News & Events October 2008

Reactive Colours at Participatory Design 2008

1st- 4th October 2008, Indiania University

Wendy Keay-Bright (Sensory Design) will be presenting her exploratory paper ReacTickles Global: A Non-Textual Mobile & Networked Play Space at PDC 2008. Exploratory papers present ideas that could benefit from discussion with members of the PD community, including work-in-progress, experiences of reflective practitioners, and first drafts of novel concepts and approaches.

Participatory Design (PD) is a diverse collection of principles and practices aimed at making technologies, tools, environments, businesses, and social institutions more responsive to human needs. Participatory Design Conferences have been held every two years since 1990 and have formed an important venue for international discussion of the collaborative, social, and political dimensions of technology innovation and use. For more on PDC 2008.

Professor Michael Corris - Panels & Publications

As part of the Future of Education conference, Professor Michael Corris will be taking part in a Policy Makers discussion, organised and chaired by the editor of Art Monthly. Held on 27th September 2008 at the ICA, the event will explore the funding and bureaucratic challenges faced by British art schools.

The Policy session will question if further privatisation, corporatisation and instrumentalism is inevitable or if there another way forward for art education. Other members of the discussion panel include Lisa Le Feuvre (Department of Art, Goldsmiths); Paul Gough (chair of the art and design group of the Research Assessment Exercise and pro-vice chancellor at University of West of England in Bristol); Irit Rogoff, (Professor of visual cultures at Goldsmiths); and Paul Wood (author of Between God and the Saucepan, a study of English art education from the 18th Century to the present day).

This event will be followed by What is British Art? A Third Text Project on Friday 10 October 2008, Tate Britain, where Professor Corris will will present his paper Against Historicism: The British Reception of Minimal Art during a Panel discussion on Post-war Artist Trajectories and the Rise of Americanism.

Professor Corris's new publication Ad Reinhardt, (1913-1967), a highly influential pioneer of conceptual and minimal art, is also due to be published in January 2008. Corris examines the artist's work in its historical context, tracking the development of his entire oeuvre, ranging from his abstract paintings to his popular graphic artwork, which took the form of illustrations and cartoons. Ad Reinhardt also evaluates Reinhardt's role in the art world as younger artists created successive avant-garde movements, such as Minimal and Conceptual art, and the impact his political beliefs ultimately had on his reputation and reception in the art world.

PhD student exhibitions

Three WIRAD PhD students will be exhibiting their work in solo shows across South Wales during October and November 2008.

Amak Mahmoodian
Thursday 9 October at 5.30pm
Ffloc H7A, Rathmell Building

Amak Mahmoodian invites you to the opening of her photographic exhibition and new work in progress. Amak will be giving an introduction to her work and current research interests at 6.00pm with Iranian snacks and local drinks. For more on Amak Mahmoodian.

Alison Graham, Beyond the Surface
11th October - 8th November 2008
Oriel Makers, Cardiff

Beyond the Surface showcases porcelain ceramic artworks inspired by the palimpsest aesthetic of graffiti, peeling paint and layering of posters on old billboards. Alison aims to evoke an ephemeral, transient quality in her work; and illusory sense of space and depth, with traces of movement that draw the viewer into an imaginary space that lies somewhere beyond the surface.

Paul Cabtus, Powerlines, Transmissions and Outlook
1-29th November 2008
Gallery at The Riverfront, Newport

The three distinctive photographic works in this exhibition, Powerlines, Transmissions and Outlook, explore the contemporary face of the South Wales Valleys. As part of his PhD in Photography at the Newport School of Art, Media and Design, Paul Cabuts' work examines the converging local and global influences shaping a society, which remains largely defined by its social and industrial past. For more on Paul Cabtus.

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