01 June 2011: Vincenzo Di Maria and TPE's Bohmian dialogue

Title: Socially Responsive Practice in Art & Design

Date: Wednesday, 1 June 2011, 2-4 pm

Venue: Green Room, Chelsea College of Art and Design. Millbank, SW1P


Fig 1 - Water Design Challenge 2010 – co-designing solutions in response to water wastage.

It is our pleasure to announce this special session of the Practice Exchange. In the first half Vincenzo Di Maria will discuss his dynamic approach to people-centred design informed by recent examples of his research. In the second half, Marsha Bradfield and Scott Schwager will facilitate a 'Bohmian dialogue' based on the theory and practice of physicist David Bohm. This open-ended dialogue exemplifies the discursive art practice that Marsha and Scott have been developing together since March 2010.

Vincenzo Di Maria is a multidisciplinary designer based between London and Lisbon. His work focuses on social innovation and sustainable development, with a holistic approach to industrial design from products to services. He uses creative techniques and people-centred design approach with an added touch of playfulness.

Vincenzo has been working and is currently freelancing as design researcher for Design Against Crime Research Centre at Central Saint Martins Innovation, University of the Arts London, where he has developed a range of skills and experiences in the field of Socially Responsive Design and Social Innovation.

Vincenzo is co-founder and director of Common Ground, a start up socially responsive design & innovation agency. Common Ground works with companies, organisations and communities to co-create new products, services and strategies that generate positive social change.

www.designagainstcrime.com/methodology-resources/socially-responsive-design/

www.gotocommonground.com

www.vdmdesign.net

Twitter: @cmngrd

Marsha Bradfield is an artist, educator, curator, writer and researcher. Across these practices, she investigates dialogic ways of working that elaborate the contingencies through which "things" take shape. Her recent research explores decision making in reality TV-style "game docs" and Web 2.0 platforms (blogs, wikis, social networking sites and so on). Marsha is presently in the fourth year of her PhD at Chelsea College of Art and Design, London. Her project is titled "Utterance and Authorship in Dialogic Art." Marsha received her BA in History and Art History from the University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada and her BFA from the Emily Carr Institute.

www.criticalpracticechelsea.org/wiki/index.php?title=User:Marsha

Scott Schwager is an artist based in London. His practice explores a range of ideas and media including installation, intervention, drawing and painting, dialogue, and text. He draws inspiration from contemporary politics, abstract expressionism, nudes, and religious custom. His recent work questions secrecy and publicness in action, authorship, and exhibition. His recent exhibitions, presentations, and collaborations include The Role of Art, Courtyard Theatre, London; My Secret Gallery, Paris; Bonhams auction, London; ‘1916’, The Triangle Space, London; Parade, London; Barcamp, KNOT, Berlin; and www.zerostretch.org. He is an active member of Critical Practice. In 2009, he founded ACE & LION GALLERY for collaborative exhibitions and projects in central London. He hosts The Arts Club Monday Talk, featuring speakers on art, design, writing, and culture. He received his BA Hons Painting from Camberwell College; MSc from London Business School; and BA, Political Science, from Williams College. His research for a PhD at CCW, University of the Arts London, is on two-person collaboration in fine art.

www.scottschwager.com

Wednesday 8 September 2010: Making Things Public

Marsha Bradfield, Ana Laura Lopez de la Torre, Scott Schawger

Fig 1. Aaron McPeake, Sam Venn, Ana Laura de la Lopez, Angela Hodgson, Scott Schwager

Fig 2. Aaron McPeake

Fig 3. Angela Hodgson and Scott Schwager

Fig 4. Scott Schwager

Fig 5. Sam Venn, Ana Laura Lopez de la Torre, Angela Hodgson

Fig 6. Aaron McPeake, Sam Venn

General Introduction:

• This pilot session aims to test the proposed structure of TPE - Presenters share their research through a 20 to 30 min session and this is followed by questions - so we're interested in sharing practice and exploring this sharing as being part of our practice - it's about disseminating practice.
  
• We wish to know what are peers are doing - it's part of PhD culture - DIY in the face of widespread cuts...
• Grow peer culture - invest in each other
  
• Ideally, TPE will cut across/sample from the various discussions occurring at different colleges
• Emphasis on practice - does it help us get away from institutional hierarchies? Our supervisors, for instance, may be more experienced researchers, but we we're all practitioners...
  

Marsha:

• A performative presentation that asked and (re)asked: "What does the practice of dialogic art entail?"
  
• Composed entirely of questions, this presentation teased at the difference between speaking about practice and doing it.
  
• The power dynamics that mark the presentation of research - What's shown and not shown...following Bourdieu: developing "a feel for the game" - What does this mean in the case of art research at the UAL, in the UK and beyond?

Ana Laura:

• Cultivating praxis - a good reason to do a PhD - practicing in a way that's more critical and considered - "rigour"
  
• Tension between "public" and "private" - not binaries so much as overlapping sets of assumptions - contrary to conventional thinking, "the private" may be a sphere that's less "free" - where much (conflict) is repressed...
• Relations between practicing "art" and practicing "research" - anxieties around practicing art too much - How to locate practice of art in research culture? Are they very different?
  

Scott:

• The boundaries of art research - what does or does not comprise art practice as research - Does this talk "count"?
• Collaboration involves working together - (the tools of) process - multiple dialogues - with other collaborators, with "viewers," with "peers"... Something is collaborative when you can't do it on your own...Flow
• Working in public as distinct from working with the public - also, what aspects of practice get shared - What about emails? Lots of business gets transacted in emails...
  

Themes and questions to take forward:

• How to narrate one's practice? Should this approach jive with the practice itself or is there a generic approach? Tendencies towards confession as a genre for sharing practice...
  
• Languaging - speaking to different groups
• What's research? A process of inquiry...perhaps cultivating this is more important than the outcome?