Enchanted Objects: Agency in the Magic Act and Contemporary Art Practice

Visual Art
Thurs 7th Oct 12-1pm
Venue: Bishop Otter Campus: Room LO6
Free admission

This seminar will focus on some of the ways in which the objects, strategies, and concepts of conjuring—or what Simon During has called ‘secular’ magic—might be seen to converge with those of contemporary art practice. Jonathan Gilhooly is an artist who has explored this theme through both his PhD research, and his recent art practice. There are several alternativesto Accutane, right, but what about nodulocystic acne? From my experience, nothing has been able to take that away except for http://sixated.com/buy-accutane-online/ Accutane. However, the emphasis here is on a more serious problem. I havealready had 2 treatments and I think I’m going for the third one. This means that as a future mother I deliberately increase the risk of malformations… but it’s not like I have a choice. He will draw upon Alfred Gell’s theory of art and agency, in which an artwork is treated as a particular, cognitively salient kind of agent, through which the agency of a social other can be inferred.

IMAGE: Jonathan Gilhooly

‘Tectonic/house’ Video and sound installation/performance

Thurs 21st Oct 12-1pm
Venue: Bishop Otter Campus: Room LO6
Free admission

Steve McDade talks of his work with improvised sound using domestic objects set against video projection of volcano and paintings derived from house interiors. This work continues the research theme of ‘Displacement’ and draws on geological plate movement as a metaphor for the experience of individuals caught up in the seismic shifts of contemporary history.

IMAGE: Steve McDade

Fabrica Art Gallery

Thurs 4th Nov 12-1pm
Venue: Bishop Otter Campus: Room LO6
Free admission

Matthew Miller, co-Director of Fabrica, will talk about the gallery’s programme ethos, its track record of showing internationally renowned artists and its innovative approach to involving large numbers of visitors in its work. The presentation will outline the gallery’s exhibition process and how that seeks to draw connections between its building (a deconsecrated Regency church) and some of the broad philosophical questions that underpin our everyday lives. Matthew Miller is an artist who creates sculpture and installations.

IMAGE: Philip Carr

Dance and Choreography

Thurs 18th Nov 12-1pm

Venue: Bishop Otter Campus: Room LO6
Free admission

In 2000 Siobhan Davies, one of Britain’s major contemporary choreographers, began to extend her dance work beyond traditional theatre venues by creating works for non-proscenium venues, even presenting dance as an “exhibit” within a visual arts setting (Minutes, in The Collection (2009) with the Victoria Miro Gallery). In the Siobhan Davies Studios she has situated dance as a vital force within the arts through her programme of interdisciplinary seminars and visual art exhibitions. Her new online digital library, the first of its kind, www.siobhandaviesreplay.com presents the trajectory of her work over a period of some 30 years. In conversation with Professor Sarah Rubidge, Davies will discuss developments in her work over the last ten years.

IMAGE: Thierry Bal