Upcoming CSAD Research Seminars are open to the public, with tickets now available on Eventbrite. Events will be held in the CSAD building Heart Space on the Cardiff Met Llandaff Campus.
‘Art, Research, Philosophy’
Professor Clive Cazeaux
Thursday 2nd November 2017, 4pm
Members of the public can book tickets for this seminar via Eventbrite: https://
The last two decades have seen the emergence of artistic research: art produced as a contribution to knowledge, either by artist-academics and doctoral students working in university art departments or through artists participating in research projects in other faculties. As a new subject, it raises several questions:
· What is art-as-research?
· Don’t the requirements of research amount to an imposition on the artistic process that dilutes the power of art?
· How can something subjective become objective?
· What is the relationship between art and writing? Doesn’t description always miss the particularity of the artwork?
In this seminar, Clive Cazeaux argues that artistic research is an exciting development in the historical debate between aesthetics and the theory of knowledge, and shows how ideas in philosophy can be applied to artistic research to answer its questions and to make proposals for its future.
Across Fields: An intersection of Science and Technology Studies and Artistic research
Presented by Dr Jon Pigott, Programme Director, Artist Designer: Maker
Thurs 9th Nov 2017, 4pm
Members of the public can book tickets for this seminar via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/csad-research-seminar-across-fields-an-intersection-of-science-and-technology-and-artistic-research-tickets-39249944641
This seminar will look at perspectives and methods from the world of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and consider their possible application within Art and Design research, specifically relating to kinetic art and object based sound art.
Controlling Ideas: Trademarks, Narrative and Creativity – The Role of the Writer In a Market of Enclosures
Presented by Dan Anthony
Thurs 16th Nov 2017, 4pm
My doctoral research into the relationship between creativity and intellectual property in Creative Writing at Cardiff University explores the tensions between literary creativity and capitalism. Premised on my experience as a specialist in trade marks law, scriptwriting and as children’s book author, this discussion focuses on the issue of whether trademarks and brands liberate or restrict our narratives. This cross-disciplinary presentation for all creative practitioners touches on history, law and cultural theory. Do we control trademarks or do they control us?
Tickets available from Eventbrite.
‘Dance Research, Somatic Techniques and Lived Realities’
Presented by Sabina Sukina Khan
Thurs Nov 23rd 2017, 4pm
In this seminar, I discuss my current PhD research and consider the ways in which somatic techniques can provide a more nuanced investigation into the lived experience and contribute to queer and feminist agendas in social research.
Tickets available from Eventbrite.
From ABC to DXB -A personal research journey
Presented by Dr Fiaz Hussain
Thurs 30th Nov 2017, 4pm
Dr Fiaz Hussain, Associate Dean (International, CSAD), shares some personal moments on his pioneering research in designing innovative techniques for Apple and being featured on Dubai’s premier business satellite channel. Join Fiaz as he takes us on a personal research journey from ABC to DXB, a journey into the unknown that is full of challenges, opportunities and success.
Tickets available from Eventbrite.
I’d like my next research collaborators to be Freeman, Penn, Sarandon and Smith …
Presented by Professor Scott Fleming
Thurs 7th Dec 2017, 4pm
The challenge of sharing empirical research findings in new and interesting ways has presented opportunities for innovation. A performative approach like an ethnodrama can provide the potential to reach new audiences and can carry messages powerfully and persuasively. Yet there are (at least) four substantive objections:
1. Reporting empirical research should be more about precision than elegance;
2. Empirical research should not be susceptible to multiple interpretations;
3. Drama is not (normally) performed by the researchers;
4. Drama does not (normally) permit methodological critique.
If these are not accepted (or at least acknowledged) there is a risk that the presentation of research becomes more important than its substance. And hence, Freeman, Penn, Sarandon and Smith (amongst others) would become much sought-after research collaborators.
Tickets available from Eventbrite.
Painting the New Town: embodied experience, embodied memory and phenomenal transparency
Presented by Prof André Stitt
Thurs Feb 1st 2018, 4pm
This presentation considers how phenomenological experiences of Britain’s post-war New Towns, and the work made by artists through residential placements have had an impact upon the development of my recent painting practice.
Through a practice-led response to the site-specific work of Victor Pasmore in Peterlee, William Mitchell in Cwmbran, Mike Cumisky in Skelmersdale and the experience of art embedded in Harlow New Town I identify the importance of the contribution made by artists to the New Town environment.
I use this context to investigate how I have developed an experimental approach to painting as a subjective interface between material and memory whereby a transformation of engagement with the New Town environment has occurred. This paper will show that through an integration of abstraction, gestural application, hard edge construction, transitional layering and transparency, embodied experiences of the New Towns under discussion can be revealed via the act of painting with the resulting work of art as document of the experience under discussion.
Tickets available from Eventbrite.
LAUGH: designing playful objects for people living with advanced dementia
Presented by Prof Cathy Treadaway, Professor of Creative Practice
Thurs 8th Feb 2018, 4pm
The LAUGH project is a three-year AHRC funded international design research project that has been investigating the development of playful hand-held objects for people living with advanced dementia. In this seminar Professor Cathy Treadaway will present outcomes from the project and describe how playful objects are being used to support the wellbeing of people living with the advanced stages of the disease.
Tickets available from Eventbrite.
It’s not about the Bike – A Technological Stratigraphy
Presented by Henry Gruffudd Hill
Thurs 15th Feb 2018, 4pm
What do we want from abstraction?
Presented by Prof Jeff Wallace, Professor of English, School of Education and Social Policy
Thurs 22nd Feb 2018, 4pm
While clearly having a central significance in the visual and plastic arts, ‘abstraction’ also figures widely in the discourses of the humanities. But is this not in fact more of a secret life, or something even that is hidden in plain sight…?
In this seminar, Professor Jeff Wallace draws from a current research project to highlight some of the questions raised by the deployment of ‘abstraction’ in literary studies and in critical theory. His conclusions concern the way in which abstraction might help us to think through the relations between the human and the inhuman.
Tickets available from Eventbrite.
Crack! Crash! Flush!
Presented by Dr Stephen Thompson
Thurs 1st March 2018, 4pm
On a journey that encounters a cyborg, a traumatised child and a toilet this seminar will ask whether Prometheus is to blame for the dramatic decline in biodiversity and how might we change our relationship with the world?
Tickets available from Eventbrite.
Entangling Design
Presented by Theo Humphries
Thurs 8th March 2018, 4pm
This research attempts to draw theories of humour, entanglement, and design into the same conversation. Much design rhetoric asserts that designers are problem solvers, but this seminar proposes that designers are more than that — that they are entanglers of things: the practitioners of volitional entanglement.
Tickets available from Eventbrite.
The Art of Seeing
Presented by Professor Robert Pepperell
Thurs 15th March 2018. 4pm
No-one knows how we see. The fact that many of us are able to experience a rich, vivid visual world cannot be explained by contemporary science. Artists are often experts at seeing, and know far more about the nature of vision that it usually recognised. This is because for hundreds, if not thousands, of years artists have been actively investigating their own visual experience in order to better depict it in images. In this talk I will discuss some of the work that I have been doing with my colleagues which connects artistic knowledge about vision with scientific knowledge, and how these two domains can work together towards a better understanding of how we see.
Tickets available from Eventbrite.
