Pensive need

I am in a pensive mood, tired of colours and forms, and especially tired of creating someting that so many will have an opinion of, so publicly. I have dedicated the day to start preparing for my application for final appraisal and sort through the stuff I'm going to write when autumn sets in.

Idées Vagues

Easter is over, extremely early this year. It has eaten quite a chunk of March so the month has been entirely occupied with applications for funding (to Hordaland Fylkeskommune, Prøvekluten and Stipendiatprogrammet) and presentations. The presentation at the Stipendiatsamling went well, although I messed up a bit in the end... I guess that is where my thoughts are the most fuddled too so it actually made that fact very clear to me.

When it comes to the funding bit; yesterday I was informed that we have received 200 000,- NOK from Stipendiatprogrammet! With the 75 000,- NOK from Kunsthøgskolen i Bergen it is starting to look like proper funding ;-D

I also got an e-mail from Amanda Steggel about the aroma installation and we have had an e-mail exchange about possibilities and restrictions. Very nice.

On the coming Monday I am doing the "key note" for museum educators in Hordaland. Trying both to say something in general about what exhibitions could be and present the project. It is a heavy job to do the writing, mostly because it seems there is so much I want to say! There are so many themes I would like to explore, but it is so boring to try to write out the whole argument. I must find a way to relax with the writing...

Producers

Through Amanda Steggell's website I found the name of the aroma designers she used for her Emotion Organ. Dale Air Aroma Design makes aromas for museums and shopping experiences. And it doesnt look that expensive either. :-)


Anne Mette Prestegård tipped me (even if she didint know) about using BEK for technical solutions on multimedia.

Both Trond Lossius at BEK and Amanda Steggell has completed their research fellowships in the same programme as me. It all stays in the family!

Christmas

The project description is coming along now. Almost there! I have had some good advice from my supervisor Prof. Lohman these last days. Sending him texts in the afternoon and phoning him the morning after. Two days ago he said; I suggest you restructure your chapters into four sections! Once again the text was chopped up, shaken, stired and this time placed on the wall (together with the christmas decorations, accompanied by Elvis singing christmas carols^^). Et voilá! Brand new project description!

bringing It feels good working with the text physically, actuallyout a pair of scissors and hearing the sound ofthe paper being cut. Fortunato: Since the Mac is still not healthy I do not have a project planner software to make my detailed project plan for next year. So I will have to draw one by hand! Revolutionary, I know! Wish me luck!

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)

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! ^^

The End Results

What will be presented to the examiners at the end of the fellowship project?


An exhibition (Lykkejegere) with a "high international level"


A reflective text - about the designers role
Explore 3-5 topics around this theme. Base them teoretically (its often smart to disagree with somebody!) and illustrate them practically (with my own results).

• Who has the editorial responsibility in the exhibition process?
• ...
• ...
• ...

Documentation of Havlandet

• Presentation of the exhibition
• (self)Evaluation of the process with experiences pointing forward to Lykkejegere.
• Evaluation of the exhibition itself.

the work continues?

september looms on the horizon (is that a valid image?). here are the present work areas for the next year and a half:

• write - about myself as a designer, about design research, about how museums deal with designers... who has the editors power in the making of exhibitions?
• research design research - and make myself an overview of what actually exists out there.
• make? - do i make an exhibition on exhibitions? no i think not. too much work. but i do continue working with the mareco installation, and so my practice will continue.

.

Stipendiatarbeider har gått fra å være et praktarbeid en gjorde på slutten av sin karriere til å være en forskerutdanning. Og det var det jeg håpet på å få da jeg begynte dette programmet, og hva jeg føler at mangler i programmet slik det er i dag. Slik programmet fremstår idag inneholder det ikke den utdanningen som andre PhD studenter går igjennom.

~~~~~~~~~

Samtale med Marthe: det er godt å jobbe med fargesetting av Ila borettslag – fordi det er et prosjekt som ligger helt innenfor mitt kompetanse område. Både når jeg jobber med utstillingsdesign og når jeg er i stipendiatprogrammet føler jeg at jeg ”lyver på meg” kompetanse jeg ikke har. Jeg er på tynn is.

Vi konkluderte at det ikke er farlig å være på tynn is, så lenge du ikke også er på dypt vann.

talking to nina yesterday turned longer than expected. she was excited by the nasjonalt havressurssenter. jumped at the idea, and considered skipping her skolemuseum project to do this one instead. she does have energy! talking to her is the spark that kindles the flame in my chest. a small flame rises. very tender. can be extinguished by the smallest breath of air. the challenge is to find a way of nursing the flame, making it grow strong enough to withstand the icy winds and cold showers from admin. surely that’s not how it should be? shouldn’t the leaders of the programme be the ones to build the walls against wind, give us sun and just enough rain to make us prosper and grow into sturdy, healthy flowers? (swaping elemental metaphors for biological ones…)