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- Volume 2, Issue 2, 2016
JAWS: Journal of Arts Writing by Students - Volume 2, Issue 2, 2016
Volume 2, Issue 2, 2016
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Interview with Dr Sophie Hope
By Sophie HopeAbstractOur guest editorial takes the form of an interview between the JAWS editorial team and the artist and teacher Dr Sophie Hope. We were particularly interested in Sophie’s research-driven artistic projects, and what she thought about the wider contexts that artists are now implicated in.
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Art of the revolution: The urgency to create in political turmoil
By Petra SwaisAbstractThis essay discusses the recent Egyptian revolution and the surge of art which materialised and consequently contributed to the fuelling and documenting of the demonstrations. Considering the urgency and immediate need to create in a coming together of a people, this is analysed against Arendt’s theories of revolution and reflected against ‘Opera from Balconies’, an experimental theatrical project which took place spontaneously in various neighbourhoods in cities across the Egyptian Delta. It discusses echo of hope through collective engagement from the space of Tahrir Square to the domestic neighbourhoods of the ‘Opera from Balconies’ project.
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Slow It Down. Write It. Perform It
More LessAbstractThis article is an enquiry into the meditative and unconscious processes of the mind. In critical thought there appears to be a gap where the art object has been elevated above the artist process. What has been lost is a study into the psychoanalytic, creative and meditative qualities of both written and creative systems. This article draws from theories of meditative practice, as well as contemporary practitioners including Marina Abramović and Zhang Huan. The aims of this study are to augment process, lead discussion and create discourse in the context of meditative, performative and immaterial dialogues.
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Beyond Pascal’s vanity of painting: or translating reality
More LessAbstractIn one of his Pensées, Blaise Pascal denounces the vanity of painting for claiming to reproduce reality. In an age dominated by works of art that privilege the process of production, Pascal’s statement seems rather outdated. However, this article aims to show to what extent Pascal’s thought still drives us to reflect upon the nature of art; more specifically, how it can be used as a contestation of art as objective representation, and how it connects to contemporary art through writings on art and translation theory.
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Drawing pareidolia: Journal extracts reflecting on practice-based research
More LessAbstractOur way of seeing and interpreting the visual world are a highly personal and diverse experience. These are the cornerstones of image making, the results of which can offer thought-provoking glimpses into another person’s view of the world, and can make us question our own. This reflective article grapples with the process of creating drawn interpretations of visual perception, specifically that of facial pareidolia, and attempts to share this ‘felt’ process. However, although an interest in pareidolia initiated the study, other concerns emerge: the process of looking and how drawing can navigate issues of time, space and movement.
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Shot attempts: F**k Po****cs! Performing is enacting indeed!
More LessAbstractThis text is an experiment, an attempt to play with the style of theoretical language, and to harness the performative potential of the journal format. The invented concepts of ‘shot attempts’ and ‘the you’ are used in parallel to the artist’s practice, to drive a quasi-theoretical explication of the artwork–viewer relationship. Academic convention lapses into poetic and artistic flourishes, and demands are made of the reader to question dichotomies (mind–body, subject–object) through a series of directives.
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MIMA’s approach to participation and audience development: A new understanding of museums in the information age
More LessAbstractThis article explores the challenges and opportunities brought upon museums by recent changes in the way people communicate with each other and with institutions. To further understand the nuances of this issue, this study looks at the way the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA) has proposed to evolve with the information age. Many theorists agree that the Internet has sparked a revolution for the consumer, who now has new power and a desire to participate. In the art world, this translates into a call to co-create and challenge expert culture. MIMA’s path evidences that catering to these challenges while staying relevant in the eyes of funding institutions is a tough balancing act. However, this new vision for museums paints a promising picture: an opportunity for museums to take an even more relevant part in politics.
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The photographer archivist: Memory and landscape in the Anthropocene
More LessAbstractHuman civilization can now be considered to have crossed over to the Age of the Anthropocene, the current geological period when human activity has a great influence on the environment of the world and this has had severe implications on the environment. When André Bazin, French critic and film theorist writing between 1943 and 1958, penned his famous treatise on photography and cinema, the visual form was still in its formative years. However, in the present day the effects of the Anthropocene on geographic and topographic factors are creating different and newer discourses of memory in relation to the culture and society. Hence, it becomes essential to redefine the role of the photographer in these terms. This article looks at this role in the context of Sunderbans, a natural region of mangrove forest spanning southern Bangladesh and a small part of West Bengal in India, through the photography of Swastik Pal, an independent photographer and writer based in Calcutta.
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