MPhil and PhD in Visual Cultures - Research Strands
Research is clustered around four thematic groups:
Art and Visual Culture
Staff research in the department spans a broad range of approaches to the study of modern and contemporary visual art. We therefore encourage a wide range of MPhil / PhD applications which adopt differing approaches to the study of art and related cultural practices in the period. These could include, but are by no means limited to: theoretical explorations of philosophical or critical concepts in relation to art practice; historical explorations of recent or contemporary art practices; inter-disciplinary approaches to visual culture; and practice-based explorations in art or performance practice.
Performance and Event
This area of enquiry is concerned with understanding contemporary cultural production in terms of debates about performance, perfomativity and the event. We are not concerned solely with ‘performance art’ per se, but rather with the various ways in which ideas of performance and performativity might activate an understanding of the social, political, and aesthetic transformations of the ‘event’ of art. Staff research interests range from the performativity of cultural participation and critical writing, through to enquiries into the unpredictable outcomes – the ‘what happens?’ – of contemporary cultural engagement. Perspectives from the fields of philosophy, performance studies, art criticism, curatorial studies, performative writing and linguistics are variously consulted and utilised in this area of study. Members of staff working in this area: Dr. Gavin Butt, Professor Irit Rogoff, Dr Lynn Turner, and Dr. Jean-Paul Martinon.
Sexual Interests
The libidinal dimensions of visual culture are explored within the department, both at the level of sexual meanings and erotic affects. Drawing heavily upon the legacies of feminism and queer theory, as well as upon debates within psychoanalysis, post-structural theory and philosophy, members of staff variously pursue the question of sexual epistemologies – how might we write histories of and through desiring bodies – as well as addressing the politics and pleasures of sexualised embodiment. Various sexy bodies – from those of dance, film, installation, photography, and performance to those conjured through the erotic allure of the ‘touch’ in painting and writing – are approached in our work in this area. Members of staff working in this area: Dr. Gavin Butt, Dr Lynn Turner, Ms. Astrid Schmetterling.
Philosophy and Critical Theory
Our work in this field centres on philosophical aesthetics and on modern and contemporary French and German thought that bears on the creation and practice of art. We have research interests in all major areas, including in particular around the work of Adorno, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Deleuze and Jean-Luc Nancy. Individual research projects come under the broad headings of judgement and creation, art and perception, the aesthetics of contemporary art, and art and embodiment. All members of staff have interests in this area. Those specializing in some of the above topics are: Professor Alex Duttmann, Mr. Brendan Prendeville , Dr. Jorella Andrews, Dr. Simon O’Sullivan, Dr. Jean-Paul Martinon.
Global Counter-Geographies
This strand brings together issues of geography, post colonialism, cultural difference and global circulation in relation to both an ever-broadening critical, intellectual tradition and a wide range of contemporary artistic, cultural practices. The approach to this area of study is thematic and does not deal with histories of the post-colonial or of globalization. Instead questions are raised around urgent issues such as: the relation of geography to location and subjectivity (spatialisation and positionality); the relation of film, moving image and sound to the global circulation of culture; the global proliferation of biennials and the cultural relations these produce; notions of the terroristic and their relation to possible counter-cartographies and to the conceptual breaches discoverable within Western thought. Central to this strand is the recognition that we no longer inhabit simple models of identity formation or of cultural identification and that our relations to place are conceptualized and staged through complex, cross cultural entanglements. Members of staff working in this area , Prof. Irit Rogoff, Dr. Nicole Wolf, Mr. Kodwo Eshun, Dr. Eyal Weizman, Ms. Astrid Schmetterling, Dr. Jorella Andrews.
Of particular note is Translating the Image: Cross-cultural Contemporary Arts, an AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) funded major research project which ran from September 2000 to September 2005. Headed by Professor Irit Rogoff, the project was co-ordinated by Rohini Malik Okon, and employed two researchers in visual culture, Janice Cheddie and Isaac Julien. It also funded two full-time PhD researchers, Rohini Malik Okon and Simon Harvey.