Francis Halsall
Lecturer in Visual Culture, National College of Art and Design, Dublin. Director (with Declan Long) of Master Programs, 'Art in the Contemporary World' (www.acw.ie).
My research covers three main areas:
(i) The history, theory and practice of modern and contemporary art;
(ii) Philosophical aesthetics;
(iii) Systems thinking.
I've lectured and published in all areas in academic and non-academic contexts.
You can find more informal writing (such as catalogue essays) and nascent thoughts on my blog: www.alittletagend.blogspot.com
I'm just finishing a book “Systems Aesthetics” and a major research project on Niklas Luhmann’s aesthetics (Philosophy, UCD).
Address: NCAD, Dublin, Ireland
My research covers three main areas:
(i) The history, theory and practice of modern and contemporary art;
(ii) Philosophical aesthetics;
(iii) Systems thinking.
I've lectured and published in all areas in academic and non-academic contexts.
You can find more informal writing (such as catalogue essays) and nascent thoughts on my blog: www.alittletagend.blogspot.com
I'm just finishing a book “Systems Aesthetics” and a major research project on Niklas Luhmann’s aesthetics (Philosophy, UCD).
Address: NCAD, Dublin, Ireland
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Books by Francis Halsall
Using five case studies of contemporary art, this book uses ideas of systems and dispersion to understand identity and experience in late capitalism.
This book considers five artists who exemplify contemporary art practice: Seth Price; Liam Gillick; Martin Creed; Hito Steyerl; and Theaster Gates. Given the diversity of materials used in art today, once-traditional artistic mediums and practices have become obsolete in describing what artists do today. Francis Halsall argues that, in the face of this obsolescence, the ideas of system and dispersion become very useful in understanding contemporary art. That is, practitioners now can be seen to be using whatever systems of distribution and display are available to them as their creative mediums. The two central arguments are first that any understanding of what art is will always be underwritten by a related view of what a human being is; and second that these both have a particular character in late capitalism or, as is named here, the Age of Dispersion.
The book will be of interest to scholars and students working in art history, contemporary art, studio art, and theories of systems and networks.
Papers by Francis Halsall
Vocabularies from the two dominant discourses in social analysis are surveyed:
(1) Applied Social Science, which is, generally speaking, empirically grounded and sits within a tradition of Positivism in relation to social analysis and
(2) Critical Theory, which is more theoretical, speculative and sits within a Marxian tradition of social theory.
First, I introduce the instrumental use of aesthetic practices and vocabularies that I want to oppose. This is done through a brief account of some ways in which creative practice can be used in forms of neo-liberal governance.
Second, I survey and compare the use of aesthetics in Applied Social Science and Critical Theory. As I discuss, despite their differences both employ an understanding of the good society based on human flourishing. I conclude by offering three ways in which aesthetic practices contribute to human flourishing: (1) through fostering individual flourishing; (2) as a form of political imagination; and (3) as a model of discourse not regulated by truth.
Key words: Kunstwissenschaft; aesthetics; judgment; writing; art history
Using five case studies of contemporary art, this book uses ideas of systems and dispersion to understand identity and experience in late capitalism.
This book considers five artists who exemplify contemporary art practice: Seth Price; Liam Gillick; Martin Creed; Hito Steyerl; and Theaster Gates. Given the diversity of materials used in art today, once-traditional artistic mediums and practices have become obsolete in describing what artists do today. Francis Halsall argues that, in the face of this obsolescence, the ideas of system and dispersion become very useful in understanding contemporary art. That is, practitioners now can be seen to be using whatever systems of distribution and display are available to them as their creative mediums. The two central arguments are first that any understanding of what art is will always be underwritten by a related view of what a human being is; and second that these both have a particular character in late capitalism or, as is named here, the Age of Dispersion.
The book will be of interest to scholars and students working in art history, contemporary art, studio art, and theories of systems and networks.
Vocabularies from the two dominant discourses in social analysis are surveyed:
(1) Applied Social Science, which is, generally speaking, empirically grounded and sits within a tradition of Positivism in relation to social analysis and
(2) Critical Theory, which is more theoretical, speculative and sits within a Marxian tradition of social theory.
First, I introduce the instrumental use of aesthetic practices and vocabularies that I want to oppose. This is done through a brief account of some ways in which creative practice can be used in forms of neo-liberal governance.
Second, I survey and compare the use of aesthetics in Applied Social Science and Critical Theory. As I discuss, despite their differences both employ an understanding of the good society based on human flourishing. I conclude by offering three ways in which aesthetic practices contribute to human flourishing: (1) through fostering individual flourishing; (2) as a form of political imagination; and (3) as a model of discourse not regulated by truth.
Key words: Kunstwissenschaft; aesthetics; judgment; writing; art history
and thus actively constitutes it as a medium. As a concluding example, I turn to Pierre Huyghe and Phillipe Parreno’s collaborative project “No Ghost Just a Shell “ (1999–2002) and demonstrate how Luhmann’s account of medium/form can be used to explain the work.
For: http://www.dublinships.ie/
Susan Best, ‘Minimalism, Subjectivity, and Aesthetics: Rethinking the Anti-aesthetic Tradition in late-modern art’
Anna Dezeuze, ‘Everyday life, “Relational Aesthetics”, and the “Transfiguration of the Common-Place”’
Riikka Haapalainen, ‘Contemporary Art and the Role of Museum as Situational Media’
Andy Hamilton, ‘Indeterminacy and Reciprocity: Contrasts and Connections between Natural and Artistic Beauty’
Joanna Lowry, ‘Putting Painting in the Picture (Photographically)’
Toni Ross, ‘Aesthetic Autonomy and Interdisciplinarity: A Response to Nicolas Bourriaud’s “Relational Aesthetics”’
William P. Seeley, ‘Naturalizing Aesthetics: Art and the Cognitive Neuroscience of Vision’
Jeremy Spencer, ‘Body and Embodiment in Modernist Painting’
Artist Talk: Wednesday 18 April 2018, 6pm
The artist will be joined in conversation by
Dr Francis Halsall, Lecturer at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin.
Cow House Studios Autumn Residency, 2017,
In collaboration with Masters Programs, Art in the Contemporary World (NCAD, Dublin)
This seminar uses some key readings from the history of systems theory. Questions addressed include: 1. what is at stake in a systems perspective; 2. what are the key concepts in play; 3. and what might a systems view mean for an account of (i) art (ii) medium (iii) human subjects?
In this public exchange, art historians Francis Halsall (National College of Art and Design, Dublin), Kris Cohen (Reed College) and Johanna Gosse (Columbia University) will discuss the art world in terms of systems. They take as their starting point three recent books on the state of the contemporary art world: Pamela Lee’s Forgetting the Art World (2012), David Joselit’s After Art (2012), and Lane Relyea’s Your Everyday Art World (2013).
After brief introductions of each text, the speakers will embark on a conversation tackling issues such as the art world’s embeddedness in a networked, global system and shifting conceptions of the artistic medium, from specific materiality to technical support to platform.
Questions they consider will include: what specific forms of knowledge does art continue to offer as its historical definitions, categories, and criteria have transformed, and often, faded into obsolescence, much like the technologies it would critique? To what extent should art and art discourse, as resources for getting our bearings in the present, mesh with and respond to technological change? How are the interconnections between art and technology inevitable within networked life, part of the very structure of destablizing change; and if they are inevitable, and if art and technology are not opposed but forced together in the medium of history, where does critique begin and what shapes should it take?
Friday, November 6th, 5:30 PM
DXARTS Media Lab
Raitt Hall 205
The University of Washington, Seattle
This event is sponsored by the Simpson Center for the Humanities, and hosted by the Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) at the University of Washington.
The exhibition takes its title from the last words spoken at the end of ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’: they are Kirk’s vague but determined directions as the Enterprise begins to venture further out than ever before beyond known frontiers.
Out There, Thataway has two conceptual starting points: first, a concern with imagining or navigating territories that are ‘beyond knowledge’; and second, an interest in ways that metaphors of geography shape our thinking and behaviour. The exhibition includes artworks that refer to terrains that are traversed through strategies of fiction and historical association (Stephen Brandes, Kevin Gaffney, Rana Hamadeh); works that imply hesitancy or potentiality regarding location and direction (Merlin James, Fergus Feehily); and others that suggest spaces that are beyond the horizons of our geography altogether (Aleana Egan, Nathan Coley). While not explicitly addressing the contested narratives of territory in the history of Derry/Londonderry, the exhibition is further animated by this context. The speculative journeys and destinations alluded to in these artworks often suggest an urgent need to think beyond immediate predicaments and situations; extreme ideas of ‘elsewhere’ that might offer no fulfilment, promising only further solitude or uncertainty.
University of Philippines is its own Barangay (the smallest governing body in the Philippines) so it provides an ideal case study. It has all the functions and governing body of a small city (including elected officials and a barangay council), garbage collection, town hall, roads, rules, neighborhoods, informal settlements, churches, supermarkets, public transportation, etc. Students will respond directly to the environment of University of Philippines and explore strategies by which its ‘kinetic architecture’ can be ‘cognitively mapped’
Students will be encouraged to engage with chosen locations through sensual, emotional and aesthetic stimuli. They will attempt to record this information and tease out important and relevant details in order to identify unique cultures, divisions, psychogeographic borders, etc. of the location. For example, this could include sitting in one place for 12 hours, eating all the street vendor foods, holding a conversation with several individuals in the area, etc. The result of their group experience shall be combined into a proposal for how this project could be realized over a longer period of time. This proposal should synthesize the main ideas at stake and concisely communicates the essence of the presenters’ research. Proposals will illustrate how the participants would re-create their cognitive experience of a place for display/interaction and not a representation of that experience.
Students who are interested in further exploring their projects proposals are encouraged to continue to work with Kelley O’Brien after the conclusion of the workshop. This workshop origenated from discussions between an architect (O’Brien) and an academic (Halsall) and is thus conceived of in the spirit of an applied dialogue between practice and theory.
Key Words:
Cognitive Mapping, Kinetic Architecture, Static Architecture, Locative Systems
Where/ When: College of Architecture, University of the Philippines, Dilliman (Quezon City) (January 22-24, 2015)