My research: Ian Damerell
Professor Ian Damerell is just about to publish a new book. It focuses on how art education can get better, and reflect how society is more complex than ever.
Which FoU-project are you currently working on?
– I am writing a book called ‘Unfolding the Cards’ which will be ready for publishing before the summer. It will be approximately 300 pages. This project started in 2002, was interrupted in 2004 and is being finished at present. The project goal is to examine the possibility of creating multimodal art courses. In addition, it focuses on finding new and less constricting approaches to art education. In this respect I refer to the concepts of positive uncertainty, becoming and difference.
Professor Ian Damerell looks forward to publishing the book 'Unfolding the cards' this summer. (Photo: Hege Fagerheim)
My particular role in and contribution to the development of an Art and Design course [1] at the faculty where I work, has presented me with an opportunity to evaluate ideas and strategies on theory/practice integration while sitting in various committees and planning commissions [2] . Being primarily involved in the art side of the course, both in a tutoring and lecturing capacity, I have gained first-hand experience from initial student groups onwards.
– I have written ‘Unfolding the Cards’ [3] in order to explore the effect of multiplicity on art education. It should, like art itself, court change and difference. There are a vast variety of art educations, but my concern focuses on newer art faculties within universities. There are, in addition, references to traditional art colleges and European academies.
– Since the deconstruction of art, its education has become difficult to envisage as a stable entity. There is now a need for continual revision of plans and intentions and they need to be open-ended. Addressing the present cultural complexity demands boundary transgressions and wider fields, which, in turn, will require a benevolent and generous bureaucracy that welcomes change and supports surprising moves. To support this attitude I use the philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s concept of multiplicity where ‘becoming’ is central. This has, in my estimation, the positive attitude that is needed for addressing an unstable future. In the wake of this openness, uncertainty as a positive factor needs stressing and that requires independent and self-reliant students able to accept responsibility for their education. A necessary element of good art education and one remedy for dealing with uncertainties is a re-focusing on one-to-one tutoring. I support this wholeheartedly because I believe that art making is an intricate and taxing process in the need of tutorage.
– I propose multimodal education [4] as a means of addressing a society of multiplicity. It may appear obvious, since multimodality has already entered the art education of more traditional art colleges. However course systems need to accommodate this change and to embrace the idea more fully. It is a strategy for addressing the traditional limits of discourses. In addition, there are brief references to neglected pedagogical elements such as seduction, deceit and the demonic, which will, incidentally, be the theme of a follow-up book. These issues are introduced specifically in order to expand the idea of a wider range of approaches to process.
– Growth has, traditionally, been linked, metaphorically, to the tree and to roots whereas I take my metaphoric starting point from a ginger root, based on Gilles Deleuze’s concept of rhizome. The rhizome has the possibility of developing shoots at a whole series of points and does not have the conformity and direction of a tree. In addition I wish to imagine an education that is flickering rather than too directional and over-clarified. It is an attempt at a form of inclusiveness. The process of student project development in art educational needs enough freedom and space to evolve irregularly, spectacularly, unusually and surprisingly. This will hardly happen within the constraint of predefined systems. This, in my mind, is the constriction [5] of a linearity that is the unquestionable dominant. Imagine education as sporadic yet with a mission; for instance, the flight of a bee, from flower to flower. It may appear haphazard but there is always a purpose present, however loosely defined. With unpredictable goals, development can find stranger more fascinating paths, not pre-planned or over-structured. We do not only learn from lofty ideals but, occasionally from lofty mistakes.
– The goal is to examine the possibility of introducing ther concept of multiplicity in to art education. This will involve creating more multimodal art courses. In addition, it focuses on finding new and less constricting approaches to art education. In this respect I refer to the concepts of positive uncertainty, becoming and difference as pointers towards a future where the multiple is central. It actually involves more than art education but that is outside of the scope of the book. The philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer John Dewey reiterates what I fear when writing this text – that one structure or set of rules will not live up to its promise after it has replaced another. Interpretation may well alter it fundamentally. In this respect I am extremely wary of proposing systems.
What is you field of research?
– Art. I lecture in aesthetics and tutor art students at undergraduate level. Since art tutoring requires a relatively large theoretical base, I lecture in art theory as well. As an artist I have been producing large charcoal drawings in the last few years. Recently I have embarked on a photo project – deconstructing the portrait.
Do you have a professional "idol"?
– No, not in relation to the book project, but the philosopher Gilles Deleuze has been an inspiration. In addition, my professor colleagues in art and aesthetics, Miles McAlinden and Morten Krohg are certainly two figures that I wish to emulate.
What is your most significant finding?
– That's a difficult one to answer, since there are no clear answers in the book. Still I hope and believe that it can contribute to a certain understanding of how art education should develop.
What is best about doing research?
– Challenges.
And the worst?
– Doubt, when it takes over for a while.
Notes
[1]
One focus of the 3-year Art and Design Bachelor’s degree course is on the interaction between art and design production.
[2] The writing of the book and the planning and launching of the art and design bachelor course at the OsloUniversityCollege, (in its fifth year at the time of writing), have occupied the same timespan
[3] The project title is interpreted from a quote by Yve-Alain Bois: Yve-Alain Bois from Foster, Hal; Krauss, Rosalind; Bois, Yve-Alain; Buchloh, Benjamin H D Art Since 1900, Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism (London: Thames and Hudson, 2004)
[4] Multimodality is a conceptual approach to art-making that overrides traditional media territories. It does not negotiate between media but assimilates a variety of media as choices in a menu from the start
[5] The Boa Constricter as a metaphor for linearity and pedantic rules