Spread Sheets

Working on the revised project description these weeks! Had a very good meeting with headmaster at KHiB, Nina Malterud. She pointed out a series of subjects that I still need to explore and explain in the text that I will hand in by December 21. The session was short, but exellent! While she was pointing out what was lacking I was thinking "Yes! Ofc! There it is!" Her comments made several topics fall into place for me ^^.

Now I have chopped the text into pieces (as I was adviced to do by Prof. Bryan Lawson when attending one of his courses some years ago), shaken the mix and like a phoenix the improved project description will rise from the ashes of the old!

Friedman on sharing ideas

I was just sent this clip from a friend. It's a little story about Milton Friedman's thoughts on plagarizing, or actually on idea sharing. Let it be an inspiration for all of us!

The story starts at 00:50 and ends at approx. 01:30
Milton Friedman on Plagarizing Ideas

My sympathies

I don't read Garfield anymore... I used to. When I was 11 "Pusur"(Norwegian name) was the coolest cat around...

But, as one of the
1. first research fellows in a
2. freshly started programme for research and development, in a
3. field that does not have a long and solid history in research,
I sympathise with Jon in this strip.
Although, fortunately, I am not that desperate atm ;-) (it might come back later I suppose... :-p)

Great meeting @ SIFO

On wednesday morning we had a great meeting with Annechen Bahr Bugge and Runar Døving at SIFO! The meeting was most inspiring and the two of them had lots of ideas as to what themes would be relevant for us. Now ofc we need to sit down and sort out what is relevant to our project. On tuesday afternoon I suddenly had three/four ideas of how this can be visualised.
So stay tuned! We will be right back after this...

Brainwork

I was going to write the new enhanced brief on friday, had told Jack I would send it to him at the end of the week... Just couldn't do it... postponed all day untill it was to late... then in the weekend I pretended to forget about it... did some work for my company (bills etc), some housework and generally had the time of... come monday morning and I wake up thinking: "...this goes before that... that sentence gets cut... I need to write about these things...". The structure was set in my mind, and I sat down at the computer and spent 3 hours writing it all smoothly! Good brain. Working when I am not ;-)

Fiskeboller at the railwaystation?

Some conceptual sketches of an installation at the railwaystation in Bergen... Could this be a location for Fiskeboller i karri?

un/finished thoughts on design and art / research and development

After SK4 - as a part of a programme that doesn't mention design in its title - on a school that doesn't mention design in its name.

The three settings above all equals art with design. Or rather: When talking about art(istic research) they often add "...and I also talk about design (research) ofc!" But is it enough? I am starting to feel that there are some serious differences between art and design that are not visible when design is added as an afterthought.

This difference becomes increasingly apparent when talking about research and development. SK4, Stipendiatprogrammet and Kunsthøgskolen are all involved in the quest to define and discuss artistic research. The two last are also producing it.

In these fora we continuously discuss what makes an art project a research project. At SK4 we even got the honest response that it was research because it was partly funded by a research grant. In addition we discuss when something is art... (or artistic enough). Linda Worbin got the comment that her research was (quite correctly) not artistic research, but rather (quite uncorrectly) engineering research.

Like Janneke Wesseling commented on the last day of the conference: we need to start making distinctions.

Art and design, research and development are distinctly different entities. (I will not go into a full discussion about the difference between art and design. Suffice to quote Michael Brady, at the University of North Carolina, when he writes "The differences between art and design lie not so much in how they look as in what they do: They have different purposes, they are made differently, they are judged by different criteria, and they have different audiences.")

Here is my attempt to make some clearifications on research and development.
There is art. There is design. There is research. There is development.
The two first can be combined with the two last into four different kinds of projects:
Artistic research. Artistic development. Design research. Design development.

Artistic development and design development projects are are similar in the sense that they are practical projects resulting in an artwork/design product. In addition the artist/designer conducting the work is concerned with something more than the project's end result in itself and is able to communicate their findings and reflections to a larger/relevant audience. (My own project is a design development project where I, through the design of two exhibitions explore the question "What is the role of the exhibition designer in the development of historic exhibitions?". My findings will be communicated to a relevant audience through my website, through lectures and discussions and finally through a publication.)

Design research will have a defined problem to solve. This is often based on material, form, function, process or.. (what else?). Linda Worbin's work is an example of a design research project where she explores the possibilities of a material for future designs. (Other examples could be the work conducted at The Sustainable Design Research Centre in London or at the Centre for Design Research at Northumbria University.)

I am at a loss as to come up with definitions and examples of artistic research. Maybe it doesn't exist? (Or is Åsa Sonjasdotter's project, Potato Perspective, an artistic research project? Her project could only be undertaken by an artist. A journalist could have done the same investigative work, but could not have communicated it to an audience in the same way. She is conveying information about a larger topic, the history of the potato, about EU regulations and about the lifes of ordinary people. Or is this particular project turning into potato activism? (The project is not less valid if that is what we decide to label it. Its a beautiful project no matter what!))

All research and development projects need to have a research question and need to communicate the answer/s to the research questions to an audience.

Please help me thinking about these topics by leaving your comment! ^^

Museum of immigration opened in Paris...

"Fiskeboller i karri" places itself in the context of museums and exhibitions looking at immigration as positive influence in a society. Interkulturelt Museum in Oslo has just gotten a sister in Paris, Cité nationale de l’histoire de l’immigration.

The opening has been low key, mirroring the problematic topic in french society. From 60° 24' N 5° 19' E we salute the project and all other projects aimed at making our world a friendlier one!

"Le Monde yesterday praised the museum and beseeched France to acknowledge the role of immigration in its history. "This museum bears witness that 'French identity' exists, but it has always been mixed," the paper said.

Hélène Lafont-Couturier, the museum's director, told the Guardian she hoped the museum would allow the nation to face "an important part of its history which it has preferred to hide from"." (posted at WorldHum.com by Eva Holland)

About the museum of immigration in NY Times.

Plan for week 46

Every week

Keep the blog updated


Work

• Visual develoment of Fiskeboller
  

• Working on the brief
  

Summing up Week 40
Last week was mostly dedicated to the Sensuous Knowledge conference.

Sensuous Knowledge 4.1

Comments from SK4:

I think that one of the differences between artistic practice and artistic research is that in artistic research must have something that is relevant to other people and that you have to communicate this.

From John Hyatt's talk:

If you ar going to design a car, study how they have designed cars previously, then go into your studio and forget all about it. All the knowledge will still be there and will come through no matter what. Everything you ever learnt is in there, you just have to open yourself to it.

Art and science were once the same line of inquiry.


First you have a question, you do the research; find out as much as you possibly can about the topic. You then spin it into the creative practice and hopefully something innovative comes out. This you again feed into the creative practice to test its viability and do more research and so on and so forth...

Scriptwriter needed!?

I feel very strongly that we need a scriptwriter. Where do we find the right person? Skrivekunst akademiet? Wibecke? TV-faget? Or could the content be developed through visual development and visual use of text? And then we could get a scriptwriter to make the actual texts... if it is necessary... hmmmmm.....

moodboards

I made some moodboards a couple of weeks ago. The first one i have become quite attached to. I like the layers, the patterns, the feeling of transparency and the play of the light through the material. Jo Anne will now build on these and continue the development of a visual language for Fiskeboller.