the consequences for the market? Would we, like Bhutan, measure our wealth with Gross National Happiness instead of Gross National Product?

Imagine a world without Joe Duffy?

vnicholson108@gmail.com

www.veronicanicholson.tumblr.com

Veronica NicholsonContemporary Practices in Art & Design MA – Art in the Digital World

73

‘Search and Destroy’ (2012) – four channel video installation, still image

from video III

MA – Art in the Digital World

“In our day and age, the basic idea of how we create content in our minds is so conditioned by media that we are in a position that no other culture has ever been in human history. Today, that interior world expresses itself in a way that in the “real” world can be changed. When it’s recorded, adapted, remixed, and uploaded, expression becomes a stream unit of value in a fixed and remixed currency of the ever-shifting currents of the streams of information running through the networks we use to talk with one another”.

Paul D. Miller

During the last two years of my post graduate research, I have used files gathered and downloaded from video sharing websites, online audio distribution platforms and peer-to-peer programs as the raw materials of my practice. The data and footage that I appropriate and remix appears in a seemingly random way. However, this is not the case. The files that are selected are done so as a result of an inherent emotional response to something within them. It may be a single image or a piece of text that resonates with me. These files are then reassembled and re-contextualized, developing into a new narrative that seeks to highlight and embrace human connections and links in both the digital and analogue worlds.

pabloneill@gmail.com

Paul O’NeillContemporary Practices in Art & Design

74

FutureShock

It is the link between the virtual and the physical that I am most interested in. The path that the human body might hypothetically have to take before it reaches its ultimate goal? And just what that ideal goal may be? It could seem that social networking, plastic surgery and prosthetics are the stepping-stone in the progression of the human towards a transhuman goal. Currently the physical is still progressing in a practical sense. All mechanical and technological aids to the body are still objects that replace missing body parts, or are worn over other parts of the body and are still viewed as medical necessities. At some point in the future will the physical being and the digital interchange more seamlessly? Some paths towards this join have already started. Smart phones, tablets and computers already connect easily to the virtual existence mechanically with simple keyboard, button or voice commands. How long could it be before some sort of biomechanical device integrates the entire spectrum of virtual and physical?

However the virtual tackles the body in a different way. For as long as the Internet has existed in the public domain, chat rooms and multiplayer games have existed. Why I see these accessible, 3D/2D digital worlds as a progression in the development of the body is that the rules of the physical do not apply and the anonymity allows for a whole range of guises, identities and falsehoods.

My prints reflect the process of reproduction. Print by its very nature displays the ease of reproduction once a template has been produced. One of my views of the possible future is that many of the conceived body augmentations could be mass-produced on factory lines.

stephenorourke@gmail.com

www.stephenorourke.com

Stephen O’RourkeContemporary Practices in Art & Design MA – Art in the Digital World

75

My intent within my practice is to create a moment of time unfolding through the exploration of space. Glenbas stated that people’s minds are always searching for patterns of cause and effect. Things that are similar in some way or happen at the same place or time often get connected together as cause and effect. I use and manipulate this aspect in order to tell a story with a set space.

In my current research I am using broadcast as a means to replace conventional storytelling. I feel that broadcasts can define the narrative perspective within various cultures. I use broadcast to manipulate our interaction with a narrative.

While the broadcast on radio is personal and intimate, so too is the individual’s response by adding their experience in a private way to share with others. The lack of visuals reduces the inhibitions some may have and creates a narrative constant that can be accepted in most cultures.

The purpose of creating this piece is to record people’s willingness to open up to a sensitive subject and question the boundaries of self imposed censorship around intimate secrets.

dan@danielspencer.ie

Daniel SpencerContemporary Practices in Art & DesignMA – Art in the Digital World

76

MA – Art in the Contemporary World

It’sAllInYourHead

A personal revelation as a result of my participation in Art in the Contemporary World has been that the narrator may be untrustworthy.

If we are our own narrators can we not trust ourselves? How I subjectively interpret the world being perhaps not objectively ‘real’ was a terrifying realisation. Would a continuous questioning of one’s internal monologue equate a state of madness?

Doubting the stability of subjectivity and objectivity can result in the individual residing in a ‘no man’s land’, an ‘in between’ comparable with that of the Zombie – still comprised of seemingly human components yet deprived of a reliable cognitive ability.

The project is attempting to garner what is objectively real, subjectively speaking, utilising a Zombie protagonist who is most definitely not.

The research is visually manifesting itself through first person narrative incorporations of text in 2D work and installation. Interweaving the visual and theoretical in a collage of sorts, the project is battling to preserve something that may have never existed in the first place: a true subjective. The subjective vs. the objective, real vs. imagined, it will be a war devoid of a victor fought only to prevent a future Zombie apocalypse.

The intended outcome of It’s All In Your Head is to display the research through a diary belonging to the Zombie adventurer, comprising drawing, thoughts, stories and information… all of which may or may not be real.

lilycahill@gmail.com

lilycahillart.blogspot.com

Lily Cahill Contemporary Practices in Art & Design

77

Whilst there are demands made on photographs to serve the written text, to be either illustrative or evidential, photographs ultimately float free of these impositions. They belong neither to a time nor a place, but to a way of imagining and making the world as a scene, a range of different textures, memories and fantasies that resist temporal classification’ Janet Harbord1

My photographic practice seeks to create an imaginary archive of imagery that embraces the free floating nature of photography. The photographs that I create are inspired by a found image that has captured my attention and provoked a sense of action. The source material becomes a point of reference which is then re-enacted in a controlled environment either on location or in the studio. Certain motifs reoccur such as an odd gesture or a loan figure but mostly the images reflect fleeting everyday moments in time.

The people invited to participate in the photograph often inspire a new perspective as a result of their individual reactions to direction. The found image may dictate the original scene but their individual responses transgress the controlled working environment and facilitate spontaneity.

The work presented to the viewer share similar themes but should not be read as a neat collective. Rather than one image flowing in to the next, some of the photographs act as punctuation marks in order to disrupt any potential narrative. Although certain fictitious connections may play off one another, the photographs do not intend to show any clear consensus. As an artistic device this has the potential to create new and unexpected meanings and opens up the possibility of imagining the world in a new way.

abaigealmeek@gmail.com

1 Harbord, J, Chris Marker, La Jetée, Afterall Books, 2009. pg 25: In this instance Harbord is referring to the philosopher Vilém Flusser and his writings on photography.

Abaigeal MeekContemporary Practices in Art & DesignMA – Art in the Contemporary World

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MA – Art in the Contemporary World

PseudoPseudo

PseudoPseudo is a practice based research project that emerged from developments in my work concerned with the morally peripheral operator in contemporary idiosyncratic peripheral culture and philosophy.

The underlying ambition of this project is to gain a significant understanding of the implications and nuances of key paradigms within my practice, such as absurdity, the comedic and the peripheral, when they are considered through contemporary art and art theory. The research is engaging with questions concerning the architecture of optimistic absurdity in art, the different affects of the comedic that seem to emerge within the sublime, and the extent to which peripheral philosophies problematise and critique contemporary art theory are central to the research.

Through sculpture and projection work I have been introducing the downright weirdness of objects and our ‘stuckness’ at them, specifically objects of New-Age philosophy and healing that are purported to induce metaphysics or transcend lived reality for their human users.

Through a methodology influenced by philosopher Graham Harman’s ‘Object Oriented Ontology’, these objects are taken from existing as an intended utility of peripheral transcendence to becoming the very experiential subject of a non-human experience. This experimental mode is intensified with moments of groundless optimism, paradoxical-ridicule, scepticism and comedy.

PseudoPseudo’s working-objective is to contribute to a defence of absurdity as a first philosophy and an emergent paradigm for art making. The project’s research is currently forming as sculptural installations, writings and philosophical messing.

rob@robmurphy.ie

www.robmurphy.ie

Rob MurphyContemporary Practices in Art & Design

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Is (M)ART for Everyone? I am researching how, the all-encompassing, digital arts is contrasted to the exclusive nature often found in academia and traditional gallery settings. Can digital curation and the display of art online initiate a movement of inclusivity in contemporary Irish Art? What role does the traditional gallery have in online display and where does the power lay? I am a firm believer Art should be accessible, inclusive and derive from an instinctive nature. Is art moving away from these elements? I wish to analyse the influence of online art and its accessibility to the home user. I wish to reflect on the changes the Internet has had on curation and consider the socio-political effects on contemporary Irish art.

I shall be contextualizing this research through the history of MART by creating a catalogue featuring my own and curated texts that interrogate and discuss this thesis.

MART is Ireland’s largest online video art gallery and collection of Irish Visual Artists working in New Media, Installation, Sculpture, Experimental Film, and Performance. I set up MART with Ciara Scanlan in 2006 with an inclusive ethos and have worked with over 300 artists through 27 exhibitions across Ireland, UK, Europe and USA.

Matthew Nevin is a Curator and Visual Artist who has exhibited in Ireland, UK and the USA. Matthew also works as an Art Director in Television and has previously worked for the BBC, MTV, RTÉ, TG4, Element Pictures and ITV. In 2012 Matthew received funding from Galway City Council to complete The Core Project, (www.the-core-project) which studies the role of the user in an online global participatory project.

Curator and artist of MART.

matthewjdnevin@gmail.com

www.matthewnevin.com

info@mart.ie

www.mart.ie

www.the-core-project.com

Matthew NevinContemporary Practices in Art & DesignMA – Art in the Contemporary World

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The alternative is…

There exists a pronounced dialogue within my work with history and its social, political and cultural contexts. Working in moving image my recent research has developed around socio-political relationships, placing particular focus on moments of social disruption and transformation. Through narrative; attention to site and staged actions my vignettes explore the tensions that exist between the public and private realms.

Concerns with times of social struggle and protest first aroused my interest in pirate radio. I see the emergence of pirate radio as a creative form of protest, a reaction against the dogmatic voice of power. Born out of a necessity to voice certain ideologies, pirate radio stresses the importance of discourse. The illegality of pirate radio emphasises the importance of social change produced by society.

‘The alternative is…’, is a two channel video projection which focuses on the establishment of the pirate radio station Radio City. This was based on WWII anti-airfield forts, Shivering Sands on the Thames estuary. Pirate Radio emerged alongside other anti-establishment organizations that erupted in the 1960s.

The first element of this work focuses on the past while the second explores the present, representing the repetition of the struggle between the personal and the political. Through visual metaphors the work connects a moment when a group physically detaches itself from the mainland and its ideologies. The first element of the work is created through a combination of interviews, on-site footage, archive materials and photographs. It focuses on a historical reconstruction of Radio city and asks the viewer to consider the utopian possibilities of this removed society out at sea.

The second element is an artistic response to this history from our current moment. It presents a gathering of people, each carrying an item as they separate themselves from the mainland to start their new society in search of new ways of being.

laura.smithfa@gmail.com

Laura SmithContemporary Practices in Art & Design

‘The alternative is...’

MA – Art in the Contemporary World

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Modern Irish Design History & Material Culture

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This theme addresses design and material culture in modern Ireland. It considers design and material culture broadly. It addresses the important work of researching the production of authored designed objects, systems and spaces in Ireland (and elsewhere); it further addresses the consumption of design and material culture as a site of meaning. As well as nativist production and consumption, it explores deterritorialised networks of exchange.

‘Modern’ could be taken in a temporal sense to mean in the modern era, from the Cromwellian settlements of the mid-seventeenth century, in relation to industrialization from the late eighteenth century or in relation to the post-Famine era from the mid-nineteenth century. Conceptually and in relation to these, it could be understood as modernity. In the Irish context, this provides an opportunity to examine alter or non-hegemonic modernities; in relation to design this might mean the proto-industrialisation of certain manufacturing methods in the eighteenth century, the relationship of a non-industrialised and predominantly agrarian economy in relation to mass manufacture elsewhere, or the use of modern techniques of manufacture, distribution and consumption to supposedly archaic ends as in the case of Catholicism from the mid-nineteenth century.

By addressing both the reflective and productive capacities of design and material culture, this thematic ultimately brings greater understanding of the habitus that structures everyday life and our relationship to materiality.

Introduction

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TheKilkennyDesignWorkshops(KDW)ArchiveatNIVAL

NIVAL is a unique research facility wherein every aspect of 20th Century Irish art and design has been documented. Amongst the many archival and Special Collections held by NIVAL is the Kilkenny Design Workshops Archive (KDW).

The Kilkenny Design Workshops was founded in 1963 by the Irish Export Board as part of its strategy to improve standards in design in this country. KDW was the first example of state funded design workshops and provided a template later used elsewhere. From the time of its establishment through to the present day, the Workshops have remained central to the debate surrounding the need for modernisation and change in design in Ireland.

The KDW Archive has particular significance to the study of recent Irish material culture. Design in relation to KDW must be understood as encompassing not just the physical attributes of particular objects, but also an approach to production that would make Ireland a competitive economic player in the modern world.

TheDigitalRepositoryofIreland(DRI)With generous support from the Heritage Council and the Arts Council, NIVAL has been engaged in a phased cataloguing project of the KDW Archive since 2008. Through its inclusion as part of the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI), NIVAL is producing a digital finding-aid for the entire collection, which includes photographic documentation, volumes of press clippings, record sheets and printed ephemera, and digitising over 2,000 of the images. DRI is an exchequer-funded project with a mandate to build a national trusted digital repository for the humanities and social sciences.

DRI will allow the public, students and scholars to research the history, cultural heritage and social life of Ireland in ways never possible before. It will also act as a focal point for the development of a National Digital Policy.

www.nival.ie/collections/online-special-collections

Cataloguing Collections at NIVAL

Projects Modern Irish Design History & Material Culture

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ResearchersModern Irish Design History & Material Culture

Dr. Lisa Godson

HolyShows:publiceventsinpost-revolutionaryIreland

I am currently completing a book manuscript based on my research into the material culture of public events in Ireland, 1922-39. This addresses issues relating to public commemoration and celebration in the post-revolutionary, to some post-colonial period in Ireland. It suggests that political divisions inhibited the public enactment of a unitary memory and the celebration of the new state – in secular terms at least. Alongside the silence and absence of unified secular events, there was the forceful and vociferous presence of specifically religious public events, such as the spectacular Eucharistic Congress of 1932 and a number of smaller-scale processions, pilgrimages and other celebrations. These enactments of devotion pervaded everyday life and occupied public space on a frequent basis, performing and producing the identity of independent Ireland as overwhelmingly Catholic. My research addresses these events, and also the use of material culture to ‘ritualise’ certain social groups such as working class men and adolescent males. It also draws on previous research on the material culture of the devotional revolution of the nineteenth century, particularly the role of mass produced objects and the ideal of reproducibility in bringing Ireland in line with continental European practices. As such, it troubles certain concepts of modernity as a secularising force, and more recent work in political theology that address Agamben’s ‘state of exception’.

Build Something ModernAnother research project that I am continuing to work on relates to Irish architects who produced designs for hundreds of buildings in East Africa from the mid-1940s. I initiated this research in a collaborative project with Still Films in 2010, when we won funding from the Arts Council under the ‘reel art’ funding strand to make a feature-length documentary Build Something Modern (Dirs: Nicky Gogan and Paul Rowley). The film was shortlisted as one of the top five Irish documentaries of 2011, had a run at the IFI and has represented Ireland at a number of festivals. The research has focused on the self-image of the architects as crusading modernists, their architectural work as a reinterpretation of ‘tropical

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Researchers Modern Irish Design History & Material Culture

modernism’, the agency of the missionary priests who usually oversaw the construction of these buildings, and the relationship between colonialism, religion and modernism.

Remembering the Great War and 1916A more recent project, partly in response to the forthcoming centenaries of the outbreak of the First World War and the 1916 Rising, addresses aspects of those in Ireland, particularly in relation to the material culture of memorialisation and looting. Collaborators in this include a newly constituted UK-Ireland network focused on the material and visual culture of war involving researchers at Birkbeck-University of London, Central Saint Martins and University College Dublin.

NCAD/UCD/NLI collaborationAn exciting new project is planned in collaboration with University College Dublin to commence in Autumn 2012. This involves a collection of rare 18th and 19th century volumes that formed part of the teaching collection of the forerunner of NCAD, and held in the National Library of Ireland. I am convening this project with Professor Kathleen James-Chakraborty (History of Art UCD), and it will involve post-graduate students focusing on individual volumes, learning about the production, consumption and use of them, and presenting their findings at a symposium in November 2012.

Publications completed 2012A 10,000 word essay ‘Irish Design’ for the forthcoming Royal Irish Academy five volume series on the History of Art and Architecture of Ireland – coauthor Linda King.

An essay on the design and use of banners in Ireland from the 17th century for the above publication.

“Open House Dublin” (a review essay) for The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 71 (2) June/2012.

‘Display, Sacramentalism and Devotion: the medals of the Archconfraternity of the Holy Family, 1922--1939’ in Confraternities and Sodalities in Ireland: charity, devotion and sociability’ ed. Colm Lennon Columba Press, Dublin 2012.

lisa.godson@gmail.com

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Modern Irish Design History & Material Culture Doctoral Researchers

Clauss Dietel & Lutz Rudolph, Heliradio Modular System: RK3 (Tuner)

+ P1 (Record Player) + L20 (Speaker), 1963-65, Gerätebau Hempel KG

Limbach-Oberfrohna (Heliradio), photograph by Georg Eckelt (Courtesy of

Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Sammlung

Industrielle Gestaltung, Berlin)

Katharina Pfuetzner

AdvocacyfortheUser:FunctionalistIndustrialDesignPracticeintheGermanDemocraticRepublic

StatementThis thesis argues that industrial designers in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) adopted a socially responsible design approach in response to the particular ideological, social and economic conditions that emerged in the GDR. This approach is characterised as an interpretation of functionalism.

The research project involved the critical reconstruction of the designers’ goals and perspectives by drawing on unpublished material, including archived documents, designed objects and interviews conducted with GDR designers, as well as on published sources, such as contemporary books and journal articles. In demonstrating that these views of design practitioners sometimes collided with official cultural policy, this thesis furthermore seeks to complicate the current conception of GDR designers as passive executors of state policy and contends that they had a substantial degree of independent agency.

By focusing on design practice, this research project aims to further our understanding of industrial design in a socialist context, which so far has been informed mainly by accounts that approach it from the viewpoint of its consumption. This thesis argues that, for a variety of reasons, professional industrial design only had a relatively minor impact on the material culture of the GDR.

Nevertheless some of the GDR designers’ key arguments and ideas are excavated and discussed, in the firm belief that they have the capacity to enrich contemporary design discourse and thus constitute an important contribution to the discipline of industrial design.

pfuetznerk@ncad.ie

89

MA – Design History & Material Culture

Jennifer Hastings

TheSpectacleofCollection:SearchingforaNarrativeinPostcardAlbums1900-1930

A postcard is at once an innocuous and powerful cultural object. It resides within our homes behind a magnet on the fridge, propped on a window ledge, kept in a drawer, a shoe-box, a biscuit tin. Postcards have been collected for over a hundred years. The purpose of my thesis is not to identify why people collect, although the motives for collecting will certainly play a part, but to identify a narrative within the display of a collection.

For the purpose of this investigation I will look at the consumer as creator of the postcard and its purchase the moment of its birth. The postcard as an object is imbued with meaning from several angles, the picture it bears, the writing inscribed upon it, its age, its country of origin, all of these things make it available to categorise and make it collectable.

First seen in Austria in 1869, the postcard quickly gained a foothold once postage was lowered and one could be sent for a halfpenny. The picture postcard quickly followed and the height of its collectability was from about 1900-1910. Little is written about the forms of display used in this period.

There has been much written in recent years on the subject of collecting. Most notably from Susan Stewart, Mieke Bal, Naomi Schor and Susan Pearce. Using these theorists as a starting point for my research I hope to shine light on the previously neglected area of display.

The current trend toward searching for a narrative within a collection, first posited by Bal, lends itself well to my research focus and I will use it as a framework to develop my theory of a re-introduction of meaning to the postcard, an object that is becoming increasingly meaningless in an increasingly paperless world.

Design History & Material Culture

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Modern Irish Design History & Material Culture MA – Design History & Material Culture

Merchant, N, Addis, J. (1984, p, 24) Kilkenny Design – twenty one years of

Design in Ireland. Lund Humphries, London. Jewellery made in the silvershop

KDW – 1970s

Breda Haugh

TheKilkennyDesignWorkshops–jewellery1963-1980

My thesis proposes to investigate the approach to design and production of jewellery made in the Kilkenny Design Workshops, during the period 1963-1980. These Workshops (KDW) were set up by the Irish Government in 1963, as a response to their concern with the disinterest in modern design shown by Irish manufacturers, as demanded by the export market, on which rested essential economic growth. To address the issue, various reports were commissioned, ultimately leading to the establishment of KDW.

Designers were sourced, primarily from abroad, to develop links with manufacturing industry, to assist them in design and product development, so that they would be competitive in the marketplace. The Workshops comprised several design disciplines, the production of industry prototypes, and products in various materials, including jewellery, for sale in their retail outlets.

The background to the disinterest in design in Ireland is believed to result from turmoil in our history. The high point for sophisticated design and quality craftsmanship, including gold jewellery, was in antiquity, and as these qualities did not evolve evenly through time, it left country bereft of potential benefits. However by the nineteenth century jewellery was being manufactured in the larger cities, particularly Dublin, with reproduction “Celtic” jewellery an important facet of production, which continues to the present day.

To place my investigation in context the production of KDW jewellery will be compared with that manufactured by the jewellery trade in Dublin. Here products generally comprised traditional “Celtic”, and generic designs. There were, in contrast, however, a few jewellery manufacturer/retailers, who valued a modern design approach, notably the Swedish designer, Marika.

The aim of my proposal is to acknowledge the contribution and legacy to design of KDW jewellery, along with that made in Dublin, during the period from 1963-1980.

bredahaugh@eircom.net

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Mother and Child scheme information booklet, c.1951,

National Archives, Department of Taoiseach

Nina Holmes

GovernmentHealthandHygieneCampaignsin1950sIreland

The Health Bill of 1947 established a separate Department of Health which paved the way for a more focused health service and reflected the State’s more involved role in the health of the population towards the mid-twentieth century (Barrington, 2000, pp.167-194).

My research focuses on the ephemera produced as part of the Government’s strategies to prevent infectious diseases and thus improve public health. Posters and booklets from the 1950s strove to educate about health and hygiene and warn against disease. This suggests that, as in Europe, the Irish government was attempting to educate the population. Upon closer examination, it is evident that in both Ireland and Europe the tone of such campaigns was often highly authoritative. The prescriptive nature of this material can be observed in James C. Scott’s ‘Authoritarian High Modernism’, ‘one might say that the high-modern state began with extensive prescriptions for a new society, and intended to impose them.’ (Scott, 1998, p.90). Certain schemes and health promotion campaigns were viewed by some as a product of increasingly interventionist health policies. The concept of social control, particularly in relation to health and the body, can also be related to Michel Foucault’s theory of ‘Bio power’ in which modern state authorities achieve ‘subjugations of bodies and the control of populations’ through authoritarian techniques (Foucault, 1990, p.140).

Visually, this material is often modernist in style, and borrows from various aspects of international popular visual culture in the mid twentieth century. In some cases there is an attempt to fuse the visual imagery of traditional Ireland with that of more contemporary influences from abroad, which can be seen as reflective of a changing national identity in Ireland. I intend to examine this dichotomy working within the theoretical framework of Clifford Geertz’s ideas about ‘essentialism and epochalism’ (Geertz, 2000, pp. 238-246).

ninaholmes78@yahoo.co.uk

MA – Design History & Material Culture Design History & Material Culture

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Life Magazine, 3 June 1953

Lucy Proctor

TheAdvertisingandPromotionofIrishLinen(1930s-1950s)

‘‘Irish Linen’ is a trademark synonymous with quality, luxury and tradition. For many years, Irish linen enjoyed a worldwide reputation as the fabric of choice for household textiles and fashionable garments. It reached the height of its production in Ireland in the 19th century, with Belfast becoming the largest linen producing area in the world.

By the early 20th century, factors such as the revival of the low-cost cotton industry combined with the 1920s Depression meant that the demand for Irish linen had diminished significantly. In 1928 The Irish Linen Guild was established to market the Irish linen industry. The Guild launched an intensive promotional drive, which sought to re-invigorate the profile of Irish linen as a desirable, luxury commodity around the world. The activities of the guild included participation in international exhibitions and fairs, store demonstrations, production of promotional consumer booklets, pamphlets and films, and widespread advertising in the international press. The guild also devised educational initiatives for schools and training for shop assistants in an effort to raise awareness of the history and tradition surrounding Irish linen.

While much has been written on the subject of the Irish Linen industry, particularly its production and social history, there appears to be few detailed studies into how Irish linen was advertised and promoted internationally. Focusing on promotional material produced by the Irish Linen Guild, this thesis will examine how visual imagery was adopted to communicate ideas about the history and tradition surrounding linen manufactured in Ireland. In addressing how the visual identity of Irish linen helped to establish its reputation as a trusted, quality commodity, I will also explore how this traditional identity was adapted to meet the changing needs of an evolving consumer society.

lucy.proctor@gmail.com

MA – Design History & Material CultureModern Irish Design History & Material Culture

93

Quaker bonnet, 1850, from the collections of the National Museum

of Ireland

Carol Smith

Quakers are members of the Religious Society of Friends, a movement founded in England during the mid-seventeenth century. It became established in Ireland soon afterwards and members adhered to a doctrine which was based on plainness of speech, behaviour and apparel. Clothing played an important role in Quaker identity and the wearing of certain types of clothing was a material expression of this doctrine.

The main aim of this thesis is to establish whether Irish Quakers wore clothing in accordance with the Quaker tradition of plainness. This will be achieved using a variety of sources including extant Quaker garments from the nineteenth century. Analysis of items of clothing may provide actual examples of style, colour, choice of fabric and detail which are referred to in primary and secondary literature. I will also try to establish whether Quaker garments reflected changing fashion trends or if they remained unique and recognisable throughout the nineteenth century.

The views of Quakers themselves will be looked at such as those of the Irish writer Mrs Greer, a member of the Religious Society of Friends. In 1851 she published a memoir entitled Quakerism; or the Story of my Life by a lady who for 40 years was a Member of the Society of Friends. Mrs Greer’s book includes anecdotes about clothing and detailed descriptions of garments. It gives a fascinating first-hand account of both Quaker attitudes to clothing and also non-members reactions to it.

My research will focus on the nineteenth century to see if Quaker attitudes changed over the course of time or if Quaker clothing continued to signify membership of the Society of Friends and to be a public expression of its beliefs.

MA – Design History & Material Culture Design History & Material Culture

94

The Waldorf Barbershop

Emma Twomey

A View of Male Grooming in 1960s Ireland: The Waldorf Barbershop between the years 1960-1970

The primary concern of this research will be to consider male grooming such as that provided in contemporary barbershops as indicative of male consumption and the presentation of, and perception of identity. The 1960s was a period of great change in many Western countries; the Republic of Ireland experienced an improving economy, increasing urbanisation and the broadening or modernising of social attitudes. Increased media exposure, particularly the popularisation of television, challenged traditional conservative values as well as stimulating interest with access to a cornucopia of new ideas concerning politics, economics, society, sport and fashion. It will be suggested that research of the consumption of such ideals may aid in deciphering the meanings that people give to objects. The central line of reasoning will be that dress or appearance functions as a powerful communicator of gender, religion, economic status, political affiliation and cultural interests. Thus, based on that premise, this research will investigate male consumption of grooming services such as those offered by the Waldorf Barbershop as a means of observing consumption of masculinity in a more general manner. From a material culture perspective, I will investigate how the physical appearance portrayed relates to one’s identity or presentation of self. A further concern will be to consider how Irish styles relate to those in the United Kingdom or the United States.

In order to present a comprehensive argument, this analysis will rely on a range of sources in addition to standard secondary material. The business records of the Waldorf Barbershop will be examined as well as those of comparable businesses. Surviving barbershop paraphernalia such as razors, mirrors and bottles will be examined in context. Contemporaneous published works such as magazines, literature and photographs will be consulted. Finally, as the period under examination is within living memory, interview material will also feature.

MA – Design History & Material CultureModern Irish Design History & Material Culture

Creative & Critical Pedagogies

A central feature of education in art and design, and in visual culture, is the development of particular ways of seeing the world, interpreting phenomena and making sense. These perceptions and ways of working are not always easily accommodated or even recognised in the dominant structures and systems of education, whether in the formal school and college system or in more informal domains of education.

NCAD research in the field of Creative & Critical Pedagogies is concerned centrally with how art and design processes engage with the domain of education. More specifically, such research explores how art and design processes themselves constitute an explicit way of comprehending the world. The relationships between the processes of art and design on the one hand, and the processes of teaching and learning on the other, are the particular field of study for NCAD research in education. The thrust of this research is towards what education can learn from art and design practice, and from visual culture, rather than how such practice can be accommodated within traditional education structures.

In that context, NCAD research encourages a critical engagement with pedagogic practices, in a range of educational contexts. Creativity, traditionally associated with the arts, and latterly a staple term in the lexicon of education and economic commentators, is a problematic concept. By engaging in critical theoretical and practical research in the field of education, NCAD aspires to have an impact not just on art education but also on art practice and on educational policy and practices in general.

Introduction

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Creative & Critical PedagogiesProjects

The NCAD Faculty of Education has been engaged in a number of significant initiatives under the research strand Critical and Creative Pedagogies. Some of the research activities related to this theme have been captured by Gary Granville in a recently published book Art Education and Contemporary Culture: Irish Experiences, International Perspectives (Intellect Books). This book, the first of its kind, presents a scholarly and critical analysis of current art education in Ireland. It has three distinguishing features:

1. It presents a comprehensive overview of art education in a variety of settings, levels and contexts, including primary and post-primary school, further and higher education, community and adult education and museum and gallery education;

2. It locates the Irish experience and practice in an international context, through chapters from distinguished art educators based in Northern Ireland, in the UK and in north America;

3. Crucially, it is shaped by the research experience of the NCAD Faculty of Education over the past decade, each contributor having an intimate history of engagement in the faculty either through doctoral research, external examining, teaching or project partnership.

A common theme, addressed implicitly and explicitly in the book, is the capacity of art and design education to provide a model of teaching and learning that can facilitate deep changes in educational policy. The book identifies a ‘disconnect’ between current policy rhetoric towards the development of critical thinking, innovation and creativity in all sectors of education and the continuing marginalised role of art and design education. The internal challenges and inconsistencies of art and design education are also identified and a number of challenging and provocative positions are adopted by various contributors.

Dr. Gary Granville, editor of the book, is Professor of Education and Head of the Faculty of Education in NCAD.

Art Education and Contemporary Culture – Prof. Gary Granville

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EUSupportedResearchontheContemporarySelfPortrait

During 2006/7 the Fine Art Faculty at NCAD collaborated with the Fine Art Academy at Turku University of Applied Science in Finland, and the Art Cooperations project at Wiltz in Luxembourg, on an international, EU supported research project entitled Artists in Learning Communities.

Building on this partnership NCAD was invited by Taina Eravaara from the Turku Academy of Fine Art, Finland to an initial meeting of potential partners including the Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn, the International Summer School of Photography, Latvia and Umea University, Sweden .

Chris Maguire represented NCAD at the September 2011 meeting in Turku. It was discussed in advance that the developing relationship between NCAD and the F2 Neighbourhood Centre in Rialto might provide an appropriate context for the development of the Dublin leg of this research project. All four Fine Art Departments will participate.

Over two days of meetings an outline plan was agreed between the five agencies present and further detailed information was forwarded to Turku for collation and inclusion in the submission for matching funding from the EU. A positive response was received in early 2012.

The next meeting of the five partners is due to take place in Turku in September 2012, with the program being rolled out thereafter and continuing through 2013, leading towards an exhibition and launch of a publication at Umea in Sweden round about April 2014.

Torku Project – Artists in Learning Communities

ProjectsCreative & Critical Pedagogies

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Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn with Gary Granville

Creative & Critical PedagogiesResearchers

Professor Gary Granville, Head of Faculty of Education, has an active research practice largely concerned with art education, with teacher education and with curriculum and assessment. Recent research publications and presentations have included the following:

Art Education and Contemporary Culture: Irish Experiences, International Perspectives (editor) Intellect Book, 2012;

‘The falcon cannot hear the falconer: the pedagogical turn and the negative space of art education in Ireland, International Journal of Art and Design Education Vol 30, No. 3, 2011;

Academy and community: the experience of a college programme in socially engaged practice, (with N. Hunt, C. Maguire and Whelan F) International Journal of Education through the Arts (forthcoming 2013);

Learning to speak as a listener (with M. Richardson) chapter in Mason and Bushckeuble (eds) Images and Identity (Intellect Books – forthcoming 2013);

Teacher Education as a Subversive Activity: entrepreneurship, creativity and learning in NCAD: EU Conference on Entrepreneurship and teacher Education, May 2012, Dublin;

After the Goldrush: arts, innovation and enterprise in contemporary education research and policy, paper presented at Educational Studies of Ireland (ESAI) conference UCC, March 2012;

Dialogue of the Deaf: art education and national policy in a time of restructuring, paper accepted for presentation at International Society for Education in the Arts, (INSEA) Cyprus, June 2012;

Art and Experience: Fact and Fiction in Educational Research invited speaker, TCD research seminar January 2011.

Innovation project activities currently involve the following initiatives:Future Creators: a collaborative project in informal digital media education, working with young teenagers in an after school setting in south inner city of Dublin;

1913 Tapestry, a collaborative project with SIPTU, working with various community groups and schools to produce a textile narrative to commemorate the centenary of the 1913 Lock-out in Dublin.

Prof. Gary Granville

Creative & Critical Pedagogies Doctoral Researcher

Hedgeschool

ArtandEducationandEvent

Thinking an ‘evental education’ through the hedgeschoolproject (2008 – 2012)

This research considers the negative implications of human capital theory for radical education and artistic research. Human capital theory is the master concept through which most western states order and organise pedagogical institutions and their attendant policies. At the centre of human capital theory is a conception of the pedagogical subject as a form of capital, driven by self-investment and self-interest. Described by Michael Foucault as homo economicus the human capital subject operates through an additive ontology, where the accumulation of skills, attributes and knowledges play out against increasingly precarious labour markets.

Alternatively, this research project explores a different set of theoretical apparatus through which to think the potential of informal education, called ‘evental’. An ‘evental education’ operates through a subtractive ontology of praxis influenced by the philosophy of French philosopher Alain Badiou. Engaging with models of education subtracted from the state, an ‘evental education’ aims to re-direct the drive of the pedagogical subject away from an emphasis on outcomes and self-investment, towards an affirmation of education by truths, invention and equality.

Employing a broad conception of the informal, this research explores recent shifts in artistic (pedagogical turn) and autonomous education together with historical models of popular education in a research practice called: the hedgeschoolproject. The hedgeschoolproject is an iterative process of artistic/pedagogical enquiry developed over a period of six years, which operated across a number of diverse sites. In this project the name ‘hedge school’ is re-signified as an immanent site of ‘evental education’, rather than as a heritage site for designer capitalism.

Glenn Loughran

102

103

Annette Corkery

One effective way of integrating learning across the curriculum is to focus on the process rather than the product. Creative learning is a process of questioning, connecting, imagining and reflecting to produce valuable results. Emphasising the process and making links between domains allows the transfer of knowledge and fosters creativity. By reflecting on outcomes children learn to see failure as a learning opportunity, to value the process and to see each project as a journey to be enjoyed.

I designed and piloted an integrated scheme for fifth and sixth class, had consultations with visual arts educators, arts officers and primary teachers and developed a teacher pack to allow others to replicate my project.

With the theme of Identity, the project involves pupils in a process of questioning, looking at personal ambitions, local history and their place in the world, while creating their own self-portrait book. Formative assessment is central and each pupil keeps a learning journal over the course of the project, which integrates learning in English, Drama, SESE and SPHE with all strands of the Visual Arts curriculum.

The pack contains a teacher booklet and disc, designed to be user-friendly and easily adaptable to individual circumstances. The lesson content is written to allow flexibility of delivery. Other resources include success criteria and self-evaluation rubrics, video clips, samples from the pilot, and a research summary.

As the pack is only useful if teachers know about it and would consider using it, the final part of my research involved getting this information to schools through a blog, email, phone calls and a focus group of teachers.

corkeryannette@eircom.net

boostingcreativity.blogspot.com

M.Litt – Education Creative & Critical Pedagogies

104

Anne Bradley

TheClassroomasStudio

“In fact learning is the human activity which least needs manipulation by others. It is rather the result of unhampered participation in a meaningful setting.”

Ivan Illich, 1979

The project investigates the relationship between the primary school learning environment and research processes currently used by artists. The Irish primary school curriculum expresses that a key intention of primary education is to enable children to become life long learners who can realise their full potential as individuals. This open-ended aim allows for many pedagogical approaches in the primary classroom. The focus of this thesis is to investigate the value of approaching education as an aesthetic activity, valuing sensitivity and developing criticality in learning communities.

The project views the artist as a self-directed, self-motivated, life-long learner. Can the activities of current art practitioners inform pedagogical practice in primary schools? Can aesthetic approaches to teaching and learning help to enrich the daily making of meaning? Through the writings of Maxine Greene, Paulo Freire, Ivan Illich and Elliot Eisner these questions are explored.

Analysis of an open-ended self-directed project completed by primary school students forms a central part of the research. An eight-step approach to learning in an art context, as outlined by the Raqs Media Collective in Henry Madoff’s Art School, is used as a framework for this analysis. The notions of embedded criticality, unintended consequences and the artist as interlocutor provide useful insights into the children’s varied responses to the project.

MA – Visual Arts EducationCreative & Critical Pedagogies

105

Julie Clarke

Working Title: Rights, Roles and Responsibilities: The Case of the Visual Artist working in a School Context

SummaryThe overall objective of this study is to explore the experiences of professional artists working in schools through various arts-in-education schemes, the most prevalent being, the artists-in-schools scheme. Artists are invited for inclusion in the aforementioned programme through local authority arts offices, schools, education centres, and other organisations. This empirical study is concerned with artists working in Dublin schools and engaged in time intensive projects (12 weeks or more).

The study is predominantly informed by educational theorists Elliot Eisner and Henry Giroux. A review of literature in the following areas, Curriculum and the Arts; Local Government Arts Provision; Arts-in-Education; Artists-in-Schools; and the Teaching Artist, assisted with the design of questionnaires and interviews. Fifteen artists were invited to take part in the study with ten eventually doing so. All respondents had over six years experience of working in arts-in-education. The research explored how artists learn to deliver in a school context; the experiences that direct practice development and the supports that make a difference in the various roles and responsibilities artists take on in schools.

julieclarke.contact@yahoo.co.uk

MA – Visual Arts Education Creative & Critical Pedagogies

106

Name: Grahame Butler

Occupation: Forklift Driver

Residence: Castle Hill, Sydney, Australia

Car make, model & year: Ford Falcon XG Ute 1995

Why did you choose this car?

Well about a year ago I spun my previous car into a brick wall, I picked this

car up off my uncle for two cases of beer, I had actually been hassling him for

quite a while as I love the 4L engine as they are still made in Geelong Victoria.

Marc DoyleMA – Visual Arts EducationCreative & Critical Pedagogies

Bye Bye Gasoline

This research looks at how the thematic/systematic visualization of things/objects (in this case the car) can contribute to our understanding of the research process.

The project aims to photographically record people with the car they choose to drive every day. It’s a study of the relationship between the person and their car. It explores visual typologies and the social utility of photographs. It also examines the subjects’ values and conventions, which appear implicitly rather than explicitly.

The purpose is to take a long slow look, in an increasingly fast visual world, at the choice of cars individuals make. Examining the subject’s body language, how it relates to that choice and consequently what tribe those choices associate them with. This work leans towards observation and conversation, it is not focused on the achievement of a result at the expense of investigation or experimentation.

In undertaking work of this kind my objective is to nudge the field of visual research in a positive direction, creating space for a study that, up to this point, has been considered soft. The project aims to challenge that notion and establish images as valid research data.

MAVA 2012.

marc@marcdoylephotography.com

107

Church of Ireland College of Education Students Integrating the Arts

Lucy Hamilton-Turley

IntegratingtheArtsinPrimaryTeacherEducation

Action research was conducted between 2011 and 2012 at Church of Ireland College of Education (CICE), where the researcher is Visual Arts Lecturer, into student-teacher responses to a cooperative-collaborative learning mode which integrated visual arts with music and drama. In furthering the professional development of the researcher and introducing the students to a wider range of teaching and learning methods, it was hoped that sufficient academic and affective viability would allow for inclusion of the method in future arts programmes. The enquiry compared ratings on a devised Likert-style questionnaire for standard visual art sessions with ratings for an integrated arts project within it, facilitated by the visual arts lecturer with the collaboration of the lecturer in music and the lecturer in drama.

The work built upon a cooperative-collaborative pilot project (without the integrated component) carried out by the researcher as Visual Studies Lecturer at St Catherine’s College of Education. For the current enquiry, participants consisted of two independent groups (2011, Cohort A, N = 30; 2012, Cohort B, N = 31).

Academic viability was measured by comparing Senior Freshman ‘Combined Arts’ assessment grades from 2005 to 2012. Affective viability (learner enjoyment and satisfaction) was measured from simultaneous (comparable) rating scores and written comments on standard and integrated sessions.

Examination of rating raw scores indicated no need for statistical analyses and they, together with output grades and verbatim comments of participants, were qualitatively analysed, tabulated and graphed to produce the findings.

Results indicated that in both academic and affective terms the cooperative-collaborative integrated arts methodology explored in the enquiry was viable in this context of teacher training at CICE and is therefore cautiously recommendable to other similar environments.

lturley@cice.ie

MA – Visual Arts Education Creative & Critical Pedagogies

108

Eva Kelly

StoryLines:Usingayouthartspedagogytofostercreativityandcriticalthinkingintheformalenvironment

SummaryThe focus of this research project is centred on a youth arts pedagogy as a tool for transformation and critical thinking. The aim is to visually communicate young peoples’ ideas and opinions through the method of stop motion animation.

The rational underpinning this research is to further investigate the positive impacts of young peoples’ participation in youth arts projects in disadvantaged areas. It examines how to address the issue of wellbeing concerning young people. This involved an action research method with a number of Transition Year classes over the school academic year.

This project addresses wellbeing by exploring and encouraging the young people to discuss where they come from and to think critically were they belong in the community. The essential part of this project is valuing the young peoples’ thoughts and opinions that are the building blocks of Story Lines.

In approaching this research project, questions raised included: “How can a youth arts methodology help students respond to what issues are important in their lives? What is innovative in this approach? Can a youth arts approach have a place in the formal education environment and how do they support each other?”

Little has been written on the use of youth arts methodologies and I hope that this project will add to this under-researched field.

evakelly1@hotmail.com

MA – Visual Arts EducationCreative & Critical Pedagogies

109

Linda McInerney

AnInvestigationintotheFactorsAffectingtheUptakeofArtatSeniorCycle

As an Art teacher who currently works within a secondary school environment the aim of my research was to investigate the reasons why students select or reject Art as a Senior Cycle subject. From my own experience working as a teacher and collaborating with others it is quite clear that there is currently a high level of dissatisfaction with the existing Leaving Certificate syllabus. There is a drop off of approximately half the number of students doing Art from Junior Certificate to Leaving Certificate. This research aimed to find out the reasons for this drop off in numbers.

After a thorough review of the current literature in this area a number of common themes and issues presented. Examples of these themes amongst others were; gender, guidance provision in the school, experiences at Junior Certificate, parental influences, subject options provided in the individual schools and when students made their subject choice decisions, talent, assessment and curriculum etc. The research was mainly quantitative and the themes which presented during the literature review were used to develop a questionnaire.

A representative sample of the population was chosen and fifth year students from four different schools in Co. Meath participated in the study. Over 250 students were surveyed in all. In an effort to triangulate and increase the validity of the results of the survey an interview was also conducted with a member of the National Council for Curriculum & Assessment (NCCA) who was on the committee that developed a new syllabus for Art at Leaving Certificate.

MA – Visual Arts Education Creative & Critical Pedagogies

110

Dawn McKeon

This is an action research project. I was invited by the local GAA club to design and produce a mural on the newly built wall on their grounds. This was an opportunity for me to work with children from the community. I really wanted to explore and establish if such a project would raise awareness of the need and value of art in the Primary School Curriculum. It was also an opportunity for me to research the elements of the curriculum, which could be linked to this project, to achieve the best possible effect.

My overriding objective was to establish if my project could raise enough awareness of art in the community which, in turn, might prompt some real and constructive debate leading to the local secondary school taking on art by enhancing interest in this subject in primary school.

At all stages in the project I involved the students in each and every step. I also complied teachers’ and parents’ surveys, analysed data and presented survey results. I engaged in observation and interviewing sessions with students and teachers. As part of my research I also visited Primary school classes, observing, participating and then identifying a design team to undertake the mural.

In the time scale that I had to complete this project I believe that my objective of creating a greater awareness of this subject in the local community was met. However, I feel greater time would be needed with the curriculum research, to visit schools and explore in depth whether art is truly appreciated and valued.

MA – Visual Arts EducationCreative & Critical Pedagogies

111

Example of a mono-print during the Print CPD workshop

Máire Quirke

TheuseofVisualArtasapowerfullearningtoolinthedevelopmentofLiteracyandNumeracyatprimarylevel

My research is concerned with the use of visual art as a learning tool in the primary classroom with a specific interest in the development of literacy and numeracy.

A survey of over seventy primary school teachers indicated a need for continuing professional development (CPD) workshops in Visual Art with an emphasis on Literacy and Numeracy. The renewed focus on Literacy and Numeracy within the curriculum in recent times has provided me with an area of interest for my research. It was my intention to devise CPD workshops for primary teachers, which successfully incorporate these areas without impeding on the expressive qualities of Visual Art as a unique subject in its own right.

As an art educator and a facilitator of primary teacher CPD workshops in Visual Art, I felt it was an ideal platform to begin my research into the reinforcement of literacy and numeracy in the primary classroom. The CPD workshops in Visual Art were based on the six strands of the primary school Visual Art curriculum.

My research analysis required a group of primary school teachers, who had attended the workshops, to develop visual art lessons that integrated literacy and numeracy based on the techniques, skills and ideas they had acquired during the workshop. They provided evidence of the children’s learning in the form of a Visual Art lesson plan. Each teacher also provided photographic evidence of the children’s visual work as well as any written work that was informed by their visual creations. It is proposed to further develop this programme in the future and examine this area over the course of a longitudinal study.

MA – Visual Arts Education Creative & Critical Pedagogies

Design Sustainability

114

Whatissustainability?

The most widely quoted definition of sustainability is that of the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations on March 20, 1987:

‘Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’

http://www.un-documents.net/ocf-02.htm

We are all aware that the way in which we design, manufacture and consume products in the world today is ultimately not sustainable. We have designed products and solved problems in isolation without thought as to where the materials and energy come from and how they would ultimately be disposed of. We are also aware of eco-systems in the natural world that are truly sustainable and ultimately we need to design products and systems that can aspire to be part of a similar type of system.

Of particular interest to researchers at NCAD is the question of how man-made materials can become part of an ecological cycle. The science of Industrial Ecology is very much an emerging one and in the area of consumer waste it is as much about economics and people’s attitudes as it is about the science of materials. To design sustainably is to integrate new understandings of environmental issues and sustainability into design education.

Introduction

115

In partnership with the Rediscovery Centre, Recraft is a graduate business incubation programme located in Ballymun, Dublin. Three metals and jewellery graduates are given free studio/gallery space and mentoring for twelve months. This offer is made in exchange for an agreed supply of craft product which is sold in the Ecostore. Recraft is an interdisciplinary model that promotes sustainability and social innovation. This creative community based learning model can be replicated by other disciplines.

Following the NCAD Invisible Boundaries-24 Hour Design Challenge in 2009, Recraft was established within a new network of external partners who specialise in sustainable living and the management of waste resources. Recraft is the first green craft studio business initiative in Ireland. Recraft focuses on the use of recycled materials in the production of contemporary craft product. The Recraft studio was set-up with the support of the local council and community. Recraft aims to develop social engagement and social innovation as entrepreneurial building blocks for contemporary craft studio makers. A 240sq metre unoccupied new build retail space was transformed into a fully functioning metals and jewellery studio/gallery using waste resources. Workbenches were constructed using discarded timber. Unwanted furniture was reclaimed to provide an office space. An ongoing residential rebuilding and soft-stripping programme, where 1960s Ballymun high rise tower blocks are being demolished to be replaced with more appropriate community housing, provides a rich resource of raw materials for our craft designers.

A series of mentors worked the Recraft graduates during the incubation period. An NCAD staff tutorial programme helped the graduates develop their business plans while in situ. A social entrepreneurship project was also organised with the Innovation Academy; where multidisciplinary PhD entrepreneurs, from University College Dublin/Trinity College Dublin, worked with the Recraft graduates to create a new range of related revenue generating customer services.

The Recraft project is a successful business incubation model that could be used by other disciplines interested in sustainability and social innovation.

RecraftDesign SustainabilityProjects

116

TheRecyclingRoadshow

The Recycling Roadshow is a mobile educational recycling playground aimed at changing young people’s attitudes to waste by giving them a greater awareness and understanding of recycling through a fun, active and educational experience. This project is a collaboration between the National College of Art and Design, the Rediscovery Centre Ballymun and RX3.

This project originated from the Discover Primary Science and Maths Centre at the Rediscovery Centre needing a play facility to complement the recycling education being provided by the centre.

The Recycling Roadshow will combine play and recycling in ways that give children a deep understanding of and commitment to practices positive to the creation and maintenance of ecologically sound and sustainable living. Its challenge will be to put recycling and recycling education at the heart of the playground concept without any lessening of the play experienced by the children.

In the Recycling Roadshow the children take part in simulated recycling processes where they become the objects being recycled.

Two of the processes – paper and aluminium – consist of obstacle type courses involving various fun challenges. The paper recycling includes a resistant thread-mill, a ‘mulching’ vat, a large net representing the drying meshes, and large foam rollers. The play obstacles in the aluminium recycling represent the different elements of the aluminium recycling process such as narrow tunnels where the aluminium is finally shaped into new cans.

The children experience the sorting element of glass recycling through using a large ‘sorting cannon’ which they must correctly aim to fire different coloured glass into the correct ‘bottle banks’. There is also a music area using discarded object and information games.

darraghkirby@gmail.com

Darragh KirbyMA – Design SustainabilityDesign Sustainability

117

Kate Cronin

The aim of the project is to evaluate materials available for recycling, to design a new product based on these materials and to support local enterprise development by creating a community based manufacturing initiative. Through sustainable design practice this project will exploit the potential of waste resource with the long-term aim of creating new markets for recycled materials within Ireland. This is a joint venture between the Market Development Programme for Waste Resource (rx3), the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) and the Rediscovery Centre (RDC).

There are currently no paper mills in operation in Ireland which results in over 99% of paper being exported for recycling. 34% of serviced households in Ireland currently have a brown bin, an increase of 10% on the previous year. However, this increase has resulted in only a 2% rise in the volume of household biodegradable waste collected and recycled into compost. These two areas of investigation form the basis of this study.

ObjectiveThis project explores how design can help to reduce the volume of biodegradable waste going to landfill by encouraging best practice among householders. This can be achieved through increasing user participation and by solving the common user convenience issues associated with food waste segregation such as bad odours, flies and maggots. The objective is to design a 100% compostable kitchen caddy for household food waste. When full, the caddy along with its contents is sealed and put into brown bin or home compost and a new unit is opened. This product is made from OINP laminate. This is a new material made from layers of newspaper bonded together with a starch adhesive and finished with a barrier coating of bioplastic film. The product is compostable to EU standard EN13432. The benefits of this project are two fold, firstly there are the economic advantages of developing internal markets for paper recyclate and the potential employment opportunities. And secondly, the reduction in the volume of household food waste being sent to landfill and its associated environmental benefits.

Mobile: +353 87 966 2167

katecronin83@hotmail.com

MA – Industrial Design Design Sustainability

Students Completing 2012MA–Design

Arturo Borrego

Annabel Breen

Theresa Burger

Joe Coll

Adrian Kenny*

Kathryn Mooney

Jamie Murphy

Suzanne Rogers*

Rachel Tynan

Raúl Martínez Vicente

Lisa Young

MA–DesignSustainability

Kate Cronin

Darragh Kirby

MSc–MedicalDeviceDesign

Maria Arrieta*

Garrett Boland-Tan*

Joy Kearns*

Terence Kealy*

Philip McKeown*

Kate O’Riordan*

Kevin O’Toole*

Olga Podoba*

Frederik de Smedt*

Michael Smith*

M.Litt–Education

Annette Corkery

Maire Davey*

MA–VisualArtsEducation

Anne Bradley

Julie Clarke

Marc Doyle

Eva Kelly

Linda McInerney

Dawn McKeown

Karen O’Connor*

Maire Quirke

Lucy Hamilton-Turley

MasterofFineArt

Conor Brennan

Emily Boylan

Clara Burke

Darren Campion

Loretto Cooney

Janine Davidson

Genieve Figgis

Jill French

Olivia Hassett

Elaine Leader

Kevin Mooney

Seamus McCormack

Molly Mishkas

Joseph Noonan-Ganley

Tanya O’Keeffe

Francis/Frank Wasser

MA–ArtintheDigitalWorld

Mona Gamil

Tatiana Kovalenko-Macklin

Veronica Nicholson

Paul O’Neill

Stephen O’Rourke

Daniel Spencer

MA–ArtintheContemporaryWorld

Lily Cahill

Ruth Clinton*

Avril Dowling*

Niamh Dunphy*

Grainne Finn*

John Lonergan*

Abaigeal Meek

Rob Murphy

Matthew Nevin

Mary Ronayne*

Laura Smith

Irma Van Baalen*

MA–DesignHistory&MaterialCulture

Jennifer Hastings

Breda Haugh

Nina Holmes

Lucy Proctor

Carol Smith

Emma Twomey

PhDinEducation

Glenn Loughran

PhDinFineArt

Margaret Fitzgibbon – Sculpture

Andrew Folan – Media

Naomi Sex – Media

PhDinVisualCulture

Owen Gallagher

Declan Long

Katharina Pfuetzner

*Does not appear in yearbook

118

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NCADResearch & Postgraduate Yearbook 2012

NCAD

Research & Postgraduate Yearbook 20128mm

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