MA Art in the Contemporary World
2011-2
National College of Art and Design
Master of Arts:
Art in the Contemporary World
Course information 2011-2012
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MA Art in the Contemporary World
2011-2
MA Art in the Contemporary World
Course Co-ordinators and primary tutors:
Dr. Francis Halsall:
Declan Long:
halsallf@ncad.ie
longd@ncad.ie
Module tutors 2011-2012
James Armstrong
(Art & film)
Joan Fowler
(Writing)
Georgina Jackson
(Participation)
Glenn Loughran
(Participation)
Emma Mahony
(Curating)
Bea McMahon
(Imaginary Beings)
Isabel Nolan
(Imaginary Beings)
Dr. Paul O’Brien
(Art & environment)
armstrongj@ncad.ie
fowlerj@ncad.ie
georginajackson@gmail.com
gloughran@eircom.net
emma.mahony@gmail.com
beamcmahon@gmail.com
issienolan@hotmail.com
obrienp@ncad.ie
Other contributing staff 2011-2012
Dr. Kevin Atherton (Coordinator, Fine Art MFA)
Dr. Siun Hanrahan (Head of Research and Postgraduate Studies, NCAD)
Kevin Donovan (UCD School of Architecture)
Prof. Hugh Campbell (UCD School of Architecture)
Prof. Kathleen James Chakroborty (Chair, School of Art History and Cultural Policy, UCD)
Faculty of Visual Culture Administration:
Jane Behan, Neasa Travers:
visualculture@ncad.ie
Course website:
College website:
www.acw.ie
www.ncad.ie
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MA Art in the Contemporary World
2011-2
MA Art in the Contemporary World
The Master of Arts: Art in the Contemporary World is an intensive study programme
concerned with the relation of art practices to current critical, theoretical, historical and social
contexts. Throughout the year participants undertake close analysis of the work of key
contemporary artists, curators, critics and theorists, with a view to developing an expanded
and enriched sense of the place and potential of art in today’s world.
Course participants pursue one of two pathways:
Visual Culture: This pathway allows students from a wide range of backgrounds to
generate innovative research projects that explore and critique diverse strategies for
engaging with art today. This highly flexible pathway not only supports
theoretical/historical research but also more experimental modes of art writing and
curatorial or collaborative projects. Artists following this pathway can choose to
reflect intensively on current practices and debates in order to help contextualise and
critically enrich their own practice.
Combined Fine Art / Visual Culture Pathway: This pathway is run as a
collaboration between the Faculties of Fine Art & Visual Culture. Intended for artists,
students following this route will participate in theory/writing modules while also
developing independent self-directed art projects. This pathway encourages artists to
explore and test new models of theory-practice interaction in contemporary art.
Course content of The MA Art in the Contemporary World is delivered principally through
group seminars which focus on topical debates, core texts and essential theoretical
methodologies. Each of these seminars requires a high level of commitment and participation
from students and in most cases will require prior reading of critical essays or viewing of
exhibitions and films. Students are encouraged to read beyond the prescribed texts and to
develop up-to-date knowledge of current issues in local and international art and culture
through sustained engagement with major journals and magazines. Four strands of study
form the structure of the course, with each strand containing discrete thematic modules.
During the 20011-2012 academic year, these strands will be as follows.

PRACTICES (Monday mornings): A year-long seminar series exploring the
range and diversity of current international and local art practices. This strand
involves two study modules (one per semester), each based on twelve
sessions. (i) Strategies of Display and Distribution and (ii) What is reality?

SITUATIONS AND INTERSECTIONS (Monday afternoons): A range of
elective short modules addressing cultural and social contexts for art practice
today and points of crossover between art and related disciplines. Each of
these modules is 6 weeks long.
In semester one the options will be:
 Imaginary Beings: By studying a number of literary and philosophical
texts (spanning many centuries) this seminar will examine the ways
in which various figures – the scholar, the wanderer, the trickster/fool
– negotiate, inform or subvert the multiple paradigms that shape a
society.
 Critical Curating: An exploration of the key tendencies and debates in
contemporary curatorial practice
 Literary Visions: an exploration of the various ways in which literary
models, ideas and references permeate contemporary art practice.
 Systems Aesthetics: considering systems thinking and systemstheory in relation to aesthetics and theories of art.
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MA Art in the Contemporary World
2011-2
In semester two the options will be:
 Urban Interventions: examining aspects of space and culture with
particular reference to theories of urbanism in art and architecture (in
collaboration with UCD Architecture)
 The Aesthetics of Environment: a study of relations between art,
ecology, aesthetics and ethics, focusing on such questions as ecofeminism and “deep ecology”
 Other Modernisms: studying manifestations of, and critical responses
to, non-canonical modernism
 Art Through a Lens: A collaborative module with the Irish Film
Institute examining the complex relationship between contemporary
art and cinema.

THEORIES (Friday mornings): This strand runs throughout the year and
comprises 2 seminar modules (one per semester). Participants will gain an
understanding of key methodologies with respect to the study of
contemporary art and its cultural and historical contexts. In 2011-2012, the
two modules will be: (i) Key Theoretical Paradigms: looking at different
developments in modern and contemporary thought. Students will develop
advanced critical literacy in the theories of art and culture. (ii) Participation:
This seminar provides a grounding in the core issues and theories of
participation, social organization and political agency which are relevant to
contemporary art discourse

WRITING (Friday afternoons): This is a student-led seminar taking place
throughout the whole year in which participants explore and critique different
models and strategies for writing on art. Students will also reflect on their own
practice as writers and engage in peer review critiques. Topics covered might
include: contemporary criticism; contemporary art history; artists’ writings;
writing as art practice.
At the conclusion of each study module, students are required to deliver essays,
presentations or other exercises in response to course themes. Throughout the year,
however, students are also supported in developing self-directed research interests, leading
to the submission of a large-scale work at the end of the period of study. (Specific module
requirements for students pursuing one or other of the course pathways will be included in the
more detailed course documentation handed out by the course co-ordinators).
Full time students attend classes on Mondays and Fridays. New part-time students should
attend on Fridays and second year part-time students should attend on Mondays. The
duration of the programme is 12 months full-time, 24 months part-time. Students attend
classes from October 2009 to June 2010, and submit their major piece of work at the end of
September 2010.
The MA Art in the Contemporary World aims to function as a valuable forum for debate on
contemporary art theory and practice, and as a result we encourage students to seek
publishing, public speaking and curating/exhibiting opportunities during the academic year. A
course website and blog at www.acw.ie is available as a resource and publishing outlet for
students and we urge everyone to contribute texts, ideas, questions and references to this
online discussion space. In addition, a number of course sessions will have a public
dimension, allowing us to invite other interested parties from the fields of contemporary art
scholarship and practice to join our conversations — in order to help build extended networks
for students beyond the immediate course community.
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2011-2
The following texts may also be useful as background reading. These are not essential texts
for direct use during the year, but are recommended as decent guides to relevant debates
regarding art in the contemporary world:
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Terry Smith, What is Contemporary Art? (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2009) [A
good account of the current form of the global contemporary art world and key
practices within it]
Perry, Gill and Paul Wood (eds.), Themes in Contemporary Art (Milton Keynes: Open
University, 2004) [Informative, clearly written essays on a range of relevant themes:
conceptual art; installations; video/film; art and globalization]
Stallabrass, Julian, Contemporary Art: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: OUP,
2006) [formerly published as Art Incorporated: a largely hostile account of
contemporary art that nonetheless addresses key trends and tendencies with some
polemical vigour.]
Heartney Eleanour, Art & Today (London: Phaidon, 2008) [More expensive, largescale survey of key themes]
Costello, Diarmiud and Jonathan Vickery, Key Thinkers on Art (London: Berg, 2007)
[general guide to artists, critics, writers and theorists who will be useful points of
reference during the year]
Documents of Contemporary Art Series, various editors (London: Whitechapel
Gallery / Massachusetts: MIT Press) [range of themed collections covering major
subjects of concern to contemporary art theorists and practioners. Examples include:
The Gothic; Beauty; Participation; Appropriation; The Artist’s Joke; The Cinematic;
The Archive]
You should also subscribe to the 'e-flux' newsletter (http://www.e-flux.com/) to receive email
updates about new exhibitions and publications around the world. There is also an e-flux
journal (http://www.e-flux.com/journal) and issues 11 & 12 (all available online) are on the
subject of 'What is Contemporary Art?'. The Visual Artists Ireland newsletter
(http://www.visualartists.ie/Services/sfr_ebulletin.html) is also useful for information about art
events and opportunities in Ireland. And 'Art and Education' is another circular worth
receiving too: http://www.artandeducation.net/.
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Module descriptions / details:
Semester One
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Practices: Semester 1
CONTEMPORARY ART PRACTICES 1: Crisis and Conflict in Contemporary Art
Tutors: Declan Long, Dr. Kevin Atherton and guest lecturers
Monday mornings.
This is a collaborative seminar run between various Masters programmes at NCAD
concerned with contemporary art practice: the MA ACW, the Masters in Fine Art and the MA
Art in the Digital World.
At the centre of these classes is close analysis of the processes, forms, ideas and effects of
recent art. The sessions will combine a critical seminar — reflecting on the work of key
contemporary examples with reference to a guiding theme — and a presentation by a visiting
artist. In the first semester of the 2011-12 academic year, we will address the theme of ‘Crisis
and Conflict in Contemporary Art’, firstly in order to reflect on numerous ways in which artists
today engage with the major social upheavals of our times, and secondly, to consider conflicts
and crises within the art field itself.
Reading / research:
In order to build a good working knowledge of contemporary art practice in Ireland and
beyond, participating students should:
 Aim to see all current contemporary art exhibitions taking place in Dublin during the
academic year and to see as many exhibitions outside of the city as possible.
 Read current issues of the major art magazines, taking notes on relevant practices
and debates in order to be able to contribute relevant, up-to-date examples and
appropriate critical references to class discussions. Magazines worth reading on a
regular basis include: Artforum, Frieze, Art Monthly, Modern Painters, Tate etc., Art
Review, Parkett, Printed Project, A Prior, Afterall. Copies of these magazines are
available in the NCAD library. Several of these magazines also have substantial
online archives available to non-subscribers.

A number of other readings and exercises will be specified in relation to specific
weekly topics.

Power-point presentations from each of the weekly lecture sessions will be
made available online following each class. This will include appropriate
bibliographies relating to the specific and general issues under discussion.

Each class will begin with a selection of students from the group reporting on
an exhibition visited during the previous week. This aspect of the module is
designed to (i) ensure that there is ongoing engagement with the local contemporary
art scene; (ii) facilitate communication between the participants of the three
collaborating MA cohorts; (iii) emphasise the importance of peer-led debate and of
self-directed learning.
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Situations: Semester 1
ELECTIVE OPTIONS (i): Critical Curating
Tutor: Emma Mahony (mahonye@ncad.ie)
Mondays 1.45-3.45pm
Visit to Dublin Contemporary in Week 4, Monday 24th October. The cost of admission to
Earlsfort Terrace is €10.00 with student I.D.
1.
The Artist as Curator and DIY Curating
Considering the emergence of the artist as curator in the following contexts: ‘Context as
Content’; ‘Curation as Institutional Critique’; ‘Gesture as Curation’ and ‘Curating as Art’. The
second part of this seminar will look at DIY models of curating which the students could put
into practice over the course of the MA.
Essential Reading:
*Matthew Higgs in Conversation with Paul O’Neill (2006), NDP no.3 Available:
<www.northdrivepress.com/interviews/…/NDP3_HIGGS_ONEILL.pdf>
*O’Doherty, Brian (1999), ‘The Gallery as a Gesture’ in Inside the White Cube, The Ideology
of the Gallery Space, Expanded Edition, London: University of California Press
Library location: 709.04/ODO
Further suggested Reading:
Bickers, Patricia (2001), ‘Mixed Messages: Hans Haacke Interviewed by Patricia Bickers’, Art
Monthly 244, March 2001, p.3
Buskirk, Martha (2005), ‘Context as Subject’, in The Contingent Object of Contemporary Art,
Massachusetts: MIT Press
Library location: 709.04/BUS
Freedberg, Kotig (eds.) (1992), The play of the unmentionable / an installation by Joseph
Kosuth at the Brooklyn Museum, London: Thames and Hudson
Library location: 735.2373/KOS
Foster, Hal (1996), ‘The Artist as Ethnographer,’ in The Return of the Real, Massachusetts:
The MIT Press
Library location: 709.04/FOS
Haacke, Hans (1999), Ansichts Sachen = Viewing matters, Dusseldorf : Richter
Library location: 735.2343/HAA
O’Doherty, Brian (1999), ‘Context as Content’ in Inside the White Cube, The Ideology of the
Gallery Space, Expanded Edition, London: University of California Press
Library location: 709.04/ODO
2.
The Auteur Verses The Editor – Dichotomies in Contemporary Curating
In the past 10 years, discourse has emerged which oscillates around two key and opposing
curatorial positions – the performative curator and the curator behind-the-scenes. This
seminar will examine both models of practice with reference to contemporary practitioners.
Essential Reading:
Williams, Gregory (2003), ‘Exhibitions of an Exhibition Casey Kaplan Gallery - New York Jens Hoffmann and the game of curating’, ArtForum, Oct, 2003
Available: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_2_42/ai_109023360/
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*Lind, Maria (2002), ‘Curating Per – Form, Reflections on the Concept of the Performative’, in
DRUCKSACHE, SPRING 02
http://www.kunstvereinmuenchen.de/?dir=03_ueberlegungen_considerations&strShowFile=en_performative_
curating.kvm
Staple, Polly (2004), ‘Show and tell, An interview with Jens Hoffmann’, Frieze issue 83, May
2004
Available: http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/show_and_tell/
Further Suggested Reading:
Breitweiser, Sabine (2004), ‘Please Wait for a Commission,’ in International 04, Liverpool
Biennial of Contemporary Art Ltd
Franzen, Konig, Plath (eds.) (2007), ‘Glossary’ in Sculpture Projects Muenster 07, Cologne:
Walter Konig Books
Library location: 735.23/SCU
Hoffmann, Jens (2005), ‘The Curatorialization of Institutional Critique’, in Welchman, John C.
(ed), Institutional Critique and After, Volume 2 of the SoCCAS symposia, Zurich, JRP Ringier
Library location: 709.04/INS
Hylton, Richard (2007), ‘Thoughts on Curating,’ in Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and
Performance, Intellect Books
Rugoff, Ralph (2006), ‘You talking to me? On curating group show that give you a chance to
join the group’ in Paula Marincola (ed.), What makes a great exhibition, Philadelphia:
Reaktion Books
Library location: 707.4/MAR
Rugoff, Ralph (1999), ‘Rules of the Game,’ Frieze Issue 44, January-February 1999
Available: http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/rules_of_the_game
Wells, Liz (2007), ‘Curatorial Strategy as critical intervention: The Genesis of Facing East’, in
Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance, Bristol: Intellect Books
Vidokle, Anton (2010), ‘Art Without Artists?’, E-flux issue 136, May 2010
Available: http://e-flux.com/journal/view/136
3.
The Global Biennial as Political / Social / Cultural / Economic Tool
This seminar will examine the various accusations leveled at the biennial and its rotating cast
of ‘frequent-flyer’ curators. Through case studies, we will examine the socio-economic,
geopolitical and artistic motivations for these perennial international exhibitions. Issues such
the relationship between the local and the global; the center and the periphery; and between
the fixed institution and the roving biennial will be discussed.
Case studies:
Brussels Biennale 1 (2009), Artistic director: Barbara Vanderlinden
9th Istanbul Biennale (2005), Curated by Vasif Kortun and Charles Esche
4th Berlin Biennale (2006), Curated by Maurizio Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni and Ali
Subotnick
4th Gwangju Biennale (2002), organizers Charles Esche and Hou Hanru
Essential Reading:
*Esche, Charles (2005), ‘Debate: Biennials’, Frieze, issue. 92
http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/debate_biennials
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*Dutton, Steve and Griffin, Jeanine (2007), ‘Biennales and City-Wide Events, Something, like
nothing, happens anywhere’, AN Research Papers, 2007
Available: www.steve-dutton.co.uk/AN%20research%20paper.pdf
Further Suggested Reading:
Bergen Biennial Conference video streams: www.bbc2009.no
Filipovic, van Hal, Ovstebo (eds.), 'Biennialogy', in The Biennial Reader, Bergen Kunsthalle:
Hatje Cantz Verlag, pps.12-29
Available in the photocopy library
Gielen, Pascal (2009), ‘The Biennale: A Post-Institution for Immaterial Labour’, In Seijdel,
Jorinde (ed.), Open 16 Publication, The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon, Strategies in
Neo-Political Times, NAI Publisher, SKOR Available: http://www.skor.nl/artefact-3843-en.html
Hlavajova, Maria, 'How to Biennial? The Biennial in Relation to the Art Institution', in Filopovic,
van Hal, Ovstebo (eds.), The Biennial Reader, Bergen Kunsthalle: Hatje Cantz Verlag,
pps.292-305
Available in the photocopy library
Latimer, Quinn (2009), ‘Report: To Biennial or not to Biennial?’, Frieze October 2009
Available: http://www.frieze.com/comment/article/to_biennial_or_not_to_biennial
Martini, Frederica and Vittoria, 'Questions of Authorship in Biennial Curating,' in Filopovic, van
Hal, Ovstebo (eds.), The Biennial Reader, Bergen Kunsthalle: Hatje Cantz Verlag, pps.260275
Available in the photocopy library
O’Neill, Paul (2007), ‘The Curatorial Turn: From Practice to Discourse’. In Issues in
Contemporary Art and Performance, Bristol: Intellect Books
Sheikh, Simon (2009), ‘Marks of Distinction, Vectors of Possibility, Questions for the Biennial,’
In Seijdel, Jorinde (ed.), Open 16 Publication, The Art Biennial as a Global Phenomenon,
Strategies in Neo-Political Times, NAI Publisher, SKOR
4.
Dublin Contemporary – A Case Study
The class should meet at Earlsfort Terrace at 13.30.
5.
Changing Course – The Context-Specific Perennial Exhibition and ‘the Wrong
Place’
Taking Miwon Kwon’s theory of the aesthetics of the wrong place, this seminar will examine
models of practice that are place-based and place-responsive, yet forge a sense of dislocation, which enables them to communicate meaningfully beyond the specifics of their site.
We will consider the efficacy of this approach in relation to the context specific biennial model
and how the organizers of this exhibition seek to find a balance between ‘the fleeting
encounter and the anthropological investigation’.
Case Studies:
International 04, Liverpool Biennial (2004), Researchers: Sabine Breitweiser, Yu Yeon Kim,
Cuauhtémoc Medina and Apinan Poshyanada
Sculpture Projects Muenster (2007), Curated by Brigitte Franzen, Kasper Konig, Carina Plath;
Folkestone Triennale 1, Tales of Time and Space, (2008), Curated by Andrea Schlieker;
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Essential Reading:
*Doherty, Claire (2008), ‘Public art as situation: Towards an Aesthetics of the Wrong Place in
Contemporary Art Practice and Commissioning’, in. Jan Debbaut, Out of the Studio! Art and
Public Space, Hasselt: Z33
Available: www.situations.org.uk/research_rr_publishedarticles.html
*Kwon, Miwon (2004), ‘The Wrong Place’, in One Place After Another: Site-specific
Art and Locational Identity, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press
(Also in. Doherty, Clare, From Studio to Situation, London, Black Dog Publishing)
Further Suggested Reading:
Doherty, Claire (2007), ‘Curating Wrong Places…Or Where Have All the Penguins Gone’, in
Paul O’Neill, ed., Curating Subjects, Amsterdam: De Appel
Available: www.situations.org.uk/research_rr_publishedarticles.html
McGonagle, Declan (2004), ‘Terrible Beauty, Art and Actuality,’ in International 04, Liverpool:
Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art Ltd
6.
From Institutional Critique to New Institutionalism – The Educational Turn
Tracing a lineage from institutional critique, this seminar will explore how ‘experimental
institutionalism’ and its values of discursivity, self-reflexivity and auto-critique have shaped art
and its curation. We will analyse the benefits and limitations of this model, whether these
‘non-gallery’ galleries can, as Charles Esche suggests, ‘resist the totality of global capitalism’,
or whether they are just ambitious prototypes that feed back into curatorial discourse.
Essential Reading:
*Gordon-Nesbitt, Rebecca (2003), ‘Harnessing the Means of Production’, Verksted #1,
Norway: Office for Contemporary Art
Available: http://www.societyofcontrol.com/pmwiki/Akademie/uploads/Main/harnessing.htm
*Lind, Maria (2002), ‘Curating Per – Form, Reflections on the Concept of the Performative’, in
DRUCKSACHE, SPRING 02
http://www.kunstvereinmuenchen.de/?dir=03_ueberlegungen_considerations&strShowFile=en_performative_curatin
g.kvm
Further Suggested Reading:
Billing, Johanna, Lind, Maria and Nilsson, Lars (eds.) (2007) Taking the Matter into Common
Hands: Contemporary Art and Collaborative Practices, London, Black Dog
Dickson, Malcolm (1998), ‘Another Year of Alienation: On the Mythology of the Artist-Run
Initiative’, in eds D. McCorquodale, N. Siderfin, and J. Stallabrass, (eds.) Occupational
Hazard: Critical Writing on Recent British Art, Black Dog, London, 1998
Doherty, Claire (2006), ‘New Institutionalism and the Exhibition as Situation’, Protections
Reader, Graz: Kunsthaus Graz
Available: http://www.situations.org.uk/research_rr_publishedarticles.html
Farquharson, Alex (2006), ‘Bureaux de change’, Frieze no.101, September 2006
Available: http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/bureaux_de_change
Fraser Andrea (2005), ‘What is Institutional Critique?’, in Institutional Critique and After,
Volume 2 of the SoCCAS symposia, Zurich: JRP Ringier
Fraser Andrea (2005), ‘From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique’, in
Institutional Critique and After, Volume 2 of the SoCCAS symposia, Zurich: JRP Ringier
Available: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_1_44/ai_n27860623/
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Hoffmann, Jens (2005), ‘The Curatorialization of Institutional Critique’, in Institutional Critique
and After, Volume 2 of the SoCCAS symposia, Zurich: JRP Ringier
O’Neill, Paul and Wilson, Mick (eds.) (2010), Curating and the Educational Turn, London:
Open Editions / de Appel
Möntmann, Nina (2009), Art and its Institutions: Current Conflicts, Critique and Collaboration,
London: Black Dog Publishing
The Museum Revisited, Artforum, Summer 2010
Available by email
Welchman, John C. (ed), Institutional Critique and After, Volume 2 of the SoCCAS symposia,
Zurich: JRP Ringier
Library location: 709.04/INS
Verksted #1 2003, New Institutionalism’, Norway: Office for Contemporary Art
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Situations: Semester 1
ELECTIVE OPTIONS (ii) Imaginary Beings
Tutors: Isabel Nolan & Bea McMahon
Mondays, 4pm
Overview:
Imaginary Beings in Power: Do they make the world legitimate?
By studying a number of literary and philosophical texts (spanning many centuries) this
seminar will examine the ways in which various figures – the scholar, the wanderer, the
trickster/fool – negotiate the multiple paradigms that shape a society.
A key question at stake is whether these tropes subvert or reinforce the authority/legitimacy of
the social spaces thay inhabit.
These figures have been identified as significant (though perhaps marginalised) makers of
meaning. In considering these tropes collectively it is envisaged that the material will also
stimulate reflections upon artisitic strategies for research and production.
Proposed Topics
1: Various structures of space
2: Wanderers
3: Tricksters and Fools
4: Scholars
5: Time and Place and Faith
6: Power and Legitimacy
There are three longer texts which we plan to discuss. They are:
 The Inferno from Dante's Divine Comedy,
 Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed and
 Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky.
The first two will be in the course ‘Dropbox’ folder about which you will receive an email. The
last of the three is widely available to buy. (And was filmed as Stalker by Tarkovsky - though it
is a very different entity.)
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Situations: Semester 1
ELECTIVE OPTIONS (iii): Systems Aesthetics
Tutor: Francis Halsall
Monday afternoon, 1.45pm
This module is about an aesthetics of systems. It looks at systems thinking and systemstheory in relation to aesthetics and theories of art. The general philosophical approach taken
is a phenomenological one. Two central issues will be unpacked: on the one hand how
theories of systems can provide an understanding of aesthetic practices and experiences;
and on the other how systems thinking, itself, can be considered a form of aesthetic reflection.
NB – INDICATIVE CONTENT, 6 of these 7 topics will be covered
(1) The System Conspiracy
Argument
“System” is a condition of modernity; “system” is a modernism.
Example
David Icke:
“Some of my friends have urged me to tell people the basic story, but “for God’s sake don’t
mention the reptiles”. You will see what they mean by that very shortly. I understand their
concern, but I can only be myself. And I have to tell all that I know and not only that which
maintains the comfort zone. That’s just me, the way I am. Of course the theme of the book will
attract ridicule from those with a vision of possibility the size of a pea and, naturally, from
those who know it to be true and don’t want the public to believe it. But so what? Who cares?
I don’t. As Gandhi said: “Even if you are in a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.” So
here’s the story, punches unpulled.
In summary, a race of interbreeding bloodlines, a race within a race in fact, were centred in
the Middle and Near East in the ancient world and, over the thousands of years since, have
expanded their power across the globe. A crucial aspect of this has been to create a network
of mystery schools and secret societies to covertly introduce their Agenda while, at the same
time, creating institutions like religions to mentally and emotionally imprison the masses and
set them at war with each other.” [The Biggest Secret, pg 1]
Themes

Conspiracy: Blaming the system… (Clifford Siskin, Adam Curtis)
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Systems of Modernity: Industrial revolution. Fordism. Cybernetics. Project Rand.
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Philosophical Systems: Kant, Hegel, Marx, Weiner
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Luhmann:
o replacing Hegelian “Geist” with “System”
o Functional differentiation of the lifeworld in modernity. Law, Education, Art,
Economics, Science
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Habermas: Colonization/ Systematization of the Lifeworld
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(2) Systems Technologies
Argument
A technology provides a means by which the world is experienced and redescribed. And
systems theory is a technology.
Themes
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The world is not disclosed/ it is nor revealed; but rather certain facets/ features of the
world are brought into view through the operations of particular technologies.
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There are different ways of observing and these are bound up with technological
frameworks for those observations.
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Figure/ Ground
Form/ Medium
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Don Ihde: Photography provides a way of seeing
Panofsky: Perspective as Symbolic Form
(3) The Art System
Argument
The institutional systems of art are perceptual/ phenomenological frames. They are not
merely historical or conceptual
Themes
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

Reframing the institutional theory of art (Danto) in terms of
Systems Theory
Phenomenology
(4) Mediums, Forms and Systems
Argument
(i) Medium/ Form are interlaced
(ii) The system is observable at the moments when it breaks down
Themes

Different forms of communication are observable across different mediums; and bring
those mediums into view.

An account of medium specificity that is not coupled with material specificity. It is thus
appropriate for the dematerialized art object after modernism

Analysis of the different forms within this text.

Figure/ Ground

Noise/ Silence
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MA Art in the Contemporary World
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(5) Mimetic Systems
Argument
(…)
“A sociological theory that wants to consolidate the conditions of the discipline must not only
be more complex, it must be much more complex than the classical authors and their
interpreters – even Parsons – had thought. This requires different theoretical precautions in
regard to validity and connectivity, internally as well as externally, and it requires, not least,
building the reflection of complexity (and the concept of complexity) into the theory itself”
Luhmann, Social Systems, p. xlix
“Systems theory, in other words, simulates complexity in order to explain complexity, and it
does so by creating a flexible network of selectively interrelated concepts that can be
recombined in many different ways and thus be used to describe the most diverse social
phenomena.”
Eva M Knodt, Foreword
Luhmann, Social Systems, pg. xix
Example
Luhmann’s card file as an aesthetic object. Luhmann as Borges. Archive as geological
Art and Language and the Zettlekasten.
Themes



Adorno: Aesthetic Theory/ Schoenberg
Smithson: Entropy
Luhmann: Complexity



Lyotard: Presenting the Unpresentable
The real as sublime (Grant’s critique of Harman)
System as sublime
(6) Intentional Systems
Argument
Intentionality is not specific to consciousness, but emerges in other systems
Themes

Harman’s extension of intentionality into objects

Dretske

Luhmann: replacing Transcendental Ego (Husserl) with observing system

System as intentional (meaning giving) agent that redescribes the world in its own
terms
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(7) The Body in Systems
Argument
Body as transcendental agent that interrupts and migrates between systems
Example
The Wire
Functionally different systems, yet characters sometimes migrate between them. Eg Stringer
Bell/ Roland ‘Prez’ Pryzbylewski
Themes

Phenomenological accounts of body/ technology: Merleau-Ponty/ Husserl

McLuhan: technology as extensions of man and the balance of sense

Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives an Economy, And Why it Matters for
Global Capitalism, George A Akerlof and Robert J Shiller

Subjectivity framed by system

Foucault

Lifeworld

“Distribution of the Sensible” – Ranciere

Politics of Aesthetics
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MA Art in the Contemporary World
2011-2
Situations: Semester 1
ELECTIVE OPTIONS (iv): Literary Visions: Travels Between Art And Literature
Tutor: Declan Long
Monday afternoon, 4pm
This course offers a brief opportunity to travel back and forth between art and literature,
allowing us to reflect on recent relays between the two. We will read several extraordinary
writers during the six weeks: authors of novels, stories and poems.
We will also consider the variously eccentric and enthusiastic ways in which the stories and
styles of these writers have informed the work of a number of significant recent artists and
curators. ‘The literary’ in recent contemporary art has in many cases seemed to offer
something quite ‘substantial’ — an authoritative tone, or a steady anchoring point of cultural
reference — and yet it is also ‘slippery’, helping to inform art practices that are richly
associative, that prompt interest in an intricate play of meanings and cultural forms, seeming
to undermine certainty in the fixity of signs.
Literature therefore will be seen in its own terms here, but also as a point of reference and
departure within contemporary art. We will consider a number of ways in which key figures in
modern and postmodern literature have influenced contemporary artists and explore how
cultural constructs such as ‘the literary’ and ‘the poetic’ have come to serve particular
functions for artists, in ways quite distinct from the expectations of visual art as understood
within modernist art history and theory. We will therefore ask how literary form, reference and
practice are used as part of artists’ strategies, examining the works of a number of highly
valued writers and assessing their relation to specific artists’ works, as well as discussing the
ongoing prominence of certain types or genres of literature within contemporary art discourse.
Background reading:
 Dieter Roelstraete, ‘Word Play’ in Frieze, Issue 139, May 2011,
http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/word-play/
 John Douglas Millar ‘Art/Writing: on why experimental writing thrives in the art world’,
Art Monthly, Issue 349: September 2011
Week 1: (i) Journeys in art and literature
Reading: W.G Sebald, The Rings of Saturn
Secondary reading:
 James Wood, ‘W.G. Sebald’s Uncertainty’, from The Broken Estate: Essays
on Literature and Belief
 Lynn Sharon Schwartz (ed.) Emergence of Memory: Conversations with
W.G. Sebald
Week 2: (i) Associations and asides: Tacita Dean and Sebald’s influence:
Readings: Tacita Dean, ‘W.G. Sebald’
[plus continued responses and close readings of The Rings of Saturn]
Secondary references:
Exhibitions: Altermodern, Tate Triennial, After Nature, New Museum
Week 3: (i) Time and space: Sebald to Ballard
Readings:
J.G Ballard,
‘The Concentration City’,
‘The Voices of Time’
‘Memories of the Space Age’,
Week 4: Fantastical Locations and Forking Paths
Readings:
Jorge Luis Borges,
‘Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius’: http://www.coldbacon.com/writing/borges-tlon.html
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‘The Garden of Forking Paths’: http://www.coldbacon.com/writing/borgesgarden.html
Week 5: Meta-ficciones
Reading: Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire
Week 6: The Poetic
Readings: Poems by Elizabeth Bishop.
Other subjects / points of reference that will be worth considering include:





Approaches to the ‘literary’ in art
o Modernism, postmodernism and the problem of ‘content’
o Text and art
o Everybody’s talking: art’s discursive modes
o ‘Poetic’ and ‘narrative’ modes
o the ‘literary’ in theory
Romantic conceptualism
o Essays from Romantic Conceptualism ed, Christine Kintisch
The Fascination of science fiction
o Dominique Gonzales Foerster
o Philip K. Dick at Project Arts Centre
Artists as novelist:
o Keren Cytter and Liam Gillick
Theatrical art: artists as dramatist
o Ulla von Brandenburg
o Phillippe Parreno et al: Il Tempo del Postino
Further references will be provided on a week-to-week basis. The course will concentrate on
several core readings, some of which are quite long, so it is important in particular to begin
reading Sebald’s Rings of Saturn and Nabokov’s Pale Fire as early as possible.
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2011-2
Theories: Semester 1
KEY THEORETICAL PARADIGMS
Tutors: Francis Halsall and Declan Long
Friday mornings
This series of classes will focus on theoretical positions which have become central reference
points in debates concerning contemporary art practice. Each week we will consider a
particular reading in depth, not only asking how we understand the propositions being put
forward in each particular text, but also, crucially, testing out how we might apply such a
mode of analysis ourselves.
As much as possible we will make the texts available in digital form. Many of the texts are
available online. Below is the list of proposed readings; you may have encountered some of
these texts during your undergraduate study, but the aim in this instance will be to pursue a
more in-depth knowledge of the work and of the intellectual context for the key ideas. Prior to
each class aim to familiarize yourself with the writer under discussion, either viewing some
other primary works in addition to the selected text, or undertaking secondary readings so as
to introduce and contextualise the main essay that we will discuss. In preparing yourself, you
may wish to buy or borrow a guide to contemporary theorists such as one of these:


Costello, Diarmiud and Jonathan Vickery, Key Thinkers on Art (London: Berg, 2007)
Murray, Chris (ed.) Key Writers on Art: The Twentieth century (London: Routledge,
2003).
The Routledge Critical Thinkers series is also useful, providing substantial but clear guides to
many of the theorists we will discuss.
 http://www.routledge.com/books/series/SE0370/
1. Roland Barthes: ‘The Death of the Author’, (Suggested additional
reading: Susan Sontag, ‘Against Interpretation’)
2. Rosalind Krauss: ‘Photography’s Discursive Spaces’ (Suggested
additional reading: George Baker, ‘Photography in the Expanded
Field’)
3. TJ Clark: ‘The Painting of Modern Life’, Marxism (Suggested
additional reading: Elizabeth Wilson, ‘The Invisble Flaneur’?)
4. Walter Benjamin: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction (Suggested additional reading: Theodor Adorno ‘Letter
to Benjamin’)
5. Fredric Jameson: ‘The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism’ (Suggested
additional reading: Julia Kristeva: Feminist Postmodernism)
6. Maurice Merleau-Ponty: ‘Eye and Mind’
7. Martin Heidegger: ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ (also read Jacques
Derrida, excerpt from The Truth in Painting)
8. Michel Foucault: Manet and the Object of Painting
9. Gilles Deleuze, excerpt from Difference and Repetition.
10. Judith Butler exceprt from Gender Trouble
11. Slavoj Zizek: Looking Awry (excerpt) (Suggested additional reading:
Laura Mulvey ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’)
12. Other Criteria: a discussion of the alternative tendencies in
contemporary theory.
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MA Art in the Contemporary World
2011-2
Writing : Semester 1
Art and Writing Seminar
Tutors: Francis Halsall, Declan Long, Joan Fowler
Time: Friday afternoons, 2-4pm
This is a student-led seminar taking place throughout the whole year in which participants
explore and critique different models and strategies for writing on art. Students will also reflect
on their own practice as writers and engage in peer review critiques. Topics covered might
include: contemporary criticism; contemporary art history; artists' writings'; writing as art
practice.
The first semester’s discussions will focus on writing in contemporary art magazines. For
week one we will take Frieze magazine as our case study. Many of the articles from frieze
are available online at www.frieze.com/magazine/. Please read all of the articles that are
available on the online edition of the September 2011 (20 year anniversary) edition. Copies of
the magazine are also available to buy at IMMA, The Douglas Hyde Gallery and other outlets
throughout the country (e.g. Glucksman Gallery in Cork).
In addition to the sessions led by Francis Halsall and Declan Long, a dedicated six-week
block will be delivered by Joan Fowler on specific aspects of the relation between art and
writing. Joan Fowler’s classes will run from November 4th and run until December 16th. A 200
words submission will apply in relation to this series of classes.
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MA Art in the Contemporary World
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Module descriptions / details:
Semester Two
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MA Art in the Contemporary World
2011-2
Practices: Semester 2
CONTEMPORARY ART PRACTICES (ii): Objects
Tutor: Declan Long, Kevin Atherton and guest lecturers
Mondays, 10am-12.30pm
This is the second part of the collaborative seminar series run between various Masters
programmes at NCAD concerned with contemporary art practice: the MA ACW, the Masters
in Fine Art and the MA Art in the Digital World.
At the centre of these classes is close analysis of the processes, forms, ideas and effects of
recent art. The sessions will combine a critical seminar — reflecting on the work of key
contemporary examples with reference to a guiding theme — and a presentation by a visiting
artist.
In the second semester of the 2011-12 academic year, we will address the theme of ‘Objects’.
This topic will allow us to analyse first of all the many ways in which the materiality of art
across multiple media can be considered today. We will therefore look at art practices which
take the object as central to their practice, looking in detail at the work of various important
sculptural artists, but we will also examine multiple other ways in which art’s ‘objecthood’ is
significant, whether in the realm of video and film art — which can today often place an
emphasis on the use of very particular technological objects and materials — or in the work of
performance art, which can both value certain ‘traces’ of live events, or that involves very
precise modes of documentation which grant a particular form of material presence to
otherwise ‘ephemeral’ and ‘immaterial’ performance art. In addition, this theme will also allow
us to consider recent modes of addressing objects in critical and philosophical thought: in this
regard, recent movements such as ‘speculative realism’ and ‘object-oriented philosophy will
be of clear importance.
Reading / research:
In order to build a good working knowledge of contemporary art practice in Ireland and
beyond, participating students should:
 Aim to see all current contemporary art exhibitions taking place in Dublin during the
academic year and to see as many exhibitions outside of the city as possible.
 Read current issues of the major art magazines, taking notes on relevant practices
and debates in order to be able to contribute relevant, up-to-date examples and
appropriate critical references to class discussions. Magazines worth reading on a
regular basis include: Artforum, Frieze, Art Monthly, Modern Painters, Tate etc., Art
Review, Parkett, Printed Project, A Prior, Afterall. Copies of these magazines are
available in the NCAD library. Several of these magazines also have substantial
online archives available to non-subscribers.

A number of other readings and exercises will be specified in relation to specific
weekly topics.

Power-point presentations from each of the weekly lecture sessions will be
made available online following each class. This will include appropriate
bibliographies relating to the specific and general issues under discussion.

Each class will begin with a selection of students from the group reporting on
an exhibition visited during the previous week. This aspect of the module is
designed to (i) ensure that there is ongoing engagement with the local contemporary
art scene; (ii) facilitate communication between the participants of the three
collaborating MA cohorts; (iii) emphasise the importance of peer-led debate and of
self-directed learning.
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2011-2
Situations: Semester 2
ELECTIVE OPTIONS (i): Urban Interventions
Tutor: Declan Long
Tuesdays 2-4pm
This course will consider the relationship of art practice to understandings of space and place,
particularly in relation to sites within the city of Dublin. The classes will look at understandings
of ‘site’ and ‘landscape’ within art practices and explore how artists and thinkers have
negotiated city spaces, developing multifarious strategies for engaging with the public realm
and unique understandings of the psychological impact of urban environments. Crucial to
these discussions will be the relationship between contemporary art and contemporary
architecture. This module will be run in collaboration with the UCD School of Architecture.
Background reading
Jane Rendell, Art and Architecture: A Place Between (London: IB Taurus, 2006)
Indicative topics for the course are:

Site/place/space/world: Understanding art’s engagement with cities

21st Century landscape art: What does a contemporary ‘landscape’ look like?

Psycho-geography and micro-geography: Walking in the City

Architecture, art and the ‘symbolic capital’ of the city.

Consumer space / public space

Modern Ruins: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project

Conflict and urban space

Bibliographies and further details will be given out during the course.
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Situations: Semester 2
ELECTIVE OPTIONS (ii) Other Modernisms
Tutor: Dr. Francis Halsall, Roisin Kennedy (UCD)
Thursday mornings
Details on this module will be made available prior to the beginning of semester 2.
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MA Art in the Contemporary World
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Situations: Semester 2
ELECTIVE OPTIONS (iii): Art, Aesthetics, Environment
Tutor: Paul O’Brien
Mondays 1.45-3.30pm
The purpose of this module is to investigate issues around the role of art as creative/aesthetic
activity versus art as political practice. Some issues in the interface between ethics and
aesthetics will be explored, as well as questions around ecology and ethics, specifically the
debate between eco-feminism and “deep ecology”. The creation of virtual worlds (“alternative
nature”) will be examined as well. Paralleling current issues around activist art and relational
aesthetics, the module asks the question, “art for art’s sake or art for earth’s sake?”
Questions to be explored include: What is nature? Is it appropriate for artists to manipulate or
“exploit” nature? What is, or should be, the relationship of art to nature and to political
ecology? Should art have a critical or neutral relationship to environmental issues? Should
artists attempt to heal the planet?
There is some key background reading on Aesthetics in the "Aesthetics" section of the
photocopy file, as well as in the Aesthetics section (701) of the Library itself. The compendia
are particularly useful, as they give extracts from some of the basic texts on aesthetic issues,
which will be referenced from time to time. Useful background readings include:
Adorno, Aesthetic Theory
Aristotle, Poetics
Benjamin, Illuminations (etc.)
Bloch, Ernst (et al), Aesthetics and Politics (good on Marxist aesthetic theory)
Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
Hegel, Aesthetic
Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art”
Kant, Critique of Judgment
Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy
Plato, Republic; Symposium
Schopenhauer, from The World as Will and Representation (etc.)
A good basic text is Anne Sheppard, Aesthetics: An Introduction
Topics:
1 – Introduction: Art, environment and cultural theory
Featured artists: Joseph Beuys, Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson, Walter de Maria,
James Turrell, Nancy Holt, James Pierce
Related texts: Val Plumwood, Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of
Reason, London, Routledge, 2002;
Verena Andermatt Conley, Ecopolitics: The Environment in Poststructuralist Thought,
London, Routledge, 1997;
Ted Benton, “Why Are Sociologists Naturephobes?” in Lopez, Jose and Gary Potter,
After Postmodernism: An Introduction to Critical Realism, New York: Athlone, 2007,
p. 133.
Paul O’Brien, “Culture, Ecology and the Real,” in Roy Ascott (ed.), Engineering
Nature: Art and Consciousness in the Post-Biological Era, Intellect, Bristol, 2006.
Buchloh, Benjamin H.D., “Beuys: The Twilight of the Idol,” Artforum, vol. 5, no . 18,
Jan. 1980, pp. 35-43.
John F. Moffitt, Occultism in Avant-Garde Art: The Case of Joseph Beuys, Univ. of
Michigan, 1988.
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MA Art in the Contemporary World
2011-2
Images:
Joseph Beuys: http://www.diaart.org/ltproj/7000/dokumenta7.html
Nancy Holt: http://stephan.barron.free.fr/technoromantisme/holt.html
Walter de Maria: http://www.lightningfield.org/
2 – Virtual Environments
Featured artists: Char Davies, Luc Courchesne, Churchill Madikiwa, Kurt
Hentschlager, Ernesto Neto , Golan Levin, Toshio Iwai
Related texts:
Ars Electronica. Available:
http://www.recirca.com/backissues/c98/arselectronica.shtm
Hansen, New Philosophy for New Media?
Christian Paul, Digital Art, London, Thames and Hudson, 2003
Richard Coyne, “Heidegger and Virtual Reality: The Implications of Heidegger’s
Thinking for Computer Representations,” Leonardo, Vol. 27, No. 1, 1994.
Michael Heim, The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality
Peter Kogler, Franz Pomassi, “Cave,” Ars Electronic 99: Life Science, Springer,
Wien/New York, 1999.
Luc Courchesne, “Landscape One,” Cyberarts 99, Springer, Wien/New York, 1999,
pp. 66-67.
Carol Gigliotti, “Aesthetics of a Virtual World,” Leonardo, Vol. 28, No. 4, 1995.
Luc Courchesne
Oliver Grau, “Into the Belly of the Image: Historical Aspects of Virtual Reality.”
“Simulation Room,” Ars Electronica: Facing the Future, ed Timothy Druckrey/Ars
Electronica, Cambridge, MA, 1999.
Margaret Wertheim, “Out of this World,” New Scientist, 6 Feb. 1999, pp. 39-41.
Karl O’Donoghue, “Virtual Ecology: The Work of Char Davies.”
http://www.immersence.com/publications/1999/1999-KOdonoghue.html
Nick Bostrom, “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?” Available:
http://www.simulation-argument.com/
Mark Tribe (et al) (ed.) New Media Art
Images:
Churchill Madikiwa: http://www.universes-inuniverse.de/car/documenta/eng/2007/tour/neue-galerie/img-09.htm
Kurt Hentschlager: http://www.hentschlager.info/
Char Davies: http://www.immersence.com/osmose/index.php
Misc images:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsHtUryLCzQ
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/be-now-here/video/1/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47AoyrF2Vvk
http://www.jeffrey-shaw.net/html_main/frameset-works.php3
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/osmose/video/1/
Some artists for research :
Luc Courchesne
Char Davies
Agnes Hegedus
Knowbotic Research
Catherine Ikam
Naoko Tosa
Myron Kruger
Michael Naimark
Franz Pomassi
Stahl Stenslie
Jeffrey Shaw
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MA Art in the Contemporary World
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3 - Art and Ecology: Political Dimensions (Critical Environmental Art)
Featured artists: Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Hans Haacke, Helen and Newton
Harrison, Cornelia Hesse-Honegger, Paul Fusco, Tue Greenfort, Ines Doujak
Related texts Suzi Gablik, The Reenchantment of Art, London, Thames and Hudson,
2002.
Dean Kenning, “Eco Art”, Art Monthly Vol. 2, No. 8.
Morris Berman, The Reenchantment of the World, Cornell UP, 1981.
Jose Ortega y Gasset, “The Dehumanization of Art”
Nicholas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics
Jan Avgikos, Green Piece, Artforum, No. 8, 1991.
Paul O’Brien, “Art, Culture and Ecology,” CSSR, Conference Journal 2007. Available:
http://www.uel.ac.uk/ccsr/journals.htm
Images:
Tue Greenfort: http://mountstreet.blogspot.com/2007/07/blog-post_826.html
Hans Haacke: http://greenmuseum.org/c/ecovention/rhine.html
Mierle Laderman Ukeles:
http://www.feldmangallery.com/pages/artistsrffa/artuke01.html
4- Ecological Philosophy (Ecosophy)
Featured artists: (Integrative environmental art): Andy Goldsworthy, Richard Long,
Mel Chin, Char Davies, Alan Sonfist, Herman de Vries, Patricia Johanson
Related texts:
Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, Great Britain, Fontana, 1980.
Lynn White, “The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis,” in R.J. Berry (ed.) The
Care of Creation: Focusing Concern and Action, IVP, 2000. Available:
http://www.pdfone.com/ebook/the-nature-of-man.html
Fritjof Capra, The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living, London,
Harper/Collins, 2003.
Warwick Fox, Toward a Transpersonal Ecology: Developing New Foundations for
Environmentalism, New York: State University of New York, 1995.
Warwick Fox, “Deep Ecology: A New Philosophy for Our Time?” The Ecologist, No.
14, 1984. Available: http://books.google.ie/books?id=CmTgZ3cQOt0C&pg=RA2PT178&lpg=RA2PT178&dq=deep+ecology+a+new+philosophy+for+our+time&source
=bl&ots=QbjfVJteD7&sig=k1RDJwOBJ8e_84wuFdAdwhJWBUA&hl=en&ei=JojNS6j6
AZT20gTo4tjkDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CA4Q6AEwAw
#v=onepage&q=deep%20ecology%20a%20new%20philosophy%20for%20our%20ti
me&f=false
Arne Naess, Ecology, Community and Lifestyle, trans. and ed. David Rothenberg,
Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989.
Kate Soper, What is Nature? Oxford, Blackwell, 1995, p. 257.
Henryk Skolimowski, Eco-Philosophy: Designing New Tactics for Living, London,
1981.
Martin Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art”; The Question Concerning
Technology (etc.)
Warwick Fox, "Deep Ecology: A New Philosophy for Our
Time?" (GOOGLE BOOKS)
Images:
Alan Sonfist: http://greenmuseum.org/c/ecovention/time.html
Herman de Vries: http://www.keom.de/kuenstler/texte/devries_e.html
Patricia Johanson: http://www.patriciajohanson.com/
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MA Art in the Contemporary World
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5 - Eco-feminism; art, biology, bio-art
Featured artists: Eduardo Kac, SymbioticA (Oron Catts, Ionat Zurr, Guy Ben-Ary)
Marta de Menezes, Joe Davis, Thomas Gruenfeld, Cornelia Hesse-Honegger, Marc
Quinn
Related texts:
Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific
Revolution, San Francisco, Harper and Row, 1990.
Mary Mellor, Feminism and Ecology, Polity, 1997, etc.
Suzanne Anker/Dorothy Nelkin (eds.) The Molecular Gaze: Art in the Genetic Age,
New York, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2004.
Eduardo Kac (ed.) Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond, Cambridge (MA) MIT, 2007.
Images:
Eduardo Kac: http://www.ekac.org/
Marta de Menezes: http://stephan.barron.free.fr/technoromantisme/holt.html
Thomas Gruenfeld: http://www.galeriemichaeljanssen.de/index.php?/artist/thomasgruenfeld/
6 – Environment, politics and Nazism
Featured artists: Arno Breker, Josef Thorak, Albert Speer, Ernst Sagebiel, Leni
Riefenstahl, Peter Eisenman, Daniel Libeskind
Related texts:
Susan Sontag, “Fascinating Fascism.”
Emily Brady, “Aesthetics, Ethics and the Natural Environment,” Environment and the
Arts: Perspectives on Environmental Aesthetics, ed. Arnold Berleant, Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2002, pp. 115-124.
Anna Bramwell, Ecology in the 20th Century
Ernst Bloch et al, Aesthetics and Politics, Trans. editor Ronald Taylor, London: NLB,
1977.
Mary Devereaux, “Beauty and Evil: the Case of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the
Will,” in Levinson, Jerrold (ed.) Aesthetics and Ethics: Essays on the Intersection,
Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998.
Paul O’Brien, “Art and Ecology: a New Orthodoxy,” Circa, No. 60, Nov/Dec 1991, pp.
18-25.
“The Nazi who won’t Die: Leni Riefenstahl at 100”:
http://www.counterpunch.org/faris0911.html
Images: Third Reich architecture in Berlin:
http://fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/resource/gallery/BERBLD.HTM
Berlin memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe:
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Berlin2002/JewishMemorial/index.html
Arno Breker: http://www.ilovefiguresculpture.com/masters/german/breker/breker.htm
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MA Art in the Contemporary World
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Situations: Semester 2
ELECTIVE OPTIONS (iv) Art Through a Lens
Tutor: James Armstrong
Mondays 1.45-3.45pm
Details on this module will be made available prior to the beginning of semester 2.
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MA Art in the Contemporary World
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Theories: Semester 2
PARTICIPATION
Tutors: Georgina Jackson, Glenn Loughran
Friday mornings, 11am-1.pm
Participatory Art is widely understood as a shift in Modern Art away from the static objectbased notion of art practice toward an exploration of art as the indeterminate organisation of
spatial relations between the artist and the public. Questioning the conventional divide
between the artist and the audience, Participatory Art also challenges assumptions about the
role of the museum, the curator, and the critic.
The aim of the course is to provide an overview of the theories, histories, concepts and
practices that circulate throughout the discourses on Participatory Art, from early
performance-based and conceptual art to Artist Collectives and online works rooted in the
multi-user dynamics of Web 2.0 platforms. The course will explore concepts such as:
Participation and the ‘other’, Relational Aesthetics, Socially Engaged Practice, The Dialogical,
Informal Pedagogical Practices and Utopian Politics.
The course will consider the varying degrees of participation in Art Practices and the
consequences of such engagements for creative control via the following descriptors:





Inventive Arts Participation engages the mind, body and spirit in an act of artistic
creation that is unique and idiosyncratic, regardless of skill level.
Interpretive Arts Participation is a creative act of self-expression that brings alive
and adds value to pre-existing works of art, either individually or collaboratively.
Curatorial Arts Participation is the creative act of purposefully selecting, organizing
and collecting art to the satisfaction of one’s own artistic sensibility.
Observational Arts Participation encompasses arts experiences that you select or
consent to, motivated by some expectation of value.
Ambient Arts Participation involves experiencing art, consciously or unconsciously,
that you did not select.
After over fifty years of Participatory Art Practice there is a wealth of textual critical material
that supports and analyses the possibilities and pitfalls of Participatory Art practice, both in its
historical context and as it operates in the contemporary world. It will be the aim of the course
to encourage students to interrogate the propositions that form the Participatory Art paradigm.
This will be accomplished through group analyses and discussion of key texts, key artistic
practices, and key exhibitions.
Methodology
A series of research lectures will be performed each week, which will encourage the students
to work together to produce introductory fifteen-minute lectures on key artists. This will enable
the students to engage in research and build up confidence in delivering that research; it will
also outline key artistic practices that will then be further complimented by key theoretical
texts. Moving between the presentations and theoretical discussions we will begin to develop
a idea of how the concept of ‘Praxis’ might play out in relation to Art, Education and
Philosophy.
Content
Introduction.
Text: ‘They walk away from Omelas’, Ursula K. Le Guin
Glenn Loughran (GL) and Georgina Jackson (GJ)
Week 1. GL
Participatory Art:
Participation texts:
Joseph Beuys and Allan Kaprow
Chantal Mouffe: ‘Artistic Activism and Agonistic Spaces’
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MA Art in the Contemporary World
Week 2. GL
Participatory Art:
Participation texts :
Week 3. GL
Participatory Art:
Participation texts:
Week 4. GL
Participatory Art:
Participation texts :
Week 5. GL
Participatory Art:
Participation texts:
Week 6. GL
Participatory Art:
Participation texts:
Week 7. GJ
Reading:
Presentation:
Week 8. GL
Reading:
Presentation:
Week 9. GJ
Reading:
Presentation:
Week 10. GJ
Reading:
Presentation:
Week 11. GJ
Reading:
Presentation:
Week 12. GJ
Reading:
Presentation:
2011-2
Lygia Clarke and Helio Oticica
Jacques Ranciere ‘The Emancipated Spectator’
Susan Kelly: ‘The Transversal and the Invisible’
Stephen Willats and Jochen Gerz
Alain Badiou: Inaesthetics
Nicolas Bourriaud: Relational Aesthetics.
Thomas Hirshorn and Liam Gillick
Maurice Lazarrato: ‘Immaterial labour’
Claire Bishop: ‘Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics’.
Rirkrit Tiravanija and Santiago Sierra
Grant Kester: ‘Aesthetic Evangelists’
Giorgio Agamben ‘What is an apparatus?’
N55 and Wockenklauser
Kojin Karatani: ‘Repetition and Revolution’
Slavoj Zizek; ‘The Poltics of Resistance’.
Jurgen Habermas: ‘The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article’
Simon Sheikh, ‘Publics and Post-Publics’
If You Lived Here, The City in Art, Theory, and Social Activism, a project by
Martha Rosler, Dia, New York, 1989
Democracy, A project by Group Material, Dia, New York, 1990
The Inoperative Community, Jean Luc Nancy
Artur Żmijewski (social experiments and participation)
Them, 2005
+ Earlier work
The Exhibitionary Complex, Tony Bennett
What’s the point of art centres anyway?, Charles Esche
Be(com)ing Dutch, Van Abbemuseum, 2006-2009
Exhibition and Caucus
The Post-Colonial Constellation, Okwui Enwezor
Magiciens de la Terre, Pompidou and Parc de la Villette, Paris, 1989
Documenta_11, Kassel and other cities, 2002
New Institutionalism, Claire Doherty
Questioning the Social, Lars Bang Larsen
Paul Chan, A Country Road. A Tree. Evening, Creative Time, New Orleans
Renzo Martens, Episode III, 2010
TBD
Former West, 2008- ongoing, collaboration between Bak, Utrecht, Van
Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
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MA Art in the Contemporary World
2011-2
33
MA Art in the Contemporary World
2011-2
Writing : Semester 2
Art and Writing Seminar
Tutors: Francis Halsall, Declan Long, Joan Fowler
Time: Friday afternoons, 2-4pm
This is a student-led seminar taking place throughout the whole year in which participants
explore and critique different models and strategies for writing on art. Students will also reflect
on their own practice as writers and engage in peer review critiques. Topics covered might
include: contemporary criticism; contemporary art history; artists' writings'; writing as art
practice.
There is no defined curriculum for these sessions as we will follow the paths created by our
initial conversations and by developing student research interests.
34
MA Art in the Contemporary World
2011-2
Timetable 2011-2012
35
MA Art in the Contemporary World
Monday
Semester 1
Sep 26 – 30
Oct 3-7
Friday
Postgraduate induction day
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Module (i): Crisis and Conflict
(Declan Long, Kevin Atherton +
VLs)
Situations: 1.45-3.45pm
Critical Curating (Emma
Mahony)
Situations: 4-6pm
Imaginary Beings
(Bea McMahon and Isabel
Nolan)
Oct 10-14
2011-2
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Situations: 1.45-3.45pm
Critical Curating
Research Methodologies:
10-11am (Various contributors)
Theories: 11.30am-1pm
Key Theoretical Paradigms
(Francis Halsall and Declan Long)
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar
(Dr. Francis Halsall, Declan Long &
Joan Fowler)
Research Methodologies:
10-11am
Theories: 11.30am-1pm
Key Theoretical Paradigms
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar
Situations: 4-6pm
Imaginary Beings
Oct 17-21
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Situations: 1.45-3.45pm
Critical Curating
Situations: 4-6pm
Imaginary Beings
Oct 24 - 28
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Situations: 1.45-3.45pm
Critical Curating
Situations: 4-6pm
Imaginary Beings
Research Methodologies:
10-11am
Theories: 11.30am-1pm
Key Theoretical Paradigms
Writing:2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar
Research Methodologies:
10-11am
Theories: 11.30am-1pm
Key Theoretical Paradigms
Writing:
2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar
FIRST ART & WRITING
SUBMISSION DUE
Oct 31- Nov 4
Bank Holiday
Research Methodologies:
10-11am
Theories: 11.30am-1pm
Key Theoretical Paradigms
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar: withJoan
Fowler
Nov 7-11
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Research Methodologies:
10-11am
Theories: 11.30am-1pm
Key Theoretical Paradigms
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar: withJoan
Fowler
Situations: 1.45-3.45pm
Critical Curating
Situations: 4-6pm
Imaginary Beings
Nov 14-18
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Situations: 1.45-3.45pm
Critical Curating
Situations: 4-6pm
Imaginary Beings
Nov 21-25
Practices: 10am-1pm
Theories
10.30am-12.30pm
Key Theoretical Paradigms
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar: withJoan
Fowler
Theories
36
MA Art in the Contemporary World
10.30am-12.30pm
Key Theoretical Paradigms
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar: withJoan
Fowler
Contemporary Art Practices
Situations: 1.45-3.45pm
Systems Aesthetics (Dr. Francis
Halsall)
Situations: 4-6pm
Literary Visions (Declan Long)
Nov 28 – Dec 2
Dec 5-9
Dec 12-16
2011-2
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Theories
10.30am-12.30pm
Key Theoretical Paradigms
Situations: 1.45-3.45pm
Systems Aesthetics
Situations: 4-6pm
Literary Visions
2ND ART & WRITING SUBMISSION
DUE
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar: withJoan
Fowler
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Theories
10.30am-12.30pm
Key Theoretical Paradigms
Situations: 1.45-3.45pm
Systems Aesthetics
Situations: 4-6pm
Literary Visions
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar
Art & Writing Seminar: withJoan
Fowler
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Theories
10.30am-12.30pm
Key Theoretical Paradigms
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar: withJoan
Fowler
Situations: 1.45-3.45pm
Systems Aesthetics
Situations: 4-6pm
Literary Visions
Dec 19 -23
Dec 26 – Dec
30
Jan 2-6
Christmas Break
Jan 9 -13
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
CLASS PRESENTATIONS
Situations: 1.45-3.45pm
Systems Aesthetics
Situations: 4-6pm
Literary Visions
Jan 16-20
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
CLASS PRESENTATIONS
Reading Week
Situations: 1.45-3.45pm
Systems Aesthetics
Situations: 4-6pm
Literary Visions
Theories
10.30am-12.30pm
Key Theoretical Paradigms
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar
Situations: 11am1pm, Thursday 19th
Jan, Newman House
Other Modernisms
(Dr. Francis Halsall &
Dr. Roisin Kennedy
(UCD))
No Class
No Class
KEY THEORETICAL PARADIGMS
ESSAY DUE 3000 WORDS
37
MA Art in the Contemporary World
Monday
Semester 2
Jan 23-27
Tuesday
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Module (ii): Objects
(Declan Long, Kevin Atherton
& VL’s)
2011-2
Thursday
Friday
Situations:
11am-1pm
(Newman House)
Other Modernisms
Theories: 10.30am-12.30pm
The Politics of Participation
(Georgina Jackson & Glenn
Loughran)
Situations: 2-4pm
(Newman House)
Urban
Interventions
(Declan Long,
Kevin Donovan
(UCD) and others)
Jan 30-Feb 3
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar
Situations:
11am-1pm
(Newman House)
Other Modernisms
Situations: 2-4pm
(Newman House)
Urban
Interventions
Feb 6-10
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar
Situations:
11am-1pm
(Newman House)
Other Modernisms
Situations: 2-4pm
(Newman House)
Urban
Interventions
Feb 13-17
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Situations: 2-4pm
1st Semester Electives
Submissions: 2 Due
Feb 20-24
Situations: 2-4pm
(Newman House)
Urban
Interventions
Situations:
11am-1pm
(Newman House)
Other Modernisms
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Theories: 10.30am-12.30pm
The Politics of Participation
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar
Situations: 11am1pm
(Newman House)
Other Modernisms
Situations: 2-4pm
(Newman House)
Urban
Interventions
Theories: 10.30am-12.30pm
The Politics of Participation
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar
Situations: 2-4pm
(Newman House)
Urban
Interventions
Feb 27-Mar 2
Theories: 10.30am-12.30pm
The Politics of Participation
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar
Situations:
11am-1pm
(Newman House)
Other Modernisms
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Theories: 10.30am-12.30pm
The Politics of Participation
Theories: 10.30am-12.30pm
The Politics of Participation
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar
Mar 5-9
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Situations: 1.45-43.45m
Art & Film (James Armstrong)
Situations: 4-6pm
The Aesthetics of Environment
Theories: 10.30am-12.30pm
The Politics of Participation
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar
Mar 12-16
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Situations: 1.45-43.45m
Art & Film (James Armstrong)
Theories: 10.30am-12.30pm
The Politics of Participation
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar
38
MA Art in the Contemporary World
2011-2
Situations: 4-6pm
The Aesthetics of Environment
Mar 19-23
Bank Holiday
Situations: 11am1pm
(Newman House)
Other Modernisms
Theories: 10.30am-12.30pm
The Politics of Participation
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar
Mar 26 – Mar
30
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Situations: 11am1pm
(Newman House)
Other Modernisms
Situations: 1.45-43.45m
Art & Film (James Armstrong)
Situations: 4-6pm
The Aesthetics of Environment
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar
Apr 2-6
Easter Break
Apr 9-13
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
CAP SUBMISSION DUE:
1500 WORD ‘CATALOGUE’
TEXT.
Situations: 1.45-43.45m
Art & Film (James Armstrong)
Situations: 4-6pm
The Aesthetics of Environment
Situations: 11am1pm
(Newman House)
Other Modernisms
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Situations: 11am1pm
(Newman House)
Other Modernisms
Apr 16-20
Theories: 10.30am-12.30pm
The Politics of Participation
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar
Situations: 1.45-43.45m
Art & Film (James Armstrong)
Situations: 4-6pm
The Aesthetics of Environment
Apr 23-27
Theories: 10.30am-12.30pm
The Politics of Participation
Theories: 10.30am-12.30pm
The Politics of Participation
Writing: 2-4pm
Art & Writing Seminar
Practices: 10am-1pm
Contemporary Art Practices
Situations: 1.45-43.45m
Art & Film (James Armstrong)
Situations: 4-6pm
The Aesthetics of Environment
Apri 30- May 4
OUTLINE RESEARCH
PRESENTATIONS [Art & Writing
Module Assessment]: all day.
May 7-11
Bank holiday
May 14-18
2ND SEMESTER ELECTIVE
SUBMISSIONS (2 DUE)
May 21-25
Individual Tutorials
Individual Tutorials
May 28-June 2
PARTICIPATION ESSAY DUE
Independent research period
Abstract deadline
Friday 18th May
39
MA Art in the Contemporary World
Draft Deadline
Friday 31st August
sFinal Deadline
Monday 1st October
2011-2
There will be a number of other events and extra-curricular lectures taking place at
NCAD during the academic year and we hope that the MA ACW will have significant
involvement in several of these.
We are also aiming to organise a trip to Documenta in Kassel and to the Berlin
Biennale in early summer of 2012.
40