During the session 2005/2006 i-DAT will hold a sequence of research seminars open to all members of the group, PhD candidates, registrants, applicants and invitees. They will be co-ordinated by Dr Michael Punt, Reader in Art and Technology. They are intended to act as a forum in which research can be discussed independently of teaching practice, to provide an essential component of the PhD research training provision in i-DAT, and to consolidate our collective understanding of possible synergies, which may be suggestive of new directions for undergraduate and Masters provision.
There will be four seminars in the first semester in which research questions and key intellectual assumptions will be explored relative to individual topics and practices. They will provide the opportunity for a focused discussion grounded in the work of participating members. An initial round table at which all members outline their research topics in an informal presentation will be followed by the four seminars dealing with fundamental assumptions, which inevitably precede any critical intervention. These key assumptions will be taken to be concepts of: History, Technology, Knowledge and Self, which it is asserted, significantly impact on the method and scope of all critical practices.
Although following a schema adopted by Michel Foucault these seminars are not intended to necessarily discuss his work nor refer to it. We have simply adopted the convenience of this schema as a structural device from which to proceed. Each seminar will be introduced by a short +/-20min presentation outlining some key question indicated below and participants will be invited to consider comparatively competing accounts of these concept and discuss their own interpretation and use of them relative to their current or future research.
The group comprises +/-14 members and unless there are invited speakers or participants the meetings will be held in the webcasting room in B323. Listed below is a suggested curriculum with indicative topics. These are intended to be suggestive rather than descriptive in and endeavour to give initial shape. As a consequence of their origin they are almost exclusively informed by academic approaches in the arts and humanities, however it is anticipated that consideration of these assumptions from other disciplines will be brought to bear on the questions. Participants are expected to anticipate the seminars and to bring examples of practice and cultural manifestation to the discussions as well as suggested reading.
The seminars will take place in Portland Square, room B323, from 14.00 to 16.30 on the following dates:
- November 16, 2005. Discussion
Indicative Topic: History [seminar outline] - December 14, 2005. Discussion
Indicative Topic: Technology [seminar outline] - January 18, 2006. Discussion
Indicative Topic: Knowledge [seminar outline] - February 22, 2006. Discussion
Indicative Topic: Self [seminar outline] - March 22, 2006. Discussion
Cinema, Consciousness: Screen and Mind [seminar outline] - April 26, 2006. Presentations by PhD Candidates
- May 24, 2006. Presentations by PhD Candidates
- June 21, 2006. Outcomes