The ‘Drawing through Time and Image’ symposium, devised and organised by Jack Southern, took place at the Hardwick Gallery at the University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham during March 2018.
Guest artists and speakers included Dryden Goodwin, Barbara Walker, Tim Knowles, Jessie Brennan and Jean Boyd.
Penny Hay is an artist, educator and researcher. She is Director of Research for ‘5x5x5=creativity’, an arts research charity and is a part-time Senior Lecturer in Arts Education at Bath Spa University. Her doctoral research was focused on how adults can support children’s identity as artists.
Marie Munk is an interdisciplinary artist, working with sculpture, installation, video and performance. She examines the materiality of physical interaction and artificial simulation of intimacy. Using silicone as a metaphor for the bodily, Munk creates alternative realities, which questions current tendencies in society.
“Our artworks investigate human futures and evolutionary paths influenced by emerging and disruptive technologies. So our work is not so much a prediction of the future or solution to issues of the day, but instead invites audiences into a space to explore the endless opportunities that can shift according to our desires and dreams.”
Based in London, Burton Nitta is an interdisciplinary art and design studio collaborating with science and technology to investigate our future world and human evolution.
“I observe how human interactions happen and how the body moves through space, the motion and gestures associated with different activity. I also question why we move the way we do and how may we change those habits. In addition, I am extremely interested in how these natural interactions are effected by digital technology and artificial futures.”
Betty Zhang is an interaction designer and interdisciplinary artist creating sensory experiences that are immersive and interactive in both digital and non-digital media. Currently, she is exploring wearable technology, gestural interactions, biofeedback, and sound installations. Her work deals mainly with the body as a multi-functioning interface and performative medium.
“In general relativity, reason and imagination combine to synthesise a whole that neither alone could achieve.”
Margaret Wertheim is a writer, curator and artist whose work focuses on relations between science and the wider cultural landscape. A two-fold perspective animates her work: on the one hand science can be seen a set of conceptual enchantments that delight our minds and senses; on the other hand science is a socially embedded activity intersecting with philosophy, culture and politics.
“Creative imagination” is what we normally consider to be creativity with a large C – composing an opera or discovering something groundbreaking. This is different from everyday creativity, such as coming up with imaginative solutions to household problems or making crafts.
Creative inspiration is notoriously elusive. Being able to train creativity or induce a state of creativity has therefore long been the aim of many artists and scientists.
But is it possible?
“My focus is consciousness. First, consciousness from the body and mind, then as it relates to its inherent contexts, history, religion and culture.”
Lewis deSoto is an American artist of Cahuilla Native American ancestry. His multimedia installations combine sound, light, video, space, and sculpture elements and are site-specific or oriented toward making a complete environment. His conceptual artwork utilizes automobiles, inflatables, electronics, photography, wood and metal construction. In this exclusive interview he discusses his ideas and work.
“I am exploring adult fairytale narrative to develop the landscape as a dramaturgic and anthropomorphic element wherein all forms of life are connected through energy conversion, growth and decay.”
“I am interested in time and temporality; our relationship to time and our perception of time. The vocabulary I often employ is fleeting light….Creating scenarios wherein the viewer is made aware of the present moment and transitory moments.”
Miya Ando is an American artist whose metal canvases and sculpture articulate themes of perception and ones relationship to time. The foundation of her practice is the transformation of surfaces. In this exclusive interview she discusses her ideas and work.